Since Jacob had helped raise Dillon when his parents died, he knew just how he had been taught to treat women. Still, Jake could remember being twenty-three. It didn’t mean he wasn’t going to give Dillon hell.
“Just what the hell do you think you were doing in there?”
A mulish expression passed over Dillon’s face. “Nothing, just joking around.”
“Joking around? It looked like you were sniffing at your commanding officer.”
The jealous anger that had slipped over him still simmered beneath the surface. He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it to deal with Dillon.
“What if I was?” Now his tone had turned downright belligerent. “It isn’t any business of yours.”
“You know better than that. She’s your boss. I’m her boss. It’s totally inappropriate. You don’t do our family justice by behaving like a fucking cat in heat.”
He knew the derogatory remark worked because irritation flamed to life in Dillon’s gaze. “It wasn’t entirely my fault. I was just screwing around,” Jacob snorted, “and she came on to me.”
“You’re trying to tell me Littlefoot was coming on to you?”
Dillon jerked a shoulder. “Now I realize she was just fucking with me. She has one of those dry senses of humor and, well, she can be as bad as some of the guys. But when she stood so close to me, I caught her scent. She smells different.”
He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and prayed for patience. Since his family had taken Dillon in after his parents’ death seven years earlier, he’d driven them crazy with his antics. From the time he stuck a banana in Coach Keller’s tailpipe to catching him trying to cop his first feel of the female breast, Dillon had a tendency to make Jake feel older than Methuselah.
Then, what he said hit Jacob. Lowering his head, he opened his eyes.
“What do you mean, different?”
Dillon leaned against the hood of one of the patrol cars. “Not like other women.”
“So, she has different perfume. That’s no reason to push her into a corner and try to cop a feel.”
Dillon snorted and shook his head. “No. The chief doesn’t wear perfume. All I usually smell is soap.”
Okay, he had not had enough coffee to deal with this conversation. Dillon’s ADHD was sometimes funny, but at the moment it was frustrating.
“So, she smells like soap. I don’t get where this is going.”
Dillon rolled his eyes at him. “What I mean is she smells different, her true scent, you know, like Aunt Abigail and Jessie.”
“You think she smells like my mother and our aunt, and that turned you on?” Maybe he should be worrying more about Dillon.
Dillon made a face. “Oh, gross. What I mean is she smells like one of us.”
“Like one of us?” Jacob frowned. “That’s idiotic.”
“No, it’s not. I mean, how do we know she isn’t?”
He stared at his cousin, took in the seriousness of his expression and sighed. “I would have been able to tell, Dillon. And she would have scented us right off too.”
“What if she didn’t know? She’s an orphan, right?”
“She would know. There is no way she could have gotten to her age without knowing.”
“Really? If I hadn’t had you all as my family, and my father had not already explained it to me, I might not have understood what was going on. And didn’t you say that some women take longer to recognize their abilities, that their aggression could hide beneath the surface?”
“She’s too old. She’s already thirty, and if she didn’t know by now, she would have to be an idiot. And one thing about Littlefoot, I’m pretty sure she isn’t an idiot. And all that aggression would have exploded at some point. She would be killing people left and right.”
“She’s a cop, for Christ’s sake, Jacob. She not only killed people left and right, tax dollars paid for her to do it.”
“I think your idea about being a cop for the SAPD is a bit different than it really is.”
“I swear to you, she has a scent of wolf on her.”
Jacob snorted. All female wolves held a scent that males could identify immediately, and vice versa. As a younger male, there was a good chance when Dillon was in an aroused state, any female would smell like one of theirs. Still, just in case Dillon was right, Jake would have to check it out. Check her out.
Damn. He had been avoiding her as much as possible, but now it seemed he would have to spend more time with her.
“Well?” Dillon asked.
Jake nodded. “I’ll check it out. I doubt very much that Littlefoot is a wolf.”
Chapter Three
The moment the gavel connected with the desk, Alex popped out of her seat. Long and boring did not cover how horrible most meetings were. This one was ten times worse. Something itched beneath her flesh, and she knew it had everything to do with Mayor Sanderson.
More than once, Alex had fought to stay awake. The room was overly warm and it made her feel…toasty. Each time her eyelids grew heavy, dangerous images flashed before her. Dangerous images that included a very naked Mayor Sanderson.
She hurried out not looking at anyone, rushing to the door. If she made eye contact with anyone on the board, she would end up there for hours listening to petty complaints.
She literally had one foot out the door when the mayor caught up with her.
“Sheriff Littlefoot,” he said, his voice loud enough for just about everyone in the building to hear. There was no way she could pretend she hadn’t heard him. She closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, then turned to face him.
She should have been prepared for the impact, but she never was. His presence always caused the same reaction from her. She wanted to sigh and giggle at the same time. Why this man? She wasn’t a young girl, and even when she was, she hadn’t had time for crushes. Of course, Jacob would be one who would inspire crushes. As he made his way through the crowd, people moved out of his way. He barely noticed. His gaze was fixed completely on her.
That attention caused a little tickle at the back of her throat. Lord. There was something sensual in the way he was looking at her. Was she imagining it? From the moment she’d met him, there had been a vibration between them. It had grown over the last few months. She didn’t get it. She didn’t go for golden boys who preferred suits to jeans and enjoyed meetings.
He kept getting stopped, and she wanted to use that as an excuse to duck out of the building, but that would make her a coward. Finally, he moved around Mrs. Gold, the council’s secretary, and ignored another council member to make his way to her. He stopped within just a foot. Her feet tingled, urging her to run. That instinct had saved her more than once, but it made no sense. The mayor wasn’t a threat to her.
Straightening her spine, she plastered a smile on her face. “Yes, Mayor?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“I thought we covered the important parts in the meeting.”
He nodded. “This is something personal.”
Great. “You don’t have to worry about Dillon.”
He blinked. “It wasn’t about that.”
“Oh. Okay. I need to get back, so is it okay if we walk and talk?”
He nodded, then followed her out into the street. The sun had her wincing and grabbing her sunglasses. It was close to lunchtime, so there was a little bit more traffic on Main Street. That meant there were maybe four cars instead of just one.
She never thought she would like a place like Sanderson. She’d always lived in the city, first Austin, then San Antonio, and had always liked the hum of a fast-paced metropolis. But there was something about this place that she really liked. Maybe it was the fact that no one knew about her complete fubar of a career. She’d tried to go back after the shooting, but she couldn’t take the whispers or the nasty looks. This way, she didn’t have to deal with those issues, but it didn’t mean these people ignored her. Instead, she often found herself the center of attention.
“
I wanted to talk to you about murders.”
She blinked and looked at him. Was he serious? “We haven’t had murders recently.”
Actually, there had not been one murder since she had arrived.
He shook his head. “These are out of our district, but they’re girls who used to live here. Or, I should say women. All in their early twenties.”
She frowned as they started down the sidewalk. “Wouldn’t that be a local issue—where they were murdered? Or, at the very least, the Texas Rangers?”
“Normally, but I was a little disturbed that all of them were so close in age. We have less than seventy-five students in each grade level. When three of them turn up murdered in less than ten weeks, it is suspect.”
She nodded. He was right. It was odd, and it probably didn’t mean anything, but it definitely wouldn’t hurt to call around. There was always a chance it was a pattern.
He dug into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. He handed it to her.
“You might be able to get more information about them than I could.”
She took the paper. She stopped so she could unfold it, aware of his intense study. Sanderson always seemed to concentrate on her like that. He did that with most people, but she didn’t think everyone had the same reaction she did. It unnerved her but she would be damned if she would let him know it.
Brushing those thoughts aside, she read the names but didn’t recognize them.
“Families don’t live here anymore?”
He shook his head. “I just heard about them from a relative. One was from San Antonio. Another was in the Houston area and another out in Big Bend.”
“I’ll call around, look into the files.”
He nodded but said nothing. He just kept staring at her as if waiting for her to continue.
“Is that all?” she asked.
He sighed. “No. I want to apologize for Dillon.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“You’re his boss and a woman.”
Irritation marched down her spine, and she started walking. “Listen, I egged him on to teach him a lesson.”
“Still, he should know better.”
She stopped walking again. He went on for a few steps before he apparently realized she wasn’t following him. He turned to face her. “What?”
“I know you hired me, and I know I was lucky to get this job, but I’m going to say something that’ll probably piss you off. I don’t need you to step in. I can handle him and anyone else who thinks they can give me crap.”
“Noted, but this wasn’t as the mayor. I was apologizing for his behavior as the person who helped raise him.”
It was her turn to blink. “I hadn’t realized you raised him.”
“Not me alone, but my parents and me, along with a few other aunts and uncles.”
She nodded. “I knew his parents were gone.”
“Yeah, so when he acts that way—”
“Let me stop you right there. I was screwing with him like cops sometimes do…and I taught him a lesson. That’s part of my job as his boss. He needs to listen and to trust his other officers. When you don’t trust, people get hurt.”
He said nothing for a moment, studying her with that expression of his. It reminded her of a predator watching to see what kind of move his prey would make.
“Do you have a problem with accepting thanks?” he asked finally.
“No. It’s my job though, what I get paid to do. I take that responsibility very serious.”
He shook his head as a wry smile curved his lips. Her heart did a little flip-flop. Her heart didn’t do that…ever. Except when Jacob Sanderson smiled at her—and that was a dangerous thing.
“You are one of a kind.”
She tried to ignore the way his warm tone danced through her blood. “That’s what they tell me.”
His smile faded a bit. “Back to the other thing. Do you mind asking around to see if this is a pattern? They could all be unrelated, but, I just want to be sure.”
“No problem,” she said with a nod. “Always better to be safe than sorry in the end.”
“Thanks.”
Then he said nothing. A bit of wind ruffled his hair and she found herself mesmerized by the action. She had often wondered at the texture of it.
“Sheriff?”
She shook her head. “I’ll send you an email if I find anything.”
He seemed to mull that over, and then shook his head. “Why don’t you come out to dinner tonight?”
“Dinner?”
Again, he seemed to be at a loss for words and stared at her for a few moments. “Yes. My mother has been after me to invite you over to the compound, and then we can go over anything you find.”
Her brain still wasn’t computing what he had just asked her. Go to dinner with him. Worse—at his parents’ house? This was the weirdest Monday on record for her, and that was saying a lot.
“Alex?” he asked, genuine concern in voice.
“Yes, sorry.” She didn’t really have a choice. When the mayor asked you to dinner, you went, especially when it was sort of work related. “I can come tonight.”
“Six okay with you?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll let you get back to work.”
She nodded and turned to start walking back to the office. She wasn’t going to even think about the way her heart had done a little dance of delight when she thought he was asking her out. Of course, he hadn’t been doing that. A man like Jacob Sanderson didn’t ask out people who worked for him, especially a wreck like her. He dated women who had date planners and matching nail polish on their toe and fingernails.
Good God, the man lived on a compound. Who the hell lived on a compound?
Jacob Sanderson, apparently. She knew the main Sanderson house was right off of eighty-two, but she wasn’t sure where the other ones were, exactly. The cousins all had their own houses scattered across several hundred acres of South Texas.
She said little when she walked through the office. When she settled behind her desk, she pulled up some reports from the three murders. They were all suspicious, and from what she could see, they were alarmingly similar. She hated to admit it, but the mayor might be on to something.
Since today was turning out to be an easy day in workload, she decided to make a few calls and find out just what was going on.
Jake was ready an hour before she was due to arrive. It was embarrassing that he was so excited she was coming to him. She would be on his land and in his parents’ house.
“Well, don’t you look handsome,” his mother said.
Abigail Sanderson didn’t look like she was a day above forty, even if he knew she was well into her sixties. Being a wolf did have its advantages. It also helped when you were an amazing woman like his mother.
“Thank you.”
There was a suspicious gleam in her eyes. “And, are you going to tell me why it was important to have Alex over for dinner tonight?”
“It’s not important. Just let her think it was your idea.”
She blinked. “I’ll do that as soon as you tell me what has your fur ruffled?”
He sighed. He hadn’t wanted to tell anyone else about Dillon’s suspicions. But, as he thought about it, he knew his mother was a good judge of character. She also knew more about their pack history than anyone else he knew.
“Dillon thinks she’s a wolf.”
“A wolf? I think we would know if there had been someone going wolf around here who wasn’t part of the pack.”
“I agree, but the other option is that maybe she doesn’t know.”
“Hmm, that is an option, albeit remote. Plus, if she did know she was a wolf, she would know we were.”
“Have you ever heard of something like that?”
As the healer for the pack, his mother would be the one who would have known about it. She tapped into the people in the pack and in the town. Her connection to each member was solid.
“Twice. Although, I never knew anyone personally. Both were women.”
“You might need to look something up on it.”
She nodded absentmindedly. “What made Dillon think that?”
He shrugged, not wanting to tell on his cousin. He hadn’t been behaving well, but he was like a little brother to Jacob.
“He said he caught her scent.”
She pursed her lips. “I have a feeling there is more to the story than you are revealing. I’ll hear it from someone.”
And his mother would. Since Jake was an Alpha without a mate, his mother was the Alpha female many of the women confided in.
“I wanted your opinion on if she could be a wolf. That’s it.”
Part of him wanted that to be true. It might be the Alpha in him that was obsessed with her. Even though she wasn’t part of the pack, his genes ensured that he would covet any of their kind—especially if they were a lone wolf.
“Is that it?” she asked, her voice gentler now. He thought it odd but decided not to mention that.
“The thing that bothers me is that she has never changed.”
His mother thought that over for a moment or two. “But, she also became a police officer. She was attracted to the command and, let’s face it, the violence of it. I have a feeling that if she is wolf, it is only a matter of time before she shifts.”
“Who is shifting and who is coming for dinner?” his father asked.
Jake turned and watched the connection between his father and his mother. They had been together for over forty years and it showed. The glint in their eyes when they saw each other, the love that vibrated between them…it was all there for anyone to see. You did not have to be a member of the pack to know these two people were mates.
“Littlefoot,” his mother said, then she gasped as his father grabbed her, bent her over his arm and gave her a large smacking kiss.
He righted his mother but kept his arm securely around her. “So, you think Littlefoot is a wolf?”
Primal Instincts Page 2