A SEAL in Wolf’s Clothing (12 page)

After paying for a room, she rolled her bag to the elevator, catching a glimpse of the man whom she thought called himself Joe Matheson. His green eyes caught and held hers in the brief instant before the elevator door closed. His gaze stroked all the way down her body,
cad
, but he smiled a little when his focus settled on the bag of popcorn in her hand.

And she knew he knew she
wasn’t
on vacation.

***

He followed me into Oceanview Hotel, 20 min north of you. Didn’t come into elevator. I’m in my room, 601.

Anna texted Finn while he still reclined in the guest bed in the safe house, his arms folded around Meara. She stirred and Finn slipped out from under her, his heart in his throat as he padded down the hall to the living area and texted Anna back.

Paul there in hr and a half or so. Don’t take unneeded risks. Bolt door.

Anna immediately responded.

I’ve sent Paul a message. Shit, lockpick in door…

But Imposter Joe couldn’t get to her if she’d bolted the damn door. Finn waited a heartbeat for Anna to send another text to finish her statement, but when she didn’t, he texted her. She didn’t respond. Adrenaline surged through him as he tore into the guest bedroom, grabbed his trousers, and began yanking them on.

“What’s wrong?” Meara asked, sitting up, and looking sleepy and well-loved as she stared at him.

Normally decisive, Finn was having a devil of a time trying to figure out what to do next. Rescue Anna and leave Meara behind, where he thought she’d be safer. Or let Anna take care of Joe on her own, while Finn stayed and protected Meara, which was the way he and Anna had been trained to accomplish such a mission. Or take Meara with him to rescue Anna, which was the
worst
possible scenario, as far as he was concerned.

Meara got out of bed and pulled on her shirt over her pajama tank top. “Is he here? At the house?” she asked. She tried to hide her anxiousness, but he saw it in her widened eyes and heard it in the slight tremor in her voice.

“No,” Finn said abruptly, jerking on his boots. If he’d been alone, he would have already left to take care of Anna. He felt the guilt of letting her deal with the threat alone, while worrying about Meara’s safety, too.

Meara narrowed her eyes and yanked on her pants. “But we’re leaving.”

“I am.
You
need to stay here.”

“Alone?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“Joe, our imposter, may have gotten into Anna’s hotel room. We’re the closest she’s got for backup.
I’m
the closest she’s got for backup,” he quickly amended.

“Ah.” Meara wiggled her feet into her still-tied tennis shoes and headed toward the bedroom door. “What are we waiting for?”

“You are staying
here
,” Finn repeated, strapping on his gun.

She passed him and headed for the garage. “Hunter would be ticked off if he knew you left me behind…
alone
.” She gave Finn a crooked smile over her shoulder.

“Hunter would undoubtedly know you better than that,” Finn said sarcastically. “But I doubt he would want to hear you tagged along, either.”

Yet Finn hadn’t wanted to enforce his decision to leave her. As much as he didn’t want Meara with him and in harm’s way, he really didn’t feel comfortable leaving her behind.

“So where is Anna?” Meara asked, nearly to the garage.

“We passed it on the way here. It’s the Oceanview Hotel, about twenty minutes up the road.”

They didn’t speak any further and were soon in Finn’s Hummer and on the road. With his foot flooring the gas pedal, they barreled north toward the hotel. He hoped to hell no cops were on the road tonight. He wasn’t stopping to get a ticket if an overzealous cop happened to catch him speeding.

“What’s happened?” Meara asked softly.

“Anna began texting me a message that sounded as though he was picking her lock to get into her room, but she abruptly stopped in the middle of a sentence. She didn’t respond when I tried to contact her again.”

Meara paled a little at that. “She hadn’t bolted the door in time.”

“Sounded like it. When we reach the hotel, I want you to stay in the Hummer.”

As soon as she stiffened her back, he realized Meara wasn’t going for it.

“Why don’t I sit in the lobby? Hotel staff and guests would be there, and I should be safe.” Meara smiled sweetly when he continued to clench his teeth, his neck muscles taut and his grip on the steering wheel just as tight. “I can scream really loud, Finn,” she added, trying to get him to concede.

Finn hesitated to say no, and his hesitation told Meara she was close to convincing him to allow her to stay with him, or at least not far away. She didn’t think staying by herself in the semidark parking lot was a good idea. And she wasn’t going to stay put, even if he told her to do so. Sure, he was a well-trained covert operator, but he didn’t have a crystal ball to tell him where she should stay to remain safe.

“Here we are.” His vehicle tore into the hotel parking lot. He jerked the car to a stop, raced around the other side of the Hummer, and hurried her out of the vehicle toward the lobby with a short, “Come on.”

She might have objected to his rushing her when she could rush on her own very nicely, but she sensed his concern about Anna and went along with him tugging her. If she’d had legs longer than his, she would have hauled him instead.

Movement toward the wooden walk to the beach caught her eye. When she turned to see what it was, she glimpsed a man shielded by a pine tree. She would have figured he was outside taking a smoke, collecting his thoughts, or something like that except that he looked like—no, couldn’t be.

The guy Hunter hadn’t let her date before the team went on that last SEAL mission, Cyn Iverson, wouldn’t have just popped up here of all places. Too weird to consider.

She tried to see more of him, but he stepped behind the tree, and she missed her opportunity, especially with Finn tugging her toward the hotel at a sprinter’s pace.

Finn threw open the door and hauled her inside.

“Stay here,” he ordered, moving her to the lounge chair closest to the check-in counter in the plush lobby. Chandeliers sparkled above, dripping with crystal icicles, and beneath her feet was terra-cotta tile—warm and rustic looking, at odds with the formality of the light fixtures. She sat in the cushy chair, which was covered in floral pastel, and glanced up at Finn, who repeated, “Stay here,” gave her a look that said,
Or
else
, and then hurried toward the stairs.

Her gut tightened with tension as she watched his posture shift into offensive rescue mode. She knew Hunter had placed his trust in the right man when he’d said for her to stay with Finn. And she rather liked Finn, despite his bossy demeanor. But she worried about both him and Anna.

As soon as Finn disappeared into the stairwell, she noted how empty the lobby was. Just one clerk was at the front counter, dressed in a charcoal gray suit and a red tie that clashed with the tile floor and busy taking a reservation on the phone. She glanced back at the doorway, thinking of the man who’d looked vaguely like Cyn. If that had been him, he wouldn’t like seeing her with another man, and she figured he wouldn’t attempt to approach her. For all Cyn knew, she was mated to Finn, they had gotten a room, and he was in a hurry to take her there for a romantic night.

Since Hunter hadn’t let her date Cyn, she knew Finn wouldn’t allow her to meet with him, either, even if everything was all right upstairs and she had the opportunity. If not for Imposter Joe, who could still be on the premises, she would have left the hotel on her own to satisfy her curiosity—to set Cyn straight that she wasn’t in a permanent relationship with Finn and to see if Cyn was still worth pursuing. She was beginning to have her doubts, since he hadn’t gotten in touch with her since before Hunter’s failed mission. Oh, and of course, she wanted to find out if the man even was Cyn.

That made her wonder if she’d seen someone else lurking, rather than enjoying the view and the great outdoors—someone like the assassin who had hit Allan. That made her decide to stay where she was.

But considering how devoid of guests the lobby was, she wondered if she should have remained in the dark in the Hummer. If she had stayed in the vehicle, she might have seen more of the man lurking by the tree without him noticing and discovered if he truly was Cyn.

But Joe was a wolf, too, and in the dark, he could have easily spied her sitting there all alone.

Just like here.

***

Finn dashed up the stairs to the sixth floor of the hotel and reached Anna’s suite in record time. With his lockpick, he quickly unlocked her door, which automatically shut and relocked itself behind him when he entered the suite. He hurried through the empty living area, noting a table overturned, a lamp lying on the floor, and a couch cushion askew—evidence of a major struggle. But no smell of blood.

His heart pounding thunderously, he cursed under his breath as he stalked to the bedroom, smelling Joe Matheson’s and Anna’s scent throughout the place while listening to a faint rustling sound in the bedroom.

Anna wasn’t saying a word, and neither was Joe. Had they heard Finn? Most likely, despite how he was trying to move soundlessly across the carpeted floor. They couldn’t have missed the door closing with a slight click.

Knowing it could be a trap, Finn pondered shifting into the wolf, but instead, with gun in hand, he rushed into the bedroom. And found Anna gagged, with her hands tied to the headboard, her legs spread-eagled, her ankles tied to the footboard, and her eyes wide with surprise. But appearing uninjured, thank God.

Snapping his gaping mouth shut, he did a quick search through the room, the closet, and the balcony, finding no one in the suite but Anna.

When Finn headed back to the bed, he tried to fight a smile and failed. Anna rolled her eyes at him. That’s when he noted what Joe had used to confine her. A pair of her sheer black panty hose was tied around her mouth. Her wrists were tied to the headboard with another pair, and her ankles tied to the footboard with… he squinted to identify the items. A black silk scarf and black net leggings. She was still fully clothed but he imagined she’d been stripped of her weapons, and she looked unharmed, just a little tussled.

He freed her mouth first, then quickly worked on her wrists while she scolded him. “Hell, Finn, where’s the girl?”

The girl—Meara—was about the same age as Anna. His teammate’s derogatory way of calling Meara “the girl” was probably because Anna knew Finn had a thing for Meara, like the rest of the guys on Hunter’s team, and because Meara was a civilian and not “one of the guys” trained to use deadly force like Anna was. At least as a human. As a wolf? That was a different story. Their wolf instincts for self-preservation and protecting others came naturally to them. And from the stories Hunter had told about Meara, she didn’t hesitate to use her wolf teeth to make her point with other wolves who gave her trouble.

He was already leaving the room, letting Anna free herself the rest of the way so he could make sure Meara was safe, when Anna called after him, “The fake Joe did this so he could find you again, Finn. And he wanted to make sure I was one of the good guys on your team.”

“I take it he’s one of us.”

“Deep cover,” she said, hurrying after him. “Or at least I assume he is. He didn’t tell me. I just figured since he tied me up and didn’t do anything else, he was waiting for you to come to my rescue. Which would prove we worked together.”

He glanced back at her. “Lose your weapons?”

She gave him a withering look, opened a drawer in the chest of drawers, yanked her guns and knife out of it, and then quickly tucked them in the leather holsters where she always kept them.

“He put them in the drawer?”

“Yes, of course. I
was
wearing them.”

He could almost hear the “duh” after her statement. “How’d he manage to overwhelm you? I thought you were more capable than that.”

His words were spoken with tight humor, more joking than critical, but he couldn’t help worrying about Meara’s safety. Teasing Anna helped to diffuse the tension he was feeling. He hurried out of the suite and down the hall toward the stairs.

Anna snorted as she followed him to the stairs. “You said he was good. You were right. And unlike at least one of the assassins who came after you, he’s a wolf.” She smiled. “Not bad looking, either.” Then she frowned. “But you shouldn’t have risked coming after me and leaving Meara to fend for herself. I could have taken care of myself.”

Racing down the stairs with Anna trying to keep up with his lankier stride, Finn shook his head. “You looked like you were doing a fine job of it.”

***

In the lobby, Meara was watching the hallway to the elevators and emergency stairs for any sign of Anna and Finn, as well as the front door, half expecting the man who looked vaguely like Cyn to come inside. The man most likely had a room here.

Then movement from one of the hallways caught her eye, and she turned. Her jaw dropped. Joe, or
whoever
he
really
was
, exited into the lobby. Her heart began skipping beats.

Now all dressed in black—trousers, boots, and T-shirt, but no weapons that she could see—he looked very spook-like, his expression hard and determined, his gait focused. He was definitely on the move. Nothing casual about him.

She hesitated to react, wanting to sink into the cushions before he spied her or to get up quickly and find another location where he couldn’t see her. Even though she wasn’t usually a coward, she was worried about Anna and Finn, and she didn’t feel equipped to deal with this man.

The tension in her spine ratchetted up several notches as she watched Joe head toward the lobby. Before she could do anything, he saw her.

His eyes widened, and he changed course, heading straight in her direction.

Heart beating even harder, if that was possible, she stiffened and quickly pulled out her cell phone, scolding herself for not having done so the instant she’d seen him. Although she knew any movement on her part would have caught his eye. She had hoped he wouldn’t see her.
Fat
chance
. She was the
only
one sitting in the lobby. Even if she’d been a block of wood resting on a chair, he would have noticed.