by Terry Spear
“I got angry with her because I knew I couldn’t have made her that way. That was one of the reasons I left to see Sarah.” Nathan glanced at Bjornolf. “Until he mentioned that in rare cases our kind could get a human pregnant.” He took a deep breath. “Jessica’s too afraid to get a pregnancy test and see what it shows. She swore I was the only one she’d been seeing.”
Anna didn’t say anything for a moment, shocked at the newest revelation, then nodded. “Call her, Nathan. Tell her you’ll pick her up for dinner tonight. That your aunt and uncle want to meet her. Then we’ll go shopping.”
Now, if only Jessica’s parents were all right with it, and Jessica was, too.
Anna suspected nothing would go as planned. When did it ever?
***
Bjornolf hoped they could learn the truth about Jessica tonight at dinner and then work on how they would handle it after that. For now, they were at a shopping mall for last-minute decorations to finish off the house for the pack parade of homes.
Anna had changed into a pair of cobalt blue jeans, the back pockets decorated with sequined hearts to catch the eye. She wore high-heeled boots and a white crocheted sweater that dipped low in front, showing off a hint of cleavage. She looked like a million bucks, and he couldn’t help staring at the ensemble, nearly running into a number of different customers in the crowded department store.
Casting Bjornolf a small smile, she said, “You like it?”
He and Nathan both were looking at her lacy sweater and they said in unison, “Yeah.”
She pointed to the decorations sitting on a table. They switched their gazes to the table set up with holiday trimmings, place mats, plates featuring reindeer, shiny gold silverware, and linen napkins bound in crystal and gold ties.
“Oh yeah,” Nathan said.
Bjornolf’s gaze drifted to the hint of the swell of her breasts. “Oh yeah.”
Nathan chuckled when he saw what Bjornolf was talking about.
Christmas music played overhead as shoppers seemed to fill every aisle of the department store. Some shoppers were in a rush, while others were carefully considering merchandise, poking at clothes, lifting china to examine it, and sifting through bath towels. Where Anna was concerned, Bjornolf had never seen a woman shop so quickly in his life.
Once she saw the Christmas settings displayed on the table, she said to Bjornolf and Nathan, “How about that? Isn’t it perfect?”
She didn’t really ask for their opinion, he wryly thought. Before they could answer, she gathered the eight placemats she had been eyeing on a shelf, and they helped her find matching linen napkins, and crystal and gold napkin holders. She took the whole centerpiece and shoved it into Bjornolf’s hands, grabbed the runner off the display table, and said, “Done.”
Bjornolf looked at Nathan to see his take on it. He raised his brows and smiled.
As if considering her choices, she folded her arms and looked at the table again. “Maybe we’re not done. We could use a set of red Christmas plates. They’d be perfect for Valentine’s Day, too. We can add blue and white decorations when it comes to Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Fourth of July celebrations.”
Bjornolf suspected Anna had never celebrated any of those holidays. Her enthusiasm was contagious and he was doubly glad she was a quick shopper. He looked forward to sharing every one of those holidays with her next year, and making up some of their own.
They were out of there in no time.
“Can we stop at a drugstore on the way back to the cottage?” Anna asked.
“Sure,” Bjornolf said.
When they pulled into the strip mall, both Bjornolf and Nathan were going to join her, but she said she’d be just a minute. Nathan sank against the car seat, looking relieved.
They parked in front of the drugstore situated at the end of a small strip mall of four shops: a card shop, a dress store, and a bookstore, in addition to the drugstore. In silence, Bjornolf and Nathan studied the drugstore display windows filled with Christmas decorations and a clutter of advertisements as the door closed behind Anna, and she disappeared from view.
Nathan cleared his throat. “She’s getting a pregnancy test for Jessica. Isn’t she?”
“I suspect so. Jessica needs to know if she is pregnant as soon as possible. She has to realize she’s got us for backup. She has to have a support system now.”
“I really screwed up, didn’t I?”
Bjornolf had been there. His own messes had seemed insurmountable at the time, but somehow he’d managed to muddle through.
“Some lessons are harder to learn than others. You really do care for her, don’t you?” Bjornolf didn’t mean to sound so judgmental, but he hoped Nathan truly loved her because they’d be together for a very long time, and there was no undoing what they had done.
Nathan nodded. “Yeah. I do. Ever lie awake at night thinking of the day you spent with someone special, and you want to repeat the day over and over again?”
Yeah, he did. Anna had stolen his thoughts more times than he wanted to admit.
Nathan glanced at Bjornolf. “Like with you and Anna?”
Bjornolf fought a smile. No one ever questioned him about his relationships with women. He assumed Nathan needed confirmation more than anything. “Hell, yeah. You know you have it bad when you’re thinking about nothing at all, doing something, and suddenly out of the blue you’re thinking of her. Like driving the car, then there she is taking up space in my brain again. Bright as day.”
Nathan shook his head. “That’s just like me. I’ll be cutting a tree for a customer, and all of a sudden, I’ll think of the way she smiled at me earlier in the day and offered me a cup of hot chocolate. I mean, it’s more than that. I can’t wait to see her, to be with her again.”
“So you ran because…?”
“I was confused. She was raised by humans. I thought she was human. What Anna said was right. We can’t turn people just because we want to. I was using Hunter’s situation as a crutch to fall back on. He did it and it turned out okay, so I could, too. Except he’s not a teen. And he’s the pack leader. I thought… I thought if I saw Sarah, I would change my mind about wanting Jessica.”
Concerned, Bjornolf frowned. “With Sarah, you didn’t…”
“No.” Nathan gave him a get-real look. “I knew she was a wolf.”
Bjornolf breathed in a sigh of relief. Sarah’s father would have killed Nathan. Bjornolf tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel.
Nathan sat morosely staring out the windshield. Soft, white snowflakes began to flutter down from the heavens.
“If she’s a wolf and pregnant and your mate, she should come to our open house tomorrow. It’s a pack gathering. Everyone should get to know her. It would be the perfect time to make her feel welcome. Give her a network of wolf families to fall back on,” Bjornolf said.
“If she wants. She might be too overwhelmed with the whole thing.” Nathan paused. “What are we going to do when you and Anna leave?”
Bjornolf took a deep breath. “Anna and I haven’t even decided where we’re going to be living beyond this mission.”
Nathan studied him carefully, then quietly said, “I hope you both decide to stay here.”
Bjornolf smiled at him. “I don’t think anyone has ever told me that before.”
Nathan looked skeptical for a moment, then seeing Bjornolf was serious, he grinned. “Well, I have.”
“I’ll have to talk with Anna. But we’ll see.” Bjornolf looked back at the drugstore.
“You’re worried about her.” Nathan looked from the windshield to Bjornolf.
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s taking too long. Not her style. Let’s go.”
The two of them headed for the drugstore as an elderly lady and man using walkers tried to get through the door. Barely able to suppre
ss the urgent need to dash into the store and ignore the older couple’s troubles, Bjornolf held the door open for them.
Once the elderly couple had made it outside, Bjornolf and Nathan rushed inside, following Anna’s scent. They found she’d lingered in front of a display of boxes of dark chocolate thin mints. Not what he’d expected. They headed for the aisle where the pregnancy tests were shelved.
“She was here,” Nathan said, anxious. “But then she moved right on past as if she didn’t linger.”
“It’s okay. We would have seen her leave the store. She must have thought of something else we needed for dinner tonight or decorations or something.”
“I’ll go that way,” Nathan said, motioning to the right, “and you take the other half of the store.”
Bjornolf didn’t argue about who was in charge, just nodded, seeing something of himself in the kid and approving. With his long stride, Bjornolf ate up the drugstore’s linoleum tiles, avoiding the aisles she hadn’t walked down. He soon spied Nathan headed in the same direction he was. The employees’ back-door entrance.
Shit. Not only must she have left the building this way, but she’d been with one hulking brute of a man named Everton. From the scent she’d left behind, Bjornolf could tell she had been angry, and so was Everton. Bjornolf’s heart was pounding furiously. He and Nathan burst outside, letting the door slam behind them. They quickly surveyed the parking lot for any sign of movement.
“What would Roger Everton want with Anna?” Nathan said, hurrying with Bjornolf to search the employee parking lot to the strip mall.
There was no sign of Anna or any vehicle that Nathan recognized as belonging to the Everton family or any of their staff work trucks. No movement at all.
“He thought she discovered something at the tree farm?” Bjornolf said, racing with Nathan around the strip mall because the employee door was locked and they couldn’t get back in without a key. How had Everton gotten the upper hand with Anna? Bjornolf knew she’d be armed. She had tons of tricks to use on a man who tried to take her hostage.
His blood cold with worry, Bjornolf was already on his cell phone to Hunter before they reached the Land Rover. “Roger Everton abducted Anna at Riley’s Drugstore. We’re not sure where they’ve gone, but we’re heading to the Christmas tree farm. He’s the same man that said he was Everton when he caught us investigating the farm.”
“I’ll send the troops, Bjornolf. We’ll get her back.”
Yeah, but alive and in one piece? Or dead like the wolf DEA agents? Bjornolf floored the Land Rover.
When Bjornolf got off the phone with Hunter, he heard what he assumed was Nathan talking to Jessica on his phone.
“I don’t know what’s going on with your dad, but he just abducted my aunt.” Nathan sounded both worried and hot with anger.
Bjornolf had nearly forgotten their cover in all of this madness.
“Let me know if you see your dad return home. My uncle and I are headed for the tree farm. Some friends of his are also. Okay, Jessica?”
There was silence for a moment, then Nathan said, “I love you, too.” He sounded almost embarrassed to declare such a thing in front of Bjornolf, and when he ended the conversation, he quickly looked at Bjornolf to see if he’d been listening.
Nathan laid the phone on his lap and stared out the windshield.
“Is everything all right with Jessica?” Bjornolf asked. He was full of worry for Anna, but he was also concerned about Jessica, should Everton turn on her.
“It’s all my fault,” Nathan said.
“No. It isn’t,” Bjornolf said sternly. “We’re here because we’re trying to uncover a couple of murders. It appears Everton is involved in this murder business, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
Nathan shook his head. “Not about that. Jessica texted me when we were shopping earlier. She’d spoken to her father about coming to our place for dinner. He wanted to know where we were so he could talk to you. She said she could tell he was angry, but he was trying to hide how he was feeling from her. She asked which store we were at, hoping that you and Anna would convince him it was fine that she had dinner with us. He must have gone to the store, saw us leave in the Land Rover, and followed us to the drugstore.”
What the hell was going on with Everton? Bjornolf wondered if he suspected they were not Nathan’s relatives, that they were there to investigate the murders. Hell.
“Where’s Jessica and her mom?” Bjornolf asked, attempting to sound in control of his emotions when he was about to have a meltdown. He thought it best that both of the women be away from the farm, immediately.
Nathan studied him. “Her mom was in Portland for the day. Jessica’s by herself.”
“Is Jessica’s home near the Christmas tree farm?”
“On the property. Behind the gift shop. There’s a road that skirts around to the back of the shop. The house is set back, surrounded by pine trees that tower over the place.”
Bjornolf ground his teeth. He wanted Jessica to stay put until they arrived, reporting to them if Everton and Anna showed up. On the other hand, she would be safer with one of the wolf-pack families until they could sort the situation out. He didn’t trust that Everton would not harm her if he knew she’d learned what he was up to.
“We could have a wolf pick her up and take her to his home, but it would take longer. Or we could tell her to drive to one of the family’s homes, but she might not feel comfortable doing that. Her father might catch her trying to leave,” Bjornolf said.
“We’re half an hour from there,” Nathan said. “Everton’s got at least ten to fifteen minutes head start on us. But we don’t know if he’s really going to the tree farm or not.”
Nathan called Jessica back. “We’ve got friends on the way, but it will take some time for them to get there.”
“He was angry, Nathan. I’ve never heard him so mad.” Tears choked Jessica’s voice.
“Okay… okay, um…” That was one thing Nathan couldn’t handle. Women’s tears. Worse, he couldn’t think of what to tell her to do to stay safe.
“He said that your aunt and uncle weren’t really your aunt and uncle. He thinks they’re trying to steal me away.”
“What? That’s crazy! You don’t believe that, do you?” Nathan meant about the stealing part. He’d have to explain that they weren’t really related, though.
“He said… he said he caught them sneaking around the property like they were trying to find a way to break into the house. He told me he didn’t call the police on them because he knew they were friends of yours, and I care for you.”
“Do you believe him? That they were trying to break into your house?”
“No. He lied. No one was anywhere near the house but my mother and father and me. Well, and you when they weren’t around.”
Nathan took a settling breath. “Okay. Bjornolf and Anna aren’t dangerous, alright? They’re like my godparents. They—”
“He’s back,” she said in a strangled whisper, sounding scared to death.
“Anna? Is Anna with him? Jessica, answer me!”
“He’s… he’s opening the trunk.” Her words shook.
Nathan barely breathed.
Bjornolf’s heart was racing so hard that Nathan could hear it. Bjornolf couldn’t drive any faster without getting himself and Nathan killed on the road, but he was pushing it as hard as he could. Nathan knew Bjornolf was straining to hear what Jessica was saying. He didn’t want him to hear the truth if Anna was no longer alive.
“Oh my God. He’s carrying something in an old army blanket,” Jessica said.
“Like a body, Jessica?”
“He’s putting the… the… oh God, I see a hand. A woman’s hand. He’s tossing her body into the bucket of the backhoe.”
“Jessica, listen to me.�
� Nathan’s blood pounded so hard that he could hear it throbbing in his ears. “Jessica, I want you to leave. Now.”
“He’s taken the keys to my car. I looked. They’re gone.”
“Open the back door to your house. Remove your clothes and shift into a wolf.” He felt Bjornolf glance in his direction, but he didn’t say anything.
“Jessica, listen to me. I know you’ve done it before.” Nathan suspected she must have shifted a few times since she’d reached puberty. He spoke forcefully, urging her to break through her fear and take care of herself in a wolf way. “We can’t see it because of the clouds, but the moon’s full. You must feel it. You can shift again. I can also. Bjornolf and Anna are just like us. Get out of the house. Hide in the woods until help arrives.”
He heard a door squeak open and his heart plunged. Was it her father, returning after disposing of Anna?
“Jessica?”
“All right. All right. Promise me you’ll come for me.” She stifled a sob. “I love you. I have to go,” she whispered.
He listened into the phone. He heard the rustling of clothes, and then the scrambling of wolf claws on the tile floor before the sound of the backhoe’s engine growled in the distance, moving away from the house and into the woods.
Nathan gripped the phone so hard that he was surprised he hadn’t crushed it. He couldn’t look at Bjornolf, couldn’t tell him that they could be too late for Anna. Her first Christmas… and her last. Hot tears filled his eyes.
“Turn wolf as soon as we get there,” Bjornolf suddenly said.
Breaking free of his thoughts, Nathan glanced at him. “What?”
“You’ll run faster. Howl for the pack. One of us needs to remain in human form. I’m trained to take down the enemy as a human. You aren’t. You’ll do better protecting Jessica with your wolf teeth.”
“We go after Anna first, right?” Nathan asked.
He wanted to protect Jessica, but he knew she could hide from her father, while Anna was the one who needed rescuing pronto. He yanked off his sweater, then began tugging at the buttons on his shirt.
“Yeah. But you can’t bite Everton unless we have no other option. Then you find Jessica. Keep her safe until the troops arrive.”
