Joshua_The Whitfield Rancher_Erotic Tiger Shapeshifter Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  “Whatever you need, Josh, you know that.” He did and told her that. “I think you should be thinking about taking over this firm like I spoke to you about a few months ago. I’m too old for this shit too.”

  “I love working for you. I don’t know how I’d be as a boss.” She told him he’d be as good at that as he was at whatever he set his mind to. “Maybe, but I need some time to get my head together. And Adam and I are opening this greenhouse, and I’d like to get a good start on that as well.”

  “But you will come back to me, right?” He said that was his plan, but the more he thought about it, the more he was thinking he’d not go back at all. “Tell me how long you’ll need, and I’ll put you in for your vacation and such. I think you must have amassed about a month.”

  “Two, I think. And you don’t have to pay me for all of that. Just about a month of it for now. I don’t want to hurt you while I’m trying to figure out my life.” He saw his grandda coming toward him in the old truck. “Thanks, Carol. If you need me, just call. And if I can help you out I will, but I’m seriously in need of some me time.”

  When they were together, they hugged as they usually did. He’d been gone longer than he’d thought he would be and was glad to see him. After telling him about his last client, they both had a good laugh about it. Then Grandda turned serious.

  “I brought home these two women with us.” He asked if Grandma knew. “It ain’t like that, you turd head. They’re in trouble, and there might be a bit more to it than just saving them. One of them is purely scary in what she can do. Not that she’d hurt me or any of you, but they want her.”

  “Who does? And you know that we’ll help them in any way that we can. But what do you mean, scary with what she can do? You mean kick ass, like Dylan and Sunny?” He said it was magical. “I understand that, Grandda, but that doesn’t tell me very much.”

  “She said that she can kill someone halfway around the world and not leave her chair. That she can lift up cars and throw them should she need to.” Josh didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure that he believed his grandda; not that he’d lie to him, but the girl might have to him. He asked him if he’d seen her do it. “No. You can’t just kill someone like that for a demonstration, now can you? And what do you think would happen if she was to toss a car around like it was nothing but one of them toys that them boys of Evans plays with?”

  “Okay, you have a point. But she might be telling you a tale.” Grandda just glared at him. “I don’t know why you’re upset with me—if you believe in her, that’s great. But I’ll hold out for proof.”

  “Her momma and daddy are coming to get them. They’ll use Rachel to get to Carter. That’s their names, Carter and Rachel Compton. Carter is the one that is all powerful. Rachel is a human. She knows a little of what her sister can do, and her parents know some too, but not all, I’m betting.” He asked him why they needed them if she had all this power. “Joshua, you’re getting on my last bit of nerves. I’m a knight to them, and I want you to help me by being my steed.”

  “Oh, so I’m to be the horse in all this.” Grandda laughed when he did. “Really, what she told you could be a fabrication of a sick mind. Is this the family that Dylan went out there to get? Does she know what’s happening with this girl?”

  Josh had it in his head that she was just that, a little girl. The other sister was someone that went to school with Dylan, so he knew that she couldn’t be very old. And if she was telling his grandda big tales, someone needed to talk to her. He looked at his schedule on his phone and asked him if he could meet this paragon of magic.

  “Not if you’re going to be nasty about it. She don’t need that any more than I do. She’s been hurt, Josh. Been in prison for ten whole years for nothing. They let her go because they figured out finally that they had the wrong person. It was the parents all along.” He nodded, and then realized that she wasn’t a child at all. He asked his grandda how old this girl was. “I think she’s about your age. Might be a little younger by a couple of months or so. She was seventeen when they tried her as an adult, due to a cop being killed.”

  Josh had heard some of this, but he’d been in the middle of shit here and hadn’t paid attention. Well, they had his attention now. He talked to Grandda a bit more as they walked to his car. By the time he’d left to go and see about dinner plans with the entire family, Josh had a name and something to go on. No one was going to come here and take advantage of his family. And especially not his grandda.

  As soon as he was back to the trailer he was living in until his house was just a little more livable, he pulled out his old computer. Putting in the name Carter Compton, he got a hit right away. He changed while thinking of the news he’d gotten today before sitting down to read about this woman.

  In a week, less he was told, he’d be moving into the bedroom, and the kitchen would also be done. The rest, he’d been told, they could work on around him. He was going to take this month off and help his brother in their new partnership, and get his house furnished. He could not wait.

  Chapter 2

  Rachel just stared at her sister. She wasn’t sure that she believed her, or better yet that she wanted to believe her, but she told her most everything. Carter said that she didn’t need to know it all at once. The little that she’d told her before was nothing compared to what she’d been told this time. And she was afraid.

  “You know that they’re coming after me. I know that they said that when you let me listen in to them, but you know that they’re actually coming.” Carter told her they were nearly there. That’s why she was talking to her. “Is this the reason that you didn’t want to come here? That you were, I don’t know, trying to save me from them?”

  “Yes.” Carter used to be a lively and funny girl. Dancing all the time when she thought she was alone. And played jokes on anyone that was nearby. She had loved life. Now she was a shell of what she’d been before. “While in prison, I had a lot of time on my hands and I perfected my skills. With skills like mine, there has to be no one around so that they can’t tell others what I can do. I’m very good at this, Rachel. I’ll keep you as safe as I can.”

  “You’re saying that like you’re going to get hurt.” She said she didn’t know. “You can’t see what is going to happen to you?”

  “No.”

  Frustrated, Rachel got up to pace. She was staying with Dylan, but she had no idea where Carter was staying. She said that she’d not be able to handle all the noise and people, and Dylan had told her there was a nice bed and breakfast in town. But when she’d called there to talk to Carter, she was told that she’d never checked in.

  “You worry too much. I’m staying in a nice tent that Ollie gave me. And I have blankets and food.”

  “Don’t. Just don’t read my mind.” She said that she wouldn’t unless necessary. “I don’t know what constitutes necessary, but this, all this, is a lot to deal with. Why didn’t you tell me any of this before? Or were you trying to keep me safe even then?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. But when they get here, and they will sooner or later, you have to be ready for anything.”

  It was too much to think that their parents would go so far as to kill them both. Which shouldn’t surprise her, not with them letting Carter take the fall for what they’d done. Carter looked at the door then, and Rachel did as well. When someone knocked, Carter told her it was Ollie’s son.

  Opening the door, she saw a younger version of the elderly man she’d spent an enjoyable few days with. After inviting him in, he said he was on a mission from his wife. That he was to bring them home for dinner.

  “I’ve wanted to meet the family, but I’m afraid this—” Carter told the man that they were going. “Carter, we’re not done talking about this. I really think this is important.”

  “It is. But I have a feeling that they’re going to need to know too. But they’ll be less believing.” Rachel asked her what that meant. “I’ll show you what I can do. That’ll help the doubts th
at you have about our parents coming here. But this family—no offense to you—but this family will want more than just the little proof that I can give them, I think.”

  “I never said I doubted you.” Carter touched Rachel’s forehead, and she felt the slight buzz from it. “You’re reading my mind again. Please don’t do that.”

  “I told you I’d not, and I didn’t. But your forehead is wrinkled up like you’re thinking too hard. We’ll have a nice meal, and then things will be better for you.”

  She was nearly to the car when she realized that she’d said they’d be better for her, not for them both. Rachel couldn’t lose her sister again.

  The drive to the house was in a nice limo. She felt sorry for her sister when she crammed herself in the corner of it and didn’t say a word. She thought maybe it was because Oliver, what they’d been told to call him, was a large man. Rachel thought it was more than that, but didn’t say anything to Carter. She was sort of afraid of what Carter was going to show her. And wondering why she had to wait until they were at the Whitfield home to do it.

  As soon as they were at the estate—there was no other name for the plantation styled home, and the pretty rockers on the front with all the flowers—her sister went to the barn and she went into the house with Oliver. There she met some of the boys, as he called them, but two more were due at any moment. They were all very large men, and their wives, those that were married, weren’t nearly as big, but were both still the kick assed person she would love to be.

  “She’ll be all right out there.” She looked over at Eve when Rachel went to the window several times. “There are some cows out there, a few horses as well. She’ll be just fine. I’m sure that this is a great deal for her to get used to again. All of us in one house is too much for me at times.”

  “Carter said that she’d show us what she could do. But she was going to do it here.” Eve said that they had plenty of land for her to use if it came to that, and no one would be the wiser. “You trust what she’s told Ollie to be true?”

  “I have no reason to doubt her. Yes, it’s hard to believe that anyone would have that much going on, but I’m a woman who turns into a large tiger, so it’s easier for me to believe in things that are different. And she is different. I can sense that.” Rachel nodded. “I’m going to have one of my boys go out and get her. If you’d like to get cleaned up, we’ll be eating soon.”

  The house was beautiful, and not fake. She had friends that had done their houses to try and mimic this country look, but it was nothing compared to the real thing. This house was homey and warm. There was an air of friendship and love here, something that neither her nor Carter had ever had at home. Then Carter had gone off to prison, and Rachel knew that she hadn’t gotten anything there either.

  She wanted to cuddle her sister in cotton. Tell her that things were going to be better for them both. But that would be a lie. Things were hard enough on her—they’d be devastating to her sister, she’d bet.

  She saw the young man going to the barn, and thought his name was Adrian. He seemed to be the most laid back of all the men, but she’d not met all of them as yet. When he didn’t come out of the barn right away, she pulled her coat off the hook and followed him. She was afraid for them both.

  The barn was just what she’d thought it would be on a ranch like this. There were several stalls that had horses in them, and one or two that had cows. As soon as she heard Carter talking to the other man, she knew that her fears were unfounded, that he was just talking to her about the cattle.

  “Mary here is about due to have herself another baby.” Carter didn’t speak, or if she did it was too low for her to hear. “Yes, that’s right, in a week. This is her fourth delivery, and sadly the last. She’s getting too old for walking around and carrying the extra weight.”

  “Carter.” She looked up from the stall when she came around the corner. “I thought you were coming in to eat. They’re waiting on us.”

  “I know.” She looked at the man again. “She’s not too old. But she thinks that you’re taking her away from here and she’ll not return. Mary knows that has happened to some of the other cattle you have here.”

  “You can talk to her?” Carter told him they could all talk if they wanted to listen. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Come on, let’s go in.”

  They were headed to the door when Adrian called her back. Carter just turned and looked at him when he asked her if it was a boy or girl.

  “Both.”

  Then she walked away, and Adrian stood there for several seconds before he began to follow. It was comical, Rachel thought, that she was having so much trouble wrapping her head around her sister’s abilities, when this man just took it for gospel what she’d told him.

  Carter was hanging up her coat in the mud room when they entered. She didn’t go into the warm kitchen right away, but stood back and let them all greet her. Rachel knew that it was because of how many men there were in the kitchen and that she was frightened, but before she could explain, Eve took the men to task and made them each carry in a platter or bowl of food to the dining room. When they were the only three in the room, she asked her sister if she was all right.

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be? They’re large men, and I suppose I have to get used to seeing people in crowds.”

  Eve said that she’d take care that they behaved at the table, and Carter nodded. Rachel went to the table with a platter of pork chops, and Carter was given two baskets of hot rolls. Eve came in behind her with a second bowl of baked potatoes.

  Rachel was seated between two of the men—Evan, who was married to Dylan, and David, who was married to Sunny. They were both very polite, and she didn’t mind being put between them. Carter stood by the wall, not moving until Ollie came to help her.

  “Come on, darling, you can sit here with me.” She nodded and looked at him. But Rachel noticed that he didn’t touch her as she might have. “These are my grandsons, the ones I was telling you about.”

  One of them stood up and sat down twice before he finally stayed put. It was the strangest thing when Dylan started laughing with Evan. Then everyone at the table did. Carter shied away from them, but Ollie asked her not to leave. The man, she thought his name was Josh, stood up again, and this time went to stand by her sister.

  “I won’t touch you.” Carter looked at Rachel, panic in her eyes. “I promise you, I won’t touch you without your consent. But I’m going to sniff your neck if you don’t mind.”

  “Please, don’t touch me.” He promised her again that he’d not. And then he leaned in and sniffed her neck. Carter shivered, and the man stood there, stiff. Something had happened in that moment, and she wasn’t sure what it was. “You don’t want me. I’m not right.”

  “We’ll work this out.” Carter looked at Rachel when she said her name. But the man answered. “She’s my mate. Carter is my mate, and neither of us are prepared for it, I think.”

  “I’m not right.” He asked Carter what she might mean by that. Instead of answering him, she moved to the door that led out to the decking around the house. He followed, and a few seconds later, the rest of them did as well. “Watch. This is why my parents are coming for me. And if you’ll trust me not to hurt anything or anyone, then I can give you an idea of my abilities.”

  Carter didn’t move. Didn’t lift her hands up to the sky as she’d seen done on television when people were summoning their magic. She had no idea what she expected, but when the truck that two of the men had arrived in settled next to her on the lawn, no one moved or said a word.

  The tree in the yard shook hard. The car was set on its nose, then the bed. As it was doing its dance, the fence, old and sagging, was popped from the ground and rolled up. In seconds there was new fencing there. New poles were slammed into the ground as the fencing curved its way along the wooden stakes in a straight line. Carter never moved, never took her eyes off the people surrounding her on the deck. And when the truck made its way t
o the front again, Josh joined her in the yard.

  “What can I do for you? Are you weak? Do you need something to replenish yourself?” Carter asked him if he’d seen what she’d done. “I did. It was impressive, if you don’t mind me saying so. But that had to be draining on you. What do you need?”

  “Nothing. I don’t think you understand. I can do a great deal more than that.” He grinned, and even from where Rachel stood, she could see that Carter was upset with him. “You have to be terrified. I’m a freak of nature.”

  “Listen to me, all right?” Carter nodded. “I want you to look there on the deck. At the people standing there. Do any of them look frightened? Do they look disgusted by what you just did?” Her sister did look at the people there, she did as well, and noticed that they all were smiling.

  “No.” Carter seemed to be stiffer rather than relaxed at that. Then she looked at the people on the deck. “Go into the house. Now.”

  No one hesitated even for a second. Dylan went to stand with them, Josh standing between the two women. Even from her vantage point from the dining room, she could see that Dylan was talking to her. What was being said, she didn’t know, but when the man came out of the woods with his hands up, no one moved.

  ~~~

  Josh wasn’t sure who he was, but he wasn’t moving any closer to them. When Dylan asked if either one of them knew him, before he could say no, Carter started talking. He felt his heartrate double. He was working with the man who had come to his home earlier in the week.

  “He’s a scout, looking for property that is off the beaten path and has a great many trees. He goes by the name of Charlie Bloom, and he works for a man by the name of Moody. Thomas Langley is another man that works with his boss. The boss is Waldo Moody.” Dylan said that she knew the name. “He’s also a hunter, big game he calls it. But it’s really humans that he finds and puts out in the property for several days with food and water. Then when he has enough people that have paid him, they go hunting for the person. And kill him.”