The Cougar's Bargain (32 page)

 Hank dragged his shirtsleeve across his bloody nose and stared at the ruined fabric. “Are you fucking over it now?”

“Are
you
?” Sean asked.

Hank scoffed. “I was over it
years
ago. Yeah, we were all pissed that you left, and maybe we were a bit hostile when you came back, but when has anything here been a simple, cut-and-dried thing? I don't know about Mason, but I wasn't pissed that you left more of the burden on us, but because I wasn't the one to go when I
should
have.”

Hank had had a good reason to go. He'd had schools throwing scholarship money at him and musical ensembles courting him. “Prodigy” was the word that'd been bandied about. He was a talented percussionist, but what made most people stop and listen was his guitar-playing—not just strumming, sing-along stuff, either. Classical and flamenco. Even Sean had been impressed by it, and he knew fuck-all about music.

“So, what's it say that you had so many reasons to go and I had so few, but it was me who went?”

“It just means you're less of a martyr.”

Mason rested the back of his head against the barn wall and blew out a breath. “I was more angry that you didn't say anything,” he said. “You didn't tell us you were unhappy. Didn't ask us for any slack. You kept on acting like everything was okay, and then you were gone, and that's wasn't cool.”

“You wouldn't have been able to do anything to change it,” Sean said. “I was still the extra kid that was just taking up space in the woodshop. One more worker elf getting shit done, but there was nothing about me that was distinct and unique from the two of you. To this day, Mom can't keep our names straight, but at least most of the time, she gets yours right on the first try.”

“I understand that,” Mason said. “I wouldn't be a very good brother if I didn't try to. But we've always been so close. It's always been the three of us. Two didn't feel right, and you were gone a long time, man. That's a lot of time spent not feeling right.”

“We've all got our shit, man,” Hank said. “You feel like the extra one—like Dad didn't give a shit about you. I did everything I could to just not make waves so the attention wasn't on me.”

“And Dad held me to a higher standard than anyone else,” Mason said. “If I could have traded with either of you, I would have. To this day, I'm not sure if I live up to his standards, and you know as well as I do that man was far from perfect.”

Sean scraped his hair back from his face and wished for his AWOL sunglasses. The three men were facing the sun as if they weren't card-carrying gingers and like melanoma wasn't a real thing. “I guess you can't be a Foye without being something of a walking disaster.”

“That's pretty much what Ellery and I agreed when I proposed to her.”

Sean sat up a little straighter, stunned at the news. “You proposed? When'd that happen?”

Mason made a noncommittal gesture. “Call it a pre-proposal and act like you don't know about it. She doesn't want folks getting distracted until we've got all the loose ends tied down here. I guess I'll have to wait a little longer to replace my truck. That ring was fucking expensive.”

Given his grin, Sean didn't think his big brother was too torn up about it.

“Well, congrats,” Hank said. “The glaring needs something to celebrate right now, and I can't imagine having a better sister-in-law. I mean … other than …” He and Mason both looked at Sean.

Not going there.
“Anyway, if we're not going to put Belle under lock and key, and if she insists on coming and going as she pleases, we're going to need to take shifts keeping an eye on her.”

“I see what you did there. Nice try, but we'll loop back around to what you're avoiding eventually,” Mason said. “And Belle's not going to let us get anywhere near her, and if she gets pissed enough, she'll run. We all know she's faster than any of us, so her running is something we need to prevent. She'd run into the damned hellmouth just to spite us.”

“Maybe the ladies?” Hank suggested.

Mason grunted. “Ellery could probably keep her contained if she had to. Miles might have a hard go of it. Hannah …” He cut his gaze to Sean, who laughed.

Mason hadn't needed to hash his words. They all knew what Hannah was capable of, and Sean better than anyone. “Hannah could scare the piss out of her. I believe that, and I haven't even seen her in her cougar form yet.”

“Seems like we have a plan shaping up, then,” Hank said.

“If push comes to shove, you could have Steven keep an eye on her when he can for the next few days. He'd probably agitate her a little less since he doesn't have Cougar energy.”

“Good idea. That'd probably work better if she stays in town, though. She's not going to shift there, so if she runs, he'll catch up to her.”

“Here's Hannah now,” Mason said. “Ask her.”

Hannah was pushing yet another load of greenhouse trash past the barn, and although she was right there and he had something he needed to say, Sean couldn't get the words out.

Hank gave him another hard punch to the arm, and shouted, “Hannah? Can you come here for a sec?”

“I'm going to fuck you up for that punch later,” Sean said and hissed.

“Get your head out of your ass, first, and maybe you'll manage that.”

Hannah strode over, loosening her work gloves from her fingers, and Sean stared down at his boots, and then up again before his brother decided to punch him once more for the delay.

She looked at each brother in turn and furrowed her brow. “Why are your clothes ripped? And how come you're bleeding?”

“Cougar Fight Club,” Mason muttered. “I just broke the first rule by telling you about it.”

She opened her mouth, but before she could voice her follow-up, Sean said, “Hey, uh … do you think Steven would mind being put to work for a few days? Until we figure something else out.”

“Regarding what?”

“Belle. We're trying to keep her off the ranch, and we're not ideal candidates for the job because our energy agitates her.”

Mason grunted and leaned against the barn wall. “You're probably not quite as impacted by it because you're not a born Cougar. Sean would be the only one capable of annoying you that way.”

Fuck. You.

“I could ask him,” she said, obviously oblivious to the hostile glares Mason and Sean were casting at each other. “I'd much rather him be off the ranch when things start getting hopping around here. I worry that if he sees something coming out of that hellmouth he might trigger a PTSD episode.”

“Let us know what he says,” Mason said. “Steering her off-property sooner rather than later would be ideal, but I don't know how you can coordinate it to make it seem like it was her idea.”

Hannah shrugged. “Back in the emergency room, I got used to talking people into doing things they didn't really want to do. Sometimes, people don't want to do what's in their best interest because they think the pain will get worse or because they don't trust the person who's treating them. You can't rationalize with those people because they're sick and their instincts are going to override their intellect. And surprisingly, more people seem to trust me when I don't deliver my message with a big smile for them.” She cut a nervous-looking gaze to Sean, shifted her gloves to one hand, and looked to Mason.

“Do what you can and try to get back quickly.”

“If it makes you feel any safer,” Hank said, “we probably won't get any static from the Coyotes at the moment—not counting any shifters pretending to be Coyotes.”

“Why not?” Hannah asked.

A dastardly grin cut Mason's face. “You know, there are certain advantages of being the alpha Cougar that I hadn't tried to tap into before recently. We can be scary when we want to be.”

“You
terrorized
them?”

He shrugged. “You say potato, I say …
well
,
yeah. Lots of dogs are afraid of cats. They should be.”

“Tell me the story later.”

“Yup, you got it.”

With one last glance at Sean, Hannah turned on her heel and walked away, probably toward Mom's truck.

Still rubbing his arm, Sean glowered at Hank.

“Right now, you're playing a video game in cheat mode, dude. All you have to do is pick up the controller and walk your little player straight through to the flag at the end. Instead of just giving it a go, you're sitting back afraid something's gonna pop out and bite your electronically-rendered ass.”

“Nice pep talk. I hope you never take up songwriting, Aesop.”

“Lucky for you, I don't improvise that way. I just
read
music. But you get my point. She's making it easy for you. Or at least, a hell of a lot easier than it was six weeks ago.”

“You think
that's
easy?”

Mason and Hank both nodded.

“Outsiders looking in,” Mason said. “We can see what you can't, I guess. Don't get so hung up over glaring placements. Just because she has one and you don't doesn't mean anything. You're not being snubbed or reaping retribution for going away. It's just the way the cards fell.”

Maybe Mason was right, not just about Hannah, but about his role in the glaring and in his family. He had to pull his weight, and he would, but he didn't need a title to do what he had to do. He was an adult who'd been working a lot of years without having anyone to pat him on the back and tell him “Good job.” No one could say he wasn't self-motivated. He put his nose to the grindstone and got work done when he had to.

He wasn't lazy. He wasn't shiftless. Unfocused? Maybe. And maybe it was up to him to change that. He didn't have to leave to change that. He just needed to look at things differently.

As far as Hannah went … that he'd have to figure out. The women he was used to were the sorts who would try to run him over if they didn't get their ways. Hannah may have been hard to handle, but somehow, he didn't think she'd do that to him.

He didn't want to do anything that would make her want to, either. She'd had her heart squeezed enough already.

Hannah got Belle into town with a minimal amount of cajoling and pleading. She'd spoken to the woman as a
person
, explaining in simple terms why she needed to skedaddle … and perhaps she fluffed herself a little bit and made herself look bigger to remind Belle of who outranked whom in the glaring. Maybe Belle wasn't afraid of her brothers, but Hannah knew for sure she'd come around to listening to a well-intentioned lady in the glaring.

And Belle was probably a little scared, too. She'd said something in that hellmouth was calling to her by name, and it sounded like a child. The rational, human part of her brain knew that whatever it was couldn't be human, but the cat part of her couldn't ignore that plaintive beckoning.

Stubborn cat that she was, she'd wanted to deal with the situation without interference from her brothers for a change, but she was afraid enough of whatever that
thing
was inside that hellmouth that she'd do her best to stay away. She didn't know if she could on her own, though. She wanted to keep checking, just to make sure that little voice wasn't Nick's or Travis's.

Hannah got Belle put up at her small rental house with Steven watching from nearby. She left him with a warning that if he let Belle anywhere near the ranch, she was going to use his new baby ponytail as fire kindling, and she wasn't even going to bother to cut it off first.

She made it back to the Double B in time to find Lola, in her brightly patterned dress, walking slowly in the desert near the hellmouth.

The ranch was quiet, but alive. People were watching even if they weren't making themselves visible. They were all waiting. She could sense them, feel their anticipation, and it excited her, too.

She found Sean standing in the shadows of the barn, just inside the entrance. He was sitting on an overturned crate with his forearms draped across his spread knees, watching Lola pace.

Maybe I should tell him now.

She decided that she would tell him about her bargain. She had to.

Hannah cleared her throat softly and sat on the crate beside him. “I need to tell you something.”

He turned his head slightly to her, and parted his lips to say something, but she didn't give him the chance to let it out.

“I pulled you out of your curse because I felt guilty and like I'd let everyone down. I made a bargain with Lola that I wouldn't have to keep you, though. She said I could find someone else for you, but I …” She grabbed the end of her braid and let it fall as quickly as she'd picked it up. Instead, she dug her fingers between the slats of the crate. “I … didn't want to. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

She glanced sideways at him and found the lines in his forehead deepening and him violently twisting the bit of straw he was holding.

She grabbed his hands and stilled them. “Sean, I was afraid.”

“Afraid of
me
?”

“Yeah.” She scoffed. “Yeah, I was. I thought we've established this already. I'm chickenshit when it comes to some things, but I don't know how else to be.”

He dropped the straw and let out a long exhalation. “I don't want you to be afraid of me. I'm not going to hurt you. You
know
that.”

She did know that. Or at least, she thought he meant it. Steven had told her during that long drive back from Tucson what Sean had said about her—about how Steven needed to shield her from all the bullshit. And about how Sean was proud to be her mate.

Before she could change her mind and chicken out, she put her lips to his and waited for him to take over because she didn't know what to do. She could start things, but needed him to finish them. She didn't have the talent or the experience.