Men-On-Pause; A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Bells and Spells Book 2)

by M. L. Briers

  ~

  “Your grand plan is to rob him?” Neal said as he stood and watched Jake pat-down the dead shifter. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?”

  When Jake found what he was looking for he sat back on his heels. “Not rob, relieve him of his phone. It’s not like he needs it.”

  Neal had to admit; he probably would have done that, although he hadn’t considered it at that moment. Phones could identify a person, and if the shifter was ever found, the last thing they wanted was for him to be identified, or the contents of the phone analysed – who knew what was on there. The man needed to disappear, not come back to haunt them by way of identifying them via a phone app.

  That thought led Neal to wonder if this shifter would rise as a ghost to taunt him as Marsh Weathers had done. He really needed to put a stop to the coven, but that was another argument to be had at another time. Now he needed to know what supposed magic the warlock was going to use to their advantage.

  “I don’t think a text message is classed as magic, although to a caveman…”

  “Or someone in your youth.” Jake’s offhand comment amused Neal, but not enough for him to share that with his nemesis.

  “Cute,” he bit out. “So, what now?”

  “Watch and learn,” Jake offered in a smug tone that riled Neal even if he didn’t let it show.

  Jake used his magic to open the dead man’s eyes and unlocked the phone with facial recognition. It seemed you didn’t need to be breathing for that to work.

  It took Jake a moment to flick through the phone and find the number he was looking for; then he called it. Neal wasn’t entirely sure that was a good idea, but he needed to have faith that Jake’s priority was for his estranged family, and not in bringing down a whole heap of crap into their lives.

  Jake placed his hand on the dead man’s forehead. “I have a message for Roland,” he said, but to Neal’s supersensitive hearing, it sounded nothing like Jake. The base was deep, and there was a southern twang in his tone, and Neal was impressed – but he was also nervous – something was off, and it took a moment for him to connect the dots. “Scott’s not in Clearview, and I’m heading out of town.” He waited a long moment before disconnecting the call.

  “Nifty,” Neal said with all the enthusiasm that he could muster. “Now what?”

  “Now, we bury the body, and the phone needs to leave town,” Jake said, pushing up to his full height.

  “Maybe Scott could take it,” Neal said, a vein of sarcasm in his tone, but a heartbeat later he had Jake by the throat, and he slammed the man’s back against the nearest tree trunk. Damn, did he enjoy that?

  Taken off guard, Jake was caught at a disadvantage. Hanging by his neck in mid-air with his oxygen supply cut off sent him into panic mode, and his mind raced to find freedom.

  Neal allowed his fangs to elongate as he got in the man’s face. “And now you’ll tell me how you knew who to call, and how you knew what to say to him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ~

  “And that’s it?” Marilyn asked. She was more than a little disappointed that there wasn’t more to Claudia’s encounter with Cain.

  “Yep.”

  Marilyn shot her friend a smile. “But you felt like a teenager with that very first kiss again, right?”

  Claudia took a long moment to consider it. She couldn’t help but smile as the memory came back, her stomach even did a little flip-flop. “I did,” she admitted.

  “So, you’re obviously going to see him again.” Marilyn offered her a slight look of sympathy that was mixed with an apology.

  “Ya think?” Claudia offered her a look that said she knew who the village idiot was.

  “Well, this is you,” Marilyn said and shrugged.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, I wouldn’t put it past you to hightail it out of town and leave me to clear up the mess…”

  Claudia gasped with disbelief. “When did I…?”

  “Rory Patterson…”

  “That was…”

  “Peter Haynes…” Marilyn’s tone was dry.

  Claudia raised her eyebrows and nodded. “I remember him, but that wasn’t…”

  “Mitchell Montgomery, four years ago,” Marilyn said, and from the corner of her eye, she watched Claudia shift uncomfortably in her seat.

  “Well, sure, bring him up, but…”

  “You have a history, a pattern, and I have a habit of cleaning up your messes.”

  “That’s what friends’ are for,” Claudia said, her voice pitched as she twisted in her seat once more.

  “Are you going to sing that?” Marilyn asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.

  “Noooo,” Claudia said like a spoilt brat.

  “Good, because you’re tone deaf…”

  “I am not tone-deaf,” Claudia snapped back. “I sang back-up in the school talent show for…”

  “It was a pity sing, Michael fancied you something rotten, and he put up with your un-pitch perfect singing in the hope you’d go out with him,” Marilyn shot back.

  Claudia looked confused. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not just saying that…”

  “No.”

  “Fine,” Claudia grumbled.

  “Good, so now I can say, please for the love of the goddess will you stop doing drunk karaoke? It’s one of the most painful experiences of my life, and I’ve given birth twice.”

  Marilyn shot a look over at Claudia and did a double-take. It wasn’t a death glare, but she did look flummoxed, and it made Marilyn snicker. She did have the good grace to cover her mouth with her hand.

  “Really that bad?” Claudia asked.

  “Awful,” Marilyn said and burst out laughing.

  Claudia sat a little straighter in her seat and grunted. “I hate you.”

  “Me too.”

  “Wait, you hate you too, or you hate me too?”

  “Both,” Marilyn said.

  “That’s okay then, as long as you’re sharing the love around, and that’s three to one, so I’m still winning,” Claudia said. She hooked her around the neck with her forearm and yanked her across the cushion.

  With a squeal, Marilyn was resting against Claudia’s side. “Wait, that’s not two to one,” she bit out with disbelief.

  “I know, I just wanted to see if you were as senile as you looked,” Claudia said and chuckled.

  “That’s nice, and I hope your expensive boob job fails, and they slide down to your…”

  “Be nice,” Claudia warned her.

  “You do have a mate for your tally,” Marilyn said and grinned to herself.

  “And you have…”

  Marilyn snapped upright, twirled on her seat, and pointed her witching finger at her friend. “Don’t you dare,” she warned, narrowing her eyes.

  “Which one?”

  “Neither.”

  “But after what you did for Neal today…”

  “He knows I did it for a friend,” Marilyn lied.

  Of course, Neal had read something more into it – they all had. Maybe even she had felt something other than just the desperate need to help out a friend, but that didn’t matter – nothing mattered except keeping up the appearance that she had done it for all the right reasons.

  “That’s nice, and who was the friend?” Claudia asked in her smart-ass way, she even tilted her head to the side and licked her lips with glee as she said it. Ugh!

  “Stop it,” Marilyn barked back. “You’re deflecting.”

  “Me?” Claudia looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

  “I’m going to bed,” Marilyn said, and pushed up, but she didn’t get far as her legs protested the move.

  “Need a crane?”

  “Just push my butt,” Marilyn grumbled, and Claudia obliged, almost shoving her over onto her face.

  Marilyn stumbled and righted herself. “Gee, thanks,” she said, straightening her hair and huffing out a breath.

  “We could g
et you one of those chairs with the lever that makes the chair tip forward…”

  “I’m not that old,” Marilyn said, straightening as best she could even if her muscles were protesting. She deserved nothing less after rolling around on the floor earlier, she thought, but she’d done it for a good cause.

  “Well, hallelujah, it’s about time you realised that,” Claudia said with a mischievous grin.

  Marilyn cocked an eyebrow at her friend and turned on her heels to head out of the room. “Will you be going to bed alone tonight or are you waiting for me to go to bed so you can sneak your mate in?” She called back over her shoulder.

  “Alone,” Claudia called back. “What about you, will there be a bat at the window in a while?”

  “Bite me!”

  “You’re talking to the wrong person; I’m not the one with the fangs,” Claudia said.

  “No, that would be your mate,” Marilyn yelled.

  Claudia chuckled into her glass as she heard the thud of Marilyn’s feet on the stairs. Life was getting very surreal in their house, Claudia thought, and then she grunted to herself and tossed the rest of the whiskey down the back of her throat. “You only live once,” she breathed out on the hellfire of the alcohol.

  ~

  “I was working with the shifter…” Jake breathed out against the restriction at his throat. If Neal’s hand got any tighter, then he was a dead man, and it was damn tempting a thought for him to use his magic, but he really needed to see how this played out.

  “You total bas…”

  “Was…” Jake rasped out. His hand was on Neal’s, and he tried to yank the vampire’s hold on him, but they both knew that was never going to happen.

  “I should kill you just to make…”

  “I had no choice,” Jake said, against the cold hard sweat that covered his body and the dizziness that had started to cloud his mind.

  Neal had two choices, and he knew which one he liked best. He could end him right here and right now, and nobody would be the wiser – although they might suspect, there would be no proof. Or – he could let the man explain and then kill him.

  The one thing he didn’t want to do was allow the warlock to get the upper hand on him with his magic. Jake had already dispatched the shifter tonight, and Neal didn’t want to be victim number two.

  Neal was counting on the fact that Claudia and Cain had seen them together to be what stopped Jake from trying anything, but if push came to shove, the man had little left to lose. “Talk fast.”

  “Can’t breathe,” Jake hissed as he felt the lights starting to dim around him. He was that close to using his magic when the vampire suddenly let go, and he ended up in a heap on the ground, gasping for breath and grateful not to have his neck snapped.

  “Now you can talk fast before you can’t again,” Neal warned him.

  “They came to me and said they’d kill me and the rest of my family if I didn’t find Scott,” Jake said. His voice was raspy, and Neal felt no guilt about that. “I figured I could be dead and never know, or I could help them and double-cross them along the way.”

  “Which you did.” Neal thought it sounded plausible, but he still didn’t trust him.

  “Yeah.”

  “And I’m supposed to trust you now?” Neal demanded.

  “About as much as I trust you,” Jake said and coughed hard. It felt as if he had a damn lump in his throat to try and swallow down.

  “I suppose that’s fair,” Neal said, and reached down, grabbed a handful of the man’s jacket and yanked him to his feet. “No harm no foul.”

  Jake looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “No harm?”

  “A little…” He motioned to his throat. “You’ll be fine.”

  Jake straightened his clothes and pushed out a hard breath. He was still shaking inside, but that could have been the shock of what just happened. “Now what?”

  “Now you bury the shifter,” Neal said. “Then we figure out what to do about that phone.”

  “I’ll take it with me,” Jake said. “I’m the only one who can pull off the guy’s voice.”

  “You can still do that?” Again, Neal found himself impressed.

  “What, you can’t?” Jake offered back with a smirk.

  “That’s – funny,” Neal said and shook his head. Under different circumstance, and never having known Marilyn, he could have liked Jake, but right then, he considered dropping the warlock in the hole they were about to dig for the shifter.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  ~

  “Okay, now hold your darn horses!”

  “Darn?” Claudia cocked an eyebrow at Marilyn, and her friend rolled her shoulders and straightened to her full height.

  “I was being polite…”

  “In which century? It’s not really the company for it, but, I’m easy,” Claudia said with a shrug and a smirk.

  “And that should make life easier for your mate,” Marilyn batted back and heard the snickers from the others in the room.

  “Oh, we’re going there?” Claudia said, folding her arms and tilting her chin down so she could eye Marilyn from beneath her long lashes.

  Marilyn winced. Perhaps she was aiming her frustration at the wrong person, especially as Claudia’s claws were a lot sharper and could cut deeper than her own. She noted her friend’s gaze shot to Neal and back, and she shook her head. “Nope, a slip of the tongue.”

  “Hmm,” Claudia said to the sound of more snickers.

  Neal cleared his throat. “Can I say…?”

  “No,” Marilyn’s tone was low, deeper than normal, and so far beyond dry that it was heading for parched.

  “Seems a little unfair,” Neal said, lifting his chin as if to give her a bigger target to aim at.

  “Ahhh, diddums,” Marilyn tossed back. “This is not a trivial matter – this is about Scott.” Marilyn turned a steely gaze on Jake. “And you put him in danger with your antics.”

  “If looks could kill,” Jake muttered.

  “Oh, they can,” Neal said. “Trust me, been there, come back from that.” He turned to Marilyn. “Go ahead, give him your best shot.”

  Marilyn didn’t look impressed; at least, she was trying her hardest not to laugh. Neal suspected that the clenched fist at her side had her fingernails pressed hard into the flesh. “Maybe I should start with you?”

  “That’s not fair either; I was the last person you killed unless you’re two-timing me with another vampire that I don’t know about – are you?” he asked, looking deadly serious. She could see past the bravado to the smile beneath the mask that he wore – you just had to know where to look – it was in his eyes.

  “She’s on a men-on-pause,” Louann said from the comfort of the easy chair by the fireplace.

  “Yes, I am,” Marilyn said with a curt smile to her mother for bailing her out, so she could get back to tearing her ex a new one.

  “Well, that seems a little unfair on the men in question, don’t you think?” Neal said and noted the way that Jake fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat – good.

  Given the opportunity, he would prefer to wipe Jake from the face of the earth, but that opportunity wasn’t going to come along any time soon as he was the father of Marilyn’s children.

  There were rules, and while he was a part of a; somewhat, civilised society, then he would need to abide by them – mostly – and killing ex-husbands was apparently a no-no.

  “There are no men in question.” Marilyn was at pains to point out, and the hard snort of amusement from Claudia was hardly helpful. “Let’s get back to the point.”

  “Can you remember it, dear?” Louann asked, and watched in amusement as Marilyn pouted, took a breath, muttered a few curse words to herself, and turned to her mother.

  “Yes, thank you, mother, I’m not that old,” she said.

  “Even if she does act it at times,” Lottie said with a wicked grin.

  Marilyn did a double-take at the elder. If anyone was going to be on her side, she th
ought it might be Lottie.

  “This is my fault,” Sandy said, bringing everyone’s attention her way.

  “How so?” Amber asked.

  Sandy sighed. “If I hadn’t gone to see Scott…”

  “Then my son would surely have got cabin fever and come out into the light of day anyway,” Marilyn assured her.

  Claudia grinned. “But, what were you doing there at that time of night, I wonder?”

  Sandy sat a little straighter. “He was hungry, I took a takeaway,” she said as innocently as possible. Then she turned a disapproving look on Neal. “Somebody didn’t have any food in the house.”

  “I had food in the house, just not food-food,” Neal said with a shrug.

  Marilyn cocked an eyebrow at the vampire, and he shrugged again. “The heart wants what the heart wants,” he said.

  Claudia snorted a chuckle. “In more ways than one,” she said, aiming the comment at Marilyn.

  “Can we get back to the fact that Jake is an idiot?” Marilyn grumbled.

  “Yes, lets,” Neal said with relish.

  “Well, this idiot has somewhere to be,” Jake said. “I don’t need to stand around and be berated…”

  “Then sit,” Neal said, and Marilyn couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips that time.

  “Where will you go?” Marilyn asked, trying to keep a straight face.

  “The world is my oyster,” Jake offered back with a shrug. “I thought I might get lost in a big city for a while…”

  “Such ambition,” Neal said, and when Jake turned towards him, he held up his hands in mock surrender. “Bon voyage. Don’t call us we’ll call you if we spot hell freezing over.”

  Marilyn snapped her attention to Neal, and the scowl gave away her true feelings. She was bubbling with frustration and anxiety, but he knew those feelings weren’t for Jake, but for Scott. “Will you stop?”

  Marilyn’s request sounded half-hearted to him, and he whined as he considered it. Then he shook his head. “It’s just too easy.”

  “I had toddlers that were better behaved than you,” she informed him and caught the snicker that came from Jake. “And you’re not helping just by being you,” she admonished the warlock.