Dean: Marshall’s Shadow – Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance (Marshall's Shadow Book 2)

by Kathi S. Barton

  “About a year ago now, he came to me about a problem that he was having. Wanted to borrow ten grand. I had it, but without details, I didn’t want to just fork it over.” Fletcher sat down. He was pale but seemed to be better now. “It took me a couple of days to figure out why he might want the money. By then, the woman had disappeared. I thought, or perhaps I wanted to think, that Hunter had found a way to pay her off and she’d left town. Dana was pregnant, I found out. She was wanting money to raise their child. I never, not in my wildest dreams, thought that he’d murder her. I would have given him the money right away had I known.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered.” Dean looked at Bella as she got up to pace the room. “Hunter seems to have developed a taste for taking care of things so that they don’t come back to bite him in the ass. Had you given him the money, he would have given it to her, killed her, then taken the money for himself as he disposed of her body.”

  “Bella, I love you, dearly, but when did you start thinking like this?” Dean laughed. It was just a burst of laughter that he’d not expected himself. “You think this is funny, young man?”

  “No, sir. I don’t. But I think that thinking outside the box, as she is doing right now, has made her what she is today. A savvy businesswoman that knows how to get to the root of things. Harris here, I thought for sure that she was the only one I knew that thought like that. And if you were to ask her, she’d tell you that thinking like a criminal has saved her life more often than not.” Harris nodded, then winked at him. “By the way, Fletcher. I didn’t get the opportunity to let you know this earlier, but Bella is my mate. I’m a jaguar, as are the rest of my family, including Harris.”

  “I knew you were— Mate, huh? Well, I guess that answers a great many questions for me. Why you’re in here with us being one of them.” Fletcher shook his hand. Dean looked at Harris when he could feel the sickness that permeated the older man’s entire body. She only shook her head at him. “I don’t know a great deal about you, but I’ve looked into Harris here. Seems to me that my little girl couldn’t do much better than having someone like her on her side. Not to mention a shadow of jaguars.”

  “Thank you, sir. We’re still working out details on things.” Looking at Bella then, he put his hand over his mouth to hide his smile. If looks could kill, he’d be pushing up roses about now. “I don’t think she’s too terribly happy with me right now. But, as I said, we’ll work things out.”

  “I’m doing just fine on my own.” She looked at him. “Your nose is still bleeding. Why? I mean, I thought that once you shifted to one or the other, you’d be healed.”

  “You’ve not forgiven me.” Frowning, she asked him what he meant. “I hurt you. Twice, as a matter of fact. As your mate, I can’t heal until you believe that I didn’t mean to harm you in any way and that you forgive me for my transgressions.”

  “That’s just stupid.” He didn’t bother telling her that there were a lot of rules like that which Dean thought were stupid—now wasn’t the time to bring them up. “I’m guessing that it has be sincere, too, right?”

  “It does. But I’m not going to bleed to death if you don’t want to trust me now. I can understand.” She asked him if he thought that he understood her. “No. Not at all. I do, however, understand that you’ve had a great deal on your mind. That you do have other things that are more important right now than anything going on with me. You have your dad here. Your brother out there trying to ruin you, as well as me. As your mate. That’s a great deal to throw onto someone under any circumstances. It would be for me.”

  “Are you always going to be this accommodating to me?” He didn’t think now was the time to joke around with her. She seemed upset. Nodding, he told her that he wanted her happy. “But I’m not. Not at all. As you mentioned, I have a lot of shit going on, and I don’t know where to turn to get things going in a better direction. Also, I don’t know shit about you.”

  “Nor I you. I’m fine, Bella. I am. We’ll work on taking care of some of the other things going on right now, and get to know each other at the same time. If you’d like.” She nodded. “Good. That’s a start. I’m here to do whatever you need from me.”

  Bella turned to Harris, who was still staring at the two of them. “Has he always been a Boy Scout? I mean, is this some sort of play? Like he’s trying to make me feel like I’m in with this wonderful man, and then later I find out that he secretly likes men. Not that there is anything—”

  Turning her around to face him, Dean smiled. Then he lowered his head to hers, touching his lips lightly to hers. When she let out a breath, one that he could taste, he took her mouth in a kiss that he knew he was going to regret.

  She tasted of the sweetness of the cherry pie that she’d eaten. The hint of vanilla that had been her ice cream. Pulling her mouth closer to his, he devoured her. Tasting, not just the things he’d tasted, but her energy and lust. Lifting his head from hers, he touched his forehead to hers. Both of them were breathing hard.

  “I’m sorry.” He asked her for what. “For thinking that you’d prefer men over women.”

  “I prefer you over every other woman in the world, Bella.” Kissing her again, this time quickly yet no less possessively, he sat back down in the chair and looked at Fletcher. The man looked like he was ready to kill him. “Fletcher? I told you that we were—”

  “You had no right to touch her like that.” When the elderly man stood up, so did he and Harris. Pushing Bella behind him, fearful that she’d be hurt, he held her hand while her dad screamed at him. “You monster. What the hell is wrong with you? She’s just a little girl. You will not touch her again, do you hear me? You’re an ugly—”

  “Fletcher, pull your hand out of your jacket pocket slowly.” Dean hadn’t even realized that the man was reaching for anything. “Fletcher, I’m not fucking with you right now. You pull your hand out of your jacket. If you have a gun there, you bring it out with just two fingers. If your finger is anywhere near the trigger, I’m going to have to kill you. This is my family here. They’ve done nothing to you.”

  “He was raping her.” When Bella started around him, Harris snapped at her to stay where she was. “That monster was raping that little girl. Did you see him? Shoot him. Kill him where he stands, or I will.”

  The gun came out almost faster than he could react. Wrestling it from Fletcher proved to be much harder than he thought. Dean didn’t want to hurt him, nor did he want to be hurt. When the gun went off, he felt the burn of it on his thigh, but finally got the gun from the man.

  “What’s happened?” Dean dropped to the floor when Fletcher seemed to come out of whatever had taken hold of him. “Oh, Dean. You’re bleeding. We need to get you some help. Someone call an ambulance.”

  Taking the gun from him, Harris picked up the phone. Dean was just noticing that there were several men in the room with them, all of them with guns pointed at the now confused Fletcher. Bella came to sit with him on the floor while her dad kept asking what had happened. After Harris hung up the phone, she dismissed her men and came to sit with Fletcher and Bella. Harris looked at Bella and shook her head and whispered to her, “Shithead made bail.”

  “Bail? I thought you said he killed five people. Why in the fuck did they let him out?”

  “We’re still building our case against him; we don’t have enough proof to charge him with it yet, but once we analyze that chipper, we should have all the proof we need to put him away for a very long time.”

  “I can’t even let my mind go there right now, I’m more worried about what’s going on with Dad to give two shits about Hunter.”

  Harris nodded at Bella, then patted Fletcher on the shoulder. “Fletcher, we’ll be all right. You just stay seated here, and we’ll take care that you didn’t get hurt too. All right?” Fletcher asked Harris what had happened. “A gun went off, and Dean was hurt. I want to make sure that you weren’t hurt either. Come
on. You have a seat right here, and we’ll make sure you’re not shot.”

  Harris kept talking to the man even after the ambulance arrived. When Dean was asked if he was all right, he told them that he was. After looking over Fletcher, the medics decided that they’d be better off making sure he was fine by taking him to get an x-ray. Everyone was playing along with the fact that someone other than Fletcher had shot Dean.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Dean told Bella that he didn’t know, but he had smelled drugs on him. “Drugs? You mean the kind that a doctor would prescribe?”

  “Yes. I don’t know a great deal about medicines, but I know what street drugs smell like. As soon as I shift, I’ll take you in to see what the doctors tell you. Okay?” She nodded. “Bella, I promise you, we’ll get some answers. Just give me a moment.”

  “I forgive you.” She turned and looked at him. “I’m sorry for ever doubting you. I saw the way you were careful with my dad. No one that would turn out to be a terrible person would have cared if they had killed him or not. I forgive you for hurting me. I’m so very sorry.”

  Kissing her on the mouth, he stood up and limped his way to the sliding door that led out onto the decking. Watching her, making sure that she wasn’t going to fall apart, he slipped out of his clothing and let his jaguar take him. In a matter of seconds, he was healed. Going back to Bella, he heard Harris already making arrangements for them all to go to the hospital to check on Bella’s dad.

  Chapter 4

  Bella didn’t want to call Hunter and tell him what was going on, but she knew that at some point, she’d have to. The doctors were doing all kinds of tests on her dad, and she was worried about what they’d find.

  Once they’d arrived at the hospital, an emergency room doctor sat her down and asked her questions. Very few did she know the answers to, but Harris asked for her to give her a few minutes, and she’d have what the doctors needed. Twenty minutes later, not only did she have the name of her dad’s physician, but also what was wrong with him. The doctor sat down with her and Dean once again.

  “Your father has vascular dementia.” The doctor, Doctor Hoffman, might have said more to her after telling her that, but that was all she could focus on. When things started to pop into her mind, she interrupted him while he was speaking to Dean.

  “Dementia, I understand. Well, a little of it anyway. What is the vascular part of what is wrong with him? Also, what can we do to help him get better?” The doctor said that treatment would help, but there wasn’t any cure for it. “Tell me what we’re dealing with then. Why did he think I was being raped? Why did he want to kill someone over that?”

  “I would say that he might have borne witness to something like that when he was younger. As a patient with DV, your father is not making long term memories much anymore. There might be times when he’ll remember new things, but his memories and experiences from when he was younger will be forefront for him.” She asked how they’d find out. “You’d have to ask him about it when he is lucid. He was right up until he pulled out the gun, I was told. Talking and reasoning well. Correct?”

  “Yes, we were talking about my brother, Hunter.” Dr. Hoffman nodded. “How long has he been dealing with this? Do you think that he’s only just figured it out? Or at least someone has?”

  “No. I’d say that your father has been slipping from reality for some time now. Little things at first. Like the day of the week. Sometimes his address. People attribute that to just getting older. Most of the time, it is. But in your dad’s case, he’s having more and more difficulty daily according to the call I got from his physician.” Bella asked him what would have caused it. “It’s caused by brain damage from impaired blood flow to his brain. It could have been a stroke that would have blocked an artery in his brain. However, strokes don’t always cause vascular dementia.”

  “What other signs might there have been? I’ve not lived with my father for a long time now, so this is all new to me.” He nodded as if he knew that as well. “Would there have been signs? I mean, someone that lived with him for a long time, would they have been able to recognize this and get him treatments earlier?”

  “As I said, there is no cure for this kind of dementia, Mrs. Marshall. However, someone living with him might have noticed a few things earlier on. But again, I think they might well have thought it was him getting older. Your father is in his mid-sixties, correct?” Bella nodded. “People around his age start having symptoms, although the risk is significantly higher for people who are older.”

  “He tried to kill Dean today. He thought that he was raping a girl, I don’t think me, while he was right there in front of him. Is this sort of thing going to continue? Or get worse?” The doctor said that people did experience behavior problems as well as aggression. “Is he safe to live on his own?”

  “No.”

  When the doctor was called away, she sat there. Dean didn’t leave her side, and she was glad for it.

  “I don’t know what to do now.” Dean told her that they’d figure out something. “I just got back with him, and now he’s...it’s like he’s gone. I went to see him right after he was brought in here, and he didn’t know who I was or what I wanted. I don’t know what it is that I should do now.”

  “We’ll talk to the doctors and see what they recommend. He’s already told you that he needs to not be alone in his house. We’ll work from there.” She asked if he was thinking of letting her dad live with them. “Whatever he and you need, we’ll make it work for us. If he’ll be better off living with us, then that’s the route we’ll go.”

  “Dean, he tried to kill you. What do you think it’s going to be like having him around all the time?” He put his forehead to hers, something that she only just realized she’d seen cats do in zoos. “I’m afraid. I don’t want him to hurt anyone or himself.”

  “That’s why we need to speak to a doctor. Not just this doctor, but his physician as well.” Nodding, she realized that he was right. Without details on things, there wasn’t any way that they could make a sound decision. “I think your brother needs to know about this. If you’d like, I can call him. I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

  “You’d do that for me?” He said that he would. “I don’t want him telling me something like it’s my fault. I’m not sure he will, but I just want him informed, then to see what he wants to do too. This is a big decision, and Hunter, no matter his faults, needs to be made aware of what’s going on.”

  “I’ll give him a call right now.” She handed him her cell phone. “Do you think he’d answer quicker if your name came up rather than the hospitals?”

  “I would answer his call. Whether or not he’ll answer mine, I haven’t any idea. I can’t remember the last time that I made a call to him.” Dean kissed her quickly and took her phone to the hallway near where they were sitting. Sheppard, Dean’s grandda, sat down next to her just after Dean left.

  “Are you doing all right, darlin’?” She told him that she didn’t know. “I can understand that. I surely can. You just lean on us when you need to, and we’ll keep you upright. You’ve been handed a few blows today, and having a shoulder to cry on will help you something powerful.”

  Bella smiled at the elder Marshall. “I think I just realized where Dean gets his charm. From you. The rest of your grandsons have it too, but not like the two of you do. I’m betting that you were a very romantic man all your life. And you taught Dean how to be one.” Sheppard laughed and told her that would have been his wife. “She sounds like a marvel. I wish I could have met her.”

  “Oh, she would have loved you and my Harris right from the get-go. She’d have tried to temper your cursing, but not too hard. She’d think you were full of spit and vinegar.” Bella asked him what she’d thought of him. “Oh, she loved me. Enough to put up with my shenanigans and such. I was a good man to her, loved her so much. But when she passed on, it took a big part of me wit
h her to the great beyond. Had it not been for Harris, I’d still be sitting out there by her headstone, wasting away to nothing.”

  “I’ve noticed that about her. She doesn’t suffer fools, does she?” Bella looked in the direction that Harris and Shep were standing and talking. “What did she do before she became head of the FBI?”

  “She was a government hitman.” Bella waited for him to laugh, or at the very least, to tell her that he was kidding. “Good at it, too. It won’t be in none of them papers around, but she’s the one that took down the president. Did you see that broadcast that she sent out? Could have knocked me over with a little bitty blow like you’d do to a dried up dandelion. But she caught it all, and the whole world saw it.”

  “You’re serious.” Sheppard nodded. “Well, I’ll be damned. Harris Marshall is a hero to me. Not just because of what she did, but because she’s ballsy enough to do it. I don’t know if I would have ever been able to take that change.”

  “Yes, you would have. More of them, too, I’m betting. You’re a smart person. Not just a smart woman, but as a person, I think you’re brilliant. I don’t know many people that would have done what you did in starting out on your business. You saw a need and did something about it. Good for you.” Bella thanked him. “No need for that. I’m not complimenting you. I’m just stating facts that everyone knows about you. Now, here comes Dean, and he doesn’t look all that happy about something. You go over there and give him a nice hug like I know that you want to give him and find out what we’re doing. I’ll sit here with you all day, but them other boys, they got some working to do. Not that they’d not be right here with you, but these are things that you have to work out with Dean and that brother of yours if he comes around.”

  Standing up to go to Dean, she was greeted with his a tight smile. She knew it had to do with her brother. Whatever he’d said to him, it wouldn’t have been a nice thing. Instead of letting him tell her right now what he’d said, Bella took his hand into her smaller one and practically dragged him out of the emergency room. Finding a nice dark place, she turned to him and pulled him to her for a long, much needed kiss.