"Shhhh," he hissed, scanning the store around them. Quick as a whip, he grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her to him, settled his lips near her ear, and whispered, "There are a few newly released into the mountains, but it's a hot topic with the town. Best not to mention them."
"Okay," she murmured, feeling drunk on his smelly-good body spray. She was going to dress as his toothbrush next Halloween.
"Are you sniffing me, Trouble?" he asked, his lips brushing her ear.
No use denying it. "Mmm hmm." When Blaire clenched the fabric of his sweater in her fists, he reacted with a low, soft rattling noise in his throat that sounded wild and sexy.
"'Scuse me, love birds," a little elderly lady with thick glasses said.
Gentry backed away from Blaire like she was made of burning buffalo chips. He was pressed against her one second and on the other side of the cart the next, staring at the lady like they'd been caught boinking under the bleachers.
"Gentry," the woman said cheerfully.
"Nelda," he muttered, much less cheerfully. His eyes hardened like shards of green glass on the woman.
Blaire cast him a what-the-heck look and apologized to Nelda. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be, dear, I used to act like that with my Ted. It's good to see young love again. Can you reach that for me?" She pointed at the two percent milk on the top shelf of the refrigerator.
"Of course," Blaire said, grabbing two, one for her and one for the nice lady.
Finally, someone with manners in this town.
"Thanks, sweetie." Nelda gave the brightest smile and then turned toward Gentry. In the softest, kindest voice Blaire had ever heard, she said, "She's pretty. Rhett's gonna kill you." And then she shuffled off, pushing her cart, humming under her breath. Oh good, another lunatic.
Blaire blinked slowly and shook her head to rid herself of that ruined moment.
Nelda wasn't sweet after all.
Nelda was a cock-blocker.
"I'm going to get some stuff for the house," Gentry said in a distracted voice as he watched the woman walk away through narrowed, angry eyes.
"Don't forget the macaroni," she joked.
Gentry huffed the softest laugh and then cast her a quick glance. He looked like he wanted to say something, shook his head hard, then strode off toward the front of the store.
Okay then. Blaire rubbed the edge of her ear softly just to remember what his lips had felt like there. Her body was still revved up, and right now, all she wanted to do was get lost in a hug from Gentry. He wasn't the public affection sort though, obviously, so she was barking up the wrong tree with wants like those.
Rhett's gonna kill you. What a strange thing to say. Wait, maybe Rhett was who Gentry got into a barfight with last night.
She frowned at where Gentry had disappeared and then pushed her cart toward the cartons of eggs stacked in an open refrigerator along the wall. She felt pulled in a hundred directions around Gentry. A part of her loved the excitement, but another part of her grew scared of all the mysteries that surrounded him. The more she thought she knew him, the more layers she found, and for the life of her, she couldn't figure out if she liked that about him or not.
One thing was for sure and for certain, though. Gentry Striker was going to keep her on her toes this week.
Thanks to him, her quiet vacation was getting more and more interesting by the minute.
Chapter Eight
Gentry rattled off a snarl as he followed Nelda's scent outside. Fucking snake in wolf's clothing would tell Rhett he was breeding a human before the old werewolf even pulled out of the parking lot. He needed to cut her off.
"Knew you'd come for me," Nelda bragged from where she leaned against the corner of the building.
Gentry gave a stiff smile to the human family walking past him and shrugged into his jacket for show as he settled beside her.
Nelda pushed up her glasses, which were a part of her disguise and she didn't need, onto her fluffy silver hair and bared her teeth. "What the fuck are you doing, pup? You're going to get us all found out."
"It's not what you think. She's here for a week on vacation, and then I'll never see her again."
Nelda was punching something onto her phone.
"What are you doing? Nelda, Rhett won't just kill me. He'll kill the human, too." God, he hated calling Blaire the human. She was so much more than that.
"I'm not texting Rhett, you dumbass."
"Then who?"
"Your brothers. Maybe they'll knock some sense into you."
"Well," Gentry said, leaning back against the brick wall beside her. "Good luck reaching them. I've been trying for days."
Nelda's phone beeped. "Roman said they're on their way."
Assholes.
"Look, I hate you-"
"Thanks," Gentry muttered.
"Everyone does-"
"Is there a point to this?"
"No, just thought you should know."
"Fantastic."
Nelda squinted up at him for a loaded moment, then sighed. "I know there was bad blood between your father and I, but that wasn't all my doing."
Gentry cast her a suspicious sideways glance. Nelda and Dad had always hated each other's guts. No female werewolf had ever given him so much trouble in his pack. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, he picked another. I was supposed to be alpha female. I was supposed to be his choice, and he didn't want me. I never forgave him. Still haven't. I'm glad the old coot's dead."
Nelda pushed off the wall and adopted her slower pace, settled her glasses back on her nose, and wandered toward the parking lot.
"But Dad never chose a mate," Gentry said, completely confused.
"That you know of," she answered without turning around.
What the fuck just happened? Nelda hadn't turned him in to Rhett, she'd contacted his brothers instead, and she'd just dropped this bomb on him. Nelda and Dad? There was an unsettling thought. He'd never met anyone more manipulative than Nelda until Rhett came along. He didn't blame Dad one bit for turning her down as his alpha female, but him choosing another? That had to be a lie. Gentry's mom had died when he and his brothers were so young, none of them even remembered her face, her voice, anything. As far as Gentry had known, Dad had decided not to take another mate after Mom passed. So what in the actual fuck was Nelda talking about?
There was a dark-headed woman sitting in an idling truck in the front handicap parking spot. Exhaust fumes plumed across the old brown truck, but it was the woman's direct gaze that held his attention. She had a round face, pitch-black eyes, and silver streaks in her long, black hair. Full lips, a wide nose, and delicately arched eyebrows. She was in her fifties, or early sixties perhaps. A real looker, exotic, and somehow familiar.
Chills rippled up his spine, and some long buried instinct told him to run.
Wolf didn't like that and growled for him to posture.
When Gentry stepped away from the building and straightened to his full height, the woman pulled out of the parking spot and drove away, but he could see her gaze flick to him in the rearview mirror.
"Gentry?" Blaire asked. She stood behind her cart of grocery bags with a concerned look in her pretty green eyes. "Are you okay?"
Wolf's snarl settled, and he grew quiet, watching her. Gentry had trouble taking his eyes off her to check the direction the brown truck took out of the parking lot. "I'm fine. I just thought I saw someone I used to know." Or … something. The sense of déjà vu was so overwhelming he could almost see the woman's face, twenty years younger, right there at the edge of his mind.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Blaire said from right beside him.
God, he wished he could drape his arm over her shoulder right now. He wished he could tell the world he liked her, and that she was his to protect. He wished he could wrap her in a hug until the worry left her voice. He wished he could kiss her lips until the little wrinkles of concern smoothed from her forehead.
Instead, he forced a smile and shoved his hands into his pockets to curb the urge to touch her. "I'm fine. Come on. I have some more errands to run in town, but I can load up your groceries for you."
"Maybe I don't need the help," she challenged him.
Gentry chuckled. "And I like that about you. Fine, I'll stand back and stare at your ass while you unload the groceries into your car. Better?"
Blaire snorted the cutest little sound and bumped his shoulder as she pushed the cart beside him.
Beautiful girl. Her red curls were piled up high and messy. Made him want to pull the hair band out and fuck her on her back so he could mess it up. She wore hardly any of the make-up she had on yesterday so he could see her freckles. He liked them. She'd put some kind of mango-scented lip gloss on her full lips that he wanted to suck off, and when she turned her head to check if cars were coming, he spied a tiny red heart tattoo right behind her ear.