The Cougar's Wish (Desert Guards) Read Free Page A

storage of all of them.”
    “Not worried. Just wondering.” She shrugged. Giving curly a nudge, she added, “He might eat us out of house and home, but he’ll probably be cheaper than installing an alarm.”
    “Why were you thinking about installing an alarm?” Mason asked. “If you’ve been having problems, Belle certainly hasn’t said anything about them.”
    Curly shrugged. Seemed to be the gesture of the night. “I guess Belle doesn’t tell you much of anything. Truth is, there’s a couple of vacant rentals nearby. One right next door and one across the street. We suspect that there are some ...” She cringed. “Unsavory characters squatting in them at night. Belle sometimes goes out to confront them when they’re being disruptive, and they’ll go away for a couple of days.”
    “Are you kidding me?” Mason gave his hair a yank and growled. “Just call the police next time.”
    Steven cleared his throat.
    “Never mind,” Mason said. “Just tell him.”
    “I’ll take care of it,” Steven said.
    “How?” Curly asked.
    “You let me worry about that, and don’t question it, so you’ll have plausible deniability if shit goes cattywampus later.”
    Curly’s cheek twitched. Obviously, those weren’t the comforting words she’d been hoping for.
    Mason glanced at his watch and then headed toward the door. “Sorry to skip out, but I’ve got to get some sleep. My girl goes to work early, and my kid wakes up before the sun. Call me in the morning.”
    “Yep.”
    Ponytail roomie gave Mason a little wave. “Bye, Mason,” she whispered.
    “Bye, ladies.”
    Ponytail sighed.
    She had to have known her
obvious
crush on Mason would go unrequited. For one thing, at thirty-three, he was too damned old for her. She couldn’t have been much more than twenty, which was how old Belle happened to be, too. For another, Mason loved his fiancée and everyone in town knew it. The alpha wasn’t exactly shy about it.
    Ponytail would probably get over it soon enough.
    The door slammed shut behind Mason, and the gazes of both ladies slipped to Steven.
    He bobbed his eyebrows at them.
    He would have never imagined in a thousand years that flying to New Mexico to check on his semidisappeared little sister would turn into a weeks-long foray into supernatural subterfuge. Hannah could probably take care of herself, and over the past few weeks of watching her adjust to life in the Cougar glaring, he became increasingly convinced that if shit went down, the Foyes would take care of her. Sean, especially. He liked her and wanted to keep her, bless his heart.
    She didn’t need Steven to babysit her, but apparently the youngest Foye sibling did. He was keeping an eye on Belle as a favor to Mason. The quick-and-dirty debriefing he’d gotten from the Family Foye was that female Cougars became agitated by male Cougars—relatives or not—and sometimes behaved recklessly to spite them. Since Steven
wasn’t
a Cougar and because he had certain qualifications, it made sense that he keep an eye on the brat for as long as he could.
    He just hadn’t thought it would be
that
long. The folks back in Raleigh were hounding him by phone every day to see when he’d come back to work, and he didn’t know what to tell them except more lies. He’d taken time off to “care for a sick loved one”—Hannah, who’d been mauled by a wayward Cougar and turned into one herself. The problem with that lie was that he happened to work at the same police department as his father, and his father didn’t know shit about Hannah anymore. Steven could tell he was frothing at the mouth all the way from New Mexico.
    Good times.
    Ponytail roommate extended a hand to shake. “I’m Alex.”
    Steven shook it. “Steven Welch.”
    “Welch.” She narrowed her eyes. “So you’re ...”
    “Right. Hannah’s brother.”
    “Ah.” She raised her chin and grunted.
    “What’s with the
ah
? I haven’t been around long enough for my reputation to catch