With surprisingly gentle fingers, he touches my hair and whispers close to my ear. “Beau, come and get your mate. You’re in over your head.”
There’s silence, then a string of curses in my ear, as well as Tripp’s promise that he’s on his way back to me. Despite the surge of adrenaline inside me at being so close to a man I just saw beat someone into the ground, I stay perfectly still.
"Beau says to come with us."
Caleb’s gaze drifts back to Sophia, who's watching us from across the room, her body rigid.
"No." His voice drops. "I'm exactly where I need to be. Unlike you."
Beau is giving me instructions, feeding me lines to convince him to stay, to help, to come back to Grey Ridge with us, but up close, I can tell from the set of his scarred jaw and the grim determination in his eyes that his mind is made up.
"Amber,” I whisper, batting my eyelashes and running a hand over his stomach, like I’m trying to tempt him into taking me home. “Know anything about that?”
Caleb frowns and shakes his head. “Can’t say I do.”
One big hand wraps around my waist and pulls me closer, and to anyone else, it might look like he’s about to kiss me, or at the very least, he’s entertaining the idea of bedding me.
"What the fuck is he thinking?" He cuts me off, leaning down, his voice a harsh whisper. "Sending you into a place like this with a cub in your belly?"
The noise of the crowd falls away. The music, the shouting, the smell of sweat and sawdust, all of it fades until the only thing left is a single word.
Cub?
I blink hard and stumble back, all pretence of flirtatious banter forgotten. "What did you just say?"
Does he think I’m pregnant?That’s the last time I’ll wear these pants.
Caleb narrows his eyes, and more conscious of the crowd around us now, keeps our little act on track. In my ear, the silence is deafening.
Neither Beau nor Van utters a word.
"You heard me. I’m not interested." His eyes drop to my stomach then back to my face before pulling down the neckline of my top an inch to reveal the red mark on my breast. "Get the hell out of here. And tell my brother he should be keeping a closer eye on his woman."
The chuckles around us wash over me as people nearby listen in and assume I’m propositioning my boyfriend’s brother.
Cub.
"That's not... I'm not…" I stutter out, my cheeks heating even though I couldn’t give a fuck what he just said about me, orwhat these people think, once it’s not that I’m a cop. “I’m not pregnant,” I finally blurt out.
Caleb registers my genuine cluelessness and curses, shaking his head. His fists ball at his sides then a rumble like those I’ve heard from Beau practically shakes the ground.
“He hasn’t told you.”
27
BEAU
The second Mr. Black stands up from the VIP section, attention fixed squarely on Lisa and where she stands with her hands all over his prized fighter, I'm on my feet. Watching her in there has been absolute fucking torture every second of it, but knowing that man is watching her too?
Hell no.
"I'm going in."
A loud groan, and a brief pause in Van’s tapping on the keyboard tells me he objects to my half-baked decision.
“Does anybody around here know how to stick to a plan? Why do we bother even having them?” he grumbles as he leans closer to the screen and continues his surveillance work. "Beau, wait…" Van waves a hand behind him, eyes glued to the monitor, but I'm already pulling on my jacket and grabbing the truck keys. "He's definitely heading for her."
Mr. Black is crossing the warehouse floor, his two heavies flanking him, moving toward where Lisa is standing with Caleb.
