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“Did you steal from him and he found out? Did you stiff him on a deal and my sister almost died for it?”
Rex’s stool crashes to the ground as he lunges for me but, in a flash, Natalie is between us, and Rex immediately pulls back. I don’t break eye contact with him, unmoved by his display of aggression as I watch him closely for any signs of guilt. I continue to remain calm until Natalie’s slender hand touches Rex’s chest, gently urging him back.
Then I want to strangle him.
“Boys, this is a bit over the top for an evening in Taaffe’s. You’re family now. Can you not just get along?”
Rex doesn’t respond to Natalie, but he does straighten his shoulders and step away from her touch. Immediately, my temper simmers back down to a manageable level. Natalie stoops to pick up the toppled stool and purposely keeps her back to me, showing me she’s unafraid. Either she’s choosing to ignore her self-defence training to prove a point, or she has good reason not to be scared.
Maybe it’s both.
“I think I’ve had enough for tonight,” Rex mutters, snatching his jacket and giving Cooper a loaded look. Rex is hot-headed, but he has enough sense to leave before he loses his temper. He briefly rests a hand on Natalie’s shoulder, assuring her that he’s in control and going straight home, then he stalks out the door.
The bar is completely silent apart, from the sound of the door swinging closed behind Rex. The air pulses with tension. Every pair of eyes turn to Cooper, then me, waiting to see what’s going to happen next.
Starting a bar fight is normally considered a bad thing, but I spot several women eyeing me up, lust shining in their eyes as they blatantly give me a once over.
Natalie lingers, waiting to see if we’re going to tear out each other’s throats, but still won’t look at me. I want to see her beautiful brown eyes, to see if she has the same heat in her gaze when she looks at me. Stubbornly, unlike the other women openly eyeing me, she looks everywhere but in my direction, and, one-by-one, everyone in the bar drops their gazes and returns to their own conversations.
“Happy?” Cooper asks with a weary sigh, using his boot to push the stool beside him out for me to sit.
“Kind of.” Shrugging, I take the olive branch he’s offering and settle onto the stool beside him. Sean slides another beer toward me with a look of warning. He doesn’t want any more disturbances. I could find myself with no beer and no roof over my head if I don’t watch it.
“Are you two capable of playing nicely?” Natalie asks quietly. I notice she’s standing closer to me than Cooper without even realising it. It makes me irrationally happy. When Cooper and I continue to size each other up, ignoring her question, she huffs in exasperation and spins to walk away. Catching her wrist in my hand, I tug her back and turn away from Cooper, but not before I clock the look of surprise on his face.
“What’s in the box, Natalie?” I encourage her to tell me what I want to know by adopting a lower tone of voice and adding some force to my words. It’s a favourite trick of mine, and I wait patiently for her to spill. Instead, her eyes narrow, and I swallow hard as her jaw clenches and her cheeks turn slightly pink in anger.
She can’t know what I’m doing, can she?
“It’s…,” curiosity gets the better of me and I lean in when she whispers, glancing around to see if anyone is listening, “...still none of your fucking business.”
Damn, her.
She’s not intimidated, quite the opposite. She steps into my personal space, jabbing me in the chest with a red-painted nail, one that I want to see trail across my skin. “And don’t try to pull that bossy, I’m in charge shit on me again, Chase Walker.”
Grinding my teeth, I stare after her as she rejoins her friends, a mixture of admiration and irritation swirling in my veins. Normally I can get most people to give me the information I need just by telling them to give it up. I don’t know how it works, it just does, another of the special gifts I was told never to talk about.
Cooper chuckles and I turn, ready to take out my frustration on him, but instead of mocking me, he looks at me with genuine sympathy and calls Sean for two more beers.
“I feel your pain. That doesn’t work on Hayley, either.” As I stare blankly back at him, he leans over and clinks his bottle against mine. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
CHAPTER 12
NATALIE
Chase is outside again, creeping around in the dead of night. He really has no shame.
I have to admire his dogged determination. I doubt the man knows how to give up.
Lying in bed with the windows open to let in gentle breeze, I can scent him. And it’s delicious. Smiling to myself, I listen as he stealthily approaches my car and tries the handle. Scoffing, I roll my eyes. Does he really think I’d leave the box in my car after he saw it and got all nosy about its contents?
My heart beats rapidly as he comes closer to the house. He moves as quietly as a shifter, his wolf DNA and military training helping him be quick and quiet. Surely, he’s not reckless enough to break in while I’m here?
Yet something tells me he is. He’s already trespassing.
The porch creaks, and he freezes, waiting to see if anything stirs inside, then carefully tiptoes to the long, narrow pane of glass beside my front door. I purposely left the box in the hall, door locked but in plain sight, curious to see what he’d do.
Tingling with anticipation, I hold my breath and wait. Finally, he backs away from the front door and I’m a little disappointed he didn’t give in to temptation. I can almost feel his frustration.
