"The one Nick has a crush on?"
He snorted. "Don't let her hear you say that, or you might be looking for a new job. She's had it bad for him since he started coming to the bar, and that was way back when Mahalia still owned it." Jackson shook his head. "Too bad."
"He seems nice enough," Mackenzie protested. "I mean, a bit of a flirt, but that can be charming sometimes too." She raised one eyebrow at him. "Or are you going to try and tell me you're not the kind of guy who likes to flirt?"
"Hey, now. I like to flirt as much as, but no more than, the next guy. But I wasn't kidding when I said the wolves were all over the place." He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "There are so many of them that they have their own society, complete with a complex political structure…and prejudices. Nick's father is the top dog, the leader of them all. The Alpha. That's why it's too bad about her unfortunate crush."
She studied his face, trying to understand his meaning. "Nick said her father didn't like her owning a bar in New Orleans. She didn't seem too upset about it. Being with Derek would be worse than that?"
He looked vaguely ill. "Derek's a second-class citizen, Mackenzie." At her shocked breath, he shrugged again. "Welcome to the realities of supernatural society. Sucks just as bad as the world you're used to, unfortunately." He paused. "Not that Nick cares. She's not like that. Most of the shifters in the city are here because they refuse to be part of that society."
"God, that's terrible." She shivered and drew her legs up to wrap her arms around them. "But you said there aren't as many cougars. Do you think—?" She stopped, not sure if she wanted an answer to her question. "Is that why Marcus won't leave me alone?"
"Could be. Did he say anything about wanting you to have lots of his babies?"
Mackenzie couldn't help the flush that colored her cheeks. "He said—God, it's so pathetic I can't believe I'm repeating it." She took a deep breath and made a face. "He said we were destined to be the parents of the most important children history might ever see."
Jackson choked. "That seems a bit…enthusiastically ambitious."
"I've been tending bar for four years. I've had my share of guys hit on me. But he reminded me of a religious fanatic or something. Like God had sent him forth to marry me and father children on me. It was creepy even before he tried to snatch me off the street."
Jackson's fingers tightened on the arm of the chair, digging into the supple brown leather. "He's not going to get you, Mackenzie. Alec and I are good. We'll stop him."
"Okay," she said, more to reassure him than anything else. They sat in silence as the jazz floated through the room. Jackson hadn't mentioned taking her somewhere else for the night, but their easy flirtation during dinner hadn't been serious enough to make her think he expected her to spend the night with him.
Too bad.
The thought startled her, though it probably shouldn't have. She'd been almost painfully attracted to Jackson since she'd laid eyes on him, and that attraction hadn't wavered, even in the face of everything they'd been through in the past twenty-four hours. If anything, it had just grown stronger.
And here they were, alone in his apartment with soft jazz playing and a couple of glasses of wine singing through her veins, and she wanted more than anything to touch him. To slide her hands over his face, to touch his hair and tangle her fingers in it. She wanted to see the strong muscles she'd felt through his clothing when he'd pulled her back in the alleyway, to run her hands along his skin and feel his mouth on hers.
She just wanted, and she couldn't keep that desire from her face, from her eyes. She saw the truth of it when he looked at her, heard it in the way his breathing hitched as he watched her study him. He could see it, could tell everything she wanted to do.
He shifted in his chair. "It's getting late," he said, his voice a low rasp. "Whenever you're ready, I can pull the couch out. It's not the most comfortable bed in the world, but it'll do in a pinch."
It was impossible to tear her eyes away from his. "Don't worry about it," she heard herself say in a soft, husky whisper. "I can sleep on it like this. Find me a pillow and a blanket, and it'll be more comfortable than most of the places I've slept lately."
He looked away and headed for the hallway. "It's not a bother. I'll just get everything ready while you're brushing your teeth. No problem."
Mackenzie rose quietly, picked up her bag and slipped past him into the bathroom.
By the time she returned, he'd pulled out the bed and was busily tucking a sheet around the fold-out mattress. She moved to help him, and he shook his head. "No, it's okay. I've got it." Her shoulder brushed his bare arm, and he hissed in a sharp breath.
She felt her own breathing roughen at the hot look in his eyes. If she'd had any doubts about whether he wanted her, they were swept away under the intensity of that gaze.
Her hand rose, seemingly of its own volition, and she stopped it just before her fingers brushed his skin. "Jackson—"
He leaned closer, his head bending toward hers, and she licked her lips, anticipating the kiss. Jackson froze, cleared his throat and backed away, retrieving a pillow from the leather chair. "Here. If you need another blanket, there are some in the closet in the hall. Sleep well."
Then he turned and walked out of the room.
She clutched the pillow to her chest, her heart beating far too quickly. The realization that he'd executed a chivalrous retreat brought a hint of a blush to her cheeks as she slid onto the bed and curled under the thin blanket.
Mackenzie dreamt of wide open fields and running wildly downhill, with the wind in her face and the smell of the forest surrounding her. But when she reached the bottom of the hill and tumbled onto the grass, she wasn't a cougar. Jackson rolled her over, crushing the flowers beneath them as his lips lowered to hers…
Even in her sleep, she smiled.
Chapter Seven
Jackson dodged a couple of early-morning joggers and cut across the street, deep in thought. He'd hated dropping Mackenzie off at Nick's place, especially when he knew Nick would probably sleep for several more hours, but he hadn't had a choice. He couldn't leave her by herself, and Nick's renovated side-hall Victorian cottage in the French Quarter was the only place with wards every bit as impressive as the ones at his own apartment. Besides, his only other alternative would have involved bringing her to the office with him, and he wasn't sure it was a good idea for the two of them to be together anywhere near Kat. His assistant would pick up on the sexual tension between them in a heartbeat.
He wasn't sure he'd call himself a ladies' man, but he hadn't gone lonely, that much was certain. He hadn't imagined the longing looks Mackenzie had been giving him the night before, or the way her gaze heated when it lingered on him. No, there was something there, all right, an undercurrent of desire that would be next to impossible to hide from anyone with a half-decent pair of eyes, much less an empath.
And he wasn't quite ready for his coworkers to make his life a living hell.
Still, he couldn't help thinking about the warmth of Mackenzie's skin when it had touched his the night before. He'd felt the spark, even through the cheap material of her pajama top, and he groaned silently as he approached the office. If he didn't bring his thoughts under control, Kat wouldn't need to see him with Mackenzie to know he'd spent the entire night dreaming of her.
With one last deep breath, he pushed open the door. "Morning. What have we learned?"
Alec retrieved a file from his desk and held it out. "Kat was up most of the night working her computer mojo, so I gave her the morning off. It's all in here, but the short version is that there was a Jessica Evans from South Dakota who died in a house fire with her parents in 1988. She would have been five years old at the time."
Jackson glanced through the file. "Anything about the parents or the fire ping as suspicious?"
"Not if you're looking at the normal sources." Alec rocked his chair back and forth. "But I made some calls, too. I have a friend in that area. Remember how I said I met a cougar one time?"
Jackson arched an eyebrow. "One of the parents?"
"The father," Alec confirmed. "Simon Evans. My friend told me his full name last night. Apparently, Simon told everyone that he had a job opportunity in the early eighties and disappeared completely. No one heard a peep from or about him or his wife until the fire a few years later."
"It's too much of a coincidence for it not to be Mackenzie's family," he mused absently. "The question becomes, I guess, who actually died in the fire, if anyone? Or, if it was staged, why?"
Alec shrugged one shoulder. "Can't help you there. I don't remember much about the guy. We bumped into him at a bar and played pool for a half hour or so. I was so impressed by the fact that I was seeing a real, live cougar that I hardly paid attention to a damn thing he said."
Jackson shook his head. "It's probably not important." He threw the file on his desk and walked to the coffee maker, starting a fresh pot with distracted, automatic movements. "The guy gave her his name, probably his real one. I'm going to see what I can run down about it today. I might also call Mahalia and ask if she can put me in contact with her friend, Steven, or another cougar. Kenzie's bound to have questions that you and Nick can't answer."
He realized his mistake when both of Alec's eyebrows flew up. "Kenzie's going to have questions, is she?" he said dryly. "Guess the Italian food worked."
Jackson cleared his throat and focused on the coffee maker. Insisting nothing had happened would only amuse Alec further, so he shrugged and ignored his own slip of the tongue. "Wouldn't you have questions?"
"I've got one. If she's Jessica Evans, that'd make her twenty-five. The odds of her hitting twenty-five without shifting are probably about a few thousand to one. The only time I've ever heard of it is in cases where someone's taken steps to prevent it. But that's some damn powerful magic."