Animal Instinct

by Kate Davidson

  “Has she been honest with you about her weight?” Liam asked, trying to create a fuller picture of this woman.

  “About one hundred fifty pounds. She’s six foot tall,” Izzy added. Then she realized the height itself wouldn’t exactly be a bonus. “And slender,” she told him with a quiet appeal in her voice. Slender in a muscle stretched over bone way but Liam could figure that out later.

  “Why don’t you give her a call?” he suggested, interested enough to at least hear this woman’s voice.

  “No problem,” Izzy said. It was about that time of day when Jackie took a lunch break. Everything should be relaxed there. However, when Liam handed her his own cell phone she realized he had every intention of listening in and that made her a little nervous. Jackie’s language wasn’t always clean. Shoveling out horse stalls made her a great deal less delicate than the women Liam was used to. Still, it wouldn’t take too long to hint to Jackie that they were being listened to and her friend would probably hold back on the swearing.

  The phone rang in Jackie’s modest office at the barn while she was rooting through her mini fridge for ice. Occupied with the search, she reached over and pressed the phone to her left ear, forgetting for about one second that that side of her head was tender from having recently been smashed into a metal pole. The hard plastic of the phone reminded her.

  “Ouch! Shit! Son of a-” Jackie forcefully cut herself off and held the phone away, biting her lip and swearing mentally instead. After a moment the throbbing had lessened and she held the phone to her other ear while stretching out the cord to reach the freezer and continue putting ice in the icepack. “I really hope this is someone I don’t work for,” she spoke into the phone.

  “Hey, Jackie. It’s Isabelle.” Jackie raised a brow. Isabelle? Since when did she call herself Isabelle with her best friend? Jackie was too relieved to question it.

  “Izzy, thank God. It just would have put a cap on my God-awful day if I’d sworn at one of my clients.” Jackie pressed the icepack to her head and hissed. “I should have known today was bad when I found Shylock drooling all over my green muckers. Of course he’d drooled all on the inside and I have to wait for them to dry out before I can wear them again. So I switched to the broken-down red ones that always manage to scoop up a few rocks no matter where I go.” Jackie leaned back in the wooden chair behind her scarred desk, her feet currently encased in black leather riding boots and feeling much better. “I should have stayed in bed because this story gets much worse.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Izzy said quietly, glancing up at Liam whose eyebrows had just about disappeared into his hair. With his supernatural hearing, he could pick up every single word Jackie was saying. Jackie’s voice hadn’t exactly been quiet and he was standing barely a foot away. Their luck, Izzy decided, was awful. When all of this fell through she’d just have to loan her friend the money, even if she’d protested the last time she’d offered. This was all her fault. Izzy should have known better than to try to put oil and water together.

  “Anyway, do you remember that annoying Chihuahua I told you about? The one that belongs to one of my new students who thinks she already knows everything there is to know about horses. This dog would sooner die than behave itself, although if my name were Bunny I’d be pretty pissed off, too. I’ve warned her owner about fifty times that if she has to bring Bunny along for her lessons then the little creep has to be tied up away from the horses. But why would she listen to me? I’ve only been around horses all my life. It’s not as if I know anything.” Jackie let out an exasperated breath. “So today I’m getting Sampson ready and you know how easily he gets freaked out. This fucking dog comes running around the corner barking like the demons of hell are on his tail and darts right between Sampson’s legs. Sampson panics, knocks me off my feet and to the ground, which would have been fine if my head hadn’t slammed into the metal pole of the crosstie. While all those little cartoon birds are spinning around my head, Sampson snaps free and bolts.”

  “Oh my God, is he okay?” Izzy asked. She was particularly fond of Sampson, a beautiful young gelding with a shiny white coat and a really darling pink nose. It would be awful if anything happened to him.

  “Sofie happened to be there and she caught him before he could get out to the road,” Jackie assured her. “He’s a little scared but Sofie’s calming him down right now. She’s going to work him while I try to keep my head from swelling. It hurts like a son of a bitch. Next time I see that little bastard dog I’m going to feed him to Macbeth.”

  “Macbeth?” Liam asked. He couldn’t help but be amused be all this. The brazen, rough woman on the other end of the line wasn’t remotely his type. Keeping her under control would be like containing a wildfire.

  “Her dog,” Izzy whispered. “He’s a bit fierce.”

  “So I gather.”

  “Izzy,” Jackie said quietly, straightening up in her chair. “Are we alone in this conversation or not?” Isabelle glanced at Liam who nodded his permission.

  “Well, no. Not exactly.” She swallowed. “Mr. O’Connor’s been listening in.”

  Jackie bit her lip to keep from groaning aloud. Christ, that was perfect. Izzy had tried to do her a favor and now she’d gone and blown it by jabbering on about all the things that would turn off her prospective employer. Fan-fucking-tastic.

  “You might as well put him on the phone,” she muttered, wishing she had a free hand to smack herself with. Liam merely raised a brow and held out his hand. Reluctant but without any other options, Izzy gave him the phone.

  “Jackie, was it?” The only thing she could really discern from his voice was deeply rooted confidence. So why did she want to hang up the phone then change her number so he could never call her again?

  “Jackie Chase, Mr. O’Connor,” she told him. “How slim are my chances of being hired?” Might as well dive right in and get to the point.

  “That all depends. How many dogs do you have, Ms. Chase?”

  Jackie frowned with confusion, barely resisting the urge to fiddle with the papers scattered across her desk. Why would that matter? “Three.”

  “And are all of them named after Shakespeare’s villains?”

  “Misunderstood characters,” Jackie corrected. “But since you’re so interested, their names are Caliban and Shylock.” She tried not to be insulted by the bark of laughter from his end of the line. “They’re good dogs.”

  “I have no doubt,” Liam replied dryly. “Are you busy tonight?” She blinked, surprised by the question.

  “Uh, no. Not really.”

  “Good. I’ll have Izzy call you with the information on where to meet me later.”

  “Wait, hold on,” Jackie said, tilting her head more completely toward the phone. “I was under the impression that if you found out half the things you already know about me that you would dismiss me without a second thought. How is it I’ve secured an interview?”

  “I have time on my hands,” Liam told her. “And any woman who can fondly call her dog Macbeth is worth meeting at least once. Goodbye, Ms. Chase.” He hung up the phone before she could get out another word.

  Jackie stared at her phone a few minutes longer before hanging up. She was going to have an interview with a vampire. A slightly hysterical laugh burst out of her mouth and she rested her head against the surface of her desk. Jesus H. Christ, what had she just gotten into?

  Chapter Three

  JACKIE DIDN’T WANT TO get out of her truck. The mud-splattered blue 1993 Ford F-150 had suddenly become a sanctuary she was unwilling to leave. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, trying to measure just how desperately she needed this job. Since two hours ago she’d let Izzy shove her into a bathtub and start desperately scrubbing the scent of horse from her skin, she could assume she was willing to jump through a hoop or two to be hired.

  Her best friend had also arrived with shopping bags. That was an infamously bad sign in Jackie’s book. It meant s
he was going to be forced to wear something she wouldn’t ever buy of her own free will. Then out of the bag came black stockings, a modestly short black skirt and a dark red strapless shirt Jackie had just about killed Izzy for buying. It had taken an impressive push-up bra and a great deal of fashion tape to get the shirt to stay up. As for the skirt, what was modest for Izzy was quite different from Jackie’s interpretation. On Izzy’s legs it was barely an inch above the knee. On Jackie’s considerably longer leg it was several inches higher, showing more thigh than she was entirely comfortable with. Still, her legs were shaved and the black stockings were on. That was the only shield she had to work with right then.

  She’d fought much harder on the make-up front. Jackie liked the powder base with the spf15 since it actually protected her skin. Besides that there was a slight bruise that just barely protruded out from under her hairline from her head injury earlier that day so she wasn’t averse to disguising that. But mascara? Eyeliner? There was no way she was going to poke herself in the eye to ‘enhance’ her natural ‘beauty’. She’d compromised with Izzy by wearing a colored lip balm and pinching her cheeks to make them a bit pinker instead of using blush. As for her hair, she’d agreed to wear it down and parted to the side. Izzy had fluffed and curled it as much as she could but, as was typical of her hair, it was now straight as a pin.

  “Okay,” she mumbled, glancing toward the sleek nightclub on the other side of the street. “Let’s go over your options. You can be food for a vampire, earn loads of money and save the ranch and all the horses you love. Or you can take out more loans, go further into debt and eventually end up on the street after having sold your ranch and the horses you love. Pick one.” Jackie wasn’t crazy about ultimatums, even if they were from herself. There had to be another option here. Maybe she could auction off one of her kidneys on eBay. Maybe her lung, too. She really only needed one lung, right? “Not,” Jackie told her reflection in the rearview mirror. There was only one acceptable option.

  The club, Silver, was located on Hollywood Boulevard and had been a frequent haunt of Liam’s well before he’d called LA home. The ground floor was mostly for the humans. Hip hop music throbbed as wild lights flashed through the packed club and glowed against the industrial-themed decor. Vampires stayed in the VIP section, the much more elegant second story. There they listened to music that ranged from the Brechtian punk cabaret sounds of the Dresden Dolls to 1920s jazz while they entertained themselves with young humans willing to give blood. The decorator had stuck with red velvet material for the furnishings, black brocade wallpaper for the walls and red granite for the floors. Liam sat within a corner meant for far more private matters than he was currently indulging in, the red silk curtain drawn against the dozen or so vampires in attendance. Sometimes he enjoyed their company and sometimes he didn’t. They were all younger than he was by hundreds of years. As many adults could testify, hanging around with children all the time got on one’s nerves.

  Liam glanced at his watch, noting that Ms. Chase had five more minutes to get there. Apparently she wasn’t the obnoxiously early type. Whether she was obnoxious at all had yet to be decided. Isabelle hadn’t disclosed anything about her after that fascinating phone call. She claimed she wanted him to judge for himself without making assumptions beforehand. After the surprisingly pleasant flavor of Ms. Chase’s blood, he decided to meet her before judging her. That didn’t mean he hadn’t made a few guesses as to her appearance. He was just composing a picture of Jackie Chase in his head that wasn’t entirely complimentary when one of the security guards called his name through the curtain.

  “Mr. O’Connor, there’s a woman downstairs to see you. Says you’re waiting for her. Should I bring her up?” Liam was about to agree when an idea struck him. It would be interesting to observe her when she thought she wasn’t being watched.

  “No,” he said, coming through the drapes and standing in front of the slim guard. Vampire security didn’t need to be bulky, just immortal. “I think I’ll see to her myself. Where is she, exactly?”

  Jackie stared longingly at the alcohol behind the bar. She didn’t drink much. Usually she was already exhausted in the evenings and having a cocktail would just send her into a coma. Drinking during the day was out since it wouldn’t look very professional if she fell off a horse that hadn’t even tried to buck her off. Right now she was tense, edgy and in desperate need of a shot of whiskey. Just one shot.

  “I love my life,” she said quietly, trying to make herself believe it. People jostled her as they tried to get close to the bar and she got a nose full of cheap cologne. “I love my life. I really do love my life.” She’d love it more after a drink. Jackie rolled her eyes and started digging in the tiny handbag Izzy had given her, fishing out the watch her friend had told her not to wear. That security guy had gone off five minutes ago to get Mr. O’Connor. Had he gotten lost or something? Or was Mr. O’Connor screwing with her head by making her wait? Oh, to hell with it! Jackie raised her hand and got the bartender to bring her a shot of Jack Daniels.

  Once the glass arrived Jackie took a deep sip. The liquid burned down her throat, hitting her stomach like a tight fist. She shivered, wiggling a bit as it worked its way down. A masculine chuckle from over her shoulder managed to catch her attention despite the volume of the music and she glanced back to see who she’d amused.

  A man stood with his hands in the pockets of his black slacks, observing her with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Jackie felt suddenly very small and it had little to do with his height. He was taller than she was but not by much - an inch, if that. It was his broad shoulders and chest clothed in black silk, his muscled arms and legs. He was just bigger than she was. And damn, she found that refreshing. Too bad he was so young. Twenty-eight if he was a day. Boyishly charming face, lush mouth, neatly cut brown hair and sweet brown eyes. If Jackie were ten years younger, she wouldn’t mind pouncing on this one. As it was, he was probably just laughing at what he considered an old woman handling hard liquor in a strange way.

  “I’m going to have to buy you another one of those just to see you do that again.” Liam hadn’t been sure what to expect. A woman with the kind of excellent posture he hadn’t seen for several decades and a delicately soft mouth set in a striking face was not one of the many things he’d imagined.

  “It isn’t something I make a habit of,” she informed him, not too bothered by the fact that he’d seen her wiggling. There was something in his voice that was familiar but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Well, it would probably come to her.

  “The drinking or the squirming?” he asked, taking care to raise his voice and lean in close. Human hearing was infamously poor, especially in loud environments.

  “Both.” Jackie felt that tension winding up inside her again. Where in the hell was O’Connor? She was beginning to think she’d been stood up.

  The man she was talking to quirked a brow as if he could feel the shift in her emotions. “You’re a great deal more tense than most people who go clubbing,” he noted.

  “I’m not really here to enjoy myself.” She hesitated for a moment. Talking to a stranger… Hadn’t her mother warned her against that? But then again, most of her mother’s advice had caused her more pain than gain. Plus, it wasn’t as if she was going to see this guy again. It might ease some of her stress if she talked. “I have a job interview.” Liam moved closer to the bar, also creating a smaller gap between their bodies.

  “You always drink before an interview?”

  “Having never really had a job interview before, I don’t know what I always do,” she informed him. “The last time I was hired it was because a horse was running down a street and I returned him to the ranch where he belonged. The owner said thanks then asked if I wanted a job. Since I was unemployed at the time, I said yes.”

  “What happened to that job, then?” he asked, smiling a little at her candor. Liam was beginning to think it would be easier to get a full picture of Jackie
if she didn’t know who he was. A stranger was harmless to her and she clearly felt as though she had nothing to hide. It would also be more entertaining and Liam was always in need of that.

  “The owner moved to Florida and left me in charge.” Jackie tilted her head to the side curiously. “Why are you interested in all this?”

  “I have too much time on my hands,” he told her dryly. She smirked.

  “I wish I was so afflicted. There aren’t enough hours in the day for me.”

  “Careful what you wish for,” Liam warned.

  “You just might get it,” she agreed, unconsciously drumming her fingers against the bar. He glanced at her hands. They were calloused, the nails cut short, but her fingers were slender and long. Perhaps Isabelle hadn’t been wrong to suggest hiring Jackie. Granted, she wasn’t exactly his type but a temporary change of pace wouldn’t do him any harm.

  “So you have a job but you need another one?” he asked, hoping to hear more about her situation. Jackie shifted her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably.

  “Working with horses isn’t easy. I’ve done it my entire life and from my experience I’ve figured out how to make a small fortune in horses.” She tossed back the rest of her whiskey, the burn taking the edge off her frustration. “Start out with a large one.” He laughed and Jackie couldn’t help but notice how softly he did it. As if he was out of the habit of laughing without restraint. Well, if her financial woes helped amuse him then all the better.

  “Financial trouble, then. Thinking of getting out of the horse business?”