Shadow Wolf (Wolf of My Heart Book 7)

by Linda Palmer

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lily

  "Why?"

  He sighed. "I'll tell you what I can if you swear you'll keep it to yourself."

  "You can trust me."

  "I need you to swear, Lily."

  I held up my hand to do it. "I swear on everything I love that I will never repeat what you're about to tell me."

  He studied my face as if gauging my sincerity. "All right then. Ben and I work for the investigative branch of a global organization that governs all things supernatural."

  Huh? I blinked. "Say again, only slower."

  "Ben and I investigate the supernatural."

  "Whoa! Like on X-Files?" My parents had loved that series with all of its weirdness and had a boxed set containing all nine seasons. I'd watched and enjoyed them through the years, probably because I liked thinking there was a lot more out there than we knew. "You investigate to find out if it's real?"

  "We know it's real. And what we do is look into possible crimes against or committed by the supernatural community."

  "I…see."

  "I doubt that." He sighed. "You think I'm crazy, I don't blame you. I would, too, if I didn't know what I know."

  "Which is?"

  "It's all real, Lils. Every bit of it."

  While I vaguely noticed that he'd called me by a nickname only family used, most of my brain was trying to assimilate what he'd just said.

  "By the way, I'm only sharing this because my gut tells me you can handle it."

  Handle it? Ha! Was he for real? In my whole life, I'd never heard anything as outrageous.

  Cade's eyes narrowed. "What are you thinking?"

  "I'm stuck on the word community. Are you telling me there's a supernatural neighborhood in town?"

  "I used the term loosely. Sups don't exist in segregated clusters, if that's what you're thinking. They're everywhere on this planet, living almost-normal lives."

  "Then how come nobody knows?"

  "There are strict secrecy rules and serious repercussions if they're broken. But put all that stuff out of your head, okay? It doesn't affect you, and the only reason I even mentioned it is so you'll understand the scope of my situation. Why I'm doing what I'm doing."

  "Which is?"

  "Helping Ben. I was three semesters into a law enforcement program when he asked for a huge favor. Wanted me to take a leave of absence and do some undercover work for him. Of course I did it. I mean, I owe the guy a lot."

  I was beginning to get it. "You're checking out the gang."

  He nodded once.

  "So you're not really a member. You just pretend to be."

  "Exactly." I could hear his relief that I got it.

  "No wonder you have battle scars." I touched the one on his face before glancing at his recently healed arm.

  "Hey, I'm good at what I do. That fight wasn't about them finding out I was helping Ben. It was over my car. Dude wanted to race for pink slips; I didn't."

  "How many times have you gone undercover?"

  "This is the fifth."

  "And what about these gangs is supernatural?"

  "That's where things get tricky." He glanced out the window, which made me look that way, too. I saw snowflakes drifting past.

  With a cry of joy, I crawled across the bed on my hands and knees for a better look. There wasn't much accumulation, but the snowflakes were falling fast, and I guessed there soon would be. "I know this will make driving back awful, but—" I'd looked over my shoulder to speak to Cade, only then realizing my butt was pretty much in his face. He appeared to be dumbstruck. "What?"

  "I'm in bigger trouble than I thought."

  I got to him in a flash and sat back on my heels, my hand on his arm. "Why? What's happening?"

  "Something I didn't think could."

  "Tell me."

  "No. I've said too much already. It's your turn to talk unless—" He flicked a glance at the open door. "Should we go downstairs? Your family might be wondering what we're doing up here."

  "Then they can come investigate."

  As if on cue, Wendy bounded into the room. "What's taking so long?" She sounded outraged, I suspect because she hadn't been invited along.

  "We're talking," I told her.

  "Can I talk, too?"

  "Of course." I held out my arms. She flew into them, brand new teddy bear in tow. I settled her on the bed between us. "Do you like your bear?" It was a Christmas gift from me, the girl with the nineteen-year-old stuffed wolf.

  "Yes. I'm naming her Kitty."

  I saw a smile teasing the corner of Cade's mouth. "Because you wish I'd given you a kitten instead?" I'd seen some cute white ones on the store shelf, but decided against them because of the fluff that might shed.

  "No, silly. Because she's a baby."

  "But baby bears are called cubs."

  "Du-uh. Girl ones aren't."

  "Ohhhh. Excuse me."

  Cade actually chuckled, a sound that took my breath. I felt a rush of sympathy for him. If half of what he'd told me was true, his life was a nightmare.

  Wendy thoughtfully twirled a strand of her long brown hair. "So what are you and him talking about?"

  "Growing up." Sort of.

  "Peter Pan never grew up. Wendy did, though." She leaned closer to Cade and loudly whispered, "We have the same first name."

  He solemnly nodded.

  "But not the same last one. Mine is Silverman. Do you know what hers is?"

  "No idea."

  "Darling."

  "Are you flirting with me?" He pretended to be shocked.

  She collapsed into giggles. "No. That's Wendy's last name."

  "Good, because I'm taken. Don't tell anyone, though."

  Wendy heaved a sigh for clueless boys. "It's not a secret, silly. Everybody downstairs is talking about it." Her gaze bounced over to me and then back to him before narrowing. "Have you and him been kissing?"

  I pretended shock. "Absolutely not. I don't want his cooties."

  She thought about that. "I guess I have Corky's cooties."

  I don't know how I kept from laughing. "Does he go to your school?" Charly called daycare school since Wendy was such a "big girl" now.

  She dissolved into giggles again. "No. He's Mr. Hanson's pig."

  I gasped. "You kissed a pig? Why on earth would you kiss a pig?"

  She heaved another sigh. "Because I don't have a frog." She turned to Cade. "That's what princesses like to kiss best besides princes."

  He lost it then, and the change in him was nothing short of miraculous. Not only did he look years younger, he had a twinkle in his eyes that was infectious. So I wound up laughing, too.

  "I want a selfie," I said. "All three of us."

  Wendy squeezed between Cade and me. I snapped the shot on my phone and then Cade's when he handed his over. Then she took two of us, one on each phone. Once she'd finished, she grabbed his hand and turned it palm down. "What's this? A tattoo?"

  "No, it's a birthmark," he said. "That means I had it when I was born."

  "It looks like a kiss. The chocolate kind."

  Cade made a show of inspecting it. "Yes, it does."

  "I wish I had one." She turned her hands every way they would go before heaving a huge sigh. "When I turn fifty, I'm going to get a tattoo. Daddy already said I could."

  Somehow I swallowed my laugh. "Do I need to go downstairs and help Nana with lunch?" That's what Wendy called my mother.

  "They're not cooking yet." Wendy sat for a moment as if waiting for something to happen. "I thought you were talking to him."

  "I'm really not sure what to say next."

  She waited for another half second before rolling her eyes. "This is boring. I'm going to watch the Grinch."

  "He'll be way much more fun than us," Cade said.

  Wendy surprised him with a kiss on the cheek. She immediately covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. "Oops. Now you have my cooties."

  "Yeah, and they're the best ones I ever had."
>
  Two dimples popped into view. Smiling smugly at me, my niece slid off the bed and prissed out the door without another word.

  Cade fell back on the pillows, his hands over his face, his breaths uneven.

  Sensing a dramatic mood swing, I didn't know what to say. I moved to pull his hands down. His eyes shimmered with tears that shocked me to the core because I knew they weren't happy ones. "What's wrong?"

  "I'm so sick of this undercover shit. I want to finish school, get a real job, and live like a normal guy."

  "What's stopping you? If Ben really loves you—and I'm thinking he must—he will surely understand."

  "It's not that easy."

  "Tell me why."

  He sat up. "Because there's something I have to do for my mom. Something she deserves. This is the only way I know to do it." He looked so miserable that tears filled my eyes, too.

  I swiped at one that spilled over.

  He took care of another. "Now I've made you sad. I should go before your holiday totally tanks."

  "If you go, it definitely will." I murmured truth I hadn't realized until I said it. How had he gotten under my skin so quickly? I didn't believe in that sort of thing. It just didn't make sense. Yet here I was, inexplicably and irresistibly drawn to him.

  Did he feel the same way? That would certainly explain his mystifying behavior towards me.

  Impulsively, I shifted position and slid a leg over his so I could straddle his thighs. He tensed beneath me. Our faces were now inches apart. Our gazes clashed and locked, his wide eyed. I closed the distance between us and tentatively kissed him a few times to get things started. It took several, but he began to get into the spirit of the moment.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Cade

  A guy can only resist so long, even if there are a zillion reasons why this shouldn't be happening. I tried to remember each one. It was freakin' hard to do with a girl as amazing as Lily kissing me back.

  Reason number one—The door was wide open.

  Reason number two—Too much family around.

  Reason number three—Lily deserved better.

  Reason number, um, four?—My night job wasn't relationship friendly.

  Reason number…was I on five or six?

  Throwing all reasons away, I suddenly went for it and took us to the mattress.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lily

  A flip put me on my back. I wrapped my legs around his body as each kiss got wetter than the one before it.

  Laughter down the hall broke us apart. Cade sat straight up, pulling down my shirt as he put distance between us. I sat, too, my eyes on the door.

  Charly popped into the room a nanosecond later, with Marcia and Shelly right behind. "Are you two lovebirds going to hide up here all day?"

  I stuck out my tongue at her. "Could you be a more annoying big sister?"

  "It is my birthright. Now how's it going? Do you two want more alone time?" She turned to leave.

  "Am I needed in the kitchen?" I asked.

  "Nope," Shelly said. "Mom has all of us and Gran, plus Aunt Hannah and her bunch should arrive within the hour."

  Crap. I'd forgotten that lunch would include Neecy and Theo. All I needed was for him to go postal again. "Okay, then. We want more alone time."

  "Why am I not surprised?" Her pointed gaze made me check my hair, which had been in a ponytail at one point, but was now mostly not.

  Double crap.

  Laughing, they left us. I self-consciously redid my pony tail. "Theo is coming for lunch."

  "Well, that's freakin' great."

  I sympathized with Cade's lack of enthusiasm. "Are you ever going to tell me why you hated each other on sight?"

  "It's complicated."

  I crawled to the window again and slid off the bed so I could watch the weather. "Snow's really sticking."

  He joined me and rested his shoulder against the frame so that he was half turned in my direction. "It'll probably be melted by New Year's."

  "I'm leaving Saturday."

  "Figured you'd stay longer." Cade sounded surprised.

  "Gotta earn a living."

  "And so do I."

  We stared at each other in silence while I tried to get my thoughts together. "Do you really have a crush on me?"

  "I was hoping you didn't hear that."

  "Because you don't?"

  "Because I do."

  I thought about that for five seconds. "Okay, here's the deal. I don't usually let a guy get to second base before we've hung out for a very looong time."

  He winced. "Sorry, I—"

  I cut him off. "My point is that you didn't do anything I minded. I don't understand why. I'm not what I'd call 'easy.' I mean, only four guys have made it all the way to home plate, and three of them were rebound one timers."

  He clearly hung on every word, which was a little disconcerting.

  "Besides that, I'd definitely flunk a Cade Messig pop quiz. But there's something here—" I put one hand to my heart and one hand to his "—that's new. Different. And I'm curious about it."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. So I'd like see where this goes…but only if you want to, of course."

  For three excruciating seconds he said nothing.

  "Is your silence a no thanks? Just say so if it is. I mean, I know my timing sucks."

  "It sucks all right. I have to keep you safe."

  That was a reason I hadn't seen coming. "Are you in? Yes or no."

  "Yes."

  Sigh.

  "Then so am I. Merry Christmas, Cade Messig. I'm yours on an indefinite trial basis, and I should warn you that I don't come with a manual."

  Chapter Twenty

  Cade

  We sat on the bed and talked until we heard the commotion of new arrivals. That's when Lily took my hand and practically dragged me down the hall and stairs to the noisy den. Theo spotted me first thing. Before he could react, Lily cut him off. "Aunt Hannah, Uncle Clive, this is my date, Cade Messig. Neecy and Theo, you've already met him." Her hard stare silently dared Theo to speak, but he just stood here, his expression neutral.

  I did the handshake thing with her uncle, but got a surprise hug from her aunt. Neecy beamed at all of us. By two-thirty, we were seated at the most beautifully decorated table I'd ever seen in a ridiculously enormous dining room. I wasn't sorry that Lily's mom had seated Theo and Neecy at the far end of it, though I did wonder why. Was it because she'd sensed that we didn't like one another?

  The women let the guys do most of the talking, which meant they heard a lot about the past football season, the upcoming basketball season, and the recently closed hunting season. Since I had mixed feelings about hunting for sport, I kept my mouth shut.

  "I saw a wolf the other day." Lily's announcement came out of the blue.

  My heart stopped.

  Charly's husband—Ted, was it?—laughed softly. "Wolf sightings are rare in Missouri, Lils, but you might've seen a dog-wolf mix. I've heard of people bringing them in as pets and then releasing them."

  "Ted's a zoology teacher," Lily told me. "So he should know, I guess. But I'm pretty dang sure the wolf I saw was full blooded. And there may even be more than just him. Mara Foster told me she'd seen some at her place."

  "Who?" I asked.

  Neecy explained. "Mara's one of Lily's customers. Very young with an older, uber-rich husband and a personal bodyguard. Apparently JT, as she calls him, put her in 'one' of his houses." She drew quotation marks in the air. "I've never seen it. There's a locked gate. But I could draw the place in detail based on how much she's talked about it."

  Lily came to her customer's defense, no surprise. "She's actually very sweet and, I'm thinking, horribly lonely. All she could talk about last week was a trip north to see her folks. Apparently JT's holding a big meeting—she called it a 'summit'

  —at their house while she's gone."

  I tensed. Had she really just said what I thought she'd said?

  Lily didn't seem
to notice my reaction. "I couldn't help but wonder if he picked that time because he didn't want her anywhere around."

  "That's weird," Neecy said. "You'd think he'd be dying to show her off. I mean, isn't that what trophy wives are for?"

  "Exactly!"

  I nudged Lily with my elbow to get her full attention. "This Mara person actually said she'd seen wolves, plural?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "What does JT do?" That came from Theo who I'd have thought knew every living soul in Moonrise Ridge.

  "He owns a business," said Lily. "Security, I think she said."

  He wasn't satisfied with that. "Which?"

  Lily shook her head. "All she said was 'a very elite security company' or something like that."

  I don't think I said anything the rest of the meal. My mind had kicked into overdrive. Who was this JT Foster guy and how could his wife have seen wolves around his place? As for that big meeting…

  Although it was a ridiculous leap to connect Mike, a grocery store manager, to some random meeting, a confirmation shiver raised the hair on my arms. I'd been right to follow my gut and hang around in Missouri a little longer instead of heading home.

  Something was up.

  What, I didn't know yet. In fact, all I could say for sure was that Mike had been grouchy for a while now. Short fuse. Changed plans. One minute easy going; the next, anal about everything. The guys suspected his upcoming "summit" was to blame. I didn't know him well enough to agree.

  What I did know was two seemingly unrelated summits loomed.

  Coincidence? Or grand design?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lily

  After dinner, we all returned to the den. Luckily, it was a big room. We let the old folks have the couches and chairs. Younger family sat on the floor. In the background, A Christmas Story played. I didn't watch it. Twenty times were enough for anyone. While I'd have loved to drag Cade upstairs so we could talk some more, he was nowhere in sight. Had he left without a goodbye? Then I saw that Theo was missing, too. I had mixed emotions about that. If the guys could get along, I'd be nothing but happy. But if they were suddenly best buds, I damn well wanted to know why.