“Do you think the sex broke the dream cycle?” her doctor asked.
“It never has before.” Alicia wanted to know why last night was so different too, but she didn’t think the doctor would be the one who would answer that question, and she didn’t want to think about who could.
Karen glanced at the clock. “Our session is just about over. See you in a week?”
“Yes.” Alicia stood up. Like all the other times, she wished she had more time to talk to her doctor yet happy she was no longer under the magnifying glass. Each time she walked out of the offices of Dr. Karen McDaniels she felt relief and sadness. A crazy combination.
She took a deep breath. Time to get back to reality.
***
Alicia walked out of the elevator to find her secretary blocking the way to her office. “What?”
“There is a woman in your office,” Stacey started.
“Why?” Alicia stepped around her.
“Because I couldn’t stop her from barging in there and once she sat down I couldn’t budge her out of the chair she parked herself in.” Stacey had a death grip on a small pad when she blocked Alicia’s way once more.
“Am I starting to attract all the crazies now?” Alicia said through clenched teeth. “What does she want?”
“To hire you.” Stacey’s voice gave a little squeak.
“What?” She couldn’t help her voice from rising in volume. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I have a call into Mr. Duncan’s office, but he’s been out for a half hour.”
“Did you call his cell phone?” Alicia stepped up to her office door.
“He doesn’t have it on.”
“I don’t even know why he has one.” Alicia gripped the handle to her door. “It’s never on.”
“One more thing,” Stacey said. “Watch your nose.”
The moment Alicia opened the door she was hit with the overwhelming scent of gardenias. The woman must have bathed in Paris. She sneezed.
“May I help you?” Alicia blinked a couple times to keep her eyes from watering. Could this be the same woman who had been in her office before? The fragrance was the same.
“Yes.” The woman stood up. Alicia was amazed at the woman’s height. She had to be six foot tall and thin. The woman reminded her of a greyhound. “I understand you search for rare jewels.”
“I’m sorry, but you need to submit a query to the main office.”
“I don’t want the main office.” The woman took a step forward. “I want you.”
Commotion from the outer office stopped Alicia from responding. It was a good thing because she would’ve blasted the woman.
“Sir!”
That one word told Alicia who was barging into her office and for the first time she was glad he was being his normal aggressive self.
“Sonora.”
Even with steel in his deep voice, it caressed her. Made her feel safe.
“Maximilian.” The woman turned toward him and gave a fake smile.
“Old friends?” So this was the infamous enemy he talked about.
“We used to run in the same circles.” Sonora sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “But that was a long time ago.”
“Why are you here?” Max stood between Sonora and her. Alicia wondered why.
“She wants to hire me.”
Max turned and stared at Alicia for a moment before giving Sonora his undivided attention again. “She’ll be too busy.”
“Neanderthal,” Alicia muttered under her breath.
He turned his head and flashed her one of his bone melting smiles. “One of my more endearing traits.”
Alicia just shook her head. Under her breath she muttered, “I’m going to sneak a little estrogen in your coffee one time.”
“Sonora, Mrs. Braswell is working for me right now so if you hire her company you’ll end up with one of the other gemologists. What is it you want them to find for you?” His voice dripped with sweetness.
“Some family heirlooms.” She gave him a toothy smile. “But I can see you two have a few things to discuss so I’ll come back some other time.”
“I’ll see you out.” Max stepped up to Sonora and took her arm.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Oh, but I insist.” Max linked arms with her and ushered her out to the elevator.
Alicia stepped out into Stacey’s outer office to watch him manhandle someone else for a change. “At least I know he’s an equal opportunity chauvinist.”
“Alicia!”
“What? He can’t possibly hear me.”
***
Max paused for a moment when Alicia called him a chauvinist.
“She doesn’t think much of you, does she?”
“Does it matter to you? She is my hire. That is all.” Max tightened his grip on Sonora’s arm. He said that to keep Sonora from targeting her.
“You trying to protect her? I can smell her essence on you. What is she? Your little play toy now? I thought you wanted to protect these humans not use them.”
He growled deep in his throat.
“You chastise me for the way I treat humans, but you aren’t much better. Unless you plan on mating with this human.”
“No.” His words were forceful. “Humans can make choices.”
“And we can’t.” She pressed the button on the wall between the elevator doors. “Humans have been taken as mates before. Love doesn’t always give you a choice.”
Sonora knew love. She had mated with the alpha male of their pack. Her love for him was legendary. It wasn’t until he died that she started making trouble for the pack. She wanted to remain alpha female and couldn’t.
“I see you’re taking the elevator,” he said instead.
“Only because your toy is watching us.” The doors slid open and she stepped in. “I will be back, when you’re not quite so protective of her.”
“Doubt that time will come.” Not after what she had said. He waited for the doors to close before he turned back toward Alicia’s office and the two women still standing there watching him.
Alicia did an about face the moment they made eye contact and walked back into her office. Stacey took a few seconds longer before she dashed into the office as well. He felt like he was following a parade.
Max crossed into the room and was sprayed in the face with Lysol. His loud cough brought two sets of eyes to focus on him.
“Sorry.” Alicia lowered the can she had been brandishing. “Didn’t realize you had come back in here.”
“The distance from the elevator isn’t that far, especially with these long legs.” He rubbed his eyes to get the sting out. Something roared in the background.
His words made her look at his legs. She remembered how those legs felt naked against hers. The heat of a blush crept up right behind those thoughts. “Yes. Well I’m still not used to having a shadow so you’ll have to forgive me.”
He gave a regal nod and moved out of the way.
Alicia and Stacey worked around the room, doing their best to kill off any remaining speck of the gardenia scent.
“Not your favorite perfume?” asked Max as he watched them. “The two of you are very professional at getting this place fragrance free.”
“I’m sensitive to gardenias. Even the perfumes laced with it. If I don’t get rid of the odor fast I end up sneezing my head off.” Alicia placed her hands on her hips. “I asked for a window because of it, but have been told no. After her last visit I got one of the strongest exhaust fans installed. It sucks the fumes out fairly quickly.”
At least, he knew what the noise was. “Allergies?”
“It’s the darndest thing. Only that flower, the rest don’t bother me. I don’t really have allergies except for the gardenia problem.”
Was she sensitive to scents? Like someone who had werewolf blood in them? He had run into other humans with some of his race’s DNA but they were rare. Few left the pack.
Those who had a little of their blood contracted strange ailments. They would show up in many odd ways. Some developed allergies to certain things, like a particular fragrance.
Some carried features that were wolf-like. They looked like they were in the middle of changing, at least to him. Some had longer teeth, thicker hair which the owner found hard to keep short, and heavier bone mass. It depended on the families.
Others were fast runners. Several star athletes in basketball and football had pack blood running through their veins.
He wondered if Alicia had more traits of his race or if this one was just a fluke. He couldn’t sense anything from her so it would have to be far back in her family tree, but something to look out for.
A strain of Beethoven’s fifth filled the office.
“I’ve gotten a hit.” Alicia sounded startled.
“A hit?”
“Yes.” She walked quickly to her desk and plopped into her chair. Tapping a few keys, she pulled her computer out of sleep mode. “I set parameters for another Tear and I got a hit. I set it to play that strain if a Tear surfaced.”
“I need to get you a secure laptop.” He followed her to the desk. Placing his hands on either side of her chair, he leaned down behind her so he could watch the screen as she pulled up her information. “What sort of parameters?”
“I looked for the same patterns that allowed my company to find the last Tear and this is a secure computer.” She typed on a couple of keys to pull up the information.
“And you just had a strange woman in your office.”
“Who didn’t get near my computer.” She stopped what she was doing to stare at him.
“This time, but what about the next time?” He watched her as she thought about what he said. “All I want to do is protect you and what you find.”
“Fine. Then get me a secure laptop. Now can we get back to this?” She smiled when Max nodded. “The computer looked for another statue type item that was going up on the block. Something big enough to hide a Tear. This one is made of a masonry stone, yet weighs more than it should.
“When my company found the last Tear it was hidden in a hollowed out statue that weighed more than the wood itself should have.” She turned her head so she could look up at Max.
“Buy it.”
“Not so easy. It’s part of an estate sale. The Gaelic cross has been in the family for decades. A good luck piece. Everything is supposed to go on the block in two days, but the family isn’t sure they want to sell this item.”
“So? Contact the next of kin.” Max sat on the edge of her desk. “I’ll make an offer and see if they have a price.”
“There is no contact information.”
“Which estate?”
Alicia had to flip through her files to find out. “The Kelley Estate.”
“I thought there was a grandson who inherited everything?” He leaned forward so he could look at what she now had open on the screen.
“And he went through the family money in record time.” Alicia pulled up the article accompanying the information on the sale and leaned back in her chair so Max could read it. She knew if she didn’t let him he’d question her to death to know the contents.
“Hmm, I’ll be back.”
Alicia watched him walk through the doorway. At least the view at this angle was nice. She stood and closed her door to give her time to think about the last twenty-four hours.
The awkward moment she feared when she saw Maximilian again never happened. Sonora in her office fixed that. He came charging in the office like her big protector, forcing the woman out before she really had a chance to speak to Alicia.
A part of her wanted to know what the woman wanted, since she had the audacity to invade her office.
For some reason Sonora reminded her of someone. “But who?”
Then there was Max. Sooner or later she would have to face what happened between the two of them.
“Not something I want to do.” She picked up the phone. “Stacey, I need to have someone from the firm attend an estate sale. Can you make sure it gets done? I’ll tell you what piece I want to bid on.”
Stacey answered her.
“Good.” Alicia hung up.
“Now maybe I can find another Tear before Santos saunters back into my office.” She pulled her computer back so it faced her. “Not.”