Page 6

Chapter Six

Barrett

“You’ll sleep in the bed,” I said. My bear groaned inwardly, and I reminded him exactly how inappropriate it would be to suggest I crawled into bed with a client.

She’s not just a client , he argued.

Right, she’s a client that could have a bounty on her head.

Tegan bit her lip. Her lipstick was long gone at this point, her hair was wild from our travels, and her eye makeup had smudged. “Where will you sleep?”

She practically just gave you an engraved invitation ? —

Shut up, bear.

“I’ve spent many a night on the floor.” I moved quickly over to the closet. I needed the distraction before my bear convinced me to agree with him. Thank the moon, I found some extra pillows and blankets.

I got myself set up, and Tegan headed into the bathroom. I’d been aware of the sleeping arrangements when I booked the cabin. It was the only one available for an open-ended rental at the last minute. But I wasn’t prepared for the rush of feelings this job had given me.

The mating ceremony.

Having a woman in my arms again.

This fucking emptiness that I’d learned to ignore came racing back to the surface, threatening to throttle me if I didn’t do something about it.

But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I’d treat Tegan like any other client. She deserved that respect.

I could do this, I convinced myself. My resolve was strong as I put my makeshift bed together. Considering my resources, it wouldn’t be half as bad as some of the places I’d slept while on assignment. I was a bear, I wasn’t opposed to spending the night in a forest, or on the side of a mountain. But like anyone else, I enjoyed a good bed.

Just as I pulled the blanket over me, Tegan came out of the bathroom wearing nothing but my shirt.

Hot. Fucking. Damn.

She’d swept her hair up on top of her head and wiped away as much of her makeup as she could. The shirt went down to her thighs, which were bare except for the flower and vine tattoo that started at her ankle and disappeared under the fabric.

“Nice ink.” I groaned inwardly. “Sorry, that probably wasn’t the most professional thing to say.”

“It’s probably not professional to be having a sleepover, or for me to be wearing your clothes, but here we are.” She yawned again as she sat on the bed. A little more of the tat revealed itself as she crossed her legs.

Hell yes. My bear approved. Can’t wait to find the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.

“We should probably be honest with ourselves and admit that we’re not gonna get any sleep tonight,” she said.

I raised a brow. “Excuse me?”

Told you so.

“Oh, not like that.” She laughed and waved her hand. “I’m exhausted, but my mind is racing. Every time Gideon does something completely awful, my anxiety keeps me up all night.”

“You didn’t give him a chance to do anything awful today,” I couldn’t stop my voice from rumbling. I hated that this wolf had her so scared. “You’re safe with me.”

“I keep telling myself that, but then I’m worried I might have put you in danger too.” She sighed. “I won’t be able to forgive myself if Gideon does something to you in retaliation. So maybe we should consider this the moment when the job is complete, and I’ll make sure you have my email address to send me the invoice. And since I’m sitting here in your shirt, I feel like I can be honest with you and say we might have to set up an installment plan. I’m pretty sure any money I planned to get from Moonlight Mates will be tied up in some breach of contract nonsense since I left rather unexpectedly.”

My bear roared inside me. Hell no. Don’t let this woman go.

“No,” I gritted out, trying to control the feelings of the beast within. “The job isn’t done. We haven’t had a chance to talk about what you know, what you saw while working for Gideon. And you said yourself that you expect him to retaliate. I didn’t get you out of that phony marriage just to leave you vulnerable to a worse attack.”

Tegan sighed and leaned back on the headboard of the bed. She hugged a pillow to her stomach, like she could feel my gaze on her.

Sweet moon, she was beautiful.

“Normally, I’d spend my insomnia time doom scrolling on my phone, but that’s not an option.” She bit her lip again.

“When my daughter was little and she couldn’t sleep, I’d read to her,” I said.

Tegan bristled. Maybe I shouldn’t have compared her to my daughter. But my bear was making all kinds of inappropriate suggestions about how he could help her fall asleep.

“Then when she got older, she outgrew the stories, but she couldn’t fall asleep,” I continued. “So I used to let her tell me stories. She has a pretty wild imagination. Then she’d add in her aeronautics studies. Half the time, I had no idea what she was talking about, but I loved listening to every bit of it.”

“You’re a good dad.” Tegan had finally relaxed, and as much as she didn’t plan to sleep, there was no denying she was exhausted.

“I was supposed to call her tonight, and I forgot,” I rumbled. “Pretty sure that knocks me off the pedestal you just put me on.”

“I’d love to say that daughters are super understanding when their dads get too wrapped up in work, but it’s definitely not a quality I ever mastered. In fact, it might be the direct source of my daddy issues.” She grinned when I groaned. “The good news is, if your daughter is anything like me—although I must say she sounds way smarter—she’ll appreciate any effort that you put into making it up to her. And if you insist on sticking with me, I’ll make sure that you do it.”

Natalie was fourteen, at the age that too many fuckups like this could cause me to lose her. She was already so far away. Wasn’t sure she’d be ready to welcome another woman into our lives—that was, if Tegan planned to do any more than a little behind the scenes advising.

With both my daughter and this job, I was in way over my head, and I needed all the help I could get.

“Deal.”

Tegan slept like a rock, snoring softly but barely moving. How did I know that? Because I didn’t sleep a wink. My thoughts raced all night, thinking about what it would be like to finally get the best of Silverclaw, to the utter disappointment Natalie must have felt when I didn’t call her back. Although she hadn’t left me any messages, I could feel the judgment radiating all the way from Houston.

I rubbed the crick in my neck while I waited for Bellamy to arrive, and texted Natalie.

Me: Sorry about last night. Job was a little more involved than I was expecting. How was your test?

Natalie : No worries…I went out with some of my friends last night. I think I did okay.

Me: Just okay?

Didn’t believe it for a second. Okay was on par with failure in Natalie’s world. One of these days, I’d get her to stop being so hard on herself.

Natalie: I might have aced it. *wink emoji*

Me: That’s my girl. We’ll have to figure out a long distance celebration.

Natalie: Ooh, I can think of a few things.

Me: Whatever you want. We’ll make it happen, okay?

Natalie: You’re the best.

Me: Remember that the next time I say something you don’t like. Bellamy’s here. Gotta go.

I sent her off with a kiss emoji and slipped my phone in my pocket.

“I have so many questions.” Bellamy chuckled as he handed me a coffee. My second in command was far too experienced to show up without it. “Why do you look like you’re doing the walk of shame, and how come we’re starting work before the sun is even up? Is there some sort of emergency where you have to pose as a male exotic dancer?”

“Funny.” All I had on was my suit jacket. I’d be asking questions too. “Tegan needed something to sleep in. I gave her my shirt. I couldn’t sleep, we have no supplies, and I figured we’d be a lot more efficient if we didn’t wait for a clock to tell us when it was time to get to work.”

“Did she give you any dirt on Silverclaw?”

I shook my head as I took my first full sip of coffee. It was strong and a little sweet, and I groaned as my brain immediately went to an image of Tegan, with her pink hair splayed on the pillow, her lips slightly parted… “Not anything we didn’t already know.”

Bellamy grunted. He wasn’t a morning bear, but I’d been telling him for years that he needed to get over it if he wanted to work in this business.

“I take it you’ve seen the Moonlight Mates social media page,” he said.

“Not yet.”

“I say this with respect, because you sign my paychecks, but what the fuck did you do last night?” He raised a suspicious brow as he turned onto Main Street. “Scratch that. I can come to my own conclusions. So since one of us actually worked on the case last night, let me tell you what’s going on. The show’s using Tegan’s abduction, as they’re calling it, as the best free publicity they’ve ever had. They’ve been live streaming all night, splicing it with canned footage of Tegan and interviewing her fellow contestants live. The website has crashed a few times because it can’t handle the traffic. They’ve got a vague description of you and the getaway car, but because I switched out the plates, they’re unable to trace it. But they’re doing their damnedest to find us.”

I took another sip of my coffee and digested that information. “Not surprised they went that route, but it’s interesting they wouldn’t try to cover it up, since they know what Silverclaw is up to.”

“Do we know?” Bellamy grunted. “Right now, we look like the criminals. Silverclaw looks like the poor groom who got stood up by the runaway bride. All the momentum’s on his side. Which means as soon as we get back to the cabin, Tegan needs to tell us every single detail of what she knows, and we need to find a way to go public with it.”

“She’ll talk. She just needed some time to decompress after last night. And for me to convince her I’m not working for Silverclaw.” I grinned before I took another sip to wash away the vision of her in my shirt.

That tattoo.

“Your face lights up when you talk about her.”

“She’s just a client.”

“Like hell she is. She’s dangerous. She’s pissed off Silverclaw, and to be perfectly honest, there’s a possibility that she could be working with him,” Bellamy said as he pulled into the parking spot. “You bested his ass last time you saw him.”

“He still got our land.”

“But you sent him away with many wounds to lick. I’d bet they left scars. And this reality show is eating up the drama like it’s a hot fudge sundae. They’ll try to push him over the edge if it means better ratings. And if they could catch a shifter fight on camera, it would give them the jackpot. I’m just saying, be careful. I’ll be more than happy to kick some wolf ass if I need to, but let’s try to keep that from happening.”