Matt: Tales of the Were (Redstone Clan Book 5) (2 page)

“Thank you,” she replied to his compliment, a bit of color highlighting her cheekbones as she beat a strategic retreat to the side, edging around the conference room’s large center table. “Would you like some coffee?”

He followed her to the sideboard that had been laid with a wide assortment of refreshments, just as Irma had promised. Matt helped himself to a bag of cheese puffs while Morgan poured coffee for them both at his nod.

She turned to the table and took a seat near a small mountain of papers, several open law books and a laptop that was already open and humming. Matt noted the wire that ran from it to the center of the table where an audio-visual hookup was located. Morgan put down her coffee and picked up a remote as he took a seat in the chair a few feet down from hers.

Morgan pointed the remote, and the window shade lowered, blocking the sun while she dimmed the lights. A screen rolled down out of the ceiling on the other end of the room and another button made her laptop’s display show on the screen.

It showed a map Matt was quickly becoming very well acquainted with. It was the old gold mine with an overlay of the proposed housing development.

“This is the plan we gave the county,” she explained unnecessarily. “I know you have other plans that we can’t show the humans, but from what I’ve discovered about the county’s concerns, if we can find a way to doctor these plans—the ones we submit to the human authority—and provide a way for the human inspector to see exactly what is on the revised plan and nothing of what you’re really doing, then we might be able to pull this off.”

She proceeded to point out the problem areas and asked astute questions about modifications that could help. She suggested a ruse of blocking off the old mine completely to satisfy the human land use office, while secretly constructing a new entrance the werewolves could use.

“There are a few points the county is concerned with. This is the biggest one.” She gestured toward the display. “They don’t like the idea of even the small usage of the old tunnels that you disclosed on your plans. They don’t seem to want anyone in the old mine, at all,” Morgan went on.

“We’ve done these kinds of projects before, all over California,” Matt said, thinking through the problem. “In past projects, we found it eased the human inspectors’ minds if we acknowledged the old shafts and showed that we knew about the risks, shored up the areas that were easily accessible, and made sure nobody got any farther into the old mines than our plans showed.” He munched on a cheese puff and thought some more about the strange situation they found themselves in here. “In the early projects, when we made no mention of using the old shafts, at all, that’s when we had problems. As soon as we altered our approach, this went a lot easier. The guys here aren’t behaving normally.”

“Should we worry?” Morgan turned to him in the darkened room, her eyes narrowing in concern.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to leave everything to him. His instinct was to protect her, but that wasn’t giving her enough credit. Plus, if she worked with him on this, he could spend more time with her.

“We can fix the plans to show what they want,” he said instead. “What I’m more worried about, frankly, is the threat of eco protestors and media attention. We’re going to need to find a way to nip that in the bud.”

“Atticus left some thoughts about that,” she said, consulting some of the papers at her side, then turning to her laptop to go to another image. “This topographical map shows the boundaries of the land Atticus bought for this project. This parcel…” She pointed to an adjacent section that sat over the deepest part of the old mine. “It’s up for sale. Atticus suggested we look at the possibility of turning it into a nature preserve to pacify the eco warriors. It might also prove a nice place for your people to utilize for hunting and running around. Atticus asked only that you tell them not to bite the tourists.”

She smiled at the small joke, and Matt was enchanted. He almost forgot to breathe there for a moment.

Totally uncool, fool,
he mentally chastised himself. Matt got a grip and tried to concentrate on the matter at hand.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Jenny and her family have had all their shots,” he quipped back, proud that he had saved himself from looking stupid, drooling over the pretty lady. “I’ll talk to our designers. We should be able to get something together quickly both on the revisions to the building plans and the nature preserve. I’ll have them work straight through the night on this, if we have to. I want to avert any sort of media attention.”

“I agree. In fact, if this gets out of hand, Atticus is prepared to scrap the project. The last thing he—or your people—need is too much media attention. I’m sorry to have to say that, but those are my instructions, and frankly, I agree with his decision.” She at least looked sorry, even if such a decision would mean the shifter employees would have to keep living in uncomfortable human housing.

Oh, the houses they currently occupied were luxurious by human standards, but shifters had different needs. Privacy, for one. They needed room to roam, and female wolves, in particular, liked to have a den to retreat to once in a while. The mine’s tunnels would’ve been perfect for a growing werewolf population, and now, with the addition of a nature preserve nearby, the place would be perfect for shifters. Matt resolved to make this work.

He just had to preempt any protests and get new plans approved in time for the groundbreaking ceremony that had been rather optimistically scheduled for next week. No way did he want to cancel that. He had his work crews already on the way here to start work. The last thing he wanted was a costly delay—or worse, a cancellation of the entire project.

Morgan cleared her throat when he didn’t reply. “For now, though, let’s proceed as if we’re going ahead with the project. In which case…” She clicked over to a new drawing. “Atticus had some questions about this tunnel here.” She pointed to the portion of the old mine that ran very close to the vineyard.

They discussed some modifications Atticus had proposed, and Matt made notes. He decided as they went along that he’d draw up the new plans himself. It would be easier for him to do it on-site than have to explain all the changes to someone at Redstone Construction’s home base in Las Vegas. Plus, the things Atticus wanted to add were both brilliant and demanded the utmost secrecy. Matt didn’t want to trust the various data-transmission technologies with this. He would do these himself and keep it off the cloud, just to be safe.

Plus, it would give him an excuse to hang around. Atticus had extended an invitation to use one of his empty offices while Matt was there. Knowing Morgan was in this building made him want to stick around. He could manufacture a reason or two to talk to her during the day and maybe convince her to share a meal with him, if he played it right.

By the time she’d run through the rest of her images, Matt knew exactly what he would do to alter the existing plans—both the publicly filed version and the
real
version. He also had a plan for luring the lovely Morgan to have dinner with him. Now all he had to do was get cracking on the plans so he’d be free in time to romance the lady over a candlelit dinner. Maybe with a bottle of Maxwell’s finest…

Oh yeah, Matt had big plans.

Morgan was barely holding it together. She’d thought her memories of the youngest Redstone brother were somehow overblown. No way could he really be that handsome, or attractive, or downright sexy.

Then, he’d walked into the conference room, and her stomach had clenched in reaction.
Damn
. He really was all those things. All those things and more.

The man ought to come with a warning label.

Morgan did her best to maintain her professional demeanor through the meeting, and she finally hit her stride when they started to really work through the proposed changes. She found out then that Matt was as quick-witted as he was good-looking. His sharp mind impressed her, and his dry sense of humor tickled her funny bone.

Everything about him was appealing.
Dammit.

She couldn’t afford a distraction like him. Not now. Possibly not ever. Morgan had a plan for her life, and it certainly didn’t include getting involved with a silver-tongued devil. Silver, after all, was poison to magical creatures like her.

Morgan was a professional woman. A career woman. No way did she want to become a shifter’s mate, sentenced to nesting and making a home for her cubs and not using her brain and qualifications to work. Morgan had worked hard to become a lawyer. She loved her job and the people she worked with. She didn’t want to lose the life she had carefully crafted for herself after the loss of her family.

Marc LaTour, the Master vampire of the area, had taken her under his wing. He’d paid for her schooling and given her a job. More than that, he’d given her a reason for living after the deep depression of losing everyone and everything she had ever known had almost killed her. Marc had been there for her, and she loved him like a father—or maybe a much older brother—for all that he had done for her.

She didn’t want to give up all of that to become a shifter’s mate. She had seen the way the women in her own family had been subjugated by the men. She remembered the fact that no woman of her Clan had been allowed to work outside the home. Women were supposed to stay home and raise cubs, according to the old Alpha of the Clan in which she had been raised until her teen years.

And she saw the same thing in the werewolf women who now worked for Atticus. Although Morgan hadn’t talked to them, she knew from the building plans that they were nesting—making homes for their young. Morgan wondered how many of the female workers would keep on working for Atticus once the new houses were built. In all likelihood, they wouldn’t. Atticus was going to be saddled with a werewolf community in his territory, in which only the single women and the males worked.

She had counseled against building permanent housing for the shifters, but Atticus had done it, anyway. It was his land, after all. He would be around long after Morgan and this current generation of shifters was gone, so the problem would be his for a long time to come, if it turned out the way she expected. It was his decision, and she was only here to follow his orders.

Keeping those thoughts firmly in mind, Morgan was able to hold back a bit of her inner cat’s response to the cougar sitting so close. Matt was an imposing man, and his cat was probably even more impressive, but Morgan was going to be cautious. She would work with the man, but that was as far as it could go.

Decision made as their meeting came to an end, Morgan used the intercom to ask Irma to set up a vacant office for their visitor. The older lady would make sure Matt had everything he needed, and Morgan might be able to make an escape. She needed breathing room—preferably in a place where every inhalation didn’t bring more of Matt’s deliciously masculine scent into her lungs.

“We have one of those big printers that can do engineering drawings,” Morgan mentioned as she collected her papers. “Atticus likes techie stuff, and he doesn’t spare any expense when it comes to the latest office equipment. We use it to print up marketing materials, signs, posters and the like, but it’ll do large-format drawings, too.”

“That sounds just about perfect,” Matt said, though the look in his eyes when she met his gaze made her think he was talking about more than just a printer.

* * *

Matt worked on the drawings all afternoon as far as Morgan could see. She couldn’t help but be curious about his comings and goings. She saw him walk past her office door a few times on the way to where the large-format printer was kept. Each time he returned from the printer, he had another giant sheet of paper with schematics on it in his hands.

He was using the empty office a few doors down from her own, and she could hear him move around, as well as the clicking of his computer keyboard and mouse. Shifter hearing was sharp, and the rest of the office was pretty quiet. Plus, she was interested in the man, despite her better judgment, and couldn’t seem to help but track his movements.

He moved very quietly. He was a cat, after all. But she was able to hear the mechanical noises of the equipment he used. The scratch of his pencil against paper. The rustle of the large-scale drawings as he moved them around. The click of the clip that held his cell phone to his belt as he removed it and made a call.

She could even hear his side of the conversation that followed. It was pretty clear he was reporting to his brother, the Alpha of the Redstone Clan. Matt had offered Morgan the protection of that Clan when he’d first met her and realized she was unaffiliated with a Tribe, Pack or Clan of any kind. She was a loner and had been since losing her family.

Although…she had been taken in by the Brotherhood. She could never be one of them, but they watched out for her, all the same. There were no romantic entanglements. She had never been interested in any of the bloodletters that way. For one thing, she had been very young when she’d been orphaned and pretty much adopted by the vampires. For another, she had spent a lot of time away at school, which the Brotherhood had paid for. When she returned, she went straight to work for them. The only men she had been involved with in a romantic way had been human boys at school, and they couldn’t keep up with her for long.

She hadn’t met many shifters in her life. Just the few who had dealings with the Brotherhood. Although, that was becoming more common as the Master and his right-hand man, Atticus, seemed intent on strengthening the relationship between their enclave and the Redstone Clan; though, they also had friendly dealings with the Lords of all North American
were
.

That was something new. For centuries, or so Marc had told her, the Brotherhood had stayed far, far away from shifters. He’d also told her that they’d worked together in ancient times to defeat and banish the fey woman known as the Destroyer of Worlds. But, after that threat had been dealt with, for some reason, the former allies grew farther and farther apart.