by Em Ashcroft
At least the breed rings hadn’t appeared. The guys had told her that if the bonding had occurred, eventually she’d have rings on her wrists, something that would grow naturally. That was how they’d know they had truly bonded. She didn’t feel any different from usual. Perhaps that was a good sign. Or a bad one.
She really didn’t know how she felt about the condom failure. She had no desire to be pregnant, but now, a week after it had happened, she was reconciled to the idea. Every morning she woke up wondering if she was pregnant, and every morning she checked her wrists for any sign of breed rings.
Nothing happened. Now, when she woke up, she was almost disappointed. Except that she had two men in her bed.
The police had let her have her luggage back. Most of it resided in the room she’d chosen to use as her own, at the end of the hallway, the most modest in the line. She’d utterly refused to accept the breedmate’s room, the one that lay between Seth’s and Brennan’s. She wouldn’t take that unless she was entitled to it.
“A gun permit?” she repeated.
Chris leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. His blue shirt strained at the buttons, and it wasn’t from too many donuts. He was packed with muscle. “Have you?”
The dim but eye-watering light in here was probably designed to torture people unfortunate enough to have to spend time here. She shrugged. “Yes, in Chicago. I was a female living alone.”
“Did you own a gun?”
“I did.” She’d got the gun reluctantly, and only after taking lessons to make sure she knew what to do with it. “I never fired it, except on the range.”
“What happened to it?”
“I sold it back to the store where I bought it before I came here.”
Chris raised a brow. “You didn’t apply for a permit here?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t into shooting for sport or anything like that. It was purely for my protection. I figured in a place like Goldclaw, I wouldn’t need it so much.”
Chris raised a dark brow. “Even though you run a store on your own?”
She bit back the response that she wasn’t on her own any more. Over the few days, she’d grown closer to the men. Not only were they sharing a bed, they spent time together, talking, eating, watching TV. Seth and Brennan were doing their best to make her relax. But with her store still cordoned off and her life on hold, Reilly had been too restless to relax. She’d spent days on her laptop, exploring possibilities for the store, making lists and dreaming of her life.
Chris shoved a piece of paper across the table. “Write down the name of the store and its address.”
Of course he’d want to check. She had to think for a moment, then she had it, and she scribbled down the name. “I have the receipt at home.”
Reilly finished the address and shoved the paper back to him. Chris nodded in acknowledgment. “What kind of firearm was it?”
“A Ruger LC9.”
“When did you last see it?”
“When I sold it in Chicago.” She didn’t care if he believed her or not. That was the truth.
Chris rubbed his hand over his chin, the stubble of his beard rasping audibly.
So she waited, and just for kicks, she mirrored his pose, leaning back in the supremely uncomfortable chair and folding her arms over her chest.
“The thing is,” he said slowly, “I have a problem here. You know the victim in the room next to yours at the motel and the woman under the floor were both shot to death, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“They were shot by the same weapon. As far as we’re concerned we’re dealing with one shooter here. The bullets were nine millimeter. We haven’t found the gun yet.”
Fuck, oh fuck. Did the police think she did it? They’d be stupid not to. “It wasn’t me.” That was true enough. “What do you need from me that I can prove I didn’t? A polygraph test? Can you do the telepathy thing and read my mind?” She shuddered at the thought of someone going so deep into her mind that they’d know all her secrets. But if it meant she could walk free, then she’d do it.
“Polygraph tests are too easy to fool, if you know how.” Chris waved a hand. “I don’t use them. It just complicates things. You’ve been a nurse, so you could’ve met somebody who taught you how. Hell, you can look up how to fool them online.” His mouth tightened, and she could have sworn he was nearly smiling. Maybe his grimace looked like a smile. It did in some people. “The telepathy thing? Only a breedmate or a very special and gifted kind of shifter can do that. The gifted ones are rare, and I don’t know one. In any case, I wouldn’t feel happy having that done. It’s like mental rape.”
The words sent a shudder through her. But surely even that would be better than all this waiting. She’d go nuts. And she was running out of money. Seth and Brennan told her not to worry about that, but how could she not? They wouldn’t take a penny from her, even though she pointed out she should be at the hotel. She’d have moved there if it wasn’t forbidden. She’d been released in the care of Seth, and she couldn’t live anywhere else. “What can I do to prove I didn’t do it?”
Chris grunted. “Carry on doing what you’re doing. And give me all the documents you have pertaining to your weapon.”
“Can I get into my store yet, please?” At least she could start to stock the shelves, make some plans.
Chris frowned and watched her from under his brows. “I guess you could. We’ve moved the body, done what we needed to. You’ll need somebody to repair the damage, but a few nails should do the job.”
“Do you know who it was?”
Watching her carefully, Chris nodded. “She was in the same business as you, a nurse, but that by itself means nothing. She was working at a hospital in Houston, and when she went missing, they were annoyed, but nobody followed it up. They just assumed she’d moved on.”
That was sad. Nobody had missed her until Seth had found her under the floorboards.
Reilly went cold. In so many ways, that could have been her. She had lived on her own, prided herself on her self-sufficiency even. People didn’t bother her, and she didn’t bother them. She barely knew her neighbors.
She could have been killed like that, and who would have cared? Not her parents. Since she’d left home they’d grown apart. She hardly saw them anymore. Her friends wouldn’t be too concerned if she didn’t turn up in the places they usually went. The people who would miss her most were her work colleagues, and how sad was that?
It had been more than time to make her move. If she’d stayed she’d have done well at her job but let her heart bleed into it, slowly losing everything that made her who she was. Even the red hair would go eventually and fade into gray.
So now she lived with two shape-shifting men, but that was hardly a done deal. She’d done some research on Seth’s laptop, careful to erase her browser history before she closed it down. Bonded trios didn’t always live together and share their lives, although when full bonding occurred and turned into mating, they always did, and usually fell deeply in love.
Until now, Reilly would have considered that occurrence claustrophobic. Now, after having been exposed to the full force of Brennan and Seth, she wasn’t so sure. She was probably more than halfway in love with them already, but she wasn’t yet ready to admit it to herself.
“Here’s the thing,” Chris said. “Both victims were killed with the same weapon. You have an alibi for the second murder, and the discovery of the body of the first one. Your work record is clean. In fact, you left with very good references, despite the disasters that happened in your department. That’s in your favor. And the murders didn’t start until you hit town. I need the records of the gun you held and how you got rid of it. We can’t eliminate it from the investigation until we look at that. I can apply for the records, of course, but it would be faster for you to provide us with the details so I can check them out.”
He regarded her in silence for a full minute, his gaze unflinching but distant. Reilly met hi
s gaze. She had nothing to hide.
“I can read your innocence, you know.” A smile creased his cheeks, totally transforming him into a man, one she could find attractive in different circumstances. “But that isn’t acceptable to a court. The deep reading under lab conditions is, but I won’t subject you to that unless we have no other choice. In any case, some prosecutors are deeply suspicious of it. You can go, and I don’t need Seth to be responsible for you anymore.” Relief flooded Reilly but the chief wasn’t done yet. “Don’t leave town.”
“What about my store?”
“We’ll give you the keys back on the way out.”
Reilly felt distinctly better. She could live where she wanted, and she could start on her adventure again. It had started in a bad way, but the excitement that had bubbled under the surface for the last year or so, ever since she’d started translating her childhood dream into reality, returned.
She could get busy. She just needed somewhere to live.
* * * *
He watched them walk across the street to the offices of a building company. One of the men pushed open the door and held it open for her. A proper gentleman, that one. He’d heard that about Texans but put it down to propaganda. The kind that had ruined his life.
He’d been a law-abiding citizen before the civic cover-up. The least he could do was return the favor and destroy a few lives in return.
The other man, the dark one, followed them in.
He wandered up the street like any other tourist, peering into store windows, pretending to be interested in the trashy crap they had on offer. Overpriced shit, he amended to himself. People who could afford this stuff didn’t deserve to live.
He saw a pretty necklace and let his mind wander before jerking himself back to the present. He needed to remain focused, on target. Once they worked it all out, he’d pounce. Fuck tigers, let them see what happened when a real man went into action.
Only one thing remained in his life, and when he’d done that, he’d take himself out. He had nothing to lose any more.
Nothing at all.
* * * *
Reilly weighed the keys to her store in her hand. She turned to face Brennan and Seth. “I want to go now, to make a start. I’ve lost too much time, and I need to open as soon as I can.”
“Don’t you plan a grand opening?” Brennan asked.
She grimaced. “I had all kinds of plans, but they were wrecked.” She wouldn’t think about what she left behind and why she walked. Neither would she let some mystery piece of crap control her life. Why should she hide? Sure, she’d take sensible precautions, but she wouldn’t put her life on hold. She couldn’t afford to.
The bonding seemed to be a bullet they’d dodged this time, unlike the two corpses in the morgue.
A woman behind the reception desk beamed at her. Was she a shape-shifter? She had no breed bands on her wrists, even though she must be around forty.
“Anything for us, Penny?” Brennan leaned over the desk and smiled at her.
Penny grimaced. “Plenty. I’ve left it on your desk.”
“Anything that can’t wait?” Seth asked.
Penny tilted her head and regarded her bosses thoughtfully. Her pleasant face grew stern. “You can’t put things off forever. You have to deal with the new orders coming in.”
Sighing, Brennan brushed his hair back. “I guess we do.” He exchanged a glance with Seth. “Reilly is our priority.”
“Agreed,” Seth said. “I’ll stay here and deal with what needs doing, and you take Reilly to her store.”
Again with the control.
Brennan frowned. “I don’t like it. Take the pickup, don’t walk.”
“It’s barely a hundred yards!” Reilly protested. That was ridiculous. She’d heard that Texans didn’t like to walk, but that was ridiculous.
“It’s safer,” Seth said flatly.
She caught her breath. “What are you talking about?”
Ignoring the “tut” from his assistant, Brennan took her hands. “You could be a target. Have you thought of that?”
Shock slammed into her midriff. He was right. Her store, her motel room. “The lights,” she said breathlessly.
Brennan nodded. “Yeah. The lights outside your room at the motel were out. At the time, I thought it was just mismanagement not attending to vandalized lights, but now I think I was wrong. They were put out on purpose.”
Seth continued the thoughts from her side. “That guy who was killed, he could have been inconvenient rather than a target. You could have been the target.”
“Y-you have no proof,” she faltered. “Just because the woman was found in my store, that doesn’t mean it’s me the killer is after.”
“It doesn’t mean it isn’t, either,” Brennan said softly. He kept her gaze, but didn’t speak to her.
Shit just got real. Somebody could be trying to kill her. Either her, or the people around her, and that meant Seth and Brennan. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”
“I reckon we dragged ourselves in.”
Penny said nothing, but her pale blue gaze went from Seth to Reilly and then Brennan to Reilly. She knew what was happening, all right. Even if they hadn’t bonded, they were still together.
She dreaded to think what her colleagues would have said if two men had turned up at the end of her shift. Or if they’d come to the wine bar where she met her friends on her rare nights off.
She wanted to squirm. Repeated reminders that she was doing nothing wrong paled into insignificance every day she woke up with two men in her bed. Occasionally, a tiger lay there. The men loved to be stroked and petted. As long as they didn’t snarl at her. The only time Seth had done that, she’d screamed and leaped over Brennan’s supine body to land on the floor. Brennan had shifted back immediately and gone to her, soothing her, and she’d felt stupid. After all, she knew he would never hurt her. But the sight of those long, white fangs had freaked her out completely.
Reilly did what she always did when she felt challenged. She lifted her chin, gritted her teeth and stared back.
Penny cracked a smile. “Nice to meet you.” She sounded cautious. “You’re the woman accused of the murders.”
“Not anymore,” Brennan said firmly.
Chapter Ten
Subdued, Reilly had no more objections to Brennan escorting her to her store. At least she got there with no problems. What Brennan said hit hard. She hadn’t realized until he’d said it, but yes, it made sense. Somebody might want to kill her. She couldn’t begin to imagine why. She said so to Brennan as he ushered her through the back door, his front to her back, a shield of pure, hard male.
“Sometimes people don’t need a reason.” Brennan urged her inside, and turned around to secure the lock. “Or they have a reason that makes sense to them but to nobody else.” He turned and faced her, claustrophobically close. She couldn’t fail to feel his presence weaving around her. Knowing what he looked like naked didn’t stop her wanting to see him again. Actually, she wanted it pretty much all the time, but she wasn’t anywhere near ready to admit it. Sex was one thing, but she couldn’t afford to get more deeply involved with anybody, especially now that she thought somebody was after her.
Abruptly, she stepped away and crossed the small back room to a stack of boxes. She took her time examining the label. “I should check the contents as I unpack them,” she said, “but the police still have my computer. Chris said I’d get it back today.”
“I told him to deliver your things to the house. Do you want me to get him to bring the laptop here?”
She shook her head. “I’ll check the boxes against the orders inside, then against the ones on my computer later.”
“Good.” Reaching past her, he swung the first box down and placed it on the bare wooden table. The small room seemed much smaller now for some unaccountable reason. Dragging a blade from his back pocket, he slit the tape fastening the box together. “I’ll check them real carefully.”
“You shouldn’t––I’m all right now in the store. I promise not to let anybody in that I don’t know.” Edging around the room, she opened the door leading to the store. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“I know you will princess, because I’m staying right here. Seth will handle any business coming our way.” He followed her into the larger space, his tread sure and steady, relentlessly hunting her down. “Get used to it, because we’re not going away anytime soon.”
Panic gripped her. Had she let them in too fast? He seemed to be taking an awful lot for granted. “What if I tell you to go away?”
He pushed against her. She retreated, until her back hit a wall. He planted his hands on either side of her head and brought his head close to hers. “Why would you do that?”
Reilly refused to let him intimidate her. She lifted her chin, meeting his hard stare. “Maybe I want to claim my life back.”
“You have your life. We want to make sure it goes on a bit longer. We could be bonded, darlin’. That would make our lives a whole lot closer. How do you feel about that?” He was forcing her to face a reality she didn’t know how to cope with, but if it was true, she’d have to face it.
Reilly nibbled her lip. “I don’t know. I guess I was planning to wait and see.”
Warmth entered his eyes. “Then let me tell you something. I want it. I’ve never wanted a breedmate before, but you––I can see it happening. I want it. It’s fucked me up, but I’m facing reality. When Seth told us the condom failed, I was glad. A weight came off my heart. And if it doesn’t happen this time, then I want to go for it again. Sure, I know I have to wait for you and Seth to catch up with me, but I want this. I want you in that breedmate’s room with you sleeping next to me every night as long as we both live. Think about that when you’re facing reality.”
