Jack managed to push Vanessa to the side of the door, out of the fray, before he went down, hard, with nearly a hundred pounds of gray wolf on his chest, snapping at his face. The other two wolves were standing back, snarling at him but not yet attacking. Jack blocked the attack with his forearms, but he was rapidly moving up the anger spectrum from pissed off to enraged, and he was about three seconds from showing the pup who was boss.
Figuring he’d make a different life choice for once, he tried to play peacemaker. “Hey, kid, I don’t know what you think I’m doing, but I’m not doing it. I’m not invading your territory, I’m entering your damn visitor center.”
Instead of backing down, however, the wolf puffed himself up and snarled, adding insult to injury by buffeting Jack with some seriously nasty breath, and that was way past the point where Jack’s patience ran out.
He bared his teeth and snarled at the wolf on his chest, and then hurled him a good six feet across the room, where the wolf crashed with a whimper. Jack sprang up and planted himself directly in front of Vanessa, and then, before the other cubs could decide to avenge their pack mate, he threw back his head and roared.
Fact one: A tiger’s roar can literally paralyze its prey with fear.
Fact two: Jack, in human form, could make a damn fine approximation of that sound.
All three wolves hit the floor and rolled onto their backs, showing their bellies in submission, and he could hear Vanessa’s breathing behind him, which was way too fast and a little bit choppy.
Before he could turn around to check on her, slow clapping sounded from the hallway. Jack looked over to see a tall, muscular man dressed in jeans and a black shirt leaning against the wall.
“Congratulations, my friend. You scared the cubs,” the man said, sarcasm dripping from his words. “Do you do children’s parties, too, cat?”
“You should house train your cubs, Mr. Vargas,” Vanessa snapped, walking up to stand next to Jack. “We’re here at your official headquarters to talk to you, and your wolves launched an unprovoked attack on my friend. You’ll be lucky if we don’t press charges.”
Jack glanced at her in surprise, as much for the “press charges” thing as for the “my friend” part.
Vargas’s eyes lit up, changing from brown to gold, and he prowled forward toward Vanessa. “Ah. Miss Clark. How pleasant to see you again.”
“I can’t say the same,” she said. “I suggest you apologize to Mr. Shepherd.”
Vargas raised an eyebrow when he heard Jack’s name. “Shepherd? I should have known. I don’t think I’ve heard of another tiger shifter in the United States.”
Jack decided to pretend he didn’t hear Vanessa’s gasp. Not many people would be calm when they found out that they’d been alone in a truck with a man who turned into a quarter-ton killing machine. He probably should have mentioned it.
“No apologies necessary. Kids need to learn a lesson now and then,” Jack said pleasantly. “I was the same.”
“I wonder who was big enough to teach you a lesson,” Vargas said, grinning, and Jack decided he liked the man.
“My uncle,” Jack admitted. “And he was only a human.”
The wolf alpha laughed. “Must have been one tough S.O.B.”
“Really? Your wolves attacked Jack, and now there’s male bonding going on?” Vanessa scowled at both of them. “Look, I don’t care what you two talk about on your own time, but I need to ask you about my father right now, Alec.”
Vargas instantly dropped the jesting and led them back to his office, which was a fairly large room, but neat and uncluttered. The only thing on the walls was a very good painting of Bear Lake at sunrise. He gestured to the chairs placed around a small table, and took the one next to Vanessa.
“How can I help you?” The wolf’s gaze fastened on her with the fierce intensity of a man for whom nothing else in the world was important, and Jack wondered if she knew she’d caught the attention of an unmated alpha wolf.
No mated alpha would look at a woman like that.
Vanessa didn’t seem aware of the alpha’s interest, though, or more likely she was too worried about her father to care. She laid out the facts of his disappearance, and Jack filled in any details he thought she missed. When she was done, she stared into Vargas’s eyes, which was pretty damn impressive, since most humans had a hard time meeting an alpha’s gaze.
“Do you know anything about this?”
Vargas’s face hardened. “Are you asking me if I harmed your father?”
“I guess I am, Alec,” she said evenly, although her lips trembled a little.
“I certainly did not. In fact, we paid your father a premium price for the missing livestock, and I gave him my word that it wouldn’t happen again. We have no fight between our families, beautiful one.”
That got her attention, and Jack could see that she was just now realizing that Vargas was interested in her, but that she didn’t have time to deal with it. The woman’s face was so expressive he could only hope for her sake that she never played poker.
The wolf stood and crossed to his desk, sorted through some files, and then brought a sheet of paper back with him to the table and handed it to Vanessa.
“This is the email Ray sent me last night, confirming that he’d received my check and graciously accepting my apology. You’ll see that everything is amicable between us.”
She scanned it and nodded. “I see. He probably would have mentioned it to me this morning, but we were talking about Christmas and didn’t talk business, for a change.”
“We’ll find him,” Jack said, but again, he had nothing to back that up. Their one lead had just fizzled. The email could have been a fake, but Jack doubted it. The wolf didn’t smell like he was lying, and Vargas couldn’t have been more obvious about his interest in Vanessa.
“Exactly why are you involved in this matter, Shepherd?” Vargas said, doing a great human impression of a wolf flattening his ears and baring his teeth.
“Jack was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all,” Vanessa said. “Thanks for your time, Alec. I’m sorry, but I had to ask. I need to get back to town and…and…I don’t know. Wait. Call hospitals.”
“What about the rogue wolves that Sheriff McConnell mentioned?” Jack asked Vargas. “Do you know anything about them?”
The alpha nodded. “I know the location of every wolf who’s not affiliated with my pack when they’re on Bear Lake pack land. I think now is a good time to go and make my presence known,” he said with silky menace.
“Want company?” Jack stood up. “I could use a run.”
Vargas smiled. “I’ve never run with a jungle animal. Might be fun. Give me ten minutes?”
He showed them back to the lobby, which was now empty of adolescent wolves with something to prove, and excused himself to make a few quick calls. Jack pulled the truck keys out of his pocket.
“Are you okay to drive back to town? The snow seems to have let up, so the roads should be fine,” he said.
Vanessa nodded, clearly distracted and in a hurry to get moving. “Yeah. I’m good. I’ve got snow tires. I want to get back into town and talk to Maya. The missing ten grand might have more to do with this than some random wolf scent. Maybe she heard something or saw something.”
“Money is a powerful motive, and ten thousand dollars is quite a lot for most people,” Jack said.
“I’m fully aware of that, Mr. Shepherd,” she said coldly. “I didn’t grow up sitting on a golden pillow while the butler brought me chocolates. I’ve been working on the ranch since I was old enough to walk.”
It took a few seconds for what she said to register in Jack’s brain, because Vanessa was living proof of that old “she’s beautiful when she’s angry” saying. The flush in her cheeks, the fire in her eyes—Jack was suddenly entertaining thoughts of sticking around and giving Alec Vargas a little competition.
Bad idea, Jack. Bad, bad idea.
He held up a hand. “Time out. I didn’t say or think any of that about you. Just that following this money trail might be the way to find your dad. You go talk to the elf, and I’ll go for a run with the wolf.”
Vanessa blinked, and then she started to smile. “The elf and the wolf. That’s maybe the strangest thing anybody has ever said to me.”
Jack grinned at her. “You think that was strange? Watch this.”
And he took a deep breath and melted into the shift. Seconds later, he was standing in front of her in all five hundred pounds of his black, orange, and white-striped glory.
“Wolves and tigers and elves, oh my,” she said, and then she burst into tears.