Dwayne: Bishop’s Snowy Leap – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  The two of them ate while Holly opened some of the bags she’d brought in. Not only had she gotten him a reader, but she’d gotten him a laptop as well. As soon as he finished eating, which seemed to perk him up a bit more, he looked over the things she’d gotten him. The kid was the politest kid he’d ever met—besides Molly and the other children in the family. They were perfect too.

  ~*~

  “Hello, Jamie.” Jamie smiled at Doc Quincey. “I see you’ve been getting up and around well. That’s really good news for both of us. I have an idea to let you go home today. How about that?”

  “Seriously? I’d love it. My mom will be so happy too.” Dwayne asked if he could take him home to surprise her. “Yes, that would be perfect. She will be so happy. If I know my mom, she won’t sleep a wink tonight worrying about me coming home tomorrow.”

  Jamie tried very hard not to be overly excited. It gave him pains in his head, something terrible. Once they had all his things packed up, Ms. Holly told him she’d take him there in style. He told her how he’d never been in a limo before coming here.

  “We’ll have to fix that too. A young man such as yourself should be riding around in a limo all the time. You two talk and I’ll go and make arrangements to have this all sent over to Dwayne’s home. Is that where you and your mother are staying?” He looked at Dwayne, and when he nodded, it was all he could do not to leap for joy. “All right. I’ll be back in a bit now. Quincey said he’d have the paperwork fixed up for you in about a half-hour. I’ll be back before then.”

  When the door shut behind her, Dwayne laughed. “No, she won’t. I love her like my own grandmother, but she is the most distractable person I’ve ever known. Don’t be surprised if she adds a few more things to your gifts.” They both laughed as they ate their turnovers. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “My mom. And me, I guess. But Mom mostly. She is a wonderful mom. A lot better than most of the other kids I go to school with have. But my dad, Herman, he wasn’t all that nice. He knocked us around a lot. Mostly Mom, but he’d hit me too when I was too close.” Dwayne asked him if he was still around. “Nah, he’s dead. He held me and her hostage one day, and they had to kill him before he did Mom.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Jamie. I truly am. But is it all right that you tell me this?” He said it was. He’d asked his mom. “Okay then. What else? I’m sure that’s not what you wanted to talk to me about.”

  “It’s not.” He played with the crumbs from his turnover before speaking again. “They weren’t married. Not ever. But Mom thought it was easier, she told me, to tell people they were. Not that it excused him from hurting us, but she didn’t want people to think she was a horrible person for letting him into her home.”

  “I can understand that. I plan on marrying your mom when she’ll let me. Also, if it’s all right with the two of you, I’d very much like to adopt you.” Jamie glanced up at Dwayne, hope rising in his heart. “What is it you’re not telling me, son? I’m feeling like there is something important you need to—”

  “He raped me.” After getting it out of his mouth, it was easier to tell Dwayne all of it. “I was little when he did it the first time. I didn’t tell my mom until later after he hurt me so bad I couldn’t go to the bathroom. That was what the police came to get him for. She filed charges against him. She’d done it before, a lot of times, but he didn’t like that she was doing it, and he’d beat her worse. When he hurt us that last time, beating Mom almost to death and then hurting me too, I called the police to the house. They said they’d not come there on a domestic call again, so I called the FBI. The police weren’t helping us, so I sort of went over their heads.”

  “Good for you.” Jamie asked him if he was mad at him. “For saving your mother? Never. I think you’re very brave for what you did. You more than likely saved both your lives. For me.”

  “You won’t hurt her, will you, Dwayne? Or me?” Dwayne hugged him then. It was a little hard to let him do that until Dwayne told him he’d never hurt him. Not for all the money in the world. “My mom is so wonderful, and it hurt me so bad when she was hurt all the time. It was all I could do not to kill him myself. I think I could have done it too. I hated him that much.”

  “I’m proud of you, Jamie. So proud that you were smart enough to know you had to do something the police wouldn’t. Also that you didn’t kill Herman. That would have been ten times worse if you’d done that. Especially since you’d figured out the police weren’t helping you at all.” He let him go but didn’t leave his side. “As I said, you won’t have to worry about anyone in my family harming you in any way. Ever. My mom would box our ears if we even thought about it. I’d die for you if it came to that. I swear to you, anyone in my family would do the same. We feel that strongly about keeping the two of you safe.”

  Thanking him over and over, Jamie asked him about shifters. How the mate thing worked. He also asked him about what he thought of him calling his family by their given names rather than mister and missus all the time.

  “My mom would be as happy as a clam if you were to call her Grandma. Holly too, but she goes by GGMa with Molly. She’d be your great-grandma. Not by blood, but she’d never think of you as anything but her great-grandchild. My family, either. So far as they’ll be concerned, you’ll be Jamie Bishop to them and their nephew.” He asked about his dad. “My dad is already ready to bust his buttons off his shirt. He’s been telling anyone that would stand still for a few minutes that you took on three boys, the Sharon boys, and came out on top, except for the ball bat. But he said they tricked you with that.”

  Jamie laughed. “I love your family too. Grandma brought me in a blanket yesterday. She said I needed something of my own to sleep under. She told me that she had made it.” Dwayne looked at it and showed him where she’d put her name and the year on the trimmings. “That blanket is older than dirt, Grandpa told me. I love it. It smells like your mom too. All soft and sweet.”

  “You should tell her that if you’ve not already.” He said he thought it was sappy. “That’s all right. My mom loves it when someone gets a little sappy with her. And if you were to pick her some flowers out in the woods and take them to her, she’d be in heaven. Moms are like that, I think.”

  “Not my mom. She’d scold me for not allowing someone else enjoy the flowers I brought her. She’d still love them and smell them every ten minutes, but she loves plants. Of all kinds. We don’t have any at our apartment in New York, but she has them in her office.” He asked him why not their apartment. “We have a bastard, Mom calls him, for a landlord. He won’t allow me to have any pets either. Not even a fish. He said that if the tank or planter were to spring a leak, he’d be flooded out downstairs. I don’t know how much water he thinks a plant needs, but we don’t have them.”

  Dwayne laughed with him. When Holly returned, he’d had all, but one question answered. Jamie wasn’t entirely sure how to ask—it was sort of a personal question—but he would save it for later. After spending the last few hours with him, Jamie certainly felt better about him and his mom living with Dwayne. He didn’t lose his temper at all for any reason. That made him feel really good.

  After being loaded up in the car, he leaned on Dwayne and covered up with his blanket. Quincey had given him something lite for the pain so he’d not hurt that much in the car, and it had worked. By the time they were pulling up in front of the big house, he was sure he’d been taken to another hotel. Turned out it was Raven and Sawyer’s home.

  Dwayne carried him into the house. The medication was making him a little woozy. When he was sat on the big soft couch, he saw his mom coming into the room. When she started crying, so happy, she told him that he was home, he did too. Everyone, including Dwayne, left them alone.

  “I’m so happy you’re here. How are you feeling?” He told her that Dwayne had his instructions. “Then I’ll get them later. Are you feeling all right, hon
ey? You look amazing. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to see you today, but this is so much better. How are you feeling?”

  “Mom.” She smiled at him. “I feel fine. I promise I do. Dwayne and I had a nice talk, and I like him very much. He’s a good man.”

  “I think he is as well. I was rude to him the first time I met him. I hope he doesn’t hold that against me.” Jamie told her he doubted he ever would. “I don’t think so either, but I get nervous about things like this.”

  “I got to talk to him. I told him about Herman and what he did to me.” She kissed him on the forehead and asked him what Dwayne had said. “He told me how proud he was of me for getting the two of us help and that he was really happy I didn’t kill him. No one ever told me that before but you. Dwayne isn’t even related to me yet, and he was really proud of me. Are you going to marry him?”

  “He’s not asked. Not that I’m ready for that yet, but we’ll get to that when the timing is better.” She cuddled him next to her. “There are a lot of things we have to talk about, Jamie. Like, I have a business in New York. My contacts are there. Also, we have a place there that we’re going to be renting for the next two years. That’s a lot of money to be paying someone if we break our contract and he sues us for it.”

  “I know.” He watched the backyard for a moment, then sat up higher on the couch. “That’s a lion. A big lion, Mom.”

  “Yes, we’ve met. His name is Shed.” Jamie looked at his mom, who was so calm about meeting the big lion. “He licked my face, Jamie. All over it. I was sure he was going to eat my head, but he needed to get my scent. I think there is a panther back there as well.”

  “Who are you, and what did you do with my mom? You sound like it’s just a natural thing for you to be licked by a lion.” She said she’d been terrified at first, but then Molly helped her. “Can I meet him too? I mean—wow, a lion. I also want to see Dwayne’s cat. He told me that he’s white.”

  “I’ve not seen him yet. But Sawyer was out in the yard when we got here. I don’t know if he’s still out there, but would you like to see him if he is?” Jamie thought his mom was off her rocker. Either that, or she was taking something to have her so calm. Then she wanted him to go out into the yard with a lion? “You’re shocked at me, aren’t you?”

  “No, whatever gave you that idea?” She laughed with him. “Can I go out, really? I’ve never even had a kitten to pet. This will be epic, Mom.”

  “Let me go and see if someone is around that can take you out. I know you can walk now, Quincey told me, but you need to keep calm, and that includes you not getting overly excited about meeting a wild beast.”

  While she was gone, he thought about his mom. Sheesh, being here sure did make her calmer than he’d ever seen her.

  When she returned, she had Andi with her. She was a witch. He knew that. So when she just popped him into the backyard in a chair, he was laughing so hard he almost missed Shed coming to see him. He laid his big head on his lap as soon as Jamie said it was all right.

  “Hello, boy. My goodness, you’re beautiful.” He scratched him behind the ears. Shed closed his eyes like he was going to take a nap. “You have a lot of scars on your face, don’t you, boy? I hope you weren’t too hurt. I’d hate that for you.”

  “He was a circus animal for a while. Before that, he was a leader of a large leap in Africa. My name is Molly. My mom is Raven.” He told her he’d heard about her and the lion being her friend. “He’s teaching me how to use my magic. Also, how to defend myself against someone trying to hurt me.”

  “I took some self-defense classes in New York.” He looked at Shed again. “I don’t think my lessons and yours are the same, do you?”

  They sat in the yard for nearly an hour. After they were called into the house to get warm, Andi popped him and Molly both into the house. Jamie could have spent the rest of his life in this place and never be bored. It was that kind of home, he thought, where anyone would be welcome.

  Chapter 3

  Howie read the paper every day, and there hadn’t been a single thing about his son. That wasn’t right. The boy was his son, and he should have at least had a little bit of the news about his demise there someplace. He was just getting his meal set in front of him when a man and a woman sat down across from him.

  The man took his soup and started eating it. The woman asked for a cup of hot tea and for them to put it on his bill. When Howie reached for the soup, the man’s hand came down on his and changed into a furry paw. The claws were digging deep into his hand as the man asked the woman if she wanted to start, as he was enjoying the soup.

  “What gives you the right to come in here and take a man’s food from him? Then to hurt me like you are?” The claws dug deeper, and he cried out. “I’m going to call the cops on you. You see if I don’t.”

  The man laid a gun on the table, along with a badge. Howie felt his balls tighten up around his throat. He liked to brag that he had it in good with his fellow officers, but if given the chance, any one of them, or maybe even all of them, would shoot him where he stood. Not only would they be justified for it, but he looked for it to happen every day.

  The man finished his soup. “You’re dirty. Not only are you dirty, but somehow you’ve managed to not be in prison, Howie. Really, does a grown man liked to be called Howie? Whatever floats your boat, I guess.”

  Another couple came into the restaurant. He would have left then, but he was blocked. Cock blocked, he thought this might be called.

  “Hello, Howie. How’s it hanging? Not very well, I’m betting.” The new woman put up her fingers to show that he was less than half an inch after pushing her way into the booth on his side. “From what I’ve heard, you’re not only a pencil dick, but it’s just a nubbin too.”

  Doubling up his fist, he was hurting to smash it in her face when the man standing next to her growled, low and frightening. He looked at him when the man shoved his way into the booth as well.

  “This is a little too crowded, don’t you think? Why don’t you let me go, and we’ll have us a nice lunch some other—?” The cop across from him told him now was fine with them. “Look. This is just stupid. Tell me what it is you want, and then I’ll tell you no and be on my way. I have things to do today.”

  “You going to look up your son?” Howie stared at the woman next to him. “You don’t have any idea who I am, do you? Not a clue as to where I might have come from.”

  “No, I don’t. Should I? I’m thinking that with a body like yours, I’d remember.” The man growled again, and the claw in his hand deepened. “Fuck, that hurts. What the hell are you trying to do to me? Tear my hand off?”

  “If I wanted to do that, I would have already. Don’t ever talk to the women in this family like that again. Do I make myself clear? Or do you need another reminder on what manners are? You seemed to have forgotten them.” He shook his head. “Good. Your son. You know where he is, by any chance?”

  “No. I was here to find him. Last I heard, he was here someplace.” The woman to his right told him he was dead, along with the rest of his family. “Howard is dead? No. No, that cannot be true.”

  Even to his ears, it didn’t sound like he was the least bit upset about it. The woman to his right told him Howard’s wife had been her sister. Then it hit him. His balls were now gone. They’d crawled so far up his ass that he was sure he was going to have to have them surgically removed before he could take a shit. He’d bet right now he couldn’t even have a good fart without hurting. Swallowing hard, he asked her when she’d found out.

  “Found out? You mean that you killed him? I found out a couple of days ago. Imagine my surprise when I got to speak to Bree, and she told me you had them all locked up in a storage locker with carbon monoxide pouring into the thing.” Shaking his head, he cursed when she popped him in the back of it. “Use your words, Howie. Don’t be a lazier fuck than I know you already are.”<
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  “She has a real problem with people who take shortcuts, Howie. Like when you put your son in the car in the driver’s seat. You see, Howard couldn’t drive. He couldn’t talk or feed himself. But what was especially telling was that there wasn’t any way he could have pulled the trigger on the gun you forgot to leave behind. Howard was unable to even lift the gun. Terrible mistake, that one. He’d had a stroke, which I’m thinking will also be attributed to you, about four months ago. I believe it was right after you took all their food right out of the cabinets and fridge, then sold it off.” The man to the right of Bree’s sister smiled at him. “I did a little searching on my own, you see. And with the help of a real officer, I was able to get the right information to the police.”

  “There is no way you’d have that sort of information. They were all dead when I put them in the car.” The first woman asked him about Howard. “I killed him in the car. You people are stupid if you think I’m going to believe you spoke to them when—”

  It hit him hard that he had just confessed to killing his son. Not only that, but that he’d placed the others in the car with him. Shoving them out of his way, Howie wanted to kill them right then. But getting away so that he could think was the only thing he could actually do. He had no gun with him, nor any way to be able to kill all four of them and get away.

  The claw in his hand tore at his flesh when he stood up. Crying out, he ran from the place, holding his hand close to his body as their laughter floated after him.

  He’d been staying at a nice hotel in town, waiting for some word about his son. But now, with them knowing who he was and what he’d done, he had to hide. Stopping in the middle of the street, horns blaring around him, Howie realized he was making a mistake in letting them get to him. Yes, he’d confessed, he told himself, but who would believe them? No one.

  The badge the other man had laid out—it could have been fake for all the time he’d spent in looking it over. Nor had he been as trapped as they made him feel. Howie had been able to shove himself out of the diner quick enough. No, this was what they wanted him to do. Panic. And panicky people made huge mistakes. But it was the gun that bothered him the most.