by Terry Spear
“They’re beginning to load the boat,” Duncan said in a deeply reassuring voice. “Ready to go home?”
She didn’t want to sound or look anxious, but he knew. He could tell by the way her heartbeat had accelerated, saw the way she’d scanned the horizon as if looking for a safe haven, and felt a light sheen of goose bumps on her arm, which he tried to smooth away.
“I’m feeling a little waterlogged myself,” he said. “I’m ready for a meal and anything else we can come up with.” He gave her a smile that said he meant to take her back to bed.
“You’re not going back out by yourself to scent-mark the area again, are you? Or to look for the other man?” She wanted to clear that up now as they swam back toward the boat. The rays had drifted off to other areas now that no one had anything to feed them, leaving only schools of colorful fish darting back and forth.
“No. I’m staying with you. Until Cearnach gets here—”
“I’m not leaving for Scotland with your brother.”
Duncan shook his head, waited for her to climb aboard the boat, followed after her, and then set his flippers, snorkel, and mask aside as he sat beside her on a bench. “You’re not related to Julia Wildthorn, are you?”
“No, why?”
He smiled and wrapped his arm around her. “You remind me of her.”
Shelley was shocked. “You know her? The romance writer? Personally?”
“Aye. She mated my brother, Ian.”
With incredulity, Shelley stared at him for a couple of heartbeats, then smiled. “Oh my God, she’s famous.”
“You read her books?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know of her.” Shelley couldn’t quite fathom why Duncan was still smiling. “Do you read her books?” She couldn’t keep the astonishment and amusement out of her voice.
He cleared his throat and said in a disgruntled way, “Nay, they’re romance.”
She studied him further and didn’t think that the sun had anything to do with the way his skin was reddening. “I guess if she’s going to be a wolf sister, I’ll have to read them.” So had Duncan sneaked a peek at Julia’s books? She suspected so. “Did she say anything in her books that you think might be interesting to try?”
He laughed. “You are not a mind reader, are you, lass?”
He pulled her close, their bodies wet and warm. She couldn’t wait to shower, eat, and maybe even discover what he’d learned from Julia’s books that appealed to him.
Chapter 17
After the day trip to snorkel with the stingrays and a meal at one of the local fish eateries, Duncan and Shelley arrived back at the villa to settle in for the night, the sky growing more ominous by the moment. She’d been relaxed, feeling like taking a nap with Duncan before they did anything else, but as he walked her to the front door, both of them were at once on alert. The door was locked, but she swore she smelled the telltale scent of the man who had fled the scene the previous night when Duncan attacked his companion.
And Sal. It smelled like he’d been there, too. Not that they left calling cards, but she smelled their scent just the same.
“I want you to get back in the car,” Duncan said slowly.
She understood his concern as a smattering of chills beset her, but she wasn’t sitting in the car and acting like some cowardly beta while he could be putting his life on the line. “Why don’t we go around back? I’ll shift, you open the door, then you shift. We can check the place out together.”
“I’d prefer you’d return to the car,” he said gruffly.
She wasn’t about to let him go by himself. “I’m not going to leave you to face two wolves alone.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled it in an annoyed fashion. “Are all American she-wolves this stubborn?”
“Only when we have to deal with equally stubborn males of any country.”
He shook his head. “Okay, you open the back door while I shift. I’ll go in first, and you can shift, then follow me in.”
“Sounds like a great idea,” she said, since it sounded very much like her idea, except that he would shift first. She didn’t care as long as she got to go with him.
“The greater idea would be that you stay in the car.” He moved around to the sheltered back patio with her. Once there, he quickly ditched his clothes and then shifted.
For his information, the greater idea was that she’d stick by her mate.
She stripped out of her clothes, unlocked the door, and pulled it open. Before she could shift, he bolted inside, tail held straight like a warning flag, ears perked, and hackles raised. He paused in the living room, sniffing the air. He could have waited for her, but she knew he hadn’t wanted to. That he wanted to protect her from anyone who might be waiting just inside the door. She loved that protective alpha male quality in him.
The adrenaline raced through her blood as she shifted and followed him inside, expecting to be in a fight—most likely against two wolves. She smelled both Sal and the other wolf’s scents that indicated anger and fright mixed together. She wondered who would have been the more terrified? Sal or the other wolf? Had the wolf been in Sal’s employ after all? If so, why would either be afraid?
Maybe of the notion of actually tackling Duncan. They did have something to fear when it came to him.
She didn’t hear any sounds of a couple of wolves or men searching for anything, if they were doing that upstairs or in the master bedroom. Then again, Sal and the other man would have heard Duncan’s rental car and might be waiting to jump them at just the right moment. The men’s presence in the villa probably had more to do with an ambush than a search mission.
The men had to know that both she and Duncan would have smelled them and be warned they were here. She and Duncan would be prepared for an attack.
In his menacing wolf form, Duncan turned to look at her, his expression telling her to stay. Which was ridiculous. He needed her to watch his back. She wasn’t staying.
She let him take a slight lead to appease him somewhat, then followed behind.
Apparently sensing her close proximity more than hearing her, as soundlessly as she was walking, he turned his head to look at her, again giving her a silent warning to stay put. She stood still, matching his narrow-eyed expression.
He shook his head at her, figuring his order would be ignored, and then turned and headed for the master bedroom. She followed him and stood in the doorway, watching his back like a good mate would. The men had both been here. They didn’t appear to be here now unless they were hiding in the bathroom or the narrow closet. Nothing looked out of place.
The bedcovers were disheveled, but that’s the way she’d left the bed this morning. She felt guilty that she hadn’t straightened them. Not because it would have mattered otherwise—she was on vacation, and she and Duncan were going to make a mess of them again anyway—but she hated that anyone else might have seen the way she’d left the bed. Even if they shouldn’t have been here in the first place.
After checking the bathroom, Duncan headed back to the bedroom door, waited for her to get out of his way, and then took off for the stairs. Again, he looked at her, willing her to stay downstairs. She did this time, figuring there wasn’t a whole lot of room to maneuver upstairs. If the bad guys were up there, she’d hear their growling. She’d race up the stairs and help Duncan then.
In reality, she figured neither of them were up there. Most likely, they had come, looked around—maybe trying to find something out about her and Duncan—and left. Maybe Sal wanted to show them he could come and go as he pleased, especially once he discovered Duncan’s scent markings around his estate. It was a testosterone contest between alpha males.
But then she smelled the faint odor of blood. She sniffed the air again, then the rug, and found it. Drops of fresh blood, a wolf’s blood, on the riser of the carpeted bottom stair. Her breathing suspended, she looked back up the stairs.
Duncan appeared in the upstairs bedroom doorway, glanced at her briefl
y, and then loped down the stairs, looking ready to kill somebody. She moved out of his path, and he headed for the back porch. She glanced up at the guest bedroom, wanting to explore upstairs to see if it was like the rest of the house—nothing touched and only a scent reminder that the men had come and gone. She hoped that one of them had simply cut his paw on something outside the villa and left the blood on the carpet by mistake.
Her gut instinct—along with Duncan’s angry expression and the fact she hadn’t seen or smelled any other signs of blood—warned her it was much worse than that.
Before she could go upstairs to look, Duncan stalked back into the house in his human form, wearing his damp swim trunks. The rest of the clothes they’d discarded when they’d hurried to shift were crumpled in his arms. “The other man’s dead up there. Looks like Sal killed him.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Since she wouldn’t have to use her teeth to fight a battle, she knew it was safe to shift. She quickly summoned her human form and, naked, rubbed the chill bumps on her arms as she realized she should have turned off the air conditioning before they went to swim. She knew that was an odd thing to think of, considering that a dead man was lying upstairs. The chill bumps weren’t just because of the air conditioner, either.
With a look of concern, Duncan handed her clothes to her and ran his hand over her bare arm in a consoling caress. “Are you okay, lass?”
She nodded, hurrying to slip on the pair of shorts and T-shirt that she’d worn over her swimsuit on the stingray cruise. “Yeah, I’m all right.”
He let out his breath in exasperation, sounding as though he didn’t think she was and he was worried about her. Then he stalked into the kitchen and returned with wet paper towels in hand. Surprised at what he was planning to do and before she could even help him, she watched as he washed the spots of blood off the carpet at the foot of the stairs.
She eyed the stairs above it, looking for more spots. “What happened?” she asked, her voice hushed, having to know but not wanting to, either.
“They had both shifted before fighting. Patches of wolf fur are all over the place. Nothing broken… thankfully. A little blood.”
She shuddered, partly from the chill in the air and partly because one of the men had died in the upstairs bedroom. She was glad she was sleeping downstairs now. If she hadn’t been before, she would be now. Not that she was afraid of ghosts or anything. Although the idea that the man had met a violent death did make her wonder if she and Duncan would be in for a little haunting.
She ground her teeth. “So Sal killed the other man and carried him away, leaving us with the mess to clean up,” she said under her breath.
“No.” Duncan leaned over to kiss her cheek, then went back to the kitchen to dispose of the bloody paper towels.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“The dead man’s still up there.”
That meant the man had been a wolf while fighting, but once he died, he would have reverted back to his human form. Naked. Dead.
Barely breathing, she looked up at the landing at the top of the stairs. She wasn’t sure why she should have been so shocked. Sal was a real bastard, anyway you cut it. “Sal left the body for us to dispose of?”
“Aye. He was ticked off because I left one of the men dead in his swimming pool, not to mention that I wouldn’t agree to be his bodyguard. Plus, this is a way to show me he’s not a sniveling beta wolf. He can take care of himself.”
“Can he? Take care of himself?” she asked.
“He did this time.” Duncan ran up the stairs.
“What are you going to do?”
“Give Sal another swimming buddy.”
***
As angry as Duncan was about having to carry yet another body to Sal’s estate in the dark of night—figuring that was safer than transporting the body in the car and chancing getting blood on anything—he was more worried about leaving Shelley by herself.
He thought one reason why Sal had left the second man’s body was that he couldn’t have carried it all the way back to where he could readily dispose of it. That meant Sal might have followed this man to the villa and didn’t have any other choice but to kill him. Then he’d left the body for Duncan to take care of. Or Sal had arrived, wanting to meet with Duncan face-to-face to try and secure his agreement to be his bodyguard, and caught the man here. If that was the case, the man probably had come here to lie in wait for Shelley and Duncan’s return, figuring they’d be in human form and more vulnerable.
The hired assassin couldn’t face Carlotta or any of her wolf assassins—if she had any more on retainer—without worrying he’d be next on her list, so maybe he figured he might as well try for a sneakier confrontation.
They’d fought as wolves, Sal and this man; that much was evident. Scraps of wolf fur clung to the floral cover at the foot of one of the twin beds. A chunk was on the carpet, and scattered remnants lay all over, as if they’d both had a sudden shedding frenzy.
Sal had left the man naked, but his clothes were lying near the first of the twin beds where evidently the man had stripped, then shape-shifted. Hating to bother dressing him, Duncan had jerked the man’s clothes on him, not wanting to carry a naked dead man to Sal’s place. Not that it would have mattered a whole lot if anyone caught him at his task. He would be in a hell of a lot of hot water, no matter what, if anyone discovered him.
In the dark, Duncan trudged through the sand with the man tossed over his shoulder, wanting to wring Sal’s neck. He didn’t need this aggravation. He certainly didn’t want to leave Shelley alone at the house without protection, in case Carlotta had more men on the payroll or Sal was waiting for Duncan to leave her alone while he disposed of the body. The only good thing was that Carlotta probably hadn’t had time to secure another couple of wolf hit men. The dead man might not have informed Carlotta his partner was dead, afraid of what she might do to him next for failing his mission. In which case, she wouldn’t be sending another hit team right away.
With every step Duncan took in the sifting sand—he swore the dead man was getting heavier—he couldn’t quit worrying about Shelley. He vowed he’d make Sal pay.
Before he’d reluctantly left the villa with the dead man slung over his shoulder, Duncan had made sure Shelley had locked and bolted the doors, even though she’d wanted to go with him to run interference if he needed her to. She belonged inside, doors bolted, safe from harm. She told Duncan she’d clean up the mess upstairs before he returned, even though he said he’d take care of it, insisting he didn’t want her to be responsible for it. He meant what he said.
Over the years, he’d had his fair share of battles, seen plenty of dead men, and done his part in cleaning up after the fact. He wasn’t immune to it, but he figured he was much more experienced at it than Shelley. He didn’t want her upset any further than she was already. Despite her saying she was all right with everything that had happened, she hadn’t been.
He admired her for offering to take care of the mess and for wanting to stick with him to protect him. No matter what, though, he didn’t want her forced into a situation where she felt the need to do the protecting.
Damn that bastard Sal. If getting the clan’s money back wasn’t so vitally important, Duncan would kill Sal as soon as he saw the crook again.
When he finally reached Sal’s estate, Duncan realized that when he’d dropped the other body off at Sal’s pool last night, he should have noticed there were no guard dogs barking and no guards roaming the grounds chatting, smoking, and watching. He guessed that was because he had been so bent on dumping the other body without anyone seeing and then getting away from the house.
Surely, Kenneth was staying around the place now that Sal had no one else to guard it. Not that Duncan believed the guy would offer much protection. Duncan tossed the body over the low wall and then catapulted over it. After lifting and carrying the dead man to the pool, he dumped the body in with a splash. Then he propelled himself back over the wall and s
talked back across the sand toward the villa. He was already out of sight of Sal’s place when he heard the patio door squeak open.
Sal cursed out loud. “Damn you, Duncan!” Then he turned and shouted, “Kenneth! That son of a bitch did it again! Get the boat ready.”
Duncan smiled smugly, feeling some satisfaction from the whole vile matter. That would teach Sal to leave a dead body in Shelley’s villa.
He wanted to run as a wolf because he could reach the house much faster. But he hadn’t brought a lot of clothes with him on this trip. He couldn’t afford to ditch what he was wearing, especially since he might need to wear the swim trunks again. Having worn just his swimsuit to avoid getting blood on his clothes, he jogged into the ocean, washing off whatever blood he might have gotten on his skin, and then left the water to continue jogging down the beach.
The wind was blowing now, whipping around him with a slight undercurrent of cool mixing with the smell of rain. The clouds that had been building earlier now covered every inch of sky, blocking out the moon, the stars, and every speck of light in the universe. By the time the villa was in sight—with lights on only in the downstairs part of the house and the guest room upstairs dark—a light rain had begun to fall, trickling over his heated skin.
Before he reached the back patio of the villa, the rain was flowing in a mighty torrent. He was soaking wet.
When he was at the back door, he knocked a couple of times. The seconds passed like a lifetime as he worried that something untoward had happened to Shelley. Kenneth and Sal were at Sal’s estate so she couldn’t be in any danger from them. Unless Carlotta had managed to get another goon…