Claiming the White Bear: White Bear Series, Book 2

by Terry Spear

  "Go and enjoy it." He gave the boys another hug and they hugged him back and then ran off for the living room. "Do you think that Callahan took the birth certificates with him to prove to his mother that the boys were not his own?"

  "That could be. But then what? He didn't return them to the safe."

  EDWARD WAS ANGRY WITH CALLAHAN. He had to be careful about what he said, but the fact that Robyn's mate had been deceitful about his gambling, refinancing the house, using a friend to sign Robyn's name, and hiding the fact that he'd told the boys they weren't his sons and made them promise they wouldn't tell their mom the truth was despicable. "Maybe Callahan's mother tore their birth certificates up and he didn't want to tell you what had happened. But he shouldn't have kept you in the dark about any of this." Then Edward had another concern. “You said that no one should have known you were here.”

  “Not unless they were suspicious.”

  “Would they have put a tracking device on your truck?”

  “If…if they did, wouldn’t they have gone straight to the garage, looking for the truck?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe they knew White Bear is shifter run and wanted to learn something about us first.” He pulled out his phone and called Joe. “Hey, sorry for the interruption, Joe, but could you check to see if Robyn’s truck has a tracking device on it?”

  “Hell. Yeah, I’ll run over there and check it out. And if it does?”

  “Craig can take it with him on his next flight out of here.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you know. It’ll take a few minutes.”

  “What if they’re waiting for him to return to the garage?” Robyn asked.

  Edward called Andy. “Hey, cousin, if you can, I need you to safeguard Joe. He’s checking to see if there’s a tracking device on Robyn’s pickup truck. If the men who followed her here know her truck is in the garage, they may be waiting and watching to see if Joe returns to the garage and force him to tell them where she’s staying.”

  “I’m on my way over there.”

  Edward wished he could go too, but he figured he could safeguard Robyn and her boys better here.

  Suddenly, someone was knocking on the door and he hesitated to answer it. “We’ve got company.”

  “Stay on the line with me,” Andy said.

  “Sure thing.” Edward went to the door and waited until Robyn ushered the boys into one of the bedrooms.

  Edward checked to see who it was, and saw it was Aunt Genevieve. He breathed a sigh of relief and let her in. “Hey, Andy, it’s just your mom.”

  “Okay, I’ll call back when I know something.” Then Andy ended the call with him.

  “Uncle Ned told you everything,” Edward said, giving his aunt a hug. "The boys are mine. You guessed right."

  Genevieve hugged him back, her eyes filling with tears. “Ohmigod, that is the best Christmas news ever.”

  Robyn and the boys joined them in the living room, looking relieved to see it was only Genevieve.

  “You probably remember me. I’m Edward’s aunt.” She gave Robyn a warm embrace. Then she turned to the boys and crouched down. "You boys can call me Grandma." Genevieve gave them a hug too. Then she rose to her feet. “Our people will keep you safe. You won’t be returning to the Northwest Territories unless you choose to.”

  Tears shimmered in Robyn’s eyes. “They don’t care anything about whether I return or not. Well, they probably would prefer that I don’t. They just want to take the boys back.”

  “They won’t have the chance.”

  Edward’s phone rang and he saw that it was Joe. “Yeah, Joe, putting this on speaker.”

  “We found a damn tracker on the truck. Andy’s here now with me. He saw a black pickup parked nearby, in view of the garage. We’re going to pull a fast one on them. I’ve got a car in here that’s been repaired. That’s what I was working on tonight. Andy stuck the tracker on the car, and I’m going to drive it to the Howards’ home. I already called them and told them I was going to. That way if these men were following the tracking device, hopefully they’ll think it was moved off her truck and onto the other vehicle someplace between here and Yellowknife.”

  “Would they even think she would find it sometime between here and Yellowknife?” Edward asked.

  “Yeah, I would,” Robyn said. “If I’d been thinking right when I left the city. But then they’ll question the Howard family, and they’ll be caught up in the lies.”

  “They’re grizzlies and they’re tough. They don’t put up with any guff from any other shifters. Not even polar bears,” Joe said. “Andy talked to them and they said they would be eager to help out. We just need to know where you transferred the bug over and then we can go from there with a story.”

  “In Chicken, Alaska, just across the border at a gas station. I stopped for gas there and I looked for a vehicle that had Alaska plates, but I didn’t think the vehicle would end up in White Bear too,” Robyn fabricated.

  “Okay, we’ll run with that story,” Andy said. “I’ll call them to let them know where they’d traveled and the rest of the route. Then I’ll leave and watch to see if these guys follow the tracker to the Howards’ house. I’ll be close by and can intervene if the Howards tell me these guys are giving them grief.”

  “What if they believe the vehicle under the tarp at Joe’s Garage is Robyn’s?” Edward asked.

  “We’ve already changed out the license plate, removed the truck top, and taken all of the stuff they had packed in there to my cubby hole,” Joe said.

  Which meant the hidden basement that had once been used as a speakeasy during Prohibition.

  “It might look like her truck, but the tags will say it’s someone else’s, and with no truck top, it’ll look different. Oh, and I had a new bumper grill that I added to make it look dissimilar.”

  “We thought of having it painted and the works, if you figure the truck is salvageable,” Robyn said.

  “It is. And we can sure do that. But I went ahead and checked the truck over after I finished repairing the other car and learned your truck needs a new transmission.”

  “Okay. Keep us informed,” Edward said.

  Andy said, “Out here.”

  Aunt Genevieve said, “We were wondering about splitting you up. The boys could go to different homes and then Robyn can too.”

  “No,” Robyn said. “We stay together, no matter what.”

  “All right. We thought of swapping out families. The family that’s visiting with us would come here and stay with Edward and you could move to our place. Just in case any of these men learn that you came here with Edward. Or he can take you to the cabin we own. Craig could fly you out,” Genevieve said. “Or he could take you to Anchorage. But if you’re not sure that anyone would support you there, we’d prefer you stay in this area with us.”

  “It’s up to Robyn.” Edward looked to her to make a decision. His cell rang, and he saw it was from Andy.

  “Hey, Joe dropped off the car at the Howards’ place and headed back to the garage. He’s going to stay overnight there in case these yahoos think to break into his garage and check out the vehicle under the tarp. I’m running checks on their license plates so I have names if I need to charge them with breaking and entering.”

  “Okay, thanks, Andy,” Edward said.

  “I’d say move the family to another location, but if your place is being watched, they’ll know they were there and where they’re headed,” Andy said.

  “All right. We’ll sit tight for now.” Edward ended the call. “Okay, you heard my cousin. So we stay here until he thinks it’s safe to move you.”

  “And the truck?” Robyn asked.

  “Joe will have to order a new transmission for you. That’ll take time. And it will stay in the shop until then. He can have it painted in the meantime.”

  “Did you need me to get you anything?” Genevieve asked.

  “We’ll be fine,” Robyn said, hoping they would be. She was so thankful that everyone was helping her,
but she couldn’t believe her in-laws had been tracking her. How long had that been going on? Every time she’d taken the kids on an excursion? Poised to take after her if she went too far? She wondered if they’d been following her too, and she hadn’t seen them. She’d been watching for any sign of them, but she’d never seen anyone trailing her. Then again, they would have caught up to her when her truck broke down if they’d been following her. So maybe whoever was supposed to be tracking her had dropped the ball in the beginning and then they had to rush to catch up to her.

  “Let us know if you need anything,” Genevieve said. “I’m heading back to the house.”

  “Night.” Edward gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  “Thank you,” Robyn said.

  “You’re very welcome, dear.” Genevieve gave her and the boys a hug too. She just smiled and sighed.

  Robyn suspected she'd given Genevieve the greatest gift for Christmas, two more grandchildren to love on.

  When Genevieve left, Edward and Robyn and the kids took seats on the couch to watch the show. She cuddled with the boys and kept feeling like she needed to run. Yet she knew she couldn’t. That this was the best plan for now.

  Edward got another call, this time from grizzly bear Mike Howard. “Putting you on speakerphone.”

  “We had a discussion with a man who asked me where I’d driven lately. I told him the story we all have to share about being in Chicken to fill up on gas. Had I seen a woman with a couple of young boys? Yeah. Andy gave me their description, so I was all set. He asked if she left before me or if she was still there when I left. I told him I had no idea. Why would I be looking to see if some woman and her kids left the place?”

  “Did he buy it?”

  “I don’t know. But Joe said her truck is under a tarp at his shop, so I figure they’ll be trying to break in to see if that’s it or not. They might figure that shifters would stick together in a community. Especially to protect a woman and her kids.”

  “Thanks, Mike. Free meal on the house at the tavern.”

  “I’ll take you up on it, but I would have done it anyway.”

  Someone pounded on the door, and Edward said, “Hey, we’ve got company.” He turned to Robyn, his voice hushed, and said, “Why don’t you take the kids into the bedroom again.”

  Someone pounded on the door again.

  Robyn’s heart was skipping beats as she rushed the kids to the room where she was going to sleep for the night. She prayed Callahan’s brothers weren’t at the door, ready for a fight.

  6

  Pausing his conversation with the grizzly bear over the phone, Edward went to the door, peeked out the peephole, and saw a six-foot-four guy standing on his front doorstep, and three other men just as big, flanking him. “Hey, Mike, I think the four guys who were after Robyn and the boys are here."

  “I’ll call for backup.”

  “Thanks.” Edward pocketed his phone and went to get a gun.

  One of the men banged on the door again. “Edward MacMathan?” he called out.

  Figuring the men weren't going to leave without Edward talking to them, he holstered the gun and opened the door. “Can I help you?”

  “Yeah, we heard you gave our kin a ride, but we're not sure where to though. We figure her truck is in the garage. The damn thing is a piece of junk. Thanks for being a help to her. We’ll take her and the kids home with us now,” the darkest haired man of the bunch said, his blue eyes narrowed.

  “You’re mistaken.” Edward moved onto the front porch and closed the door. He couldn’t let them bully their way into the house or they would smell Robyn and the kids’ scents inside. At least their scents wouldn’t be on the front porch since he drove them into the garage and they entered the house from there. “I’ve heard someone in town was looking for a woman and a couple of kids. If it’s the same ones who had a meal at the tavern, I waited on them. I figured she and the kids went on their way after they finished their meals.”

  “You don’t mind if we take a look in the house then,” the one man said. He seemed to be in charge. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, tall, like the rest of the men. They all looked similar, as if they could be brothers.

  “If you’re police with the local law enforcement and you have a search warrant, I wouldn’t mind at all." Edward glanced at the rear license plate of one of the cars parked next to his driveway. "I see you have Northwest Territories tags and so that eliminates that theory.”

  “Which means Robyn and the boys are here, just as we suspected.”

  Edward scoffed. “Just because I won't allow a bunch of strangers into my home? Who are you anyway?”

  “Richard Gardner, and these are my brothers.” He didn’t bother to tell Edward his brothers' names, and Edward didn’t care to learn them, except for the one who appeared to be the leader of the bunch.

  Someone had to have told them that Robyn and her boys had left the tavern with him. “Why would you be chasing her down?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “She would have told you where she was going and she would have waited for you to arrive at the tavern, if she’d expected you to meet up with her there.”

  Richard cast him a dark smile and then frowned. “The truth is she’s an unfit mother and the boys' grandparents have custody of the kids. She ran off with them, ignoring the court order, and she’s putting them in grave danger.”

  “You have paperwork to prove that a court order for the custody of the boys is in your possession, I gather.” Edward was sure they didn't.

  “We do.” Richard didn’t present any papers to say they did. Instead, he suddenly moved forward in an aggressive manner, as if he was going to break into the house and bodily remove Robyn and the kids from there.

  Before Edward could reach for his gun, Richard balled his fist and swung at him. Edward blocked the blow with his arm, but Richard slugged him in the ribs. Edward grabbed his chest and Richard hit him in the eye. Hell! The man’s glove helped to soften the blow, but the power behind the strike still slammed Edward back against his door. He knew the men intended to force their way into the house. Heart drumming, his eye throbbing, Edward drew his gun. “I won’t hesitate to use this.”

  His eyes narrowed, Richard stepped back.

  A patrol car pulled into the driveway, its lights flashing.

  Edward sighed with relief to see that it was Andy. He suspected his cousin had been following one of the men all along and so he hadn’t been far behind them when they ended up here, though he wished Andy had arrived sooner than this. Edward was certain he would have a fresh black eye and look like a racoon.

  The men all moved aside to see the trooper coming up the driveway, but as soon as Andy saw Edward was armed, he pulled his own gun out. “What happened, Edward?”

  “Assault and battery, and yeah, I’m pressing charges against this man.” Edward motioned to Richard.

  “Get on the ground. All four of you,” Andy ordered.

  “Hey, officer, this guy hit me first,” Richard said, waving his hand at Edward. “I was only defending myself.”

  “Tell it to the judge. Get on the ground. All of you. Unless you want me to add resisting arrest to the charges.” Andy called for backup, but he must have done so on the way over too.

  “Hell,” the one man said, as two more trooper vehicles pulled up and parked in the driveway.

  The men finally complied, though it looked like it was killing them to do so, and they gave Edward a killing look before they were hauled off in the patrol cars.

  Andy spoke with Edward then. “What happened?”

  Edward told him everything.

  Andy shook his head and took a picture of Edward’s eye. “It’s red and swelling already. You really need to leave the ladies alone for a while. You said he hit you in the ribs. We should get you checked out.”

  “I didn’t hear them crack. They might be bruised but that won’t show up for a while and we need to leave.”

  “Pull up your shi
rt.”

  Edward complied.

  Andy took pictures of the red area where Richard had hit him. It was a good thing Edward was wearing a heavy wool sweater that had helped to protect him somewhat.

  “As soon as I knew all four of these men were here, I called Joe and had him move Robyn’s pickup to a new location, because, even though we changed out so many things on the truck already, and detailed it, Robyn and the boys’ scents are still in the truck. It will be a few days before Joe gets the new transmission in. A few more days after that before the paint shop can paint the truck, and he can add all the accessories. Joe has another truck in the shop under the tarp, that he borrowed for the occasion. So if any of these guys break in, they won’t find the right vehicle.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to have your ribs checked out?”

  “No. I’m good. Robyn can take a picture of my eye tomorrow if it starts to look worse—and of any other bruising that might show up—and use it for the charges.”

  “We won’t be able to hold them for long. You know they’re going to be back here, trying to get into the place, smelling for Robyn and the boys' scents.”

  “Yeah. Someone must have told them we left together.”

  “I suspect so, before we knew the full story and the individual thought he or she was just helping out. I’ll let you know when they’re released, but you’ll need to move them somewhere else. Not my parents’ home. They don’t need to deal with these men. And not your brother's place because of the babies.”

  “We need to go to the cabin. At least until we can get verification that I'm the boys' father to prove it to Callahan's family. It might be that his mother has already seen their birth certificates, but it needs to be shown to the others, in case she's trying to hide the fact.”

  “You can't go to our cabin. They might learn we own it and get a flight out there. The snow leopards said you could use theirs for as long as you like. They just stocked it with food for a visit, but they’ll delay the visit and you can use the place instead.”

  “That will be great.”