by Cara Adams
Judith gave her mom a quick hug of thanks for praising her management skills but then frowned and asked, “So why did the attorney think you were selling? How did he get it all wrong?”
“That’s what bothered me. I went through all the paperwork in my office, and some files were missing. Not any of the title deeds or anything like that. They’re all locked up in the bank. But the latest land valuation, receipts of bills paid for it, that sort of thing. At first I thought I must have mistakenly misfiled things but then—”
“You never misfile anything. You’re practically OCD with the bills. The accountant hardly has to do any work at tax time because you have everything so ordered and prepared.”
Cherise nodded and said, “I asked my attorney to have copies of all the missing paperwork sent to him and to change the mailing address for all the business things to his post office box.”
Now Judith understood. “It was Dad. He was trying to find out how much Grandpa’s farm is worth.”
“That’s what I think. But he thinks it’s you who’s thwarting him, which is why he attacked you.”
“That’s a nice, neat solution, but it’s wrong. He knows the property belongs to you. I have some money, but our house and grandpa’s farm is yours. Those two men who kidnapped me weren’t after ransom. They were told to kill me. Amory Willard was supposed to be kidnapped and ransomed. I was to be killed. Which means you aren’t safe. It’s you he needs to kill because the property is yours.”
Judith sank back into the couch and held her mother’s hand.
“Oh fuck! We’re going to be stuck here all winter, aren’t we? Because this is the only place you’re safe. Until dear old Dad does something so bad the police can catch him, we have to stay here. I suppose that means my skiing skills are about to become a hell of a lot better.”
Cherise laughed. “Honey, winter sports are fun. Besides, there are plenty of nice young men here, you know.”
* * * *
Naftali was beyond frustrated. His entire life had been suspended in time for six months. Six whole, entire, fucking, absolute, complete, damn months!
He and his brothers had purchased blow-up sex dolls, figuring they could be put to good use in the panther dungeons after they were used for the pack run. He’d gotten quotes for the hire of a large passenger coach. Everything was ready to go when the Alpha chose the site for the pack run and cookout.
And goddamn fucking Lewis Lutterworth had disappeared off the face of the earth. No one had seen him. The kids in his gangs were either back in school or looking for work as drug dealers. Zebulun’s guards had been extra alert up in the UP, but there’d been no hint of any new people in the local town or anywhere near the pack lands, and then winter had hit in earnest, which was the perfect protection of Judith and her mom in its own right.
The Alpha had talked to the agency that had dealt with Judith’s kidnappers, but they had no clue where Lutterworth had gone either. Naftali wondered if someone else would turn up kidnapped, but unless The Fixer had headed down to Mexico or South America, there wasn’t even a hint of that sort of activity. Meanwhile, Naftali’s spare time was spent thinking about the woman he wanted to get to know.
Likely she was tucked up in bed with any number of their friends in the pack. Men isolated on the pack lands by deep snow and able to spend all day and all night making love to his woman.
The only thing he could do was work even harder to try to discover what was motivating Lutterworth.
And then the Alpha called Naftali and his brothers into his office one Wednesday early in April. Naftali wondered what task the Alpha had for them now. It was unusual for the three of them to be summoned together because the twins worked in security, and he was in charge of the office management.
“Lutterworth’s back, and it’s time to get moving on our plans to entrap him,” said the Alpha.
“Is Judith okay?” asked Naftali, immediately worried about the woman he wanted but never seemed to manage to be near.
“Where was he?” asked Nahum.
“Where is he now?” added Nelson.
“No one knows where he was. He’s been telling everyone he was vacationing for the winter in the Greek islands, but according to our federal friends, his passport hasn’t been seen at any airport, nor is there any record of travel arrangements for him out of the country. My opinion is he got his tan under a sunlamp while he was waiting for the heat surrounding him to die down,” said the Alpha.
“So why is he back now?” asked Naftali, aware that there were a lot of other unanswered questions.
“Because whatever job he needs to do can’t wait any longer. So we need to distract him from whatever plans he has and encourage him to put his head in our noose instead.”
“So the cookout is on again?” asked Nahum.
“Yes it is, but it’s going to be held on Mrs. Lutterworth’s farm.”
“Why?”
“Where’s that?”
“How can we protect the women there? They aren’t going to come down here from the pack lands, are they?” asked Naftali.
The Alpha waved them into the three straight-backed chairs in front of his desk.
“It might be easier if you let me explain this logically myself.”
“Yes, sir.” At least this time all three of them said the same thing, instead of asking three different questions.
“Lutterworth senior, who passed on quite some time ago, owned a working farm. Cherise inherited it, and the family goes there for weekends and vacations from time to time. Actually they usually hold a party and cookout there for the Fourth of July most years.”
Naftali smiled but refused to be drawn in. The Alpha had as good as told them to shut up, so he wasn’t going to speak unless Amory asked him a direct question.
“When the old man bought the property forty or more years ago, it was in the middle of nowhere, but these days, the urban area has extended significantly, and with better roads and freeways, commuting time has dropped dramatically. Cherise discovered from her attorney that Lutterworth was putting out feelers about selling the land. The attorney suspects a developer might be interested in it and Lutterworth intended to sell it and bank the money. It’s a large property, so the price would be considerable.”
“That does sound like the kind of thing he’d do. He has very sticky fingers indeed and is good at taking things belonging to other people and selling them,” said Nelson.
“It’s practically his trademark,” added Nahum.
The Alpha nodded. “Fortunately, Cherise found out about it in time, and it certainly won’t happen now, but that just means Lutterworth will soon be trying something else. She’s had the locks on the brownstone changed and also the locks at the farmhouse, and the staff there knows he’s not allowed on the property. Her attorney and her accountant have been busy checking her other investments to make sure nothing’s gone missing from them as well.”
“I hate to take his side, but what about his personal possessions?” asked Naftali.
No way did he want the man around Judith or her mom, but he did deserve to have his own possessions returned to him.
“That’s all taken care of. Cherise is a very fair woman and, I suspect, still a little bit fond of him despite everything he’s done and attempted to do. The attorney has rented a small apartment for him in the city. It’s a serviced apartment so he doesn’t have to do anything, and she’s paying all the bills. She had his clothing moved there, but she’s itching to return home to make sure none of her things have disappeared. The attorney has the list for insurance purposes so he knows that nothing really important has gone, but she’s worried some other things she cares about might be missing.”
“It might be worth it just to get rid of him though,” said Nelson.
The Alpha grunted. Naftali guessed he was getting to the main point now.
“The reason for this meeting is that Cherise and Judith will be coming back to town tomorrow. They’re flying down. Zebulun ha
s a friend who has a friend who owns a private helicopter, so that’s how they’re traveling. You three are to be there at the farm to protect them. Four people would have been better, but I know you three have set your sights on Judith, so I’m putting you in charge. There’ll be a few extra men from the pack available for outside work if you need them.”
“When is the cookout and pack run to be, sir?” asked Naftali, wondering how long he had to get everything organized to leave his job in the warehouse for a week or two, as well as plan the run and the cookout.
“Judith and Cherise arrive tomorrow, as I said. We’ll set the cookout up for Friday, and then I’ll stay out on the land somewhere in a tent for the weekend while everyone else goes back by bus. Zebulun will send down a couple of men with the women, and they’ll remain on to guard me and the women. That way there’ll be people Lutterworth has never met so he won’t recognize them.”
“Also they won’t be coming on the bus so that’ll make them staying on more invisible as well,” added Nelson.
“Exactly. Any questions?”
“Are you all right with the idea of Cherise returning to the brownstone to check her things?” asked Naftali.
Personally, despite wanting to be with Judith, he’d rather the women had stayed on the pack lands until Lutterworth was in jail, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen.
“I’d like to imagine that, after the weekend, Lutterworth will have committed a crime and will be in jail. But he might have reactivated his gang of adolescents. I’d say let the women do what they want but be careful never to establish any kind of predictable routine about your activities.”
Naftali nodded. He’d worked that out himself. What he hadn’t thought of was the boys being used by Lutterworth. It’d be very hard to avoid every schoolboy in case he belonged to a gang. That was going to make guarding the women out in public ten times harder. Well, they’d just have to catch Lutterworth at the cookout.
Not that he had the faintest idea how they’d do that.
* * * *
Nelson and Nahum went straight down to the foyer of the warehouse and huddled behind the security counter there, reorganizing the security schedule for the next two weeks.
“Two weeks should be plenty. Likely one week will be all it takes. Once Lutterworth is in jail, it won’t take the police long to deter any of his adolescent gang members from following the women,” Nelson said.
“The boys are smart. They won’t do anything they don’t believe they’ll be paid to do, and once Lutterworth is locked up, they’ll go back to whatever they were already doing fast enough,” agreed Nahum.
Nelson smiled at his twin. “In two weeks, she’ll be ours.”
Nahum shook his head. “You’re forgetting all about romance. Women like romance. Just guarding her isn’t going to be enough. Once her father’s in jail, we need to take her out to dinner and dancing and all that kind of thing. You know, buy her flowers and chocolate.”
“I’m good with that. It’ll be wonderful to dance with her.” Already he could imagine holding her sweet body in his arms and maybe kissing her at the end of his dance before handing her on to one of his brothers. Maybe they could even go to the BDSM club. He didn’t know anything about her tastes, but hopefully, even if she wasn’t into BDSM, she’d be inquisitive enough to want to go there for dinner and the stage show.
“Don’t forget some of the men from the pack are coming down with Judith and Cherise. And they’ve been with them for all winter.”
Yeah. He knew that and didn’t like it. “Surely the Alpha wouldn’t have put us in charge of this project if she was already dating other men.”
Their Alpha was scrupulously fair. He wouldn’t do that.
“Just because she isn’t attached to anyone else that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in her,” warned Nahum.
Well fuck. That was true. But still, if they hadn’t managed to fix their interest in six months, her heart couldn’t possibly be involved with anyone else. “You know, we’re damn lucky someone else hasn’t grabbed her and mated her.”
“I know. I’ve hated not being able to see her all this time. But now our time has come, so we need to make the most of it.”
Nelson fist-bumped his twin. “We will.”
The more he thought about it, the more amazed he was that Judith was unattached. She was quite beautiful with her neat blonde hair and deep blue eyes. She wasn’t all that tall, but she wasn’t as short as her half-sister, Elsie, either. In fact, in Nelson’s mind, she was absolutely perfect, and he could hardly bear to wait until the weekend to hopefully pull her into his arms and kiss her. Just seeing her tomorrow would be wonderful. He’d thought about her a lot this past winter. His emotions had run the gamut from worrying if she was safe through worrying she was happily in the arms of another man. Well, right now he didn’t care how many pack members she’d dated, as long as she dated him next. He and his brothers would love her so thoroughly she’d never want to look at another man ever again.
Once they’d agreed on the schedule, he and Nahum took turns going up to their apartment to pack a bag of clothing to take out to the farm. Nelson decided it was stupid to take clothing for two weeks. There was sure to be a washing machine and dryer out at the farm, so he concentrated on packing a variety of clothing so he could accompany Judith and Cherise to whatever venue they wanted to attend. That made his suitcase quite full and damn heavy because of extra shoes, boots, and a couple of coats, but finally he was done and went back to the entry so Nahum could do his packing.
The guard on duty, Travis, was watching the security cameras. “Lutterworth is after the Alpha again. There’s been three kids riding around the fence line on bikes, and now two kids on skateboards are doing the circuit.”
“Really? Well, I guess that’s good news. Likely they’ll see the tour coach pull up on Friday and everyone pile aboard. Then they’ll follow us to find out where we’re going.”
“Not quite everyone will be on board the bus. A few of us volunteered to stay here and guard the place. Once you’re all gone, we won’t be opening the gate though. The Alpha has told us to stick with the line that the business is closed until Monday for the company cookout.”
“That the best answer. Otherwise, if someone goes to answer the gate, the kids could disable the guard and ram-raid the place. Although they still wouldn’t have the security codes to attack people. But they could make a hell of a mess trying,” said Nelson.
“That’s right. We’ll stay inside come what may and keep the security fence between us and them.”
Nelson nodded, but he worried about people throwing Molotov cocktails or something incendiary to try to force them outside. The warehouse itself was solid concrete, but a ram-raid might take out the metal gate. Well, a ram-raid with a tough enough vehicle. A regular car wouldn’t do it. The metal was damn solid on purpose.
He closed his eyes and thought and then began leaving instructions for a contingency plan. Step one was to allow no one inside, as Travis had said. To stay inside the building no matter what was happening outside. But step two would be in case of incendiary bombs—hell any trouble at all—to call the fire brigade and the police.
But then they would come inside, exposing the building’s security. So, as soon as there was any hint of trouble, everyone who’d remained behind would have to return to their apartments and stay there, no matter what happened. Strangers wouldn’t have a digital code to open the stairwell doors or to use the elevator. And fire services and police could be held at bay because nothing would have happened inside the building.
Damn. This was a whole new ball game and could end up even trickier than the damn cookout itself.
As soon as Nahum returned, they sat together, planning and refining their plan to protect their warehouse home.
* * * *
Nahum was so tense that if someone touched him he was liable to explode. He’d gone over and over the plans to protect the warehouse with Travis and his team un
til he was certain they could follow the instructions he and Nelson had left them in their sleep. Then he’d done the same thing himself with his plans for protecting the Alpha and the women on the farm.
The men Zebulun was sending would have the primary responsibility for Amory. He and his brothers had the two women as their chief care. But, to some extent, all the dangers overlapped. If someone came to attack, they wouldn’t necessarily know who was the primary target. Lutterworth wanted them all, so the guards would be the ones having to respond in an emergency.
If there was trouble, he was to save Judith, Naftali was to save Cherise, and Nelson was to save the Alpha. But likely Zebulun’s men would be there to grab the Alpha, and most of the pack would help protect everyone. Although the mated men might put their own mates and children ahead of Judith and Cherise. That would be a logical response.
But equally important was ensuring they caught Lutterworth. It was no use rounding up a handful of teenage boys. The judge would slap them on the wrist for trespassing, say, “Boys will be boys,” and they’d be back the next day to do it all again. The only way to keep the women safe ongoing was to catch Lutterworth doing something bad that he couldn’t wiggle out of responsibility for. Which translated to the problem that they had to let their Alpha be exposed to danger and the women as well. The criminal had to be able to see the bait.
But that didn’t mean Nahum had to like it or stop worrying about it.
He and his brothers arrived at Mrs. Lutterworth’s farm at six and spent the next three hours checking every inch of every building, shed, haystack, closet, and expanse of long grass. He was pretty sure the staff thought they were completely insane long before they pronounced themselves satisfied the area was safe. He only wished he’d had thirty more men and could have checked every inch of the land as well.
