Page 3 of What a Wolf Wants
Manx Ryerson said, “Hey, we never have to explain ourselves if we hit the wrong house. It’s just an honest mistake.”
Ethan glowered at him. “We do this the way I say.” As far as he was concerned, hitting the wrong house during a drug bust was never right. It meant they hadn’t done their job!
He knew they weren’t used to him stopping a mission like that to help out the homeowner whose home they had wrongly trashed. But he couldn’t leave her alone at her placewith a broken door. It would be unsafe for her to stay here tonight. And her belongings wouldn’t be safe if she went somewhere else for the night.
“Wait for me outside,” he told his men, who were milling around in the foyer, waiting for him to say when he was ready to go.
They all moved outside while he walked through the house and saw the wreck his men had made during their search. It was fine when they hit the right house. But certainly not when they hit the wrong one.
He called Leidolf, his red-wolf pack leader, and said, “Hey, I have a problem.” He almost saidwe, because it was up to the pack to make things right, but he had caused the problem. Technically, his informant had, buthehadn’t broken into the she-wolf’s place.
“What do you need?” Leidolf asked, knowing if Ethan was calling him at this late hour, he was in some kind of wolf trouble.
“A cleanup team and a new door and doorframe for a home in Portland.” Ethan gave him the address.
“What happened? Did your team hit the wrong house?” Leidolf was a canny wolf, and he often knew what was what before anyone had to tell him.
“Yeah. Unfortunately. My informant gave me the wrong address. The woman is a red she-wolf, but I don’t know her.”
“Hell. What’s her name?”
“We didn’t get that far.”
Leidolf said, “All right. Cassie and I will be up there shortly and try to make it up to her.”
“All right. I’ll let her know that you’ll be arriving soon.” Actually,Ethanneeded to make it up to her, but he didn’t think she was interested in speaking with him any further. He didn’t blame her either.
They ended the call, and he walked through the rest of the house, just shaking his head at seeing the overturned floor lamps, couch cushions tossed all over, and in the kitchen, the drawers that had been yanked out and all their contents dumped on the floor. He would get some of this straightened up until someone else came to take over. Then he could get on with the mission, hoping that the guys they were after wouldn’t have been tipped off by now that he was coming for them.
He was lifting one of the drawers off the kitchen floor when the she-wolf walked into the kitchen.
“Wow. Are you always this destructive on a raid?” she asked.
“These guys hide things everywhere. We don’t have time to be careful. They’re deadly.”
“This is beyond conducting a search speedily.” She stood there, her arms folded across her chest. Her hair still wet, she was wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a silky shirt, no bra.
That had him taking a second look. He hadn’t meant to. He’d already seen her naked, for heaven’s sake, and they were used to seeing others naked to shift into their wolves…but of course that was with wolves he knew. There was just something provocative about the way her nipples were poking against the fabric of her shirt that was wet where her hair had dripped water. He should have kept his mind onstraightening up her apartment. But hell, she was the kind of woman he would have liked to date, bite and all. She raised her brows at him.
He cleared his throat and began putting all the kitchen drawers back, damn glad that none of them were broken. “I’m Ethan Matheson,” he repeated, hoping she would give up her name, but she didn’t. He was so in the doghouse with her. “And you are?”
“You would think before you raided a house, you would have learned that.”
Trying to appease her, he said, “I’ve called our pack leaders—”
“Yourpack leaders, notours,” she said.
“Uh, yeah, and they’re bringing a team to help clean up the house. I’m really sorry about this.” He truly was but she didn’t appear to be satisfied with his apology. Hopefully, putting the place back in order would make a difference. Though she might have nightmares about this. He knew she could have suffered some trauma from the experience, and this wouldn’t make up for that.
“So you can get on your way and raid the right place this time, if itisthe right place?” she asked.
“Yeah. We do good work. Most of the time. We just got the wrong information from the informant.”
“Does it happen very often? Be honest with me. Or did I just luck out?” She arched a brow.
“It happens once in a blue moon.” Thankfully. He finished picking up the drawers and putting them back in place while she just watched him, her glower stern.
When he began rescuing her silverware from the floor, she said curtly, “Put them in the dishwasher.”
