Their Unexpected Mate [Paranormal Protection Unit] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (2 page)

Another deep breath had her steeling herself and marching, no other word for how she was walking, toward the door to “The Bar.”

Katherine pulled the door, and nothing happened. “Well what the ever-loving—” She grumbled and then grabbed the handle with both hands, tugging hard and groaning with the weight of the door swinging open for her.

“Holy schist.” She wanted to let her hands go from the door and cover her ears. Holy crap, people listened to music, no, country music, that loud?
What the ever-loving…?

Stepping into the smoke-filled bar, she sneezed, a-freaking-gain, and took out another Kleenex, thank you, portables, and dabbed at her eyes and nose. This had so better be worth it, she thought to herself and walked to the bar. As she took a step, she had to look at the bottoms of her Mary Janes to ensure that she didn’t have gum on them. Seeing none, she bent and touched the floor and squeaked when she pulled her fingers from the sticky floor. “I have a feeling that I’m going to need a flipping tetanus shot before I go home.” They had better have what she was jonesing for or she was going to kill someone.

What happened next was like a bad movie. While she was bent checking out the floor, someone moved along with another person and tripped over her. Katherine never would have believed that bending behind a person’s knees would send them flying heels over head, but sure enough, it did.

* * * *

As soon as the little bit of nothing walked into the bar, three men noticed her right away. Scythe had literally stopped in his tracks on his way to the bar to pay off the round of drinks he had just bought and lifted his head in a purely animalistic manner before he inhaled the air deeply. Even with the scents of The Bar swirling around them he could smell—her.

Mac’s beer stopped halfway to his lips. His gaze moved from the meeting going on in the corner and zeroed in on her. The smoldering heat built in his gaze as he watched the little thing look around as if she were lost. A low, feral growl came from his lips when he saw Big Eddie reaching out to touch her, and he watched as she unknowingly sidestepped the death of the man.

Over the comms the men wore came a quiet male voice. “Do we have trouble?”

Shit, Mac hadn’t realized his growl had been picked up by the too-sensitive comms unit and clicked his mic by scratching his ear. “Not in the sense you’re talking.” He looked to Scythe and saw that he had the same reaction to the little thing, and then to Sully, who seemed to be moving toward her without hesitation after tossing the cue onto the pool table.

What happened next would have made Mac, Scythe, and Sully laugh,
if
it hadn’t involved
their
woman. Scythe watched in fascination as the woman bent down to touch the floor after inspecting the bottoms of her shoes. When Manic and Big Eddie got into a tussle near her, they all watched in horror as Manic, one of the deadliest of the Hell’s Angels on the West Coast, tumbled, pinwheeled, and then fell over the back of the little gal, who was short and stacked, petite but delicious looking. Well, hell.

“Passing the ball off to the other team,” Mac whispered as he rose from his table, tossing a twenty to cover his beer, and began to move quickly toward the woman who was now standing toe-to-toe with a man who had more arrest warrants than Mac had PS3 games, and that was pretty fucking amazing.

“What?” squawked the lead on this case. “What the fuck, Mac?”

“Gotta save the future mother of my cubs,” he said softly as he tried to make his way across the dance floor, his eyes never leaving the woman or the large man who seemed to be getting an earful from her.

“Shit,” came across the comms and was followed with, “Beta team, fall in. Take over Alpha team’s stations. Don’t let these bastards get away. We will deal with everything else later.”

There was a trio of ‘copies’ that rumbled through their link as three leather-clad bikers separated from the shadows and laughed as they took up positions semi-close to where the weasel and the pusher were both conversing and dealing.

“Look, I don’t know who you think that you are,” Katherine said to the holy-crap-large man before her. “I didn’t try to make you fall, you fell over me,” she muttered.

Manic looked at the little spitfire before him and didn’t know if he should be offended, laugh, or beat the shit out of her. Instead he heard himself arguing. “Who the hell bends down and touches the fucking floor in a goddamn bar?” he shouted at her.

“Don’t you dare curse at me,” she said with far more fire than she was feeling in her terrified little brain. “I don’t like it when people curse at me.” She really never did like it when people cursed at her. Around her, she had no issues, but when someone cursed at her, she wanted to hurt someone.

Taken aback by her spunk, Manic leaned into her and said, “And what are you going to do to stop me?”

She didn’t back up from him even though she wanted to gag and said, “I don’t know, but I will think of something. I’m an intelligent woman and I’m positive that I would be able to come up with something,” she assured him.

Laughter erupted from him. Shaking his head, he asked, “What the he…heck are you doing in a place like this?” He looked at Big Eddie and said, “We aren’t done here. I suggest you get your life in order.” The promise that was in Manic’s voice was very clear. Big Eddie was a dead man because of a botched deal and only this girl’s innocence was keeping him alive right now.

The Delta men who had been approaching the woman and Manic all pulled back just before getting there, Scythe closer and sliding up to the bar at their side so that he could shamelessly eavesdrop on the man and his woman.

Walking with the big man to the bar, she said, “I was told that I could come here and get what I needed. Seems as if the one and only supply of what I need is out of here.” She grumbled. “Why the heck it’s here, I don’t know, but there it is. I am in serious need.” Her words were spoken without realizing the possible double entendre that she was giving to the massive man and the eavesdropping wolf at her side.

Manic nearly fell over himself at her words and shook his head. He never, in a million years, would have pegged her as a user. “What is it that you’re looking for?” he asked softly, moving in closer. “’Cause I have about anything you might want.” In more ways than one, if he were looking for another old lady, but he knew that the one he had now would skin him alive if he tried to step out on her. Damn vicious viper.

Katherine was stunned. Shaking her head, she just looked at him. “Really? You’re the only person in this town that has it?” She was astounded. She never would have believed that this man had what she wanted, what she needed.

Scythe was about to intervene, his vision going red at the thought that this woman was a user, even if he couldn’t smell drugs on her. What he heard next nearly had him choking on his own fucking tongue.

“Who would have thought that someone who looked as…” She looked Manic up and down, shivered and said, “No offense, but I never thought someone who looked as rough as you would be the supplier of mint-pistachio ice cream.”

Her words clearly stunned the man beside her. He just looked at her as if she had grown a second head before tossing his head back and laughing so hard that he beat his meaty fist on the scarred cherry bar. “Oh hell, woman.” He laughed. Looking to the bartender, he called out. “Hey, Becky, you have someone who wants some of your secret special stock. Get her a pint on me,” he called and shook his head. “You’re a laugh, lady,” he said and nodded. “I’m Murphy Schley. Everyone calls me Manic. You ever need anything, you let me know,” he told her with a grin.

Katherine couldn’t help but smile at the man and nodded. “I’m Katherine Douglas. I’m going to be opening up Wilder Resort in a couple of months. If you would like, feel free to come by.” She knew she would regret that invite, but she couldn’t withdraw it now.

Manic grinned. “I think it would be best if people like me don’t mix with people like you, kiddo.” He nodded. “Nice to meet you, Katherine Douglas. My offer stands. You ever need anything, you call me.” He scribbled a number on a napkin and gave it to her. “For now, though”—he turned—“time for me to finish a little something.” Finish killing Big Eddie for his big fucking mouth and his thieving ways, that was.

Katherine watched as the man walked away and shook her head. Sitting down in a near-boneless heap on the barstool, she watched as the bartender, Becky, she thought Murphy called her, scooped her ice cream into a container and lidded it up for her.

“He’s right, ya know.” Scythe couldn’t keep quiet. He wanted to hear her talking to him, see her grin, and listen to that laugh again. “This isn’t a place where someone like you should come and play. Heck, I’m shocked you were able to get the door open,” he admitted. The door in question was one that had been put on the bar with the knowledge that shifters, magic users, and Dragons would be entering and exiting the bar more often than their human counterparts. Add to it the penchant for the Angels to constantly choose this place for a hunker-down more often than not, yeah, the door had to be heavy.

“A girl would do anything for her fix,” she said with a grin. “And why the heck doesn’t the grocery carry this ice cream?” She shouted her question as the music started back up again, something about a red Solo cup.

“That would be because the grocer’s only child is deadly allergic to any nuts. If you notice, they don’t carry peanut oil. Hell, they don’t even carry peanut butter,” he groused. “Becky here is the only one who gets us all the fix we need, ain’t that right, Becky?” he asked the woman in question, who put the ice cream before Katherine.

“Isn’t,” Katherine corrected automatically without thought. Grabbing her ice cream, she turned to look at the man she had only looked at momentarily. She swallowed and felt her heart rate doubling at the sight of him. “Sorry, bad habit,” she murmured. “Can’t seem to help myself ninety-nine percent of the time when it comes to that word,” she admitted.

“It’s all right, ma’am,” he said and looked over her shoulder, barely shaking his head at Sully, who looked ready to slide onto the stool on the other side of Katherine and block her in with Mac at her back. “How about you let me walk you to your car?” he asked instead.

“I was able to make it from my car to here. I think I can make it back to my car.” Weird guys in this town, she had noticed. It seemed like every time she met one of the males in residence in the small town they tried to act as if she weren’t capable of taking care of herself, and it really infuriated her.

“Hey, I wasn’t trying to offend you, kitten,” he said with a slow and easy smile that had always gotten him what he wanted.

“Kitten? I’m sorry, who are you talking to?” she asked and looked over her shoulder then the other. “Oh, me?” She knew she was being bitchy and hated herself for it, but darn it all, she wanted to go home and all but melt right along with her ice cream. “Sorry, guy, but my name is Katherine, not kitten.” With a huff she started for the door again, fighting herself from making faces as her feet lifted one after another on the sticky and nasty floor.

Scythe took off after her and then opened the door for her. “Now then, Ms. Katherine, my momma would roll in her grave if I didn’t act like a proper gentleman now that you have given me your name,” he said with an easy grin and followed her outside. Once out of the bar, he inhaled the pure and sweet scent that belonged only to this woman and felt the wolf inside of him fight to howl. Oh hell, he needed her.

“Even though our mothers are gone they are always right there at our shoulders, leading us from wrong to right, aren’t they?” she asked with a grin.

“Not all mommas,” Scythe said sadly and walked with her to the little powder-blue car that seemed to be hers. The car, like the woman, stuck out in the parking lot like a sore thumb. “Only the good ones,” he said softly.

“Yeah, and mine was the best,” she whispered sadly.

“Hey now,” he said as he stopped with her before the little Prius. “I wasn’t tryin’ to make you sad, Ms. Katherine,” he assured her.

“Oh, I know you weren’t. I just get a little melancholy sometimes.” Especially now with the thought of her mother and the thoughts of her father from earlier as well, hence the need for the mint-pistachio ice cream.

“I know that one,” he said and tipped his hat back with a forefinger. “I’d sure like to take you out for dinner sometime. Would you be willin’ to let me take you out?” His southern twang came out thickly.

Blushing, Katherine looked at the man before her. Holy crap, he was built like a linebacker, had a body better than that of a Greek god, and had a face that would make a supermodel weep, and he was asking her out? “Me?” she squeaked.

“Yeah, you,” he said and reached out to push one lock of her white-blonde hair back behind her ear.

“Oh,” was all that she could say because suddenly her mind couldn’t figure out just how to process those little things called words. “Uhm.” She chewed her lower lip and then, instead of saying yes or no, said, “If you can figure out my number, I will go out with you.” Let him think he was working for an impossibility.

That had him grinning. Oh, he was a wolf. He loved a good chase, so he nodded and accepted her challenge. “You’re on, Ms. Katherine,” he said with a crooked grin. “Now.” He opened the door for her when she clicked the unlock on her car and held it for her. “Get yourself home, enjoy your ice cream, and I will call you at nine in the morning to arrange our date tomorrow night.” Scythe had the utmost confidence in himself and his team. Shit, if he knew Skittles at all he was sure that their tech guru already had every scrap of information on the woman before she slid into the interior of the car.

“You are certainly sure of yourself,” she said with a grin and tugged the door closed, rolling the window down when she had the car started.

“Always,” he said with a wink. “See you tomorrow night, Ms. Katherine. Dream about me, will ya?” he asked with a smile as he turned and sauntered away, the sway in his walk all for her benefit.