by Vivian Arend
“But your wolves understand. She can handle it.” Mrs. Fedora’s expressive face changed. “You have, in your slightly unorthodox manner, been hiding out from the world. Perhaps it’s time for that to come to an end.”
“Don’t blame me—Mom and Dad were the ones who chose Alaska to move to. And it’s not hiding out, not really.” The elegant brow went up again. “Okay, it’s hiding out a little, but it worked. We’ve been happy as a family out of the spotlight.”
She tilted her head and fell silent, and he realized the interrogation was over.
If only the brooch burning a hole in his pocket was back in her possession. He spun his partner to check out the dance floor. Keri was still smiling, a happy kind of overwhelmed-but-in-a-good-way sensation sneaking his direction. There were more dancers now, surrounding them as they spun and twirled.
Perfect distraction. He reached into his pocket to grab the jewel, then replaced his hand on Mrs. Fedora’s waist quickly. It was only a second later he realized his idea of pinning the jewels to her and having her “find” them was a bad idea. She’d never be stupid enough to believe she’d sat through an entire meal without noticing.
Frustrated, he brought his hand back and dropped the brooch into his pocket.
Keri stumbled, and Mr. Fedora caught her beautifully. “Everything all right, my dear?”
She nodded quickly and propped up her smile, the corners feeling a little shaky. She’d just seen her mate remove a jewel from Mrs. Fedora’s dress and pocket it. All her hopeful wishes about the thievery being a misunderstanding fled.
She had to save him from himself. “It’s been lovely, but could I dance with my mate?”
Sheer elegance poured from the man as he tilted his head and smoothly brought them over to the other couple. A moment later Keri was in Jared’s arms, physical need rising and frustration not far behind.
“Are you having a good time?” he asked.
“It’s been incredible.”
Jared nodded and pulled her closer as the music slowed. She took total advantage and snuck her hand into his pocket, palming the stolen goods and bringing it out to hide it…
Shit. Hide it where? There was nothing but a thin layer of fabric covering her entire body, and unless she wanted to be doing weird body-cavity stuff, no way could she keep it around for long. She carefully rested her hand on his shoulder, thumb tucked in to hold the jewel, her palm completely covering it.
Under the table she spotted two purses, and really bad inspiration hit. She had to return the jewel to the other woman’s purse and everything would be fine.
Jared nuzzled the side of her neck lightly and she shivered.
Damn wolf hormones, cruise ships and diamonds. All of them, just damn, damn, damn.
Jared savoured the sensation of Keri all tight up against him, the knowledge that he was only millimeters away from her naked skin settling and riling up his wolf simultaneously. He adjusted position and two things happened. First he caught a tiny flash of dazzling light from under her fingers. Then a quick pat of his pocket revealed it was empty. All his hopes that she wasn’t really the thief vanished, and he struggled to hide his sadness.
It was no use. She stiffened, probably sensing his upset. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer. Under the table he’d spotted two purses. If he could just get the jewel back in Mrs. Fedora’s, they could have the next part of the conversation in private. “Nothing will be wrong, but I need it back.”
He spun her gently, giving her time to tighten her grip around what he assumed was the brooch. She swirled out, then back, and he twisted them together, her back tight to his front. He caught her fingers in his and slid both their hands into his jacket pocket.
“Drop it,” he ordered. Keri resisted for a second, but she had to realize if she waited too long all eyes would be on them. “Now, please.”
Her fingers opened and they moved on, sliding apart in the dance. He kept a firm grip on her other wrist so she couldn’t escape. They came back together and he brought their torsos close to make sure she was trapped.
“Oh, Jared, why?”
Even in his head her frustration was crystal clear. “It’s got to be done.”
“Please let me have it, and I promise—”
“It’s okay, I’ve got everything under control. We can talk about the details later. Just know that I will not let anyone arrest you. You’re going to be fine. Trust me.” He put all his caring into the thoughts, all his growing love, because as bizarre as this chaos was, he was falling in love and nothing could stop him from protecting his mate.
The tension in her body changed. “What do you mean, I won’t be arrested?”
The music slowed and they all stood to applaud the band for a moment before he offered his arm to lead her back to their table. He was still eyeing the purses and trying to figure the best way to get at the one he needed. “I mean it. If the brooch is returned there’s no reason for any arrests. I can… Well, I have connections.”
Keri sat prettily even as bewilderment poured off her. “This is so confusing. Why would I be arrested for trying to return a jewel that you stole?”
Chapter Nine
They didn’t say a word beyond polite conversation as they made their excuses and left the ballroom. Keri kept hold of his elbow, stopping him outside one of the formal boardrooms and stabbing in the access code before all but shoving him into the space. She didn’t bother to flick on additional switches, leaving them in the low security lighting that cast shadows and lent a mysterious air to the room.
The beautiful panorama outside the full line of windows overlooking the glittering Pacific Ocean, along with the lights shining off the passing islands, was seen and discarded in a second flat.
He leaned a hip on the massive oak board table, looking all hunky and tasty and stuff, and she had to reel in her hormones big time.
She was pissed off—an important detail to remember—but in the face of six feet of delicious mate, it was really, really difficult.
Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out the brooch and laid it on the table beside him. Even in the low lighting the thing sparkled enough that if Tessa would have been here? She’d have been batting it around in an instant.
Keri pointed. “That. That’s not yours.”
He coughed briefly. “Well, strictly speaking, it is, but it isn’t.”
“Arghhhh!” She stomped across the room, gripped his elegant lapels and got right in his face. “That brooch has been reported missing or stolen. I’m trying to save your ass here, mate, so enough with the cryptic responses. Why did I find it in your tool belt?”
Instant confusion. “In my tool belt? I found the brooch in your desk drawer and recognized it. I didn’t want you to get in trouble so I grabbed it with the intention of—”
“Wait. You found it in my desk? Okay, fine. I totally want to know why you were rummaging around in my desk in the first place, but the brooch was in the drawer because…” Keri paused for effect, “…I found it in your tool belt. So there.”
Jared continued to shake his head as if confused. She was still right up against his body, the heat between them growing. He wrapped his arms around her almost absentmindedly as he spoke. “But I didn’t take it. Honest.”
Staring into his eyes there was no way she doubted his sincerity. Okay, maybe a lust-driven, hormonally charged wolf wasn’t the best bet for discerning truth, but it was all she had to work with. “Then how did it get into your tool belt?”
They gazed into each other’s faces, his fingers trickling over her shoulders again and again as they considered. The constant motion calmed her. Eased her nervous twitching as a million scenarios raced through her brain. Had someone planted it on him? Should they be double-checking the security tapes in the staff room?
It hit at the same moment.
“The bookshelf,” they both shouted.
He picked her up and twirled her, and she laughed with relief. “Oh my goodness
, I thought you were in all kinds of trouble and I was going to have to sit outside your cell and pass you peanut butter sandwiches or something.”
“And I thought you’d gotten into trouble…but that’s enough. We both assumed, and we were wrong.” He lowered her to the table. Stepped back slightly. “We don’t know each other—it’s only been a day, really.”
Keri nodded, a huge sigh of relief escaping her. She clung to his fingers, refusing to let him escape. “So in the interest of easing your mind. I’m not a thief. I have a degree in modern art—which means I’m usually employed as a barista. Tessa got me this gig on the ship to hold her hand while she’s running things for the first time—she’s the business-admin-with-honours student. We’ve been friends for years, and then we roomed together even though she went into a different program than me.”
His smile was real. “That’s the best kind of friends. People who like you for who you are, and not who you are…”
“Totally.” She paused as he kissed her, standing between her legs to hold himself tight to her body. He cupped her chin as he stole the air from her lungs.
Much later he kept a tight hold but spoke next to her ear. “I’m not a thief either. I live in Haines, Alaska. Mom and Dad moved there to start their family in a nice quiet location out of the limelight. They and my sisters moved away to another of the family homes a number of years ago, but I decided to stick with the North.”
One of the family homes?
Keri pushed him back to see him smiling sheepishly. “Go on.”
“Well, the family is kind of in…a good financial position.” He nodded more enthusiastically. “So I do work, but I also get to do a lot of volunteering and—”
She wasn’t a cat, but this slow trickle of non-information was killing her. “Jared? What are you not telling me? Don’t you think not knowing stuff has already caused enough trouble?”
“Definitely, only I don’t want to freak you out.”
She laughed and clutched his neck, pulling him back in for another brief kiss. “If you’re not a thief, I don’t think anything you say can freak me out. Just tell me.”
“Jewels. The family is into jewels. One of the things I do in the North is travel between the four shops the family owns that are located in resort towns along the cruise-tour route. I also help my dad with sketches for layouts—we work online. That brooch? I recognized it because it was commissioned as a gift. My father and I designed it a couple years ago as a birthday gift for my mom’s best friend.”
Her heart might have skipped a beat, which was why there was this ringing in her ears causing her to hear things that couldn’t possibly have been said.
“Your mom and Mrs. Fedora are…best friends?”
He nodded slowly.
“So…you’re not a thief because you could buy that brooch?”
“I could buy this boat.”
Change of mindset needed. The rags-to-riches makeover took a few seconds, and the result was she didn’t really know what to say.
“Okay.”
He leaned over her where she sat on the table. “Okay? That’s it?”
“Well, I figured dancing on the table would seem like a bit of a mercenary response. As would screaming holy shit I hit the jackpot!”
His laugh deepened. “So glad you’re not running away in fear like I’d expected.”
“Fear?”
He nodded. “Because that dinner tonight? Was very informal compared to what we’ve got coming down the line. I can ask my parents to keep the parties small, but there will be a few events we’ll have to attend, like a mating party for some family and business friends.”
A shiver raced over her skin. Maybe she needed to borrow Tessa’s rebounder and sprint for a while. “How many friends are we talking about?”
He shrugged. “Six? Seven?”
She snorted in derision before realizing he couldn’t mean only that many people. Her mouth went dry. “Hundred?”
She held her breath in anticipation. The pause was worse than an answer.
Well, not really.
“Thousand.”
The pent-up air in her lungs escaped in a gasp and she bolted.
He caught her before she could hit the door and hoisted her over his shoulder. “No, no running away.”
Keri laughed and pounded on his back. “Put me down. I’m kidding. I mean, oh my, that’s a hell of a lot of people all wanting to sniff us, but as long as you’re there, it’ll be fine.”
Jared lowered her back to the tabletop. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Poor little me can deal with having mated a millionaire.”
“Oh, you found someone else? With less money?”
She smacked him on the shoulder even as they laughed together. Then he rolled with her to the middle of the table and proceeded to remove all thought of thefts, parties and cash of any sort. Her dress went one way, his suit the other, until the only thing left between them was skin.
It had been a hell of a day. A hell of a good day.
Chapter Ten
Jared stared at his clothes and wondered if swearing like a coal miner in front of his new mate would lose him all the brownie points he’d gained the day before. “Umm, Keri?”
She strolled out of her bathroom in the buff, and he fought to keep from drooling on the carpet. “Yes?”
Concentrate. “You remember I showed up naked yesterday?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget.” She pulled open drawers, and he was really distracted when she bent to get something from the bottom drawer, her naked ass facing—
Oh boy. Concentrate harder. “A co-worker grabbed my things for me and hung them to dry. Someone was nice enough to drop them off here for me this morning, all folded and everything.”
“Well, that is nice.”
“No, it’s not.”
He held the pile out. She slipped a T-shirt over her head before coming to his side. “What’s wrong?”
There was a largish bulge in the front of his jeans—well, he’d had such a thing, but never without actually being in the pants before. And when Keri reached into his pocket, the mysterious objects she pulled out and laid on top of the fabric were exactly what he’d thought they’d find.
A fist full of watches, necklaces and shining diamond earrings.
“You have a very classy tailor.”
Jared snorted in relief. “You’re not mad at me?”
“For what? Good taste in jeans?” Keri patted his naked ass and his blood pressure shot skyward. “That pair with the tatters and the threadbare patch on the crotch you wore when you came on board? Makes me all growly. Especially the part right here…”
His clothes and everything with them fell to the floor as he grabbed her wrist a second after she’d grabbed his jewels. She cupped him gently and he swallowed hard. “Someone put that stuff in there to get me in trouble.”
“Of course they did. But we’ll figure out who.”
Jared groaned as she continued to torture him with her touch. “I have to get to work. Keri, love, stop. You’re killing me.”
She kissed his shoulder and squeezed gently one last time before retreating with a sigh. “Yes, me too. The work bit, as well as the killing me. Let me take the pile of contraband to Tessa, and we’ll get everything back to the proper places. Don’t worry about it.”
“Tessa’s going to think you’ve gone nuts.”
“She’ll understand. She’s a shifter—I mean, she’s a cat, but she gets the mate thing. And you do have an impeccable record, right?”
“And I could buy the boat?”
“That too…” Keri leapt into his arms, clinging like a limpet. “I know I joked about your financial situation, and I’m not mad that you have money, but don’t think that’s the reason you make me happy, okay?”
He kissed her nose, squeezed her tightly. He dressed and sent up a request to whatever shipboard deities there were that time would fly until they could be together again.
; Alone. He should have added alone with Keri to his request. Because it was only thirty minutes after he’d left Keri to head to what he expected would be a dirty, filthy, miserable job assignment before he saw her again.
And they weren’t alone. Least Likely Chaperone for a thousand, Alex…
“You nearly done?”
Chad leaned on the wall, arms folded, and got in the way. The man wasn’t close enough for Jared to shove the toilet plunger over his face, but the thought was tempting. “It’s not working. Looks like we’ll need a snake.”
“Why don’t you go get one?” Chad suggested.
He could do one better. Jared pulled out his phone and texted quickly. “It’ll be here in a minute.”
Chad frowned. “Really?”
“Really. It’s called delegating, Chad. You should try it sometime. I’m here, elbows deep in a project, so one of the guys currently walking the floor will bring the things we need. How long have you been working on this ship, anyway?”
Okay, he wasn’t being as polite as he’d been the day before. But knowing the creep had been after Keri made Jared’s fur stand on end which, when he was in human form, was a really uncomfortable sensation.
“This is my sixth trip. I did five with Tessa’s brother. Now there was a guy who knew how to run things.”
Not if he hired you four more times. “Tessa seems to be doing a great job.”
“She’s a girl.”
Jared kept his mouth shut but his brain screamed good observation, genius.
Chad didn’t need any encouragement. “Always that type. Get the job because they’re family, you know. Flash a little hip, and then poof, they’ve got the position someone more competent should have.”
“Really. Were you looking for her position?”
Chad laughed. “Me? Nahhh. I like coordinating behind the scenes. The front-line stuff was Tony’s place. He was good at it. Should come back.”
Jared wasn’t going to waste air responding. The guy clearly wasn’t listening to anything but his own voice.
Silence reigned except for the sound of sloshing water as he worked the stopped-up water lines.
