Black Magic Bear: Tales of the Were (Grizzly Cove Book 16) Page 4

  She wasn’t going to alter that habit now. She wanted her coworkers to think she had never stayed late, and she didn’t care if that reflected poorly on her. She got her work done and did it well. She had unsnarled some of the big messes Josh had created and was on good terms with the state and federal inspectors, and paper pushers she dealt with on a daily basis. Bob had to be happy with that.

  They couldn’t pay her enough to stay late and possibly get caught up in something like what she’d seen the other night. No way, no how. And the fact was, they only paid her a salary that didn’t include overtime, so staying late was purely optional. While it was true that, in most offices she’d worked in, everybody worked late to show how dedicated they were to their jobs and earn brownie points with the boss, she wasn’t going to do that here. Not after what she’d seen.

  And, in fact, nobody in the office area seemed to habitually work late. Kiki had been watching carefully to see what the standard was in this new workplace since she’d first started. Aside from a few people who worked late once in a while, most of them seemed to leave not long after quitting time. That had made Kiki’s decision to leave with the main group much easier.

  As she drove home to her little rented cottage, she couldn’t help but think back to Jack Bishop. He had been the most handsome man she’d ever seen up close. He wasn’t movie star pretty. He was more rugged and sleek all at the same time. Handsome in a way that was hard to describe, though he did have chocolatey brown eyes that were subtly flecked with bits of green and gold. His eyes were almost mesmerizing when she met his gaze.

  His brown hair was pretty standard, but on him, it looked luxurious. The slightly shaggy strands, shot through with the occasional strand of golden brown, made her want to run her fingers through them. His facial features were unremarkable taken one at a time, but somehow, when put together, created a strikingly handsome visage.

  He was, however, a bit of a giant, but not fat in any way. Well over six feet tall, he was built on the ginormous side, with broad shoulders and honed muscles that showed clearly, even under his conservative attire. His clothing was casual, but neat. He didn’t give off the vibe of a man used to working in an office, but he was clearly able to adapt.

  All in all, he’d certainly made an impression on her. She was still thinking about him hours later as she was walking down the street to the local pizza restaurant called Vincenti’s where she had picked up dinner more often than not over the past couple of weeks. She’d gone home, put on her jeans, then decided she didn’t want to cook. The Italian place was only a few blocks away, and their food was amazing. It wasn’t hard to make the call to take a stroll and get dinner out.

  What she didn’t expect was to run into anyone she knew. She was new in town, and as far as she knew, she didn’t live near any of the people she worked with. So far, she hadn’t run into anyone at Vincenti’s, but that all changed the moment she walked in the door and saw Jack Bishop standing at the counter, waiting to be served.

  Jack couldn’t believe his luck when he caught sight of the woman who’d just walked in the door. Kiki Richards saw him a moment later, and he caught the look of surprise mixed with pleasure in her eyes before she schooled her expression to polite interest. She waved shyly when their eyes met, then walked over to the counter, where he was already waiting for service.

  “Funny running into you here,” she said, by way of greeting.

  “I could say the same,” he agreed with a grin while his inner bear sat up and cheered. His furry side had liked the small woman, though his human side was still a little suspicious of everyone who worked at the plant.

  “Have you eaten here before?” Kiki asked him, making polite conversation while they both waited to be served.

  The place was busy enough that it would take a few minutes before the servers got to them. Jack didn’t mind that at all. He wanted to talk to Kiki away from the office and see if he could figure her out.

  He also just liked looking at her. She was a very pretty girl, with that golden hair wafting about her delicate shoulders and those clear blue eyes blinking innocently up at him. Right now, her expressive eyes were wide with surprise at running into him and showed a bit of the nerves she was feeling making small talk. He didn’t like that she felt nervous around him, but it could just be the novelty of the situation. She clearly hadn’t expected to see him, and he’d taken her by surprise. He would try to put her more at ease.

  “No. The guy at the desk in my hotel recommended this restaurant. I’m staying across the street.” Jack pointed out the window to the glowing sign of the chain hotel on the other side of the road.

  “Well, he made a good recommendation. I eat here a lot. My cottage is just a few blocks away,” she told him as they shuffled a bit closer to the podium where a young woman was seating people.

  “Do you want to share a table?” Jack asked. “I hate eating alone.”

  Kiki tilted her head. “I suspect it’s not often that you don’t have company,” she said, her phrasing both complimentary and a little suspect. “But I’m game, if you are.” Her smile was friendly enough, and his inner bear wanted to rumble in approval.

  The hostess returned and led them to a booth in the back. The place was reasonably crowded, and the table they were led to was against the back wall, which suited Jack. If the hostess had tried to place them in the center of the room, he’d have made a polite request for a booth along the wall, so that he could have at least one secure side. He made it a habit to always sit where he could see as much of a room as possible and have at least one side where no threats could come from.

  Once they settled in, Jack looked over the menu. “I hope you’re hungry. I’m just about starved,” he told her, preparing the way for the large quantities of food he planned to order. Shifters ate more than non-magical folk, and bears ate more than most shifters. “I’m on an expense account, and if we talk a little about work, I can totally justify picking up the tab for you,” he said, smiling at the pretty woman seated across from him.

  He hadn’t expected company tonight but was glad his path had crossed with Kiki’s, once again. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind all day, even when he’d been in the middle of Bob Boehm’s bamboozle. The man had led Jack all over the plant, acting the somewhat gracious host, but hadn’t really shown Jack anything important.

  Jack suspected there were hidden things going on at that factory. Things done in back rooms he hadn’t been allowed to see. Jack was planning to go in and have another look when nobody was around. A little oh-dark-hundred reconnaissance. Possibly in bear form—at least outside. He wanted to try to sniff out any magic that might be around the place, and he could do that better in his fur than his skin.

  “I usually just order an entrée,” she told him, looking at the menu as he did the same. “Their homemade gnocchi is terrific, as are all the baked dishes.”

  “I was thinking about starting with some appetizers,” he replied, scanning the menu. “A little antipasti?” he asked playfully, looking up to catch her gaze. “And how about some wine, to go with it? I see they have a pretty good wine list, including a few vintages from Maxwell Vineyards. I’ve become partial to their reds.” He ran his finger down the wine list and made a selection. “Since we’re eating Italian, how about we try the Maxwell Chianti?”

  Kiki was smiling but shaking her head. “I seldom drink alcohol.”

  “Come on,” he coaxed her. “Chianti is practically mandatory at an Italian feast.”

  “Well…” He could see her starting to give in and felt a moment of triumph. “Just a little, I guess.”

  Chapter Four

  Jack got the impression that Kiki lived a rather conservative life. She didn’t drink. She dressed somewhat primly at work, and even at home. She was wearing jeans, but they weren’t skin tight or a designer label, and the blouse was the same one she’d had on under her business suit. A high-necked number that was about as plain as plain could be. Just a shell, reall
y. In a prim pink that made her look like a kindergarten teacher.

  Jack suddenly liked the idea of corrupting her a bit. He wanted to see what she looked like when she really let her hair down. That silky-looking golden hair was still drawn back, off her face, and secured somehow at the back of her head, just as it had been earlier in the day. Did she never wear it loose? Suddenly, Jack wanted to know the answer to that question more than anything, but it wasn’t something he could just ask. He’d have to find another way to discover all her intimate secrets. The wine might help there.

  The waitress came, and Jack placed his order for three different appetizers, a bottle of the Maxwell Chianti, and what was advertised on the menu as a fish feast for himself, with a giant side of pasta. Kiki added her own comparatively small order of baked gnocchi before the waitress left the table.

  “I hope you don’t expect me to eat half of those appetizers. I usually take home half the gnocchi and eat it the next day for lunch,” she told him, laughing.

  “You should at least try some of them,” he told her. “I’ve had those little rolled up eggplant things before, and if these are anything like those were, you’ll be glad you tried it.”

  “Where did you have them?” she asked, slightly altering the trajectory of the conversation.

  “New York,” he answered truthfully. He’d traveled widely with his brothers, and one memorable trip had taken them all to New York to help out with a werewolf turf war that had been instigated by a local mage who was toying with the city wolves to carve out more territory for himself and his followers. “There’s a lot of great Italian places in Little Italy. We’d eat there then stroll to Chinatown for dessert. Or the opposite way around.” He shrugged. “There are a lot of good restaurants downtown in Manhattan.

  “I’ve never been there,” she said, looking down, but not before he caught the dreamy look of wanderlust in her eyes. This was a woman who wanted to travel, but who had likely never had the chance.

  The waitress returned with the chilled bottle of wine and made a production out of opening it at the table for them. It might be a small, local restaurant in a backwater town, but they did things right, he noted approvingly. The waitress offered him the first sip, and he nodded in accordance with the ritual he had learned years ago when his older brother had been on a vintage wine kick.

  They’d been hired to ferret out a swindle happening in one of Maxwell Vineyards’ distribution channels, and his brother, Ace, had taken to the hoity-toity wine world like the proverbial duck to water. He’d left the grunt work to King and Jack on that mission, but it had all worked out. The miscreant who was diverting cases of Maxwell’s best was among the elite wine sniffers, as King called them, and Ace had done the actual take-down while the two younger brothers had been the muscle in the warehouse.

  As he’d expected, the Chianti was up to Maxwell’s standard of excellence. The Napa Valley vineyard wasn’t known as one of the best in the world for nothing. Only the magical folk, living in secret among regular, clueless humans, knew that Maxwell, himself, was an ancient vampire. It was rumored—and Jack knew it to be fact—that vampires could drink wine. The fermented fruit of the vine was their last link with the sun, and it healed them. They still drank blood, of course, but they drank wine in public. Much more civilized, Jack thought with a private smile.

  The waitress poured a glass for Kiki, and he raised his to clink against hers in silent toast, inviting her to take a sip. He watched the jewel red liquid flow over her luscious lips. They looked so soft and full. He wanted desperately to kiss those lips, but he knew it was too soon. This fragile little homebody would be scared off like a gazelle under a lion’s gaze if he moved too quickly. He counseled his inner bear to patience.

  Then, he had to remind his human half that she was still a suspect. Though, more and more, he just couldn’t picture Kiki as having a sinister bone in her body. A naïve one, maybe, but not anything crooked or evil. If she was playing him for a fool, she was a master at it. Personally, he thought she was on the level, but he still had to be cautious around her until he figured out more about what was going on in her workplace.

  If he’d learned anything today, he’d at least been able to confirm that magic was definitely afoot there. Not wholesome, good magic. More toward the other side of the spectrum, but it was hard for him to see. He’d have better luck in his fur, later, but for now, he would ply the pretty woman with wine and see if she would be indiscreet and help him do his job by spilling all she knew.

  “This is really quite good,” she said, lowering the glass after a rather large sip.

  “Maxwell’s is one of the finest vineyards in the country. He’d say the world,” Jack corrected himself, putting his glass down.

  “You’ve met the man who makes this wine?” Kiki asked, her eyes wide.

  “Once or twice. We did a job for him a few years ago. My brothers and I are troubleshooters. We’ve worked for various concerns over the years.” That was one way of putting it, Jack thought with inward amusement. “Maxwell is scary but fair. At least, that’s how my brother, Ace, summed him up. We all agreed.”

  “How many brothers do you have?” She took another sip of her wine, appearing a bit nervous as they made small talk while they waited for the food to start arriving.

  “Just two, but they’re enough.” He chuckled, and she joined in, as he’d hoped. He didn’t like seeing her ill at ease. The furry bastard inside him wanted to reach across the table and soothe her, but he couldn’t. Too soon. Way too soon, he warned his bear side.

  “I have three brothers and three sisters,” she volunteered abruptly. Kiki wasn’t skilled at the small talk, he was coming to realize.

  Jack didn’t mind. He wasn’t usually much of a talker himself, though he had picked up some social skills he used on missions… Like this one. He had to keep reminding himself that he was here to do a job, not romance a woman.

  “Wow. Six siblings? That’s a lot,” he commented, reaching over to top up her glass.

  She was sipping nervously, which depleted the glass faster than was probably advisable, but he wasn’t going to say anything. If she got drunk and spilled all her secrets, it would save him having to wheedle them out of her some other way.

  “My family, historically, were Anabaptists. You know, like Amish?” She seemed even more nervous revealing that tidbit.

  Perhaps she’d faced ridicule or rude questions over the years about her background. Well, Jack was the last person to make fun of someone’s family history. Not when his parents, who had worked as dealers in the big casinos in Tahoe for a long time, had decided to name him and his brothers after playing cards.

  “I don’t know much about Amish people, except I think I remember that they often have large families,” he commented, hoping his words were innocuous enough to put her more at ease.

  She smiled, and he was glad he’d opted to keep things light. “Yes, exactly,” she said, nodding at him. “We’re not Amish anymore, but I guess old habits die hard. My family still lives on the farm, and most of our neighbors are still members of the faith, even though our grandparents broke away from the religion many years ago. We still live pretty plainly, though we do embrace technology like cars and computers and mechanized farm equipment for our land.” She blushed a bit and looked down. “You must think us very backward with the exciting life you lead. I mean, the farthest I’ve ever been is Pittsburgh.”

  “Traveling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” he told her.

  “Where do you live? What’s your home base?” she asked, seeming truly interested.

  “Well, if you’d asked me that a few months ago, I’d have said Phoenix, Arizona, but both of my brothers recently married and moved to Grizzly Cove, Washington, where SeaLife Enterprises is headquartered. That’s how I got this job,” he said, knowing there was much more to the story that he might never be able to tell her.

  This girl was human, through and through. Of Amish ancestry, for goodness sake. N
o way she knew anything about magic, or things that went bump in the night—either rhetorical or sexual. Everything about her screamed prim and proper. Hands off.

  “So, both your brothers are married?” she asked, surprising him. He’d have thought she’d ask more about work. That was the safer topic, after all. Instead, she’d chosen to delve into personal information. Interesting.

  “Yeah, Ace met Sabrina first. She’s from Canada, originally. They got paired up, and when King was on his way to visit them, he stopped to escort Sabrina’s best friend, Marilee. King and Marilee hit it off, which nobody expected, and they tied the knot next. I went to see all of them and got roped into this job. The three of us used to work as a team. I have to admit, being on my own on this mission is a bit daunting. I’m used to having my brothers around for backup.”

  Damn. He’d said more than he’d intended. And he’d used the word mission. Had she noticed?

  “When my brother, Arthur, got married, and then Brendan and James followed soon after, I felt a bit abandoned, if I’m honest. They wanted the simple life on a farm, but I wanted more. I left for college, and it was really hard to be away from home for the first time ever, a plain girl in a dorm that was a bit of a madhouse, if I’m honest.” She smiled and rolled her eyes, her cheeks flushing a becoming pink. “I missed them all, but I managed. I’m the youngest of the first group, then my folks took a break. The twins came along about ten years later. A bit of a surprise, you might say.” Her blush deepened, and he was entranced.

  The waitress returned with the appetizers and Jack encouraged Kiki to at least try a little of each of the dishes he’d ordered. He ate quickly, noting she’d been right about the quality of this restaurant. Everything was delicious. The ingredients were fresh and top-notch, and the chef had done a stellar job putting everything together.