Wild

by Foster, Lori

  He moaned again. “Please.”

  “Jesus,” Joe said with loathing. “They don’t make ’em very tough in Thomasville, do they? All this pleading and whining is about to make me puke.”

  “He saved us,” Tamara protested, ready to defend her number-one client.

  “No.” Zane narrowed his eyes. “I have the feeling Arkin was saving the journal.”

  “It’s true.” Arkin opened his eyes long enough to look at Tamara. “I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry.”

  Pulling away from Luna, Tamara went to him. She knelt down next to Zane and slipped her hand in his. He clasped her fingers warmly.

  “Sorry for what, exactly?” she asked.

  “I....” He choked, swallowed hard, then continued. “I’m the one you saw that night in the ski mask.” In a rush, he added, “I wasn’t chasing you, I swear. I was just looking for the journal. But then you came back early and....” He managed a shrug and a self-conscious smile. “We both had quite a shock.”

  “And the other night?” Zane asked. “You’re the one who cut the electricity?”

  “Yes.” He turned his head away, hiding his shame and shutting out Zane’s contempt. “I heard her tell Boris she was going out. I didn’t think anyone would be at home. I’d already checked everywhere downstairs and couldn’t find the journal.”

  “So,” Tamara said, “you realized I’d taken it upstairs and you were going to steal it from me?”

  “Yes. You told me you had it upstairs, when we talked about....”

  “The lady you’re in love with,” Tamara said as the truth dawned.

  “How the hell did you get in?” Zane wasn’t over the edge enough to batter a man already shot, a man with tears in his eyes, a man curled up like a damn baby. But—he wanted to.

  “The Realtor selling her place. I stole the key from him, had a copy made, and then returned it.”

  “You wanna tell me how you managed that?” Zane tried to keep his tone even for Tamara’s sake. She looked more shocked than ever.

  “I know him. The Realtor, I mean. We went to college together.”

  Somewhere behind Zane, Joe laughed. “Tidy.”

  “Do you mind?” Zane wondered how the hell Joe could be enjoying himself now, but it was plain to see he was having a ball. He always had been a man who thrived on trouble..

  “My rearranged books.” Tamara whispered the words more as a statement than a question.

  “That was me.” Arkin added in a heartfelt rush, “The journal should have been mine. Felicia was such a dear friend, such a lovely woman. I taught her piano, you know.”

  Zane and Joe shared a look, but Tamara had all her attention on Arkin. “You were friends?”

  “Yes. She told me about her journal, and promised to share it with me. Like you, she understood me.”

  Zane turned. “You said there was a note in her safety-deposit box, Sandor. Is that who she left it to? Arkin Devane?”

  “I don’t remember, damn it.”

  Joe said, “My trigger finger is twitching. Look at that! Damn, I can barely keep from—”

  Discolored eyes opening wide, Boris said, “Yes! Yes, it was Arkin Devane.”

  Arkin’s pain-filled expression softened, his body relaxing for the first time since he’d been shot. “She knew I was falling in love,” he whispered to no one in particular, “but that I needed some ... help. She promised to give me the journal. Then she died and Boris”—Arkin managed to raise his head enough to glare at the other man —“had all her things sold, everything, even her most prized possessions. Suddenly everything she valued had been handed off to strangers.”

  “The estate sale,” Tamara said.

  “Yes. I tried to buy the journal, but it had been packed away with the rest of her library, and you bought it all.”

  “Like Sandor, you got that information from the estate sale company?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s why you sought me out, why you started coming to me.”

  He nodded, looking more miserable by the second.

  “Why didn’t you just ask me for it outright, Arkin?” And then, with some hurt, “I thought we had become friends.”

  “We are friends!” He gulped, and more tears gathered in his eyes. “You’re one of the kindest women I know. But Felicia had kept the book private. If I started asking about it, if I mentioned it to anyone, others might have discovered it. The scandal she’d so hoped to avoid might still have come about. She didn’t deserve that. She’d already been so badly mistreated by her family.”

  “Boris and his relatives?” Zane asked.

  “Yes. They never understood her. She’d shamed them merely by being her own woman, and they’d disowned her. I almost had a heart attack when you had that flood”—Boris got another glare, this one even darker—“and you threw away all those boxes of things. I was so afraid it was gone forever, and then you mentioned it to me and you were sharing it with me. I knew it was upstairs, and I tried one last time to get it. But then we talked more, and I ... well, I realized that I didn’t need to steal it, not from you. I didn’t use the key again after that.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “You understood. You read Felicia’s journal with the same emotion and acceptance as I’d have given it.”

  Zane dropped back on his behind with a curse. “I don’t believe it. All this over a journal.”

  Boris groaned. “She was a blight on the family. I had to recover and destroy that damn book before my in-laws found out, before good men got ruined, before—”

  Joe nudged him with the toe of his boot. “I hear the police coming up the stairs. Looks like you won’t have to worry about any of that after all.”

  But it wasn’t the police who came barreling through the door. Cole and Mack stumbled into the room, their gazes searching, frantic. When they spotted Zane, Tamara at his side, both of them healthy and whole, they slumped against each other, wheezing and gasping for air.

  Zane caught Tamara’s arm and helped her to stand. “What are you two doing here?”

  Cole, his hands on his knees while he bent forward, trying to catch his breath, nodded toward Luna. “She called us. She saw Boris sneaking in and told us she had a bad feeling.”

  Mack did his own huffing and gulping, and now flopped limply against the wall. “Her bad feeling gave me a bad feeling,” he said, “and we got here as fast as we could. Of course, we ran into the damn police, sirens blaring, on the way.”

  “Which only worried us more.”

  Smiling, Tamara went to each brother and hugged him. “Thank you.”

  “Chase came, too,” Cole told them, finally able to straighten on his shaky legs enough to put his arm around Tamara. Mack crowded in on her other side. “But there was a group of customers milling around your parking lot looking confused, so he went to check things out there.”

  “Oh hell.” Joe jerked upright. “I left your place empty when Luna told me what was going on.”

  Zane hesitated only a moment, and then he reached for Joe. Taking him completely by surprise, he pulled his cousin into a tight bear hug. “I’m glad you did, Joe. Thanks.”

  At that moment the police charged into the room, weapons at the ready. Joe turned to them and said, “Here, you better take this gun.” He grinned stupidly, wavered, then clutched his bare chest. “I think I’m going to have a heart attack.”

  The bar was crowded when Tamara wended her way through the door. She heard a laugh and lifted her head, seeing Zane on a bar stool, sipping from a steaming mug. Cole, holding his baby niece, Sammy, against his shoulder, chatted with Zane while Chase alternately served drinks to the customers and joined in. It took her only a moment to locate Mack, situated at a nearby table with Trista, his teenage daughter. Joe was seated there, too, cuddling baby Nate, with the wives positioned around him. Her heart gave a funny little catch at seeing them all together.

  Poignant regret. Pain, smothering and stark. And a silly flare of hope.

  S
he stopped, attempting to gather her thoughts, to shore up her weak female emotions so she wouldn’t embarrass herself. In that instant, Zane looked up and his smile lit up the room.

  He smiled at something Cole said and started her way. Tamara watched the women watching him. Two called out to him, making him pause. Another grabbed his arm; he leaned down to listen, then laughed.

  Within thirty seconds, he stood before her. His welcome, his warmth and his scent wrapped around her in comforting familiarity.

  It had been two weeks since the awful debacle at her home. In that time the bloodstained carpet in the living room had been replaced, the bullet hole in the ceiling from the first gunshot had been repaired. And Zane had all but moved in with her.

  Just that morning he’d sat on the edge of the tub and watched her put on her makeup. He’d made them coffee and she’d fixed toast. He’d kissed her good-bye at her front door, then sauntered across the lot to his store. It had all seemed so domestic, so ... lasting.

  Tamara reached up and touched his face. “Hi.”

  He tilted his head. “You’re a little late,” he said softly. “My brothers have been razzing me about getting stood up.”

  Tamara dropped her gaze to his throat. “No woman in her right mind would ever stand you up, and you know it.”

  With one finger beneath her chin, he lifted her face again. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  She drew a deep breath, prepared to tell him. And suddenly Joe was there, hooking an arm through hers and dragging her to the bar where the others waited. He balanced year-old Nate in his other arm. The baby had dark hair, vivid blue eyes, and looked like he could have been Joe’s son instead of Cole’s. Nate chuckled happily as Joe made him bounce.

  Trista, Mack’s daughter, leaned into his side while Chase refilled all their mugs of hot chocolate. The women had left the table and were now in various positions with their husbands. Zane trailed indulgently behind her as Joe stole her away.

  Pretending to be gallant, Joe brushed away imaginary dust on a stool right in the middle of the family clan, then, despite Nate’s sturdy little body, he bowed. “Take a seat.”

  Zane slid into place beside her, not saying a word but giving Joe a look that plainly told him to seat himself elsewhere.

  Joe just grinned. “Pretend all you want, Zane. But I’m on to you now. You’re crazy nuts about me. Hell, I may even be your favorite cousin.”

  Zane rolled his eyes. It amused Tamara how Joe now needled him endlessly, ever since that ill-advised hug, and Zane complained every single time.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Tamara told them all, still a little bemused by the attention they bestowed on her.

  Sophie crowded closer. “So what did you decide to do with the journal? Zane said you’d made a decision, but wouldn’t even give us a clue.”

  Tamara glanced at him behind her, then cleared her throat. “That’s probably because he disagrees with me. But I gave it to Arkin. It was rightfully his all along, and he never did any damage to my place.”

  Zane, clearly disgusted by her choice, said, “She even forgives him. Can you believe that? It was bad enough that she didn’t want to press charges, but—”

  “He did save your asses,” Mack pointed out.

  Jessica objected. “I think Joe had as much to do with that as Arkin.”

  “Yeah,” Cole said, “all Arkin did was get shot.”

  “And that saved Zane from getting shot,” Tamara pointed out, “because he was just about ready to jump Boris himself.” Tamara nodded when they all stared at her. “It’s true.”

  Joe shifted the baby against his chest. His dark blue eyes warmed on her face. “How do you know what Zane was going to do?”

  She faltered. No way would she tell them she was empathic. She merely shook her head.

  Allison sniffed. “Everyone knows a woman in love is attuned to her man.”

  Chase reached over the bar and stroked her cheek with one finger. “And husbands are attuned to their wives, too.”

  Allison grinned shamelessly while Mack and Cole said, “Hear, hear.”

  Joe shook his head. “Any man worth his salt knows what a woman wants and how she thinks. Especially at select times—like in bed.”

  Zane groaned. “For a man bent on staying a bachelor, you sure seem to enjoy holding the babies.”

  “Other people’s babies,” Joe said, putting emphasis on the first word. “They’re great to hold and cuddle—and then hand back to their papas.” To demonstrate, he started to hand Nate over to Cole. But Nate had other ideas, and knotted his chubby fists in Joe’s hair, just over his temples. Joe yelped, then gave up with a laugh.

  “You should get a haircut,” Zane suggested, but Joe pretended not to hear him while he went about growling into Nate’s neck.

  Propping his arms on the bar, Chase brought the conversation back around. “Olga and Eva are pretty downcast that it was Boris, not a ghost.”

  A genuine smile found its way past Tamara’s sadness. “I know. Aunt Olga feels guilty that she blamed poor Uncle Hubert for Boris’s misdeeds. Now she’s certain he’ll come haunt her for discrediting him.”

  They all laughed, but Chase said, “Hmm. I wonder.”

  Zane bent to her ear. “So where were you? I was starting to get worried.”

  Knowing she couldn’t put it off any longer, Tamara turned to face Zane. It was cowardly of her, but she preferred to share her news right here, among his family, where she knew she couldn’t break down and cry and embarrass them both.

  Forcing a smile that hurt, she said, “My Realtor called.”

  Zane hesitated in the act of picking up his hot chocolate. After just a second, he took a healthy swallow and set the mug back down. “Is that right? What did he have to say?”

  Hoping she looked happy rather than despondent, Tamara said, “I was offered my full asking price.”

  Though noise continued in the bar, everyone around Tamara had gone silent. The brothers exchanged worried glances and Joe ducked his head, whistling low. The wives were all staring at Zane, waiting to see what he’d do.

  He narrowed his eyes on Tamara. “I assume you turned it down.”

  “I ... no.” Holding a smile was nearly impossible. Her eyes burned. “I told him I’d have to get back to him.”

  “There’s no reason for you to sell, you know.” Nervously pushing her hair behind her ears, she stammered, “My finances are....”

  Zane cupped her cheek and repeated, “There’s no reason for you to sell. Not now.”

  His meaning dawned on her. “We’ve been over that, Zane. I won’t take a loan from you.”

  “You won’t have to. Now that I’ve moved in, I can pay my share. That’ll cut your expenses in half, right?”

  Tamara glanced around her. Not a single one of his family made any pretense about listening in. They were engrossed.

  Her throat felt tight, and she cleared it. “You intend to ... keep living with me?”

  “Damn right.”

  “But....” She wasn’t sure what to say. Everything was up in the air, nothing was settled.

  “You could be pregnant.”

  His statement caused a stir of whispers and inhalations among his family. Tamara scowled at him. “I’m not.”

  Zane shifted. He looked down at the floor, at the ceiling. He propped his hands on his hips and made a sound of disgust.

  Joe bit back a laugh, which seemed to galvanize Zane. He pierced Tamara with a look and said, “You could love me.”

  She caught her breath. It hit her—everything he was feeling, everything he thought, the depth of his emotion. She couldn’t seem to drag in enough air for her starved lungs. Tears stung her eyes, overflowed, and she smiled. “I do.”

  This time Joe went ahead and laughed, a big whooping laugh. Chase snatched Nate out of his arms and Mack shoved him right off his bar stool.

  Zane never even bothered to glance his way. “I love you, too,” he said to Tamara.

  A
nd she whispered back, “I know. Now.”

  As Zane pulled Tamara close for a heated kiss, Mack looked on and rubbed his hands. “Well, then, there you go. It’s all settled.”

  Epilogue

  “She’s beautiful.”

  “Yes. She’d have looked even prettier if she’d worn the red dress.”

  “Perhaps. And a tad more makeup.”

  Thanos hushed Olga and Eva. “She couldn’t wear red to a wedding, even if it was the dress you both wore.”

  “Antique lace and hand stitching. It’d have to be taken in some for her.”

  “Especially in the bust,” Olga agreed, “because we are more endowed than our little Gypsy, but still—”

  “But it wouldn’t have been appropriate,” Thanos insisted, “not for Tamara.”

  Eva sniffed. “A Tremayne can do as she pleases.”

  He agreed, and said with a grin, “She did that.”

  Tamara heard her relatives whispering, but she didn’t mind. They’d taken her marriage to Zane rather well. According to Eva, Zane was just outrageous enough to please their free spirits.

  Thanos had given her away, looking extremely dapper in his tux, his beard trimmed and his smile bright and proud. The aunts stood together as mothers of the bride, alternately crying and whispering since the music started.

  Tamara felt wrapped in a cocoon of love, the emotions emanating from her relatives, her soon-to-be in-laws, and the incredibly handsome groom.

  To her side, Luna stood as maid of honor, with Sophie, Allison, and Jessica lined up as bridesmaids. Next to Zane, Cole was best man, with Mack and Chase and Joe in line behind him. The minister kept things blessedly short, which was good since her heart was so full, she had a hard time concentrating.

  Zane touched her chin. “I do.”

  She stared at him, sighed, and said, “I know you do.”

  Cole choked, which prompted a round of masculine coughs. Tamara’s aunts twittered in delight, and Thanos let out a booming chuckle.

  Zane grinned at her. “Almost your turn, sweetheart.”

  “Oh!” She knew her face was red, but fortunately the veil hid it.

  When asked if she took Zane as her husband, she managed to say quite properly, “I do.”