A SEAL in Wolf’s Clothing (20 page)

“We keep Meara safe and catch the bad guys while we’re at it.” Finn’s personal life wasn’t the issue at the moment. Or shouldn’t be anyway.

“What about you and Hunter?” Paul persisted. “What are you going to do when he gets here?”

Finn let out his breath. “We’ll work out our differences. We always do.”

“And Meara?”

Finn didn’t have a ready answer for that. The problem was that he liked Meara too damned much. The thought that any other male would have her didn’t set well with him. But more than that? He just didn’t want to give her up.

Paul stared at him in disbelief, and then the corners of his mouth rose. “My God, you’ve fallen for her.
Hard
.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to be you when Hunter returns. But I have to admit I’m glad it’s you that fell for her and not someone who wasn’t one of the team.”

Now what was Finn supposed to do? Tell Meara that Hunter knew about them or suspected something had gone on between them? Or just drop the subject and keep this on a strictly professional basis for the rest of the mission like he should have done from the start? When this was over, Meara could shop for her perfect mate again. Finn would stay far away from the temptation that was Meara and the whole Oregon coast where he might run into her anytime and want to take up where they had left off. “Might” wasn’t the word for it. He knew if he saw her again after having a taste of her, he could never go back to the way they’d been.

Anna shoved the back door open, her face red with annoyance, and fisted her hands on her hips. “Hunter just called me. He said you thought I’d phoned him about something that was going on between you and Meara. And he wanted to know what
that
was all about. Care to explain?”

“I’m going to check the perimeter of the house for a while,” Paul said, smiling at Finn. He took off by way of the back deck, leaving Finn to dig himself out of the deepening quicksand he found himself in.

“Yeah, well, it was a misunderstanding,” Finn said, hating to have to explain himself further to anyone else.

“We both figured that, but I don’t like having to lie to Hunter to protect your ass, even though you and Meara are a big boy and girl. Hunter is still her brother.”

“He reminded me of that. All right?”

Anna shook her head. “Fine, but the game plans have been changed, and now Hunter’s setting the rules. I told you I should have stayed with Meara. Now that’s just what’s going to happen. And you get outdoor patrol.”

Finn heard movement behind him and turned to see Meara walking down the hall toward them. Her eyes were wide, and her sexy mouth was parted in surprise, her cheeks lightly flushed. He wondered how much of the conversation she’d heard before she’d let them know she was joining them.

“I have to hear what Meara has to say about the ‘date’ she nearly had with Cyn,” he said to Anna without taking his eyes off Meara.

“A date with sin? That should be an interesting tale.” Anna shook her head. “Hunter said I should talk with her and pass the info along.”

Finn stood firm. He was the one who’d come to warn Hunter and his sister about the danger, and Paul, too, and had arranged for Anna to be here to help watch their backs. He wasn’t giving up protecting Meara for anything or anyone.

“Hunter learned about us, didn’t he?” Meara asked softly.

As reluctant as Finn was to admit it, he did. “Yeah.”

She shot an accusing glance in Anna’s direction, but Finn quickly said, “By my admission, Meara. No one else told Hunter.”

“Oh, well, terrific. So you went and told him all the sordid details?” Meara said, her tone of voice caustic.

Anna’s eyes grew big.

“Well, just fine. Do as Hunter ordered,” Meara snapped at Finn, her eyes fiery with indignation. “I’ll talk to Anna, and she can relay what little I know to whomever she’s working for.”

“Hell, Meara, I…” Finn ran his hands over his head in frustration. “It was a mistake.”

“A mistake?” she asked shrilly. “Oh yeah, how well I know. That’s how it always ends up—one big mistake. Do me a favor and don’t make it any worse than it already is, okay?” She strode past him, her delectable scent piquing his hormones, and he wondered how any woman could smell as mouthwatering as she did, making him want her as much as he did, when she was ready to bite his head off.

She entered the kitchen and started heating water in the teakettle.

“Fine.” He hadn’t wanted a mate. He had told her he wasn’t into romance or anything of the sort. He wasn’t ready to give up his work.

He stormed out of the house. This was the kind of job he knew how to do well. Going after the bad guys and protecting the innocents.

Dealing with relationships? He totally sucked at that.

“Hey, if it’s any consolation,” Paul said, joining him out front, “you’re the first SEAL on the team that Meara’s ever shown any real interest in. If you ever decide to settle down, I’m sure she’d go for you.”

The way she’d looked at Finn in the house with that hurt expression once she’d learned he’d told Hunter what was going on between them—not in so many words, but Hunter had to have known what had happened—Finn imagined she’d just as soon feed this SEAL to the sharks than do anything as foolish as consider him for her mate.

Yep, on the list of prospective mates back at her cabin, his name would definitely have been crossed off with big letters stating “NO WAY in hell!” written beside it.

***

“Are you all right?” Anna asked Meara as they sat down at the kitchen table over steaming mugs of mandarin-orange-flavored tea.

Meara frowned. “Sure.”

“Finn didn’t do it on purpose, by the way. He didn’t talk to Hunter about the two of you. I imagine it was more of a case of feeling guilty about your relationship and letting it slip with Hunter when Finn hadn’t meant to.”

Meara still couldn’t help feeling perturbed about it. She’d thought they could keep what had happened between them secret from Hunter so he wouldn’t throw a fit. Deep down, she didn’t want Finn to lose his longtime friendship with Hunter over the situation. “I thought you wanted to talk about Cyn,” she said curtly, not mad at Anna, but she couldn’t quash her annoyance with Finn for letting the situation slip.

Anna took a deep breath. “I’ve known Finn for six months now and worked really closely with him on a few missions, and I’ve never seen him so wrapped up in a woman. Kind of nice to see. I was beginning to think he was a eunuch.”

“Finn?”

Anna smiled. “Yeah, really. Because of the kind of work he does and not wanting to worry about a bad guy grabbing someone he cares for, Finn just hasn’t bothered with relationships. So when I saw him with you and the way he was acting all smitten, I figured something more was going on.”

“A big mistake,” Meara said. “Sure.”

Anna studied her for a moment, then said, “I wouldn’t let your brother come between you and Finn.”

Meara let out her breath. “My brother has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh yeah, he does. He means well. And he’s got your best interests at heart. But this is truly between you and Finn. For the first time, I believe he’s considering giving up this line of work.”

Meara sipped some of her hot tea. “Don’t be absurd.”

“No, really. I’m not very good at relationship issues, either. When I get mad at a man, I’m ready to use my whole arsenal of weapons on him.”

Meara finally smiled. “I like you, Anna.”

“The feeling’s mutual or I wouldn’t say any of this to you.” Anna reached over and patted Meara’s hand. “Give Finn a chance. Believe me, if I don’t let him in the house to watch over you tonight, he’ll be some wolf to deal with by morning. And I’m not about to put my ass on the line. Now, what do you know about…
sin
?”

As a wolf, Finn concentrated on searching for any clues to the assassin’s whereabouts before he’d tackled Meara, and Finn had had to end his miserable life. He assumed the wolf had parked somewhere in the area, although considering how much territory they could cover as wolves, he might have traveled a long distance in that form without tiring.

But with all the searching Finn had done, he hadn’t located a vehicle that the wolf might have driven. Finn also checked the area where the wolf had been before he attacked Meara and discovered his trail, but still no clothes. Looking out to sea, Finn wondered if the man had come from that direction. As a SEAL.

It reminded him of earlier SEAL operations when he and his teammates had shifted into wolves to go in as a reconnaissance team, although no one else knew that Hunter’s team took on the form of wolves when conducting some missions. With their noses to the ground, they were able to sniff out mines, locate cadavers, and find the hostages much more quickly.

In forested regions, they’d take out the lookouts before anyone realized a pack of wolves was upon them. And in one case when the guard called out about wolves attacking when they didn’t exist in the region, the enemy thought the guard was drunk on duty, which worked well when another man was sent to relieve him of his job.

Exasperated, Finn loped back to the house where Paul waited for him on the porch, maintaining an outside vigil. It had been several hours since Finn had started on his run on the wild side. Bjornolf was conducting his deeper cover surveillance and hadn’t been seen in all that time.

Finn quickly shifted, then grabbed his pants and tugged them on. He pulled out his phone, saw that he hadn’t missed any messages, and frowned. It was time he spoke with Meara about this Cyn person, since Anna hadn’t bothered to contact him with any word about the man, which irritated Finn no end. He was not going to be relegated to outside guard duty for the duration of this mission.

Paul nodded at him in greeting at the front of the house.

“Did Anna talk to you about this Cyn character while I was running as a wolf?” Finn asked, his tone of voice couched in annoyance.

“Nope. She was waiting for you to return, figuring there wasn’t much news anyway, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything with the information. Hunter’s still on the plane, so we can’t call him and give him any update.”

Finn finished dressing and looked back at the house.

“No word from either of them,” Paul offered. “It’s been real quiet.”

“They’re all right, aren’t they?” Finn didn’t wait for Paul’s answer as he suddenly feared the worse. Heart thundering, Finn realized that while Paul had been watching the front of the house and Bjornolf was who knew where, someone could have sneaked in the back, taken the women by surprise and…

He slammed the front door open and rushed into the living room. Spying Meara curled up on the couch under a yellow quilt, he stopped abruptly. Paul ran into his back and quickly retreated a couple of steps.

Meara’s eyes were shut tight in sleep. A book rested on her lap, featuring a Highlander in kilt, his chest bare, wolf eyes glowing above.
Heart
of
the
Highland
Wolf?

Finn stared at Meara in surprise, his heart nearly beating out of his chest, while his mind was still unable to reconcile what he thought might have happened with the serene scene.

Anna frowned at him as she sat on a recliner, sipping a cup of tea. “You wore her out,” she whispered, one brow arched. “All those late-night activities.”

Not wanting to go there, he asked quietly, “What did she say about Cyn?”

Anna smiled.

He gave her a disgruntled look and motioned for her to go with him to the privacy of the back deck. Paul had remained standing where he was, but seeing there wasn’t any trouble, he quietly closed the door and returned to his guard duty out front.

When Finn and Anna were settled on lounge chairs on the deck with the back door closed, Finn asked again, “What did she say about Cyn?”

“He was a SEAL, although she didn’t know that when she first met him. Hunter confirmed that with me. Cyn wanted to use her to get on Hunter’s team. Hunter didn’t like him for that reason alone, but something else bothered him about that man. He wasn’t as highly trained as the rest of you guys. And something else, maybe just some bad vibes. Hunter figured that was the end of it when Meara agreed, albeit reluctantly, not to see the man any further.”

An attack of possessiveness grabbed hold of Finn again. “Had she been seeing him?”

“According to Meara, she had met him at a bookstore in Sacramento. She recognized he was a wolf right away. He seemed real interested in her, and she liked his attention. She said Hunter kept her under his thumb so much that men were often afraid to approach her.”

Finn snorted. “Good thing, too.”

Anna rolled her eyes, definitely seeing the situation from a woman’s perspective.

“That weekend, she’d gone to Sacramento to shop, and while a couple of the pack members got sidetracked in a video-game shop, she met Cyn in the bookstore.”

Finn interrupted Anna before she got any further. “I’d think Hunter would have ensured that only his most reliable wolves stayed with her.”

“Chris Tarleton was in charge. He’s one of Hunter’s sub-leaders.”

“I met him at the morgue. He’s the one who is mentoring Rourke. And I imagine if she got away from Chris to see another man, he was pretty ticked off. Hunter would have chewed his ass also.”

“Right. Well, normally Chris is as responsible as can be, according to Hunter. Very serious-minded. But Meara took so long to read every back-cover blurb on the romance books before she picked the ones she wanted that he figured she’d be there for hours and no one would even notice her. How likely would it be for an alpha male wolf to spot her in the romance section of a bookstore?

Anyway, Cyn bought her dinner right after that and was a bona fide gentleman. He wanted to see her further so she mentioned him to Hunter the next morning, but Hunter threw a fit. Not only that, but he was furious she had gotten away from the pack members who were supposed to be watching her. He was especially angry with Chris because he’s a sub-leader and should have known better. So I’m sure Hunter gave Chris hell, as you suspected.”

Finn could imagine Hunter being that way. Not that he blamed him. Hunter had a pack to run, but he had been away a lot and had to rely on sub-leaders who wouldn’t let him down. “Hunter didn’t tell Meara why he suspected the guy wasn’t trustworthy?”

“No. Hunter didn’t want to hurt her feelings. He was afraid she’d feel bad if she knew Cyn was only trying to get into the family so he could be on Hunter’s SEAL team. That he truly wasn’t interested in her.”

Finn leaned back in the chair and stared out at the ocean swells making their way to the shore in constant rolling waves, white foam capping each like thick lace. “Why would he have wanted to be on our team so badly? Was it because he wanted to rescue his sister? He had to have known that his emotions would have been involved and could have adversely affected the mission. And why did Hunter have a bad feeling about him?”

“I don’t know. You know how he is sometimes. He just has a wolf’s intuition that something’s not right. Paul told me Hunter felt that way about the mission before you all landed on the beach, and then his instincts were confirmed when so many of the team were shot to hell.” Anna tapped her fingers on the arm of the lounger. “You’re not going to give her up, are you, Finn?”

He glanced over at Anna, surprised at the question when all along she’d acted as though he shouldn’t have anything to do with Meara.

She snorted. “Don’t give me that damned innocent look. You’re dying to have her, as much as she’s dying to have you. Even though Hunter told me to stay with her until he gets back, in essence to protect her from you and to protect her from herself, I’m not standing in your way. Not when I know what you’ll be like to live with in the morning. And I’m not even mentioning how Meara will be.”

He’d always liked Anna. She’d been a great asset to their team, but he appreciated her all the more now, glad he didn’t have to set her in her place if she hinted that he shouldn’t stay with Meara.

She gave Finn a thin smile. “Tessa called me on the sly after Hunter left on the plane to return to Portland. She said that Meara doesn’t share her room with just anyone. Male or female. When I asked Meara if she minded if I stayed in the same room with her, she politely declined. If I had insisted, I’m sure her wolfish blood would have fired up. So you see, you’ve made some headway where no one else has. And Tessa said if you didn’t stand up for Meara,
she’d
have a word with you.”

Finn shook his head. “I don’t even know Tessa. How in the world did a wolf convince Hunter to go on a honeymoon?”

“She wasn’t all wolf, exactly.”

“If she’s not all wolf, exactly, why does she think she can talk to me as if she is one?” He raised a brow at Anna.

“Maybe she has her own arsenal of weapons,” Anna said, patting her waist, “like I do.”

The door opened behind them. Finn turned to see Meara standing in the doorway, pushing straggles of dark hair out of her sleepy face. He damn well wanted to take her straight back to bed and have his way with her. Hell, the woman would be the death of him.

“So Cyn took you to dinner and was a gentleman, and you wanted him after that?” Finn growled at Meara, unable to stop the words as they spilled out of his mouth. What was it with him when it came to other men’s interest in her?

Anna rolled her eyes and vacated her seat. “I’m getting some sleep while the two of you talk about Cyn so I can take the night shift.” She gave Finn a look like she could strangle him, and then she shut the door as Meara glowered at him.

“Yeah, he was a gentleman,” Meara said.

“And that’s what you wanted. Some gentleman. Someone who would keep his hands off you. Who would say good night without a kiss or offer you one so benign that it wouldn’t scare you off. I know you only thought you liked him because he seemed safe.”

Meara glared daggers at him, but she didn’t deny it.

“You wanted a gentleman who was sin in name only. But he was using you to get on Hunter’s team, Meara. Only your brother didn’t tell you that, not wanting to hurt your feelings.”

Meara stared at Finn. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not lying. Hunter should have told you. We don’t know why Cyn wanted to be on the team so badly. Maybe it was so he could help to rescue his sister. Or…” Finn paused. “…maybe he planned some criminal act of sabotage. The reason is still unknown to us. But since that fiasco, several scenarios have come to mind. He wants revenge for Hunter saying no to both his being on the team and making something more of a relationship with you or maybe losing his sister. Maybe Cyn thinks you were the one who said no to seeing him further and hurt his efforts at joining the team. We don’t know. But Hunter shouldn’t have kept you in the dark about Cyn being a Navy SEAL and wanting to be on the team.”

“So… so you’re saying he followed me to the bookstore? Offered to take me to dinner? Made me believe he was genuinely interested in me so that he could get to Hunter?”

He hated making her face the facts, but the guy was no good for her. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. He might have been following you, waiting for the chance to get you alone. As soon as he saw that your escort had left you by yourself, he made his move.” Finn thought back to the book she’d had on her lap while she’d been sleeping in the living room. “Were you looking for romance books?”

“How did you…” She glanced back at the house.

“You were reading one before you fell asleep on the sofa. At least I figured that’s what it was since the cover featured a bare-chested man with a six-pack. So where did Cyn meet up with you? In the romance section? Looking to buy a book?” From what Anna had told Finn, that’s where Meara had been, but he had to hear the details from her and not just secondhand.

She parted her lips to speak, hesitated, and then said softly, “He said he was looking for science fiction and fantasy. I told him they were in the next aisle over.”

“Most likely clearly marked, too.” Finn gentled his tone. “Did he buy any books?”

“No. We got to talking and… well, I bought six romance books, but I didn’t even remember he was there to look for a book. After I paid for my purchases, he escorted me across the street to a steak restaurant. I guess I was so wrapped up in the notion of a wolf wanting to dine with me—and I didn’t have Hunter or one of his men watching out for me, knowing they might be checking up on me any second—so I jumped at the chance.”

She turned and looked out at the ocean and harrumphed. “And here I always thought that of all the men Hunter chased away, Cyn was the only one who wouldn’t have backed down. I thought he would eventually learn I was in Oregon and come to see me because he really did feel something for me,” she said in a silky, sultry way, her arms crossed beneath her breasts, raising them in an inviting manner.

Finn placed his hands on her shoulders and caressed lightly, still concerned she might be bruised from the earlier fight he’d had with the assassin on top of her. She tilted her chin up, her brown eyes challenging him. He leaned his mouth down to brush her lips with an unassuming kiss, barely skimming the softness, the taste of the orange-flavored tea on her lips, her light breath coming quickly as her heartbeat picked up its pace.

His hand caressed her neck with the barest of touches, and she shivered, her eyes misting with tears. Then he lowered his face to kiss her throat, to lick her soft skin, to sample her sweet lavender fragrance. That reminded him of when she had been buried in lavender-tinted bubbles and how much he had wanted to join her—and would have, if Paul hadn’t been around.

She stiffened slightly, and he captured her hands, unwrapping her arms from beneath her breasts and setting them around his neck so his hands could feel her breasts underneath the cotton tank top she wore. She moaned into his mouth as he stroked the soft mounds and felt the nipples extend. He touched and teased and captured one between his lips through the light fabric.