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But as eager as Selena was to get started, she had a feeling it would be a long afternoon.
* * *
Owen had returned to where the constables who now reported to him still surrounded Rainey in the small and crowded living room. They were asking her questions about Alpha Force.
Too bad he hadn’t stayed around to listen to her answers. The more he knew about the group that would be helping to train these raw new candidates, the better.
Instead, he had gone off to spend time with Selena. Not that he regretted it.
He felt more than saw her enter the room a short while later. His nerve endings tingling, he looked up as she and her dog joined the group. But then he noticed that Tim Franzer seemed to sit up straighter. He even moved over on the sofa and waved at the empty spot for Selena to sit down.
The guy wasn’t especially tall or muscular, and he didn’t appear particularly good-looking to Owen, not with his round face and prominent nose.
Even so, Selena gave him a big smile as she joined him.
Which irritated Owen.
If she ever smiled at him that way... She wouldn’t. But it was definitely hot. She was definitely hot—no matter what else she was.
“So, Selena,” said Craig Neverts, getting her attention. He was a nicer-looking guy than Tim, with dark hair, a wide mouth and prominent chin. “I’m finding all the stuff that Rainey’s told us to be amazing. She said you guys shift when the moon isn’t full and you’re going to teach us how.”
“Soon,” Selena said. “When our other Alpha Force members arrive. But maybe tomorrow we can give a brief demonstration of what I’m like while shifted even if they’re not here yet.”
She glanced toward Owen, her expression challenging as if she expected him to say something about how she had done the same for him and his commanding officer—shifting remotely. Not demonstrating the actual shift.
He remembered the demonstration and his lame offer of getting naked with her. Feeling those stirrings again, he banished the images that the mere thought brought to mind.
“Well, I, for one, don’t appreciate just hanging around here like this,” said Andrea Willburn. But she must have sensed that Owen, her new commanding officer, was glaring at her. “Sorry.” She appeared somewhat chastised. “But if it’s okay, can we maybe...well, go into town now rather than waiting till later? Party a little, as part of our cover? I mean if we’re not accomplishing anything useful today?”
To Owen, she somewhat resembled a falcon, the kind of animal she apparently shifted into, with her cap of dark hair and large, beak-like nose.
He thought about her suggestion. It might be the best thing to give everyone the afternoon in town. He’d stay behind, alone, and get some much-needed distance from the woman who was getting under his skin. He looked at Selena as he said, “Why not? Go ahead.”
* * *
That was fine with Selena.
As everyone left the room, she sat there. She had no particular interest in shopping or partying. Besides, she needed time away from Owen. Time to get her mind away from X-rated fantasies and back on the assignment. She took Lupe out on the porch, where she planned to sit and rest.
“You’re still here.”
At the sound of his voice, she turned to see Owen. Why was he still here? “Why didn’t you go with your troops?” Selena challenged him.
“Why didn’t you?” he countered.
“I—I need to take Lupe for a walk.” Not that she hadn’t, just a little while ago.
“I’ll go with you.”
He wasn’t her commanding officer, and she could have responded in the negative. But what the heck? Nothing would happen on a little walk in the woods.
There were worse things than hanging out a little more with Owen, her inner voice said.
Yeah, like not getting to be with him at all...
Now, where did that come from? She liked the guy, sure. But only as a temporary colleague. And if he truly didn’t like shifters despite believing in them, as he’d hinted before, that was even more reason not to spend much time with him.
So was the fact that she was sexually attracted to him.
Without looking at Owen, she grabbed Lupe’s leash and started out. The woods behind the houses smelled rather like citrus from the fir trees that formed a tight canopy, which nearly blocked out the sun. A carpet of downed needles crackled beneath their feet.
“Good area for shifters,” Selena told Owen, wanting to hear his reaction to her touch of goading.
“Glad to hear it.” She looked up to find him grinning down at her. Grinning? He now accepted the idea of her being a shifter?
Heck, that was what she was and why she was here.
Lupe didn’t have much to do except explore, sniffing the ground and air. They nevertheless stayed in the woods for twenty minutes or so.
“Ready to go to town, too?” Owen asked as they headed back.
“Sure,” Selena said, glad she’d survived the walk unscathed. Then she tripped over a branch and Owen grabbed her arm to steady her.
She found herself smiling in thanks up into his handsome, rugged face and saw that there was more than concern in his eyes. Not just casual heat, either.
More like lust.
She opened her mouth just a little as she attempted to thank him...and Owen’s lips came down on hers.
The kiss seemed to ignite the cool forest, especially when his arms went around her and pulled her close. She held him tightly, too, tasting him with her tongue as his teased hers.
Her eyes closed, and for a moment she was aware only of Owen. And herself. Here. Together, in the wilds, where anything could happen.
Before she could conjure any steamy scenarios, he pulled away. His breathing was hard and irregular, as was hers, and his expression was still full of heat, but his words were just normal and friendly, as if nothing had happened.
“Let’s drive into town, shall we?”
“Right. Sure. That sounds fine.”
* * *
Selena put Lupe in the kitchen of the house where they’d be staying, then joined Owen at his car.
Neither of them mentioned that kiss or where it had come from—let alone how inappropriate, yet suggestive, it had been.
Maybe it was just an act of closure after their initial discussions of nudity. Something they just had to get out of their systems. Now it was over. At least she hoped so.
Why, then, did it leave her aching for more?
Owen drove them carefully down the hill, then parked along the main commercial street and led her into the Yukon Bar. It was crowded, but even so, there were a couple of available tables. At his urging, Selena chose one—the one closest to the door and therefore the farthest from the noisy bar.
“Is this all right?” she asked.
“Definitely.”
She ordered a glass of red wine; he ordered a beer. When their server left, he asked, “Is it okay— I mean, you’re all right drinking alcohol?”
She laughed. “You mean...people like me? Yes, when we’re like this, all usual activity is fine.”
He smiled at her. She liked his smile and the way it raised his hint of dark beard ever so slightly. “I think I have a lot to learn about people like you.”
“And I have a lot to learn about the Mounties. You’ve told me a bit about your background, but how did you wind up here, in this kind of assignment?” One he didn’t seem to relish. “And when are you going to tell me the main reason for the formation of the CAs unit? I gather it’s something important.”
“It is.” He moved a little closer and spoke softly. “It’s actually a bunch of serial kidnappings that have justifiably gotten our senior officers’ attention, but it would be easier to explain more about it when your folks get here and I can do it all at once.”
The server brought their drinks, and since neither was especially hungry after that pizza, they ordered only a small appetizer to share.
When the server left, Owen looked at Selena with his gorgeous blue eyes and said nothing for a long moment. She felt her insides heat as if those eyes were igniting her nearly as much as his lips had. Before she lost herself in their depths she said, “Okay, tell me why you’re here.”
Shrugging, he took a drink of his beer. He still kept his voice low as he responded. “Not much to say that you don’t already know. As a kid, I always loved to see Mounties in their formal red uniforms riding horses and all. I told you about some of my assignments, but most recently I was assigned to the task force investigating those kidnappings I mentioned. That’s partly why I was chosen to help form the Canada Alphas—so I could use a different direction to catch the kidnappers.”
“Your career sounds amazing,” Selena said.
They started speaking again of Canada and what Selena might see here. The rest of their outing was pleasant. More than pleasant. Selena found herself looking into Owen’s face constantly, sharing smiles and laughs and banter, almost as if they were flirting.
Which, of course, they couldn’t be. Despite that onetime, unforgettable kiss. They were professional colleagues—that was all. Her role was to teach him and his fellow RCMP members what they needed to know and then leave.
Developing any other kind of relationship just couldn’t happen.
* * *
Sitting across the table from the lovely Selena, Owen now wished they’d found the rest of their crowd and hung out with them.
As much as he was enjoying Selena’s company, he was...well, he was liking it too much. Liking her too much.
Trying too much to remind himself what she was. Why she was here.
How touching her, kissing her, had been way out of line.
But he’d absolutely enjoyed their kiss. He also enjoyed the memory of it now, as he watched those full, sexy lips of hers while she talked and smiled and drank her wine and nibbled their appetizer.
This was unlike him. In all his assignments, he was totally professional. He got along fine with colleagues, sure. Even attractive female ones. But he had always behaved with absolute professionalism.
He had already blown that once with Selena. It couldn’t happen again.
She was talking softly now, about her recent assignment, although just loudly enough that he could hear her over the roar of the crowd around them. “Rainey, Lupe and I were in the Seattle area on more of a recon kind of thing. There were some reputed AWOL soldiers hanging out there, around a secluded campground, and the regular army hadn’t been able to confirm it. The idea was that the soldiers might be acting the roles of hunters or naturalists or whatever. They might be easier for a wolf to spot.” She paused and smiled, raising the ends of those sexy lips slowly. “They were. The assignment was pretty well over when I got a call from my superior officer. So here we are.”
“Yes, and I think your presence here will be a particularly good thing. We’d already been planning to form the CAs, but it had to come together even faster than originally thought because of those kidnappings. We—”
He heard a cell phone chime. “Mine,” Selena said. She pulled it from her pocketbook and looked at it. “It’s my captain. Excuse me.” She rose and walked away.
At the same time, Owen’s phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at it. Anthony Creay, his boss.
“Yes, sir?” he answered.
“I hope you’re getting your CAs trained well and fast, Owen. There’s been another kidnapping.”
“But the last one was only last week. There’s always been a good month or more before the next one.” Owen realized his protest was inane. If there’d been another kidnapping, the criminals’ prior MO on the four previous cases was no longer relevant.
“True. They’ve been so successful that they must be ramping it up. Which is all the more reason that your group is so critical.”
Selena returned and sat across from him again, no longer holding her phone. He mouthed Creay when she raised her eyebrows in question.
“We’re still waiting for some of the Alpha Force members,” he said, this time keeping his voice low in case anyone was eavesdropping.
“I heard what you said,” she told him in a soft voice. “Tell your boss they’ll be here tomorrow.”
Across the table his eyes met hers. The mission was about to get under way. And things were about to get interesting.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_f4c3a573-437a-5296-91cf-aa580fe8df57)
They left immediately, at Owen’s suggestion, which was fine with Selena. She didn’t telephone Rainey, nor did Owen call his CAs. “I’d rather tell them in person to get their tails back to the hotel where they’re staying for now so they’ll get up early for a briefing, even if your Alpha Force guys haven’t arrived yet,” he told Selena, and she agreed.
Owen led Selena out the door, but instead of going to the parking lot, they turned left outside and began hurrying down the sidewalk.
“I’d thought the gang would end up at the Yukon, too,” he said, “and we could have just talked to them here. But I’m aware of the other bars in town that my group also seems to like. I haven’t been downtown much with them, but they took care to introduce me to their favorites.”
Several cars drove by under the streetlights, but Selena and Owen were the only ones on the sidewalk outside the bar. The air was cool. Selena was glad she had grabbed a sweater to bring along after partially unpacking her suitcase earlier. She had removed the black wrap when they’d sat down, but now she pulled it on again over her T-shirt.
She was surprised, after sticking an arm through one sleeve, that the other sleeve was lined up so she could easily finish shrugging it on. Owen had grabbed it and held it up for her. Apparently, on top of being a member of the RCMP, he was a gentleman.
“Thanks,” she told him, turning enough to glance at him. He nodded in acknowledgment and kept walking.
Evidently more used to the crisp air than she was, he didn’t don a sweater or jacket over his gray plaid shirt. It fit well over his black jeans, hugging his chest in a way that suggested his training as a Mountie kept his physique in perfect shape.
West Columbia reminded Selena of countless small towns she’d visited back in the States. The street they traversed, Columbia Avenue, was lined with shops of various types.
There were also a number of restaurants, all with lights on and apparently still open. Selena didn’t recognize their names, but they seemed to be an assortment of family-style and gourmet eateries. Some of the aromas wafting out of them, especially the gourmet establishments, filled Selena’s senses and made her smile, even though she was far from hungry. Maybe she’d have an opportunity to sample some of the food here before her assignment was complete.
“This seems like a very pleasant town,” Selena said to make conversation. She was very aware of Owen at her side. She had the sense he wanted to pick up the pace but had reined himself in somewhat to accommodate her.
He didn’t need to. She was quite comfortable walking fast and did so often at home as part of a daily fitness regimen. She ran, too, when she felt like it—in both her forms.
Partly to accommodate him instead, and partly to challenge him, she began walking faster.
He kept up with her with apparently no effort. “I like your speed,” he said, sounding not at all out of breath, which didn’t surprise her.
“I thought you might.” She glanced up at him at her side and caught a glance that appeared somewhat amused—and a whole lot sexy.
