Hawk’s Challenge
Linda O. Johnston
Hawk shifter Lt. Autumn Katers is proud to be a member of the Alpha Force, a highly covert military unit made up of shapeshifters like her. Her latest assignment: get close to bestselling thriller author Logan Valliere. His latest book’s plot features a special ops team suspiciously similar to the Alpha Force, and Autumn has to find out who’s been helping him with his research.
Flirting with Logan is a natural part of the job…but she never imagined she’d feel so attracted to her sexy subject. Giving into the temptation to go him with him can’t hurt her mission—but will it ruin her potential future with Logan if he finds out how she’s deceived him?
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
PROLOGUE
The hawk soared over the woodlands, reveling in her mastery of the air currents. With human awareness, she recognized her surroundings. She spread her wings wide and rode the wind, watching all below her with the enhanced vision of her alternative form.
In the twilight, the town’s clustered roofs peeked out from beneath thick green foliage and roadways twined between them. To her left, one of the myriad of narrow creeks in the area flowed into a larger river that would eventually empty into Chesapeake Bay.
She scanned the landscape and spotted a variety of other avian wildlife—ducks, egrets, herons, a few seagulls, even some swans.
But her quarry was one human. She circled his house, knowing that he was inside. She had followed him here.
She needed to decide how to proceed.
Mere months earlier, Lieutenant Autumn Katers had joined the highly covert military unit of Alpha Force, and she was proud of their work. At the unit’s core were a group of shapeshifters—humans like her who could transform into animal forms, although she was the only one who changed into a hawk.
Members of Alpha Force who were shifters were recruited in similar proportions to those existing in the wild. Hawks were few indeed.
That meant her assignments were unique, different from those given to the wolves and felines in the unit.
Like this one.
She continued to circle the area as twilight gave way to darkness, riding an updraft as a surfer rode the ocean waves. Would she finally catch sight of her prey tonight, or would she end the night in failure once again, changing back to her human form under the watchful eye of her aide, then rest until tomorrow?
There! She spotted the man leaving his house and heading toward his car.
After two days of watching him, she believed she knew where he was going at this hour. It was time to put her plan into effect. She would meet him, talk to him and learn what Alpha Force needed her to find out—quickly.
It was time to seek out her aide and shift back into human form.
CHAPTER 1
She spotted him right away.
Never mind that GlenB Brews, the microbrewery Autumn had just walked into, was dimly lit and filled wall-to-wall with people this Friday night. She had no trouble zeroing in on Logan Valliere.
She had to talk to him. Now. Sure, she had enough information about who he was and the places he frequented to have confronted him at his home, or the grocery store or a nearby gas station. But a place like this popular local hangout was much better for meeting someone without arousing their suspicions. Men went to bars expecting—hoping—to meet women.
She stood at the door for a moment, then quickly moved away from a couple of guys who smiled at her suggestively, obviously on the prowl for fast, no-strings sex.
With effort, she resisted making an obscene gesture at them. Under other circumstances she might have showed them just how uninterested she was. But tonight she had a role to play.
She was good at that. For one thing, on assignments like this she had to pretend that she was a “normal” person. And she’d spent enough years observing human nature, to get every detail, every hair flip and twinkling eye just right.
She ignored the dull roar of the crowd and the tinny music from a beat-up jukebox as she walked farther into the bar. She didn’t head immediately toward Logan. She needed to seem like a choosy woman looking for someone interesting to flirt with—not one who’d consider the cheesy, desperate group buzzing around the door.
The place smelled of alcohol and hormones. All of the tables around the sides of the room were filled, and crowds of drinkers gathered in the spaces between them.
Autumn’s quarry sat at the long, gleaming wooden bar at the room’s center. All of the stools around him were filled.
Good. She knew just how to approach him.
She had known what Logan looked like even before arriving in Glen Burnie, Maryland. Prior to getting this assignment she had read—and enjoyed—some of his sexy thrillers, and his photo was invariably on the back covers.
Once she’d learned what she had to do, she had researched him further, which wasn’t hard. The bestselling author’s picture was also all over the internet.
There were also interviews on TV, and on book sites and blogs—including the ones that had gotten the attention of her commanding officers in Alpha Force.
Most recently, she’d observed him from the sky and trees surrounding his home.
He’d had no clue that the red-tailed hawk that sometimes soared above his space had human intelligence—and was following him.
Autumn turned sideways to wriggle her way toward the bar. She pretended to try to squeeze past seated patrons to order a drink, but no one was polite enough to let her succeed. Normally that might have peeved her, but not tonight.
She finally elbowed her way to stand behind Logan. He studied the bartender, who had turned his back to pour draft beer into a couple of glasses from kegs in the bar’s center. Conscious of the way Logan’s long, muscular body looked clad in a snug T-shirt and jeans, Autumn made an overt attempt to lean past him. That’s when he seemed to notice her, glancing down with curious blue eyes.
“Want something from the bar?” he asked, as if there was any question about it.
“Definitely,” she said, her voice raised, like his, to be heard over the crowd. She moved closer. “If you get the bartender’s attention, I’d love a glass of the amber ale. Is that what you’re drinking?” She gestured toward the glass mug in his hand.
“I’m into the darker stuff.” He lifted his straight, dark eyebrows, amused at his own joke.
Autumn kept her face blank. She couldn’t tell him that she knew he wrote some nasty but extremely well-plotted thrillers. “Tell you what,” she said. “If you get me a beer, I’ll buy another one for you, too.”
His slow smile sent an unanticipated—and unwanted—thrill of sexual awareness through her. Logan Valliere had a long face. A hint of stubble emphasized its angles. His brown hair covered a high forehead. It was longish and unkempt in a style that suggested wildness and, oh yes, unrestrained sexiness. Even in the dim bar, the navy color of his shirt emphasized the brilliant shade of the piercing blue eyes that remained locked on hers.
He leaned in close. “It’ll be a treat just serving you,” he said in a low, sexy rumble that she didn’t have to strain to hear. “I’ll be glad to pay. You want to sit here?” He gestured toward the tall stool on which his firm butt rested.
Autumn didn’t bother to pretend not to look. When she raised her eyes, she saw heated awareness in his returned gaze.
“No, thanks,” she said slowly. “I’m fine standing.”
He nodded. “You sure are.”
A tacky comment, but nevertheless, it charred her insides. The flirtatious part of this assignment just might backf
ire on her if she wasn’t careful.
The bartender turned then, and Logan lifted his arm to get the guy’s attention.
“Be with you in a second, Logan.” The beefy bartender motioned to show that his hands were occupied by the beer steins.
“Thanks, Evan.”
So he knew the bartender, and vice versa. Not surprising. Could Autumn use that somehow?
Soon Evan was back, holding out his hand for the empty stein that Logan proffered toward him. “You want a refill?”
“That’s right. And an amber ale for the lady.” He nodded at Autumn.
The bartender grinned. “I thought you were here looking for Beer Guy.”
“You seen him?”
“Not tonight. I’ll get your drinks.” The bartender took the mug from Logan and turned his back again.
Who was Beer Guy? Autumn wondered. And why was Logan looking for him?
Autumn would add that to the list of questions she’d make sure Logan answered before they parted ways tonight.
Was the gorgeous and flirtatious babe another groupie? Logan hoped not. Maybe she wasn’t, considering the way she’d come up to him.
He’d noticed her before her near-fruitless efforts to squeeze in at the bar had brought her to his side. And he’d been glad to help such a great-looking woman get her drink, especially once she’d wriggled her way beside him. Fortunately, it hadn’t seemed like she was zeroing in on him, just trying to find a way to get to the bar.
His writing, and the promotion it required, put him in the public eye a lot. Too often, women recognized him and came on to him just for the challenge of being able to say they’d sex with a famous author. Not that he’d screwed even a fraction of the ladies who claimed they’d gotten together. He was turned off by women like that and kept his distance.
But that was a price of fame. And fame helped to sell his books.
This woman didn’t act like she recognized him. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe for once he could just relax and enjoy her lovely presence while he accomplished what he’d come here for this evening.
He watched as Evan handed her a filled stein, then took the one that the bartender held out toward him. “Put them on my tab,” Logan said.
She shot him an amused look. “Thanks, but that wasn’t necessary. I suppose now you’ll want to find a place to sit down so we can get to know each other better.”
“Sounds good to me,” he acknowledged.
She laughed. “Why not? Although I can’t stay long.”
Good. That suggested she wasn’t here just to come on to him. Otherwise, why toss out an excuse to leave if she decided he was a miserable conversationalist, someone she didn’t want to get to know better?
He’d make sure that didn’t happen.
She flung a smile at him before turning to ease her way through the crowd. It made his vital body parts spring to attention. She seemed to know it as she looked back and cocked her head, causing the reddish highlights in her short brown hair to glimmer in the bar’s low light.
She wasn’t very tall, and her facial features weren’t perfect, but her slightly elongated nose fit well with her full lips. Then there were her eyes, dark and challenging and damned sexy. Gorgeous? Yes, he wasn’t about to amend his initial perception. Not with the way everything fit together so perfectly.
He followed as she slipped through the thick crowd. She wore a short black skirt beneath a shimmering green blouse, and he liked watching her curves move beneath her tight clothing.
Surprisingly, she found an empty table on the far side of the main room. She set her glass on the table and sat down, motioning for him to join her. Intrigued by her charismatic attitude, he obeyed.
“This is quite a place,” she shouted over the din. “My first time here. How about you?”
“I come here often. Are you from around here?”
“No. You?”
This wasn’t enough. He realized that he wanted to know more about her. A lot more. And yelling across the loud bar wasn’t going to get him what he craved.
On the other hand, he was reluctant to leave this place too quickly. The last time he had seen Beer Guy here, it had been on another Friday night, about a month ago.
Talking with Beer Guy again was the main reason he’d started coming back to this microbrewery. Logan was working on the sequel to a thriller that was just about to come out. He’d already started letting his imagination run with possibilities, of course, and had some great ideas of his own. But Beer Guy had suggested the concept in the first place—he’d been tipsy, half-sloshed really, and had said he was a member of a clearly fictional military force Logan had never heard of. Logan had been intrigued by the man’s crazy ramblings, and now he wanted to run his latest scenario past Beer Guy, even brainstorm with him, to get his offbeat perspective.
His mystery date took a sip of her beer, then leveled what appeared to be a quizzical glance at him. “You know, I don’t mean this like some kind of line, but you look familiar. Do I know you?”
“I don’t think we’ve ever met,” he countered, “but I’d enjoy getting to know you better now.”
She gave a small shrug of one shoulder beneath her silky blouse. “Maybe,” she said carefully. She continued to study him, then said, “Have I seen you on TV? Or… You’re a writer, aren’t you? If not, you really look like the guy I’ve seen lately on talk shows. What’s his name?” Her eyes scrunched up as she appeared to ponder the question.
“How about Logan Valliere?” he asked drolly. Maybe he’d been wrong about her after all. Even so, he could continue to play this out, see where it went. “I’ve been told that I resemble him.”
“So you’re not him. Good thing, or I might pretend that I like to read thrillers. But I don’t.”
A groupie? Apparently not. Her comment should have turned him off, but instead it challenged him. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I am Logan Valliere—the writer whose photos and interviews you might have seen. And if you don’t like thrillers—well, have you ever tried one of mine?”
She shook her head.
He noticed then that she had nearly finished her beer. “I’d like to convince you to try,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Autumn Katers,” she said.
“Well, Autumn Katers, if you walk me outside to my car, I’ll give you a copy of my latest novel, the one that’s just about to be published. We’ll be able to hear each other better out there, too. Okay?” He sounded like some pleading, hormonal kid out for a seduction. And maybe he was—except for the kid part. This woman definitely wasn’t the usual type who came on to him. She’d seemed somewhat interested, but only until she’d realized who he was.
“Okay,” she said. Her slow, mocking smile challenged more than his ability to convince her to read the book.
CHAPTER 2
Things were going well, or so Autumn hoped. It was impossible to hear much in the bar, so getting any information out of Logan would have been difficult.
But here in the parking lot, it was a lot quieter, even with the pulse of music and conversation pouring from the bar and the rumble of cars speeding by. For the moment, they were alone in the compact lot.
A half moon illuminated the star-filled sky. Good thing it wasn’t full, Autumn thought, or she would be soaring around watching rather than working on her assignment here. Although Alpha Force was working on a way to prevent shifting during a full moon, it hadn’t yet been perfected. But they had crafted an elixir that allowed shifting at other times—and permitted shifters to maintain their human awareness—which worked amazingly well. She loved that stuff.
She walked beside Logan, mirroring his slow pace. Their footsteps crunched softly on the gravel. Autumn was glad she hadn’t worn sandals. The narrow-heeled ankle boots she’d chosen made her feel unsteady—a good excuse for holding Logan’s arm.
He stopped and looked down at her, and she could see those blue eyes of his gleaming in the dull illumination of the lot’s few lampposts. His sensual expr
ession sent small lightning bolts through her until the heat burst into fireworks of desire.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. Logan Valliere was her assignment, not someone she was supposed to feel real attraction to. She shouldn’t be thinking about what it would be like to kiss him, to touch him.
But then without warning, he turned to her, encircled her in his arms and drew her close. He lowered his mouth to hers, and suddenly the feelings she had thought were fireworks now felt like the merest birthday candle flame compared with what his kiss was doing to her.
She couldn’t help but react. She kissed him back, touching her tongue to his and tasting warmed beer and a hot, sexy flavor that was all his.
She pushed closer, feeling that he, too, was reacting to their embrace—growing hard and large and altogether enticing.
Whoa. This was not a good idea. It wasn’t that she was forbidden from having sex with a subject. That was neither encouraged nor discouraged, as long as it didn’t interfere with the success of an assignment.
Reluctantly, she pulled away.
“If that’s what you write about, I’ve definitely been missing something,” she said breathlessly.
“There are sex scenes in my books,” he admitted. “Fairly hot ones. But that’s not all there is to my stories.”
“I’ll bet you do a lot of research for those scenes.” She was only half teasing. Would he admit to having hot sex with other women he didn’t really know?
Better yet, she reminded herself, she needed to find out what kind of research he really did for his thrillers.
Logan Valliere had described the secret military organization that his upcoming release followed in national television interviews—one that sounded too much like the highly covert Alpha Force.
“Research is a good thing,” he said, reaching for her again.
She stepped back. “So how do you do your research, then? The sex scenes I can imagine. But I heard you interviewed about your new story, and it’s supposedly about some special ops military force, isn’t it? Do you hang out with soldiers?”
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