“Hell no!” he said vehemently. “It’s nothing like that. Triana is just a friend. Period…dot…end of sentence.”
Across from Remy, Brooks regarded him with a knowing look. He knew Remy was hiding something for sure. Some of the more mature werewolves in the Pack, like Brooks and Gage, were walking lie detectors. By picking up on subtle changes in heart and respiratory rate, body scent, and even random muscle twitches, they could tell when other people were trying to feed them a line. Brooks almost certainly knew Remy was talking BS, but thankfully he didn’t call him on it.
Zane, on the other hand, wasn’t so reserved. “Did you stand too close to the breaching charge when it exploded this morning? Because unless you have a concussion, I have a hard time believing the words coming out of your mouth. I’ve never seen you not go after a woman you’re attracted to, and don’t try to convince us you’re not panting like a hound for Triana. I saw you two dancing—and smelled you. Pheromones don’t lie.”
Remy considered arguing, but then figured he’d not only lose, but probably embarrass himself too. There was no way in hell he was going to sit here and have a discussion about the scent he might put off when he was aroused. That was simply not a conversation he wanted to have. So, he went in a completely different direction instead.
“Yeah, okay, I’m attracted to her. So what? Triana has been a friend for a really long time. I don’t want to mess up that friendship.”
Beside him, Zane nodded. “I can understand that. But I should probably point out that you and Triana weren’t exactly dancing like friends last night—at least, not like any friends I’ve ever danced with.”
Remy snorted. “That’s because you’re too uptight and British to know how to relax and have a good time. Friends in New Orleans dance like that all the time.”
“That’s a load of crap,” Max said. “Zane and I are friends, and we weren’t dancing like that last night.”
Remy looked back and forth at his two pack mates. “Maybe you should. You two would look good together.”
Max chuckled. “Yeah, but that’s because I look good with anyone. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to get a shot at him. For reasons that are beyond me, Triana’s friend Kim seemed to take a liking to Zane. I don’t think she’s going to let anyone else get near him the whole time we’re here.”
Desperate for any topic that would get his pack mates’ attention off him and Triana, Remy jumped on it. “Now that you mention it, I did notice you and Kim were getting close. You do realize she’s on the rebound, right? You sure you want to get in the middle of that?”
Zane swigged some Gatorade. “Kim and I aren’t getting into anything. We danced and snogged a bit, but mostly all we did was talk. She’s not looking for anything serious but admitted she wouldn’t mind hanging out with someone who’d help take her mind off her ex for a while. I graciously agreed to do that. We’re two intelligent adults with no hidden agendas. She’s looking for a distraction, and I’m cool with that. She’s funny, easy to talk to, and sexy as hell. And before you ask, no, she’s not The One for me.”
“How do you know that?” Max asked.
“You have talked to Gage and the other guys who found their mates, right?” Zane countered. “According to them, they knew they’d found The One before they ever kissed. It might have taken them a while to realize what it was, but it was there. Based on that, I can state with certainty that Kim isn’t my mate.”
Max and Zane were still arguing about that and the possibility you could meet your soul mate and not even know it when Drew came out of the main building.
“Is lunch finally ready?” Remy asked the NOPD SWAT commander with a grin. “Hope so, because I’m starving.”
Drew didn’t return his smile. “Gumbo’s made, but unfortunately it’s going in the fridge. We’ve been called in to support the Narcotics Major Case Squad. They need backup to serve a high-risk search warrant on a target so sensitive they couldn’t even talk about it over the phone. But if it’s the guy I think it is, this one could get ugly. The four of you feel up to doing some real SWAT work instead of just training for it?”
* * *
Triana frowned at the chaotic mess of voodoo dolls on the huge table in the middle of her mother’s shop—what was left of them anyway. Sometimes when the tourists came through, it seemed like a hurricane had hit the place. Things were everywhere.
“Mom, I think you need to make some more voodoo dolls,” Triana shouted toward the back room, where her mom was doing her thing. “The big tour group from New York that came through yesterday just about wiped you out.”
“Already on it,” her mother called.
Triana couldn’t help smiling. Her mother was amazing. Most of the voodoo shops in town bought their stuff from overseas these days, but not her mom. While the T-shirts and knickknacks were from out of town, her mother hand made all the authentic voodoo items like the spells, oils, herbs, charms, candles, dolls, and gris-gris bags.
“So when was the last time you heard from this PI you’re paying so much money for?” Kim asked, dragging Triana’s attention back to the subject they’d been discussing before the critical voodoo doll shortage had been identified.
Kim had taken off from work to hang out with Triana and help restock the shelves and straighten up the place.
“It’s been five weeks,” Triana admitted with a shrug. “But he warned me this could take a while. The case was ice-cold by the time I hired him, and the detective who handled the case hasn’t exactly been very interested in talking to a private investigator about what he learned, probably because he never learned a damn thing.”
“So you’re getting nothing out of this guy but a bill?” Kim attempted to reattach a voodoo doll’s arm that had been savagely ripped off. After a couple of attempts, she gave up and instead simply ripped off the other arm in what Triana assumed was an effort to make the doll look symmetrical. “How long are you going to keep paying the guy?”
“I have no doubt he’s probably milking me for everything he can get, but I have to try something. I can’t let the man who murdered my dad get away with it…not without at least trying to find him.”
Kim hid the dismembered voodoo doll in the back of the pile. Triana took note of where it was, so she could dig it out later. Kim was a great friend but lousy at stocking shelves.
“I know,” Kim said. “All I’m saying is that you need to watch yourself. There are people in the world who will see your loss as their gain. Just be smart, okay?”
“I will.”
