Cougar's Conquest by Linda O. Johnston Read Free Book Online

looking into his troubled yet curious hazel eyes. She shook her head. “No. Please—”
    “If you want me to stay away, you need to tell me why—and it’s not just because you don’t want me to see you shift. What is it?”
    She gnawed on her bottom lip, her mind racing to decide how to play this. “If I tell you, will you promise not to try to watch me? That you’ll hang out in your hotel room tonight?”
    “Sure.”
    Could she believe him? She doubted it, but she had to try. It was the only way she could protect him, knowing that her family was apparently aware of her having been with him yesterday and might do something this night to harm him if they happened to see him.
    “I mean it. You need to stay far away tonight. My family…well, I never told you about them, but when I left for Denver, it was mostly to escape them. I had to come back, though, when…when I had no place else to go. I can deal with them. But I have reason to believe they’ll be watching for you if you’re around tonight. They can be vicious even when they’re not shifted. And when they are, like tonight, vicious doesn’t even begin to cover it. So please, please, keep your promise and stay away.” She searched the planes of his face, the stony look in his eyes, for some kind of guarantee.
    She saw none.
    “Please,” she said again, and reached up to kiss him.
    “Okay,” he said, sounding reluctant as she finally broke away. His gaze was searching but not readable.
    She only hoped he was telling the truth.
     
    Brett never liked lying. But he did so easily when he had a good reason.
    He had one now.
    As nighttime approached, he left his hotel room carrying full nighttime camouflage gear to don later in his rental car. Though Gwynn hadn’t appeared to want him to know where she lived, he’d already found out. Checked out her family—two parents and a brother and her, living in a house in the woods that Google Earth had located via satellite and shown to be a small, run-down shack.
    Before dark, he drove to a gas station with a convenience store that appeared to be the closest retail facility and parked there.
    Then, changing clothes out of the sight of any store employees, he slipped into the forest and hiked until he located the house.
    He had purposely chosen this timing to confront Gwynn here, where she had fled into the mountains. He had also known her family was here.
    He hadn’t realized, before this afternoon, though, that she was afraid of them. She’d obviously wanted to protect him, whatever the problem was. But did she need protection, too?
    He was damned well going to find out.
    She’d already said that her family members were shifters, too. He’d come with photographic equipment to record how things went. He would figure out later if, and how, he could use the evidence.
    He had talked to Major Connell several times during the day. He’d listened to Gwynn’s messages, read her texts, and chosen not to respond until he’d confronted her in her classroom.
    Tonight would mostly be observation, unless her family in some way attempted to harm Gwynn.
    Then, it would be time for action.
    In any event, tomorrow would be one for activity—to gather her up and get her out of here over the weekend.
    And then…well, he’d have to see about the future and how Gwynn fit into Alpha Force.
    Or not.
    And how his own life would be affected by her decision. Probably very little, once he’d recruited her and he backed off. It was one thing working with shifters, and something else to get more involved, something he doubted he wanted to do.
    Night was falling. He now moved around through the trees until he was able to watch for the moon to emerge over the horizon.
    The full moon.
     
    As promised, Gwynn had come home right after school, as soon as her confrontation with Brett was over. The energy in the household was almost palpable early that evening.
    Her family was jazzed. Ready to change and to roam.
    And her? She was even