Denny was slick and reeked of city dwelling. He was better off in Dallas or Houston, where there was plenty of concrete and glass to hide behind while he bought and sold failing companies.
What the hell he wanted from Nash was a mystery. Other than Calla, Nash had nothing a guy like Denny wanted unless it was an ass-stompin’.
“Nash,” he drawled when he approached, starkly out of place in pressed pants and a silk shirt that clung to his thin frame in the heavy humidity.
“Denny. What brings you to this neck of the woods? You lookin’ to earn some extra cash getting your hands dirty while you muck some stables?”
Denny postured, puffing his chest out in his attempt to be a man. “I’m looking to warn you.”
Nash stood up straighter, topping Denny by at least two inches. “Warn me? What could a guy like you warn me about, Parks? Falling stock prices? Corporate takeovers? Wait. I know. Shoes that cost more than most people make in a month and are way too shiny?”
“Calla.”
Nash’s eyes narrowed and his chin lifted. There it was, all out on the table. Denny seemed to think because he was a were, he had some unspoken right to Calla. The hell. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, pal.”
But Denny stiffened, his angular jaw going tight. “She belongs with her own kind, Ryder.”
Nash barked a laugh, yanking his leather gloves off and shoving them in his back pocket. “You mean you?”
Denny took a step backward as Nash moved in closer. “I do.”
He scratched his head as if he was the very moron Denny thought he was. “Funny, but I thought it was up to Calla to decide who she wanted to be with. How’d you get a say in it?”
“I’m just telling you the kind of trouble it could bring her with our Council if she chooses to disobey pack law.”
Nash froze. He’d heard about the kind of shit Calla could get if the Council disapproved of their relationship, but she didn’t seem bothered by it when he’d brought it up.
It wasn’t like different species didn’t couple up, but they didn’t do it without a lot of grief. Werewolves were particularly picky about pack purity and breeding and any number of qualifiers in mating—very unlike witches and warlocks.
“Well then, I guess we’ll deal with that when the time comes.” And it would come. He wanted Calla more than he’d ever wanted any other woman, and he’d take on whatever Council he had to in order to make it happen.
No slick prick like Denny Parks was going to prevent it either.
“I could lodge a complaint with the Council myself.”
Nash tightened a fist at his side to keep from ripping Denny’s face off. He didn’t much like being threatened. “You could. I’m sure that’ll have Calla running straight into your underdeveloped arms.”
Denny’s face went red, and it wasn’t from the heat. “I’m just throwing it out there, for your own sake as well as Calla’s.”
Nash put his Stetson back on his head and leaned into Denny, summoning all of his “bless your heart” charm his mother had instilled in him since he was a toddler. “Why don’t you hop back into your purty car before I let Bitty out of the pasture.”
“Bitty?”
“My bull. Hates the color blue. Damned funniest thing, too. Don’t most bulls hate the color red, Den? But not Bitty. He hates blue. I’d sure hate to see your fancy car all crumpled up like a tin can,” he warned low and deep.
Denny backed away, pulling his key fob from his pocket and beeping his car door open. As he slid inside, he shot one last parting warning. “Better be careful, Ryder. Your magic can’t save Calla if the Council takes her to task.”
Nash turned his back to the roar of Denny’s engine and grit his teeth as he strode up the dirt drive to the stables to water the horses.
He’d waited a long time for tonight. He’d had more cold showers than a prison inmate in order to stick to he and Calla’s deal—because he’d wanted her to know he didn’t just want to fool around.
He was damn well in love with her. All of her, and whatever it was she needed to talk about was something that left him puzzled. Maybe it was a deeper conversation about the Council and the repercussions they could suffer?
But that didn’t sit right with him. Every once in a while, when Calla was watching TV with him or she was working in her center’s kitchen, whipping up those melt-in-your-mouth cupcakes, and she didn’t know he was watching, she had an almost haunted look in her beautiful blue eyes.
He wanted to crush that haunted look. Stamp it out as surely as he’d stomp out a campfire, and replace whatever she was sad about with only happiness.