Luke

by Terra Wolf

  Most people might think it weird that my daughter was my maid of honor and my sister was my flower girl — Dana certainly had plenty to say on the matter — but if it wasn’t for Ella, I’m not sure Luke and I ever would have ended up together, so it only seemed appropriate to me.

  Dana led the procession, scattering petals down the carpet laid over the grass, leading to the pergola at the end where Luke already stood, waiting patiently. Aaron stood next to him as the officiant. He’d been one of my best friends for over a decade and even though most people in Crystal Falls gave him grief about being gay, Luke’s family wasn’t the kind to judge someone for being a little different. Luke had actually surprised me with the suggestion, but I couldn’t think of anyone better once he’d made his case. Who knew us better, really?

  Dana finished her walk and the music changed. That was our cue. I looked down at Ella and squeezed her hand in mine. “Ready?”

  She nodded. “You?”

  I grinned. “Definitely.”

  And from that moment forward, the only thing I saw was Luke. He looked magnificent in his understated navy suit, his dark eyes drinking me in, the biggest grin I’d ever seen plastered on his face. If I’d had any doubts before, seeing his expression as I walked toward him would have erased them all.

  We stood facing each other, his right hand holding my left. Ella stood across from Aaron, one of her little hands holding each of ours as we exchanged our vows.

  I did a remarkable job of holding in my tears, if I do say so myself, but it was Luke that lost it a little, his voice cracking on the line about forever. But it was the moment I was waiting for the ‘you may now kiss the bride,’ when the ceremony went off the rails.

  “And now, Ella and Luke have prepared their own vows to exchange,” Aaron said to my complete and utter surprise.

  I looked to Luke, my eyes wide and questioning, but he just grinned at me and released my hand to kneel in front of Ella, taking both her hands in his.

  “Ella, do you accept Luke into your new family and promise to always love him and share your popsicles with him?”

  “I do,” she said, grinning like a fool.

  “And do you, Luke, take Ella into your new family, to protect, teach, and love as if she were your own?”

  “I do,” he said, and by then the tears I did such a good job of holding back were streaming down my face, probably ruining my mascara, but I didn’t care.

  “And,” Ella prompted to Aaron. He sighed, laughing.

  “And do you promise to always share your popsicles with her?”

  “Of course,” Luke said, laughing.

  “I now pronounce you… family,” Aaron said happily. And as Ella and Luke hugged, I bent down on their level.

  “Can I get in on this action?” I asked, but I barely had the words out of my mouth before Luke wrapped me into the big hug with them.

  “Guys, you still have to kiss,” Ella said, loud enough to draw laughter from the first couple of rows.

  Luke gave her an extra squeeze for that, then stood. I stood too, wiping away tears.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife, you may kiss,” said Aaron.

  “I’d like to see anyone try to stop me,” Luke growled, his grin still present as he swept me into his arms for a breathtaking kiss. I was floating from all the happiness, soaring with the unfettered joy of a woman madly in love. And then the whole crowd was cheering for us as we walked hand in hand in hand down the aisle, the three of us together.

  “I love you,” Luke said, kissing me again at the end of the aisle.

  “I love you too,” I said.

  “I love you both,” said Ella.

  “I love you both,” Luke said back.

  It was then that I decided to spring my own surprise on Luke, my free hand sliding down to my belly.

  “How about all three of us?” I said, catching his shocked look. It took a moment for him to understand, but then he grinned even wider, his eyes sparkling.

  “Really?” he whispered.

  I nodded. “I didn’t want to take away from the big day.”

  “Take away? This just makes it even better!” he said, sweeping me into his arms and giving me a twirl, my skirts swishing around us.

  And he was right. It did make it better. This day wasn’t just about the two of us. It was about all of us and our family, and it was only right that every member of our family got to be a part of the joy. Even the ones that hadn’t joined us yet.

  About the Author - Terra Wolf

  I love to write about romance that isn’t your typical love story. My books allow my imagination to run free and explore every possible idea I have. That makes writing less like a job and more like a fantasy come to life.

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  Turn the page to read the first in my best-selling series, Undercover Bear

  Harrison

  Undercover Bears Book One

  Terra Wolf

  COPYRIGHT

  ©2016 Terra Wolf

  Harrison: Undercover Bears

  All Rights Reserved worldwide.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without permission from the author. The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by purchasing a copy of this book at the authorized online outlets.

  This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Some may be used for parody purposes. Any resemblance to events, locales, business establishments, or actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.

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  Chapter One

  Harrison

  My arms reached out into the darkness as I felt my cell phone ringing on my bedside table. I opened up my eyes, rubbing some of the sleep away, trying to feel alert. It would be nice if I could get just one good night of sleep this week. But I knew what the ringing meant.

  Another body had been found.

  I fucking hated this case. The victims were all young men and women, and their bodies had been littered all over the city for the past couple months. The worst of it? We had no idea what was going on. We hadn’t a single lead in the entire case.

  Someone knew something, but no one was talking.

  The district attorney had even offered a reward for any credible information, but no one had even come forward. And any time money was playing in the game, we usually had a couple crazies come out of the woodwork. This time, it had just been silent. Like whoever was behind all of this was paying the crazies to keep their mouths shut. That was new.

  “Hello?” I tried to sound more awake than I was.

  “Harrison, it’s Grady. We’ve got another body. They want you down here as soon as possible.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “You weren’t sleeping, were you?” he said with a laugh. Smug kid, always busting my ass. Just because I was older than him didn’t mean I was any closer to death than he was.

  “You know us old folks, we need more sleep. It keeps us looking young. Tell the captain I’m on my way.”

  I hung up the call and immediately got dressed. I attached my gun to my belt and my badge to my shirt. Another body, just another Tuesday night.

  Chapter Two

  Penelope

  I was working late shift again, and I hated the late shift. Truckers were always nice and gave good tips, but everybody else sucked. Teenagers came in and forgot to clean up after themselves, like I was their mother or something. The older crowd had obviously been drinking, but didn�
�t care. They were just rude. Sometimes I felt like I’d rather take the teenagers over the guys who slapped my ass as I walked away. But I had a mouth to feed, and that was still new to me.

  Camden was only two months old, but he was already my entire world. Unfortunately, late shifts meant I couldn’t rock him to sleep, but I needed some extra money, and that’s what I had to do. I was still getting used to taking care of someone else besides myself. Sometimes I still felt like a child. It was hard to be a mother when you were acting like a child, so instead, I focused on my attention on Camden. I made sure that he was well taken care of.

  His dad wasn’t some deadbeat, and he hadn’t walked out on me. He didn’t react in some ridiculous way when I told him. Because the truth was, I hadn’t told him.

  Camden’s father had no idea that he existed, and for the most part, I liked it that way. He wasn’t my type of guy. He had come into the diner late one night looking for a cup of Joe, and what he ended up getting was a lot more.

  He just had this look about him, so strong with huge muscles. He just made me melt. He had these ridiculously gorgeous gray eyes that I saw every time I looked at Camden. And he was a good man, which meant I didn’t deserve him. I wasn’t that type of girl.

  But I couldn’t deny that if James Harrison had walked back in the diner right now I would let him take me in his arms again. I couldn’t think like that. He was a well-known detective, always on the news cracking hard cases. He certainly wasn’t ready to be a father. It wasn’t fair to ask him to be. It was one night stand. No relationship. I’d be shocked if he even remembered my name.

  I, on the other hand, was single, with a dead-end job and a life going nowhere. I was okay with all those things; as long as Camden and I were safe and well taken care of, we would be fine.

  “You’ve got a live one, Penny,” Sophie said to me between chews. She had more sticks of gum in her mouth than I could count. I thought she had a whole pack in there. I hated the way she smacked her lips while we were at work. But she meant well, always giving me extra tables when she didn’t need the money. I mean, everybody needed the money, you wouldn’t work if you didn’t, but she knew I was harder up than she was.

  I turned around to see a man in a suit sitting at my table, which really struck me as odd, because I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone in a suit sitting at one of my tables. Or anyone in a suit walking in here. I figured he must’ve been some sort of traveler, not from around here, definitely. We didn’t even serve the best coffee on the block.

  “You know,” I advised Sophie, “I think you’re doing the whole quitting smoking thing the wrong way. It’s one piece of gum, not twenty.”

  She pushed the gum to one side of her mouth and smiled. “I’ve only got six in here today. That’s better than the ten last week. I think this patch is working, too.”

  I shook my head. “Take that off! You have more nicotine in your system than a whole pack of cigarettes!”

  I wrapped my apron around my waist and walked over to the customer with my pen and pad in hand. “What can I get for you?”

  He looked up at me, his eyes dark green, like nothing I had ever seen before. “I’m not here for the food.”

  Great, just what I needed, a creep who thought he had game. “Then what are you here for?”

  “You.”

  “I’m sorry?” I said, now feeling creeped out.

  “I said I’m here for you. I have a proposition for you.”

  Jesus. What the hell was going on?

  Chapter Three

  Harrison

  I drove my truck to the scene and turned on the lights when I got close so the uniforms would let me in. I made detective about four years ago, and I loved it. Homicide was what I was made for. But the scene of a body lying on the ground, covered with a sheet—I just never got used to it. I thought that after all this time, I would become more accustomed to all the death that surrounded my job, but I hadn’t. Every case still bothered me, but none like this one. It was just so consistent. Another kid who looked no older than seventeen. Her insides had been carved out just like all the others. What the hell was this sick bastard up to?

  “Harrison! Took you long enough.” Sarge looked me up and down.

  “Sorry Sarge, you know waking me up from dead sleep is a little difficult. Hibernation and all that.” He and the rest of the guys laughed. All the same, every detective in my precinct was a bear shifter. The outcasts from all the other precincts. Some people still felt uncomfortable around us, but not Sarge. He had taken us in completely. He was the only one who wasn’t a bear in the whole precinct, besides the uniforms. Most of them were human, but not Sarge. The lone tiger shifter.

  His kind was really uncommon. I liked working for him; he was respected. I appreciated that he kept us busy, but he let us for the most part do our own work. But he had been showing up to a lot of the scenes recently. Since we hadn’t found the killer, I could tell that the district attorney was starting to turn up the heat. Enough people had been stopping by the office for us to realize that things were getting serious downtown. He needed to close this case. Every time we felt like we started to get even a little bit closer to finding out who was behind all of this, another body would show up, and we were right back to where we started. I always felt like this guy was one step ahead, and I didn’t like anyone to be in front of me.

  I watched as Grady bounced up behind him. He was a nice kid, the newest detective on our force. He only came to the precinct about six months ago. But he was eager, sometimes annoyingly so. I remembered what that was like, when I first came to the force. Wanting to solve all the cases by myself, forgetting what teamwork was like. Bears made it even tougher, since we liked to work on our own. I hadn’t even asked him where he was from yet, what precinct had kicked him out once they realized what he was. They weren’t allowed to, of course, as we were out in society for the past decade. But that didn’t mean that people treated us like they treated humans. Even though there really was no difference between us. Sure, I had a bear that lived under my skin, and a few times a month, I would go out in the woods and spend a day camping with no gear. Fur would sprout out from where my skin was and I’d catch some fresh salmon. Besides that, I was just like everyone else. I went to work, I slept in a bed, and at the end of the day all that I wanted was to settle down with someone next to me.

  That hadn’t happened yet.

  Actually, all the bears in the precinct were alone. Only Sarge had met his mate years ago. Which was kind of weird, because tigers had some serious issues finding mates. Tigers had particular needs, and Sarge sometimes had some OCD for sure. But now he had Natasha, and I was happy for him.

  But that didn’t mean I wasn’t lonely. Sometimes I wished I had someone to spend my time with, someone to go out with on Friday night. Watch football games on Sundays. But right now I went home to my lonely apartment and did the same thing over again the next day. And as much as I hated to admit it, it was damn depressing.

  There had only been one girl that I’d let get close to me. Penelope, a delicious little dish that I had met at a diner. She was a waitress there, and as much as I wanted to go back, she left in such a rush the next morning that I figured she wanted nothing to do with me. I understood, shifters weren’t for everyone. Maybe she just couldn’t get over the bear that was inside me. I hadn’t heard from her since.

  Sarge pulled me out of my train of thought. “I need you to close this case, man, the district attorney’s office is breathing down my neck. I received a call from the mayor this morning, and you know that I don’t like to deal with politicians. So where are we with this case? Anything new?”

  Gavin stepped in. “Not much Sarge, this girl looks just like all the others. There are marks everywhere, insides completely destroyed, like test subjects or something. We’ve looked into every lab in the area, and no one is sneaking in there using anybody’s instruments to torture their victims. Whoever this guy is, he knows what he’s doing. Like we said bef
ore the profile, some type of previous doctor, or maybe even a veterinarian. They definitely have medical experience. And it’s not just a thing for young people. His victims don’t fit any profile. He’s abducted men and women, various ages, between five and thirty-five. No race or gender preference whatsoever. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  I turned to Sarge. “Have you sent a picture of this latest victim to the psychologist yet? Maybe she can shed some light on the subject.”

  Sarge nodded. “Yeah, I gave her the wakeup call. I think she was really happy to hear from me again. She wants us to wrap this up just as bad as we do. She’s tired of looking at dead bodies. I swear she mentioned vacation this time.”

  We all mumbled an agreement. Whoever this asshole was, I couldn’t wait to nail him to the wall. But we had to catch him first.

  “I gotta say though, he’s dropping them in different locations all the time. He’s always a step ahead of us. How long has this body been here?” I asked the group.

  “Coroner said about two days. Can’t believe nobody found her before then. This is a busy street, but the body was behind the dumpster, and nobody sees that until the garbage man. People only see what they want.” Grady sounded older. The job was wearing on him too.

  That only pissed me off more. “So he’s dumping bodies in various locations, and he knew that the garbage men wouldn’t find her until today. So is it possible that he’s got some ties to local government? Or that he pays attention enough to know when the garbage men would’ve seen her? I mean last time we found the body it was over three days old. And he’s dumping them fresh. There’s blood on the sidewalk, we’ve got a drag trail this time. He drives, empties the trunk, stashes the body where he thinks it’ll be found, and moves on. You know what this means: a dead body means he’s already picked up another victim. I can’t imagine what he’s doing to that poor soul.”