Hunter swore under his breath. “Okay, I want Meara safely away from here. Tessa’s home. You take her and you watch over her.”
“There’s Anna and me,” Meara said, objecting to Hunter’s wanting her out of the way. “We can help. And you’ll need Finn.”
Finn could tell from Hunter’s expression how much he didn’t want her here or involved.
“Tessa’s home, south of Meara’s. An hour and a half away. That’ll work,” Finn said, agreeing with Hunter. He handed the cup of tea to Meara. Trying to lighten the mood, he said to her, “Somehow Allan must have gotten word you want him for a mate, Meara.”
Meara’s eyes widened. “Who would have said such a thing to him?”
Finn shrugged. “You told everyone that. Maybe Paul joked with him about it. Who knows?”
Hunter shook his head at Meara. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone. As soon as I was gone, you led my whole former team astray.”
“That’ll teach you to tell them to stay away from me.” She smiled mischievously in the way only she could, looking halfway innocent and a whole lot devilish, and then she took a sip of her tea.
So that Hunter and the others could discuss among themselves what they intended to do about the impending threat—and knowing they didn’t want her in on the discussion since she wasn’t a highly trained operative like them, only she wished they’d let her help if she could—Meara retired to the master bath to take another long soak, without the bubbles this time.
After turning into a near prune, she dried off, wrapped her soft terry cloth robe around her, and rested in bed while reading a Highland werewolf tale to relax. Her favorite author, Julia Wildthorn, had switched from writing contemporary stories to historical tales of Highland werewolves and had even picked up a castle in Scotland, a wolf pack—at least Meara assumed—and a handsome Highland laird of her own to sweeten the deal. Meara sighed, wishing she could have such a romance.
Then she thought back to what was inevitable about her situation here. She hated that her brother and the others would be risking their necks while she hid at Tessa’s house. At the very least, she could resort to using her rifle or revert to her wolf form and use her wickedly lethal teeth.
She was still thinking along those lines when she heard the door to the master bedroom suite open. She looked up from her book and saw Finn enter the room. He closed the door behind him with finality. His predatory gaze took in her robed figure with the comforter covering her lap. If he’d thought they’d make sweet love while her brother was in the house and they weren’t mated—
“Meara, we’ve got to talk.”
He looked deadly serious. She guessed this wasn’t about making love then. She figured he was going to tell her that she had to leave the safe house without further delay. Had they gotten some more news?
She set her book beside her on the mattress and folded her arms, attempting not to look cross, except she didn’t feel anything but. “I could help the cause, you know. You don’t all have to treat me like some innocent bystander.” Hunter knew damn well how capable she was in dealing wolf-to-wolf when the circumstances warranted. Just because one gray wolf had tackled her in the woods near here and then Finn had wrestled him on top of her didn’t mean she was always that disadvantaged. She had been unaware of the menace. That was all.
This time she would be prepared for any eventuality.
He shook his head. “That’s not what I want to talk about.”
That surprised her even more. Before she could come up with another reason for his dark mood, he moved in close to the bed and towered over her.
As much as she hated to admit it, the effect was intimidating. He stood taller than her anyway, but while she sat on the bed, the difference was astronomical. She patted the mattress and scooted over so he could sit down. He’d still be taller but not quite so daunting. Not that she wouldn’t stand her ground; it was just the principle of the thing. How would he feel if he sat on the floor beside the bed and she talked down to him? That brought a smile to her lips.
He frowned at her and the smile quickly faded. No, this was to be a serious discussion, nothing amusing about it.
He remained standing. Damn him.
Fine. She glowered up at him. “What?” she snapped, whatever thread of patience she had breaking.
“Bjornolf said you intercepted a coded message for Hunter and deleted it. How did you access it, and whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”
Her lips parted without her express permission as she gaped at Finn in surprise. “What… what coded message?”
His expression took on a darker cast. “Don’t try to hide the truth from me, Meara. It’s up to you to tell Hunter what you had done. But in the meantime, you’ll tell me how you did it and why.”
She cleared her throat, frowned furiously at him, and said, “If I had done something so dastardly and wished to own up to it, I would speak with Hunter about it, not you. If the message had been for Hunter, he’s the only one I’d feel obligated to apologize to for my actions. Bjornolf is wrong. I wouldn’t have done anything so despicable. What do you take me for anyway?”
Finn ground his teeth, and then he said in an even voice, “Someone who wants to protect her brother at all costs. I understand the underlying reason for doing what you did, but don’t you realize how disastrous the consequences could have been?”
She snapped her gaping mouth shut. Didn’t she just tell him she hadn’t done anything of the sort?
“Listen, you…” she said, jerking the comforter aside, ready to end the discussion here and now. But as soon as she moved the comforter, her robe slipped open, exposing her belly all the way down to her toes.
She grabbed her robe to yank it shut and then planned to shove him out of the way as he blocked her in while standing close to the mattress. He seized her arm, forcing her to stay right where she was, and then yanked the comforter back over her lap.
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me the truth.”
There was something about a man—or a woman, for that matter—telling her what to do when they had no right, that stoked her ire to blue-flame level. “I told you,” she said with barely controlled anger, “that I did nothing with Hunter’s messages.”
Finn stared her down as if trying to read the vast inner workings of her mind. “All right.” He pushed at her thigh buried under the comforter, indicating he wanted her to move over.
Now he was going to sit beside her? She didn’t want him to now!
Yet she realized that whatever had happened must have been grave enough to warrant his concern so she set her annoyance aside—barely, let out her breath, and shifted over on the mattress. He sat next to her, facing her, his eyes still dark.
“I concede you may have inadvertently deleted a message meant for Hunter and—”
“Damn you, Finn! I didn’t delete anything of Hunter’s! On purpose or otherwise.”
A shadow of a smile flickered across his face and then was gone. If she hadn’t been glowering at him, staring him in the eyes like a wolf who was not about to back down, she would have missed the subtle reaction.
“If you inadvertently did it,” he repeated, “you might not even realize you had done so.”
That gave her pause.
His hard expression softened somewhat, and she felt as though he was taking several steps back from his initial reaction concerning what he thought she’d done. If she had carried out something like that by mistake, how could he fault her? At least that’s what she thought he was thinking.
When he backed off, she considered any time she might have come across a message and deleted it by accident if she’d had Hunter’s phone for some reason. Which, when she considered it, could have been the case. Maybe. But on his computer? She didn’t think so.
“What was the message?” she asked quietly, figuring it had to be damned important or Finn wouldn’t be making such a big deal of it.
“The contents gave new coordinates to where Hunter and the rest of us were to land on the beach.”
“The final mission?” Tears filled her eyes.
She couldn’t help it. If she had deleted something that vital to the team, she would have been responsible for them having been wounded and the mission being such a failure, resulting in hostage deaths even. They could have all died because of her. But then she attempted to shake loose of that notion because she hadn’t ever done anything with Hunter’s computer except to check her own emails a few times when hers was down. And she’d used Hunter’s phone whenever her battery was dead and she needed to call about something important. But she didn’t think she’d deleted any of his phone messages by mistake.
Finn managed a humorless smile. “By deleting the message, you ensured we went to our original landing coordinates, thereby saving our lives.”
Her mouth dropped open, but she quickly narrowed her eyes and slugged him in the arm. “Damn you, Finn. I thought… I thought…” She wiped away several tears, trying her damnedest to get her emotions under control.
He wiped away a couple more tears with a gentle sweep of his fingers against her cheeks and then pulled her into his arms. “I had to know you didn’t somehow get into Hunter’s coded messages and get rid of one on purpose. In this case, it most likely saved our lives, but the situation could have been a lot different if the message had been some other.”
She struggled to get out of his grip, but he held on tight, kissing her hair and sending tingles of need up her spine. No matter how much she hated that he thought she could have done something so underhanded, she wanted Finn’s caresses, his whispered breath against her ear, the feel of his fingers rubbing her back through the soft robe.
“I… didn’t… do… it.” She tilted her head up to glower at him, her eyes still misting with detestable tears.
He took a deep breath. “When I asked you on the beach if you recalled anything you had done that might have saved us on that mission—”
