The Beast in Him

CHAPTER 5

He’s not quite sure how it happened. One second he was in an elevator heading up to a dog den for the final check from his company’s recent job, secretly enjoying the fact that Smitty couldn’t get past the front desk. The next he was flat on his back looking up at a bunch of dogs staring at him, horrified.

Two hours later, he had a face full of stitches and a raging Desiree, who had somehow backed a predatory male wolf into a corner.

Mace had to admit he was enjoying the show.

“Well, where the hell were you?”

“Uh... ” Hands in his front jean pockets, Smitty glanced over at Mace. His big dumb dog eyes pleading for help, but Mace only grinned, ignoring the pull of stitches.

When Dez looked at Mace over her shoulder, his face dropped into an expression of pure pain.

“Look at him!” She shoved Smitty by the shoulder. “Look at that face!”

“It’ll heal in a couple of days.”

Oooh. Wrong answer.

Dez turned those gorgeous gray-green eyes on the wolf, and Mace watched Smitty do what any sensible predator would do in a situation like this...

Plot to run away.

“He’ll heal? Is that what you said to me?”

“Well—”

“Because what if this wasn’t some simple facial lacerations? What if someone had pulled a gun or put a knife to his throat?”

“Yeah, but—”

She took a step closer. At least five inches shorter than Smitty, she still would make any male wary. After the baby had been born, Mace really worried that side of his Dez had gone away. But one day back at her job and she was tougher. More dangerous.

Mace found it so hot.

“When he goes to work, I’m assuming you’re protecting each other. That you’re protecting him.”

“Yeah, but he’s king of the jungle.”

Mace watched those eyes he loved so much narrow dangerously. Her hand curled into a fist. And Mace knew Dez had at least two guns on her.

Smitty swallowed, probably wondering who could move faster—Mace’s money was on his woman and her ability to draw her weapon. Then the hospital door opened and Smitty took his chance.

“It’s not my fault.” He pointed at the wild dog who’d just walked into the room. “It’s hers.”

Dez spun around, nailing Jessica Ward to the spot. But after a moment, the two women grinned, squealed, and ran into each other’s arms for a big hug.

“Jess!”

“Dez! Oh, my God, girl. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Fine.” Dez pulled back. “Look at you, Miss Too Rich to Remember Her Friends.”

“Oh, yeah, right. I was at the Christmas party at Moriharty’s. Where were you?”

Dez smirked and nodded toward Mace. “I’d just bred his little demon seed.”

Jess gasped in surprise. “You’re a mother?” That question was followed with another squeal that had both Smitty and Mace covering their ears in agony.

When Mace could hear again, the women were huddled over Dez’s wallet and pictures of Marcus—and her dumb dogs. He glanced at Smitty, who mouthed, “Asshole.” In response, Mace gave him the finger.

“So what happened?” Dez asked after the pair had gushed over how beautiful Marcus and those dumb dogs were.

“Bobby Ray is right,” Jess admitted. “It was my fault. I forgot Mace was coming to the office, and Danny was doing his usual lunch thing by letting our dogs take him around the office on his skateboard. They love doing that. Anyway, with a lion suddenly appearing in the office, they got a little spooked.”

Dez turned accusing eyes on Mace. “You scared her dogs?” she yelled.

“Wait. How did this become my fault?”

Jess stood around chatting with Dez until two more lions, mocking Llewellyn mercilessly, showed up. One of the big cats she knew: Brendon Shaw. Her company had done work for him on more than one occasion, she’d seen him at a few social events over the years, and the Pack’s much-loved Long Island property butted right up against Marissa Shaw’s and the Stark hyena Clan’s territories.

With Shaw came his brother. Not as big but just as handsome. She’d never met him before, but he seemed pleasant enough.

The problem wasn’t the brothers but the fact that Brendon brought flowers for Mace. As a joke sure, but Jess couldn’t find it funny. Since her allergic reaction to flowers could be considered colossal. She had small zipped cases in her backpack and key strategic places she frequented that held her allergy pills, nasal spray, and even an inhaler for those worst-case scenarios. Unfortunately, she hadn’t brought her backpack or coat with her. So she had no way of stopping one of her bouts unless she left the room in the next ninety seconds.

Not wasting any time, she whispered good-bye to Dez with promises to see her another time for lunch or dinner, before making her escape.

She pressed the button on the elevator and checked her e-mail from her phone. The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. She pressed the ground floor button and went back to her phone. A rude reply from a rude client had her seeing blood red, and she immediately began typing a seriously vicious reply. Once she hit send it suddenly occurred to her the doors hadn’t opened. She glanced up and realized the floor numbers didn’t seem to be moving either.

“Took you long enough.”

Startled by the low voice—and damn him that sexy slow drawl—Jess snarled and slammed her back against the opposite elevator wall.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Don’t sneak up on me like that, Bobby Ray!”

“Sorry, darlin’. Didn’t mean to startle you into blaspheming. Though I’m never quite sure how you don’t know when someone’s standing right next to you. We’re supposed to have enhanced skills.”

“I was taking care of something.”

“So I could see. Man, those little fingers move fast.”

“They’re not little.”

He grabbed hold of her right forefinger and lifted her hand. “Like a leprechaun’s hands.”

Trying not to notice how good his rough fingers felt on hers, she snatched her hand back. After all these years—and with her at a cool five feet nine inches—Smitty still called her small. Of course, compared to those linebackers he called She-wolves...

“They are not like a leprechaun’s hands! Now, is there a reason you stopped the elevator?”

“I see you still have your allergy to flowers,” he said, stunning her that he actually remembered after all these years. “Is that why you left the room without talking to me?”

“Talk to you?”

“Yeah, remember? I told you I wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay.” Resigned to her fate, Jess waited for him to say something. After a good three minutes of mutual staring, she realized that wouldn’t be happening. “And what would you like to talk about, Bobby Ray?”

“First off, feel free to call me Smitty. Everyone does now. And second, I wanted to talk about you.”

“What about me?”

“I’d like to know what you’ve been doing all this time. Where you went. How you got here.”

Truly perplexed, she asked, “Why?”

“’Cause I’m interested.”

Jess gave a short shake of her head. “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

She hit the elevator button and the doors opened on the same floor, but Bobby Ray—Smitty—hit it again and the doors closed.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to talk to you.”

“I said no.”

“Why not?”

“Is your sister in town with you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And Ronnie Lee Reed?”

“Yeah, she is—”

“Then I have nothing to say.”

She hit the elevator button again and so did Smitty. “What do they have to do with anything?”

“They made my life hell. For all I know, you guys are just setting me up for some cruel joke. I’ll end up walking down the street like in Carrie, wearing a prom dress and covered in pig’s blood.”

Smitty shook his head. “I don’t understand anything of what you just said.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ve never spoken the same language.”

“You mean English?”

“No, geek. Now if you’ll excuse me... ” Again, she hit the button. And again, so did he. “Would you stop doing that!”

“Then stop trying to rabbit away from me.”

Frustrated and getting kind of worked up being trapped in such a small box with one testosterone-saturated male, Jess crossed her arms over her chest and braced her legs apart. “What do you want, Smith?”

He stared at her for a long moment before finally saying, “I thought we could hang out.”

“Hang out?”

“Jessie Ann, we were friends. I’d like to continue that.”

“Friends?” Now Jess stared. “You are setting me up. Did your sister put you up to this? Little more torture for the dog. For Spot?”

“I didn’t know she called you that. And just leave her out of this. I’m talking about you and me spending some time together.”

“Forget it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not an idiot.”

“Jessie Ann—”

“It’s Jessica. Or Jess. No one calls me Jessie Ann.”

“Except me.”

“Look, are you letting me out of here, or do I have to start screaming for help?”

“If you don’t want to go out with me, fine. But know that I’m not setting you up for anything. I wouldn’t do that to you, Jessie Ann. You of all people should know that about me.”

Smitty pushed the button once more and walked out when the doors opened. Jess stared after him and, with a sigh of great annoyance, followed.

Smitty stepped off the elevator and ignored the sighed, “Smitty. Wait.”

Forced to use extreme measures and manipulations to get this difficult woman to give him what he wanted, Smitty utilized the hurt walk-away. It didn’t work on his sister, but Ronnie Lee fell for it every time.

He headed toward Brendon and Mitch, who stood a few feet away raiding the vending machines, but he wasn’t remotely surprised to feel Jessie’s hand grab the sleeve of his jacket.

“Smitty, hold on a sec.”

He raised his eyebrows to Shaw and Mitch before facing her. “What?”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings.”

“Then you did a mighty good job.”

“Are you actually... you’re serious? You’re really upset?”

He just stared at her, making sure his expression didn’t change. A cool move he’d learned from Mace years ago. Cats did have interesting skills, if you were willing to learn.

“Aw, Smitty, I wasn’t trying to—”

Jessie stopped and looked over Smitty’s shoulders at the two cats standing there doing what they all did so well... staring. And eating.

“Can I help you two with something?” she asked, obviously more than a little annoyed.

“No,” Shaw answered. “We’re fine.”

“You just keep talking,” Mitch added. “This is fascinating.”

“No, fascinating is what I’m gonna do to that pretty face—”

Smitty grabbed Jessie’s arms and pulled her back down the hallway toward the elevators. He’d forgotten about her temper. The girl could get mad at a bag of donuts.

“Now, now, Jessie Ann. Just calm down.”

“I will not calm—ooh! Chocolate.” And like that, Jessie wandered over to the nurses’ station desk to look over bars of chocolate someone had out to sell for their child. She never did stay angry long.

Smitty remembered how it had taken him a while to figure out Jessie wasn’t some flaky pup wandering from thing to thing, like most dogs, looking for a new smell or something to eat. Once she focused on something, absolutely nothing would distract her. But you had to be interesting enough to hold her attention; otherwise, she’d wander away in the middle of a sentence.

The thought that he might not be interesting enough to hold little Jessie Ann’s attention had his back teeth grinding. He simply wouldn’t allow her to dismiss him so easily. He wanted answers, dammit, and he’d get them.

Determined, he walked over to the desk and leaned against it while Jessie talked to the nurse manning the station.

“How much?” she asked.

“Dollar a piece. My son’s class is trying to take a trip to DC this summer.”

Jessie dug into her jeans pocket and pulled out a ten. “Here. I’ll take five.”

“Let me get you change.”

“Nah, put it toward his trip.”

The nurse smiled. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Carefully selecting from the bars in front of her, Jessie quickly had her five. She handed one to Smitty. “Caramel,” she said simply.

She walked away and he stared at the candy in his hand. After all these years she remembered his favorite chocolate? He glanced at the stack left. There were chocolates with caramel and nuts. Caramel, nougat, and nuts. White chocolate with caramel. On and on it went. But he’d never liked any of that. He’d only liked chocolate-covered caramel.

Slowly, Smitty turned and looked at Jessie Ann. Really looked at her.

She was a bit taller now. Easily five-nine or so. Small for a wolf or most cats, tall for a full-human. Her jeans were everyday. No low riders with her underwear showing. She wore jeans to lounge in, not to entice. Her sneakers had seen better days, but she always liked to wear them until they literally fell off her feet. Her sweatshirt had COMIC-CON blazoned on both sides with a date nearly five years ago. And while standing in front of the elevator, she silently pretended her chocolate bars were Samurai swords. He knew this because she took up a stance you’d see in any bad American remake of a great Japanese Samurai movie.

Unable to resist, he said softly, “Jessie Ann Ward, what are you doing?”

Startled, Jessie snapped to attention, lowering her arms and her chocolate “swords,” and answered back, “Nothin’.”

Smitty grinned. He’d forgotten how much he’d always enjoyed her. With her brains came her wackiness, and he enjoyed them both.

Sauntering over, Smitty said, “Come over for dinner tonight.” She opened her mouth and he quickly promised, “Only me and you. No Sissy. No Ronnie Lee. No anybody.”

Her adorable face scrunched up with indecision. “Smitty, I don’t know—”

Now walking around her, “I’ll make my momma’s key lime pie... .”

“Nice try... but no.”

“Fried chicken. Yams.”

“I hate yams.”

“Come on, Jessie Ann. What do I need to do to convince you—”

“Not be you.”

An explosion of laughter behind them had the pair glaring at the two cats who quickly turned to examine the soda machine.

Jessie looked back at him. “Look, I know you’re used to getting your way, but I’m not in the mood to play. I got a lot of—” Her phone rang, cutting her off. “Damn.” She looked at the caller ID. “I’ve gotta go.”

She pressed the elevator button. It opened immediately and Jessie stepped inside. “It was nice seeing you again, Smitty. Any more bills come up regarding Mace, just call our office. You’ll be on the phone list—only.”

Smitty watched the doors close. Did she really think it would be all that easy?

“Dis-missed!” Mitch said next to him.

“Brutally ignored,” Brendon added. “That must have hurt. Deep inside.”

Sure, he could agree, but that wouldn’t work. And they were too big as human to take them on directly. But they forgot he had four older, much meaner brothers.

Smitty put his head down and let out a dramatic, shaky breath.

“Oh, bruh, come on. She’s just a girl. Not even that cute.”

“Yeah,” Brendon agreed with his sibling as the pair moved closer to see if Smitty was crying. “You can do so much better.”

Even as he grabbed the brothers by the backs of their necks and slammed their big lion heads together, he appreciated their sentiment.

Heading toward the stairs and Jessie, Smitty tossed over his shoulder at the felines lying on the floor, “Thanks, y’all. That was sweet.”