Jennifer Ashley - Tiger Magic

Carly sighed and slapped the remote into his open palm. “Well, you might be able to turn into a snarling beast, but in my world, you’re still a guy .”

“Thank you.” Connor clicked the TV on. “Oh, righteous.” He punched the air as the soccer players on the screen did something Carly couldn’t follow.

“Want a beer?” Carly asked him, an ironic note in her voice.

“Sure, if you’ve got one. I like a good Guinness, but I’m not picky. Nothing too watery, love. Go, go, go! Aw, you bastard.”

He yelled at the television, and Carly ducked back into the kitchen to see what beer she had in the fridge, if any. She needed to go grocery shopping—she hadn’t stocked up, because she’d thought she’d be moving out.

Everything was reminding Carly of Ethan and his infidelity. What a frigging mess. She’d have to give him back the giant diamond ring she didn’t wear because she was terrified of losing it. She’d have to tell her family and all her friends that the wedding was off before it was even planned. She’d sent out invitations to a big party at Ethan’s for next Saturday, to celebrate the engagement. Well, Ethan could call off that party himself. His own stupid fault.

The why of it kept screaming through her head. If Ethan had asked Carly to move in with him, if he’d given her a rock worth who knew how much, if they’d arranged a party to show off what a brilliant couple they were, why had he been screwing another woman on his kitchen counter?

Why were men so fucking stupid?

Carly popped the top off the bottle of beer she’d brought out for Connor and threw the cap into the sink with extra force. She took a gulp of beer before she realized it. Never mind. The cold, fizzing fullness of it tasted good.

She needed to call Armand and explain what had happened, but she put it off some more. Armand could bluster, even though he might be sympathetic. He had a temper and could go on and on, even when he wasn’t mad at Carly.

Carly heaved another long sigh and upended the beer bottle again. Then she looked at it. “Damn it, this was supposed to be for Connor.”

She turned back to the refrigerator to fetch another when the opaque square window of her kitchen door darkened, and someone knocked politely.

As Carly went to answer the door, she saw out the window that a black SUV had pulled up in front of her house, its windows so tinted she couldn’t see inside.

She opened the door, beer in hand. Two men stood there, a smaller man in a suit nearly hidden behind a tall guy in black fatigues, the head soldier who’d been in Tiger’s room. She remembered his light blue eyes, his shaved head with pale-colored stubble, his hard face.

“Carly Randal?” the soldier asked.

“He’s not here,” she said, still holding the door. “He went home.”

The soldier gave her a careful look. “Who?”

“Tiger. The injured man you tried to shoot. He went home like a good boy. What do you want?”

The suited man looked around the soldier. “To speak with you, Ms. Randal.” He sounded nervous, not smooth as someone who’d arrived in a sleek SUV should sound. “About Shifters.”

“Why? There are plenty in Shiftertown.” For some reason, Carly did not want these men in here, did not want them to find Connor in her living room. In spite of Connor being taller than she was, and strong—she’d felt his strength when she’d held on to him during the ride home—Carly sensed that here in her house, Connor was vulnerable.

Would she have thought that if he hadn’t explained that he was a cub? She didn’t know. All Carly did know was that she did not want this trigger-happy soldier to start pointing guns at Connor.

“Please, Ms. Randal,” the suit said. “It’s important.”

“Let us in, Ms. Randal,” the soldier said, his blue eyes hard. “We have a warrant.”

Carly’s knowledge of police procedure came mostly from television, but she thought that a warrant meant they could come in and search her place legally, whether she liked it or not. But search for what?

Worth it to battle it out in court? Or let these guys in, try to keep them in the kitchen, and see what they wanted?

If Ethan had anything to do with this, she’d . . .

Damn him, she should have told Sean to shove the Corvette off a cliff.

Carly let out an annoyed sigh, opened the door, and gestured with the beer bottle. “Can I get you anything? Probably not alcohol, huh? Coffee? If I can find my coffeemaker. I packed it already.”

“No thank you,” the suited man said. “Is anyone here but you?”

“Not really your business,” Carly said.

Soldier was around her and through the kitchen door before she could stop him. Carly put the beer on the counter and hurried after him, but when she reached the living room, it was empty. The television still blared but was tuned to a cooking show, the running soccer players replaced by cooks madly chopping and sautéing to beat a deadline. Connor was nowhere in sight.

Soldier walked from the living room down the hall to the bedrooms. Carly called after him, “Hey, do you mind?” She’d left her dress and underwear on her bedroom floor. How embarrassing.

The soldier returned after a cursory glance at the rooms in the back. Suit had followed Carly into the living room, and now he sat down on the sofa and unsnapped a briefcase. Soldier took up a stance at the end of the couch. Carly picked up the remote and clicked off the television, but remained standing, one hand on her hip, the other holding the remote.

“So, what do y’all want?”

“Your help, Ms. Randal,” the suit said. “I want you to tell me what you know about Shifters.”

Carly blinked, transferring her gaze to the soldier, who remained on his feet. A black-butted pistol peeked from a holster at his hip.

“I don’t know anything about Shifters,” Carly answered the suit. She pointed at the soldier. “This guy was aiming at him. I bet he knows more than I do.”

The suit smiled. He wasn’t cold and slick, like so many businessmen in suits—Ethan’s friends, for example. He had soft eyes, hands that had never seen a manicure, hair growing out of a once-good cut.

“Would you like to know more about them?” Suit asked. “Perhaps for pay? What I’m trying to do, Ms. Randal—awkwardly—is offer you a job.”

“I already have a job.” Well, maybe. “What did you have in mind?”

“I want you to find out about Shifters. Talk to them, interact with them, see what makes them tick. And then you and I sit down and talk about it.”

“You mean spy on them?” Carly thought about Tiger, all shot up because of Ethan, Connor so young but promising to protect her, Liam and Sean—the hottie Irish brothers—trying to keep Tiger under control, Sean and Connor convincing her to come to the hospital with them, to see if she could help. “Seems kind of underhanded. What are you? CIA? FBI?”

The man in the suit chuckled. “No, I’m an anthropology professor. My name is Brennan, Lee Brennan. Here’s my card.” He plucked a pale rectangle from his briefcase and held it out to her. Sure enough, the card said he was Lee Brennan, PhD, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin.

“Why does an anthropology professor need a bodyguard?” she asked him.

Carly tried to hand the card back to Brennan, but he shook his head. “Keep it. My number and e-mail are there, along with the website for my project. Walker isn’t my bodyguard. He’s my friend, or at least, a former student. He keeps an eye out for good case studies for me and called me today after you left the hospital.”

Carly sank to the edge of a chair, still holding the card and the remote. “And you thought I’d be a good case study?”