The Cougar's Trade (5 page)

“I need to follow up on some Cougar business. I don’t know how long it’ll take me. So…before or after?”

She couldn’t help but feel like the question was a trick and that there was a right answer she didn’t know. Hell, she didn’t even know her own truth at the moment. Was she hungry? And if so, could she wait some undetermined amount of time for a meal?

“Well?”

She must have looked stupid sitting there flapping her jaw when it was such a simple question. It wasn’t like she had a master’s degree and a full well of common sense or anything. Opening her eyes, she put her hand on the door handle and gave it a tug. “It’s up to you, really. I don’t think I’m hungry just yet. Breakfast was pretty filling.”

So much oatmeal along with those cinnamon rolls. She’d always thought she’d hated the stuff, but learned it wasn’t the taste so much as the texture. Her foster mother had always left the instant kind on the stove too long, so it had a gluey mouthfeel Miles couldn’t abide, no matter how much sugar and milk she put into it. The kind Glenda used had a much rougher texture. It was practically chewy, which Miles liked a lot more.

“I skipped breakfast, so if you don’t mind, we’ll eat first.”

Why’d he bother asking if that’s what he wanted all along?

She should have known better than to try to make sense of a Foye brother. Their own mother had given up on it. They just weren’t logical beings.

He hopped out of the truck, and before she could manage to pull her door handle, Hank pulled the door open from the outside and canted his head in a
get out
fashion.

Rude, but quite honestly she’d expected the hostility, and she’d endure it, at least for a little while. If she’d learned anything in foster care, it was that she wasn’t a fighter, and that she didn’t self-advocate very well. She’d also learned that the best way for her to endure distressing situations was to be observant and to
wait
. They always passed, and she’d become very good at waiting.

She loosened her seat belt and scrambled down. The darn truck was so high off the ground that she had to use the running board as an intermediary step. She realized too late that Hank had his hand out to help her. “Sorry.” She cringed.

He shut the door and locked the truck via the key fob. “Don’t worry about it.”

He led her to the drugstore’s door, and no sooner did he have his hand on the knob than a familiar feminine voice hearkened from across the road.

“Henry August Foye, I know you think you’re being sneaky eating at that grill, but I can see you.”

“Goddammit.” He turned and waved at his sister, Belle, standing in the diner’s doorway.

“Hi, Miles,” she called. “Poor thing, ending up with that one.”

Miles waved back and grinned. Belle was a hoot, and the apple of Glenda’s eye. She drove her big brothers to swearing—obviously—and she had done all she could to make Miles and Hannah comfortable at Glenda’s. Naturally, for the sakes of her brothers, Belle was motivated to make the women want to stay, but the young woman was a realist. Like Glenda, she knew there was a chance Miles and Hannah would choose to go. Belle may have been just as practical as her brothers, but she tended to be softer in her approach. She’d gotten out of the house and away from her overbearing big brothers as soon as she could, and she liked living with her perfectly normal roommates.

Belle beckoned her over. “If he wants to eat over there, let him. The food’s better over here. We have real plates and our turkey doesn’t come out of a can.”

Miles looked to Hank for any clue as to how she should respond. Hank blew some of that coppery red hair out of his face and rolled his eyes. “I was hoping for a quiet lunch.”

Just like that quiet truck ride, probably.
No, thanks.
She’d be just fine if she didn’t have to endure another of those for a while. “I think I’ll go eat with Belle.”

Miles started across the road, pausing to look both ways only to find there wasn’t a car in sight. A perk of small town living was the relatively low chance of getting oneself run over. Before stepping onto the curb, she quickly scanned and inventoried the buildings on either side of the street to no avail.
There’s got to be a clinic around here.
If she could shake Hank off her tail for an hour, she needed to go get her iron under control. She had enough cash tucked into the hidden pocket inside her shirt that she could pay for the visit out-of-pocket. As a last resort, she could try the hospital.

Belle waved her in and made a
well?
gesture to her brother, who remained on the sidewalk across the street.

He shook his head, and though Miles couldn’t confirm it from where she was, she suspected he rolled his eyes again.

“I’ll be over there in a bit. Start my usual for me,” he called over, and started walking down the block.

“Where’s he going?” Miles wondered aloud. “He just said he was hungry.”

Belle shrugged. “I don’t care, and you shouldn’t, either.”

Belle was right. Miles shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t easily turn off that self-sacrificing inner martyr that wanted to take care of people.
Even bozo Were-cougars
.

“My brothers are all weird. Better get used to it, if you care at all. Come on in and have a seat at the counter so I can properly nag you.” She waggled her red eyebrows, the reddest of all the Foyes, but unlike her brothers, she had the ginger complexion to go with it. Her brothers at least looked like they
might
stand a chance at not incinerating after five minutes of New Mexican sun exposure.

As this was Miles’s first trip off the ranch since the campground snatching, she took in the old-fashioned diner with great interest. Ellery called Rita’s “The Tin Can” because of its shiny metal exterior. Miles’s hometown hadn’t had a diner, but it did have a drive-up. She used to walk over for barbecue sandwiches when she could scrounge up the change. Those were little luxuries. She’d spent so much of her life adrift and without a dollar to her name that when she learned that thanks to an untapped inheritance from her dead parents, she was actually wealthy, she didn’t know what to do with the money. So, she’d done nothing with it beyond paying her college tuition, and even that felt dirty. Like blood money meant to make up for the family she’d never know.

Smiling at the burly trucker types on either side of the one unoccupied stool, she climbed up and lifted the menu Belle pressed to her.

Belle leaned onto the counter in front of her, tapping the end of her pen against the edge. “You missed Ellery by an hour. She looked flustered, but happy.”

“Mmm. Orientation day at the hospital. I expect the emergency room here isn’t as busy as the one we used to work at.”

Belle made a face. “I dunno. It’s the only hospital within an hour radius, and I think the idiots around here tend to be a little more accident-prone than most.”

“Yikes. Listen, is there a clinic nearby? Somewhere I can see a nurse?”

“Yeah, it’s a block from here and around the corner. What’s wrong? Are you sick? Cougars don’t get sick very often. Did you pick up something from Nick?”

“No, nothing like that. I’ve got a chronic disorder. Kind of like diabetes or hypothyroidism. I’m overdue for a visit.”

“Shit. Did you tell Mom?”

“No. I hoped I could wait until I got home to deal with it, but…”

Belle grimaced. “But you’re still here. Right. Tell him you need to go.”

“No, I’m already getting sneered at enough.” Miles sighed and massaged the dull throb in her left wrist. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

“Make sure you do, even if you have to throw your weight around a little. ’Kay?” She gave Miles a little nudge.

“I will.”

Belle’s smirk pretty adequately conveyed her disbelief of that assertion. “Be right back. Gotta put Fabio’s order in. Takes forever to cook.” She dashed into the kitchen, leaving Miles reeling.
Fabio?

The trucker on Miles’s right wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. He leaned in and said in a hoarse whisper, “Took him long enough.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Fabio.” He gave his imaginary hair a toss and pouted like Derek Zoolander. “Hank.”

“Oh.” She snorted and covered her face from embarrassment of the sound. The name kind of fit. All Hank needed was a gentle breeze lifting his hair and to undo a few of those shirt buttons…not that she’d seen many redheads on romance novel covers save for the occasional Scottish lass with a heaving bosom being taken to ecstasy in a field of heather. The covers with the heather were always her favorites. They were so passionate. She didn’t think such a scene would be up Hank’s alley, though, at least not with
her
.

“We saw you that day Edgar snatched Ellery and the Coyotes were trying to raise hell. Hank shoulda called as soon as he knew there’d be trouble. Sorry it took us so long to get out there.” He hooked his thumb toward the trucker on Miles’s other side, and suddenly she understood why they’d left a space between the two of them. Each of them stole about a quarter of what should have been her personal space. Darn stools were too close together.

Trucker
dos
reached across his body and extended his clean left hand. “Tito.”

Miles shook it. “Hi, Tito. I’m Miles.”

He gave her hand a floppy shake that made her laugh. Trucker
uno
held out his hand, too. “Tiny.”

She put her hands on her hips and gave him a playful leer. “Is that really your name, or have I earned an insult just that quick? Might be a record.”

He chuckled. “No, that’s what everyone calls me.”

“Supposedly, he was his mother’s runt,” Belle said, returning, “but I think he’s bullshitting.”

“Ah, it’s the truth. I was six pounds at birth. Did I guess right?” he whispered low enough that only the four of them could hear. “Fabio finally figure out who the goddess sent him?”

“According to Mom’s morning novella of a text message, yes, and Sean, too. The ladies are officially out of lockdown. Sean was supposed to come into town, but he got held up by something.”

Miles cringed. He’d gotten held up by some
one
, not some
thing
. When she and Hank had left the ranch, Hannah had locked herself into Glenda’s truck and refused to come out. Given they were in the middle of the summer, that standoff couldn’t have lasted long. Hannah wouldn’t have roasted herself alive out of spite. Miles imagined that Hannah had probably bided her time and made a run for it, and that Sean had probably caught up to her five seconds later.

Tito slurped his coffee. “So. You’re out of lockdown and on probation, huh?”

“That sounds about right.”

Miles started at Hank’s voice, and realized the three Cougars in her company didn’t even stir. Belle, facing the door, had obviously had seen him walk in. Tito and Tiny must have heard or smelled him. They kept on attacking their food as if Hank’s presence was inconsequential.

“I wonder how they finally figured it out it,” Tiny said. “Consulted a Ouija board, maybe?”

Hank took the vacated stool on the adjacent side of the L-shaped counter and nudged the dirty dishes toward Belle. She got the hint, cleared them, and tossed him the rag to clean his own place. Miles could barely suppress her grin. Belle was like Glenda. They put the men in their place so easily. Ellery and Hannah would fit right in. Miles didn’t stand a chance.

Again, why am I even here?
She rested her throbbing wrist on her lap and drew in a calming breath. “So, I take it you gentlemen haven’t snatched yourselves mates,” Miles said as she watched Hank flick crumbs onto the floor behind the counter.

Tito blew a raspberry. “
Gentlemen
, she says. Now who’s insulting
whom
?”

“Oh, I’m just being polite.”

“Don’t. We’ll assume you’re being sarcastic,” Tiny said. “I’m sure Hank could give you a nice vulgar list of words to use instead of that one. Want me to give you a preview of it?”

She’d heard her fair share of that list already. She scrunched her nose. “Nah. I’ll use my imagination. I don’t want to insult anyone on purpose, so if it bothers you that much, I’ll come up with something else.”

Tito slurped his coffee again and stared at Hank over the rim. “What’d you do, make a blood sacrifice to
La Bella Dama
? Trade a few of your kitty cat lives in exchange for a lady far too good for you?”

If she hadn’t have seen it before and known it was a Cougar proclivity, she would have thought her mind was playing tricks on her when Hank’s pupils went to narrow slits, making the yellow-green of his eyes pop in unusual clarity. He pulled back his top lip to reveal flesh-rending fangs for just a brief moment. He put them away when the bells over the diner’s door jingled and a new group of customers walked in. Evidently, he didn’t care if anyone else in the diner saw, but obviously the new diners weren’t in the loop. During one of their late-night chats while Hannah slept the sleep of the dead, Ellery had told Miles that lots of folks in town knew a fair portion of the citizens were weird in some way. The town had, in fact, been founded by people like the Foyes, and the plain-old humans came later. Hank probably would have known who the safe ones were.

Tito set down his coffee and put up his hands. “I’m just fuckin’ with you. Don’t get your boxers in a wad.”

Hank’s eyes went back to their usual human configuration—not that Miles actually thought they looked all that human given their Day-Glo coloring—and he ground his jaw as his gaze landed on her.

She busied herself with the menu. A good enough reason to look away, considering she had no idea what was even on it.
Why is he so darned terrifying all of a sudden?
Before the guys had picked, he hadn’t seemed that way. He was pleasant, not necessarily to
her
, but in general. Maybe he was one of those men who were cordial to almost everyone except his girlfriend…or mate. She wasn’t either of those things, and she wasn’t particularly convinced she wanted to be.

Belle flitted away to tend to other customers at the counter, and Tiny tipped himself off his stool. He gave Hank a thump on the back. “Me and Tito worked it out so we’re not both on the road at the same time. If Mason needs anything, you call us before it comes to a head, you hear?”