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“No, he’s shocked. He wouldn’t be if your mum had called him and told him in advance about me. He probably thought to come by and offer you some company during your time off.”
Scorn coated the word. Tate Bradley had exactly one picture in his Spartanlike home, and it was of Cat. Clearly, Tate hadn’t changed from being a decorated Special Forces sergeant into a secret vampire hunter for the challenge of the job alone.
Cat paced. Bones unloaded the groceries into her refrigerator while keeping his senses on Tate. So far, the bloke was doing nothing more than breathing heavier and muttering “fuck” over and over. Then, the mechanical growl of a muscle car filled the area as Tate drove away.
“I wanted more time, dammit,” Cat said with a sigh.
Bones said nothing, but when he was finished with the groceries, he poured a hefty amount of gin along with a splash of tonic into a glass and handed it to her. Cat downed it like it was water and she’d just come out of a blazing desert.
“That stuff is your bloomin’ security blanket,” Bones said in amusement. It wasn’t as if the alcohol numbed her. With her bloodline, she’d need to drink a five-gallon drum for that.
“I like the taste,” she said with a wry smile. “That’s what all the drunks say, right?”
Justina might not risk alienating Cat by running to Don about him, but Bones had no doubt where Tate Bradley was headed.
“Do you want us to leave? Or stay? I told you, if they come with force, we’ll hear them long before they arrive. Your call.”
She said nothing for a long moment. Anxiety burned away the sweet edges of her scent, but fear didn’t sour it. That was night and day compared to how she’d reacted to this possible scenario a mere week ago. Finally, she forced a smile.
“They were going to find out about you anyway. It’ll take Tate half an hour to get to the compound, another thirty minutes for Don to decide on their course of action, and then another thirty if they send a team back here. We may as well stay and wait for them. If I could tell my mother about you, Don should be a cakewalk.”
The only reason he wouldn’t be a cakewalk is because Cat must care about the wanker’s opinion, though Bones couldn’t fathom why. Still, he said, “It will be all right, Kitten.”
An hour later, Cat was pacing next to her weapons, which she’d taken out as a precaution. “But we’re not killing anyone,” she stressed. “We’ll only wound them to escape as a last resort if my team doesn’t listen and full-out attacks us.”
She expected Bones to coddle the blokes even if they tried tokillher? Was this her idea of a terrible joke?
Cat’s mobile rang. She snatched it up so roughly, her glass screen cracked. “Hello?”
A male voice flowed out, his American accent tinged with throatiness that was either tension or the low rasp that long-term smokers had. Bones didn’t need to glance at her screen to know that this was the man he’d hated more than anyone else these past several years.
“Cat? Is that you?” Don Williams said.
“It’s my cell, who else would it be?” she asked with a small laugh.
Now Bones was sure about the tension in Don’s voice when he said, “Is everything okay over there?”
Cat met Bones’s eyes. “Fine. Why? What’s going on?”
Don said nothing for three of Cat’s heartbeats. Then, “There’s been an emergency. How soon can you get here?”
She raised her brow at Bones. He shrugged. He’d already put Charles and Rodney on standby over at her compound, and he was ready here, so it was all the same to him.
“Give me an hour,” Cat said.
“An hour,” Don repeated crisply. “Fine. I’ll be waiting.”
19
Don hung up without saying goodbye. Cat set down her mobile and began to pace again.
“I’m not giving you up,” she said, as if affirming that more to herself than to Bones.
“Too bloody right,” Bones said with a snort. “I’m not leaving just because they withhold their blessing.”
Cat sighed before she met his gaze. “I’m not just going to quit, either, though. This is more than a job to me. I make a difference in people’s lives who don’t have anywhere else to turn. Yes, Don and the guys won’t be wild about you, but I’m not leaving this operation unless they force me to.”
And there it was. She wasn’t only going to insist that Don and her blokes accept him. She also wanted Bones to acceptthem. The Fates must hate him. What other explanation could there be?
