Ian exaggerated another shudder. "Turn your back on them for a picture? I don't blame you for freaking out."
"Well, brace yourself," Maggie said grimly. "If you think those are bad, wait until you meet my parents."
Eli met her eyes. "Creepier than flying dead eyed babies?" he asked with a half grin of disbelief.
"That would be in bad taste inside the house," she said shaking her head and looking properly scandalized. Then she laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "Think more along the lines of entitled perfection. They really defy description. You'll just have to meet them to understand."
After the buildup Eli wondered if the actual meeting with Maggie's parents would live up to his low expectations. The black suited butler that opened the door with all the grace of an old-world retainer assured him as nothing else could that he was about to be entertained.
Once the older gentleman with the close-cropped beard and salt and pepper hair assured them the family was expecting them he turned to lead the way and Ian leaned over towards Maggie and grinned. "You didn't mention an English butler. I feel like we walked into an episode of Downtown Abby."
She shook her head and Eli could tell she was hiding exasperation behind her cool facade. "He's new." Then something must have occurred to her because she stopped walking long enough to look back at Ian. "You watch Downtown Abby?"
Ian shrugged. "Chicks dig a man with layers."
Cleo scoffed at her brother from behind Maggie. "You can admit to liking romance Ian. No one is going to judge you for it."
Eli snorted and gave Maggie a big grin when she raised a brow at him in question. "Ian is a closet romance novel reader," he said trying his best to keep from laughing at the look taking over Ian's face.
"That was one book, years ago," he nearly whined. Looking put out. "And I didn't buy it."
"But did you read it?" Shawn asked mildly, his own humor just peeking out of his usual stoic face. Cleo gave him a smile before turning back to her brother with a straight face. Clearly waiting for his answer.
Ian gnashed his teeth. Then Cleo, unable to help herself laughed, interrupting whatever he was going to say in his defense. "I guess I was wrong. We are going to judge you."
Eli spoke up then. "I hear voices so let's hold the rest of this until later."
Ian gave them all a heated glare, but he subsided.
Just in time, Eli thought, because the house he was starting to think of as more a museum then a home apparently did not go on forever, no matter what it had felt like walking through its hallowed halls.
He understood what Maggie meant by pretentious perfection. He could not think of a better way to describe the sterile elegance that surrounded them. A mix of modern and antique its main goal seemed to be to showcase just how rich yet understated the home owners were.
He knew it had been a long time since Maggie was a child in this house, but he had a hard time imagining any child in this house. Hell, he was an adult and he still felt like he was going to dirty the place up or break something if he moved too fast.
"This reminds me of my old prides home," Liam said quietly behind them. Maggie did not know the boy’s history as the rest of them did, and still she turned and gave him a sympathetic look.
Before she could say anything however a masculine voice came at them from the room the butler was showing them to and Maggie froze. Eli had seen her gradually don more and more of her ice queen armor the closer they got to her parents, but at the sound of that male voice it was as if a door slammed closed. He caught the look on her face as it was wiped clean of emotion and for the first time he was seeing the woman he had met the first night he had been introduced to Margaret Baxter. A persona she had shed so completely in the last few weeks that he had forgotten what she had been like.
What the fuck? Eli thought before they were in the room and he could see for himself who had brought on that reaction.
"What. The. Fuck?" He did not even bother to modulate his tone as he pulled Margaret behind his back and glared at her very recently divorced ex.
A woman who looked enough like Margaret she had to be her mother gasped loudly and grabbed her throat as she stood. Dressed in what was sure to be a designer skirt suit in pale pink. The perfectly put together blond was coifed from her low healed designer pumps, all the way to the up-swept hair and understated strand of pearls.
Right now, she looked like the stick up her ass was chafing. But Eli was beyond caring what her mother thought of his language, or anything else for that matter. Not when the man who had set out to systematically destroy their daughter was standing like an honored guest in their library when their daughter had been expected.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Since he was looking right at Baxter, he wasn't sure why the man felt the need to look around as if wondering who he could be talking to.
"I think the bigger question at the moment is who you are and," his eyes trailed over Cleo, Shawn, and behind them, Ian and Liam trailing just outside the double doors. "Who are the rest of these people?"
Margaret raised her chin even as Eli was growling at the way he looked down at them all, while saying ‘these people’ as if they were hired help that should never have been allowed to use the family entrance.
Eli looked at the older man in the room dressed in what was probably considered his leisure wear of dress slacks and a golf shirt. He stood looking at them all with a brandy glass in his hand and nothing to say. From the blue of his eyes Eli he was Maggie's dad, but that was the only resemblance he was seeing. "You want to tell me why the man that set out to destroy your daughter’s reputation and ultimately her life is standing in your library as if he was an invited guest?"
"Stephen is always welcome here," her mother said before anyone else could answer. Dropping her hand from her throat she raised her nose higher in the air, as if offended by the question. "And I hardly think he can be blamed for our daughter’s criminal behavior."
He would have thought it was impossible, but he got angrier, and Maggie stiffened up even more.
Eli growled, glaring at the woman and doing his best not to let his eyes shift in his anger. "All charges against your daughter have been dropped." He pointed at Baxter. "And I have no fucking idea how you could have believed them to begin with. No fucking way would Maggie do what they say she did, and I would think you people would know her well enough to know that."
"Which is what Stephen has come to tell us," The older gentleman said his voice deep and cold. His eyes on Eli dismissive. "So, I will thank you to watch your tone and language in my home. Stephen is an old friend. I'm not even sure who you are."
Eli growled again, but the soft hand on his arm stopped him from blasting them. Maggie stepped out beside him and looked over her parents and Stephen with a cool expressionless glance that told them nothing of the turmoil he knew she was feeling.
"How did you get here from the courthouse before us?" she asked him her voice as soft as a winter wind.
Eli glared down at her and had to wonder who the fuck cared how he got here first. Why is here at all?
"Your parents mentioned that you had made arrangements to meet with them, naturally I took the chance to talk with you, as we did not have a chance at the courthouse." He looked at her with clear censure in his eyes, though his voice stayed the same smooth. "I had thought you would make arrangements with me yourself before the trial, so that I did not have to take such drastic steps to talk to you."
There was more than one snort from the pack at his back, but he was too busy growling at the carefully worded censure in the other man’s voice to pay attention. "You've got fucking nerve Baxter. I'll give you that."
Maggie touched his arm again, and Eli pulled in his emotions again with effort, letting her take the lead again.
She ignored Baxter and looked at her parents. "I came here to tell you everything that has been happening and try to leave this thing between us in at least an, if not friendly place, at least not unfriendly, but I
'm not going to do that while he is here, so I will leave it up to you as to whether he leaves, or I do. Keep in mind please that if I'm the one going I won't be back again."
Her mother huffed. "You can hardly expect us to ask Stephen to leave, when he came here to speak to you, even after everything that you have done. Honestly Margaret, I have no idea what you are thinking sometimes."
Her father took a drink of his brandy and sat down. "If Stephen is willing to give you another chance, after you went through with this ridiculous divorce, you need to hear him out."
Maggie laughed, shocking the shit out of Eli because there was real humor there. He looked down at her and saw some of her walls had fallen and the real Maggie was peeking out. Stephen must have seen something he did not like because he stiffened, his eyes narrowing on her face.
Maggie just shook her head and laughed again. "I have no idea what I thought would be different if I came here today, but it seemed like the mature thing to do was to try and mend fences. You being my parents, I guess I thought I owed you that at least." She looked briefly at Stephen. "But I don't owe you that. I have heard every word I care to hear from," she looked at Eli in question. "What did you call him?"
"Fucking prat," he supplied. His humor rising at the sparkle in her eyes. If she could see the humor in the situation, who was he to nay say her.
"Right," she said. A smile curved her sexy lips. "That fucking prat."
"Margaret," both her parents gasped out her name, looking appalled and scandalized.
Baxter just looked pissed. Gone was the cool facade of temperate business man. Something about how Maggie was reacting brought out the inner rage Eli had always figured was hiding there. Had to be for all the petty shit the man had pulled when he should have just cut his losses and divorced Maggie when she asked for it.
"Goodbye Stephen, I hope it just eats at you that after everything you tried you could not break me. Guess that means I win." Then she smiled a real smile that lit up her eyes and made her beauty that much more unforgettable.
She dismissed her seething ex and turned to her parents. Eli almost felt sorry for the bastard, until he stepped forward and grabbed Maggie's arm roughly pulling her to look back at him. "You should have taken the jail time Margaret."
***
Maggie lost her humor as Stephen lunged forward and gripped her arm just enough to hurt but not enough to leave a mark. His warning turned into a whisper directly into her ear as he hauled her closer. "You should have just taken the jail term. Once I finish dragging your name through the mud, you'll be wishing for the easy life of prison."
She heard what sounded like a jungle cat snarling before Eli was there and Stephen was hitting the wall across the room. Several antiques on the wall and side table took the brunt of the strike, as they fell around him in tinkling pieces. Stephen stayed down.
Maggie caught hold of Eli when he would have prowled forward to pummel an unconscious man. She pressed her hand and all her body weight into his chest to stop him, but if his pack had not surrounded them and helped her hold him back, she would never have gotten him to stop on her own.
"Don't," she hissed quietly. "He'll find a way to use it. It's what he wants, a reaction. Don't give him the satisfaction."
"He fucking threatened you?"
"It doesn't matter. We are leaving."
Eli growled and looked down at her with predatory cat eyes. "He threatened you!"
She huffed out a breath and licked her lips. He was not going to let this go. "Then you will stop him again. And again, after that. And eventually he will realize that I don't care what these people think of me, not the way he does, and he will have nothing to show for all his conniving and petty vengeances." She wrapped her hand around his jaw and pulled down while she leaned up to kiss him uncaring that her shocked parents saw it all
"Take me out of here Eli. I have had more than enough today and as far as I'm concerned the last chance he had to hurt me ended with the divorce."
Her useless parents were practically wringing their hands. She shook her head at them and did her best to shove Eli towards the door. "My lawyer will be in touch about my trust funds. If you continue to try to keep what is rightfully mine, I will see you in court. I will win, and all you will have accomplished is a waste of time and a whole lot of bad press."
She flicked her hand at Stephen, who was just starting to wake up after hitting the wall had knocked him cold. "If I thought it would make a difference I would warn you to cut ties with him. But you won't listen, and I refuse to waste another second of my life trying change things that don't ever change."
She pressed Eli back with the help of the rest of his pack. It was taking all of them to move him, but he was out the door before she turned back to look at her parents for what she knew would be the last time.
"Good-bye Mother, father." She waved around them at the flawless home they looked so perfect in. "I really do hope this brings you the joy your disappointment of a daughter never could."
Then she turned and walked away from all of it.
Melodramatic? A bit, she conceded, but satisfying just the same.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"Well, that was something."
Eli did not bother to respond to Ian. He was too interested in finding out if his mate was as put together as she was acting. If she wasn't, he was prepared to go back in there and finish what he started. That he had left alive an obvious threat to his mate was enough to have his cat snarling and pacing back and forth inside him. Not the most comfortable feeling. And not one he was used to dealing with. His cat was usually as laid back as he was, content to play or sleep until it was time to hunt. Whether on the computer or through a sweltering jungle in a firefight it was all the same to him and his cat. But apparently a mate changed things. For both of them.
Case in point, if it was anyone else's childhood home he had just left he would have been cracking jokes along with Ian, but this was Maggie. He was fresh out of jokes.
As soon as he had her in the car and the doors closed he wasted no time in pulling her back into his lap and snuggling her closer. She squeaked a little at his quick move, but she subsided easy enough.
He knew when she wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled close without arguing propriety that she was not as cool as she seemed. Then she spoke, and he realized she was more worried about him than herself.
"Are you calmed down?"
"Fuck no," he said pulling her closer. "You should have let me slap him around some more if you wanted me calm."
"But then I would have had to visit you in jail, and I'm opposed to that." He could feel her lips curving against his neck as she made her somewhat lame joke.
"You are a beautiful, intelligent, sexy woman," he finally said after allowing the silence to stretch so long she started to tense again. "But I think it’s best that from now on you leave the jokes to me."
She pulled back far enough to glare at him. 'I beg your pardon?" She sniffed daintily, and her little nose went up. "I was being ironic."
"Duchess," he said with a sad look and a shake of his head. His accent flowed to an Irish lilt as he talked. "I know you have had a rough day of it lass, and I say this with pure love in me heart. You are not funny. Not a bit of it."
"Not even a little bit," Ian interjected with a snort of a laugh, and then dug a deep hole for himself when cold blue eyes seared him. "But you're totally hot!" he burst out, talking fast under Maggie’s glare.
Cleo who was sitting beside her with Shawn on her other side, caught the look Maggie cast her way and understanding, reached over and slapped her brother upside his head.
Liam, who was sitting in the far corner on the seat beside Eli and Maggie laughed at his friend’s plight, but subsided quick enough when Maggie's attention turned his way. He found a hundred other things to look at until she finally turned that cold glare back to Eli.
He smiled the big grin he knew irritated the ever-loving piss out of her. "Is it wrong that I f
ind you so sexy when you get that lady of the manner look in your eyes?"
"At least," she finally huffed out. "I don't have to worry you are holding on to your anger." She crossed her arms, which would have had more impact if she was not still perched on his lap. "You seem to be back to your usual annoying self. So,” She looked from him to the others. "Where do we go from here? Back to the island?"
Eli thought about that and then shook his head. "I have a better idea."
He ignored her snit and pulled her back into his chest so that they were eye to eye and close enough to kiss. In case she needed some persuading. "How do you feel about coming home with me?"
***
Maggie was nervous, ridiculous as it sounded even to her, but they had flown to Sacramento International before they had parted ways with the rest of his pack. Now it was just her and Eli and they were heading for what he had described as a mountain cabin. She had tried to find out more about the place, but since none of his pack had been there no one could help her out.
Though she could tell that more than one of them were as curious about Eli's hide away as she was. Maggie was more than a little surprised. Strangely she had never considered Eli's living situation. It occurred to her more than once on the second short flight into Concrete, Washington, that they had never talked about what would happen after the threat of her ex was dealt with. They had mated without ever having really dated and still had the tough questions to get out of the way. Like where they would live? Did he want kids? How many? How did a cat shifter handle pets? Something she had never been allowed and always wanted.
She loved A bene Placito, and her time there with Rebecca, but she had never intended to make her home on the island. So she was not opposed to moving again. But into the wilds of Washington. And why was she making herself crazy instead of just asking the questions she needed answered?
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