Marie Harte: Rachel's Totem

Cougar Falls, Montana

C-o-n-d-o-m. Worn in conjunction with sex. Take it into town, find a woman and use it, for God’s sake, or we’re not coming home.

Sincerely, Dean and Grady.

“Assholes.” Burke Chastell discreetly pocketed the small foil package in his pants and crumpled the note in his fist, dropping it on the table in front of him. Idiot brothers.

Grady must have written the note Burke had found folded and tucked into his shirt pocket. Dean could barely spell his own name, and “conjunction” was a three-syllable word.

So what if Burke had been a little testy lately? Since Charlotte Penny’s death, the entire town had been waiting on pins and needles for a reading of her will. But damned if her attorney would tell them anything. Gerald insisted they wait for Rachel Penny, Charlotte’s niece. A woman they’d never met, and who very likely wouldn’t be able to find Cougar Falls, in any case.

Glancing around at the small semi-crowded diner, Burke nodded at several of his neighbors, hoping Mac might choose today to leave the kitchen and wait on some tables.

Trying to focus on the menu he didn’t need, Burke groaned inwardly when he scented the cloyingly sweet smell of the woman who’d been harassing him for years.

“Burke, how nice to see you this morning.” Sarah Duncan interrupted his thoughts, and he quickly covered the ball of paper he’d crumpled on the table with a large hand.

God forbid Sarah get her hands on that nugget of gold. The woman was constantly in heat, and he had no urge to dip his wick where half the men in the county already had.

Sarah filled his cup with steaming coffee and waited for an acknowledgement, one hand resting on a curvy hip.

He grunted, and she shook her head. “Cat got your tongue?” She smirked, batting her eyes as if the cleverest girl in the world.

Why had he chosen the Fox’s Henhouse for breakfast today? He should have followed his instincts and driven the twenty miles into Whitefish instead of lingering in town.

“Funny, Sarah.” He sounded as if he’d just swallowed a bucket of gravel, but he had no inclination to play this morning. He needed to get a handle on Charlotte’s absent niece, on the Gray Wolves running amuck in Glacier, and to find that damned totem again before all hell broke loose.

Burke could feel the mystical totem’s loss as keenly as the others. In the air was a void where the totem’s strong spirit should have been protecting Cougar Falls. It was only a matter of time before the human populace took notice of the small town that

“didn’t exist”. Fuck. He had to find that totem.

“Come on, puma man. When you gonna give me a little lovin’?” Sarah did her best to engage him, bending down to show a generous cleavage as she stroked his forearm… without asking.

His hackles rose at the clear breach of etiquette. He might be a man, but he was a catamount as well, a feline Shifter protective of his space. Burke heard the chime of the door opening, but had his attention fixed on Sarah, in no mood for her games. “You couldn’t handle me even if you wanted to. Back off, and get me the damned special.

Now.” His growl alarmed the rest of the patrons in the diner, and he felt their stillness even as the rich aroma of fear wafted under his nose.

“Oh please. I guess even this far north the he-men are out in force.”

The belligerent voice had everyone in the room turning to stare at the newcomer in shock. A stranger. In the Fox’s Henhouse. In Cougar Falls.

“What? Is this a private restaurant, or can anyone order the ‘damned special’?” The stranger, a woman, glared down her nose at Burke, then turned a warm smile on Sarah.

“Is it okay if I sit anywhere?”

Sarah gaped dumbly until Burke nudged her. “Oh, um, yeah, sure. Have a seat wherever.” She beamed and fled behind the counter, her whispered exclamations audible to everyone but the stranger who sat as far away from Burke as possible, in a booth with a view of the mountains as well as the rest of the diner. He sniffed the air, trying to catch her scent, and found to his surprise…nothing.

Just like Charlotte Penny.

His blood heated at the thought that he might finally have found a lead on the missing totem, and he studied the woman, absorbing what he could. She looked nothing like Charlotte, but that didn’t rule her out as a relation. Charlotte had been a petite blonde, pretty in a soft, gentle way, and as wily as his grandfather.

This woman looked like an Amazon in comparison. Tall, stacked and ferocious as she glared his way before studying the menu. Her hair was a long blue-black, shiny and straight but curled at the ends over her shoulders. Thick black lashes framed light green eyes looking out from creamy, golden skin. Her nose was thin and turned up at the end, saved from being just short of cute by the sexy-as-hell mouth curled in contempt at the moment.

He couldn’t help lingering on her full breasts, their shape visible beneath the thin red T-shirt she wore. She obviously wasn’t from the area, judging by her clothing, inappropriate for Montana’s summer months. Even in July the sun refused to warm up beyond seventy degrees. Today’s sixty-five was no exception.

Burke glanced around him to note everyone giving him the look that said, Take care of her. And once again he questioned the notion of having a catamount in charge of the totem’s protection. The silver foxes were much better equipped to handle civilian authority and change. Both charming and sly, they’d been known to speak out of both sides of their mouths. Too bad his buddy Sheriff Ty Roderick presently had his hands full of the snotty wolf clan. Now if Burke could just keep Dean and Grady out of that mess waiting to blow up in their faces…

Sarah reappeared, breaking his concentration, and slammed a plate filled with food in front of him. She quickened her step to the stranger and began chit-chatting, fishing for information.

“Sorry it took me so long. That one there…” Sarah paused, nodding toward Burke,

“…can be a bear before his eggs.”

In the table next to him, Joel Buchanan snorted under his breath. “Bear, my ass. Cat has no sense of decorum.”

Burke shot him a dark look that Joel ignored before turning back to his wife.

“I know all about his type,” the stranger said, her lips fixing his attention.

Damn, but her annoyance was starting to turn him on. Granted, she was hot. But normally, animosity didn’t have him half-hard. The woman didn’t seem as affected. He could sense she felt anything but arousal. Anger burned through her pores.

“Ah, sure. He’s okay, really.” Sarah glanced back at him anxiously and he rolled his eyes. She turned back to the woman. “How about I bring you the special, and you can see why our customers are just so irritated to have it?”

The woman grinned and handed Sarah her menu. “Sure thing.”

“So what brings you to our little town? Cougar Falls is kind of off the map.”

An understatement. Cougar Falls was not only not on the map, but thanks to the totem on Charlotte’s—what used to be Chastell—property, only Shifters and humans with the ability to turn could find the place unless brought along by one of the townsfolk.

“My aunt used to live here.” A collective sigh whispered throughout the room.

“Charlotte Penny? Maybe you knew her.”

Sarah clucked and patted the woman on the hand. To Burke’s perverse satisfaction, the woman tensed and slid her hand under the table once Sarah let her go, as averse to pawing as he’d been. He grinned and tucked into his food, his ears perked.