by Terry Spear
“I doubt that the police would deny I had the right man.”
“That issue aside, how did you ever think you could take me down and haul me off?” He still couldn’t believe her gumption.
“The Taser would have done the job.”
He folded his arms and considered her slight build. “And then what? You would never have been able to get me into your car.”
“I would have managed.”
Sarandon highly doubted it. “You must be new at this.” Either that, or he’d rattled her because she hadn’t expected him to be a wolf.
“No, I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve never had any trouble. The man, or woman, gives up without a fuss, or I have to use a little extra encouragement. But I’ve always caught my guy. You’re the first who has been a real problem.”
Jake was standing in the dining room, listening to them but staying out of the way. He knew two male wolves might intimidate her too much, and they had to learn what was going on.
“How many wolf suspects have you taken down?” Sarandon suspected none, or he wouldn’t have startled her so.
“One.”
Wondering how she’d managed that without getting herself in serious trouble, he raised a brow, wanting to hear the whole story. Maybe the guy had been a beta or omega wolf.
“Well, one still in progress. I’m working on it. Currently.”
He smiled. “Me?”
“If you’ve got the situation under control, I’ll bring her car up to the cabin,” Jake said, smiling. He grabbed her car keys off the dining room table.
“Where’s your car, Jake?” Sarandon asked, wondering how his cousin had gotten there.
“Alicia dropped me off. She was going to pick me up in a couple of days at the cabin.” Jake frowned at Jenna. “If you’ve been doing this for some time in Colorado, you may know other bounty hunters. My wife is one. She was trying to hunt down some mobsters when I met her—and we fell in love. She was working for a bail bondsman while she tried to track the criminals down.”
“Alicia Silver?” Jenna shook her head. “Never heard of her.”
“Alicia Greiston, maybe?” Jake asked.
Jenna’s jaw dropped. “She was human when I met her.”
“Same here when I first met her. She was eyeing these mobsters in a restaurant, and I believed she needed some protection. Anyway, one thing led to another. One of the mobsters turned her, and eventually, we were mated. Best thing that could have ever happened to me. When the kids came, she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. I was glad for that. Not that I wasn’t proud of what she was doing, but I worried about her because she was so newly turned.”
“And you needed someone to take care of your kids.”
“We have a pack to help out. So no problem there.”
Sarandon knew Jake preferred for Alicia to stay home and not risk her life trying to apprehend potentially dangerous suspects.
He caught Jenna glancing again in the direction of her Taser, making a calculated risk assessment. He didn’t trust that she wouldn’t make a go for it. Could she get it before he tackled her again? Not with two men in the cabin, but maybe when Jake left to move her car.
“Let me lock these away first.” Sarandon hauled the rifles, Taser, and pistol into the bedroom where they had a locking gun cabinet.
In the meantime, Jake said to her, “You know that you have the wrong man. We’ll help you track down the right guy.”
“For a price,” Jenna said skeptically.
“No. We’re wolves, Sarandon’s part of our pack, and someone’s using his identity to break the law. This is something we would get involved in anyway.”
Sarandon finished locking the weapons in the gun cabinet, then shoved the key into his jeans pocket. He rejoined them in the living room. “Weapons are secure.” He smiled down at Jenna, but she looked so vixen-like that he wondered if she knew a secret he didn’t. He reached down and took hold of her arm and pulled her to stand. “I didn’t think we needed to pat you down, not after confiscating all your other weapons. I didn’t figure you’d be armed with anything more than that. Maybe that’s a mistake.”
“Is that how you get your jollies?” she asked, sounding highly annoyed.
Ignoring her comment, he patted her down, having to admit that touching her sure stirred up his pheromones again, when he was trying hard to keep this impersonal. When he reached her jeans pockets, he found a can of spray. “Well, well.” He handed it to Jake and continued patting down her pants legs until he came to her boots. He smiled to see a knife tucked inside. “Really, girls shouldn’t play with knives.” He pulled it free and gave it to Jake.
Jake tsked. “How did you miss those the first time?”
“We both missed them.” Sarandon hadn’t thought she’d be carrying anything more than what they’d already taken.
“I’ll lock it up and then get the car.” Jake took the knife and pepper spray and headed into the bedroom. All the Silver wolves had a key to the gun cabinet, just in case. And they never left their rifles when they weren’t staying there.
Once Jake had locked them up, he left the cabin.
Feeling sure she wouldn’t pull anything, Sarandon helped her to sit back down, then went to the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?”
“A beer.”
“You’re on a job.” Sarandon was amused she’d ask for a beer when she was working a case.
“It appears I’m taking a break. Can I have my phone back?”
“Sure.” Since she couldn’t call for reinforcements from her company or the police, he brought her a beer and her phone, then took a seat on a chair across from her.
“You’re not going to join me in a drink?”
“When Jake returns.”
“Okay, do you want me to tell you what I know?” Jenna took another sip of her beer and set the bottle down on the wolf coaster on the coffee table.
“Why don’t we wait until Jake returns so he can hear the whole story.”
“What are you planning to do with me?”
“Take you to the outskirts of Silver Town. We’ll meet with Darien and Lelandi at their home out in the country to talk this over. For now, I want to know all about this, then you can ride with me in my car and Jake can take yours into town.”
“Then what? Lock me up? You can’t do that, because I’m a wolf too.”
“Newly turned or royal?”
“Royal.”
He smiled.
“Yeah, yeah, so my family has been wolves for generations, and we don’t have any trouble with shifting. You still can’t lock me up. If you tried to make up a story that I was tailing you, or pulled a gun on you and threatened to shoot you—”
“On my own property? We could charge you with trespassing, for starters.”
“As a bounty hunter, I have the power to enter your home and even effect an arrest. Since Jake’s married to a bounty hunter, he must know his wife can break into a home and arrest a suspect, when the cops can’t do that without a warrant.”
“True, but I’m not your suspect. And this business about a warrant? We run the town.”
Her eyes widened. “A wolf-run town?”
“Yep. From its inception. We have no problem incarcerating our own kind in the town jail. In your case, I don’t think you have to worry about it though.”
“The sheriff’s office is…is wolf-run?” She let out her breath. “You’re going to detain me?”
“You bet. You’re not calling other law enforcement officials to tell them to come pick me up. Like Jake said, we’ll help you find the right guy, but I’m not turning myself in and going to trial. Alicia became a bounty hunter to take down the men who killed her mother. How did you get involved in this line of work?”
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay, while we’re w
aiting on your cousin, I’ll tell you about us. My mom, Victoria St. James, is the bondswoman for the family company, but she was a bounty hunter before that. My dad, Logan, saw her on a case when he was an FBI agent. He fell in love with her, left the FBI, and got his bounty hunter accreditation so he could work for her family. By then, she was the bondswoman for the company. She hired him on the spot. Dad’s great at the job. They make a wonderful team. You know, I kind of imagined I might meet a wolf like that someday. It’s never happened.”
“Maybe looking for a wolf bounty hunter isn’t what you need. Maybe a potential suspect is more your style.”
She snorted. “Like you? I don’t go for the bad boys. I prefer taking them into custody.” She took another sip of her beer.
“I take it you wanted to follow in your father’s footsteps and trained to be a fugitive recovery agent.”
“Uh, no. Not exactly.” Jenna had seemed proud of her parents and what they were doing when she’d been talking about them, but her expression had darkened when Sarandon mentioned how she got into this business.
He hoped that didn’t mean she’d been forced into it and hated it. He didn’t even know her, yet he was ready to rescue her.
“I…had a mate.” She slipped some of her hair behind her ear. “And I was four months pregnant when the car my husband was driving was hit by a drunken driver. My husband died, and I lost the twins as a result of my injuries. A hit-and-run fifty years ago. Once I’d recovered physically, I was ready to take down the suspect. Emotionally, not so much though.”
“I’m so sorry, Jenna. Did they catch the bastard?”
“Later. Yes. He was caught and given bail for another hit-and-run DUI case before they realized he was the one who had killed my mate and my babies. Will and I had been mated for five months after a whirlwind romance of a month. And then suddenly, both he and my babies were gone. I’ll never forgive the man for taking them from me.” She frowned. “Having Cavendish run off to avoid standing trial was my reason for becoming a bounty hunter like my father. And my two sisters. We’re triplets, and while I was physically recovering from the accident, they immediately enrolled in fugitive apprehension training.”
“And your mom was fine with it?”
Jenna shook her head. “Dad had to convince her that my sisters and I could do this. That it would be a family affair. Mom was worried it would be too dangerous, even though she’d been a bounty hunter earlier on. My sisters and I knew what was at stake, and we wanted to help. Since I completed my training and began working with my dad and sisters, I’ve always caught my man.”
“The wrong one this time.” Sarandon wondered if she’d ever picked up the wrong man before. “I hope the guy who hurt you is still in prison or died some time ago.”
“I don’t know. After my dad apprehended him, the perp stood trial, and a jury found him guilty, but he only received twelve years’ incarceration.”
“Hell. There’s no justice in that.”
“I agree.”
Jake entered the cabin and said, “Okay, what did I miss?”
“Grab us some beers. Jenna’s going to tell us what this is all about.” Sarandon wasn’t going to share the rest of what she’d told him. It wasn’t his secret to tell.
Jenna turned on her phone while Jake grabbed a beer for him and for Sarandon. She began looking at her screen. “Okay, so you were in Colorado Springs when you were caught with five different credit cards, three passports, and three different driver’s licenses.”
“And he said he was Sarandon Silver,” Sarandon ventured, ready to wring the man’s neck.
“Right. The guy had never been fingerprinted before, and if you’re not him but aren’t in the police database either, no connection would have been made.”
“So, he picked my name from one of his stolen identities. I’ve never been fingerprinted, so there’s no way to verify I’m not him—unless I go in and prove my fingerprints don’t match his.”
“Exactly! If my mother had sent one of the other agents to get the forms from him, she would have smelled his scent. When she smells yours, she’ll know you’re not him. If you’re not. I need to get ahold of her to learn if the forms were sent that way or if someone picked them up from the jail. Sarandon Silver is an unusual name. There isn’t another one that I could find like that anywhere. Not online. Not in our database that we use for running people down. The guy in Colorado Springs didn’t have any family or friends to speak of. He gave your address, which was verified by the driver’s license.
“You own a house and an SUV, no mortgages. Everything was easy to check. The suspect paid for the bond himself. When I arrived at the home in Silver Town listed on your driver’s license, I found you weren’t there. A man saw me returning to my car, pulled into the driveway, and told me where I could find you. Here. At the family cabin…the Elk’s Horn cabin.”
“A man? A wolf, you mean?” Sarandon asked.
“I didn’t smell his scent, but the way the breeze was blowing, he might have smelled mine and known I was a wolf.” She smiled a little. “Maybe he thought you had a new girlfriend. Hope it doesn’t get you in trouble with a real one.”
“Hell.” Sarandon didn’t believe Jenna was all that worried she might have caused trouble for him with a girlfriend. He also couldn’t believe one of his pack members had sicced her on him. The guy probably thought Sarandon’s stay at the cabin had something to do with meeting the beautiful she-wolf up there.
“Since he doesn’t have a girlfriend, that will sure start some tongues wagging,” Jake said, amused. “I wonder who you spoke with.”
“Hell, it’ll probably be in tomorrow’s paper,” Sarandon said. “It makes me wonder when the person stole my identity. What did he have of mine, exactly? You said my driver’s license. Anything else?”
“A credit card.”
“And the police didn’t suspect that all the identities he had on him were someone else’s? That the real Sarandon Silver’s ID wasn’t his own?”
“His mug shot looks so much like you that I’m sure the police didn’t give it a second thought.” The more Jenna talked to Sarandon, the more her suspicions were raised that he really was a victim of identity theft. She finished her beer and said, “Okay, let’s go to see your pack leaders. I’ll call my…uh, boss, and learn if the man they incarcerated was a wolf.”
“I’m not missing any credit cards. I only have one and have never applied for more.” Sarandon pulled out his wallet. “And my driver’s license is good.” He showed her both.
She examined each of them. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have any more credit cards or a duplicate driver’s license. The police have the others as evidence, so I don’t have them to show you, but they said the items were legitimate.”
“Let’s go then. I have my name to clear.” Sarandon went to the gun cabinet to retrieve the weapons, but he gave them to Jake to carry in her car.
Then Sarandon drove his car, with Jenna in the passenger seat, to Lelandi and Darien’s house. Sarandon didn’t confine her wrists this time. He suspected she realized she might have the wrong man after all. At least he hoped so.
“So your mom is really the boss, eh?”
“Uh, yeah. We don’t usually reveal that to bail jumpers. It’s a family affair.”
“Makes sense with you being wolves. Do you live in Colorado Springs?”
“Outside it. So we have room to run in the forests. Have you always lived here?”
“Always. And I wasn’t in Colorado Springs recently. The last time I was there, it was a few years ago. I went with Jake when he had a new photography exhibit at an art gallery in Colorado Springs.”
Jenna assumed Sarandon would let her call her mother as soon as she could get a signal on her phone. “When will I get a cell signal?”
“Could be anytime now. Don’t call the cops.”
“Just my mom.” Jenna kept calling, trying to get ahold of her mother until they were finally closer to town and she was able to reach her. “Mom, listen… Yes, I’m on my way to Silver Town. I have to know, did you send either Suzanne or Crystal, or Dad even, to the jail to pick up the bail bond forms from Sarandon Silver?”
“No, he emailed the forms to me. Why? What difference would this make? Have you located him?”
“I’ve located Sarandon Silver. And he’s all wolf.”
Sarandon smiled.
Chapter 3
Sarandon thought Jenna looked a little rattled when she ended the call with her mother as they headed to his pack leader’s home. “Well?”
“Sarandon Silver emailed the forms to my mother from the jail and wired the money to her. Which means none of us met him.”
“Which means you can’t use my scent to determine if I’m him, so you have no way to identify him. Except for my forged ID. And no one knows if he’s a wolf. What did your mom say about me being a wolf? There was such a long pause after you told her that either she was doing a lot of talking, or she was doing a lot of thinking.”
“Both. She warned me that could be why you’re so good at evasion—”
“Until this time.”
“Yeah, like something threw you off your game. A woman, maybe? My mother said not to let you con me,” Jenna continued.
Sarandon smiled at her. “Good to know you’re not worried about me.” Then he called Darien on his Bluetooth, in case Jake hadn’t reached him yet. “Hey, it’s Sarandon. Have you heard the news?”
“Jake just got reception on his cell phone and was able to reach me. I’m on my way back to the house. Lelandi canceled her afternoon patient sessions, and I asked CJ to listen in. He can report back to Peter so they can start an investigation into this guy pronto.”
“Good show.”
“Jake says you’ve got the bounty hunter with you.”
“Yeah, Jenna St. James.”
“Lelandi is eager to meet her. Jake said Jenna has met his wife before. Alicia called a sitter for the kids, and she’s coming over to see Jenna too. I’ll meet up with you in a bit.”