The Cougar's Wish (Desert Guards) (15 page)

“Fuck you? See, there, you’re mistaken. I was going to, even if I know I damn well shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re Belle Foye.”

“You’re a hypocrite.” She sat up and wriggled into her panties. “You
just
said you wanted to do things for me and that I should ask for help, and now you’re telling me you didn’t mean it that way?”

“You misunderstand me. I said I
shouldn’t
, not that I wasn’t going to.”

“And why shouldn’t you? Go on and state the obvious.”

“If it’s obvious, why make me say it?”

“I want to hear it out of your lips. Tell me about how I’m only good for one thing and only in private.”

Anger flashed across his features, and those dark eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re way out of line there.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah, seeing as how you hate my guts. What do you care if I only touch you when no one can see and no one knows? Trust me, I keep a secret better than damn near anyone, kitten.”

“I don’t want to be your secret.”

“That’s right, because you don’t want to be with me at all. I just did you a favor because I don’t have a problem being nice to you even when you’re cranky as hell. I know you don’t mean anything by it.”

Belle growled as she stepped into her jeans. Her inner cat didn’t think it was a favor, and apparently she knew the difference. Or maybe she just didn’t
want
it to be a favor.

The lady side of her brain didn’t know what to make of it, but she did know she was uncomfortable, and when she was uncomfortable, she said mean things and acted in ways she’d probably regret.

She found her shoes behind Steven’s feet, pulled them out, and stepped into them.

She bent to tie the laces, and Steven sighed, standing.

“Gonna clam up on me again, huh?” he asked.

“I don’t know what else you were expecting.”

“Just talk to me. You know you can.”

“I’m good.”

“No, you’re not. Just like I’m not. I don’t pretend, and neither should you.”

“Don’t make this awkward.”

“Not awkward to me. I’ve still got a job to do, and I plan to do it.”

She finished tying her laces, stood, and whipped around to face him. She jabbed her fingers against one hard bicep and sneered at him. “Lines are blurring. Let’s not have that happening.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Just like that, huh?
She snatched her phone out of her pocket and called Mason.

“Hey, Belle. Good thing you called. Mom has some stuff for you to do since you’re out here.”

Belle sighed and turned her back to Steven, who was watching her far too intently. “What kind of stuff? And what’s going on with the hellmouth? Can I head back that way now?”

“Ranch stuff. She sold a horse, I think, and needs to get it ready to ship. Most of the experienced ranch hands have their hands full.”

“With Cougar stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“And the hellmouth?”

“They’re pretty confident they’ll be able to close it tomorrow as soon as conditions are right.”

“Are they still there? Claude and the rest, I mean.”

“Yeah. Mom is making a big dinner for those of them who actually eat. A few are staying the night. Less teleporting for them to have to do tomorrow.”

“Who’s staying?”

“Claude and Gail with me and Ellery. Claude’s brothers, too. I think they’re going to stay at Sean’s. The rest’ll come back.”

Oh, good.
She wouldn’t have to scramble to catch up with Claude. Maybe that was why he hadn’t let her know anything about her little ghostly affliction yet.

“I’ll be down there in a bit. We’ll start riding that way now.”

“I’ll let Mom know.”

Belle ended the call, then tucked the phone away. She turned slowly, expecting to see Steven watching her, but he wasn’t paying her any attention. He was on his own phone and striding to the door.

“I don’t know,” he said into the phone. “Maybe next week.”

Belle followed him out and closed up the bunkhouse, trying not to be nosy, but she was a cat. Of course she was nosy.

He mounted his horse with his phone pressed between his cheek and shoulder and adjusted his reins in one hand.

Must have been like riding a bike for him, and Belle didn’t particularly want to think about the princess he’d gotten his practice with. That princess had probably never been thrown from a horse or pushed one much beyond a trot.

She scoffed as she mounted Roast. Leaning forward to give his neck a rub, she watched Steven head on without her. She followed at a fairly disrespectful distance, if it could be considered following at all. She was half a horse’s length behind him and consuming every word that came out of his mouth.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” he said. “I can’t be there right now, so what difference does it make if I had the time off approved or not? The fact that it wasn’t cleared isn’t going to make me head back any sooner, and I already
know
I’m not being paid at this point. What do you want me to say?”

Ah. Must be work.
Steven had taken a lot of time off, but knowing Mason, he’d probably find a way to make it up to him so the lessened cash flow didn’t hurt so badly.

“Dad, tell them whatever you want, but listen—I really don’t want you playing intermediary between me and HR. Stay out of my business and out of my personnel file, too. We don’t work in the same unit, so there’s no reason for you to be snooping around. If you’re trying to devise some covert means to learn what’s going on with Hannah, you’d have better luck holding your breath and waiting for her to call you.”

Belle pushed Roast to catch up so he was even with Mousse and looked brazenly toward Steven. A nosy cat had to do what a nosy cat had to do, and Belle’s inner cat wanted to know when her keeper was going away.

Without another word, Steven swiped his thumb across the screen and shoved the phone into his pocket. He said nothing, just rode, a little faster than they’d come, but not exactly pushing the horse to a run.

She let out a breath and gave herself permission to speak the words and reveal her curiosity. “Are you fired?”

He scoffed. “Probably close to it.”

“You don’t seem too broken up about it.”

“I’m not worried about it. Like I said, I can get a job anywhere.”

“Just like that, huh?”

“I’ve got a sparkling service record and the highest solved cases rate in my unit. If I get fired for having to take time off, I think any department looking to hire me would be able to see through the bullshit and know it’s not a habit for me.”

If he got fired, he wouldn’t have to rush back to Raleigh.
Not that I care if he does.

He leaned over, and she barely had time to flinch as his fingers skimmed against her ear. It seemed like an odd time for a caress, but all made sense when he tossed a piece of straw over Roast’s back.

“Must have been on the sofa,” he said.

“Oh.”

They rode in silence until the stables loomed in the distance. Belle saw her car parked along the side of the fence, and that triggered her awareness that the ride was nearly finished. She didn’t want it to be, but there was nothing she could or was willing to do about that.

“Um ...” Maybe she wasn’t willing, but the part of her that was cat was more aggressive about demanding attention when she wanted it.

“Yeah?”

I don’t have anything to say.
“Is that what you want to do?”
What am I even asking?

“What, working with police?”

She shrugged.

“Dunno. It was a natural progression. Did I think it was what I was going to be doing when I was a freshman in high school and trying to figure out what I was good at? No.”

“What did you think you were going to be doing?” She didn’t need to know. It wasn’t important. The cat wanted to know. The cat thought it would make a difference, somehow.

“Like I said before, I went into the service because my dad did and his father before him, and after that, I figured I’d go to school. I did that when I got out. Went straight from there to ATF and then back home when I burned out, which happened right on schedule, I’m hearing. Working for the police was the easy next thing, but is it what I would have been doing if I’d actually sat down and planned out my life? I don’t think so.”

“That’s kind of like me and being a waitress.”

“What would you rather be doing? Going to school?”

“Nah. I didn’t need to. I come from a long line of ranchers, and that’s what I
should
be doing, but I ... just can’t.”

“You could if you wanted to.”

“Not if I’m leaving the glaring.”

“Why do you insist that you need to leave?”

“I’ve explained this to you. I can’t be here and be myself.”

“You haven’t tried.”

“How do you know that?”

“Listen, I haven’t known your brothers for anywhere near as long as you have, but I get the feeling that eventually, they’ll back down if you give them a good reason to. They compromise with their mates every day, and lord knows those ladies aren’t holding knives to their throats to get them to concede. Obviously, the Foye men are capable of logic, even if it takes a while for all the pieces to come together in their brains.”

“So what are you saying, just
talk
to them? Talking doesn’t work.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to leave?”

“Of course I don’t really want to leave. I said I
had
to. I don’t want to be away from my mother and my nephew or any other nieces and nephews that’ll come in the future. I just don’t want to be coddled and suppressed. I want to be able to go places and see things. To explore and have the kind of adventures I want without having chaperones telling me what I can or can’t do.”

“You
do
understand why you have a chaperone right now, don’t you?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know why you’re here as well as I do. Feel free to leave, and rest assured, I’ll be fine. Claude said my spiritual hitchhiker wasn’t malevolent.”

“But it was obviously piggybacking on your efforts to seek out that portal to hell. Whether it had good intentions or not, the consequences could have been devastating for you. Looking out for each other is something family does and does well, if they let each other.”

“Are you telling me to grin and bear it?”

“No. That’s my mother’s philosophy, and it’s part of the reason Hannah and I are so screwed up. What I’m telling you is figure out a way to get what you want and what you
need
that doesn’t involve running from what you love.”

“Wise words.”
But easier said than done.

She dismounted Roast at the entrance to the stables and led the horse into the dim building. Steven did the same with Mousse.

“But it’s doable, right?” Steven asked. “What do you want?”

She got Roast squared away, relieving him of the saddle, and then started brushing down his coat. “How do I get what I want?” she whispered.

Roast didn’t have an answer, and that made two of them.

She suspected it would help if she actually honed in on what the things she wanted were ... and what Steven had to do with it all. Given her cat half’s insistent needling about the man, and the overwhelming compulsion for Belle to put herself into his space, she couldn’t keep lying to herself and saying that he didn’t mean anything.

He annoyed the ever-loving snot out of her, but she knew down to her toenails that he meant something.

He was hers.

Steven waited for Belle to finish the ranch chore Glenda had begged of her, watching as she gently guided the horse into a trailer and waited with it until the ranch hand Darnell was ready to drive off.

It wasn’t so much because Steven thought Belle was going to try to make a run for it, but he liked watching the woman work. Actually, he liked watching her
period
, which was how he’d ended up with his libido turned up to eleven and barely holding it together in that bunkhouse.

If he were a decent man, he would have regretted touching her more. Nope. He liked knowing he’d frustrated her a little and that he’d gotten under her skin. It was selfish of him, trying to draw her in when he knew damn well he was no good for her. He didn’t think any other man was good for her, either, though, so why shouldn’t it be
him
helping her out? Besides, she was young. She’d get over him quickly enough when he was gone.

She moved toward the barn wall he was leaning against and yipped, clutching her chest as if he’d given her a fright.

“I’ve been standing here the whole time, peanut,” he said.

“I think I knew that at the back of my mind, but I guess I got distracted.”

“By—”

She put up her hands. “No, not possessed. Just distracted. Thinking about too much all at once.”

“Like what? Take a load off your mind.”

“No.” With that, she headed toward her mother’s house, wiping her hands on her jeans as she went.

“Dinner’s ready. I guess you care,” he said.

She stopped. “Is
everyone
there?”

“Probably.”

Her shoulders fell. “Take me home.”

“No.” He put his palm to the small of her back and got her moving again. “Maybe nobody will pay you any mind. With everything else going on, I think that’s conceivable.”

“That’d be the idea, but it’s not gonna happen.”

“Make it happen.”

She stopped again, turned, and set her hands on her hips. “Just that simple, huh? That’s a very black-and-white,
male
way of thinking. You just push through life, and if you’re not getting things your way, you push a little harder.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t say it was going to be simple, sweet pea. I said
make it happen
.”

She snarled at him.

He bobbed his eyebrows at her. “Is that your idea of foreplay or is that just the noise you make when you’re thinking really hard? ’Cause I gotta tell you, I like you a lot when you’re on your back, but maybe we should slow things down a hair. At least until you realize who was touching you.”

“I’m pretty sure I was in my right mind at the moment, though I may plead otherwise if you keep on talking shit the way you are.”