Chapter Six
Krista was still fuming as she headed downstairs with her suitcase to meet Blake two hours later.
When she’d told Blake that her presence might make things worse, she hadn’t been trying to weasel out of helping him. She’d been telling the truth. There were people there who’d go out of their way to trip her up if she so much as went to buy a quart of milk in Flowering Dogwood. She was genuinely afraid that if anyone knew she was searching for Ethan, it would make things worse for him.
But here she was, headed right into the lion’s den, so to speak. She and Blake were going to tell everyone that he was her fated mate, and they were going to sniff around and ask questions.
They were going to camp out on public land because they didn’t have any other options—Hattie lived in a tiny one-bedroom trailer, Krista would rather chew her own tail off than stay with her mother, and since she’d burned her bridges with the Reed family, that was a no-go.
There were some distant relations, all of whom would show up at the Ellis shindig, but it wouldn’t be fair to ask to stay with them after her bust-up with Dawnie. Dawnie might hold it against whoever put her up.
So, they’d be sleeping together. In side-by-side sleeping bags. Under the same canvas roof.
As she trudged through the doorway of her condo, she saw a gleaming black SUV idling in the parking circle out front.
Her stomach felt as if an entire conga team was kicking it from the inside, but she’d be damned if she’d let Blake see her feeling worried and vulnerable. She rearranged her features into her pissed-off look, stalked over to the SUV, and put her bag in the back seat. “You’re really going to blend in with this vehicle,” she sniped as she slid in. Flowering Dogwood was all about old beaters and pickup trucks that were held together by bailing twine and rust.
“That’s what you’re there for.” He flashed her a grin.
“Is that you trying to be ingratiating?”
“Yes. How am I doing?”
She stared at him, expression stony. He stared back, and the stare went on and on for a good thirty seconds until her mouth twitched in a grin, despite her best efforts.
“You’re doing terribly. Epic fail,” she said loftily, trying to remember how to look angry and somehow forgetting.
“But I made you smile for a micro-second there, so I count it as a win.”
He handed her a folder, then turned his attention to the road as they pulled away from the curb. “That’s the case file.” He cleared his throat and moved in his seat as if he was trying to find a comfortable position and just couldn’t do it.
She sneaked a quick peek. He had a raging erection that his pants couldn’t conceal. That made her feel at least a little better.
Okay. Focus. Missing kid. Jeez, how selfish was she, perving out on Blake when she should be wracking her brains for answers here?
She flipped through the file, studying it closely. Familiar names jumped out at her, familiar aches throbbing through her heart. “So, the cabin that he disappeared from was owned by this Michael Coffman guy, but it was on land near the Reed property.”
Blake shook his head. “No, that’s government property.”
“Right, on paper, but Dawnie Reed and her kids have a cabin there. Gummi, Percy, and Eva-Jo. And whatever foundlings she’s taken in.” She’d been one of them once, until she’d bitten the hand that fed her. “Where I come from, that makes ittheirland.” Oh, the joys of going back home with an outsider who didn’t understand their ways and never would. “We’ll talk to the Reeds first. That’s the way things are done—you roll into town without going and paying your respects to Dawnie, you’re going to find yourself running into a whole lot of bad luck in Flowering Dogwood. She’s the mama bear, and what she says goes.”
Otherwise, Krista would have done everything in her power to avoid the matriarch while she was back in town. She’d just have to hope that enough time had gone by that Dawnie wouldn’t kill first and ask questions later. Which she’d been known to do.
Blake nodded. “And after that?”
“By the time we get there and finish talking to them, we’ll be done for the night. Running around banging on doors late at night isn’t going to get us answers, it’s going to get us skinned and eaten.”
He looked at her skeptically. “Cannibals?”
She shrugged. “If a bear eats a wolf, is it cannibalism?”
“Yes. Now, if a wolf eats a fox, on the other hand…” His lips curled up in a slow lazy smile as he said it.
“I’m calling the Shifter Enforcement Council and reporting sexual harassment!” she said huffily, struggling desperately not to smile.
“Sexual harassment? Miss Krista Ellis, did I specify that the eating would be sexual? Where did your mind go when I said that? I’m shocked, I’m offended, but most importantly, I’m intrigued.”
“You are none of those things. You’re a blackmailing bastard.”
