by Zoe Chant
Laura wasn’t surprised — it wouldn’t be much of a race between a pegasus and a peacock, but Mr. India looked lean and fit; she thought he might give Mr. Ireland some competition.
“The winner will be awarded the Mr. Speed trophy in the final awards ceremony, and there’s a ribbon or something for the second place. I don’t know, who cares.” Jessica fanned herself with her clipboard. “I’m bound by the insurance company to let you know that you are not covered for egregious injury due to special shifter riders, blah blah, don’t be a dumbass and step in a gopher hole. We’re not medivaccing you. Do they even have gophers here? Oh, let’s just get this started. I need some cheers, ladies.”
She fluffed her hair and pinched her cheeks, pasting on the most plastic smile that Laura had ever seen and gestured at the cameraman in the back of the poised Jeep.
“Welcome back to the World Mr. Shifter events!” she squealed. The girls gathered around Laura gave ear-splitting shrieks and applause, and the Mr. Shifter competitors stepped up their stretching and posing as the camera panned around.
Laura clapped half-heartedly.
“Oh, it’s such a shame Mr. Ireland is married,” one of the audience members near Laura lamented.
“I thought that being single was one of the criteria!” another protested.
“No, that’s the International Mr. Shifter competition, this is the World Mr. Shifter. These guys don’t even require that you have modeling experience. Mr. Ireland doesn’t.”
“What does he do?” The first woman was practically drooling.
“Firefighter, I heard.”
“Oh, he can put out my fires any day.”
“Show us your best cheeks, gentlemen!” Jessica was saying enthusiastically.
The Mr. Shifters lined up at the white chalk line that had been drawn on the road, pausing to flex and preen and dust invisible things off their shoulders.
This would have been a lot more fun with Jenny to snark with, Laura couldn’t help thinking. Or if she could stop imagining Tex as a contestant. He looked like he could make a steep, four mile jog without getting winded.
Probably carrying a tray of drinks.
In assless chaps.
Laura shook her head firmly, and turned around to walk back down into the resort before they finished the introductions and the starting gun was fired. Maybe this way she could beat the rush on the restaurant and get a good seat and a peaceful latte.
Chapter 10
The restaurant was one level above the bar, with an expanse of indoor seating and a spacious deck that looked down over the bar deck, the pool deck below, and the beach beyond that. Tex found that looking down over the uppermost deck gave an interesting perspective to the view that he usually enjoyed as he worked.
Tex usually closed the bar about midnight and wasn’t up this early, but when the sun rose at five and the birds came alive with the light, he gave up the pretense of trying to sleep and came to rustle breakfast from the kitchens. Chef, raising an eyebrow at him, didn’t question his early appearance or the circles under his eyes. He just gave him a plate with a fresh bun stuffed with an arcane egg and sausage scramble.
Marie had been helping in the kitchen, and gave him a long, plaintive look, but she didn’t attempt to stop him when he left.
Scarlet allowed the staff to eat anything they wanted from the kitchens or the buffet, but discouraged them from mingling with the guests to eat their food. Tex had every intention of heading back to the conference room with his culinary prize, or even retreating to the closed bar to eat it there.
But then he felt her. Jenny, he thought and everything was wrong about the way her name sounded in his head.
He hadn’t caught more than a glimpse of her the day before, desperately busy during the morning helping Travis piece together some questionable plumbing at one of the smaller cottages, and even busier at the bar after dinner until midnight. Celebrities, he found, came with more ridiculous demands for their drinks than any clientele he’d ever served. Never had so many olives been found unsatisfactory, or mixing methods been called into question.
He’d been grateful not to have the time to think about Jenny, because she came with such a pang of pain and confusion.
Now, though, she was here, at the same level he was, being seated at a table that completely blocked a subtle escape. He either had to walk within arms reach behind her, or walk out straight in front of her.
Frozen with indecision, Tex only watched her, doing what he suspected was a terrible job of camouflaging himself in the potted plants near the railing.
Even from here, she was so beautiful. Her dark hair was soft over her chocolate shoulders. Tex was mesmerized by the little motions she made with her hand as she ordered, and the flicker of a smile over her mouth at some joke of Breck’s.
He was shallowly glad when she responded coolly to the head waiter’s obvious flirtation, and irrationally angry when Breck was able to make her laugh with his pout.
Tex took another bite of Chef’s breakfast concoction and finally made the decision to try to creep behind Jenny. It was possible she wouldn’t notice him on that route, even if it would take more willpower to be that close to her and keep going.
Then he paused, trying to figure out what felt so wrong.
The sounds of the restaurant were all exactly right; the low murmur of conversation with the occasional laugh, and the clink of cutlery and the sounds of eating. More guests were arriving as the morning grew later, and there were the sounds of chairs scooting as they took their seats. It was busier than it usually was, but that had become the new normal with the booming event business.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary; servers bringing plates of food and speciality coffee drinks, and clearing off tables and refilling coffee and water. The guests varied between bleary-eyed and clearly fighting hangovers, to energetic looking, probably fresh from Lydia’s morning yoga. The early light shimmered over the open deck in ripples through the potted plant leaves.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about the little breeze that blew in over the open dining area, or the birds that sang.
It was the smell. It wasn’t just the food, and the breakfast drinks, and the tang of the jungle plants. He could also smell each person, under whatever cologne or deodorant they were wearing, and whatever they had brushed their teeth with. It was a tangled, many-faceted sense, and part of it was… wrong.
Bear was roaring in his head as Tex dropped his breakfast, shifting as he leaped across the room.
In one swift swipe of an enormous paw, the latte that was being served to Jenny went flying, to shatter against one of the support columns.
After an understandable flurry of gasps and shrieks, the chairs that Tex had knocked over stilled, and the dining room went silent. Tex was aware that he was the focus of absolutely everyone, forks frozen over plates, some of the guests even standing in alarm. Jenny’s latte dripped slowly to the floor in a foamy mess.
He opened his mouth to explain, but it came out in a rumbling growl.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Tex heard the distinctive click of Scarlet’s shoes before he saw her, pacing decisively towards them.
“I had to save her,” Tex tried to say, but it was an ursine whine.
“Would you care to explain this, Mr. Williams? I suspect your human shape would be more useful to communication.” Scarlet crossed her arms and waited.
Tex sheepishly shifted, realizing that he was completely naked and that his staff uniform had been completely destroyed in his rush. He was keenly aware of Jenny, plastered back in her chair in shock, and to some lesser degree, aware of Breck, who was still holding an empty hand out to her, frozen in place. He glanced behind him to realize that he’d broken one table leaping over it, and cracked several chairs. His hat was tottering on the edge of the railing, next to a broken planter littered with shreds of his polo shirt. Graham was going to have words with him about that.
He cleared his
throat. “I apologize for the disruption, ma’am,” he said to Scarlet, with a nod to Jenny without looking at her. “I… ah, smelled something.”
One of Scarlet’s eyebrows inched towards her neat hairline. “You smelled something.”
“Yes ma’am,” Tex said firmly, drawing himself up to his full height despite his urge to grab a napkin from the table to cover himself with. “A bear’s nose is more powerful than a bloodhound’s, and I smelled something.” He pointed at the coffee drink that had puddled on the floor. “That’s poisoned.”
The gasp from the audience was theatrically perfect.
Scarlet’s second eyebrow joined the first. “Poisoned?”
There was the snap of a cellphone camera shutter, and Scarlet’s head pivoted to glare at the photographer. The woman gave a quavering smile against her glower and put her phone sheepishly down on the table at once.
That released a titter of quiet conversation and speculation, and Breck sat down heavily in the empty chair opposite Jenny.
“Damn, Tex. Give a little warning next time you’re going to be a two-thousand pound brown bear and slap a mug out of my hand,” Breck said breathlessly.
“It’s Jenny, right?” Scarlet said to the wide-eyed woman.
At her silent nod, Scarlet extended a hand. “I apologize for the disruption of your meal, but if I could ask you a few questions more privately?”
Jenny stood up, exchanging a brief, terrified look with Tex.
“Breck, please see that we have a record of everyone — staff and guests - that were in and out of here this morning.” Scarlet’s voice was deceptively calm. “Collect as much of the coffee as you can, and keep the pieces of the mug. Get the rest of this cleaned up and make sure that our guests enjoy their breakfast.”
Breck came to his feet smartly, and immediately started getting his dazed staff in order as people slowly (and suspiciously) returned to their meals.
Tex trailed after Scarlet and Jenny protectively, shaken by the stark fear in her eyes. He didn’t know what she was so desperately afraid of, but he knew that he had to protect her.
Chapter 11
The bear should have frightened her. A gigantic, snarling brown bear had loped across the deck at her, destroying tables and chairs, and smashed the coffee cup from her very fingertips. Laura knew that she should have been quaking in her shoes at the near-assault, and she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t feared for her life at any point in that blurry moment.
It was Tex’s words that shot cold terror into her heart.
Poison.
Her latte had been poisoned.
That meant the cartel had found her. She’d been followed under her sister’s name to this foreign resort, and they were still trying to get to her.
There was no place in the world that was safe for her.
“What kind of poison was it?” Scarlet asked, once they were out of the restaurant and in a little office off the kitchens with the door closed. Laura sank into the only available chair without asking, sure that her shaking knees weren’t going to hold her any longer.
Tex took an apron off a hook near the door and used it to do a poor job of covering his nakedness. Laura was grateful for that much coverage; a completely naked Tex was extremely distracting. She kept imagining what she would do to him, what his skin would feel like if she touched him.
“Rattlesnake venom,” Tex said confidently.
Scarlet frowned at him. “We don’t have any rattlesnake shifters registered among the staff or the guests. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, ma’am,” he said firmly. “We found a rattlesnake nest on the ranch when I was a lad, and I will never forget that scent.”
Scarlet turned her sharp emerald eyes to Laura, and Laura shivered at the intensity in them. Surely this woman was looking right through her flimsy disguise.
“Do you know why someone would attempt to poison you?”
“No,” Laura lied, hoping her squeak sounded sincere. She could think of at least two reasons — either the cartel she’d been reluctantly working for thought she’d snitched, or the rival cartel had figured out who she was. Either one of them would want her out of the picture, and had already tried to do that, taking her sister instead. She swallowed the grief that welled up in her throat.
“Would rattlesnake poison have killed you?” Scarlet’s gaze was direct and unnerving.
It would have killed Jenny, Laura realized with a start. Her sister wasn’t a shifter. Laura might have burned off the poison if she’d shifted, but Jenny definitely wouldn’t have been able to. She felt safe giving an uncertain shrug, not really sure who she was answering for.
“You represented Mr. Stubbins, the producer of the Mr. Shifter event, when he broke contract with the previous resort, didn’t you?” Scarlet suggested. “Could there be some hard feelings there?”
Laura had only the foggiest idea what Jenny had done with the contract, or how she had handled that case; most of what she knew about law was based on sensational cop shows. “I suppose there could be?” she said hesitantly, hoping it wouldn’t raise questions about the details.
“Wouldn’t that mean Mr. Stubbins was a target?” Tex suggested. Laura could have kissed him. Not that she didn’t already want to kiss him, with his gorgeous, suntanned muscles not at all covered by the tiny apron he was wearing.
Scarlet pursed her lips thoughtfully and said decisively, “I’m going to have some trusted extra security assigned to him. Tell Graham to clean up and report to the office. Travis has got too much to do.” She looked at Tex appraisingly. “You keep an eye on Ms. Smith.” Tex thought there was a hint of a smile in the corner of her mouth. “I’ll report this to the authorities, of course, but they’re not likely to react quickly.”
Authorities were the last thing that Jenny wanted to involve, but she couldn’t very well say that. Everything was unravelling far too rapidly for her to follow.
“I’m very sorry that you’ve run into this trouble at our resort,” Scarlet said sincerely. “We will do our very best to find the person responsible and keep you protected in the meantime.”
Was Scarlet afraid of a lawsuit? Laura abruptly remembered that she was supposedly a lawyer and it was probably a valid concern. “I’m sure it’s not your fault,” she said faintly. Probably that wasn’t very lawyer-y of her to say.
Scarlet gave her an unexpected smile. “I’m sure it’s not,” she agreed dryly. Then, to Laura’s dismay, she added, “I would love to consult with you at some time regarding the Shifting Sands contract. I’ve been butting heads with the owner’s lawyer about some of our lease details, and I would appreciate an experienced set of eyes on the wording.”
It was everything Laura could do not to squirm and start crying. One wrong word out of her mouth would betray her masquerade now. She kept her gaze locked with Scarlet with effort, but she knew that her hands would be shaking if they weren’t clenched tightly in her lap.
“I would pay for your time, of course,” Scarlet added, guessing the cause of her discomfort incorrectly. “Now, I’ve got paperwork to file and samples to store. I’ll be taking witness statements from the guest and staff most of the day. If you need anything, be sure to let me know.”
Then she was sweeping out, pulling out her cellphone as she went, and the silence in her wake was awkward and deep as Laura kept dragging her eyes away from Tex.
Who was still wearing nothing but an apron.
“I’m so sorry I frightened you,” he said, in that thick southern drawl.
Laura gave a strangled sound that was meant to be a laugh. “Frighten me?” she chuckled. “You saved my life.” She found that tears were gathering in her eyes against her will. All of her resolve seemed to have vanished in Scarlet’s wake.
Tex looked horrified. “Oh, ma’am, no!” He knelt before her, taking her unresisting hands in his own big ones.
“Don’t call me ma’am,” Laura sniffed.
“Jenny…”
“I’m not Jenny.�
� The words were out before she could stop them.
Tex blinked at her, but kept looking at her with those painfully trusting eyes. “I thought…?”
“Laura. I’m Jenny’s twin sister, Laura. Laurelangelina Lily.”
“You’re… not… Jenny.”
Were they back to ‘he’s an idiot?’
It was just a shame he was such a gorgeous idiot.
“Why would you do that for me?” she asked before she thought about it. “Save me, I mean.”
“I love you,” Tex replied.
Laura’s breath caught in her throat. “What?!” It was absurd. Mating wasn’t love. It wasn’t love that was making her nethers heat up. It wasn’t love that made her think about the way Tex’s hands would feel on her skin.
But somehow, hearing him say the words was a knife-twist to the gut in a new and agonizing way.
It felt like hope.
Flustered, Tex twisted the apron in his big hands, which made it cover even less of him. Laura caught a tantalizing glimpse of his half-hard member before he shifted uncomfortably.
“I don’t mean I love you, exactly. I hardly know you. And apparently I know you less than I thought, since the you I knew wasn’t you. But I… I couldn’t let you get poisoned. Not that I’d let anyone get poisoned, but you… you’re everything.”
It sounded like a line. In his ridiculous cowboy accent, it sounded like it had been written for the most awful movie in the world.
And Laura believed every syllable of it.
She believed that she was everything to him, that, however deluded he might be, he believed she hung the stars. No matter what happened, how stupid she was, he would come galloping for her over any obstacle. He was her knight in a cowboy hat. He was her… everything.
Without meaning to, Laura reached out to touch his face.
He was looking up at her adoringly, and when her fingertips brushed his jaw, he caught her hand in his own and kissed it.
Was there no end to his dramatic gallantry? His mouth on her knuckles was more potent than the liquor he’d served her, and Laura was grateful she was sitting; her knees were suddenly very shaky, and she was uncomfortably aware of all her intimate parts.
