An Alpha's Thunder (Water Bear Shifters 3) (4 page)

Even in the darkness, he could see her roll her eyes at him. “I’m working,” she yelled. “I do this all the time. It’s where I get the inspiration for my paintings.”

“If you do this all the time, then you’re really lucky that you haven’t drowned. I’m nervous just watching you,” Lance yelled, a frown etched into his face. It was true. His heart had started pounding in his chest from the adrenaline flooding through his body. All of his senses were on high alert as he watched Caroline swaying precariously back and forth from the force of the wind and water. She was so beautiful that it made his chest tighten up just to look at her. Even drenched, there was no escaping how exquisite she was. Her sexy curves, smooth skin, and long hair made up the perfect package.

Caroline crossed her arms and frowned back at him. “Well, then, be nervous if you want to,” she yelled. “But I don’t need anyone worrying about me or looking out for me. I can take care of myself. Why are you stalking me, anyway? I would have thought that the fact that I didn’t answer your letter was enough of a hint that I’m not interested in you.”

Lance’s heart sank. So she had received the letter, and just chosen not to answer. And now he was standing here looking suspiciously like he was following her around, even though his running into her out here had been a total accident. “I’m not stalking you. I couldn’t sleep and went for a run. I only live a few miles from here, so it’s not that strange that I’m out for a run on this beach. It’s just a coincidence that I ran into you. You should know all about coincidences, since it was just a coincidence that you painted a man who looks exactly like me.”

Lance couldn’t keep the bitterness and sarcasm out of his voice, and he regretted the words as soon as he spoke them. He saw a shadow pass over Caroline’s eyes, and her frown deepened.

“Fine. It’s a coincidence that you’re here. You know what’s not a coincidence? The fact that I put your card in the shredder as soon as I saw what it said. I’m not interested in a relationship, Lance. Especially not with someone who doesn’t believe me when I say my paintings weren’t modeled after him.”

Lance sighed, and rubbed his eyes, which were starting to sting from all the saltwater being sprayed at them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But I promise I’m not stalking you. I sent that card because I really like you, and I was hoping for a chance to show you that. I spent a lot of time searching for you, and, even though you say you’re not interested, I can’t help but notice that destiny seems to keep bringing us together.”

Lance saw a strange look pass over her face, and for a moment he thought that she might be softening her stance toward him. But, then her face returned to its hard glare, and she shook her head at him. “Destiny is going to have to work a lot harder if it wants to convince me.”

Lance couldn’t come up with a good reply, so he just stared at her for several long moments, taking in her beautiful face, and the impossibly dramatic way that her hair whipped around in the wind. She held his gaze, somewhat defiantly. She refused to be the first one to look away, and Lance almost laughed in amusement. She was a spunky one.

“Do you normally go running in storms like this?” Caroline demanded to know.

Lance sighed. “No. But only because I’m usually up in a helicopter working during a storm like this. I love the sound of thunder more than anything.”

Lance saw the same strange look pass over Caroline’s face that he had seen minutes before. She furrowed her brow, and then turned on her heel. “I have to go,” she yelled over her shoulder at him. “I can’t work with you out here standing over my shoulder, anyway.”

Lance watched as she trudged out of the water and up the beach. He wanted to run after her and spin her around, then cover her mouth with a passionate kiss. His bear snarled and growled within him, angry that Lance was just standing there and letting Caroline get away. But it was for the best. She clearly wanted nothing to do with him, and he already had one foot in Alaska. Once she disappeared from view, he turned and started running back in the direction he had come from.

But no matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t outrun the image of Caroline’s face that insisted on filling his mind.

Caroline was doing some running of her own. She sprinted all the way to her car, cursing under her breath the whole way. She didn’t turn around to look until she was safely locked into the driver’s seat, with the car’s engine running and the heater blasting warm air on her shivering frame. She turned on the headlights, and peered as far as she could into the dark night, but she couldn’t see anyone else. As far as she could tell, she was alone. He hadn’t followed her, and she felt slightly foolish for thinking that he would. She had all but told him to take his feelings and shove them up his ass.

But what else was she supposed to do? She had already decided she couldn’t have a relationship with him. There was no sense in sugarcoating anything and leaving him room to think that there might be any possibility of there ever being something between them. She had been completely fine with her decision until the very end of their conversation.

He loved the thunder. She could tell from the wistful way he spoke about thunderclaps that there was a deep, meaningful reason for his appreciation of its sound. And not only did he love it, he loved it “more than anything.” Caroline had seen the passion in his eyes when he said that. For some reason, he had a respect and adoration for thunder that was as deep as her own. She had been caught off guard by that realization. Caroline had met plenty of people who claimed to love thunderstorms, but no one had ever shown the same zeal as she did for the mere sound of thunder. Until now.

Caroline found Lance’s strange, seemingly offhanded comment about thunder to be deeply unsettling. And this was on top of the already unsettling comment he had made about destiny continuously bringing them together. Hadn’t she said to herself when she shredded his card that it was up to destiny to bring them together, if destiny wanted to?

Is that what this had been? Destiny’s attempt to slap her in the face with a wakeup call? Caroline sighed, and rested her head on the steering wheel in frustration. She had to admit that every new piece of information she learned about Lance made him seem more and more like a good match for her. But destiny would have to give her a much stronger sign if it wanted her to take on a relationship guaranteed to land her in the tabloid section of the news.

Caroline started the engine in her car and glanced at the clock on the radio. It was just past one a.m., which was fairly early to be heading home on a night of storm watching. Usually, the storms were later, and Caroline stayed for the whole show. But tonight, she’d decided she had to leave and get away from Lance as soon as possible. She hadn’t seen as much of the storm as she wanted to, but she figured she’d let this one go. She had plenty of ideas for her next painting series already. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to do any more public exhibits any time soon, so she wasn’t in a rush to get anything painted. The longer she stayed out of the public eye, the better the chances that this whole stir about the man in her paintings would blow over.

As soon as Caroline got home, she peeled off her wet clothes and climbed into bed, thankful that her roommate wasn’t around to make fun of her for being out storm watching again. Caroline fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, blissfully far away from any thoughts of her estranged family, of Lance, or of thunder.

The next day, after sleeping in late and spending time paying bills online, Caroline was feeling moody. She needed to get out of the house, but she feared running into someone who recognized her. She wasn’t a major celebrity or anything like that, but enough people around here seemed to recognize her these days that going out could be incredibly annoying. Especially on days like today, when her moodiness had reached the level where she wished she was the only human being on the planet. Her roommate made fun of her when she moped around like this, saying that all artists had been given an unhealthy dose of angst by the universe. Perhaps this was true, but Caroline didn’t want to discuss it with Samantha even on her least-angsty days.

Luckily, Caroline had found a dank, dark dive bar where no one seemed to know or care about anything remotely related to art. The place was small, and hardly visible from the outside. She went there often when she wanted to be alone, and the bartender knew her well by now. He knew which beer she liked, and that she wasn’t the chatty type. When she walked in, he would pour her a mug without a word, and then set it in front of her with a wink. He kept the refills flowing until she signaled to him that she was done, at which point he would bring her the bill. She always paid in cash, and always left a generous tip. She hardly ever said a single word when she went there, and it had quickly become her favorite hideout. The other patrons rarely spoke, either. People tended to come in alone and leave alone, not making eye contact with anyone except the bartender during their stay. It seems that everyone in that bar was hiding from someone or something, and they all had some sort of unspoken pact: don’t ask me any questions, and I won’t ask you any questions.

Which was why Caroline was slightly surprised to enter the bar today and see two men deep in conversation at the table a few feet away from her favorite spot on the bar top. She considered sitting somewhere else, but she liked her spot. She figured that as long as they didn’t talk to her, she didn’t care if they were talking amongst themselves. Caroline sat down, and made herself comfortable, giving the bartender a friendly nod when he set down her drink in front of her. One of the men, the older one, looked up at her briefly and seemed to be studying her face, but when she made eye contact with him he looked away and went back to speaking with his younger friend. Caroline took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before taking a long sip from her beer mug. She felt more relaxed already. Something about being here, away from her house and yet still in solitude, always felt so refreshing.

Caroline sipped the rest of her beer slowly, absentmindedly watching the baseball game playing on the ancient TV mounted above the bar. She refused to let herself think of anything related to Lance right now. She just wanted to relax and enjoy her drink. When the baseball game was interrupted for a commercial break, Caroline found her attention wandering to the hushed conversation of the men right behind her.

“How can we be sure it’s someone from the Coast Guard?” the younger man asked.

Caroline perked up, and shifted imperceptibly in her seat to try to hear better. She was always interested in stories involving the Coast Guard, and something in the man’s tone sounded sinister and intriguing.

“We can’t be sure,” the older man answered. “Whoever got to Kevin did a really good job of cleaning up after themselves. We didn’t find any fingerprints or traces of DNA in his car or his condo. Everything had been wiped clean. They took his laptop and surveillance equipment, and destroyed any records that were left behind. But the last several transmissions we received from before he disappeared all involved the Coast Guard. Specifically the Coast Guard rescue swimmers and their crews.”

Caroline was trying so hard to hear what the men were saying that she was holding her breath. DNA? Fingerprints? These guys definitely sounded like they were involved in something shady.

“But that could have been coincidence, right? I mean, Kevin was also looking at the Navy. Maybe one of those guys got him.”

“Anything’s possible. But we just discovered something somewhat concerning,” the older man said, then paused and lowered his voice so much that Caroline could barely catch what he was saying. “One of our agents up in Glacier Point, who is keeping an eye on the old warehouse up there that we were using, saw someone dressed in a Coast Guard uniform fly in to Glacier Point for one day. The guy who met him at the airport is a confirmed polar bear shifter.”

“Seriously?” the younger man said, his voice rising a little in excited concern. “Do you think the shifters down here are in contact with the ones up there?”

“It looks like it. Our guy got a grainy photograph of the Coast Guard visitor. It wasn’t much but it was all we had to work with. After a lot of digging around, we figured out who he is. Ace Grimes, helicopter pilot for a Coast Guard rescue crew.”

There was slight whooshing sound as the man slid a photograph across the table. Caroline shifted slightly in her seat, trying to see the photograph without making her interest obvious. It was an eight by ten glossy photo of a man with dark brown hair and eyes staring sternly into the camera and wearing a Coast Guard uniform.

“The guy looks like he could be a bear. Grizzly, maybe? Definitely brawny enough.”

Caroline furrowed her brow. What were these guys talking about? Polar bear shifter? A man who looked like he could be a grizzly bear?

“Naw, I don’t think he’s a grizzly. He doesn’t have the right eyes for it. Black bear is my guess. I’d almost say panda, but I don’t think there are any of them left.”

Caroline stared down into her empty beer mug. Was she hearing things incorrectly? She had only had one beer, so it couldn’t be the alcohol making her misinterpret what the men were saying. They were really sitting here talking about bear shifters and the Coast Guard. Were
they
drunk? Caroline carefully looked them over out of the corner of her eye, but they looked completely sober. And the two beer mugs in front of them looked untouched. But they were definitely sitting there talking about shifters like that was something that actually existed. Maybe they were just certifiably crazy. They probably had a dozen conspiracy theories about the government and how it was using shapeshifters to spy on people or something like that.

Caroline almost giggled, but stifled her laugh at the last second. She had never met someone who actually believed that shifters existed, and it was funny to watch these two burly men talking about folklore like it was reality. Their whole conversation was pretty entertaining, and she wanted to keep eavesdropping on them. But if they knew they were being spied on, they would probably stop talking.

The bartender set a beer refill down in front of Caroline, and she nodded at him in acknowledgement, then turned her attention back to the men, who were now looking at a second glossy photograph.

“This is Ben Harrington, the copilot for the crew,” the older man said. Then he slid two more photographs across the table. “This is Brett Smith, the rescue swimmer, and Lance Bowman, the flight technician.”

“All bears?” the younger man asked.

“We think so,” the older man replied.

Caroline’s eyes widened and she choked on her beer as she saw the men peering over a photograph of Lance. She coughed violently, trying not to look at the men and worried that she had just made it obvious that she was watching them.

“Are you okay, miss?” one of the men asked, raising an eyebrow in her direction.

Caroline nodded. “Just swallowed wrong. Sorry to disturb you,” she said. Then she turned completely around so her back was facing them. She hated not being able to watch out of the corner of her eye, but she felt like she had already drawn too much attention to herself. She needed to make it very clear to them that she really had just choked on her beer, and that she wasn’t interested at all in whatever they were doing.

“So what are we going to do about it?” the younger man asked. He had dropped his voice so low that Caroline was again holding her breath trying to hear them.

“We have two choices, as far as I can tell. We can try to capture them, and take them to Alaska for use as test subjects. Or we can eliminate them here. I’m inclined to just kill them off here, because they seem dangerous. Kevin was one of our best intel guys. He was always super careful, and they still somehow managed to get rid of him. My guess is he’s at the bottom of the ocean right now.”

Caroline sat frozen in her seat, her eyes wide. This had just gone from an amusing eavesdropping session on some crazed lunatics to a very serious matter.
Kill
them off? Were these guys really going to try to kill Lance and his crew? Caroline took a chance on shifting in her seat again, moving just far enough over that she could see the men in her peripheral vision. They didn’t appear to be joking, as far as she could tell. And they must be crazy. Who else would sit there talking about shifters and killing people off in the middle of a public bar? Sure, the place was mostly empty, but it was still a public place. And Caroline was sitting only a few feet away from them. She must not look very threatening, with her hair in a messy bun and her outfit of plain old blue jeans and a simple black t-shirt. She had a ratty canvass messenger bag sitting on the barstool next to her that had been serving as her purse for the last several months. She probably looked like a college dropout with no money. Caroline sighed at the thought. She actually wasn’t a college dropout, because she’d never attended a single college class. You can’t drop out of a race you didn’t even start. And she wasn’t poor, although she’d started out that way. She just didn’t see the need to get all dressed up and fancy to come to a dive bar.

Caroline took a few deep breaths, trying to steady her racing heart. She kept listening to the men, but they weren’t talking at the moment. The older one, who seemed to be somewhat in charge, was leaning back in his seat and stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“Do you disagree with killing them?” he asked the younger man, seeming to want an honest answer.

The younger man shook his head. “No. I don’t disagree. In fact, I think it’s pointless to try to get these new shifters up to Alaska. We have plenty of polar bear shifters up there to choose from if we want to run tests on the viruses. Better to get rid of these guys and get them out of the way before they stir up a fuss. But you’re sure they’re all bear shifters? I don’t want to kill innocent men.”