For Your Paws Only (Supernatural Enforcers Agency #2) (3 page)

Avery, for her part, took against Dale within thirty seconds of meeting him. Greeting her with a ‘s’up, babe?’ and a slap to her ass was never going to end well. The slap she gave him could be heard on the next floor.

“Maybe you should report him to the Director,” grouched Avery.

“Can’t see what good it would do.”

If he did, the Director, being the goody-two-shoes that he was, would feel the need to do something about Dale’s behavior. Dale would act like an idiot, and the Director would try to fire him. Then boom goes the Director’s career. It wasn’t worth it for the sake of a few more weeks.

“I guess not,” lamented Avery.

Cutter looked through the files again, just for the sake of something to do, and the hope that some kind of divine inspiration might strike.
Fat chance
.

“You checked in with Jessie today?”

Avery nodded. “Yeah, she’s hit a brick wall in both cases. For the hedgehog, he had like zero online presence, and there were no cameras in the area, so she really can’t help with that. As for our toucan bride, nothing came up with financials or phone records, and she’s still going through e-mails and her online social profiles – our victim was very prolific in that department.”

“Funny,” he remarked, stonily. “My gut says there’s something seriously off about the whole murder of that bride.”

She cracked a genuine smile, something that seemed to be in short supply at that moment. “That your spider sense again, TBB?”

His eyes narrowed at the name he’d been assigned, TBB – temporary bad bossman. It was in honor of Gunner whom they generally referred to as BBB – big bad bossman.

“Sure, call it whatever you want. But it bothers me that there isn’t a body and that the bride was acting strange right up until she supposedly died.”

Avery nodded in agreement. “So our official theory is she faked her death?”

Cutter sipped his own coffee and moaned at the bitter taste. He was probably the only agent in the building who actually enjoyed the god-awful break room coffee. It had been percolating since,
what felt like
, the dawn of time.

“Yep, and it really is just a theory. If she managed to disappear, she had help, but I don’t know who.”

“You want to take another crack at some of her friends?”

Cutter grimaced. Interviewing them had been frustrating, to say the least. When they weren’t breaking down into tears, they were threatening to call on their exorbitantly expensive lawyers.

His wolf suddenly perked up as the scent of blueberries and cream invaded his senses. The animal was practically doing the Macarena while Cutter started panicking.

“Yes,” he snapped, startling Avery. “Let’s go, right now.”

“Now?”

He caught sight of a certain curvy little form out of the corner of his eye.
Time was running out.
“Yes, now, now, now!”

Cutter grabbed his jacket and made a dash for the exit, with a complaining Avery trailing behind him. Well, she could bitch and whine all she wanted, but there was no way that he was going to get trapped in the office by Lucie.

His beast yowled in dismay at his cowardice, but Cutter could give a crap. When he met Lucie, and she batted those big, round, baby blues at him for the very first time he made a vow that he was going to leave her alone. He didn’t want a mate, and she deserved better than him, and nothing that had happened in the last year had done anything to change his mind.

Nope, despite his wailing wolf, nothing was going to happen with Lucie. Definitely not. He was a hundred percent certain. One hundred percent.
That’s what he kept telling himself.

Chapter Two

Thirty minutes ago

Lucie sighed inwardly and smiled as Diaz threw her another pickup line. Something about it hurting when she fell to earth because she was an angel.
She wasn’t really listening.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t flattered.
No, wait - it was that
. If she wanted corny attempts to get into her panties, she’d go to a nightclub. Now, she was at work, and she demanded professionalism. Okay, maybe that was a bit much. She was more than happy to stalk Cutter around the building and constantly barrage him with
her
flirtations. She could just do without them from Diaz. Okay, yes he was a handsome jaguar shifter, but he just paled in comparison to Cutter. All men paled in comparison to Cutter, she thought, sadly.

Her hedgehog snuffled at her, and she felt a little better. Automatically, she started testing Diaz’s blood pressure. She’d done this so many times that she could practically do it in her sleep. Which was lucky because her mind was definitely not on the job. No, her thoughts wandered aimlessly until they came to rest on the object of her affections. He still had the power to make her swoon and send her nether regions into an aroused frenzy.

When he came down to the basement, she hoped against hope that he’d been there to see her.
No such luck
. He had looked cute when he was all flustered, but she couldn’t get over the stab of disappointment when he fled from her. Never mind, there’d be plenty of more opportunities to corner him later.
Plenty
.

Diaz let out a squawk as the blood pressure cuff tightened around his arm to an insane degree. Lucie quickly shut it off and gave him a disarming smile, completely convincing him that she meant to do that. Well, if nothing else it stopped his cheesy chat-up lines.

He gave her a watchful look as she set up the treadmill for him. She told him to run for ten minutes while she monitored his heart. He started going but was careful to make sure that he kept her in his sights. Lord knows what he thought she was going to do to him.

Cutter still hadn’t had his physical. She’d made sure the Director was aware of it so he would remind the stubborn wolf shifter yet again. Personally, she couldn’t wait to get her hands on his big, hot body. She fanned herself as heat pooled between her thighs. Just the thought of him sent her crazy.

Lucie had felt the attraction since the first moment she saw him. She joined the SEA a year ago, having previously worked as a personal nurse to an elderly elephant shifter. After her charge had died –
from natural causes
– she decided on a change of scenery and, on a whim, filled out an application. She was both amazed and delighted when she got the job.

She was on a tour of the building when she first saw him. Everyone else faded into a blur of faces and names, but, from the second she saw him, James Cutter was ingrained in her memory.

He stood a foot taller than her at six-foot-three; his body was long, muscled and gorgeous. He wore jeans that molded perfectly to his thick, ropy thighs, and a tight, white t-shirt that stretched across his wide shoulders. His eyes were an incredible shade of green that were startling against his dark brown skin. And if that wasn’t spectacular enough, his voice was velvety smooth and deep and seemed to have a hotline directly to her sex. So, in one word, he was
perfect
.

Her usually docile, little beastie was virtually dancing around at meeting him, and even better she scented his arousal from the moment he clapped eyes on her. Yep, he wanted her too. Which made his continued rejection of her advances baffling.

It started with him running in the opposite direction whenever he saw her, and now it meant that he actually rejected her when she asked him to go out with her. Some women would have been put off by this, but not Lucie.

She may be small, her favorite color may be pink, and she enjoyed knitting as a hobby, but she was scrappy. From a young age, she realized that people would look down on her because of her size, species and somewhat largely proportioned hips and breasts, and with that realization came a tenacity of spirit. One that meant she would never back down, and she would never give in to the feelings of despair – even when they tried to creep up on her after she was orphaned at the age of 10. Be it a schoolyard bully or a wolf shifter who can’t admit to his own feelings – she was always up for a challenge. Of course, in later years, she also realized that big breasts were hardly a hindrance. As an adult, they came in extremely handy, in fact. Cutter himself couldn’t help looking at them, and salivating, whenever they ran into each other – which wasn’t as often as she would like. Ha, he should see them
sans clothes
– his head would probably explode.

But, she had to admit that after a year, nothing seemed to have changed. She still flirted like crazy, and he still retreated. She knew that there had to be a reason as to why he was so determined to stay away from her –
not necessarily a good reason
– but she had no clue as to what it was.

At first, she’d assumed he was married, but a quick inquiry round the gossipy office had soon confirmed that he was single. A state of being that happily dogged him to that day. Lucie had been very alert as to whether he had been with another woman, and she was almost one hundred percent certain that –
like her
- he had remained celibate since the day they met. Which only increased her zeal for the two of them to be together. By all accounts he used to be a bit of a womanizer, so surely this self-imposed abstinence was for her benefit. She couldn’t imagine herself being with another man, so, clearly, he couldn’t imagine himself being with another woman. Yet, he still kept her at arm’s length. Yeah, like she said –
baffling
.

Hmmm, maybe she needed to make some kind of gesture – something to knock him off his feet and grab his attention. She just didn’t have a clue what that would be. The only things he seemed to be interested in were working and drinking. So, short of murdering someone in the hopes that he’d investigate the case or buying a brewery, she had no idea what to do.

Her hedgehog wrinkled her nose. Her little beast had been nothing but supportive and encouraging, but even she was starting to get a little impatient with the gruff wolf shifter.

Maybe she just needed to shower him with attention. She could tell she had an affect on him, so maybe if she were around him more, he would be so filled with lust that he would be powerless to resist her.

Lucie bit her lip. Well, in the absence of a better plan –
her only other current plan involved a Stephen King Misery type scenario
– it was worth a shot. As soon as she was done with Diaz, she would get upstairs and start her plan of smothering him with attention until he finally gave in and agreed to be her boyfriend.

Her small animal mewled in agreement.
Yep, look out Cutter - she was coming for him
.

*

It was a bitter disappointment to note that Cutter was leaving in the opposite direction as soon as she made it up to the office floor.

Lucie deflated a little and made her way back to the elevator. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt. He was kind of busy trying to fill in for his polar bear shifter boss; she could understand why he needed to leave in a hurry. She just hoped he wasn’t running away on her account. Her hedgehog chuffed at her.
Yep, they’d get him tomorrow
.

“Oh, Lucie, I’m glad I caught you,” called her very harried-looking boss, Cecile.

Cecile was a Director at the SEA, in charge of medical and maintenance staff. She was a swan shifter and usually tackled life with zen-like calm. Unlike the other Directors, she was on a first name basis with all her staff –
often acting more like a mother hen than a boss
- and was captain of the office softball team. Today, however, she appeared to be having a bad day.

Lucie shook off her own discontent at missing Cutter and plastered a bright smile on her face. Like Aunt Mae always said, ‘when life gives you lemons, just quit your whining and eat your darn lemons.’ Aunt Mae said the oddest things, but she combined a smiley outlook on life with a steely resolve that would make a rhino shifter pause before going up against her.

“Hi, Cecile, what can I do for you?”

Cecile waved the piece of paper she held in her hand. “I have good news; we’ve found a new medical examiner, and he starts tomorrow. We can finally get rid of that Doctor freaking Frankenstein.”

Lucie’s eyes widened in surprise; it was the first time she’d ever heard her boss badmouth anyone. The crotchety, retired, raccoon, Marvin didn’t get on with anyone, but usually Cecile always found some good in everyone.

The swan shifter shook her head. “I’m sorry; that was unprofessional. I’m just having a bad day.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” offered Lucie.

“No, it’s nothing an hour in the batting cages won’t fix. Let’s just say I’ll be glad when the newest member of the Alpha team gets reassigned. Damn wolf shifter seems to have eight hands.”

Yes, there were a lot of female agents who had also already come to that same conclusion about Dale. Lucie, for her part, hoped to stay off his radar. His type seemed to be tall blondes, so most likely she was safe from his dubious charms. Another reason she was more than content with being short and having tawny brown hair - even if she did need help to reach the top shelf at her local grocery shop. However, Dale had taken to showing up in the medical bay at odd times. She’d come back from the bathroom and he’d suddenly be there. Maybe he was into Helga. Well, she was tall and blonde, but also happily married with seven children. Her husband was a mole shifter and a half a foot shorter than her – he was in awe of his Valkyrie-like wife, and darn they did look cute together.

“So, his name is Doctor Rick Powers…”

“Great name,” commented Lucie.

“Agreed, and he’s a lion shifter. He’s been with the SEA for five years, and previously he was at the SEA offices in Serpens City, Illinois. Would you mind showing him around and getting him settled in tomorrow?”

“Of course not.”

Cecile seemed to lose a little of her tenseness. “Thank you. I can’t wait to give Marvin the good news. He can go back to butchering rounds of golf instead of our corpses.”

Lucie raised an eyebrow and Cecile chuckled ruefully.

“Sorry, I know – completely unprofessional. I’m just glad that I won’t be getting any more complaints from irate family members about the stitch jobs Marvin does after he finishes their autopsies.”

Lucie winced. She had to admit that Doctor Frankenstein wasn’t a bad fit for Marvin. Families want to send their loved ones into the next life with dignity, not having them look like a prop from a horror film. Marvin wasn’t exactly what anyone would call considerate.

“I’m sure the new guy will do a good job.”

Cecile smiled. “Yes, me too. We’re lucky to get him. He’s moving here to be near his family. As frustrating as the last six months have been, I’m glad we didn’t find a replacement sooner. I wonder if he plays softball.”

She tapped her chin thoughtfully, and Lucie giggled softly.

“Are you okay?” asked Cecile, solicitously. “You look a little pale.”

Oh, the man I’m absolutely obsessed with virtually refuses to even acknowledge I’m alive. But other than that… “Peachy, thanks.”

Cecile nodded but still looked a little concerned. “Well, my door’s always open if you want to talk about anything.”

“Thanks, Cecile. Don’t worry about the new doctor, I’ll see that he settles in, and I’ll see you on Saturday for the game.”

The swan shifter grinned widely. “Those firemen won’t know what hit them.”

The softball team was competing against the LLFD on Saturday. If there was one thing Cecile loved it was a friendly game of softball. And when Cecile was in charge, it was always friendly. She was as gracious at winning as she was at losing. Apparently things had been a little different a couple of years ago when a certain wolf shifter,
who definitely wasn’t a gracious loser
, was captain of the team.

Lucie groaned. Son of a monkey, everything seemed to come back to Cutter.

She watched as Cecile glided down the corridor.
Swan shifters were so graceful
. She thought about airing her woes to her boss, but decided against it. Lucie would have been more than happy to complain until the cows came home –
she had no idea where they were coming home from, it was just something Aunt Mae used to say
– but that just wasn’t her style. Rather than sitting around bellyaching about her problems, she preferred to take action and try and fix them, and being lovesick was hardly a major catastrophe.

It’s just that all the actions she took didn’t seem to get her any closer to actually fixing it. Maybe it was time she got some outside help.