Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  He thrust his hips forward, and she arched her back in delight at the pressure between her thighs, his hardness speaking of the need she stirred in him. There was so much need, need which she wanted to meet with her own. Let him need her, let him find what he needed in her. She could give something back to him for once, finally, and she wanted to. She wanted to be whatever it was he needed.

  “Kara,” he panted against her skin, sending shivers over her. “Kara, please…” His palm covered her breast, lifting and molding it, and she whimpered in reply. He was barely holding himself back—there was an animal edge to his voice, something primal.

  She bucked her hips in response, meeting his need with hers, her body telling him what she couldn’t find words to say.

  The clicking of the doorknob froze them in place. Her eyes flew open wide, meeting his equally wide, panic-filled eyes.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” It wasn’t her father, her mother. Thank God. She looked up, still on her back, and found Logan staring down at them.

  Shame sent a flush over her entire body. She yanked her t-shirt down and disentangled herself from Jace who quickly jumped to his feet.

  “So this is how you’ve been spending your time? I should’ve known.” Logan sounded disgusted as he glared at Jace. “I should’ve felt it on you.”

  What did that mean? She barely had time to make sense of anything as she scrambled up onto the chair. Never in her whole life had she ever been so humiliated. She couldn’t look at him, could only stare at the floor as her body trembled in shame and thwarted desire.

  “This is only the first time—” Jace began, but Logan cut him off.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” he snarled. “I’ve never known you to be so unprofessional. What’s wrong with your head?”

  She couldn’t let this go. It would be so easy to sit there and listen as Logan berated Jace—a boss to an employee. She could tell herself it was none of her business, but it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

  She stood, angling herself between the two men. “It’s all my fault. Don’t be mad at him. He always wants to do the right thing. He was trying to comfort me over Sal, and things got out of hand. But he was telling the truth—this has never happened before.”

  No sense telling him about their time at the club. That was nothing like this, though. Nothing in the world had ever been like what just happened.

  She could tell Logan didn’t want to believe her. It was easier to be mad. He averted his eyes, clearly embarrassed by what he’d found. “Come on. We have work to do.” He was talking to Jace, of course, and she realized this would give them no time to clear up what had just happened.

  Maybe there was no way to clear it up. Maybe anything they said now would only cheapen what happened. As it was, she wasn’t sure what exactly had gone on or how far they would’ve gone if they hadn’t been interrupted.

  On the one hand, she knew it was right for them to stop.

  On the other hand, she hated Logan for walking in at that exact moment.

  She sat at the foot of the bed as the men left the room, and for some reason, her heart ached when Jace closed the door without so much as looking back at her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Logan managed to wait until they were downstairs to shove Jace. He was ready for it, had braced himself the entire way down the staircase.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” Jace warned him, holding up his hands. “We can talk about it later.”

  “No. You don’t get to pull that with me. I want to talk about it now.”

  “There really isn’t much to say,” Jace said with a shrug. “I’ve been fighting it this whole time. You know what I mean.” They exchanged a meaningful look. There was only so much he could say out loud, never knowing who might walk into the room at any time. The house was still crawling with security, and cops had stopped by several times during the night to check on things.

  Logan backed down but only a little. “Why didn’t you tell me how things have progressed? How you’ve been struggling, still?”

  “Because I don’t know how to describe it,” he confessed. “I’ve never been through this. None of us has. I was hoping he’d get over it, but just the opposite is true. Every day that goes by and he doesn’t have her…”

  “It’s not fair to her,” Logan murmured, glancing up the stairs.

  “It’s not fair to me either,” he snapped. It was almost impossible to think with the wolf still roaring and howling and snarling in his head, unsatisfied. They’d been so close, minutes away from being joined. Now the moment was over, and who knew if it would ever come again?

  “Just remember what we’re here for,” Logan concluded. “Don’t let me find that again. And you’d better hope neither of her parents get wind of this.”

  All Jace could do was laugh. It was like being a teenager again, taking pains to not get caught by the parents.

  Logan cleared his throat, his brows drawing together. It was time to talk business. “The senator had a few appearances to make today, and he’s out with his normal detail. I sent Sledge with them, just in case. We’ll be in touch throughout the day.”

  He then looked down the one hall, at the end of which sat the living room where Chase had first met the senator. “Mrs. Collins is working on scrapbooking, of all things. I guess she needs something to distract herself.”

  “It’s a little early for her, isn’t it?” In the last few days, Jace had never seen her before early afternoon. He had never even gotten the chance to speak privately with her.

  “Maybe she likes to stay upstairs when her husband’s home,” Logan shrugged. “People have a tendency to reveal what they want to hide in the most mundane ways, don’t they?”

  “Yes, they do.” He looked down the hall, then back to his team leader. “I want to go talk to her. Maybe I can learn something.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he confessed. “I just know something is off. Like you just said, if she stays upstairs during the day when he’s home, why?”

  “That was just a theory,” Logan reminded him. “She’s probably hiding from us.”

  “I would still like to know why. Is she trying to hide something?”

  “I told you about the fight I walked in on between those two,” Logan reminded him in a whisper. “Be careful. She’s jumpy and pissed off. I got the feeling there was a lot under the surface. She’s been covering up and ignoring things for years.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” And he would. The picture that was starting to develop was of a family full of secrets, half-truths, disappointments. Being from old money, a family whose public profile had to remain untarnished, Laura would be used to keeping things bottled up.

  Nothing could stay bottled up forever. It had to get out somehow, in some way, or else the container would explode.

  Just as Logan had described, she sat on the sofa with the window at her back and a scrapbook open in front of her. For a moment, Jace fooled himself into thinking she hadn’t noticed him entering the room.

  That was nothing but wishful thinking. “Good morning,” she murmured without looking up, stirring a clear, plastic bowl full of stickers.

  “Good morning. I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

  “Sure you did,” Laura snickered, still focused on her task. “It’s all right. I never have company while I’m doing this. I don’t ask for company, mind you, but it’s not a problem. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thank you.” She had a way about her. Aloof but not quite cold. Civil but not cordial. Somebody who’d grown up with servants moving around her home. She was accustomed to going about her business, pretending nobody was there.

  And it wouldn’t do to get too friendly with the staff. God forbid the line between master and servant was ever blurred.

  From his vantage point seated in a chair near where she worked, Laura Collins was the picture of a w
ealthy, middle-aged wife and mother: not a blonde hair out of place, tasteful pearls at her ears and throat. She wore a muted sundress, a white cardigan over her shoulders. She might’ve been on her way to a charity brunch.

  This was a far cry from the woman who’d spent much of the last several days in a cloud of sedation. Had she decided it was time to stop sedating herself? If so, he wanted to applaud her. Kara needed both parents in her corner with so much swirling around her.

  Laura held up a picture. “Can you believe it? I’m so far behind in my scrapbooking that I haven’t even finished the book of Kara’s high school years.”

  He leaned in. Once he realized he was looking at a picture of an awkward, flat-chested, metal-mouthed Kara, there was no hiding his grin. “How old was she there? Fourteen?”

  “Yes, that’s about right.” Laura smiled, looking at the photo again. “Her freshman year. The braces came off a year later.”

  “Is that a dance costume she’s wearing?” he asked, thinking back on the leotard and tights she wore.

  “Yes. She loved to dance. I loved watching her.”

  “What happened there? Just out of curiosity. She told me a couple of days ago that dancing was the only thing she ever wanted to do, but she had to stop when she was in her teens.”

  Laura’s sigh was heavy, regretful. “I should’ve fought him on that. I’m still sorry I didn’t.”

  “Your husband?”

  “Who else?” she snickered, placing the photo on the page with care. “I never did find out why he was so adamant that she stop dancing. He asked me to trust him, told me there was a threat to her safety. He wouldn’t explain what it was. I suggested she change instructors, that we bring an instructor to the house if need be—anything so long as she got to keep doing what she loved so much.”

  “No go?”

  “No go,” she murmured, passing a tender hand over the photo. “I’ve never seen her so devastated. She was never the same after that. I know it sounds dramatic, but it’s the truth. Some of the light left her. I had the sense she would never trust us again after that. I don’t think she ever has, not fully.”

  “Always afraid something else she loved would be taken away,” he mused.

  “Exactly. I think that’s why she won’t let herself love anything else the way she loved to dance. But that could just be the ramblings of a mother trying to understand her daughter,” she sighed before turning to the stack of photos.

  “It sounds fairly accurate to me,” he assured her. “I’ve studied human behavior for years. It’s part of what we delve into for our work—understanding the psyche, that sort of thing. What you’ve described sounds like something out of a textbook.”

  “I studied human behavior as well,” she informed him with a tight smile. “I majored in Psychology with the intention of someday earning my doctorate.”

  “What happened?”

  “Come now,” she murmured. “I’m sure you can figure that out on your own.”

  Of course he could. William’s career took center stage while she was tasked with bearing and raising the children, only that hadn’t turned out so well.

  They fell into silence. Jace’s attention swung back and forth between her and her daughter. Kara was still upstairs. There was no sound coming from the second floor, not even anything his wolf could pick up on. Had she crawled into bed finally? She needed to sleep.

  If she was asleep—or just hiding, too embarrassed to show her face after being discovered by Logan—he could speak a little more frankly to her mother without fear of her walking in.

  “Mrs. Collins, there’s something my team is still trying to understand. Is there any reason you’re aware of why this group or individual—whoever made the threat against Kara—would bring up Krista’s death?”

  Her hands faltered. She spilled a small bowl of letters in various sizes, the sort of things a person would paste into a book one letter at a time to spell out messages.

  Or to create a ransom note.

  “I’m fine,” she hissed when Jace leaned in to help. “I’ll manage. And no, I have no idea why anyone would do that. I can’t pretend it hasn’t been on my mind. It’s been nearly the only thing I’ve thought about besides Kara’s safety ever since that picture was dropped at our gate. Why would they do that? How could they?”

  “Mrs. Collins, have you spoken to your husband about your concerns? Does he know how troubled you are over this?”

  “Naturally. He’s my husband.” She set things to right, gathering the letters and putting them back in their bowl. “He knows how concerned I am, how upset.”

  “Have you ever questioned the accident, ma’am? Especially in light of the message you received?”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’m talking about this.” She got up, went to the bar cart which sat to the right of the fireplace. Jace had never seen one of those outside TV and old movies.

  It was way too early for a drink, barely mid-morning. Was this normal for her? “Mrs. Collins, I’m not trying to attack you. I hope you know that.”

  She didn’t answer right away. All Jace heard was her breathing and the clinking of ice cubes in a tumbler. “You’ll forgive me if I take your pointed questions as an attack, just the same,” she murmured as she poured a drink. He could smell the bourbon from across the room. It was a good brand, too. She could afford it.

  “I’m here to help you. That’s all I’m concerned with. Your family’s safety.”

  “Kara’s, most especially.” She turned to face him with a knowing smirk. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how interested you are in her, and I don’t mean entirely as a client. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve never cared for any of the boys she dated. Spoiled, pampered little boys.”

  “Is that why you married someone outside the world you grew up in?”

  Her eyes went wide. “Oh. Touché.”

  She reminded him so much of Kara; it was uncanny. Now that she was sober—though that was about to change—her true personality shone through. Her toughness. He decided he liked her better this way.

  She chuckled, returning to the sofa. “Yes, now that you mention it, I might’ve been attracted to my husband for precisely that reason. Don’t get me wrong. There was plenty to be attracted to. His intelligence, his drive, his ambition. Oh, yes, I found that quite attractive as a young woman.” Her eyes darkened over the rim of the tumbler as she sipped the bourbon.

  “Not so much anymore,” he murmured.

  “No. Not so much anymore.” She looked down into the glass, swirling the liquid slightly. “I don’t even really want this. Isn’t that awful?”

  “I don’t think anyone who’s been through what you’ve faced could be blamed for taking a drink.”

  “Do you mean what I’ve been through in the last few days or the last two decades?” Her gaze met his, frank and clear. “You know, I can’t tell you how many women I know who envy me. I have a faithful husband. Do you know how rare that is in politics?”

  “I can guess,” he confessed with a smirk.

  “And I don’t doubt that he’s faithful, at least when it comes to sex and intimacy with others. He’s faithful to me. When it comes to that.”

  “Not when it comes to other things.”

  “He wouldn’t let me see Krista’s body.” She looked away, ice rattling in the tumbler thanks to her trembling hands. “It’s always been his way. What he believes needs to be done, the way he believes things ought to be. He told me it would be too difficult, looking at her that way. That it would be better for me to remember her the way she was when they left the house that night.”

  Damn. He kept his feelings about this inside when he really wanted to curse out loud and ask why she hadn’t demanded to see her daughter’s body, no matter what her husband said. If it was what she’d wanted, who cared what he thought was best? The prick.

  Instead of all of that, he asked, “Why did they go out that night?”

  “He’d promised to take the girls out fo
r ice cream as a Friday night treat. The stupidest thing in the entire world. Kara had a little bit of a cold, and it was a chilly night. I didn’t want to take her out when she was already starting to come down with something. Besides, she wasn’t even enthusiastic about a treat, which told me how sick she already felt. I mean, what four-year-old doesn’t want ice cream? So I stayed home with her. Neither of us had the heart to deny Krista.”

  She sighed, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling. “For the rest of my life, I’ll see her in her little red parka, her hair in pigtails, promising Kara she’d bring ice cream back for her to have later when she wanted it. Always the most empathetic little girl, always so caring. Especially about her twin. I was distracted, trying to find the thermometer to take Kara’s temperature. I barely kissed her goodbye. That’s how I’ll remember her. Telling Kara to rest, that she’d bring ice cream home for her.”

  Jace winced. That was probably how Kara remembered her, too.

  “It’s probably not for me to say this, and I hope you don’t take offense, but he may have had a point. I’m sure his heart was in the right place. Maybe it would’ve been too much for you to see her that way.” It was bullshit, but he felt like he had to say something to comfort her.

  “It was my decision,” she countered in a hard voice. “You don’t understand. You’re not a parent. I wanted to say goodbye to my baby. I wanted to see her one last time. I never had the chance. Maybe there’s a sense of closure I was never able to get. I don’t know. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself if it would’ve been better for me to at least have the chance to kiss her forehead and tell her I would see her again one day.”

  She turned to him with a hard stare, and in that moment, he saw the strain and doubt and loneliness she’d suffered with for so long etched in every line of her face. “Either way, I never had the chance to decide for myself. I was told what to do. I was told what was best for me. And that’s why I can’t help but identify with Kara sometimes, with her rebellions. She’s just like me. She doesn’t like being told what’s best for her when she knows what’s best. She still too young to second-guess herself very much, and I hope she stays that way. I hope she doesn’t let the world tell her who she has to be.”