Call of the Wolf (5 page)

Seth studied her speculatively, realizing grimly that there were just too many things about Abigail Winthrope that weren't adding up. He'd been willing to dismiss their first encounter and just put it down to having startled her even though he hadn't been completely satisfied any of the time.

She'd been furious and he knew her senses weren't nearly as acute as theirs even at the best of times. He supposed that was reason enough for her not to have noticed his approach or seen him standing at the end of her porch even though it was still broad daylight.

What had bothered him at the time was the fact that she was so furious when there didn't seem to be any obvious explanation for it and also the fact that she hadn't just been startled when he'd spoken. For just a split second he'd seen sheer terror in her eyes, and then loathing when she'd recognized his uniform.

He wasn't sure what all that added up to, but it added up to something, and he had a bad feeling it wasn't something he was going to like.

Beth had said her brother had brought her and said nothing to indicate that she'd been angry when he left, in fact just the opposite. She'd mentioned that they seemed close and that Abby had appeared ‘lost’ when he'd left. Since she'd been in the house alone since then, he couldn't figure out how she'd gone from being ‘lost’ to furious.

He also couldn't figure out why finding him in her backyard had terrified her so badly. Startled, he could get. Unnerved, lashing out in anger because she'd been frightened, he understood. Stark terror seemed as excessive a reaction as the fury that had gone before.

The loathing for the uniform—well, plenty of people didn't especially care for men in that particular uniform, but again, her reaction wasn't just a general dislike and distrust. It was pointed enough to indicate someone who'd had an unpleasant association with law enforcement.

He'd still struggled to dismiss all of that because, not to put too fine a fucking point on it, he was far more interested in probing her with his cock than probing her background.

From everything he could tell, though, the incident on the porch had happened just as both of them had described and Abby's reaction had gone well beyond ‘a little excessive.’ Even Cameron had admitted that Abby's reaction had completely taken him off guard, that it was as if she'd instantly concluded she had a murderer on her doorstep.

Nothing he'd heard about Abigail Winthrope before her arrival had led him to believe that she was fleeing the city because she'd been the victim of a crime, though, which would certainly explain her behavior if she had.

Beyond that, she'd only arrived that afternoon and her cabinets were not only stocked, they looked as if someone had stocked them for a siege. They were filled almost to overflowing and Abby, he'd be willing to bet money on, hadn't had a clue of what was in those cabinets.

She hadn't filled them.

She hadn't gone shopping as soon as she'd arrived and she certainly hadn't lugged in enough groceries to stock the cabinets and refrigerator. There hadn't been anyone in the house, at all, except the movers who'd arrived the day before she did.

As far as he knew, movers didn't commonly handle grocery shopping or shelf stocking. Everything had been in boxes
except
the groceries.

He could dismiss the fact that she looked nothing in the world like he'd envisioned. It wasn't even reasonable that he'd imagined her as looking like a younger version of her predecessor—tall, straight as a stick, skinny as a rail, and horse-faced—based solely on her name, but nothing about her appearance added up either. She wasn't a small town girl looking for placement in another small town because there wasn't an opening in her own. Her accent was definitely southern and not artificial, but it just as certainly wasn't a Louisianan accent. The well-worn Ts and jeans—well, nine out of ten Americans probably had a drawer full, whatever their walk of life—but hers hadn't come off the wracks of a low end department store, and, from what he could tell about that shapeless thing she'd worn to dinner,
it
had. Beyond that, it didn't click that the same woman that ran around braless and wearing thongs would choose anything that damned unflattering to wear in public.

Unless she was a closet nympho, goth chic, or something equally wild—which was possible, but he didn't believe likely—he was getting two damned conflicting messages from her behavior and her clothes. The shapeless, ultra conservative dress said she was a prim and proper old fashioned girl—
not
the sort of woman who would even acknowledge the word ‘fuck’ let alone use it as part of her vocabulary. The thong, no bra, designer jeans—her attitude toward the world in general and men in particular—screamed independent modern woman who considered herself the equal of any man she didn't feel superior to.

He didn't know what was going on, but he damned well meant to find out because nothing about Abigail Winthrope was adding up the way it should.

* * * *

Abby had been leery about inviting four strange men into her house at night, even though it wasn't actually late at night. In point of fact, she really hadn't intended to invite them
all
in, only Jerico and Adrian who'd actually lit her water heater.

Regardless of the potential gossip factor, though, she discovered she was glad they had all accepted the invitation. Even though she hadn't intended it that way, she realized it worked very nicely as check and balance to have the four of them in her kitchen. She didn't really believe any of the four was a hit man, but she didn't like to think of even a remote possibility that one might be and, if one was, then he wasn't likely to try anything with three other bouncer-sized males in the room.

That was a little unnerving. She worked around plenty of men—or had—but even the handful she'd been even passingly familiar with who regularly worked out and/or jogged to keep in shape, weren't built like these guys. All of them, including Seth who'd obviously bathed and changed since he'd walked her to her door, were wearing comfortably worn jeans that fit them well enough to give her heart palpitations. Cameron and Adrian were both wearing the sort of semi-dressy shirts men might wear out to a bar, their sleeves rolled up to reveal some pretty impressive forearms. Jerico was wearing a typical short-sleeved T with a V-neck and Seth—be still my heart!—was wearing a ‘wife beater’ tank T that not only molded to kegel-clap-worthy abs and bulging pecs like Jerico's T did, but also exposed a set of broad, muscular shoulders and upper arm muscles nearly as big around as her thighs—relaxed. Flexed, she was pretty sure they
would
equal the measurement of her thighs.

All four of them, including the sheriff, whom she'd pegged as one the sort of conservative pricks she'd encountered in the bureau, were sporting tattoos. In fact, all four of them had the
same
tattoo on their forearms.

The very fact that they had tattoos at all had set off alarms. Everybody and his brother seemed to be getting them these days, but she still associated them with the criminal element, mostly, she supposed, because gang members in the cities were so fond of them. The tattoos they shared in common made her even more uneasy because she'd thought they were complete strangers to one another and that indicated some kind of connection.

For a while, she wrestled with whether or not it would be wise to point out that she'd noticed by asking about them, but discovered she was just too uneasy to ignore it. “What do the tattoos y'all all have on your forearms represent?"

The four men exchanged glances, but she couldn't read anything in any of their expressions. Seth finally shrugged. “We all belong to the same biker club."

Abby felt the blood leave her face—club meaning
gang
. “Really?” she responded in a strangled voice, trying to sound intrigued and pleasantly surprised when she really felt faint.

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Chapter Four

None of the four, Abby realized a little sickly, were really what she would've considered ‘clean cut.’ Even Seth's hair, although it was shorter than the others, was longer than men generally wore their hair these days. She hadn't given it any thought beyond noticing it was a bit ‘shaggy’ as if he'd missed a few barber appointments.

Adrian's was long enough, though, that he wore it slicked back and tied in a pony tail at the base of his skull and both Cameron's and Jerico's hair was down to their shoulders.

The tattoos were just icing on the cake.

Mikhail, she'd discovered the one and only time they'd ended up in bed together, was tattooed all over. His ‘men’ had been, too—a lot of them, she discovered later, prison tattoos.

It wasn't bad enough she'd landed on the doorstep of a cop, when they'd destroyed her life. Insured that she was going to be a moving target as long as she lived. She was
also
surrounded by thugs who might or might not be of the same ilk as Mikhail's gang.

Of course, she supposed it could be something innocent—just a club made up of men who owned and drove motorcycles because they had a passion for them—but she wasn't willing to bet her life on it.

Emerging from her unpleasant thoughts after a moment, she discovered that all four men were studying her. She cleared her throat. “So ... what's the name of your gang ... uh ... club?"

Seth slid a glance at Cameron who was sitting on her other side. “Hellhounds,” he said finally.

Abby blinked at him rapidly for a moment, trying to digest that and finally glanced at the others. “Wow! That's ... uh ... that's a ... uh ... cool name. I guess ... actually, I couldn't really tell what sort of animal...?"

"Wolfen."

"Wolfen?” she echoed. Scooting her chair back abruptly, she got up and began gathering up cups and saucers. She'd already dumped them in the sink hard enough to chip half of them before it dawned on her that she'd completely forgotten her manners. “Did anybody want more?"

She didn't know whether to be relieved or unnerved to see that they'd pushed their own chairs back and gotten up.

Cameron shook his head. “Adrian and I was headed down to the local waterin’ hole when I came over to check on you,
chère,"
he said with a wry grimace. “Thanks for the hot chocolate, but I think I can use somethin’ a little stronger for a nightcap."

"If you'll hold on while I go grab another shirt,” Seth said, “I think I'll join you."

Since Jerico expressed a similar interest, both Seth and Jerico were the first to leave. Adrian and Cameron followed more slowly.

After a brief internal debate, Abby stopped Cameron at the door. “I'm sorry about the way I acted earlier,” she mumbled uncomfortably. “I've ... just been a little ... jittery lately. Guess it's the move."

His gaze flickered over her face assessingly. “You sure ‘bout that,
chère
?” he asked finally. “'Cause I got the feelin’ you was just plain scared. Trouble is, I doan know why. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm thinkin’ it ain't me you're scared of,
chère
. Who was you expectin’ to be standin’ on the other side of that door?"

Abby felt a wash of hot and then cold in rapid succession. She smiled at him with an effort and shook her head. “Guess I thought the boogey man had me."

His eyes narrowed. “But what's the boogey man's name,
chère?"
he asked gently.

To Abby's surprise and dismay, a knot of emotion rose to wedge itself in her throat. It took a couple of attempts to swallow around it. She shook her head again. “Really, it was nothing. I was just being ... silly. The move's just been more stressful and unsettling than I'd anticipated. I appreciate your concern, though,” she said dismissively.

To her relief, he took it as a dismissal and left. When she'd locked the door again, she turned off the back porch light and the kitchen light. Moving into the bedroom she'd staked out as hers, she plopped down on the bed with a box, emptying it on the spread and sorting it halfheartedly. She hadn't realized she'd been listening for sounds of their departure until she heard a motorcycle engine roar to life next door and then another and then a third and fourth.

Getting up when she heard the sounds growing louder, she moved to the window that faced her neighbor's house and peered through the blinds. The headlights momentarily blinded her, but as they moved slowly around the house and down the drive, the street light illuminated the foursome. Dressed in leather now, they perfectly fit the image of them that she'd had earlier in her kitchen when she'd discovered all four men were a part of a gang.

When they'd disappeared, she settled weakly on the bed again, trying to think.

They'd all seemed pointedly interested in her at the dinner. She hadn't found it particularly flattering even though she supposed she should've,
might
have under other circumstances. The thing was, she'd been too surprised, unsettled, and disbelieving even then that their interest was genuine to feel good about it. There'd been palpable tension in the group. She didn't know what had caused it, but she hadn't felt any of the time that it had anything to do with her.

Whatever it was, it was between them.

And maybe the snotty blond.

Maybe because of her.

She hadn't been so caught up in the little verbal battle they'd had over the dinner table not to notice appreciation in the eyes of the men any time they looked at the woman, despite the fact that they'd openly challenged one another over who would take
her
to the dance.

Maybe they thought that would thrill her, but all it had really done was make her feel
more
uncomfortable and self-conscious in her hideous dress, particularly when she didn't dare take
any
of them up on the offer.

Maybe they'd focused on flirting with her to pique Julie's interest? Or maybe because they thought they didn't have a snowball's chance in hell with her and figured
she
would be easier?

The question was, had that flirtation had more ominous undertones?

Try though she might, she just couldn't picture any of them as hit men, but if they were that damned easy to spot, they wouldn't be good at their jobs.

Russian mobsters were Russians, though, and they all had very distinctive accents—all of them that she'd met. She was almost completely convinced that none of the men at the table tonight had an ounce of Russian blood in them.

Could she accept, then, that none of them were a real threat to her unless she somehow gave herself away and they talked about it within the hearing of the mob network?

Lame, she decided. She was scaring herself for nothing. She couldn't imagine crossing their minds once they left Hicksville, let alone being of enough interest for them to talk about her.

Milner said they'd checked out everybody before they'd decided to settle her here. Regardless of his gang affiliation, the sheriff hadn't sent up any red flags. She also thought she could depend on the Feds to keep an eye on the visitors who'd come to enjoy the festival.

She was conjuring bogeymen out of the air, she decided. Very likely the only interest these guys had was in getting laid—and she'd certainly given them enough of a show to wet their appetites! She supposed she should've known better than to be rambling around outside in nothing but a towel and thongs but—honest to god!—what was the fucking point of having a privacy fence if it didn't ensure privacy?

It dawned on her abruptly that Cameron had said he'd
heard
her striking a match, that that was why he'd come to investigate.

Maybe she'd heard him wrong? Surely if that was what he'd said Seth, at least, would've called him on it?

Truthfully, she couldn't recall anything very clearly—thankfully!—about the incident. She must be mistaken, she decided. Undoubtedly, whatever he'd said, it was the activity he'd heard that had made him curious enough to check. She'd gone in and out of the door. Maybe it was just that she'd switched the porch light on?

Not that it mattered now, she supposed, but she'd be damned careful nothing like that happened again. Once might be considered a fortuitous accident in their minds. She thought even she would have to pardon them for thinking it a come-on if she did it again.

Ok, so she'd already flashed the damned sheriff twice, but she certainly hadn't been expecting him to show up so he couldn't
possibly
think she'd done it to deliberately entice him!

He was liable to decide to arrest her for indecent exposure if she made a habit of it, and that would look really good on her resume! She'd get canned before she could collect her first paycheck and then where the hell would she be?

So far, she was leaning a lot more toward hating her situation than either accepting or liking it, but she doubted anything else the Feds would come up with would be any better.

At least she had some beautiful eye candy to entertain her, if only briefly, even though she didn't dare sample any of the candy.