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The plane was picking up momentum now.
For the boys. This was all for the boys.
I glanced at Dennis, who was blissfully sound asleep. Fucker.
“How have I known you half my life, but I’m only just learning this about you now?” Felicity asked.
“It’s not exactly something I broadcast, Cheeks.” My skin itched. Sweat prickled at my brow. My stomach churned, threatening to expel the alcohol. But to deal with any of that, I’d have to let go of my arm rest and Felicity’s hand. Instead, I gritted my teeth and slumped back in my seat. “Or something that comes up often. Just ignore me. Maybe the panic will knock me out.”
In the end, the flight went better than expected. To be fair, my expectations had been pretty low. We didn’t crash or die, which was all I could’ve asked for. Turbulence was minimal, and though I didn’t get any rest myself, about half an hour in, Felicity fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. Somehow, that calmed me down best of all.
Dennis awoke just as we pulled up to the gate. One of his field agents was waiting for us in Arrivals. He introduced himself as Rabbit, and looked every bit his namesake. Big, wild eyes, a twitchy nose, buck teeth. His short-cropped hair was stark white, though he couldn’t have been any older than twenty-five or so. When he moved close enough to shake my hand, I could smell the shifter on him. Definitely a wolf, no matter what he called himself.
He got even twitchier when his eyes landed on Felicity. He started stammering his words to her so badly, I couldn’t tell if he was hitting on her or begging her not to hit him. Felicity looked equally perplexed, until Denny smacked him on the back of the head.
“Leave her be, Rab,” Denny said firmly. “She’s spoken for.”
“Ah.” Rabbit’s gaze shifted to me, sliding from my boots up to my eyes like he was sizing me up. The way his pale skin turned paler suggested that he’d decided we were of very different weight classes. “Well…f-fuck.”
Dejected, Rabbit took the diaper bag from Felicity and waved for us to follow him. Felicity walked at his side, posing questions about his stake-out. Just shaking her hand had made him stammer. Actually trying to hold a conversation with her? The guy was all over the place. His reactions were all exaggerated. His body language, erratic. Felicity held up her end politely, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he kept trying to sniff her hair when she wasn’t looking. In fact, she didn’t seem to notice the effect she had on him.
Typical Cheeks, not realizing when a dude had the hots for her. Hell, it had taken her fourteen years to realize I wanted her, and I was her mate.
Then again, it’d taken me just as long to realize she wanted me, too.
“Who the fuck is this guy?” I asked Denny, falling into step with him and jerking a thumb in Rabbit’s direction.
“An associate,” Denny grunted. “And a friend.”
“Friend in low places, seems to me.” I scowled at the back of Rabbit’s pale head when he laughed loudly at something Felicity had said to him. “He looks like he’s on something.”
“Nah. That’s just Rabbit for you. He served two tours in the Marines over in Afghanistan as part of one of the shifter divisions,” Denny explained. “Saw some shit. If you’d been through what he’s been through, you’d be jumpy too. But all my guys are clean. We test. You don’t gotta worry about that.”
I frowned, immediately feeling bad. I hadn’t realized that there was a reason for Rabbit’s strange behavior beyond the fact that he had the hots for my woman, but what Denny said made sense. I didn’t know much about the shifter divisions of the military, only that they usually saw more action than the humans. When Uncle Sam could recruit men and women with heightened senses, enhanced physical capabilities, and increased healing capacity, he made the most of them.
Those shifter divisions were no joke. Neither was PTSD.
“He’s one of your betas, then?” I asked, wondering how Denny found guys like Rab.
“Sigma,” Denny corrected. “All my guys are. They come from packs all over. Lots of ’em are ex-military, like Rab and me, but all of ’em are dependable and skilled. He’s good at what he does, and I trust him. That’s all you need to know.”
We reached a slate-gray Toyota Tacoma. Rabbit fished in his pocket for the keys and tossed them to Denny, who caught them swiftly.
“You two in the backseat,” Denny instructed us. “Rab, you’re up front with me. You can catch us up during the ride.”
Without Felicity in his line of sight, Rab seemed to have a better handle on his speaking abilities. I could hardly blame him, I supposed. Felicity was the kind of woman who could make anyone trip over their words. Me included, sometimes.
“So, the ranch, yeah? We got there late, well after dark last night. Took us a while to find the place on account of it being pretty out of the way.” Rab glanced to Denny. “Sorry.”
“No worries, Rab.” Denny kept his eyes on the road. He handled the apology like an alpha, casual and firm. He clearly commanded a lot of Rab’s respect. “Tell ’em what you saw.”
“Right. So, real late last night, a vehicle pulled up the drive. Woman got out of it. She unloaded a bunch of stuff. It was pretty dark out, but we saw one of those car-seat, baby-buggy things with her. She took it inside the house. She’s been there ever since.”
“What’s she look like, this woman?” I asked, trying to tamp down the hope rising inside me.
“’Slim build,” Rabbit said thoughtfully. “Tallish, maybe? Hard to tell from a distance like that, and like I said, it was dark. But I caught a glimpse of her from behind after she unlocked the door and turned on the light. Blonde hair—”
My heart leapt. Felicity gripped my knee.
