Katy swallowed, retreating a step. Jesus, what was going on?
The newcomer flashed Ipo a smile. “Not here to cause trouble, Ipo. Just wanted a drink to celebrate.”
Ipo studied him, hand still held out to Wedge like a traffic cop. “What are you celebrating, Dean?”
Dean. Okay, so his name was Dean. Dean Singleton. Gotcha.
Dean chuckled. “Cam and Lucy are pregnant.”
A smile stretched Katy’s lips. Yay! A baby. She had no idea who Cam and Lucy were, but Dean Singleton’s joy was infectious.
“So you’re celebrating a baby?” Wedge laughed. Katy had never heard such an aggressive sound. “You planning on eating it?”
She gasped. Eat it? What the—
Dean slammed into Wedge, driving the other man backward to the ground. Growls and snarls filled the air. Dean’s fist smashed into Wedge’s jaw. Once. Twice.
Terror turned Katy’s limbs to blocks of ice. What the fuck? Jesus, what the actual—
With barely a grunt, Ipo snagged a fistful of Dean’s hair and hauled him off Wedge. “Enough, Singo. Enough.”
Dean staggered sideways, his stare locked on Wedge shoving himself to his feet. Blood trickled from the corner of the bigger man’s mouth and nose. He sucked in a choppy breath, his shoulders hunched. “I’m going to kill you, Singleton.”
Katy’s stomach dropped.
Dean grinned. “Give it your best shot, wolf.”
Wolf?
Ipo—clearly unfazed by the ruckus—planted his palms on their chests and shoved them farther apart. “Keep your dicks in your pants, you two. And remember the rules. Break ’em and you’re both in a world of pain.”
Curiosity laced through the fear in Katy’s chest. She inched back a step, swinging her focus from Dean to Wedge, to the silent men now standing around them, to the barkeeper, and back to Dean. Whatever was going on, Dean was outnumbered, and yet there wasn’t anything about him that said he cared, or was going to back down.
She had no idea who he was, but the thought of him being hurt by someone like Wedge…or Merv, or Mr. Beefy?
Nope. She couldn’t let that happen. Whoever Dean Singleton was, he’d come into the bar to celebrate something amazing: new life. She wasn’t going to let that celebration be tarnished.
“I’d like a beer,” she blurted out.
All eyes snapped to her. Fixed on her. Drilled into her.
Wedge’s gaze crawled over her in the most obvious visual undressing she’d ever experienced. Ipo narrowed his eyes. Merv and Mr. Beefy sniggered, flicking Wedge and Dean nervous glances.
Dean…Dean studied her, an unreadable light dancing in his amber-gold eyes.
Drawing in a steadying breath, Katy straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Well?” She met Dean’s enigmatic inspection. Oh boy, her mouth suddenly felt drier than the red dirt outside. “You did say everyone, right?”
A slow smile tugged at Dean’s lips. “I did.”
Katy beamed. Whatever it was about this guy, she liked it. A lot. In all sorts of delicious ways.
You’re not here for a delicious time, Katherine Linette Yunker. You’re here to find your uncle. Now stop wasting time and do that. Now.
She gave Wedge a quick look. She didn’t like him. Not at all. But he knew something about her uncle. And he clearly did not like Dean Singleton. If she pissed off Wedge, would she lose any chance of finding out what he knew?
Stomach a knotted ball of tension, she turned back to Dean and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just remembered I…” I what? “I don’t like beer.”
Jesus, woman. Really?
Dean Singleton regarded her with silent contemplation, his expression revealing nothing. “Still my shout, Ipo,” he said, holding her stare. “Everyone gets a beer on me, except Grayson.” His gaze slid to Wedge, who now—God help her—was right beside her again. “That flea-bitten mutt can pay for his own fucking drinks.”
“Big words for a mongrel, Singleton,” Wedge shot back.
Katy cleared her throat. Both men fell silent. Aggression radiated from them. They stared at each other, and—even though Wedge Grayson was at least a head taller than Dean, Grayson blinked first.
With a sneer on his lips, he directed his gaze to Merv and then Mr. Beefy. “This place suddenly stinks. Let’s go.”
Stomach sinking, Katy watched Wedge—and half the men in the bar—leave.
Biting back a sigh, she gave Dean a curious look. “Do you know anything about a man called Martin McCoy? He’s my uncle and he’s missing and—”
“You really should get out of the Creek, miss,” Dean cut her off, his expression as indecipherable as a closed freaking book. “Now. Climb back into whatever car you drove here in, and leave.”
And without another word, he strode from the bar.
* * * *
Dean walked across the dust-covered road, the summer sun blasting down on him like a furnace. He didn’t turn to look back at the Longyard Pub, despite the itch between his shoulder blades.
Who the hell was that?
In his head, the American woman smiled at him and then pressed herself to his body, sliding her palms up his chest to bury her fingers in his hair as she tugged his lips down to hers and kissed him with a sexual hunger wilder than any he’d experienced before.
Fuck a duck, what the hell?
Dean narrowed his eyes, ignoring the urge to return to the pub and the woman in it. He could practically taste her sexual arousal on the air every time she looked at him. And her unease whenever she looked at Grayson.
He slowed his pace and, before he knew what he was doing, looked over his shoulder at the Longyard’s closed doors.
“What the fuck are you doing, Singo?” he muttered with a shake of his head. He continued walking to his truck, parked down the road out in front of the Creek’s one and only general store.
The American wasn’t his business, even if she was every sexual fantasy he’d ever had wrapped up in one delectable blonde bundle.
For starters, she was human. He didn’t do human, no matter how sexy.
Secondly, she was connected to Martin McCoy—a likeable old bugger with far more knowledge than a human was meant to have. That connection made her strictly off-limits.
He ground his teeth at the thought of the American man. He hadn’t missed the way Grayson stiffened at McCoy’s name. The reaction fed his suspicion the Russian wolf had something to do with McCoy’s sudden departure from the Creek.
But if McCoy’s niece was now here…a month after he’d supposedly left…looking for him…
Her image filled his head again, her long lithe limbs wrapping around his body, her plump lips moaning his name, her eyes promising a world of pleasure as she gazed up at him…
Christ, when had he ever reacted like this to a human? His prick was getting hard. Walking across the Creek’s main street with a fucking boner. Awesome.
The sooner he got into his truck and out of here, the better. He should have known better than to enter the Longyard. Ipo was a decent bloke with no real affiliation to anyone, but at this time of day, Grayson and his pack—fawning gutless wonders who never stood up to Grayson’s brand of intimidation—were always going to be in there. And if there was one person here at Kangaroo Creek that Wedge Grayson hated more than any other, it was Dean.
Dingoes and wolves did not get along.
It didn’t help that Dean went out of his way to antagonize the Russian prick.
But hey, when presented with such an enjoyable target as Grayson, Dean had no hope of curtailing his sarcasm.
At times, he’d actually found himself wishing Grayson was a bear shifter, not an Arctic wolf shifter, just so he could truthfully say “I really shouldn’t poke the bear, but…”
Once again, an image of the American woman filled his head, uninvited and unsettling. He ground his teeth, the itch between his shoulder blades exploding into life again.
What was it about her that tugged at him so much?
And, more to the point, what was she doing in a place like the Creek alone? Out whoop-whoop, miles from anywhere, in a pub that no person in their right mind would willingly enter.
No. Change that. No human in their right mind. When it came to the Creek, none of its regular population were human. So entering the Longyard wasn’t much of a big deal.
Dean yanked open the driver’s door of his truck with a scowl. He needed to stop thinking about her. What he should be doing was working out what happened to her uncle. And what Wedge Grayson knew about it. That would get her out of the Creek, and get her out of his—
“Fuck it.” He slammed the door shut, pivoted on his heel, and strode back to the pub.
Ipo looked up from wiping the counter, expression—as always—impossible to read. Even after all these years of knowing the man, Dean had no real idea what Ipo was.
“She’s gone,” the barkeeper said, returning his attention to the counter.
Bloody hell. Dean scanned the room. “Where?”
Ipo raised an eyebrow. “Not my place to tell you that.”
Dean snarled. Great. Fucking great. “Did she say where she was going?”
Ipo shook his head again, slapping the dishcloth he was using over his shoulder as he looked at Dean. “Why?”
Because the farther I walk away from her, the closer I want to be to her.
“She’s human, Ipo. Here. In the Creek. Isn’t that why enough?”
The barkeeper shrugged. “We’ve had humans here before.”
“And how well has that gone for most of them?”
“Fair enough.”
Dean scanned the pub’s dim interior again, drawing a deep breath through his nose. Maybe he could track her?
A faint hint of jasmine and musk and roses threaded through the stale-grog-and-sweat stink on the air. Beyond faint. Choked. Tenuous.
Dragging in another breath, he closed his eyes and focused on the taste and smell. Christ, Merv needed a fucking shower. How could anyone breathe in this town with the farmer’s stench polluting the very oxygen?
A lick of cold contempt unfurled through him as Wedge Grayson’s undeniable scent flowed into his lungs. As soon as he got home he was scrubbing his tongue. Just the thought of the Russian’s smell permeating his body made him sick.
Fuck. What traces there were of the American had completely faded. Overpowered by Grayson and his unwashed pack.
Opening his eyes, he crossed to the bar. “Do you remember her uncle? He stayed here, didn’t he? In that room you’ve got upstairs. Did he tell you what he was here for? What he wanted?”
Ipo folded his arms over his chest, expression bored. “Have I ever been interested in what humans want, Singleton?”
Despite the tension eating at him, Dean flashed the barkeeper a smirk. “Well, there was that one guy who—”
An invisible palm mashed itself to Dean’s mouth. Ipo studied him with glinting eyes. “You know better than that.”
The unseen gag disappeared. Dean wiped at his lips. He watched Ipo drag the dishcloth from his shoulder and turn towards the other end of the bar.
Okay, so Ipo wasn’t going to be any help. If he wanted to find her he might have to shift.
And you do want to find her. You want to bury your face in her hair. Breathe her in. Feel her body moving beneath yours. Feel her warm moans on your neck as you—
“If I see her again,” Ipo tossed over his shoulder, “I’ll be sure to ask where she’s staying.”
Dean let out a shaky sigh. It was better than nothing. “Thanks, mate.”
Ipo nodded and then got back to work.
With another sigh, this one far more agitated than the first, Dean left the pub. He needed to find Cam. His beta had followed the old American’s scent miles out of town. If there was a reason for the American woman to be here now, Cam might know.
And if he didn’t, Dean would have to do what he’d been putting off for a long time: face the fact the animal he truly was could no longer be controlled. Which was very worrying, given how powerful the desire to find the American woman was right now. Not to help her find her uncle, not to encourage her to leave the Creek ASAP, but to explore every inch of her body and fuck her senseless. Pure, base, animalistic rutting.
Animal. Out of control fucking.
What the fuck was going on? And when the hell had being a dingo shifter in the Australian Outback become so bloody difficult?
Chapter 2
The television in her room didn’t work.
Why that surprised Katy was beyond her. Nothing else during this trip had gone the way she’d hoped, so why should she expect the small, seriously outdated television to work? It wasn’t like it was the only way she had of finding out what was going on in the world, given her cell had no service despite the fact the man at the Sydney airport had promised her she’d get service Australia-wide with it.
Oh wait, that’s exactly what it was.
Tossing the remote onto the saggy mattress of the room’s only bed, she glared at the room. The barkeeper had told her she could stay as long as she wanted, ten bucks a night.
Ten bucks. It was better than sleeping in the rent-a-wreck she’d driven here in, that was for certain.
It also gave her a base of operations. Somewhere to regroup as she searched for Uncle Martin.
She’d rushed up here the second Ipo had given her the key, trying to keep her mind on the search.
It had been tricky. All her traitorous head had wanted to do was focus on Dean Singleton.
That was problematic. He was a distraction she hadn’t anticipated. Ever since she’d laid eyes on him in the bar she’d been…horny. That was the only word for it. Horny.
Come to Oz looking for AWOL uncle; fall into insta-lust with complete stranger. Yeah, so not conducive to finding Uncle Martin.
Pacing the small space, she plucked at her thumbnail and let out a sigh.
Fifteen minutes after letting herself into the small, musty room, she’d left it. Despite the fact she really, really didn’t want to have anything to do with Wedge Grayson again, he knew something about her uncle and she needed to find him. Talk to him. Get answers.
She’d quickly showered, changed into more Outback-appropriate clothes—shorts, Chucks, and her San Diego Padres tank—tucked her passport under the saggy mattress, and left.
The barkeeper wouldn’t tell her where she could locate Grayson, however.
Instead, he’d suggested she ask around town.
So she had. For over an hour.
With bupkus results. No one she talked to knew anything. More than one person actually went out of their way to avoid her. People had crossed the street when they saw her approach.
Street. Huh. Dust covered road, more like it. Main Street, Kangaroo Creek, was an odd collection of old and new buildings and businesses that looked like they had just as much place being there as she did, which was none.
She’d been in most of those businesses, asking about her uncle. Showing his photo to whomever happened to be in there. Most of the time the moment she walked in, the people in there seemed to make themselves scarce. In one place—a bookshop called Divine Intervention—the woman behind the counter sized her up and said without compunction, “You don’t belong here.” By the time Katy crossed the short distance to the counter, the woman had walked through a curtained doorway and never came back. Not while Katy stood in the shop, at least.
And then there was the library. Whoa, was that a creepy place. At the opposite end of Main Street from the Christian bookstore, the librarian damn near screamed Go away the second she crossed the threshold.
Seriously, what the hell had Uncle Martin been doing here? If there really were men who could shift into dingoes, why the hell would they be in a place like this?
She’d done her own research on dingoes before leaving San Diego and discovered a lot of them liked living in tropical places. There was even a large colony of them on an island up the coast. The images she
saw of those dingoes—and the island where they lived—made Kangaroo Creek look like hell on earth. If she were a dingo—magical supernatural dingo-slash-person or just plain ordinary dingo—she sure as hell would prefer to be on an island than here.
But here is where Uncle Martin had been. And here was where he’d vanished. So here was where she had to be. Until she found him.
Another sigh tore at her chest and she dropped onto the mattress. Okay, time to get real. She’d go back downstairs to the bar and demand Ipo tell her where to find Grayson. Pay the barkeeper to tell her, if that’s what it took.
Then she’d fluff up her hair, gloss up her lips, and seduce Grayson into giving her some answers. She could do that. Surely she could. It worked in movies, and she had the whole California beach-babe look going for her.
To find her uncle, she’d even let Grayson try to cop a feel.
A shudder wracked through her at the thought. Grayson may be a silver fox, but more than a few minutes in his company had given her the distinct impression his looks didn’t match his personality. Good-looking on the outside, ugly on the inside.
Oh boy, when she did track down Uncle Martin she was going to make him pay. After she hugged him, of course. Being felt up by Wedge Grayson? Even though the guy was a hot silver fox, he was…
She shuddered again. “So not my type.”
Dean Singleton, though? He’s your type. You’d let him feel you up in a heartbeat.
“Jesus, Yunker.” She dropped her head into her hands, staring at the grimy carpet between her feet. “Get a grip.”
Time to stop being weird over a guy she didn’t know—even if his eyes were the most incredible amber she’d ever seen, even if his body pushed all her buttons, even if his tattoo made the junction of her thighs flutter in ways it never had before—and get back to the task at—
A crumpled piece of paper amongst the dust bunnies poking out from beneath the bed caught her eye. Not because it was crumpled, but because it had writing on it.
Handwriting.
Familiar handwriting.
Her heart smashed into her throat.
She snatched the paper from the floor, flattening it on her thigh.
Dingo Wild (The Dingo Pack Book 1) Page 2
