But I couldn’t risk losing her. I couldn’t have her hurt because of her proximity to me and my job, or my problems.
Still, she had a legitimate grievance. In an attempt to protect her, I’d shoved her and Vance together. Could I really claim total shock that they’d taken it beyond friendship? Beyond the surrogate sibling relationship I’d hoped for?
Maybe I hadn’t seen what was happening because I hadn’twantedto see. Because I’d known, deep down, that if I acknowledged that they’d broken the rules, I’d have to address the violation.
Or…maybe I was just plain blind.
Tucker left around ten pm, but he promised to continue working from the comfort of his home. He was already halfway through the list of contacts and places Billy had given us as possibilities, searching social media feeds for tags or pictures of Cam and searching public records for any property in his name. Either of them.
He was making a list of non-shifter friends who might know where to find Cam—under either of his identities—and places where he might be found.
I thanked him profusely for his efforts and asked him to keep me posted. Clearly, we were not going to find Cam/Denny tonight, but I still had high hopes for tomorrow.
And if we didn’t find him in the next twenty-four hours, we were going to have to start officially interviewing my regulars about their contact with him. Which I’d been hoping to avoid.
Some of them would panic at the thought of the council taking over our investigation and potentially digging into their lives. Others would take it upon themselves to go hunting for Cam, and our attempts to stop them would take time away from the official manhunt. As would any potential leak of information to Cam himself.
It would be better for everyone involved if the rest of the zone knew nothing about what was happening until it was all over.
I closed the Fat Cat early again, because Austin and I were both tired and the bar was short-handed. By midnight, we’d cleaned everything and locked the front door. As I walked Austin out through the kitchen, I gifted him a full bottle as thanks for his help.
“Not necessary,” he said, but I insisted, tucking the bottle into his arm like a baby. Or a football.
“I really appreciate tonight,” I told him. “You tending my bar for free was above and beyond.”
“Happy to help out anywhere I can,” he said, lingering in the doorway. Staring down at me with those glittering blue eyes. “Charley, everything’s a bit complicated right now, but when this is all over, I’d really like to take you to dinner. If you’re at all interested.”
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt like one big bruise.
A week ago, my life was simple:
Serve the drinks. Keep the peace. Solve the shifter crimes.
But now…
“Your heart’s racing.” Austin’s focus on me intensified. “I can’t tell if that means you wanted me to ask you out, or you were dreading that, and now I’ve put you in an awkward position. And I’m sorry if it’s the latter. But I had to give it a shot.”
“Why?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Sorry.” I propped my hands on my hips, feeling more awkward than I had since the one middle school dance I’d attended. “I didn’t intend for that to come out as rude as it clearly did. I just mean…why do you want to take me out? Is it because I’m a shifter?”
While my regulars were put off by my authority, there was no shortage of shifter men out there who’d never met a woman who smelled like me. Whose biology was evidently telling them to lay claim, as quickly as they could, to a very, very rare resource.
Yes, that was several steps more innocent than making one’s own female shifter companion. Still…not what I was looking for.
Not that I was looking for anything. Not really.
“No,” he said. “I mean, not directly anyway. Though I suspect you being a shifter has, at least in part, made you into the woman you are, and…I like that woman.” The admission seemed almost bizarrely easy for him. He wasn’t nervous, nor was he naively unaware of his own appeal. And he definitely lacked no confidence.
“I apologize again. I swear I’m not fishing for compliments. But…what is it you like about me?” I was pretty well aware of what I had to offer and what I did not. I was bossy—occupational hazard—and often too direct. I was grouchy, regularly sleep-deprived, and frequently moody. I could more accurately be described as a skeptic than an optimist. And my backlist of trauma…well, it ran deep.
Yet Austin grinned. “Frankly, I like that you handle your shit. You’re in charge, and you’re good at it. You make tough calls every day, and no matter how hard the wind blows, you may bow, but you never break.” He cleared his throat and glanced at the floor, for just a second. Then he met my gaze with a boldness that stole my breath. “I think you’re amazing. And I have since the moment you first marched me into your office like a boy in trouble with the principal.”
My face flushed so hot I could practically see the glow at the bottom of my field of vision.
So much for not fishing for compliments.
