by Terry Spear
“Thanks, Brock. I knew you were the man for the job.”
Vaughn and Shawn were waiting to hear what Angie wanted now.
“I need to light the ladies’ fire.”
The guys laughed.
“Do you need help?” Shawn asked.
“No. A SEAL can handle this.” Brock headed out of the guesthouse and walked to the ranch house where the women were playing loud music and sounded like they were having fun. He smiled.
* * *
Bella and her sister, Serena, the two redheads of the gathering of ladies, were kicking off their sparkly sandals, then setting up a huge assortment of nail polishes to choose from for the nail-painting party. The pretty brunette, Brock’s sister-in-law, Jillian, was preparing footbaths for the ladies. And Natalie helped Angie prepare finger baths. Natalie had never done this with anyone other than her mom and Angie, so this was fun. She removed her sandals and saw Bella and Serena making margaritas in a blender, just like they’d fixed when her mom and Angie needed a ladies’ night!
“This is in memory of all the times we did this with your mom,” Angie said.
“This is great, Angie. I love it.” Natalie glanced at the stairs leading to the bedrooms. “You could have a ton of kids in this place.”
Angie had always wanted to have more than one. Being an only child—unusual for lupus garous—and then losing her parents early on, she had always wanted to have more of a family.
“That’s what Aaron keeps promising me.” Angie laughed and so did everyone else.
Bella and Serena served everyone margaritas while the other ladies soaked their feet in the footbaths. After drinking their margaritas, the women soaked their fingers in little containers of soapy water. Natalie was glad when Angie scrubbed Natalie’s fingers to remove the green stain from handling plants that morning.
After that, Angie made a call in the kitchen while the ladies began painting toenails. By the time they were in the middle of painting fingernails, Brock arrived at the house, surprising Natalie.
“I was told you ladies needed me to light your fire?” Brock asked, and all the ladies whooped and hollered, all except Natalie.
She only smiled at the sexy wolf. She imagined he could make for a sizzling encounter. Though she immediately wondered why he would have been asked when the ladies could have done it themselves.
Natalie knew Angie was up to something. She just hadn’t thought her friend would try to match her with a wolf who wasn’t interested in any she-wolf.
“Thanks, Brock, yes,” Angie said. He started the fire for them, and Angie said to the ladies, “So, I met Natalie when I was vacationing in Cozumel. I had a boyfriend who got food poisoning at the salad bar. Such a drag. It was one of those trips that went downhill fast. Until I saw Natalie with her parents at the same resort. You know how it is when you meet others like us. We got to talking, and Natalie and I decided to go scuba diving. The boyfriend went home early, and I eventually ended up in Amarillo to visit with her and her parents again. They realized I didn’t have any family, and I just stayed. We’ve been best friends ever since.”
Natalie noticed Brock was slow to make the fire. Natalie was certain Angie had told their story in front of Brock so he’d know Natalie was a scuba diver too.
“Hey, did you get your bags out of the car yet?” Angie asked Natalie.
“No, I was going to get them after we had our girls’ party.”
“Brock, can you get them? You can carry them to the first guest room up the stairs on the right,” Angie told him.
“No, that’s all right. I can do it.” Natalie didn’t want him thinking he was their errand boy.
“I’ll get them.” He held his hand out for Natalie’s key, and she fished it out of her purse, then handed it to him.
“Thanks, Brock.”
“No problem. Be right back.” He left the house, and if it had been just her and Angie, Natalie would have said something to her friend about her matchmaking attempts. But she didn’t want to do that in front of the other ladies, and it was Angie’s wedding party.
Brock came into the house with the bags, and Angie said, “If you don’t mind, you can haul them up to Natalie’s room.”
“No trouble at all. I’ll join the guys as soon as I drop these in her room.”
Unless Angie had other odd jobs for him to do, Natalie was thinking. Brock winked at Angie as if he knew her game.
“Oh, wait. I’ll get my wedding gift for you out of the big bag. Let me grab that first. And thanks, Brock, for doing this for me.”
“My pleasure.”
Natalie unzipped the bag. She stared at the rolls of wrapping paper filling the bag instead of her clothes and the wedding gift. Underneath were a few men’s clothes and a shaving kit—smelling like the drunken wolf who had collided with her bag at the airport.
Natalie’s heartbeat quickened, and she felt her stomach turn.
Appearing shocked, the ladies all looked at the rolls of wedding and birthday paper.
“Ohmigod, I got someone else’s bag at the airport in my rush. I always check the name tag on the bags at the baggage claim. Always. Except for this time,” Natalie said, feeling like such an idiot, not only in front of all the women here, but in front of the hot SEAL wolf. First, she got lost, and now this? He must really think she was a flake.
Brock looked at the luggage tag. “Marek Jones from Amarillo, Texas. No phone number, email address, or street address.”
“I need to get my bag back.” Natalie was almost in tears. Her bridesmaid’s dress was in her bag too.
“It’s okay,” Bella said, patting her on the back. “You and I are about the same size. You can wear my gown and I’ll just watch if we can’t get your bag tonight. No biggie for me, and Devlyn will be glad I’m helping him keep the kids under control.”
“Thanks.” Natalie knew Angie would want her in the ceremony more than the pack leader, since she hadn’t known Bella very long, but Natalie didn’t want to upset everyone’s plans. She felt so stupid for having made the mistake. “I’ll call the airport. Surely, they’ll have my bag locked up, and I can leave this one off right away.”
“It smells like a wolf owned it,” Brock said, frowning.
“Yeah. It’s the same guy who tripped over my bag when I was trying to reach the check-in counter at the airport in Amarillo. He was a wolf and sure was pissed off at me.”
“So you met the guy.” Brock pulled out one of the rolls of wrapping paper and looked it over.
“He’s the reason our flight was delayed. He’d been drinking and was looking the other way—which was the reason he ran into my bag. I had to stop for people in my path. You know how busy airports are. Anyway, I smelled whiskey on his breath. Then he made a big issue with the agent about taking his bag on the plane. It was too big to be a carry-on.”
“Hmm.” Brock picked at the cellophane covering the wrapping paper.
“After that, he became belligerent when he had to sit by a mother with a toddler. He wanted to be moved, but we had a full flight. They ended up kicking him off the plane. They must not have gotten his bag off in time. The same thing happened to me once. Not that I was drunk or anything…”
He smiled at her.
“My passport had expired, and I had to take a train to Philadelphia to get a new passport and leave on the flight the next day. My bag ended up in Scotland waiting for me. This guy wasn’t there to get his bag at the baggage claim. He must have been on the next flight out. My bag wasn’t there, just his, and it looked just like my bag, except for a few more scratches. But I assumed that was because of the gorillas who handle the luggage.” Natalie was so upset over this whole fiasco.
What if the guy, Marek, took her bag? He was such a creep that he might just ditch it and go back to the airport with his claim ticket. Of course, that was saying he hadn’t bothered loo
king at the name on the luggage tag either.
Brock nodded, but he appeared to be concentrating on the wrapping paper as if he could determine who the man was from the smell. “Three male wolves handled these.”
As if that had to do with anything! Marek was a wolf. It wouldn’t be unlikely that he had wolf family or friends. But Natalie delayed her call to the airport to see what else Brock had to say, as darkly serious as he was.
“Why would anyone fill a suitcase with rolls of wrapping paper?” he asked.
“Brock’s a PI, if he didn’t mention it to you already,” Angie said. “He sees mystery and mayhem in everything.”
Rolls of wrapping paper was an odd thing for the wolf to pack, Natalie had to admit. It was none of her business though. All she cared about was turning the bag over to the airport and grabbing her own.
Brock started to pull the plastic wrap carefully off one of the rolls.
“What are you doing? They’re just wrapping paper, and I don’t want the man to think I ruined his stuff when I turn it over to the baggage claim agent.”
Brock ignored her and unrolled a section of the wrapping paper, everyone watching with interest, except for Natalie. She was irritated with Brock for ignoring her. She could just imagine the guy who owned these needing them for something important, and she would be held responsible for the condition they were in when she dropped them off. Marek would be able to smell her scent on the suitcase because he was a wolf too. He might remember her from cursing her out when he tripped over her suitcase at the airport in Amarillo.
Brock cautiously peeled back the wrapping paper as though expecting a bomb.
“What…what do you believe is in there?” she finally asked, thinking maybe something really was wrong.
“Looks like a whole lot of money. One-hundred-dollar bills rolled up in the paper,” he said.
“Oh…my…God.” Natalie couldn’t believe she had someone else’s money. It had to be illegally gained, or he wouldn’t have hidden it like that. He certainly wouldn’t have risked carrying it on the plane if it was legit. The guy would come after her for sure. Not just to get his money, but to eliminate her for knowing what he had in the suitcase.
Brock was holding one of the bills up to the light, eyeing it closely. “Damn good likeness to the real thing too.”
Natalie examined one of the bills. “It feels like an older bill. A real one. Are you sure they’re not?”
“Yeah. I smelled fresh ink, but these are 1997 bills. A human wouldn’t be able to detect the smell. I bet you anything that this is one of those cases where they’re removing the ink from one- or five-dollar bills and printing one-hundred-dollar bills on the treasury’s old paper. If there’s a way to do it, criminals will figure out how to work the system. An eighteen-year-old girl was caught trying to pass them off at a Denver shopping center last year, but one of the clerks saw some smudges on the ink in a couple of places, and the ink was too dark in other places. There are pens that catch paper that isn’t genuine, but they miss these because the paper is the real deal.” Brock began unwrapping another roll, and Natalie and the other ladies grabbed one each to unwrap.
“If he finds out I have it, I’ll be in real trouble. We can’t turn it over to the guy or the police. Not when he’s a wolf. I’ve got to call the airline about my bag.” Natalie set aside the roll she’d unwrapped and all the money that had fallen out of it onto the dining room table. She called the airport right away and told the woman she had accidentally left her bag at the airport and needed to get it.
“We have it in the baggage office. No problem,” the agent said.
“Thanks!” Relieved her bag was there, Natalie ended the call. “Okay, enjoy your party,” she said to Angie. “I’ll run to the airport and be back as soon as I can.”
“I’ll drive you there,” Brock said, setting aside another roll of paper as if he had a more important mission now.
Natalie raised an eyebrow.
He smiled. “Just as a precaution. To make sure you get there all right, and if the guy shows up and thinks your bag is his, and he’s still drunk… Well, I just want to be there.”
She appreciated Brock for making the offer. “You can’t arrest him though.”
“No, but I’d sure like to get a look at him and learn where he’s headed, if possible. I’m sure he’s part of a group. Being embroiled in this business—losing the money—could cost him his life, unless this is his share of the money. And then he’ll just want it back.”
“What do we do with the money?” Natalie asked.
“Does anyone want to roast marshmallows?” Brock smiled.
“That will be the most expensive marshmallow roast we’ve ever had,” Bella said. “I’ll let Devlyn know we need to have one out at the firepit when the two of you return. Are you sure you don’t want anyone else to go with you, just for extra protection?”
“I think it would raise more speculation if the guy is hunting down his bag and a whole bunch of wolves arrive there with Natalie.” Brock pocketed some of the counterfeit money.
Natalie eyed Brock. “Need some extra spending money?”
“Evidence if I need it later. I wouldn’t hand this stuff out for anything.”
“All right, let’s go.” Natalie hated to ask anything more of Brock, but he seemed eager to help, and she felt safer having him go with her in case she had another run-in with the wolf. She glanced back at the table piled with money. “How much do you think there is in that pile?”
“Maybe three million.” Bella was counting the stacks. “Ten thousand in each stack. One hundred one-hundreds. Only about an inch thick for that much money in a bundle.”
“Amazing.” Natalie just couldn’t believe she’d picked up the wolf’s counterfeit money. She was glad no officials at the airport had stopped her to look in the bag. Then again, she would have realized sooner that she’d gotten the wrong bag.
Chapter 3
Amazed at how calm and collected Brock had been when discovering the fake money in the rolls, Natalie walked outside the ranch house with him to his black Humvee. “You didn’t seem as shocked as I was. Did you think money was hidden inside the rolls?”
“I had no idea. I hoped they were a salesman’s samples, but I suspected it was more than that. It seemed odd that the whole suitcase was filled with them. And since I smelled wolves, I wanted to make sure they weren’t participating in something criminal.”
As Brock drove her to the airport, she finally relaxed a little. “I can’t believe a wolf would be traveling with that much fake money from Amarillo to here. Someone’s going to have to take him down, aren’t they? We don’t have a pack, so I’m not sure how that goes. But if he’s coming into your territory, and he’s a danger to our kind if he gets caught, wouldn’t it be in your jurisdiction to do something?”
“Yeah. Anyone that could should put him down, whether he’s in their territory or not. He endangers our kind by engaging in criminal activity. It would be great if we could convince the wolf not to do this any longer, but there’s too much money involved. I imagine it would be too tempting to keep doing what he’s doing. Unfortunately, that’s the problem with lupus garous getting into the kind of trouble that could land them in jail. If he doesn’t have wolf roots going way back, he could end up shifting during the full moon while he’s incarcerated. Even if he is a royal with very few human roots, he could strip and shift and tear into an inmate, unable to hold his temper if anyone hassled him. We have an agreement now with the jaguar policing force to incarcerate certain kinds of shifter criminals. But not for murderers or anyone who tries to eliminate us. We have to terminate them; no jail terms for those shifters. It’s really a shame people can be so talented, yet waste their talent on crime.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Plus, they probably figure they’ll never get caught, and it’s way more exciting than working a lot
of eight-to-five jobs. Thanks so much for all the help you’ve been for the short time I’ve been here. I sure didn’t think I’d have all this trouble while going to my friend’s wedding.”
“You’re welcome, and no problem at all.”
“I’m sorry I was aggravated with you for checking out the roll of paper. I guess you have a nose for crime, doing the kind of work you do.”
“It might have been nothing, but it seemed suspect to me. And with the smell of the male wolf on the luggage, I had to check it out.”
“I hope he’s not at the airport when we arrive.”
Brock didn’t say anything.
She glanced at him and smiled. “You hope he is so you can see who the criminal is in person.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to be in the middle of this.”
“Hopefully, he won’t suspect I took his bag. Instead, that I was in such a rush to get to where I was going, I just forgot to go to the baggage carousel and grab my bag. Unless he’s able to take a look at the airport video in the baggage-claim area.”
“Legally, he wouldn’t be able to.”
“That’s a relief.” But now she worried that the guy would raise hell that his bag was missing, considering what was in it, and want everything investigated.
“Maybe you should stay in the car while I carry your ID and claim tag with me and retrieve your bag.”
Natalie sighed. “No, that’s okay. They might not turn it over to you, and I want to make sure I get it. Exactly how much combat training have you had?”
He chuckled. “Enough. I doubt the guy would make an issue with us at the airport. He’d be arrested, and none of us can afford that.”
* * *
When they reached the airport, Natalie was again glad she had a SEAL wolf with her.
As soon as they were at the baggage office, she knew there’d be trouble. Marek, the owner of the bag, had sobered up, and he was berating the woman in the office for losing his suitcase.
Natalie poked her head into the office and said, “Excuse me. I’m here to get my bag. Thanks for locking it up for me.” She showed her claim ticket and her ID.