The Cougar's Trade (16 page)

“There’s no such thing as
just
brown. There’s brown that veers toward blue, brown that veers toward red, and brown that veers toward blond. On the rare occasion, you’ll get the dishwater color stuff people pay me good money to correct, but you don’t have that.”

“What do I have?”

Val rubbed her palms together and grinned. “Highlights. Lowlights.”

“Ka-
ching
,” Hank muttered.

“Hey, Second, you make money your way, and I’ll make money my way. Don’t be mad that I actually
like
my job and you don’t.”

That was low, and Val would have certainly known it. They’d graduated the same year, and had been in many of the same music classes. She knew exactly what Hank had hoped to be doing after graduation, and it wasn’t sawing wood. He ignored Miles’s questioning look.

Val blew a raspberry and pointed Mrs. Perez toward her empty styling chair.

Mrs. Perez stopped in front of Miles on the way past. “You come talk to me?”

“Right now?”

She waved a dismissive hand, then switched her cane to it. “No, no.” After pushing Miles’s short hair back from her forehead, and staring at Miles as if she were sizing up a state fair sow, Mrs. Perez grunted. Then she padded after Val.

Hank was dying to know what she thought. Everything the women in the glaring had to say to the Foye men usually got filtered through Belle, or Mom as a last resort. Mrs. Perez usually gave him a wide berth and cast the evil eye at him from across the street whenever she saw him. Dad had always said not to take it personally. She did it to all the men. “She’s old school,” he’d said.

“Not right now,” she called back to Miles. “When you get away from
El Segundo
for a while.” She muttered something under her breath in Spanish, and given her son Tito’s penchant for casting halfhearted aspersions toward the Foyes, Hank suspected that whatever she said was completely lacking in flattery.

Val confirmed as much with her admonition, “Be nice, you old bat, or the next time you come in I’ll forget to use permanent dye.”

“Thanks,” Hank said.

Val snapped a cape around Mrs. Perez’s neck. “Don’t thank me. I’m just ready for there to be some stability around here. No one can remember the last time we’ve had a fully fleshed leadership structure in the glaring, and I’m curious to see what’ll happen once things click into place. I think the last time all the positions were filled was back when my dad was a kid.”

“Before that,” Mrs. Perez said. She took off her glasses, hid them beneath her cape, and closed her eyes. “Long before that. Not since the last time the hellmouth was open. Nobody wanted the jobs, and I could think of a lot of reasons why. It was a good thing Floyd had all those knuckleheaded boys, or we still wouldn’t get any volunteers.”

Hank rolled his eyes.

“Except the Sheehans?” Miles asked.

All conversation in the shop ceased, and every gaze turned toward her.

She’d sure as shit picked that up fast.

Mrs. Perez grunted. “Nobody want to say nothing. Roots go too deep. Sick of all the secrets. Damn cats and their secrets.”

Hank didn’t know what sorts of secrets she meant. Whether it was about the Sheehans or something else related to the glaring, he couldn’t discern, and given the relaxed droop her facial features had taken with her imminent slumber, he didn’t think she would be forthcoming.

Gazes shifted slightly from Miles to the man whose lap she perched on. He took the hint. He wasn’t welcome because they couldn’t speak freely, and probably not just about feminine things like color trends.

He gave Miles a squeeze around the waist and stood her up. He’d have to get his scent on her in some other way, despite his inner cat’s insistence he stay and endure the abuse. “I’ve got some things to do. Gonna see how Sean is. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Two hours,” Val said. “That oughtta be long enough.”

“That okay?” Miles asked.

“You don’t have to ask.” He was the one who’d intruded. She didn’t need his permission, in spite of everything. Nothing was going to happen to her with the women around. She’d earned these women’s respect in such a short period of time, and Hank hadn’t managed the same in
decades
. He should have been asking her what was okay.

It was last-ditch, and he didn’t care. He nudged her collar aside and grazed his lips along the slope of her neck, drawing a sigh from her.

“You’re killing me,” she whispered.

“How?” He pulled back.

“Go away, Fabio,” Val said.

“Going.” He backed toward the door and watched Miles sit back down in the chair he’d occupied. Her pale gaze flitted to his face, then to her shoes as he pulled the door handle.

Was she ashamed of him? He hoped not. He understood why she might be, given who he was and the reputation he’d earned fair and square. She probably deserved better. No, she
did
deserve better. But, like him, she had to play the hand she was dealt. She wasn’t cut out to be an intimidating mate of a glaring’s second-in-command, and he shouldn’t have been anyone’s mate at all.

They were both screwed.

Miles still didn’t understand all the nuances of the various glaring roles and titles, and it seemed none of the ladies at the salon—besides Mrs. Perez—really knew much about them, either. The old woman seemed especially concerned with order and ritual, and she spoke to Miles with a reverence Miles didn’t think she deserved. She’d said as much while Val massaged her scalp in the shampoo sink. But Mrs. Perez had insisted that Miles get the respect she was due…whatever that meant. Between the weird ringing in her ears, likely caused by her dry-drowning at Val’s hands and her probably still-out-of-whack iron levels, she wasn’t understanding many things immediately after they were said. She did pick up on a few things, though.

Mrs. Perez had said that for far too long, the power structure had been what amounted to a one-man show. Floyd Foye had a couple of trusted advisors, but not in the same capacity as what Hank was for Mason. Mason hadn’t wanted his job, but he hadn’t wanted his brothers to be burdened by it, either. None of them wanted the alpha job to go to an outsider who didn’t have the glaring’s best interest at heart.
No one
wanted that, except the Sheehans. Based on what Mrs. Perez had told Miles, the Sheehans had been committing some pretty dirty deeds for going on thirty years, but no one could prove anything. That’s why the cats all held their tongues. But there was some boldness in the newest generation of Sheehans, and that would be their undoing. Miles just needed to find some evidence.

She was pondering how to do that when Hank squatted beside the reception desk at Woodworks and waved a hand in front of her face. The terror etched into those few lines of the statue’s forehead made her giggle, especially since she thought she knew the cause. He’d peppered her with so many questions about her disorder during the drive back to the ranch, she honestly thought he believed she was going to drop dead at any moment. It was better than silence, though, that was for sure.

“You were too still,” he said. “I was worried you were having a stroke or something.” He laid his hands on her knees and gave them both a little squeeze that sent resulting tingles up her thighs and to her core.

Her breath came out in an involuntary gust, and her fingers clenched the armrests of the chair. That caressing warmth overtook her every time he touched her and startled her into a rigid stupor that all at once made her want to roll around with him naked on the ground. That couldn’t be normal.

She loosened her fingers and steadied her breathing. “Uh, I’m fine most of the time. It’s hardly worth concerning yourself about.”

“Sure.” He gave a sardonic nod. “That’s why your hormones are spiking all over the place right now, huh? Because you’re just fine?”

Biting her lip, she nodded. Having him think she was infirm was better than him knowing the exact truth at the moment.

“Anything else that shouldn’t concern me, but you feel a sudden compulsion to tell me about, anyway?”

She gave her head a slow shake. “Nope. I don’t think so.”

“Really? You don’t want to unburden yourself about what the ladies said at Val’s? I wouldn’t want you to feel overwhelmed, is all.”

“Sure, you wouldn’t,” Sean called out from somewhere beyond the half wall. The usually jocular brother had been notably quiet since Miles and Hank had returned from town. Miles might not have known him very well, but she could guess his pensiveness had a lot to do with what was, or wasn’t, happening with Hannah. Another thing for Miles to check up on.

Hank stood, grabbed a few sheets of paper out of the recycling bin, wadded them up, and hurled them into the shop.

“Ow,” Sean said lazily.

“We’re dying to know,” Mason called out. “The Cougar women avoid Mom because she’s retired from the glaring shit and they respect that, so if they’re actually wagging their tongues to someone they know is intimately connected to us, that’s a good thing. They’ve got to expect some of that information to bleed back to the leadership.”

At your discretion
, came the little voice in Miles’s head. She gripped the padded chair arms and sat up straighter, scared shitless, but equally afraid to give away the reason for her sudden unease. It wasn’t the first time that voice had pealed through her mind. She’d heard it earlier in the beauty shop while Val lathered shampoo into Miles’s hair—right around the time when the ringing in her ears had started. She’d written it off as just part of the noise pollution because of the dryers going and the water spraying in the sink.

Miles was used to talking to herself. Hell, she could carry on an internal debate about which expensive coffee drink to order using different voices and all kinds of mental sound effects for five minutes. She’d grown up used to keeping her own counsel. She’d know one of her many voices if she heard one, though, and this new voice certainly wasn’t one of her own construction. It was clear as day like a radio disc jockey and speaking words she wouldn’t have thought up herself. And for some reason, she suspected the fact that there was a new occupant in her head wasn’t a piece of information meant to be shared with the Foyes at the moment.

She hoped Ellery could tell her what was wrong with her. For all she knew, her witchy friend played host to an entire choir of voices in her head. And maybe Ellery would have some ideas about how they could root out information about the Sheehans. Miles turned her wrist over and stared at her watch face. Ellery would probably be home soon.

Miles found her chin being raised, and she shifted her gaze to the Cougar who’d again taken up a position beside her.

“Have somewhere else to be? I think customers like it a lot better when you answer the phone instead of one of us.”

“Hey, we’re getting better,” Sean said. “That last online review said that our customer service has improved vastly and he felt far less abused in giving us his money this time.”

“Pretty sure that guy was dealing with Ellery on his last order,” Mason said.

Hank shrugged, but there was that knavish twinkle in his eyes she’d seen in Sean’s so many times. He knew exactly what he was and what he’d never be. No one in town expected sweet gentleness from the Foyes, and Miles was to the point that she was no longer expecting any herself.
Still…

He seemed capable of it, as demonstrated by his unceasing questioning about her illness. It had made her want to grab his face and say, “I’m
really
okay,” then kiss him until he believed her. She’d never been the type of woman who liked the challenge of winning over a skeptic, but she thought there was the bud of something there. He didn’t despise her—at least, his inner cougar didn’t. She liked that he initiated the touch, but where she found the glimmer of hope was in the fact it wasn’t just utilitarian proximity. When he touched her, he stroked and felt her. In five seconds, he could make her feel like a goddess. The problem was when he pulled away.

“I’m pretty sure your mother taught you boys to play nice,” Miles said softly.

“The lesson was taught, sure. We heard all the words, and even practiced the skills once or twice.”

“Lessons didn’t stick?”

He shrugged again. “You can domesticate a cat. That doesn’t mean you can civilize him, too.”

“Are you so uncivilized?”

“Probably compared to what you’re used to.”

“You’d be surprised.”

One of those red eyebrows inched up, but not in amusement, but…something else. She was still trying to get the hang of reading his expressions. Cats weren’t especially emotive—if Ellery’s witch’s familiar, Pumpkin Pie, was any example—and it seemed that trait might have carried over to the Cougars in their man forms, too. There seemed to be a short spectrum of expressions among most of the men. The women were pretty easy to read as a whole, but the men, not so much. If it weren’t for the clues gleaned from their voices and their body language, reading their moods would be a discipline she’d never unlock. It seemed far easier for Ellery, but Ellery was used to being around shifters. Wolves first, now Cougars.

“What sort of uncivil influences have you been in the close acquaintance of?” he asked.

“Besides you?” She cringed, realizing what had just come out of her mouth. The longer she spent in the company of the Cougars, the looser her filter became. That was shocking, seeing as how she’d been friends with Ellery and Hannah for ten years and not even they had managed to erode her self-control. They not only had quick wits, but flawless timing—a deadly combination in conversation.

“Ouch. Yeah, besides me.”

Her turn to shrug. “I’m nearly thirty. I’ve dated.”

“I would have thought you had a specific type.”

“I’d certainly like to hear what you’d think that might be.”

“Don’t need to. I can guess that I’m not it.”

“I’ll have you know my
type
has less to do with appearance than personality. It’s hard to know what kind of person you’re really dealing with until you get him behind closed doors. I’ve known men in immaculate suits who’ve had the manners of pirates. I’ve known rednecks in busted-up boots and torn jeans who would have been humiliated at the mere thought that their mothers would hear they’d treated a woman poorly. I’ve dated everything in between, too.”