Foxy on the Run: Book One, Supernatural Bounty Hunters Novellas (9 page)

Chapter Ten

An hour and twenty four minutes,
and three orgasms
, later Jackson and Carly walked into the Blue Bull Diner. Jackson covertly looked round the Diner, scanning for potential threats. Carly sniggered at him and said it was like watching an episode of Get Smart.

She tried to push past him to inspect the pie counter but he held her hand tightly.
He still didn’t entirely trust her not to just knee him in the crotch and run away at any given moment. No way was she getting away from him again.
A sentiment his wolf agreed with whole heartedly.

Jackson nodded at the bear shifter Logan.
He was sprawled in a booth at the back of the Diner. Logan nodded back and Jackson weaved his way toward him grumpily pulling Carly behind. “Come on agent 99.”

Before she could protest Jackson
maneuvered her into the booth and sat next to her. Logan arched an eyebrow at Jackson but didn’t say anything.
Thank god for Logan, he never asked too many questions. He just took life as it came.

Carly’s eyes widened at the array of food in front of the bear shifter. There
were three kinds of eggs, bacon, whole-wheat toast, a fruit plate, pancakes, French toast, granola, yogurt and compote.

“Who else is coming to breakfast?” Asked Carly
of the hard looking bear shifter.
She was trying to break the ice.

Her fox had whimpered the moment she scented the bear.
Jackson had told her they were going to meet his friend and fellow bounty hunter.
He neglected to mention said friend was a seven foot Kodiak bear shifter.

She’d had one or two bad experiences with bear shifters in high school
.
Bears tended to be bullies
. One incident that particularly rankled was when a particularly bitchy bear called Genevieve had stolen all her clothes while she was showering after gym. Genevieve had kindly left her a pair of gym shorts two sizes too small and an itchy t-shirt with a picture of a pig on.
Okay so Carly was a little heavy, big whoop!
She wasn’t actually a pig!
Going home on the bus had not been pleasant that day.
Leggy bitch
.

This bear seemed a little different though. Waves of calmness rolled off him. He gave her a lopsided smile and damn
did it make a difference.
He went from being remorseless predator to cuddly teddy bear in the blink of an eye.
He was pretty darn gorgeous. He didn’t quite have the dangerous and inescapable charms that Jackson possessed, but she could see how a girl could fall hard for him.
If she weren’t already so taken with Jackson...

Carly
giggled at the bear and Jackson, at his wolf’s insistence, gave a low warning growl. He rested his arm on the back of the booth, lightly touching her shoulders. He was making it clear that she belonged to him.
Mine
.

Logan’s massive chest heaved as he struggled to control the laughter bubbling inside him.
Seeing Jackson smitten was priceless.

Logan
’s deep bass voice rumbled through the busy Diner. “Sorry, I was hungry so I ordered without you.”

Carly’s stomach growled angrily
.
God she was starving
. She hadn’t eaten in about eighteen hours. She was pretty sure that was the longest she had ever gone without food. She really wasn’t the type of woman to miss meals. She hated people who say they just forget to eat.
To her that was unthinkable
.

“No worrie
s, I wouldn’t have waited either. And we were late.” She cut her eyes to Jackson, letting Logan know it wasn’t her fault they were late. She had been all set to leave but he had insisted on ravishing her body one more time.
Insatiable beast
.

Jackson tutted. “Logan this is Carly. A total pain in the ass. Carly this is Logan.
”

“Nice to meet you.” She said cheerfully.
She didn’t even bat an eyelid anymore at Jackson’s barbed comments.

“You too.” Logan waved a massive paw and a simpering waitress came running over.

Carly groaned as the young auburn haired beauty gushed over both Logan and Jackson. Jackson couldn’t help but feel a little pleased at Carly’s annoyance over the waitress. Naughtily he asked the waitress to recommend something off the menu. To Carly’s displeasure the waitress placed a hand on Jackson’s arm and leaned over him, her face inches from his.

Normally Carly wasn’t given to
feeling jealousy over a man, or being openly rude to someone. But apparently these were hitherto unknown qualities that Jackson had awakened. Impatiently Carly snapped her fingers. “Hey cupcake! We’ll have two breakfast specials, he’ll have extra bacon and I’ll have pancakes instead of toast.”

Th
e waitress jumped back startled at the irate fox shifter before her. She jotted down their order and scurried away. Jackson chuckled at Carly and she snorted in return.

Jackson turned to Logan. “Well?”

Logan swallowed a mouthful of fruit before placing a thick, grey file on the table. He tapped his fingers against it. “This was hard to get.”

Jackson grunted his thanks before eagerly grabbing the file. Carly pressed herself against him so she could read it to
o. As much as he was enjoying that he needed to focus.

A look of outrage stole over Carly’s face. “Hey, that’s not true!” She jabbed her finger into the file. “That’s not true either!”

The notes in the file indicated that Carly and Carlton had been engaged in a sexual relationship. It noted that the relationship had ended badly when Carlton became involved with another woman and left Carly for her. It went on to detail some of the ‘stalker like’ behavior Carly had displayed after the end of the relationship.

Sifting through the file there were a
couple of sworn statements from her co-workers describing her fictitious obsessive behavior.
This was ridiculous!
No wonder her lawyer had asked her over and over about her relationship with Carlton. Why didn’t he tell her that her so called work friends had made these statements?

Reading through
, Carly’s line manager Joanne described how Carlton said Carly had broken into his house, stripped down to her underwear and hidden in his closet until he came home.
As if she would!
Although she was kind of tempted to do that to Jackson; it would pay him back for breaking into her apartment and she imagined he would be delighted to find her half naked in his home.
Okay, she was getting off track...

In another statement Carlton’s best friend Dr Harper Smith noted that Carly had been sending Carlton death threats.
She had allegedly told him that unless he came back to her she would kill him.
It was madness!
There were even a few of the alleged death threats in the file. Her heart sank as she realized they looked to be in her handwriting.

Someone
was framing her for killing him, and doing a fairly thorough job too.
Crap, she was screwed!

Jackson’s heart sank as he read the file.
Either Carly was lying to him.
And that would mean that he was having sex and falling in love with a murderous, lying nutjob.
Or else someone was doing a good job of framing Carly.
Neither option appealed to him.

His wolf snarled at the thought that she was lying, she could do no wrong in the animal’s eyes. Which meant that someone was deliberately doing this to her, her future was hanging in the balance.
The possibility of them having a future together was at stake
. Jackson didn’t usually think beyond the end of the week with a woman but with Carly it was different. The idea of being apart from her was excruciating.

Jackson
looked at her pretty face and immediately his insides warmed. She scowled. “None of this is true! These people are all lying!”

He tugged on a lock of her hair. “I know foxy. We’re going to figure this out.” He spoke with more confidence than he felt;
at that moment he was actually leaning toward her ‘run away to Mexico’ plan.

Logan almost choked on the pancake he was eating.
The sudden change in his friend was starting to unnerve him now. Dozens of skips had protested their innocence to Jackson, dozens had tried to bribe him into letting them go and dozens had tried to outsmart him.
All to no avail
.

As a wolf shifter
Jackson was stone cold and single minded when it came to hunting people. If it weren’t for their aggressive tempers Marcus would solely hire wolf shifters as bounty hunters. More than any other species of shifter wolves loved the chase.
They could care less what happened to the person after they were caught
. Usually Jackson could not be swayed.
Period
.

Yet
this somewhat unremarkable fox shifter had managed to escape him twice, had apparently seduced him and now despite evidence to the contrary Jackson was championing her innocence. Sure she seemed like a sweet little thing but then so did a number of people he had chased, and he hadn’t batted an eyelid about handing them over.

Damn the wolf shifter had it bad. Maybe the fox was his mate. When the issue of mates had arisen before Jackson had
angrily dismissed it as hokum and romantic drivel. The idea that there was a person meant to be with him, and who he would fall in love with whether he wanted to or not, was ludicrous to him.
If she was his mate Logan couldn’t wait to tell him ‘I told you so’.

The waitress brought over Carly and Jackson’s food. She gave Jackson an adoring look before catching Carly’s deadly glower and scampered away.

They began digging in with gusto. In between mouthfuls Carly asked what they were going to do next.

Jackson wiped his mouth and looked pensive.
“Someone’s framing you for murder, which means someone is out there who actually did murder him. We need to find out why someone would want him dead.”
Yeah, easy peasy
.

Carly fidgeted uneasily. “Maybe we
could go to the cops with this. The lion shifter who arrested me seemed like a nice guy...”

Jackson huffed thinking of Detective Leeman. The guy was a couple of inches taller than Jackson, a couple of inches wider and a couple of years younger. His blonde, blue eyed features
sent many a woman into a tailspin.
Jackson thought he looked like a sausage stuffed in a suit
. He certainly didn’t like the idea of
his
little fox going to him for help.

“No!” Said Jackson fiercely. A few customer looked round so he lowered his voice. “If he didn’t listen to you when he arrested you he’s not going to listen to you now. It’s not like we actually have any new evidence.”

“You believe me though.”

“Yeah well...”
I love you
. His wolf wagged his tail. “I guess I’m just a better Detective than Leeman.”
Nice, stick it to Leeman. They didn’t need their fox thinking of other
shifters
.

Carly
chewed her lip and nodded. “You’re right. So where do we go from here? I still vote for Mexico by the way.”

Logan chuckled.
“You should try searching this guy Carlton’s house. Find his phone and his computer maybe.”

They looked at him. “What? I was bored waiting for you so I read the file. I’m up to speed.”

Jackson looked at the bear sheepishly. “You think you could ask Alma to find his address for me?”

Logan arched an eyebrow. “
You too afraid to ask?”

“Hell yes!
If I get her on the phone she’ll probably use her witchy powers to reach down the line and throttle me.”

Logan excused himself laughing as he went. Jackson tensed as some cops walked into the Diner.
He put his arm round Carly and pulled her into his shoulder, shielding her face. She relaxed into him and gave the most adorable little moan of satisfaction.
Almost as lovely as the moans she had given last night and this morning...

The cops soon left, completely oblivious to Carly’s presence. She snuggled a little closer. “Mmmm I have to pee but I don’t want to get up.”

Jackson snickered before moving and pulling her to her feet. She started walking away but stopped when she felt him tugging on her hand. He leaned over her closely, his breath tickling her cheek. “Don’t bother going out the window foxy. I’ll just find you. And if you run away again I’ll have to punish you.”

Carly trembled and felt her panties moisten. She imagined from the deep amber hue of his eyes that any punishment he wished to give her would be sexual. She hadn’t intended to escape through the window but now part of her was considering it just to see what he would do.

She smirked at him before walking away wiggling her ass. A low growl of desire caught in his throat. Logan sauntered back over and glanced at the retreating curvy fox.