by Terry Spear
When the dance ended, one of Brock’s cousins asked her to dance. Brock had the hardest time releasing her, but he did, to prove to himself his brother was wrong. He wasn’t hooked on the she-wolf.
Natalie looked a little apprehensive, maybe worried that she couldn’t dance well with a new partner. Or maybe she was just shy around men in general, and now she was out of her comfort zone.
Heath smiled down at her in a warm and welcoming way, waiting for her to agree. It was a good thing, because if he hadn’t, Brock was going to tell his good-natured cousin her dance card was full. When Natalie took Heath’s hand, Brock finally left the dance floor and sat it out, not wanting anyone to get the impression he wanted to mate her. He just hoped she’d have fun while she was here, no matter who she was with.
When the dance ended, she thanked his cousin but headed straight to the table where Brock was sitting. And that had his heart rate accelerating, knowing she wanted to be with him before anyone else approached her on the dance floor. He was glad Heath hadn’t asked her to dance again. Maybe it had to do with the growly looks Brock had been giving him, though he’d tried damn hard to pretend he wasn’t bothered by the fact that his doctor cousin was dancing with Natalie and he wasn’t. He did worry she might see the doctor as being a perfectly eligible prospect.
“Are you done already? Just one dance?” she asked, offering her hand to Brock.
He was over the moon. He immediately rose from his chair, nearly knocking it down, and hurried to catch it.
“Now that I remember how to do this, I want to keep on dancing until the clock strikes midnight or the band goes home,” she said.
His whole countenance uplifted, Brock laughed and took her hand and led her back to the dance floor. He hoped his pack mates weren’t watching their behavior, but he was certain they would be. Every last one of them. They were wolves, and the way individuals interacted with each other was always important.
It might be Angie and Aaron’s wedding, but Natalie was a single she-wolf, and the pack had so many eligible bachelors who were looking for mates. Everyone was just waiting to see if this business between Brock and the lady was heading toward something more permanent. Of course, it was just for the time she was here. Then again, if she came to visit her friend, would he just work his jobs? Or would he put them on hold so he could “be around” for her visit? He knew the answer to that. He hoped she’d give him enough notice of a visit—or that Angie would relay the information to him—so he could make arrangements to be around.
“You’re a scuba diver, eh?” Brock asked, wishing she was going to be here longer so he could go diving with her.
“Yeah, Angie just had to tell that story.”
Brock suspected it was because Angie wanted to make sure he knew he and Natalie had something in common. “We have Carter Lake, Chatfield Reservoir, Blue Mesa Reservoir, Turquoise Lake, and others to scuba dive in.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, you don’t have to go to some exotic place to dive.”
“Same in Texas.”
“Really,” he said, surprised. He was thinking he might just have to check out some of the diving locations in Texas if she wanted to have a dive partner to go with.
After the dancing, Angie and Aaron were photographed as they drove off for a hotel in Denver. They would catch their red-eye flight to Hawaii later that night.
Everyone else visited and cleaned up after the party, and then Natalie and Brock went to the ranch house while everyone else left for their homes.
Brock had never expected to be alone with Natalie when Angie had first mentioned her coming. He had assumed someone else, their pack leaders maybe, would have her stay with them for the night so she wouldn’t be left on her own.
“I’m going to change into something more comfortable,” Natalie said to him.
“All right. I will too.” He changed out of his jacket and trousers in a spare guest room and put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, socks, and boots, then sat on the couch in the living room. He opened his laptop and began searching for clues about Marek.
Natalie joined him in the living room, wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, her feet bare. He liked that she felt so comfortable around him. He especially liked the saying on the shirt: Hot to Trot, featuring a horse in a dress, one front hoof on her mane, looking sexy—for a horse.
“I really didn’t think you would get started on searching for clues this afternoon.”
“No time like the present.”
“Sounds good to me.” She brought them glasses of water and sat down next to him on the couch—close, their legs touching—so she could see his laptop.
Her touching him made his attention drift to her again. Hell, he had to get his mind on business. She wasn’t here to seduce him, just to see what he was finding on the internet. Yet he couldn’t help breathing in her sweet scent of vanilla and peaches.
“His name could be fake.” Brock didn’t want to get her hopes up that he might locate the guy right away. He began to search for the guy’s name in the databases he had access to as a PI. “Okay, we have one Marek Jones in the database who lives in…Amarillo, Texas. He’s been there just a couple of weeks.”
“No.”
“Yeah. Here’s a picture of him on his Texas driver’s license. It’s him.” Brock showed her the picture.
She frowned. “No fake ID. Which is good.”
“He must not believe anyone is going to catch up to him, or he would have changed his name.” Brock pondered the situation for a moment. “Criminals come in all different kinds. Ones that are too stupid to live, like the guy who put on a mask right in front of a convenience-store camera, then tried to steal money from the register. Or the type who cover most of their bases, who are more methodical, yet still leave some things to chance. Then you have the ones who are super cautious, who cover all their bases. Considering the fact that he was drinking too much and being so obnoxious at the airport and getting kicked off the plane, then using his own name, I’d say he was in-between: not the most careful, but rolling the money in wrapping paper to transport it… That was clever. So it wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment criminal act.”
“I still wonder about the drinking. Was it related to some issue, like he was angry with the people he’s working with or doesn’t like to fly, and not just because he has a drinking problem?”
“Or got dumped by a girlfriend.”
Natalie’s lips parted. “Okay, that could be. Is there any way to see if he has a girlfriend?”
“Yeah, doing a search for anyone who was receiving mail at his residence in Denver.” Brock smiled when he found a hit. “L. C. Storm, a wallpaper hanger by profession. She had the same address in Denver, but she’s receiving mail in Boulder as of a couple of weeks ago.”
“A breakup? Why would they both leave? Why not just one or the other? Seems odd to me, unless he couldn’t handle her being gone and had to leave the memories behind. How long has she been receiving mail in Denver?”
“For two years.”
“So they’ve been together for a while. Is she a wolf?” Natalie asked.
Brock chuckled. “We can learn a lot through these databases but not whether the individuals are wolves. Her house in Boulder is only about a half hour from Denver, maybe too close for his liking if they broke up.”
“But why would he go to Amarillo? No new girlfriend there, right?”
Brock checked. “A woman is receiving mail there by the name of Eugenia Jones. Marek doesn’t have a job. He still has a bank account in Denver and one in Amarillo.”
“A relative or a mate Ms. Storm didn’t know about?”
“Checking. Not sure on Eugenia yet.”
“Any former jobs?”
“Yeah, he was working at a wallpaper company in Denver. L. C. was working at the same company for the same length of time. They had
been working there for two years. She has her own business now—the Wallpaper Lady.”
“Well, that leaves him out of the picture. You know what? I’ve never been to Boulder.”
He smiled at her. “You don’t have a sudden yearning to see a lady wallpaper hanger, do you?”
“Yeah, I do. Could she be participating in the counterfeiting? Or is she oblivious? Maybe she learned about it and didn’t want to have any part of it.”
Once a criminal… It was hard to give up a life of crime when there was easy money in it, Brock was thinking. “Or she’s working with others up in Boulder, spreading the business out a bit.”
“Here’s another thing I hadn’t considered before. Why, if he could just drive here from Amarillo, would he fly? It would cost lots more, and though it’s still a drive, it would be safer than risking transporting the fake money on the plane. Especially when he couldn’t carry the bag on the plane with him. You’d think he would have just driven instead.”
“Unless he had a deadline.” Brock continued to look for any information he could on Marek. “He purchased a car in Denver and has a former residence there.”
“Don’t you imagine he’s with a group of people who are doing this? I would guess so, because we smelled other wolf scents on the wrapping paper.”
“Yeah. An operation like this would require several people if they wanted to really make money at it.”
“Make money. Right. What if he still has friends here in Denver? Business partners? Maybe the other wolves’ scents on the rolls of paper belonged to them. What if he moved to the new location—Amarillo—so they weren’t all in the same area? And it has nothing to do with his female roommate moving away. Maybe they thought they could move the money without getting caught if they weren’t all in the same place.” Natalie leaned her head against Brock’s shoulder.
He glanced down at her shiny hair all in curls against his shirt. “Possibly. I’d sure like to know who else is implicated in this. None of us have run into any wolves we don’t know when we’ve visited Denver, or we could have recognized the scents. When I drive you to Amarillo, I’ll pay Marek’s residence a visit. Are you sure you really want to go to Boulder with me in the morning?”
“I do. We can do a bit of conning ourselves. Do you have a room you’d like to have wallpapered?”
Brock laughed. “No. Let me ask you this: why would we go all the way to Boulder to find someone to do a wallpaper job when we could just hire someone in Denver?”
“She started her business in Denver.” Natalie was looking at her phone. “Tons of good reviews. We could say I preferred having a woman do the job. She does consultations on Sundays. Tomorrow. Perfect. See? Do you have any rooms that are wallpapered?”
Brock looked up from the database where he was searching for Eugenia Jones. “A bathroom.”
“Old wallpaper? Something new?”
“It’s been there for twenty years, but it’s fine.” He realized how grouchy he sounded, but he was a bachelor male, and he supposed he was kind of set in his ways. Not that any of this was for real.
“Let’s go see it. It’s still early.”
Brock frowned at her.
“We need a cover story.”
Brock didn’t see that they needed to go to his place to verify he needed to change his wallpaper. He didn’t want to admit he was afraid Natalie really wouldn’t like it. What did it matter if she didn’t? He realized he already wanted to present a good image to her. It didn’t mean he was willing to change his decor.
“And we can come up with more of our story. Maybe even lead her on to believe we might want another room done if the bathroom turns out like we dreamed it might. For the baby, you know.” Natalie rubbed her flat tummy.
Brock clamped his gaping jaw shut. Never in a million years had he expected her to come up with that. The thought of making babies with her had his cock stirring. Brock lifted his brows. “Don’t let it get out to the pack that we’re having a baby anytime soon.”
Natalie smiled and hopped up from the couch. “I’ll get some shoes.” She headed upstairs and then came back down wearing a pair of sneakers. “Come on, Brock. Let’s see what we can do about that bathroom of yours.”
“My bathroom is fine. I’m not changing it.” Brock was thinking Natalie would make a good con artist herself. He escorted her out to his Humvee and glanced at her rental car. “We need to drop off your car at the airport since we’ll be using mine from now on.”
“Okay, we can do that after we come back from Boulder.”
“Sounds good.” He drove her to his place, which was about a half mile from Aaron’s ranch house. Brock had a big place too, in case he ever found the right mate and they had kids. Though he and Vaughn had shared the home before his brother found a mate and moved out when their house was built.
“Wow, this place is about as big as the ranch house. Room for all those babies, I see.”
Brock laughed, parked the Humvee, and escorted her to the front deck. The covered wraparound deck was perfect for viewing the mountains, forest, and wildflowers in the meadow nearby, and he noticed she was admiring it too.
“You could have horses here,” she said.
“I could, but they’re a lot of work, so I just ride at Aaron’s place when I want to. I’m off running around on jobs, and it’s easier not to have to worry about the horses’ care.” He unlocked the front door and she stepped inside, the lights coming on automatically.
“Beautiful. Nice and open from the living room to the dining room and kitchen.” She examined the walls.
“No paper, no need.” Painting walls was much easier than papering them.
She chuckled. “It’s only for a cover story. Show me the bathroom.”
He led her to the first guest bathroom, which had a black, embossed pattern.
“Dark and outdated,” Natalie said. “Yes, we definitely need something lighter to brighten up the room.”
He turned on the light switch.
“Still too dark.”
“I like it.” He had no intention of changing it.
“Where’s the baby’s room?”
“For twins?” He smirked. “Triplets?” He glanced down at her flat belly. “You’re not showing yet. Did we just learn we are pregnant?”
She touched her belly and sighed. “Yes. Today. We won’t know if it’s more than one baby or not for a while. Same with the sex.”
“So we need a unisex color in the baby’s room.” He had never actually visualized converting a guest room into a nursery.
“We’ll wait until we know what the sex of the baby is. And whether we’re having more than one. Which will give us a good reason why we’re waiting on papering the room.”
“I have four guest bedrooms and the master bedroom.” He led her down the hall and motioned to the rooms.
“Should we have the baby’s room closer to ours, or farther away? When they’re young, I’d want them close, but as they get older, they could play in their room and it would be nicer for them to be farther away, don’t you think?”
“We can get a phone app that will let us monitor their room. It can be at the other end of the house, so we can keep an eye on them.”
Natalie looked into the first of the rooms. “Checked into this already, eh?”
“I’ve had babysitting duty for Bella when the triplets were younger. The app comes in really handy.”
“Good to know. This is a nice room. The furniture will have to go to make room for the cribs.” She snapped some pictures with her cell phone. Then she moved back down the hall to the papered guest bathroom and took some more photos. “Is this the only papered bathroom you have?”
“I have a second guest bathroom and the master bath that are papered. But you don’t need to see those.” If she didn’t like the paper in this bathroom, she wouldn’t like the oth
ers.
“I’d love to see them.”
He sighed and headed back down the hall. She paused to peer into each of the guest rooms and his office.
“They’re all painted. No papering required,” he said.
When he turned on the light for the second bathroom, she smiled. “Okay, so you papered both bathrooms with the same paper. Don’t tell me you got the paper on a good sale.”
“You’d make a good detective.”
“Thank you.” She took some more pictures. “The other bathroom?”
“Same wallpaper.”
She chuckled and headed down the hall to the master bedroom.
“It’s the same wallpaper,” he repeated, exasperated, following behind her.
“Yes, but it might look just fine in the master bathroom if it has enough windows and it is bigger.”
He didn’t think she’d like it in there any more than she liked it in the other bathrooms, more windows or not. He could imagine her wanting frilly, pastel, floral wallpaper instead, because she was a gardener. A master gardener.
He turned on the light, and she eyed his king-size bed and the black comforter on it. He could just imagine the comforter would have to go, if Natalie had anything to do about it—and there would go his neat, orderly life. From super masculine to flowery and feminine.
She walked into his master bathroom and turned on the light. She sighed. “It’s not as bad as the rest, but this could be changed to make an improvement.” She took a picture.
“I’m not changing them.” He packed an overnight bag for staying at the ranch house for the night and for traveling to her place and back.
She smiled at him. “This is just our cover story. If I were you, I wouldn’t change them either.”
“But if it were you, you would.”