by Terry Spear
A black-bearded man joined them, his black hair tied back in a tail. “I’m Sam, Silva’s mate, and if no one told you, we own the tavern and the tea shop in town.” He looked like a wary wolf as his amber eyes took Jenna in.
“Yes, good to meet you both.” Jenna hadn’t known what to expect. Most of the patrons seemed curious about her, talking to themselves about who she was and why she and Sarandon were questioning Sam and Silva about people they’d seen in the tavern. Others, like Sam and CJ, weren’t happy she was here. And then some were going overboard to make her feel welcome, especially Lelandi, Alicia, and Silva.
“You’ve met Jake’s mate, right? She’s a bounty hunter too. It’s so exciting to meet you. I just waitress here and at my own tea room; nothing exciting about that,” Silva said.
“Don’t let her kid you,” Sarandon said. “She’s seen plenty of excitement here over the years. She even helped search for Lelandi in the woods before she was part of our pack and was being hunted down by a killer. Silva was the only woman in the pack to insist on going, even though Darien didn’t want her to, for her own safety.”
Instantly, that made Jenna’s mind up about the woman. “Sounds like you’d make a darned good bounty hunter.” And she meant it. Not everyone would be willing to risk their life for someone who wasn’t even part of the pack.
Silva laughed. “If I didn’t have so many jobs already, I’d love to.”
Sam growled a little.
Silva smiled at him and patted him on the chest. “Don’t worry. I’m not giving up my tea room for anything. And you need me here.”
“Do you remember anything about either of these men?” Jenna asked.
“I see a lot of men, but most are pack members and well known to me,” Silva said. “These men stood out, not in anything they did, but just because they didn’t belong to the pack. They were quiet, not really speaking much except to order food and drinks. Every time I was near their table to serve food or more drinks to other patrons, I’d either try to hear what they might be saying, or I’d turn and ask if they needed refills. They just shook their heads and didn’t talk whenever I was near. They ordered the food and drinks, and that was it.”
“Isn’t that unusual in itself?” Peter asked.
“Yes. Even if they didn’t want to talk to me, though I tried to engage them a few times, they didn’t say anything, like they didn’t want to be bothered. Then again, my growly wolf of a mate might have had something to do with it. I’m sure he was eyeing them the whole time.”
Sam grunted. “You’re damn right. If some horny male wolves come in and don’t know you’re my mate, I want them to know you’re not on the menu.”
Silva smiled so sweetly at him that Jenna thought they made a cute couple.
“Between Lelandi keeping an eye on them, and my mate too, they might have felt ill at ease.”
“Did they look that way to you?” Sarandon asked.
“No. Not really. I figured they’d dropped in for lunch, just passing through town. That would explain why they weren’t friendly. On the other hand, no one was really friendly toward them either. You know how wolves can be wary of other wolves, particularly if they’re males, afraid they could be trouble.”
“Were they watching the other wolves in the tavern? As if they were looking for anyone in particular?” Jenna asked. Even though Lelandi had said the men only looked around casually, Jenna wanted Silva’s take on it, in case she had seen something differently.
“Well, they were wolves. Truly, anyone in the tavern glances at the entryway when someone comes inside. It’s just a natural tendency. Even when you and Sarandon came inside, we all looked. Partly, it’s to make sure no humans are just walking in. You probably noticed the sign out front that states you must be a member. Membership is $150,000 a year. Wolves are free. Humans don’t know that. We’ve had a few who want to join, until they hear the price. It’s a private club. We set the rules. If anyone asks, those who come here are members.
“Sometimes we have guests, wolves we don’t know who come in. Anyone sitting close to the door would have smelled those men’s scent. We have a fan near the doorway to help send newcomers’ scents to the wolves already in the tavern. Word of mouth has spread to other wolf packs about the tavern, and even my tea shop, so we’ve been getting new wolf patrons all the time. My tea shop is open to anyone though. Taverns can get away with being private clubs. And we need a social gathering spot in town where we can be ourselves. So this is it.”
“You’d know the men by scent then if you met them again.” Jenna thought they might have a real break if she could locate the men and bring them here. Then again, if Silva and Sam could remember strangers’ faces well enough, they’d probably recognize the man if they saw him again.
“I’m sure several of us smelled them. Mason, our bank president, was here with a bunch of his usual friends. They were sitting closest to the men’s table. I’m certain they would recognize the men’s scents if they ran across them again. If someone doesn’t smell like a wolf, they’re out of here.”
“What about you, Sam?” Peter asked. “Would you recognize the dark-haired man by scent?”
“Yeah. I delivered a couple of beers to their table.”
“To intimidate them,” Silva said, running her hand over Sam’s chest. She pointed her finger at the sketches. “Lelandi and Peter did a great job. I couldn’t have described them any better.” She considered the mug shot. “He does look like this man.” She pointed to the sketch of the first man Lelandi had described to Peter.
“You didn’t happen to see what they were driving, did you?” CJ asked.
“No. I must have been busy. The next thing I knew, their table was empty. I probably wouldn’t have looked out the window or door anyway. No real good reason to.”
“Did they leave a good tip?”
“No. Cheapskates.”
“I should have charged them with something,” CJ said.
Everyone smiled.
“You shouldn’t return to your home,” Jenna said to Sarandon, beginning to worry that the police might pick him up before she and the pack could prove beyond a doubt he wasn’t the suspect. Yes, she was changing her mind about him. “If the police are headed here, you need to go somewhere else to stay.” To Peter, she said, “Can you fingerprint Sarandon and send the sheet to the Colorado Springs Police Department to let them know the Sarandon Silver they thought committed the crimes isn’t him? That he’s a victim as much as anyone else? That the address the suspect used is Sarandon Silver’s, but Sarandon doesn’t know the man they arrested?”
“Yeah. We’ll get right on it,” Peter said. “They may not go along with it. It’s their jurisdiction, and they’ll probably insist he go there. But we’ll give it our best shot.”
“Did you want to stay at my place?” CJ asked Sarandon. “Nobody would try to take you into custody there.”
“The Elk Horn cabin belongs to the family, you said?” Jenna asked.
“The title is in Darien and Lelandi’s name,” Sarandon said. “We have several cabins, actually, but that’s the one I usually use. They’re all in the pack leaders’ names, and anyone can use them. Lelandi usually makes a note of who’s going to be at which one at which times.”
“Why don’t we stay there? When I came in search of you, I didn’t have any idea you’d be at a cabin in the wilderness, and you can’t get there by GPS. The guy who told me where you were gave me directions. If the police do show up, they won’t learn about it. Right?”
“No. No one will tell them. So, you’re saying you want me all to yourself.” Sarandon gave Jenna a big smile.
Jenna rolled her eyes, but she felt as if her cheeks were aflame. She couldn’t believe he kept twisting her words. Then again, he was a wolf. She wasn’t going with Sarandon because she wanted to be his girlfriend. She wanted to find her suspect but stop the police from taking
the wrong man into custody. What if Sarandon was incarcerated until they could prove he wasn’t the right man? Then the real suspect would think he was in the clear.
What if that was his whole plan? Not to just steal from Sarandon for his own gain, but to make it appear Sarandon was the criminal himself so he would be arrested.
Silva laughed. “Sam and I’ve got to get back to work. If we think of anything else, we’ll let you know. Take good care of him, Jenna.” Silva winked at her.
“Thanks,” Peter said, and everyone else chimed in to thank Sam and Silva too.
Jenna didn’t think telling Silva she only wanted to keep Sarandon from getting into trouble would convince her that was all there was to it. Sarandon was just teasing her, so no sense in setting him straight.
“Ready to head over and give us your fingerprints?” Peter asked. “CJ and I have some work to do after that, if you and Jenna will be safe where you’re going,” Peter said.
Sarandon slapped him on the back. “Yeah, thanks. Let’s get it done. As soon as Peter sends in my fingerprints and they accept them, I should be in the clear. That will be the end of that.”
Jenna should have been eager to get on her way and go after the real suspect so her family wouldn’t have to pay all that bond money. So why was she hoping this was going to take longer than that?
When they were heading over to the sheriff’s office, she got a call from her dad. “Yes, Dad?” She assumed he was worried about her because Sarandon was a wolf.
“Your mother told me you have a whole wolf pack to deal with. I’ll get there as soon as I can clear up the case I’m working on.”
“No. I’m fine, Dad. Really. The local sheriff’s department is going to send Sarandon Silver’s fingerprints to our police department. If they learn he’s not the man they arrested, we’ll have to locate the real suspect. In that case, I have a couple of leads from the pack members. They’ve all been really cooperative.”
Sarandon smiled at her, then parked the car at the sheriff’s department.
Yeah, when he had tackled her, he hadn’t been cooperative in the least. Though she didn’t really blame him. One time, one of the suspects she was after had tased her! So she knew just how it felt and was glad Sarandon had stopped her when he did.
“All right, well, if you have any trouble, let me know right away.”
“I will, Dad. Thanks.” She wouldn’t mind her dad helping her to track down the other guy, but she really wanted to deal with Sarandon on her own.
Her mother had warned her and her sisters never to fall for the charms of a suspect, but Sarandon wasn’t really a suspect anymore. So that meant it was okay to spend a little more time with him. Right?
He certainly seemed to believe so.
Chapter 7
Even though Sarandon had nothing to worry about, he hated having to submit fingerprints to prove he was innocent. He didn’t like having them on file anywhere because wolves lived such long lives. Five years for every human year now. Still, if giving his prints helped clear his name, he had to do it.
“Okay, we’ll take it from here,” Peter said once Sarandon had finished giving them his fingerprints.
“If you need anything, just call me,” CJ told Sarandon, casting Jenna a wary look. CJ pulled a satellite phone out of his desk drawer. “Here, take this to keep in touch.”
“All right,” Sarandon said. “Once I see what I was doing during the last few days, I can let you know. That’s how long this guy was being monitored before he took off.”
Looking serious, Peter nodded. CJ glanced at Jenna, and she knew he planned to tell Sarandon he’d vouch for him if he didn’t have an ironclad alibi.
When they left the office, Sarandon said to Jenna, “We still need to drop by the house.”
“And look at your schedule to see what your alibi happened to be.” She raised a brow.
He only smiled. “I’ll have one. And more.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will.”
* * *
Once they were in the house, Jenna kept watching out the window and looking back at Sarandon while he searched through drawers in a bureau in the living room where he threw stuff he meant to organize someday.
“Are you worried the police will show up?” Sarandon finally found where he’d put some of the pictures Jake had taken of the brothers. He needed to get more organized.
“Yes. Aren’t you?”
“Not really. I have you to vouch for me. Here it is. One Jake took of me and my brothers on the ski slopes last winter. We stopped at the lodge to have hot drinks.”
Jenna walked over to look at it. “You have a fairly red beard.” She considered the stubble starting to appear on his chin. “It’s coming in even now.”
“Yeah. There must have been an Irishman or a Scot in the bunch. At least, that’s what everyone always says. One of our grandfathers also had black hair and a red beard.”
“Okay.” She pulled up the mug shot on her phone and compared the photo of Sarandon with it. “His eyes and nose still look similar, but the beard and coloring are not at all the same. Unless you dyed your beard, or it comes in different colors at different times.”
“Nope. And I’ll prove it to you, if you hang around long enough.”
She laughed. “I can imagine hanging around just to watch your beard grow.”
“It would be all right by me. Besides, all you’d have to do is have me shift. If I were dyeing it, the shift would knock the dye right out of it.”
“True, but humans wouldn’t know that.”
“You can come by later to check out my beard’s progress.” He rubbed his whiskery chin.
“I could, but I have to catch this guy. Besides the fact that he’ll steal from others, the business of us having to pay his bond is too important not to.”
“As a wolf, he’s not going to go with you willingly.” Sarandon already didn’t like that she was handling this on her own. What if this guy was a wolf and had a pack to back him up? If he was related to Sarandon, he was a wolf.
“Yeah, if he is one. If he’s the same man Lelandi thought he was. What about your schedule? The one that shows where you’ve been every day for the past several days.”
Sarandon went to his office, Jenna following him, and when he reached his oak desk, he pulled an appointment book out of a drawer.
“Not high tech, eh?” she asked.
“Some things I prefer doing the old-fashioned way. Like reading a book. I still prefer paperbacks. I guess you read only e-books and use online calendars.” He handed her the book.
“Most of the time, sure.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a young wolf.”
“What? And have never used a typewriter before? Don’t worry, Pops. I’m probably as old as you are. Maybe even older.”
“Good, because I wouldn’t want to be accused of robbing the cradle.”
She was thumbing through his appointment book, pausing to read appointments on dates that weren’t even relevant. She glanced up at him. “You would only be accused of that if I were a young wolf and you were trying to court me. Which you’re not doing.”
“Hell, I thought we’d already accomplished phase one of the courtship ritual.”
“In your dreams.” She kept skimming through the date book. “I wore Victorian gowns when they were the required fashion of the period.”
He smiled. “Me too. I didn’t wear the gowns, but that was a good era for me.”
“Good to know. Back to your alibi.” She kept flipping through the pages, and he thought she would have reached the right time frame way before this.
“We have a grand Victorian Days celebration in the fall. A ball too. You should come. Everyone who lives here dresses up for the occasion. Some visitors to the area dress up in Victorian-style clothes too, just to enjoy the festivities.” He reached for
the appointment book, and she frowned at him. “Here, let me have it for a second.” He took it and set it on the desk, then took her hands in his.
“What are you doing?”
He placed a hand on her waist and held her free hand with his. Then, to the nonexistent music, he waltzed her around the office.
Following his lead, she danced beautifully, not pulling away, not even when he pulled her closer.
“That is not the way the Victorians dance,” she said.
He smiled down at her. “Victorian wolves did, and in this day and age, it’s perfectly acceptable.”
She pulled her hand free of his and wrapped her arms around his neck while he resettled his hands on her hips. “And like this.”
He glanced down at her softly parted lips. Then he lifted her chin and brushed his mouth against her jaw, moving his lips across her lips. “And like this.” He kissed her mouth, gently. “You are so beautiful.”
She smiled against his lips and licked them. “So are you.”
And she kissed him right back. Parting her lips for him. Taking him in. He was in heaven.
“Wow,” she said and separated from him. “I haven’t danced like that in decades. And never without music.”
“And the kiss?”
She only gave him a dark smile. “No more interruptions, unless you have something to hide.”
He didn’t. If his schedule didn’t show he’d been in Silver Town with verifiable witness accounts, he wasn’t going to sweat it. His family and friends, and the law even, would provide him with witness statements proving he had been here or close by.
“Okay, so when you were arrested”—she frowned at him, and he was frowning at her—“supposedly were arrested, you were on the last two days of your butterfly photo op. You were at the state park with seven people. You can contact them and have them state for a fact you were with them the whole time?”
“I can try to get ahold of them to verify my whereabouts. They’re human and have returned to other cities and their jobs.”
“Okay, well, the police might want to verify this themselves if the fingerprints don’t prove to be enough.”