Bad Cat Baby Blues (Shifter Squad Six 3) by Anya Nowlan Page B

regardless.”
    Dutch tipped his head back, his whole body tight with angst. Ari felt her stomach twist and toss, feeling so damn bad for him despite all her reservations.
    “He’s been off the grid for a few weeks now. We haven’t heard from him,” she added softly, pulling up another file, one not referenced in his main documents. “It’s not unusual,” she rushed to add. “I mean, I was out of touch for two months and I was fine. Sometimes circumstances don’t give us the chance to report back as often as we’d like.”
    Dutch was sitting straight again, his expression betraying all the lack of confidence in her certainty that she was feeling. Damn that man, he could read her like a book. That much was obvious.
    “Yeah, and we’re stuck in the middle of a fucking jungle here, where Carter simply can’t find the way to text an update, right, Ari? No, he’s been fucked over somehow. He’s good and he’s fast, sure, but he’s a kid, nothing more. I don’t care what the training says, but he wasn’t ready for that shit and no one should have sent him in. You were there in the jungle, do you think a nineteen-year-old has any business rolling with those people?” he asked, his eyes ablaze.
    She wanted to say yes, wanted to tell him what she knew he needed to hear, but she couldn’t lie to him. Well, she could, obviously, or she would have blurted out the truth about Roman already last night. But she found herself disarmed by his presence, not wanting to hurt him any more than she had to, but not being able to tell him any more fibs either.
    “No, he didn’t,” she said with a small voice. “But that doesn’t mean that he can’t be all right, Dutch. He could be fine. We don’t know anything to suggest otherwise. And this is Detroit, it’s not like the people here are in the business of keeping their villainous deeds under wraps.”
    “I guess,” he agreed reluctantly, but she could see the way his knuckles were getting white, gripping the back of the chair too hard.
    His face looked haunted, sunken, and there was a feral light behind his eyes, one that spoke of determination. It didn’t take someone trained in reading people to understand that Dutch was taking this very, v ery personally and he was going to go to any length to make sure that Carter was okay. A man like that couldn’t be all bad, right?
    Without thinking, she reached her hand out and put it on his, her fingers incredibly dainty on his big paws.
    “We’ll find him, Dutch. He’s one of our own and I won’t let The Firm do to him what they did to me. If he’s mixed up with Soyo and he’s still alive, I’ll get him out. I promise.”
    He looked up at her and the world stood still again like that time in the bunker, when she’d thought she’d really seen him for the first time. Not for the warrior, not for the beast that could stalk through the jungle unfound, but for the man. Warmth flooded her and it felt incredibly good. So good that it took some real hard self-control to keep from leaning forward and kissing him on the mouth like she wanted to.
    “Why? Why do you care?” he asked, the spite and teeth out of his voice as he spoke.
    “Because I owe you that much,” she said, speaking from the heart.
    There was a second there where she thought he’d stand up, scoop her up in his arms and kiss her like she knew she wanted him to. But it passed, slowly but surely, and he smiled crookedly, shaking his head a little.
    “Guess I got lucky by not capping you one in the head,” he said, letting her relax and laugh out loud.
    “I’d say that we were both lucky that things played out that way.”
    He grinned and it stabbed at her, seeing his face in a different light, when it wasn’t twisted and contorted with rage and hurt.
    Could I have been seeing that smile this whole time if I had told him right away and not hidden from him?
    The realization hit her like a mallet to the chest. While she’d been so adamant about not