Free The Cougar's Wish (Desert Guards) by Holley Trent Page B

couldn’t have been easy to come by. Belle knew for certain Steven was nowhere near as old, but a similar depth was there. Maybe he’d seen things ... and she wondered what.
    She tapped her pen some more and gnawed at her bottom lip.
    The bells on the front door chimed, and Alex hurried over to the trio of customers and got them seated at one of her window tables. Alex already had enough tables, but she probably thought she was doing Belle a favor.
    Typical Alex.
    “How’s the corned beef hash?” Steven asked. “I’m still feeling the pull toward breakfast.”
    Swallowing, Belle pulled her gaze back to him, and thankfully, he was looking at the menu and not her. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said. “To me, it’s too salty, but as a cat, my taste buds probably aren’t reliable.”
    He laced his fingers together and looked up at her.
    Gods.
    Of course she had to look back.
    She closed her eyes against the onslaught of his intensity.
Why did I look?
    She was giving her damned inner cat more fodder—more reasons to fight against her—and once that animal made her decision, there’d be no negotiation. Steven would be it, and Belle would be dogged in her pursuit of him. That wasn’t a cat’s heat—it was just the animal wanting what she wanted.
    “I think I’ll risk it,” he said. “I’m used to it being salty, but I come from a place where hams aren’t any good unless you have to soak them for a day to get the excess sodium out. If it’s not salty, I’ll probably think there’s something wrong with it.”
    “If that’s what you want.”
    “Unless you can think of something better.”
    Deputy Carlson on the stool beside Steven put his finger on Steven’s menu on top of the breakfast burrito picture. “That’s better. Sweartagod, it’s heaven.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “That’s my least favorite thing on the menu,” Belle said. “Chet throws everything but the kitchen sink into it.”
    “I
know
!” Carson said. “That’s what makes it so good. The first time I had it, I was—” The guy pressed his lips together and picked up an end to his sandwich. “Well. No need to self-incriminate.”
    Steven scoffed and closed the menu. “I hope you were off the clock.”
    “Of course I was. And it wasn’t my fault, anyway. Some Coyote brought in a tray of brownies to the station, and like a dumb ass, I grabbed a couple on the way out.”
    Belle cringed. Pot brownie gifting was a common scheme of the Coyotes. They distributed them to people who they needed to be a bit more susceptible. Then they robbed them, usually. With the cops, they’d probably just been screwing around. “You should have known better, Deputy.”
    “I didn’t know who’d brought them until the next time I went in. I should have known there was a reason no one else had touched them. Those things had me frolicking through the streets for a good six hours.”
    Steven raised his eyebrows and looked at Belle. “I guess Mason isn’t the only one dealing with Coyote shenanigans.”
    “Individually, they don’t get into a whole lot of trouble,” Belle said with a shrug. “But as a gang, they create more than their fair share of chaos. It’s in their natures.”
    The deputy pointed to Belle, then to Steven. “Did I just say too much?”
    Belle shook her head. “Nah. He knows the Coyotes aren’t just a biker gang.”
    “Whew. Can’t tell who knows what in this town. I shouldn’t have said anything at all, but I’m on the tail end of a double shift and am exponentially less intelligent than I was yesterday.”
    “No sweat. You’re good, man,” Steven said.
    “You might be the only one who thinks so. You know, I—”
    “So—” Belle interrupted before Deputy Carlson could descend into one of his spirited tales. Steven’s chocolate stare had her antsy as hell, and she needed to move—to go somewhere to catch her breath for a moment. “You want the hash, the burrito, or cook’s choice?”
    “Do you trust the