A SEAL in Wolf's Clothing hotw-9

by Terry Spear

  “Damn, Meara, you’re good.”

  “We’re good,” she said, licking his whiskery chin. “Damned good—together.”

  He gathered her into his arms and pulled the covers over them. “Together,” he agreed, a kind of bliss he’d never truly felt surrounding him completely. “Hell, I should have retired and sought you out long ago.”

  She chuckled against his chest. “You’re absolutely right. But I doubt either of us would have been ready before this.” And then they snuggled like two wolves, not caring for the moment what lay beyond their self-proclaimed den.

  Although in the back of his thoughts, he knew he would be moving her to Hunter’s house before long to keep her safe.

  * * *

  When Meara finally woke again, she found that Finn had left the bed, probably worried what the others would think if they were alone together in a bedroom again before they announced they were mated. She shook her head when she saw his cell phone sitting on the bedside table. After she got dressed, she pocketed his phone and returned to the living room where she heard a heated discussion in the kitchen.

  “Come on, Anna,” Paul was saying. “Everyone knows women make the best coffee.”

  Meara laughed to herself. She’d made a pot on occasion, but since she didn’t drink it normally, Hunter had to make his own. She wondered if Tessa made coffee now for Hunter.

  Anna said, “I. Don’t. Make. Coffee. I. Don’t. Cook. Either.”

  Paul shook his head. “It just isn’t natural—a woman who doesn’t cook.”

  Meara was certain Paul was teasing Anna. And she was just having some fun back. Finn rummaged around in the drawers, then pulled out an instruction booklet. “Here are the directions.”

  “Don’t you know how to make a pot of coffee?” Anna asked, sounding surprised.

  Finn gave Hunter a conspiratorial look, then shook his head. “Bjornolf made it earlier.”

  “But,” Meara said, looking from Finn to her brother, “I thought the two of you were having coffee earlier. And Hunter’s always trying to get me to fix it. He only makes it when he’s camping, using a saucepan and stirring instant coffee into a mug of hot water.”

  Ignoring the directions Finn offered, Paul scooped coffee into the machine.

  Anna smiled and folded her arms as Paul added water. Meara imagined that Anna refused to fix coffee for the men because to her way of thinking that made her less of an equal. Meara wouldn’t make it either, since she didn’t drink it, while Paul seemed to be guessing at getting the proportions right.

  She figured Finn wished Bjornolf was here to make the coffee. Especially when she saw the puckered faces as Hunter and Finn took their first sips. Anna drank hers as if she didn’t see anything wrong with it. Meara was glad she liked tea, which she made for herself.

  But just as they all walked into the living room to take seats, where Meara planned to ask what would happen next, a key turned in the front-door lock.

  Anna immediately set her cup of coffee on a table beside a high-backed chair to free her hands and pulled out a gun. Finn moved to stand in front of Meara, his endearing posture one of protection. She’d never seen this side of him in earlier years. When he was getting ready for a mission with Hunter, he’d been all business. Although now that she thought about it, he had acted a little funny around her at times. Like he wanted to get the hell out of there before he’d seen too much of her yet enjoyed the way she tore into him about setting up the contracts and didn’t want to leave.

  Hunter was his indomitable self. Meara swore he could look at a man and make him cower like a beta when the stranger had thought himself a steadfast alpha before the encounter. She imagined Finn was not much different in the way he affected people.

  Pulling out his concealed gun, Paul moved into a position where Anna wouldn’t block his aim.

  The door opened and Allan smiled grimly at the assembled group.

  “Oh my God, Allan, you’re here!” Anna said, hurrying to the door while she quickly holstered her gun.

  Meara relaxed, as did the guys. She had to admire Allan for coming to help his team.

  His pale green eyes were assessing her and Finn, his broad shoulders wide and his back straight, as if he was going to confront Finn over her. He scanned the room, his gaze taking in everyone gathered there. Hunter, Paul, Finn. But then he focused again on Meara, half hidden by Finn’s tall frame. A smile cheered Allan’s face.

  She smiled back at him, glad to see him so well after his recent injury.

  “Meara, I’ve come for you,” he said, his voice bear-like, and he gave Finn an annoyed look as if he was in the way.

  Her mouth gaped. Hunter shook his head as if declaring again that his sister had led his team members off course.

  Anna glanced worriedly at Finn. But Finn didn’t seem bothered by the declaration. Maybe because he’d moved behind Meara, stuck his hand in her back pocket, and was groping her as if to say she was not anyone else’s but his. She didn’t mind, since no one else could see his action and she rather liked where his hand was. But what was good for him was good for her. She slipped her hand in his back pocket and gave his buttock a warm squeeze. He shifted his gaze from Allan to give her a seductively heated smile that told her if they hadn’t had company, he would have hauled her right back to bed.

  Paul chuckled. “Welcome back from the dead, Allan.”

  “Good to see you,” Hunter said. “Just like the old days.”

  “I wouldn’t have been left out of the action, no matter what. What would you guys do without me?” Allan said. “So what’s the plan?”

  “Finn’s taking Meara to my place, and he’ll keep her safe there. We’re getting the word out that the team is all gathered here.”

  When Allan took a seat on the couch, Paul offered, “Airline food sucks. What can I get you to drink? Eat?”

  “Glass of brandy, if you’ve got any.”

  “It’s not even noon,” Finn said, teasing him dryly.

  “We’ve got wine,” Meara said, hoping Allan wouldn’t mind and wishing that they had what he truly wanted to drink.

  But everyone else looked to Finn as if he could conjure a bottle of brandy out of thin air. He finally pulled his hand out of Meara’s pocket and said, “I’ll get it.”

  Surprised Finn knew that the owners had any, she assumed he’d taken more of an inventory of their food supply than she had realized. A SEAL would take stock of provisions for a prolonged stay, she reminded herself.

  Finn walked back into the living room with a glass and a bottle of brandy.

  With a pointed glance in Finn’s direction, Allan said, “Actually, the sooner we mate, the better, before anyone else gets any ideas.”

  Casting Paul an annoyed look, Finn poured some brandy for Allan, then handed him the glass, and set the bottle on the coffee table before him. “Meara was giving Paul and me a hard time and didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Meara couldn’t tell if Finn and Allan were serious. Nor could she tell by the others’ expressions.

  “I was teasing,” she said, trying to clarify her comments. “Paul and Finn were arguing over me, and well, since you weren’t here, I just said I wasn’t interested in either of them. Just you.”

  Allan smiled again. “Ah.” He took a swig of the brandy and sank back on the couch. “Sounds like a Freudian slip to me, Meara.”

  “You wish.”

  “Actually,” Finn said, glancing at Hunter, “I wanted to tell you that Meara and I are mated, so no more bachelor alpha males will be signing up to rent the cabins.”

  Hunter gave him a slow smile. “Tessa will be real glad to hear that. What about undercover contracts? Have you and Meara come to some sort of agreement concerning your work?”

  “I’m retired,” Finn said, slipping his hand around Meara’s waist.

  “At least for a while. If he decides he wants to do more contract work, he’s going to take me with him as his wife, and I’ll help him.” Meara smiled sweetly.
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  Everyone looked from Meara to Hunter to see his take on it. He shook his head. “She’s all yours, Finn. Take good care of her.”

  “She wants to run the cabin resort,” Finn said.

  Hunter gave him an agreeable nod. “My gift to the two of you.”

  Meara beamed at him. “Thank you, Hunter. You won’t regret it.”

  Finn gave Meara a warm embrace. “After you and Tessa finish your honeymoon in Hawaii once this business is over with, Meara and I are going on a cruise to the Caribbean.”

  “A cruise?” Hunter said.

  Meara smiled up at Finn, thankful he’d really been listening to her when she talked of a honeymoon cruise. “I’ve heard they have lots of great food.”

  Hunter frowned at them. “What about shifting?”

  “We’ll time it right. Besides, we have more control over it than that,” Meara said, annoyed. “At least I’m a royal, so with fewer human roots, I can change when I want to.” She looked at Finn.

  He nodded. “Me, too.”

  Hunter stood taller. “Even so, I can see a forced lifeboat drill, and here you are in your wolf forms in the cabin and…”

  Meara snuggled closer to Finn. “He’s always like this. Didn’t I tell you?”

  Finn kissed her cheek. “We’ll be fine, Hunter. Two weeks max, which will be plenty of time before the moon is full and the urge is stronger.”

  Not looking surprised, Allan leaned back in the chair. “I take it I came to the party a little too late.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Paul said. Then he jerked his thumb at Anna. “She’s still available.”

  Allan laughed. “Hell, she takes her weapons to bed. She’s a dangerous wolf for a man to have around. Especially, I imagine, in bed.”

  “You better believe it.” Anna smiled deviously.

  “And she doesn’t cook,” Paul reminded them.

  “But she could save your hide if you needed it.” Meara smiled at Anna.

  “Speaking of saving hides,” Finn said, “Meara and I need to leave.”

  “With my blessing. Keep her safe, Finn,” Hunter said gruffly.

  “Will do.”

  “And I’ll take care of him, too.” Meara wasn’t going to be left out.

  “Just don’t distract him, Meara,” her brother warned.

  Paul and Allan looked like they wished they were in Finn’s shoes.

  “Speaking of cooking, anyone up for lunch?” Hunter asked, giving Meara a hug before she and Finn left, and headed for the kitchen.

  Finn grabbed his and Meara’s bags while she took the rifle. Anna nodded. “I can see what her priorities are. She could be one of us if she got some training. Never know.”

  Meara gave her a hug. “Keep yourself safe.”

  “You, too.” Then Anna entered the kitchen. “Here, let me help you with that. Poor Tessa. Hasn’t she trained you how to cook chicken right yet? The temperature’s wrong. The timer is wrong. Did you season it first?”

  Sounded to Meara like Anna knew very well how to cook.

  Allan and Paul looked like they also wanted hugs from Meara as they stood in the living room waiting. Finn’s expression told them not to even consider it. They laughed at him, slapped him on the back, and then joined Hunter in the kitchen.

  “Ready to leave, Meara?” Finn asked.

  “Yeah, I’m ready.” She hated leaving the team and her brother behind while she and Finn were safe and sound. Especially when the team could have used Finn’s help. But she knew Hunter and Finn wouldn’t have it any other way. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 17

  Rourke arrived at Chris’s place ready to find any clue he could to help Hunter and his team. He just wished Chris would have been more open to sharing the information he had on the case so Rourke wouldn’t have had to resort to more extreme measures. He really could be helpful if the pack members would give him a chance.

  Taking a deep breath, he pulled out a set of lockpicks. He’d used them after Hunter had given them to him as part of his lupus garou indoctrination, and he’d already practiced with them a number of times. But this was the first time he’d put them to practical use.

  He slipped around the back of the ranch-style brick house, not wanting neighbors to think anything of him playing with the front lock. And then he was inside, standing in the perfectly neat kitchen with no dishes on the gray slate countertop and the chrome sink sparkling. The guy was a neat freak on top of everything else.

  Rourke quickly shut the back door, hoping that Hunter and Chris wouldn’t be too angry with him if they discovered he’d sneaked into the sub-leader’s house without permission. Rourke had to find the connection to Allan’s attempted killing or he was toast.

  As soon as he entered Chris’s dining room, where the table’s glass top was just as sparkling clean and the chrome chairs perfectly aligned underneath the table, he smelled Chris’s scent all over the place. Rourke realized then that Chris would smell that he had been there also. There was no hiding the fact now.

  With rigid determination, Rourke stalked into the living room and spied the morning’s neatly folded paper on the coffee table. He wondered if Chris only read it to ensure that Rourke hadn’t slipped in something that Chris would object to or if he really read the news on a regular basis.

  Shaking his head, Rourke quickly located Chris’s office down the hall and searched through all the desk drawers. He found a drawer full of pictures of Meara, as well as some that appeared to have been of Meara and others, but the others had been cut away and discarded, leaving just Meara. So Chris had more than a small obsession with her.

  He pulled out another picture that he thought odd. Meara was dining with Cyn Iverson, seated at a window in a restaurant. The picture was taken from outside the restaurant. Why would Chris have a picture of Meara and Cyn conversing over dinner when he had denied to Hunter that he had known about it? According to two of the pack members who’d told Rourke how difficult Meara could be to watch over, she’d slipped away and had dinner with the wolf while Chris thought she was shopping for romance books.

  Still pondering that bit of odd news, Rourke continued to search for the notes Chris must be gathering on the case about the SEAL team, but he found nothing. Rourke was beginning to think he was on a wild-goose chase, only his goose would be cooked if he didn’t discover something important that could be used to uncover the mastermind of all this.

  He thought that odd also. If Dave was right in assuming that Chris had been checking into this business with the Knight of Swords, why wouldn’t he have notes about it somewhere? He wouldn’t have a reason to keep his investigation secret.

  Having looked through everything—even a file cabinet that had notes on various pack members and personal financial files—but finding nothing that would help with his quest, Rourke left the office with a heavy heart.

  He would be in so much trouble and have nothing to show for it.

  He glanced in the bathroom, but everything was neat, and nothing would help him there. He continued down the hallway until he came to what looked like the master bedroom, a sitting-room combination with an attached bathroom and walk-in closet.

  His gaze shot straight to a black spiral notebook sitting on a bedside table, closed with a black pen lying on top.

  Hope renewed, Rourke rushed to the bedside table and jerked the journal up, flipping it open to that morning’s notes.

  Nothing. He flipped through earlier notes. Just pack business.

  He started rummaging through Chris’s bureau and saw the corner of what looked to be a card in a sweater drawer. He moved the stack of sweaters aside and stared at the set of tarot cards.

  His hands were shaking and his heart pounding as he quickly looked through the cards, searching for the Knight of Swords. It had to be there. It had to be a complete set of cards. These couldn’t have anything to do with the one that had been found on the wounded SEAL team member.

  The card wasn’t there. Rourke sorted through them more slowl
y this time, studying each, certain he’d just overlooked it, hoping he’d just overlooked it.

  But no. The card portraying the Knight of Swords wasn’t among them.

  Which meant?

  Coincidence that Chris would have a set of tarot cards and the only one missing would be that particular card?

  Rourke began searching the other drawers but didn’t find anything else that might connect Chris with the hit on Allan. He moved to the closet, rifling through clothes and pockets, and found nothing. Then he spied a couple of suitcases on a shelf and a bag tucked on a shelf below. He pulled out the bag and unzipped it. Nothing inside. But then he checked the outside of the bag, slipping his hand in one zippered pocket, then another. And felt something. A couple of pieces of paper. He pulled the items out. A plane-ticket receipt and an itinerary.

  He quickly read the date and time of the departure and arrival. It was the same time Chris had to leave town on an important errand, right before Finn arrived to protect Meara and Hunter.

  But most of all, the destination was Pompano Beach, Florida, the same city where Allan Rappaport had been shot.

  Rourke had to get out of Chris’s house and share this information with Hunter as soon as humanly possible.

  But he didn’t know where Hunter was staying, and what if Chris discovered Rourke had been snooping around in his place before Rourke could share what he suspected with Hunter? He couldn’t return to his own apartment. Chris was supposed to meet him there in a couple of hours so he could accompany Rourke to the newspaper office.

  Rourke couldn’t go to the office by himself, either, in case Chris tried to find him there. Somehow, Rourke needed to reach Hunter and Dave before Chris discovered Rourke’s scent in his house. Quiet Chris would kill Rourke as soon as he found out.

  Grabbing the airline-ticket receipt and itinerary, and stopping in Chris’s office for the photo of Meara and Cyn, Rourke pondered whether this was enough evidence to show Chris was involved in Allan’s shooting and a connection between him and Cyn.