I love you, you old poop. Now get here so we can tell our son that he’s not without love in his life.
For some reason he thought it was going to be harder to convince Boyd of that than it was for Lauren to not kick some butt when she was interrogating someone. He laughed at what he’d thought and wondered if Lauren would think it was funny too. She was very intense when she was.... Well, heck fire. She was always intense.
He looked out the window of the car as they drove. Rich had to admit that he loved this time of year. The crunch of the snow under his boots when he was out. The crisp breezes that blew up from the fields, reminding him that there was still life yet in the ground and trees. Watching the few horses that they still had on the ranch made him smile, and he loved to watch them frolic a little by throwing up the snow with their nose. As soon as they were home, he got out and took a deep breath of the fine weather. Snow always smelled fresh to him.
When Boyd passed him for the house, he wondered when the last time was that Boyd had looked around. Had let his animal out to play. He’d bet his last nickel that it had been a while. The boy worked hard all the time, and he wondered if he was making up for not having a mate. Or, missing the one that he’d had. Either way, his world was about to get turned right upside down, and Rich was going to enjoy it.
Laughing, he made his way to the house, wondering what the new year would bring. Then he stopped in his tracks. His mind went to his next mate-able son, Hawkins was next. And the mate that he had coming, she’d have to be gentle with his boy. Not just gentle, but strong as an ox too. Hawkins wasn’t going to be an easy person to love, he had a feeling. He was hard, and full of something that made him what he’d been for the Army.
Going in the house, he thought about talking to his son. Asking him, just on the sly like, what he was thinking about when it came to his mate. He was almost afraid to do that. Like Lauren, Hawkins could be a mite on the intense side when he was upset. Probably all the time, really. But he’d talk to him. Soon.
Bea was fussing over the flowers that Boyd got her when Rich entered the house. He handed her his and she cried. Something else about women that he didn’t understand. They cried when they were happy and when they were sad. Sometimes he wasn’t sure what sort of piddle he’d get himself into when she did it. But he hugged her and told her that he loved her with either kind of tears, and that made her happy too.
Rich thought that he might not know women at all. They confused him and set his temper on high at times. But he knew they loved to be loved and cherished. And Rich had learned over his lifetime how to cherish and love like no other. And he did love his wife with his entire being.
~~~
Reilly held her dad’s hand and told him all what she’d been up to. She did avoid the topic of Ross and the horrific accident, but she thought about it a great deal. When she saw something on the news or heard people talking about it, she would shiver about how close she’d come to dying out there that day. Not to mention, Lauren had come by to see her with Joe, and they had told her that she wasn’t being arrested but she wasn’t to leave town. She explained to them that with her father here, she had nowhere left to go.
“We’ve arrested Ross. I’m telling you that so that you’ll at least feel marginally safer while you’re out and about. I’ve yet to talk to his family face to face just yet, so there is that as well. Mr. Dander is a good man from all accounts, but something is wrong with his son. A lot is wrong with him.” Reilly asked Joe if he was going to see him soon. “Yes. But you have nothing to worry about. The recording that you had in your car has established that he rammed you from behind. Also that you exited your car long before it was in the accident. Lauren was able to get someone to work on the recording and it turned out just fine. As well as the other phones we were able to have a look at besides yours.”
“I’ve never seen him like that before. I mean, he was sexually harassing me at work, but never was he ever violent to me.” Joe said that sometimes a person just snaps. “Yes, well, if it’s all the same to you, I’m not going to leave here without an escort. He fucking scared me. And to have hurt all those people for no other reason than he didn’t want me to quit working so I could come here just scares me to the point where I think I might need a bodyguard too. You have no idea what it was like to see him doing that to me. And to have thought it was funny.”
“I’m sure that it was more than that. I’d probably go so far as to say that it might not have had a thing to do with you. You just happened to be in that place when it came to a head. But you’re right, I’d not leave here unless someone goes with you.” She assured them that she had no intentions of that. “Also, I know that you’ve meet Dustin when he came to stay with you yesterday, so if you do want to leave, I’ll send him to be with you for the time being.
Now she sat by her father’s bedside, waiting for him to wake up so that she could tell him what had happened to her. And that she loved him so much. Reilly knew that they were keeping him a little doped up, just so he’d not be in too much pain, but she still worried for him. He really was all that she had in this world.
Watching the news when it came on again, she wasn’t surprised when they showed footage from the wreck on the highway. Her car, she could see it now, really had been the instrument of death for a lot of people. Even seeing the big semis trying to come to a stop but flipping to their side, slowly falling over onto two cars, had her cringing with each second of it. She was able, too, to see it from different angles from the cell phones that had been recording it. It didn’t lessen her car’s involvement in the entire thing. Then they showed her footage from the hill where she’d gotten out to be sick.
It was of the car, Ross’s car, when he had pushed her car onto the road. Him just sitting there, smoke coming from not just the rear of his car but the front end too where he had hit her. When he finally got out of the car, she could see when he turned to look in her direction and wondered if he’d seen her there what he would have done. But he danced. A dance of pure joy at what she could only assume was his entertainment of what was happening before him.
When the news reporter spoke, Reilly read what it said below the reporter’s picture. The sound had been turned off so as not to disturb her dad. But she showed how they had blown up the picture of the man there, and there was no mistaking that it was Ross Dander. None at all. And she told how he’d been arrested as well.
The nurse came in a few minutes after she turned off the television and asked her if she needed anything. Telling her no, she was fine, she decided to go down to the cafeteria and have some dinner. It was the only place that she could get to without a car. The nurse said that she’d keep an eye on her dad for her and let her know if there were any changes.
Reilly had no money. No cards either. Her purse was a part of the evidence that was used in the mass accident, along with her cell phone and other things that were in the car. They had given her dad’s things to her, or she’d have no money to eat on. Lucky for her, he had about two hundred dollars in his wallet or she’d be starved about now. Going up to eat, she rode the elevator with a nice older man and his wife. They were going to see their first great-great-grandchild.
The cafeteria was never full, which she didn’t understand. The food was really good, they served it on real plates, and cloth napkins were at each of the tables. Today she had a roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings, and a glass of the best tea that she’d ever drank. As she was cutting up her turkey, someone sat down beside her. She knew the face—he looked a great deal like his brothers.
“I’m Hawkins. I go by Hawk.” She nodded. “I’m also one of the McCullough brothers. I’ve been sent to bring you to my parents’ house for dinner.”
“As you can see, I’m already eating.” He took her plate from her and took it to the elderly man sitting in the corner with a coffee. When he thanked him for the meal, Hawk pointed to her. The man tipped his imaginary hat at her and dug into her meal. She looked at Hawk when he sat
back down. “I was going to eat that.”
“Yes, well, now you can come with me.” Reilly didn’t want to be charmed by him, but for some reason she was. “You’re looking at me like I’m a speck on your blouse that you don’t want. I’m a nice man.”
“Yes, I think you are. But you’re very misunderstood too, I’m thinking. You want people to be afraid of you, but you’re nothing but a puppy, aren’t you?” For an answer, he laid a gun, knife, and a long piece of wire on the table before he put his hand over all of it and shifted his hand into a long blade. “Are you trying to impress me or scare me?”
“Both. Are you coming with me nicely? Or do you want me to carry you out on my back? I’m up for either.” She stared at him. “Don’t analyze me please. You might be right on some of it, and then I’d have to prove to you that you aren’t even close to the mark.”
“I was told not to leave here unless I had an escort. Who would have sent you?” He nodded and told her that Lauren did. “Who else would know that I’m here?”
“My entire family. If you don’t come with me, I’m going to tell you that they’ll come here. All of them. With babies and in-laws and all the things that come with having children en masse. They’re an overload that you don’t want to bring to the hospital, I swear.” She asked him why they had invited her in the first place. “I was told to come and get you for dinner. Other than that, I don’t have any idea. You’ll learn, when my mom tells you to do something, you do it and don’t ask too many questions.”
“You’re afraid of your mom.” He told her that they all were. “Just how many people are there coming here, if I don’t go with you?”
“Thirty? I don’t know, really. I have six brothers. Four of them are married with children. My parents will come of course, and in-laws of the wives will come along. Just to annoy you.” She told him she didn’t annoy easily. “I do. And I will if you don’t come with me. I really am able and willing to protect you.”
She stood up with him. “Do you think I need protecting? Last I heard, Ross was in jail for murder and for attempted murder. I thought I was safe from him.”
“Not his father if he should get it in his head that you put his son there. If it were me, I’d be happy someone did it. But that’s just me.” He took her to the main floor by the elevator, and then out to a monster truck that was sitting right in front. There were “no parking” signs everywhere, but obviously he didn’t heed them. Getting into the truck with his help, Reilly was surprised by the sheer amount of electrical equipment that was on the dashboard and seat. It was like he was doing missile launches from his truck.
He didn’t say anything more on the drive to his parents’ house, but she needed a few answers. Hawk had shifted his hand into a lethal weapon. He carried around enough weapons to win a small skirmish. She looked at him as he turned onto the main street of the town that she had only just moved to.
“You’re sort of Army, aren’t you?” He nodded and said something like that. “I see. And this show of weapons, I’m assuming that you’re a shifter of some kind. Elite, I think is what you’d be called.”
“No, not an elite, but something more.” Hawk glanced at her as he drove. “I was dying, and my nephew gave me a bit of his blood so that I’d be healed. It also made me a true immortal. We all are, as a matter of fact.”
“Are all your family members the same? I mean, the more part of being a shifter?” He told her that some were, others were not. But he said they were usually just jaguars. He asked her who she had known that was a shifter. “One of the men that I worked with. He was a wolf. His family has been around here for a long time, I guess.”
“The local pack is a friend of my family as well. They help us when we need it, and we do the same for them. It’s a nice way to keep poachers out of our lives, and people who have no business being on our property where they might be doing things to hurt either of us.” She nodded and looked out the window. “Did he ever explain to you about mates? Did he have one?”
“Yes. He and his mate have been together for a long time. Years and years. They have several children too.” Hawk nodded. “Why do you ask? I’m not your mate, am I?”
“No, but you could be one of my brothers’. Boyd.” She asked if that was the doctor. “Yes, that’s him. He had one, a very long time ago, and she was killed in an accident. We’ve always been told that we have one shot at having a mate, but my mom has some information that says that sometimes, once in a great while, another might come into our lives.”
“So, you’re taking me there for some kind of test or something?” He told her it was more like a test for Boyd rather than her. “Are you offering me up as some kind of special prize if I am? Is that what this invitation is all about? I’m to be mated to a man I don’t know or care to know? If that’s it, you can take me right back to the hospital right now. I’m not going to be anyone’s mate, if that’s what this is about.”
“Don’t get your head all twisted up. I’m just having a conversation with you about it. You asked and I’m telling you. But if you aren’t Boyd’s mate, then what are you out? Nothing but a bit of your time, and you get to have a fantastic meal that will fill your belly more than the hospital food will.” She asked what would happen if she was. “Then you have an entire family that will be there for you. Love you like you’ve never been loved before, and the support of so many people that you’d never have to worry again. We’re here.”
She looked at the house in front of her. It was massive and old. She’d bet anything that it had been in the family for more generations that she could count on one hand. There were rockers on the wraparound porch, as well as empty planters that she’d bet were filled to overflowing in the summer. Right now, they held Christmas decorations in them, as well as lights around each window, which also had a candle glowing in them.
“They know that you told me, I’m betting.” Hawk said that he had told them, yes. “What do they expect of me, Hawk? I’m not a person that has anything. I’ve had to give up everything for personal reasons, and that left me without a great deal of even personal things. I live with my dad because I don’t have anywhere else to go. I only have a car—well, had a car—because he gave me my mom’s old one. I don’t come from this kind of grandeur.”
“Few do, I would guess. My family has had money from the very start, I think. We do as well, all of us do. Thanks a great deal to our brother, who invests well for us and sells when it’s better. My parents taught us the meaning of money and what it could do for us, as well as how it could harm us. And it does a great many people.” Reilly nodded. “But sitting here is not going to give you any more than you want to take. My brother, if you are his mate, is the kindest, most gentle person you’ll meet. But he’s also protective and smart. You couldn’t do any better. But you won’t find out what you have or not until you get out of the car and go up there.”
A man came outside on the porch and leaned against the long column that was a part of the porch. He didn’t come to her, for which she was glad when she figured out it was Boyd, but waited on her. When the door on the driver’s side opened, then closed, she watched Hawk go to Boyd and pat him on the shoulder before he went into the house. Boyd moved then, coming to the truck and getting in on the driver’s side.
She turned to look at him when he started the truck up and moved out of the drive. Wherever she was going with him, she hoped that he knew how to drive this monster. To be honest, she was a little afraid of it.
Chapter 4
Boyd drove to the house that her dad had had his accident in. As they drove along, he thought about the fact that she might be his mate. He tried not to think about it as he drove, but his mind kept going to when she had stretched her toes when her feet were tired.
“This house that we’re going to see, it’s the one that your dad fell at. It’s since been repaired, but it’s on the market and I thought we’d go and see it before we had dinner.” She didn’t say anything, and he tried to fill the quiet
space with something. “He’s doing really well, by the way, and tomorrow when I go see him, I’ll take him off the morphine and wake him up a little more. He shouldn’t be in nearly as much pain, but he will have some.”
“Why are you taking me to see this house? Have you discovered that I’m your mate, or are you hoping to get laid?” He nearly drove off the road and had to steady his hands. “I’m not easy, as you’ll find out. And whether or not I’m your mate doesn’t mean shit to me. I’ve discovered that having a man in my life isn’t all that much fun. They can be, I guess, but I don’t have the time for one. So whatever your plans are for me, you’d better be rethinking them right now.”
“I have no plans other than to get myself a house. And since you didn’t seem to want to meet my family—which I have to say is probably a smart move on your part because they’re invasive and nosey. Pushy too when they think that they’re right. I thought it would be better if you went house-hunting with me. Hawk said that you don’t have much, and that’s fine too.” She asked if they were mates or not. “I don’t know. I would have to get closer to you to smell your throat. That’s the only sure tell sign that I know of.”
They stopped in front of the house and he took the papers that Lauren had given him on the house. As Reilly looked them over, he stared at the house. He liked it all right, he supposed. He also thought it was big.
“It has five bedrooms on the second floor and a master suite on the third. There is also an elevator in the back of the house somewhere, as well as a couple of dumbwaiters. The right side of the house has a screened in porch that has glass panels that can be used in the winter months. They’re not in right now—something about the house being closed up for the sellers. The left side of the house is the kitchen, laundry, as well as a good-sized pantry. My dad said that when they put it in about four years ago, it was state of the art. He doesn’t know what the kitchen looks like now, but he didn’t do the work on it.” She opened the door and got out. Boyd laughed when she turned and glared at him from the snow-covered sidewalk. Getting out, he helped her over the worst of the snowbanks and opened the door with the key he had from earlier. He continued telling her what he’d read about the house. “It has very little in the way of improvements since it’s been shut up. The heat is on, but the water has been turned off. Until it sells.”
Boyd_McCullough’s Jamboree_Erotic Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance Page 4
