by C. D. Hersh
“Sorry. Long day. Not much sleep last night, and I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
Slipping under his arm, she snuggled close to him. “I wasn’t planning on much sleep tonight, either. If you’re staying.” Batting her eyelashes, she gave him a saucy smile. “Dinner’s in the oven. We’ve got time, if you want.”
“I want, but can we just talk?” He extricated his arm from her and squared her body to his so he could see her face.
“You look serious.”
“What I have to say is serious.”
She straightened and gazed into his eyes. “Shoot.”
“Last night what did I say to you?”
Eyes narrowed, she tipped her head toward her chin. “Besides Oh, baby! Yes! Yes! and Do it harder?”
His face heated like a furnace. What a jerk! He would never say that when he made love to a woman. “Not the sex talk. I meant real conversation.”
“You were too busy grunting and rutting. Not that I minded, really. It was good for me.”
The flush burned down his neck. If that’s what she wanted a man to do she would be so let down by him.
Disappointment flooded her expression. “Oh, God! You’re sorry about what happened.”
“No,” he said, trying to reassure her. “I would have . . . in time . . . but not like he—” Clamping his jaw shut, he stopped any more confusing words from tumbling out.
A rollercoaster of emotions raced over LJ’s features, the jerky ride ending in pain-filled eyes. Looking away, she said, “You don’t remember a thing, do you?”
“I . . . umm . . .” He tried to find the words, but couldn’t. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he simply said, “No.”
“Were you drugged? High on something?”
Still trying to find the words to tell her the truth, he shook his head and whispered, “No.” He hated that he was in this situation and wanted their first time to be memorable for a different reason.
The pain on her face twisted to anger. “All those sweet things you said were lies? You don’t love me? You don’t want me to have your baby?”
“I said that?”
“Ah ha! So you admit it.” A glimmer of expectation sparked in her eyes.
“No. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Damn it, Hugh! What are you saying?”
“It wasn’t me last night.”
“What?” LJ reared back away from him, her body stiff, her face wreathed in anger. She smacked him and jumped up from the sofa. “Get out! If you don’t want me, at least be man enough to say so. I don’t need you to ease the blow with some stupid story.”
He yanked her back down and held her squirming body against his. “I want to be with you. But I wasn’t last night. Someone impersonated me to get to you.”
Upon hearing the last sentence, she stilled.
Taking a shaky breath, he continued, “I don’t know who or why, but I do know he’s not a good guy.”
Pulling back, she frowned at him, the creases between her eyes nearly meeting. “I touched him. Kissed his face. It didn’t feel like a mask.”
“He wasn’t wearing a mask.”
“Do you mean he was surgically altered? Who would do that?”
“Altered, but not in a way you’ll understand . . . or believe.”
When he didn’t explain right away, she jabbed him in the chest with her index finger. “Don’t leave me hanging. Tell me.”
“He’s a shape shifter.”
Leaping from the sofa, she crossed to the other side of the room and paced. Suddenly, she removed her shoe and hurled it at him. Deflecting the missile, he rose and moved toward her. LJ held out her arms, warning him to stay put. When he kept coming, she pulled off the other shoe and waved it menacingly in the air.
“You must think I’m an idiot.”
“I think you’re in danger. I feel responsible because he’s mimicking me. We need to figure out a code word in case he comes back. I need to protect you.”
She hurled the other shoe and it hit a lamp, knocking it to the floor. The light bulb exploded with a pop. Hugh whirled around and pulled out his gun.
With a gasp, she ordered him out of the house. “I don’t need your protection,” she yelled as he gathered his coat and hat. “I can take care of myself.”
“No, you can’t. Don’t let anyone in unless they say . . . pretty boy . . . so you’ll know it’s me.” He rushed out, latching the doorknob handle as he left.
To convince this fireball, he had to shock her into believing. He hoped his plan wouldn’t put her into AFib.
“That was fast,” Hugh said when Alexi, Mary Kate, and Eli exited their car.
“A slow day at the precinct so we could get away.” Leaves crunched underfoot, releasing an autumnal smell as Alexi crossed the easement from the street to the sidewalk where Hugh waited. A red maple leaf swirled in the air and landed on her shoulder. She plucked it off and discarded it onto the leaf-littered ground.
“Why is Eli here?” Hugh asked.
“When I told him your plan, he thought it best to come along.”
“Mayhap I’ll see or hear something that ’twill give us an idea o’ why this shifter ’tis sae keen tae bed the lassie. After all, I do ken a lot aboot the shifter world, guid and bad.”
“You sure this is the way you want to do this?” Hugh’s bold plan to convince LJ shifters existed had shocked Alexi. A full on revelation often backfired. Humans needed time to get used to the idea.
“I’ve only known her a short while, but I’m convinced she won’t believe unless she sees it. We have to make her believe right now. With this terrorist business going on I can’t watch her 24/7. Showing her is the only way I know to protect her from whatever this rogue has in mind.”
“From the words you said he used, I’m betting he’s after a child,” Mary Kate said. “Have my baby? Come on. No man who wants a good time ever says that. Would you?”
“No.” Hugh scrubbed his jaw. “None of this makes any sense.”
“Doesn’t have to. We’re dealing with rogues.” Alexi tipped her head, her eyes searching his. “You know you’re not obligated to protect her if she doesn’t want you to.”
“I am.”
“Seems like you’re getting in pretty deep with someone you don’t know very well,” Mary Kate said.
“Yes, but you don’t need to know a person a long time to form a relationship. Haven’t you heard of love at first sight?”
Shrugging, Mary Kate faced Alexi. “Do you want to mimic him?”
“You be Hugh. I’ll keep my own persona.”
“Don’t forget to say the password pretty boy. I told her I’d use it so she’d know it was me,” he said.
Nodding, Mary Kate surveyed the empty street then morphed into Hugh. Glancing down at her clothes, she frowned. “Give me your coat and hat,” she instructed in a voice which perfectly matched the timbre of Hugh’s. “She might wonder about different clothes.”
“I will never get used to that,” he said as he removed the articles she requested. “Not in a million years. I didn’t expect the voice to match so well.”
“Mary Kate has a talent fer that sorta thing,” Eli said, beaming like a proud father. “’Tis come in handy a time or two.”
“I’ll wait outside until you give me the signal,” Hugh said to Alexi. “I’ve got 911 on speed dial in case we give her a heart attack.”
“Let’s pray we don’t.” Alexi led the way toward the door while Hugh hid behind a large oak tree trunk.
As soon as she’d rung the bell, the door flew open. “I told you to get out,” an angry LJ yelled.
Mary Kate shoved the door open and strode through, ignoring LJ’s frantic grab at her arm. “You didn’t ask for the pass
word,” she scolded as Alexi and Eli made their way into the front hall. “I told you it was important to your safety.”
“Who are these people?” LJ demanded.
“Friends who have come to help me show you the truth.” Indicating Eli and Alexi, Mary Kate said, “This is Eli, head of the Turning Stone Society and Alexi.” When LJ didn’t move, she said, “Close the door, please. You don’t want the neighbors to see.”
Opening the door even farther, LJ scowled at the trio. “Get out. I don’t want to see you or your friends, Hugh.”
Stepping toward her, Mary Kate shut the door and then turned and nodded to Eli. In a flash, the pair changed personas. Eli becoming Hugh and Mary Kate transforming into Alexi.
LJ stumbled backwards and hit the entry table, eyes rounded in horror. “What . . . what just happened?”
“Shape shifters,” Alexi said. “Remember how Hugh told you to not let anyone in who didn’t have the password?”
LJ nodded.
“This is why.” At the wave of her hand, Eli and Mary Kate exchanged personas again.
LJ slid down the wall. Eli morphed back into himself and helped her to her feet. Alexi led her into the living room and settled her gently on the couch.
When Eli opened the door Hugh dashed in, anxious to see what had happened with LJ. “How did she take it?” he asked, his gaze cutting between Eli and Mary Kate.
“Not well,” Mary Kate said.
As the trio went into the living room, Mary Kate and Eli took Hugh’s form and stood in front of a near fainting LJ.
At the sight of LJ lying on the couch, almost as pale as milk, Hugh panicked. Perhaps he’d been too hard on her. Then he remembered her stubbornness. She deserved the shock. “What’s the password,” he asked.
“I need an aspirin,” LJ moaned, laying her arm over her forehead. “No. A stiff drink.” She peered out from under her forearm. “Three stiff drinks. One for each of these figments of my imagination.”
Kneeling beside the couch, he pressed her once more for the password.
“You tell me,” she said in a shaky voice.
Leaning in close, he whispered, “Pretty boy.”
Her eyes flew open, and she grabbed Hugh around the neck. “Make them go away,” she pleaded.
Extricating her arms from around his neck, he indicated LJ should look at Eli and Mary Kate. As they shifted back into their normal personas, she eeked and hugged him again. Her whole body shook like leaves on a tree in a summer storm.
“She’s had enough, Hugh,” Alexi said. Motioning to Mary Kate, she took a seat across the room. Mary Kate sat, while Eli roamed around looking at the photographs.
“Do you believe me now?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to believe.” LJ sat, tucking her feet under her and stared at Alexi and Mary Kate. “You’re sure these . . .”
“Shape shifters.” Alexi supplied the missing word.
“. . . these people are trustworthy?”
“Solid as rocks. Not like the one who impersonated me.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because we don’t go around screwing other people’s mates mimicked as someone else.” Mary Kate’s voice had a don’t-malign-us edge to it. “That’s not how we use our powers.”
LJ’s head bobbed back at Mary Kate’s sharp retort. “Excuse me.” The tone clearly said up yours.
Fists curled, Mary Kate rose from her seat. Alexi waved her down. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to insult us. This isn’t an easy situation.”
Slumping back against the couch cushions, LJ moaned, “No joke. It’s not every day you learn you slept with the wrong man.”
“I hope you don’t mean I’m the wrong man, because there’s something I have to ask you since I’m still kneeling.” Grasping her hands in his, he said, “Will you marry me?”
LJ jerked upright, her eyes rounding until the whites showed all around the irises. Surprise, terror, excitement, and confusion flashed across her face, followed by disbelief.
“We’ve never . . . except when you weren’t you . . . slept together. How can you think about marrying me?”
“Our parents’ generation and their parents got married without sleeping together first. They just knew they were in love.”
“You’ve never even said you love me . . . well, except when you weren’t who you really were . . . and now you want to marry me?”
“He said he loved you?”
LJ slapped at him with both hands as if beating a bongo drum. “What kind of girl do you think I am? I don’t mess around with just any man. Of course you . . . he . . . said it. I wouldn’t have done what we . . . I . . . did if you . . . he hadn’t.” She locked her hands behind her head, covering her ears with her arms and rocked back and forth. “I’m so confused!” she wailed.
From the opposite side of the room where he perused the bookshelves, Eli said matter-of-factly, “I dinna see what’s sae confusing aboot it. Ye cared enough aboot the man tae bed him, and he cares enough aboot ye tae ask fer yer hand. ’Tis as simple as that. Besides, if yer in the family way, marrying Hugh right away ’tis the best way tae protect yer bairn from the rogue shifter.”
“Pregnant? Why would you think I’m pregnant?”
“I dinna. However, tae my way o’ thinking a man has only two things on his mind when he beds a woman: sex or a family. Seeing as he did ask ye tae have his bairn, I’m betting on that one.”
“You told them?” She swung a fist at Hugh.
He caught her punch in his hand. “They needed to know in order to help me figure out why he did this.”
“So you decided to ask me to marry you because of a not-yet-existing baby?”
“I asked because I need to protect you and this is the only way I can think to do it.” When her fierce expression didn’t change, he added, “I love you, LJ.”
Yanking her hand from his, she crossed her arms and scowled. “You could have said that first.”
“Please, LJ. Marry me. I love you, and I need to protect you. Want to protect you. If we discover you aren’t pregnant, I’ll give you a divorce, if you want.”
“Why don’t we just wait? If I’m pregnant then I’ll marry you.”
“Ye canna wait.” Eli approached with an open book in his hands and determination on his face. “Who’s yer mither, lassie?”
“What’s my mother got to do with this?”
Tapping a gnarled finger on the page, Eli said, “Mayhap a lot.” He snapped the book shut and dust rose from the pages. “I found this on yer bookshelves. ’Twas a clean line in the dust in front o’ the book, indicating it had been removed from the shelf recently. Have ye looked at the volume lately?”
“Not in years. My grandmother was the genealogist of the family.”
“Well, someone has.” Eli re-opened the book and set it on the coffee table in front of the couch. “This is yer mither’s family line.”
As he traced his finger down the page, Alexi gasped. “McCraigen. She’s a McCraigen.”
“If the shifter who came tae her was Falhman, we have a reason fer his mimicking Hugh.”
“What reason?” Hugh asked. “How does genealogy give this Falhman a reason for mimicking me?”
“Who’s Falhman?” LJ asked. “And why would he want to make a child with me?”
“He’s the kingpin o’ the rogue shifters. As bad a man as ye’d ever want tae meet. Mayhap he saw LJ’s attraction tae Hugh and decided tae use him tae get intae bed with a McCraigen and produce another like Rhys or Roc.”
“That’s a stretch,” Hugh said. “We can’t prove he was Falhman.”
“Aye. I canna prove it anymair than I can see the wind, but I know ’tis there.” Eli picked up the book and clapped it shut. “As soon as ye can get
the license ye must marry. If ye are with child, he’ll come fer the babe as soon as he knows.”
LJ clutched her stomach. “He’d take my baby?”
“In a hirtbeat. The only way tae protect ye and the child is tae make sure he believes it belongs tae Hugh. I have a contact at University Hospital. When the time comes, ye’ll have the bairn there. We’ll fix the papers tae match Hugh’s blood and DNA. He’ll never find yer babe, lassie. I’ll promise.”
“Why don’t I just go to another city?”
“Because there are rogue shifters everywhere. Ye need the cover o’ the marriage tae Hugh tae make Falhman think any bairn ye might have from the union with him ’tis nae his.”
“Do you see why I’m so concerned?” Hugh asked.
“Yes.”
“Will you marry me?”
Throwing herself into Hugh’s arms, she whispered, “Yes.”
He held her trembling body, hoping Eli’s promise would hold true.
Chapter 31
When Alexi and Rhys arrived at the coffee shop, Alexi spotted Fiona sitting with her back against the wall and a steaming cup in front of her. When she saw them, she waved, her lips pressed together in a tight smile.
“She’s nervous,” Rhys said. “I can feel it from here.” He wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans.
“Seems like you are, too.” Alexi gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Relax. It will be fine. She’s not Roc. She’s not a rogue. You don’t have to drag her from the dark side into the light.”
She hoped her words sounded more confident than she felt. As much as she wanted to believe in Rhys’ family, his experiences so far hadn’t been great. Dead, albeit wonderful, adoptive parents. A kingpin of the rogue underworld birth father. A mother who had given her sons up for adoption and run away from their father. A rogue, shape shifter, twin brother. And now a sister who had been hidden away. One out of five. Bad odds.
