by Lauren Esker
"Of course," Avery said absently. He was sitting on the cool earth, buried in weeds, playfully hand-wrestling with the puppies as they tumbled around him.
"What I'm saying is, there's going to be an absolute mess of paperwork, and probably other government people coming out to talk to you." Nicole shifted Hunter into the crook of her arm. "I have to admit, it would be worse if you were seeking custody of the children yourself. Avery and I will field most of it. But you won't have the amount of privacy you're used to."
"Privacy ain't all it's cracked up to be, Miss Yates," Chester remarked, watching the children's game of bumbling puppy-tag, in and out of the weeds. "I think I had enough of it in the last few years to last me a lifetime."
So have I, Avery thought, dipping his hands to catch the puppies' fleeting paws, giving them a playful tug before letting them go. So have I.
"You can change your mind later, you know," Nicole told him gently. "Or maybe take one or two of the kids, while the rest are placed elsewhere."
"They should be together. Ain't right to break up brothers and sisters." Chester crouched stiffly to offer the handle of a garden tool for Sophie to play tug-of-war with. While the puppy growled her squeaky growl and gnawed on it, he looked up at Nicole. "I raised my kids, and my sister's kids, and that's all I got in me, I think. I'm too old to be a dad again. Grandpa, I can just about do. Bring 'em out here often enough they can know me. That's all I want."
They stayed for dinner, which was predictably terrible -- microwave meatloaf and rock-hard biscuits -- and then bundled the worn-out puppies back into their restraint system for the drive home.
"What are you thinking?" Nicole asked, as Avery backed carefully down the rutted track.
"Right now I'm wondering if I can get back onto the highway without running into a tree."
"You know what I mean."
Avery stopped at the foot of the driveway. He threw an arm over the steering wheel and turned to face her. "You probably know ... about the kids, I mean. I realize I'm not always an open book, but—"
"I think I can read your pages pretty well by now," she teased, then sobered. "You're going to apply to foster them, aren't you?"
"To adopt, if I can," Avery said. The thought had crystalized in his head at Chester's, spinning on a complete 180 from "giving the kids back" to "keeping them forever". "I know it's going to be hard. I know it'll affect my life in ways I can't even begin to imagine. I'm not entirely sure if I'll be able to stay with the SCB, though I hope so. And ..." He hesitated. This was the hardest part. "I also know this isn't what you signed up for. A boyfriend with a few psychological issues, okay, that's one thing, but having four infants dropped into your lap is more than I can possibly expect any reasonable person to deal with. If you want to take a few steps back and think things over—"
She silenced him with a sudden fast kiss, dragging him in with a hand behind his head. "Avery, you idiot," she said fondly as she released him. "I appreciate that you're giving me options, and I do think we need to talk about it, because I can definitely tell you from a professional standpoint that you have no idea what you're signing up for. But I can reassure you right now that I'm not going anywhere."
Avery ran his hand through her silky curls, then cupped it under her chin. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."
"Showed up on my doorstep with a box of puppies," she said, smiling. "Better than flowers any day."
He caressed the corner of her mouth with his thumb, and kissed her lightly. "I know how you feel about having kids, though. I don't want to push you into anything you aren't comfortable with. Even if it's some sort of weird coparenting-while-dating thing at this point."
"Avery, I ..." She trailed off in a sigh, but didn't look away. "Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, it scares the shi—the heck out of me. I don't know if I'm up to this. But I do want it. I wouldn't let you push me into anything I really, truly didn't want to do. I'm no doormat or fainting flower, believe me. But I'm honest enough with myself to recognize that it's not really a matter of not wanting kids, so much as not quite trusting myself to do right by them. And for that, all I can really do is take the same advice I give troubled parents all the time."
"And that is?" he asked, lightly stroking his hand down her neck, across her shoulder.
"Trust yourself, take advantage of the resources available to you, and learn to recognize when you're getting in over your head so you can call someone to help."
"Sounds like whoever gives that advice must be a pretty smart lady. You should listen to her."
"Dork," she said, batting his hand down.
They kissed, long and slow. Then Avery looked up at the darkening sky.
"Guess we'd better get moving. It's a long drive back, and the kids will probably be hungry and ready for another race around the living room by the time we get there."
He backed onto the highway. As the car accelerated, Nicole reached over and clasped his hand, curling her fingers around his.
"It's not going to be easy," he said. "Hell, I don't even know where I'm going tonight. Your sister's place? Mine?"
"Let's do Erin and Tim's. That way we won't have to cook."
"Sounds like a plan."
There was a moment's silence, with only the sound of the wheels singing on the pavement. Then Nicole spoke in a contemplative tone, as she rubbed her thumb lightly over his knuckles. "No, it won't be easy. None of it ever is. But ..." She turned to look at him, and her smile was as brilliant as the sun. "The best things are always worth it."
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Guard Wolf! I would love to know what you thought about it; you can leave a review on my Amazon page or email me: [email protected]. You can also follow me on Facebook at laureneskerwriter.
If you’d like to be notified of my new releases, you can sign up for my mailing list by clicking this link: http://eepurl.com/btVi2X.
***
About the Author
Lauren Esker is the paranormal romance and romantic suspense pen name of Layla Lawlor, writer, graphic designer, and lifelong Alaskan. She lives with her husband and pets on the highway in a former gold-mining district, not far from Fairbanks, Alaska’s second-largest city. She also enjoys reading, hiking, gardening, and art. In the past she managed the layout department at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (the local paper) and taught at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. She now writes full time. You can find her at laurenesker.com and laylalawlor.com.
***
Cover photo credits: Keys - © Can Stock Photo Inc. / albund. Guy - © Can Stock Photo Inc. / curaphotography. Wolf: © Can Stock Photo Inc. / natureguy. Cover design by Layla Lawlor.
Also by Lauren Esker
Handcuffed to the Bear – Shifter Agents #1. A bear-shifter ex-mercenary and a curvy lynx shifter searching for her best friend's killer are handcuffed together and hunted in the wilderness. Can they learn to rely on each other before their pasts, and their pursuers, catch up with them? Full-length romantic suspense novel.
Dragon’s Luck – Shifter Agents #3. Gecko shifter and infiltration expert Jen Cho teams up with sexy dragon-shifter gambler "Lucky" Lucado to win a high-stakes poker game. Now they're trapped on a cruise ship full of mobsters, mysterious enemy agents, and evil dragons, and it'll take all their wits and luck to get out of this alive! Full-length romantic suspense novel.
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing - Can the big bad wolf and a sheep shifter have a happy ending? Curvy farm girl Julie Capshaw was always warned away from the wolf shifters next door, but Damon Wolfe is the motorcycle-riding, smoking hot alpha wolf of her dreams! This paranormal romance novel is a romantic comedy spiced with action and red-hot sex.
***
Keep reading for a special preview
Dragon’s Luck
(Shifter Agents #3)
Now available!
Jen Cho is a gecko shifter and infiltration expert. But this time, she's in over her head — out of touch with her handler and head over heels
for a sexy gambler who mistakenly thinks she's as much of a bad girl as he's a bad boy.
Ambrose "Lucky" Lucado has been playing in high-stakes games of chance since he was big enough to see over the table. But the sexy lizard shifter has a secret: he's not a lizard at all. He's a dragon, the rarest of all shifters, believed mythical by the rest. And all dragons have special abilities that other shifters don't. Lucky can "push" his luck just a tiny bit, enough to ensure that he always wins at the gambling tables.
The problem is, the rest of Lucky's family have powers of their own. His much more powerful cousin Angel can twist people’s minds, making them do whatever he wants, from forgetting they’ve seen him, to shooting themselves in the head. And now he’s set his sights on Jen.
Is “Lucky” Lucado lucky enough to protect both of them?
Chapter One
Fifty miles off the coast of Washington State, Special Agent Jennifer Cho clung upside-down to the ceiling of a card room on a floating casino boat. As cigarette smoke curled up into her eyes, she wondered if geckos could get lung cancer.
The answer, she thought, was probably no. Fast shifter healing should be able to deal with it. Actually ... could shifters get cancer at all? She'd known a few shifters with chronic health issues—diabetes, for one. But cancer had to be rare ...
Focus.
The trouble was, Jen was bored, and she didn't handle boredom well. Below her, the poker game went on like a form of slow torture, in the lazy flip of a card, the laconic nudge of chips. She had found it interesting for the first hour, and tolerable for the next few, as wiped-out players dropped out of the game and the crowd in the card room shrank steadily.
Now the only thing keeping her from dozing off, and probably falling off the ceiling into someone's drink, was watching one of the players, who currently held the deck of cards in a practiced dealer's grip.
Most of the players in the card room were nothing to hold her interest. There were about five times as many men as women, and most of them were veteran gamblers, hard-eyed and cool. She wouldn't have bet a red cent against any one of them.
But of the six players at the table below her, only one kept drawing her eyes, time and again.
He was the one they called Lucky.
He had been calmly and quietly winning all evening. Oh, sometimes he would lose a hand or two. But he always won just enough to catch up and then some. Slowly but surely, the pile of chips in front of him grew.
He'd caught her attention the moment he walked in—and not for the reasons one might expect. There was certainly plenty about Lucky to catch the eye. His face was sharp and handsome: dark hair swept back from a high forehead, clean cheekbones and deep olive skin. And he knew he was good-looking. She could see it in his swagger, sense it in the way his green velvet jacket gaped to show a glimpse of the toned pectoral muscles rippling underneath his black silk shirt ...
Green velvet jacket. Who wore something like that? It was like he deliberately wanted to look like a lounge lizard.
No, none of that turned her head. Not in the slightest. The guy she'd heard the other gamblers address as Lucky Lucado caught her attention because he was a shifter, and shifters could always recognize each other. In fact, when he first stepped into the card room, she'd seen him pause, looking around, and held her small gecko body very still on the ceiling, heart pattering. Some shifters were more sensitive than others, and just her luck, he'd be aware enough to know she was in the room even without being able to see her. But as she waited and stilled and imagined herself part of the low ceiling tiles, he relaxed somewhat.
She didn't know what he turned into, but he was definitely a shifter. There was no mistaking that flash of recognition.
And if he was a shifter, then odds were good he was involved with the shifter drug trafficking ring she was on this boat to crack, which put him under the jurisdiction of the Special Crimes Bureau.
And therefore, she was here to arrest him.
***
Twelve hours earlier, Jen's handler for this assignment, Special Agent Avery Hollen, had seen her off at the Seattle dockside.
"I hate knowing you can't check in."
"I can check in if I need to," Jen pointed out, bouncing on the balls of her feet. The sharp sea breeze cut through her coat like a knife, smelling of salt and mud and freedom. "I'll just have to go human-shaped to do it. If Eva did her part, there'll be a burner phone in my supplies on board."
Eva Kemp, the SCB's resident orca shifter, had been on the boat in early morning and had stashed a small plastic-wrapped package containing a change of clothing, a gun, Jen's badge, and a cell phone. If it became necessary for Jen to stop observing and take direct action, she'd have everything she needed. If not, well, she would wait and observe until the boat came back into dock.
"Yes, but if you have to use the burner, your cover's probably blown. That's not the same as being in touch."
"Worrywolf," she teased him. Her whole body quivered with anticipation. "Avery, they're going to cast off soon. I need to go now."
Avery sighed, and smiled slightly. Leaning on his polished wooden cane, he followed her into the narrow space between a parked delivery truck and the side of a warehouse. Avery was young—about Jen's age, just shy of thirty—but the cane was a memento of his one tour in Afghanistan, which had left him with a bum leg and a lot of memories he never quite talked about.
In the relative security of the shadows, Avery took a plastic Ziploc bag out of his pocket and tilted the contents. Inside, a small glass vial rolled back and forth. A few droplets of transparent liquid shifted within. He held it up so it caught the light, and the clear liquid glimmered with sudden jewel tones.
The bag was labeled Dragon's Tears - Sample 1.
"Did you take that out of evidence?" Jen asked, delighted. "Avery! I didn't know you had it in you."
"I'm going to put it back," he retorted. "I wanted you to be able to take a good last look before you get on that boat. You need to be able to recognize it if you see it."
"Like it isn't going to be obvious. From what I hear, the street value of what you have there could be as high as ten grand. If I see anyone carrying around a bottle of water and treating it like it's worth a couple mil ..."
"The lab still doesn't know exactly what this stuff is. For all we know, it might be transported in a different form, maybe solid or mixed with something." He handed her the bag.
Jen dutifully looked. It still looked like water to her, or maybe something more oily, with a higher surface tension. She opened the bag, and unscrewed the vial's cap, shooting Avery a challenging glance as she did so. He winced, but didn't object. Nobody in the lab had let her actually handle the stuff.
She took a sniff. At first she thought it had no smell, at least not to her; geckoes were not good scent hounds. But no, there was something—faint, distant, floral ... and melancholy. It rang a distant bell of nostalgia, in a way she couldn't quite define; it struck notes of bittersweet longing from the brass bell of her soul. She had a sudden insane urge to stick her tongue into the vial and lap up those tiny droplets like the water they resembled, to see if it would taste like it smelled ...
Hastily, she put the cap back on. "Don't lick it," she said, handing it back to Avery.
"Uh, thanks for the advice. I'll keep that in mind." He quirked a slight smile. "What's it smell like?"
"Dragons," she said flippantly.
"Well, if you meet one," Avery said dryly, "now you can recognize it by smell."
Dragons didn't actually exist—shifters yes, dragons no. The SCB still didn't know what the drug colloquially called Dragon's Tears was actually made out of, only that it was intoxicating and addictive, and word on the street was that it had almost miraculous healing properties. Which was where the shifter connection came in. Shifters had accelerated healing abilities, which could mean shifters were making it, or were being held prisoner and somehow used to make it. Either way, that made it an SCB problem rather than a problem for the
federal drug authorities.
Which meant she needed to get on that boat before it cast off.
Jen looked around to be sure there was no one to see, no security cameras or tourists with cell phones. "Make sure you hang up this coat properly, Hollen," she told him. "It's wool, and it was expensive. I don't want wrinkles."
"I'll take good care of your coat. You take good care of you."
She didn't bother dignifying that with a response, and without waiting any longer, she shifted. She'd done this often enough to have delicate control over her shift, allowing her body to collapse down to her tiny gecko shape in a controlled fall. Coat and sweater crumpled in on her, and by the time her shift had finished, she was at the bottom of a cozy mound of body-warm clothing.
Going out into the stiff February chill took no small measure of resolve. Avery, a gallant prince among werewolves, had crouched with his bad leg thrust stiffly out in front of him, and put his gloved hand down beside the pile of abandoned clothing. Jen scuttled briskly up his sleeve and snugged herself against his wrist, under the cuff of his sweater. She felt him quiver.
"That tickles," he murmured, bundling her clothing up in her coat. Jen's tail jerked indignantly. "Yes, I'm taking care not to leave wrinkles. I'll give it a good brushing at home, just for you."
Jen crawled forward and poked her small head over the cuff of his leather driving glove. She watched gravel and pavement jolt past, giving way to the slatted surface of the dock.
