“I was an ass. I forgot that you’d be instinctually drawn to pack behavior. It’s been a long time since I’ve been outside a pack and joined one.”
“I’ve never been in a pack.”
“You are now.”
She exhaled noisily. That was…impossible, wasn’t it? His arms around her felt like the only thing holding her together. It was a crazy thought. Pack. She was pack.
He went back to kissing her neck. It didn’t help with her goose bumps. His words made her heart burn in her chest. She shouldn’t want to be pack. It wasn’t like a family, even if it might have felt like it last night for a short amount of time.
Most of all, she wasn’t pack. “I thought I had to accept the scent-match.” He could say she was pack until he was blue in the face, but until the rest of them accepted it, she wasn’t.
He went still. “Are you?”
She shrugged, and her shoulder bumped against his face. Wow, his nose was cold. Then she shook her head. At one point, the cold, harsh light of reality would have intruded into this beautiful fantasy—might as well be now. “Travis, you don’t want me. You only think you want me because of this crazy thing between us and because you don’t know enough about me.” She couldn’t tie him to her. He didn’t know her.
“Then tell me about you.”
Well, she’d opened herself up for that. She bit her lower lip. He had a right to know what he was getting into. But where should she start? And then if he hated her…or wanted to arrest her…
He seemed to sense her indecision and reached out and tapped his gun on the table. “You got into my gun safe. I thought it was a good one.”
“Well, it is, but it’s not Fort Knox.”
“I noticed there wasn’t a knife with these clothes in that Tupperware. Should I disarm you just in case I say something wrong?”
“I traded you the knife for the gun.”
“I appreciate that.” He kissed her neck. “There was only one shirt in there, too.”
The other was packed in her luggage. She was a sad, pathetic addict.
“What was the gun for?” he asked.
“In case Troy won. Though there was no way that was going to happen.”
“You were going to shoot Troy?”
She shrugged. It was what it was. No one got away with attacking Travis. Well, except her, and she wouldn’t do that again. Probably.
“The pack would have killed you.”
She shrugged again. “But I would have shot Troy, and that would have felt damn good.”
He shook his head. “I’m glad Jordan came.”
“I would have shot him, too, if he’d tried to stop me.”
He slid the gun farther away from her. He inhaled against her neck before kissing it again. “You smell so good. I’m not letting you out of my sight for the rest of my life. For so many reasons.”
She smiled and blushed—both were stupid. “You don’t even know me.”
Pulling back, he tugged off his shirt and dropped it before wrapping his arms around her again. He slid his hands under her shirt to rub the hot skin on her stomach.
She felt all her synapses frying again. Swallowing, she said, “When I was almost fourteen, my mom said I was just like my dad—that I reminded her too much of him—and she didn’t want anything to do with me. It was a change from the screaming fights and the accusations, but obviously not one for the better. She just…gave up on me. She quit—like I was too much for her to even tolerate. I wasn’t even worth yelling at anymore.”
“Did she say you were like him because you could see so much better in the dark and hear better, or because you looked like him?”
She frowned. “Probably everything about me. She hated my dad.”
“Hm. Okay. Go ahead.”
She cleared her throat. “And so we stopped speaking to each other, and I moved out when I was fifteen. I moved in with some friends. I went to school sometimes…sometimes not….and…” She paused and looked over her shoulder at him.
He took the opportunity to kiss her cheek and the corner of her mouth.
“You have a really unhealthy fascination with volcanoes…and algebra…but mostly volcanoes.”
“Uhh. How do you…?”
“Oh, I logged in to your computer. I updated a few things. You had some adware running in the background that I killed. But volcanoes?”
She felt him smile against her neck before he said, “Rainier is an active volcano. So is Glacier Peak. They’re both on par with Mount Saint Helens for danger of erupting.”
“I know that now. I checked a few of the sites to see if they were some sort of veiled porn sites, but they really were about volcanoes.”
“Did these friends you moved in with teach you your hacking skills?” He liked to do that…talk about only one thing until they were done with it.
“No, I’m not really much of a hacker, but it’s easy to figure out passwords when you touch the same keys again and again, and you’re not much for typing. Troy’s was even easier. I’m not sure he uses his keyboard for anything other than putting in his password—and looking up creepy sites that make me want to boil my eyes. I should have shot him anyway.”
Travis moved the gun farther away again. “Is that how you get into safes—scent?”
“And sound and finding keys that you keep in the bottom of drawers thinking no one actually looks in drawers, but keys smell different than clothes. Keys and I have an…affinity.”
“Hell, you might be better than Jordan.”
“At what?” Jordan was huge. There wasn’t a whole lot she’d be better at.
“At finding things.”
“Oh. Maybe.” She sighed. “I started that when I moved out. Stealing things. Not things that would be missed right away. Just things that people tried to hide from other people. And things they could afford to lose. I tried to stop a bunch of times, but…I’d slip back into it.”
“Have you ever been convicted?” He was still kissing her shoulder and neck, and he was acting like this wasn’t a big deal.
“No. I’ve never been caught. I usually wear gloves, but I might have my fingerprints on some unsolved case somewhere.”
That made him stop. She bit her lip. Now it came. Now he’d ask her to get out of his sight.
“Okay.” Then he bit into her neck and sucked, and she arched her back and tipped her head against his shoulder. Oh. Whoa. When he moved on, she was pretty sure he’d left a mark and that was okay, because she was already branded as his on the inside for the most part.
She swallowed and tried to slow her racing heart. “Then, five years ago, my mom was dying, and she had a change of heart and told me about Ross. And after I met Ross, I wanted to be better, but I kept slipping back into stealing because the money was so good and it was so easy.”
She inhaled and exhaled. She could do this. He deserved to know who she was and why this wouldn’t work out.
“Three years back, I was out…at night…and I ran across a guy holding a family hostage in their house.” Her hands clenched into tight fists, and she blinked. “I forget things. Sometimes on purpose. Sometimes not. But whenever I close my eyes—this is waiting.” She swallowed. “And the time is all funny—like some of it seems as if it lasts forever but I barely remember getting into the house. And it was dark that night, but it’s all so bright in what I see in my head. It’s lit up—like Christmas.” She huffed out a breath. “I mean like hell—like the worst sort of hell. And the smell…”
The kids’ crying drew her from her run. She hated to hear kids crying. Kids should be happy and know they’re loved.
She stared up at the mostly dark two-story. The hallway lights upstairs were on, as well as one dim light in one of the rooms. It was probably nothing. A nightmare. A nightmare that two kids shared?
LeAnn glanced up and down the street and pulled her hoodie up over her head. She’d check and be back to her run in a couple minutes. Nodding to herself, she took inventory of all her option
s. Most of the entry points on the front of the house were out if she wanted to leave no trace. Jogging silently, she hopped the waist-high fence and examined the back of the house, avoiding the kids’ toys that littered the yard. See, they had toys—toys they were allowed to leave everywhere. Clearly, their parents loved them. It was good that she was checking things out. LeAnn sighed. So much for her latest resolution not to do this anymore.
The dining room window was open and the screen lay on the ground.
Worry soured her stomach and made her pulse pick up.
Hell, it wasn’t just the kids crying. There was a woman…sobbing—trying to be quiet.
No. Something was very wrong. She slipped into the house a moment later. Adrenaline hit her system, making her hands shiver.
“Don’t…just take the money…take it all…just…” The man sounded terrified.
“Shut up! I told you—just shut the hell up.” A gun cocked.
She huffed out a breath. Of all the times to have nothing… She looked around. Think, LeAnn! Think! The sobbing upstairs was too much. She couldn’t just stand here. There had to be something. She opened the closet beside her, hoping for a baseball bat, and found something far more deadly. Her hands shook as she loaded the handgun as quietly as she could.
Then she was walking up the stairs. It took forever. It was like there were five times as many stairs, and yet she still stumbled over the top, catching herself before she could be heard.
What was she doing? She fought for control. Her vision went hazy like when her rage took over, but she didn’t feel angry—this was terror. What was she about to see?
Her pulse pounded as she slipped down the hallway, past empty rooms. They were in the bedroom at the end. A bedside light must be on.
The crying. The crying was making her ache and weak and… Then the smells hit her. Blood and sex and fear—so much fear. Her throat jerked as she gagged.
“Make her shut up!” And there was movement in the room. Bodies scrambled and the sobs broke and were choked back.
She gripped the gun in her hand as she put her back to the wall beside the door. LeAnn exhaled slowly. Her blood was coursing too fast for her to be as calm as she was at the gun range, but she couldn’t wait for something that impossible.
Ducking her head around quickly, she counted heads and marked locations. The family was all against the outside wall with the bastard between her and them, and he had a gun hanging at this side.
“If you don’t make them shut up…”
There was no time. They were crying again. Even the father was crying this time. There was no time. She spun and entered the room. She lined up his body with a blank spot of wall.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Her arm jerked in quick succession. He was dead with the first shot, but she couldn’t stop. The window in front of him shattered with the third shot. Dropping the gun to her side, LeAnn sucked in a shuddering breath and wished she hadn’t.
Death had a scent all its own.
She saw it in a bright strobe of horror—the bedside lamp seemed like a spotlight suddenly. The little girl looked down at the blood that had spattered across her and started shrieking, screaming.
LeAnn took it all in and then closed her eyes against it.
She’d been too late. Why hadn’t she gone for a run earlier? The woman was so bloody and that smell of sex…was so recent. And the kids…wide-eyed and horrified. The father was trying to shield them all with his body. The hell of it…she could never open her eyes again. Her whole body was shaking.
And the screaming didn’t stop.
She’d just killed a man in front of two little kids.
She’d shot him in the back.
And she ran—from the smell, from the screaming, from the part of her that had felt…powerful.
She jerked and blinked. The blackness of her vision receded, and she drew in a deep breath. It was gone—that fast—and all she remembered was the highlight reel of blood and bruises and the glass breaking…and the scents…oh, the scents. She swallowed a moan. For a year after it happened, the smell of sex activated her gag reflex.
Travis’s arms were holding her snug against his warm body; his thumb was stroking the skin of her stomach soothingly. “Shh, LeAnn. It’s okay. You can tell me,” he murmured against her skin before he pressed a kiss on her shoulder.
She inhaled again and tried to even it out. She didn’t know what happened during her blackouts. It made her feel vulnerable that he’d been here for one. Licking her lips, she cleared her throat. “Uhh. Sorry. I space out sometimes.” Who knew how long she’d been gone that time. The fog cleared from her head. “So, yeah. I could hear the crying from outside. The wife was a mess. He’d beaten her, raped her, and the kids couldn’t stop crying. I got into the house, found the father’s gun…and shot the guy…when he had his back to me. I didn’t give him a chance to do anything more or explain or anything, and I didn’t call the police. I just shot him. His blood…it got on the little girl and freaked her out. I dream about that sometimes.”
He kissed her neck. “It’s not your fault.”
She chewed on her lower lip. “And I got the hell out of there. I ran for an hour before I realized I still had the gun in my hand, and then I puked into someone’s bushes for what seemed like days. They looked for me for a while—police and other people—so I moved, changed my last name…again. I did that every so often.” She sighed. “The wife committed suicide a year later. I checked on them. I wish I’d gotten there sooner. Some things you can’t live with, I guess.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice had a raw edge she hadn’t heard before.
She shrugged. “It was a bad time. I’d been trying to hold down jobs and be…normal. I’d even been paying taxes with my new name. I started dating this guy. He thought I had…too many opinions. He used to shove me around—punch me.”
Travis tightened his arms.
“I thought maybe I deserved it, so I let it happen. Then I ended it, and it still kept happening. Ross came to visit.” She smiled. “He kicked my ex-boyfriend’s ass—thoroughly—and he told me no one should treat a woman like that.”
“Maybe Ross wasn’t as bad a brother as I thought.”
“No. He wasn’t.” She looked down. “He did good things, too. I think maybe our parents messed both of us up a bit. When your family doesn’t want you, it makes you desperate to find that thing that’ll fix that hole in your life. He felt it, too. He said there was this girl he liked two years ago, but she’d disappeared. I guess she died. He was different after that. He didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I was surprised when he up and called out of the blue.”
“That’s what he has against Jordan and Dane from Glacier. The girl he liked killed two people, and either Dane or Jordan killed her when she was attacking Dane’s mate.”
She sighed. “It doesn’t make it right, of course—what Ross did—but…we’re so messed up. Anyway, I asked him to teach me how to track after that thing with the family being held hostage. I thought maybe I could do some good with my skills instead of stealing things. Every so often, I did. Stopped a few attacks out on the streets. I got stabbed once for it by the victim, who was all panicked and crazy. I thought that was unfair.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, so you and I don’t fit. A cop and a thief…maybe a murderer?” She shook her head.
He shook her lightly. “You are not a murderer. And right now, it looks like LeAnn Wilcox is in data entry and gainfully employed.”
She laughed—weakly. She was drained by all she’d said. Her bones felt like noodles. His arms were the only things holding her upright. “Yeah, but do you know how boring that is? I mean, I’m fast at typing—fast at a lot of things, but you can’t get in trouble if they catch you typing and doing your job. They give you raises and eventually that gets boring, too. Besides, I gave notice before coming here. And I still steal things all the time.”
She could feel his smile against her skin as he said, “I can’t imagine that.”
&
nbsp; She waited. But that’s all he said. “And?”
“And what?”
“I told you I’m doing the things you arrest people for all the time and you don’t have anything to say about it?”
“Well, as I see it, I have two options.”
She was certain her heart had stopped beating and sat there like a lead weight in her chest. She took a deep breath and held it. Here it came. Whatever happened, she should be ready for it. No more tears.
She’d never been in a relationship that actually felt like a relationship. And it was about to end. As it should. Because she didn’t deserve good things.
“First, I can make sure you don’t ever get caught…which it sounds like you’re pretty damn good at avoiding. I imagine being able to see in the dark, hear well, and move quietly helps.”
What? That didn’t sound very letter-of-the-law for a guy who seemed to like control as much as Travis did. She exhaled in a huff. This made no sense.
“Second option…”
Her pulse pounded in her ears in the silence his words left. She swallowed thickly. Here it came…he hauled her in. It was over. He’d deserved to know, but it was over.
“Second option is that I find some way to keep you busy so that you’re only stealing from me. There’s gotta be a few jobs around that’d use your skill set that are legal. I know I could use a good tracker every so often, and it’ll be nice to not have to drag Jordan over here ever again.”
She blinked rapidly and she felt light-headed. Pressing her hands to her stomach, she tried to process his words. He wasn’t taking her in. How could that be? He might actually let her use her…skills? This had to be a trick. “Travis?”
“Yes?”
“Neither of those involves you arresting me.” Her whole life had been spent waiting for the other shoe to drop once she revealed her darker side. Now she was here and nothing was happening.
“No. In fact, I’m glad I never fingerprinted you to find out your name…besides the fact that it sounds like it would have been pointless.”
“Do you not understand what I am? Who I am?” She was shaking from the release of finally telling someone, and he was acting like it was nothing. How could he be acting like it was nothing?
Crazy Over You Page 14
