“Oh I don’t know about that. I did manage to bag myself one of the most eligible bachelors in the silver industry.”
“And one of his chief rivals. Don’t forget that part.” Keefe sighed and rubbed his forehead. “You’ve got a marriage dowry, right? Jeez, I get his only daughter and he gets to pay me on top of that. Just how big is it? The dowry, I mean…so I’ll know how much sucking up I have to do.”
Meadow grinned quirkily. “Let’s just say you won’t have to worry about providing for my financial needs, or for any of our children’s. Ever.”
“Ever? Shit.” Keefe rubbed his forehead again then chuckled. “Well, maybe he doesn’t dote on you as much as I would. How bad can it be?”
“Oh don’t bet money on that count, lover. Daddy does dote on me. Thinks the sun rises and sets over his little girl.” She sighed dramatically and rinsed the blood out of the hair on Keefe’s chest. “If I put less than a thousand ingots on my charge cards a month while I’m away at school, he calls when the bills come in. Asks if I’m taking good enough care of myself.”
Keefe’s face fell then he grinned ruefully. “Well, we getter get on a sky flyer today and get it over with. You can give Daddy his charge cards back. And that’s the only thing he’s getting, because I’m keeping his little girl.”
A short while later, Keefe walked into the kitchen where he heard Meadow browbeating someone on the phone. He slipped on the heavy linen shirt he’d been carrying. It was dark and the big square of gauze taped over his chest wouldn’t show through it. Meadow’s brow furrowed tightly then she hung up. “Well we won’t be able to make it to my parents’ place today. Or tomorrow.” She signed in annoyance. “It’s a long weekend. Today, they’re on a holiday schedule and everything’s booked. I think the only reason Killian got out is because he left so early. Tomorrow is the last day of the weekend and everything’s really booked up then.”
Keefe just laughed and handed her a set of keys, including the spare key to his slider. “I’m the head of Rand Mining Concilium, remember? I’ve got a company sky flyer and it’s standing by.”
“Oh.” The corners of Meadow’s mouth dipped. “Didn’t think of that. Daddy never lets us use his for personal trips, except for the annual family winter vacation in the Southern Islands.” Smiling, Meadow accepted the keys from Keefe and followed him outside. “You’ll love playing beach volleyball against Daddy and my brothers. They’re so competitive.”
Rand Mining Concilium’s base of operations was on the edge of the Eastern Range and the flight to the Western Mountain Range of the Northern Continent took just over an hour.
“So you’re sure it has to be Quinlan-Rand?” Keefe asked as they stepped out of a hired slider and walked up to the front door of Meadow’s family home. It was a massive, white stucco statement in refinement. The front was dotted with rows of windows, first and second story. With a grand, pillared portico and silver-divided glass surrounding the door. The knocker was made of exquisitely crafted silver. If Killian was with them, he’d be enthralled by the workmanship.
“Absolutely,” Meadow answered firmly. “Maybe it wasn’t a conscious part of our decision to Mate, but aligning the two families can have terrific business benefits for both. Me keeping my father’s name as part of mine will cement the connection in people’s minds. Together, we’ll make a formidable power base.”
“Hmm…you really are more than just a pretty face, aren’t you?” Keefe teased and slid his arm around Meadow’s waist. She was wearing the same simple linen dress she’d had on earlier, but wore a light sweater over it that covered the bandage on the left side of her chest.
“Top of my class, stud. Top of my class.”
Keefe didn’t doubt her. Still, he felt a moment of trepidation when she unlocked the massive front door and stepped inside, pulling him along with her. “Listen, did you remember to pack any clean bandages in that handbag of yours?” he asked.
Meadow turned around suddenly, her eyes wide with worry. “You’re not bleeding are you?” she asked, lifting a corner of his shirt and peering inside.
“Not yet, baby. But then your father hasn’t got his hands on me. Yet. I’ve met him, remember? The guy’s a moose.”
“Hmm…well…wolves eat moose.”
Keefe loved the sly smile that brightened Meadow’s green eyes. He kissed her and felt his full confidence and power return, even though he was in the home of one of his chief rivals, on land that didn’t belong to his pack, with the scent of his fresh claiming running through every cell of Marcus Quinlan’s beloved daughter’s body. How bad could this be?
Meadow was smiling up at him when he lifted his mouth from hers. She turned and yelled down the opulent, marble floored, art-decorated hallway. “Momma? I’m home!”
“Hey! What? Marcus, quick. Meadow’s here. No, at the front door.”
Disembodied voices headed their way. And footsteps, lots and lots of footsteps.
“No, she didn’t tell me the name of this guy she’s bringing.” What had to be Meadow’s mother’s voice was carrying over the other voices now, hushed yet still carrying magnificently around the corner of the cavernous hallway. “Probably some boy from school. Just remember to be nice, Marcus. Now hush or she’ll hear you.”
Meadow dipped her head, grinning. Keefe firmed his grip on her waist and pressed his face to the top of her head, breathed in the scent of her hair then straightened.
A woman in her mid-forties rushed around the corner. Her black hair was artfully styled, and she wore a floral apron over a sleeveless, linen, designer dress. Her eyes lit up when she saw Meadow and she threw her hands out. It caught Keefe off guard to see Meadow’s eyes and smile set in another woman’s face, even if that woman was elegantly beautiful.
“Meadow! We thought you weren’t…coming.” Like her mouth, Palila Quinlan’s voice fell flat. She recognized the man standing beside her daughter—with his arm around her, with his scent all over her—and hers all over him. “Oh my,” she said quietly and stopped walking. Her hands dropped back to her sides.
“Hey, Baby Med!” Marcus Quinlan’s voice boomed down the hall. “Perfect day for you to come home. We’ve…” Marcus Quinlan, six feet of hulking muscle, came around the corner fast then skidded to a dead stop. Keefe could tell by the subtle movement of Marcus’ upper lip that Marcus smelled his presence even before he recognized his face. Marcus’ lips pulled back from his teeth and he growled.
It was a low, ominous warning rumble. From further down the hall, three more male growls joined Marcus’, challenging the intruder.
The last meeting between Keefe and Marcus had been less than a year ago. They’d competed aggressively to lure the most promising metallurgist to graduate in over a decade to their respective companies, weeks before he’d graduated. Marcus had beat Keefe out, because he was able to offer the kid’s single mother a high-paying management job in his pack’s bank. After that, the meeting deteriorated into a roaring match between Keefe and Marcus. But Keefe got Marcus back. Later in the year, Keefe had brilliantly negotiated a settlement with the local smelters union, preventing a strike and allowing them a half-day every week for artistic pursuits instead of simple just refining. Rand Mining Concilium’s fine-art collection was growing into one of the finest in the world as a result. Absenteeism rates dropped dramatically. Bored workers were now excited about coming to work and planning their next projects. The best part, from Keefe’s point of view, was that several of Marcus’ most talented smelters had moved halfway across the continent to work for Rand Mining Concilium.
Keefe stepped forward, held Meadow behind him with one arm, and bared his teeth. In seconds, four tall, fit and muscular men—Marcus and his sons—stood in front of him, growling and snarling. They all stopped at the same time, so suddenly that, from the back of the house, a child started crying.
Keefe kept his eyes on Marcus. Every feature of his face except for eye color and the cut of his mouth was the same as Meadow’s. And it was Meadow th
at Marcus was moving toward. He sniffed the air around them as he got closer and his mouth thinned into a harsh gash. Then he reached around Keefe, grabbed the edge of her sweater and yanked. He tore the sweater and revealed the bandage on her chest.
Keefe roared in anger and outrage. The others balked, except for Marcus, his eldest son and Meadow. Marcus snarled and glared accusingly at Keefe. “I don’t have to ask if you’re wearing her Mark as well. I can smell it on you.”
Keefe lifted his chin and waited. His black eyes were narrow and intense. The tension in the foyer made it hard to breathe but Keefe inhaled deliberately anyway, slowly and confidently. He still held onto his mate’s arm, held his body powerfully and deliberately between her and her sire. Marcus Quinlan could do whatever the hell he wanted to him, but Keefe would die before he let him lay another hand on Meadow.
He and Marcus stared each other down. One minute stretched into two, two into an eternity, until without warning, without precedent and without good reason, Marcus Quinlan threw his head back and laughed—long, belly-rolling bursts of laughter that shook the windows and made Keefe’s brows lift so high he thought his eyes would pop out of their sockets.
“Well, boy, you’ve landed yourself quite a catch.” Marcus congratulated Keefe heartily, grabbed his hand and pumped it with open delight.
Keefe thought for one insane minute his shoulder was going to pop, until he matched his strength to Marcus’. Then it stopped hurting. It struck him as odd that there were splotches of dry mud on Marcus’ chin and cheeks and on the knees of his jeans.
“Yes. And I’m not your boy,” Keefe countered with minimal hostility.
“Listen, Rand, you Mate with my daughter without my permission, without contracts or even agreements, and I get to call you whatever I want.” Marcus’ heavy, dark blond brow shot up and he regarded Keefe smugly.
“I Mated with her with her permission,” Keefe countered coolly. Despite the awkwardness of his position, he couldn’t help looking back at Meadow and slipping his arm around her waist again. He pulled her slender body into his, and fell in love with the look of power in Meadow’s eyes as she shot her father a look, daring him to gainsay her choice.
Marcus snorted dismissively. “You just hang on to that bravado, whelp. We’ll see how happy you are when you find out what a ball-breaker this girl can be when she sets her mind to it.”
“Marcus,” Meadow’s mother hissed at his back. “Now you’re just being rude.”
“Well, maybe I am at that,” Marcus admitted affably. “Listen, Rand, you ever go off-roading?” Marcus Quinlan slung a muscular arm over Keefe’s equally muscular shoulder. He rapped his knuckles lightly on the very top of the left side of Keefe’s chest. Keefe winced then shot his new father-in-law a hard look. “I just took delivery of four new all-terrain sliders. Cutting edge stuff. Prototypes,” he added with a grin. Leaning his head into Keefe’s, he led him into the house. “I know a guy,” he added conspiratorially. “Hey! Manus!” he called out happily to his eldest son as they passed him. “Grab your new brother-in-law a helmet.”
Manus Quinlan cocked one dark blond eyebrow at Keefe then grinned. “Sure thing, Dad.” He trailed down the hallway after them.
“Thanks, son,” Marcus replied with obvious warmth, then he turned his attention back to Keefe. “Say, Rand, who takes care of your acquisitions?”
“Well…I do. Most of the time.”
“Yeah I figured as much.” Marcus Quinlan’s booming voice faded as he led Keefe out of sight. “I do my own too. If you’re anything like me, you don’t get to put enough time into it…say…have I got a business proposition for you.”
Meadow looked up when she felt her mother’s cool hands on her face. Wordlessly, Palila Quinlan led her daughter upstairs.
“This will help. Some,” Palila said as she handed Meadow two pain pills and a cup of water. “Let me take a look. Mating bites take forever to heal if they get infected. Maybe we should call a doctor.”
“I’m fine, Momma,” Meadow assured her mother calmly. She slipped off her tattered sweater and her dress and sat down in front of her mother’s dressing table. Meadow swallowed the tablets and lifted her hair back so her mother could look at her wound.
Palila poured a silver-tincture disinfectant into a bowl, mixed it with warm water and cleaned Meadow’s already clean wounds. She picked up a phone and called down to the kitchen for one of the housekeepers to bring her up a bowl of ice chips.
While they waited, Palila sat on the edge of her opulent soaking tub, crossed one long, shapely leg over the other and looked at her daughter pointedly. “Well?”
“Well what?” Meadow replied absently. She looked at the tattered remains in her hands, sighed and tossed the sweater into a wastebasket.
“Why Keefe Rand?”
Meadow looked away for a moment, thinking. “I didn’t choose him because he’s Keefe Rand. I choose him despite the fact he’s Keefe Rand.” Her mother didn’t reply. Palila just kept watching her and Meadow continued. “I go to school with his son. You know we’ve been seeing each other, and thank you for not telling Daddy who Killian’s related to,” Meadow added with a wry grin. Her mother simply nodded in acknowledgement. “You know things have been rocky between us since we matured into our pack roles. Killian invited me to his place this weekend so we could work through that.” Meadow shrugged lightly. “Or end it. But I…I think he already knew there was no hope for us. But, perversely, I think it gave him an opportunity to introduce his father to a strong female.”
“Hmm. Delphinia Rand was a beautiful woman,” Palila Quinlan replied. “Keefe’s been a widower far too long.”
“We reached a point where Keefe and I…well we blew up at each other for no reason. Had a stupid argument about…about something that doesn’t even matter,” Meadow hedged. She could tell from the look in her mother’s eyes that Palila knew she’d glossed over something sensitive, but was going to hold her tongue about it. Meadow looked into the mirror at the raw puncture wounds on her chest, the bruising that was already spreading. “I was going to leave his house. But…but I was drawn to him, Momma,” Meadow admitted quietly. “Drawn to him like I’ve never been to any other man. I knew who he was. How much older he was and that he was my soon-to-be-former boyfriend’s father. How often he and Daddy have butted heads over the years, and when I looked at him, when I smelled him all I could sense was…home.” Meadow shook her head and looked into her mother’s eyes. “When I’m around Keefe it feels like coming home.”
Palila Quinlan’s generous mouth broadened in a gentle smile and her green eyes softened in understanding. “I’m Mated to an Alpha too, remember? I know exactly what it feels like to—”
“Hey! Palila!” Marcus Quinlan’s voice boomed out in the bedroom beyond his wife’s dressing room. “Randy boy here and I are gonna take off and give those new sliders a workout.”
Behind him, Meadow heard Keefe’s disgruntled snort. She’d smelled his approach before she heard him and she was already sitting up a little taller in anticipation.
“We’re going to take Manus with us. We’ll be back before one—I promise, baby doll—and we can have lunch. Damn!” Marcus rushed into his wife’s dressing room and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the wound on his daughter’s chest. He handed the bowl of ice chips he was carrying to his wife. “Did you have to be so damn brutal?” he growled at Keefe.
Keefe was now wearing a pair of jeans someone had loaned him, a t-shirt and boots and had a scratched helmet tucked under his arm. But then, all of Meadow’s father’s helmets were scratched. He liked his sports rough.
“Oh zip it, Marcus,” Palila blurted out and stood. She picked up a towel, poured ice into it and held it to her daughter’s chest. “The Mark you left me with was twice as bad and I needed stitches.” She placed Meadow’s hand over the towel, letting her hold it in place then turned on her husband. “And I couldn’t use my arm for a week. And stop with the name-calling. His name is Keefe. Your son
-in-law and your daughter’s choice. Deal with it.”
“He fucked my daughter without my permission,” Marcus bellowed, glaring down at his wife and pointing at Keefe. “Mated with her without even the courtesy of doing it on her pack land.”
“And you,” Palila shouted back with a sure flip of her elegant, dark hair, “you didn’t even ask my permission first. Or is your memory failing along with your manners and whatever modicum of good sense you ever possessed? Hmm?”
Marcus blushed deep red, right up to the thinning roots of his graying, dark blond hair.
“You just grabbed me, stuck your dick in me and then asked me what my last name was.”
Meadow made a face, looked to Keefe and mouthed the word ew. Her parents fell silent, glaring at each other. Meadow exhaled loudly enough that they turned to her. “Well if you’ve finished mentally scarring your only daughter with that tidbit of definitely-did-not-need-to-know information.” Meadow stood and, on tiptoe, pressed a brief kiss to Keefe’s drawn mouth. She nuzzled her body into his for just a second then stepped back. “Have a nice time on the trails with Daddy. And Keefe, don’t let him tell you it’s safe to go around the north end of the pond. You’ll sink in mud up to your chassis and he’ll laugh his head off while you winch your machine out.”
After lunch, Keefe and Meadow sat around the kitchen table with Meadow’s family. Two of her brothers were mated and each of them had children. The oldest three children were running around happily. In consideration of their youth, the adults were still clothed.
“So, Keefe, we were talking about acquisitions,” Marcus Quinlan said, drawing Keefe’s attention away from Meadow. Marcus smiled his thanks when his wife and his eldest daughter-in-law started clearing the remains of lunch off the table.
Keefe offered Meadow an apologetic smile and turned to her father. “Yes.”
Seduced by Silver Page 7
