“No, I’m not. My mom and I are just passing through.” Virginia walked away from the display, afraid now. As she went in search of her mom, a woman walked in and started to laugh loudly.
“You should see what Larson has found, Becky. The barn is full of things we can help him out with if he decides he doesn’t want all of it.” Virginia smiled at her when she told her hello. “On my, but aren’t you a beautiful woman? I bet your mother is just as pretty. You have the most gorgeous hair.”
Virginia was charmed. Not many people could put her at ease like this woman had, and in only a few seconds at that. She thanked the woman and told her how much she loved the shop. Nodding, she took her back to the display and handed her one of the many treasures on the table.
“That is from the early twenties. I had to look up what it was for. Do you know?” Virginia turned it over and over in her hand, but hadn’t any idea. “It’s a glove stretcher. I’m supposing that it happens after you wash your gloves that they might shrink, but this might be the oddest thing I’ve ever had in here. And there are a lot of odd things.”
As she showed her around, the other woman pointed out some of her favorites, and other things that she’d had to do some research on. By the time they were at the bowl and pitcher set again, the women still hadn’t introduced herself. Virginia met up with her mom just as she was headed to the counter with her own purchases.
“My goodness, Mom. You’ve bought everything.” They were all three laughing when she glanced at the clock above the cash register. “I’m so sorry, but we must go. I have an appointment in a little while. This has been such a pleasure. And if you wouldn’t mind wrapping up that display in the window, I’ll pay for it now and pick it up later.”
“An appointment?” Virginia nodded as she pulled out her credit card. “You’re Miss Basil, the author, aren’t you? I’m Bea McCullough. I have a meeting with you as well.”
Every part of Virginia wanted to run. She had no idea why, but she had a feeling that she’d been set up. Which was ridiculous. Mrs. McCullough had no idea that she was in town already, much less in her shop, but shaking the feeling had her nervous and scared.
Looking at her mom when she said her name, she felt her mind begin to close down. Her hands were shaking and she felt her breathing start to back up. The pain in her chest was heavy and scary. Just when her vision started to pinpoint, light dancing behind her eyes, she felt the sting of a slap across her face and looked at Mrs. McCullough.
“Are you all right now?” She nodded and started to step away when she felt her feet tangle up. “Hang on now. You need to get your footing right. You scared me. Just take a few deep breaths and you’ll be just fine.”
“Yes. I have panic attacks now and then.” She was seated in a firm but comfortable chair just as a bottle of water was handed to her. “My mom hasn’t ever hit me, but that worked. Thank you.”
“Like I said, you scared me. I thought you were having a heart attack. Your mom explained that you have panic attacks though.” Virginia nodded and sipped the water. “If you don’t mind me asking, why? I mean, you came here for this meeting, but you looked like you were being taken to the gallows.”
“I’m not good with change and people.” Bea sat down across from her and Virginia smiled at her. “In fact, it’s caused me quite a few problems with the business I’m in. I don’t go to signings anymore because of the way they make me feel.”
She was beginning to feel foolish and wanted to leave. But Bea, as she asked her to call her, told her to sit still, her husband was on his way. Nodding, she watched her mom at the counter as she paid for her things.
“I’m sorry you’re so nervous around people. My son, Larson, he’s like that too. He can handle a few people around him, but not a crowd. I think that’s why he works with his computer instead of going out in the public much. He has his brothers do that sort of thing for him.” Virginia asked her how many children she had. “Six boys, and now three daughters-in-law as well. My husband and I wanted a little girl so badly, so we kept trying. Then Colin started eating big people food by the time we had our last child, and we decided that we’d be better off with six boys we could feed rather than a pretty little girl to starve.”
“There is just my mom and me. She raised me all on her own when my father took a powder.” Her mom said she was enough of a handful when she joined them. “Now she and I live together, and she’s still taking care of me. When I’m working, I sort of zone out to the rest of the world, and she keeps me cleaned up and fed. And the tea coming.”
“I’ve read a few of your books. What the library has, anyway. And I’ve only just ordered the new one coming out. I’m excited to read it.” Virginia thanked her. “You should come to dinner tonight at our home and we’ll skip the meeting, that way you can get to meet my family and we can talk too. I’m to understand that you don’t want to meet your nephew. He’ll be with the nanny tonight. Too noisy with them all there. Say you’ll come over and we’ll have a party of it.”
“I don’t know.” Her mom was nodding, so she gave in. “I don’t know anything about children, Bea. Not even enough to change a diaper, much less all the other stuff that goes along with them. And as for taking care of him, I can barely take care of myself most of the time. I think he’d be better off with people that want him and will give him a good start in life.”
“You’ll be fine. And don’t worry about it, honey. I’ll send a car for you around five thirty and you can meet my clan.”
Virginia nodded and told her they’d be there. When she was back in her hotel room, she couldn’t believe she’d said yes. She needed to get her head examined.
Chapter 2
Larson was ready to call it a day when his dad came out to find him. He invited him to dinner tonight, but all he wanted to do was go home and take a long nap, about three days’ worth. But his dad wasn’t having it and told him he was going to go. Larson instead showed him the things that he’d found in the barn.
“That is the same little tile that is in the kitchen. I was thinking we’d have to pull them all up and start over, but if you have enough of them, we can just put in new ones to replace the broken ones with these.” Larson asked him if someone would be able to tell. “No. The best thing about tile is that it doesn’t fade out, but it does break. I loved that old stuff, and I’m surely glad that you can keep it. If you want.”
“I do. I’ve found some other pieces too. I think there are several boxes of the front hall tile too.” Dad went and looked at them. “You’d not believe all the stuff we’ve found. There is some really pretty china in a trunk. And kids’ toys that are older than you. And that’s not even going through a tenth of what is in here. There is furniture too, some of it I don’t have any idea what it might have been used for. I want to use as much of it as we can.”
“You find any colored glass?” He told him there were stacks of it there as well. “I can see about having some of those panels we looked at replaced if you want. I’m sure that a couple of the windows have been taken out at one point when they were too broken. It won’t be hard to have them matched up to the others, not with the glass that is already here it won’t be.”
There were trunks of not just china, but everyday wear as well. He’d unearthed some pots too, flower pots that had been put in the corner at some point and forgotten. Obviously someone had spent a great deal of money on them, they were so nice. Some even had dirt still in them. He was telling his dad about the books when he told him about the library that was in the house.
“It’s about done. We didn’t do much to it other than to make sure that the chimney was all right to use and paint it. The floors were fine too. A little buffing here and there and it’ll look good.” He nodded, wondering if he could start putting some of this stuff in the house. “What I’d do if I was you, I’d take the boxes in that room and sort them out there. That way if you want, you can spread it out on that table we left in there.” He thanked his dad. “The dining
room is gonna be the last thing we work on. Gotta wait on the windows to come in, and the pocket doors to that room are being redone. I can’t believe that someone actually boarded them over like that. And the expansions that you wanted done, they sure are going to hold a lot of family when it’s all said and done. I’m betting your mom will want something like that done at the house too.”
“I have to hit the basement. I think there are some boxes down there too. Mom is going to help me sort things out.” Dad nodded but didn’t seem to be paying attention. “Dad, what is it?”
“You should go on down there and have a look around while you can. Before we start putting things down there to paint these rooms. I mean, it’s a nice place down there. A pretty little kitchen, couple of bedrooms too. And the biggest bathroom I ever seen in an apartment setting. And it’s clean too.” Larson wondered why he hadn’t been told about it. “Well, some people might not like having that sort of space. Might mean someone wants to come and live here and you’d not like it.
“I can see that. But that doesn’t sound like something bad. I don’t have anyone in mind for that space, but I think it would be nice if one of the others wanted to spend a couple of nights here.” His dad agreed with him. “Did you see something down there? I mean, with all this other stuff I have, I don’t need any more boxes or such to go through.”
“Not as many as we found out in the barn, but there are a few. I’d just store any furniture down there until you decided what you want to keep.” He asked him if he thought there would be any mice in the house. “Don’t know, but you can bet, if there was one in there, it’s packed up and gone now, what with you being a cat. But you come on over to the house tonight. That lady author and her mom—her name is Flo, I think—is going to be there. I don’t know why your momma thought it would be good to have her come over like that, but she invited and we’re to be there.”
“Why?” He told him what mom had told him. “I know just how she feels. I don’t care for crowds either. You think she’ll be all right with us all? I could stay home and take a nap.”
“You’ll be there or I’ll take you to the shed.” There wasn’t any shed, and his dad had used that threat a great deal over the years. But he did tell him he’d be there. “And don’t go fancying yourself up either. Just dinner with the family, like usual.”
As he made his way to his apartment, he thought about the house and the treasures that he’d found. Larson wondered what he was going to do with it all when he was finished. He had about as much decorating sense as he did fashion. Neither of them were his strong, nor even poorest, suit when it came to sprucing things up, as Mrs. Frank had said. He’d just have his mom help him out with it. She could take a sow’s ear, as dad said all the time, and make it look like a winning prize.
Larson almost hated to go back to his tiny apartment, and was going to ask his dad when he could move into his home. The sooner the better as far as he was concerned. Now that he had been in the place a few times, he didn’t want to leave.
After getting a much-needed shower, he dressed in his jeans and a T-shirt. He wasn’t entirely sure what his dad had meant about not getting all fancy, but he thought he looked presentable. Getting in his car, he saw two men coming up his drive and knew that he didn’t want to be late by talking to them. So instead of waiting for them and whatever they wanted, he drove by them and headed to his mom’s. If they wanted to follow him for some reason, he had plenty of family there to back him up.
The drive over was nerve racking to him. He kept expecting a helicopter to come down on top of his car to stop him. His imagination had been running wild since Lauren had left him earlier today, and it wasn’t helping his state of mind to have people at his home.
Just as he was pulling into his parents’ drive, another car did as well. This one he knew. It was the family limo. Just as he was getting out, he saw Jon on the porch, as well as Lauren. This could not bode well for anyone. He started for the limo when the cars that had been coming up the driveway at his home were pulling into the drive, both of them with lights on inside the car rather than on the top. Lauren told him to come up on the porch, that the rest of them would help the women. As soon as he was on the steps, the men in the cars got out and pointed guns at them all.
“Christ.” He nodded at Colin when he spoke. “She’s going to kill them, I just know it. I don’t know what department they’re from, but you can bet there is going to be hell to pay when this shit is done.”
Hawkins and his other brother Parker went to the two women. As they were being escorted up the stairs to the porch, he heard his brothers explaining to them that this wasn’t a normal thing for them, to have the police here.
“Hold it right there. Nobody move.” Lauren kept walking to them, with Jon right behind her. “I said to halt. I’ll shoot you.”
“You do and that will be the last fucking thing you ever do. And I won’t make it easy on you either. Do you know who the fuck you’re waving your Johnson at, dumbass?” He said he was here to arrest one Larson McCullough. “You think you can answer my fucking question? I didn’t ask you what you were here for, I asked you if you knew who you were pointing that fucking firearm at.”
“Him.” That didn’t seem to satisfy Lauren, so she told them who she was. The guy paled, then put his gun back at his side. Whoever had told him about Lauren, they’d scared the man enough that he was backing away from her. “They didn’t tell us you’d be here, ma’am, nor that he was related to you.”
“So, you come into a situation blind and then pull a gun on several people, most of which are related to me, without knowing shit. You fucking moron, what the hell do you think the president is going to say when I tell him?” He asked if she was going to tell him. “Of course I am. Just as soon as you get your ass back in your cars and get the fuck away from here. And if you ever come onto a property again where there are civilians and pull your weapon, I’m going to personally see that it’s inserted up your tiny dick so that it’ll go off every time you take a piss.”
Larson heard his mom sigh and he had to laugh. Getting Lauren to stop cursing had been his mom’s greatest failure. Not that she’d admit it, but Lauren did have a way with words. And he secretly thought she was spicing things up a little, just to be pissy. He did so love this woman.
“He was running off when we came to arrest him.” She turned to him as the man spoke. “We gave chase and he ended up here.”
“I was in my car when they pulled in. I just thought they were turning around. It happens.” No, it didn’t. He lived too far off the beaten path for that. “As for running off? I had no idea they were coming after me. No one said anything, nor did they have lights or anything else to indicate that they were there for me.”
Lauren turned back to the men again. Even from where he was he could see that the man who had done all the talking up until now was embarrassed. And when she asked him if what Larson had said was true, he nodded. Of course, she told him to speak when spoken to.
“Yeah, I can see where he might not have known we was there for him.” He looked at him then. “But we’re to take him in for questioning. There is some money missing.”
“Do you have a warrant? Perhaps something more than someone telling you that you needed to come here?” The paperwork was given to her. “This is bullshit. None of this is even filled out properly. There isn’t a name on this. The signature isn’t right either. Who gave you this?”
“Mr. Wells. He said that he got it from the station house and that we were to enforce it.” Lauren told them that they weren’t going to be able to get this to stand up in court if they did that. “I don’t know, ma’am. I was told to gather my men, go to get him, and to bring him to the jail.”
“You try and take anyone from this family into that mess of a jail, and I will have your head.” He nodded and moved back from her. Larson might have laughed if he wasn’t trying so hard to look serious. “Get yourself back in that car and get the fuck out of here. And if y
ou try this shit again I’ll call my boss, and you know as well as I that he won’t suffer fools as nicely as I do.”
Larson felt someone staring at him and looked at the woman that had arrived when he had. She was across the porch from him, too far away for him to speak to her, but she continued to stare at him. When he smiled, she seemed to realize what she was doing and her face pinked up nicely, and he smiled bigger. It had been a long time since a woman had looked at him like she had.
The fight between Lauren and the man continued. He was only listening with half an ear. Wells had sent these men to get him. Larson wondered what might have happened to him once they got him to the station. It would be smart of him, he thought, to watch himself, more so than Lauren had suggested. Wells seemed to think that he’d done something wrong, and he wasn’t sure that he’d come out on top of this if he was to be caught by the man. Not that he could die, but pain was pain no matter what was now in his body.
“You all right?” He looked at his dad and said that he was. “Them men, they here for that mess up on that poor man Simmons? What’s his beef with you?”
“He called my office today, while Lauren was there. He admitted that he’d killed them for the money, and wants me to return the stocks and the money to his account. I don’t know what Tom did with the cash—it was a nice sum—but apparently Wells thinks it’s all his, and he even admitted to me that he was going to be in the will. Lauren said to watch my back.”
“You’d better. I don’t know that man, but I did Simmons. Good man, and his wife was in the rose club with your momma. Those kids of his, are they safe?” Larson told him that Lauren was watching out for them. “Then they’re as safe as babes in a cradle.”
She was staring at him again. While he wasn’t sure what was going on, he made his way to her. Even before he was within touching distance, it hit him. Not just her scent, but what she was to him. Mother fuckballs. The stranger was his mate.
Larson: McCullough’s Jamboree – Erotic Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance Page 2
