Mara turned her body to face him, angry he was making light of yet another aspect of her brainy paranormalness. “Being reminded is taxing.”
He gave her a look of apology. “I’m just trying to lighten things up a little.”
“Stop lightening at my expense. I wanted a baby. Is that a crime?”
Harry reached over and stroked her arm. “No. It’s amazing. What you did, aside from the trouble it seems to have cause with your family and this council, was amazing and brilliant. And it worked.”
She rolled her eyes. “We don’t know if it worked. You’re not craving formula and baby strollers, are you?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “In the beginning, I had a twinge of a craving for those pureed carrots in a jar. Who’s to say what the long run will bring?”
She couldn’t even giggle. Instead, she buried her face in her hands again.
“It’s not like you were wrapped up in you, Mara. You were wrapped up in me and the kids and Carl being taken.”
“And why am I wrapped up in you, Harry? Because I created you. That’s why!” She tugged on her seat belt, snapping it back into place.
Harry reached over, grabbing her hand and running his thumb over it in circular motions meant to soothe. “I’d like to think there are other reasons now.”
She couldn’t address her other reasons at this point, her stomach was too twisted in knots. “What if something’s happened to Jeff? Why didn’t I think to ask you why you were in the lab? Who am I, Harry? I’m usually smart and intuitive and I can always figure out whodunit on CSI. Why can’t I figure this out?”
“You’re not the only smart one in the Smart Car right now, Mara. I’m just as guilty.”
His joke whizzed right past her. “You’re supposed to miss things. You’ve been traumatized. By me! I did this!”
As they pulled into the driveway of Jeff’s small ranch house, Harry flipped the car into park and reached for her with hands she didn’t even see coming. Even in the midst of her worry for Jeff, she had to admire how he was growing into his abilities.
Pulling her close, Harry mumbled into her hair, “We still have to talk about the council. What happened?”
Tears stung her eyes, and the comfort of Harry’s embrace was so tempting. It would be so easy to focus on her fears, tucked against him. “We have a fellow geek to find. We’ll talk about it later.”
Kissing the top of her head, he let her go and popped open the door just as Nina approached them. “It’s goddamn dark out here. What is it with you dorks and the deserted locales?”
“Smaller radius of stupid people in a square mile,” Harry joked on a chuckle.
Mara ignored their banter and made a beeline for Jeff’s red front door. The house was entirely dark except for the small LED lanterns along the paved path to his house. She ran up the small set of steps and rapped her knuckles on the door. “Jeff?”
Nina was right behind her, grabbing her hand before she could knock again. “Shut the fuck up,” she hissed in Mara’s ear. “You wanna tell the world we don’t know where the fuck your fellow nerd is? Lay off.” Nina shoved her out of the way, cupping her hands around her eyes to peer into the small arched window above Jeff’s front door. “It’s damn dark in there. Looks like stuff’s been knocked around.”
Mara’s stomach began to flutter with nerves. She tugged her beret down over her forehead with nervous fingers.
Harry trotted up the steps, putting his hand at Mara’s waist again. “His car’s in the garage.”
“So what do we do now?” Mara asked, turning to Nina for an answer.
“We break the fuck in,” she said, popping the door open with a quick flick of her wrist. It creaked as it opened, revealing the landscape of what was supposed to be Jeff’s living room. But it looked more like a disaster area.
Four computers littered several tables, all turned off. Printers held reams of paper with Jeff’s notations along the columns of numbers in black ink. His furniture was toppled over as though there’d been a fight. But no sign of Jeff.
“So either he was a total slob or some shit went down. I smell shit, you, Short-Shot?”
Mara lifted her nose and sniffed as she made her way to two of the bedrooms in the back of his house. “Something’s not right. That’s all I can smell. His bathroom’s clean as a whistle,” she said, giving the guest bath a once-over.
Towels in earth tones neatly lined an organizer over the toilet, and the soap dispenser and a small plant lay squarely on either side of the sparkling white sink. This was the Jeff she knew. Orderly, calm, not the Jeff of the living room full of toppled furniture.
“So what do we do now? Sift through his personal belongings?” She scoured the bathroom one last time before making her way back to Harry, turning to him for advice. She found him with his mouth open, swinging like it was hinged.
“Harry? What’s wrong?”
“Jesus,” he whispered, holding his hand in front of his face. “It’s like having night vision goggles. I can see everything. I don’t think I realized it until just now. We don’t even need to turn on a light. I think I can see sounds.”
Mara smiled up at him, ticking off another pro for team werewolf. “I told you so would be trite, wouldn’t it?”
Nina clapped both of them on the shoulder. “Lovebirds, quit with the starry-eyed bullshit and let’s roll. Your fellow nerd was a slob—look at this place.”
Harry’s gaze said he was skeptical. “Truthfully, I didn’t know Jeff outside of the Pack gym and work. We didn’t go out for beers or whatever. I was too busy with the kids to get out much. So I can’t say for sure if he was disorganized.” His gaze went to Mara in question. “Mara, were his work habits like this?”
She shook her head. No. Jeff was meticulous, not only in his research, but his physical belongings at his desk and at his worktable in the lab. His beakers were always crystal clear, his portable scale shiny, and all of his acid-base indicators aligned. “Jeff was neat as a pin at work. That’s not to say it wasn’t just for show, but he was pretty thorough. His desk and lab space were always pretty neat.”
“Lovebirds?” Nina called from the kitchen just adjacent to the living room.
Harry and Mara’s eyes shot across the room where Nina stood by Jeff’s shiny, silver fridge. She held up another of those now familiar slips of paper.
Mara’s heart began to crash against her ribs in a painful beat.
It was the same handwriting, the same lined notepaper torn from a spiral notebook.
“Tell Mara and Harry I see them.”
* * *
MARA tucked her hair up in a knot on the top of her head before placing a knitted cap over it, trying to shake off the fear eating her alive.
For now, because Jeff had been missing for over forty-eight hours and he was a human, they’d filed an anonymous missing person’s report, realizing the police would eventually show up at Pack and question his coworkers.
Harry had been the voice of reason on Jeff’s disappearance. Their chances were better if the police didn’t immediately put Harry and the kids together with Jeff’s vanishing. How did you explain that since you’d become a werewolf, your wards and one of your coworkers had gone missing all in the space of a week? Not to mention identical messages had been left both with the kids and at Jeff’s place—key pieces of evidence.
The common denominator in all this was Harry.
But they were only buying more time at this point. The police would have to show up sometime, and if they were smart, they’d eventually string together the relationships between Harry, Jeff, and the children, and then the heat would be on.
They’d also searched Jeff’s house, something she, Nina, and Harry had done before letting the police in on his disappearance. Nothing.
Absolutely nothing, other than the scattered furniture, said this person who was sn
atching people up had wanted something important from Jeff’s personal research. Jeff was a respected scientist, but to her knowledge, he wasn’t working on anything for Pack that would change the world.
After a lengthy discussion, they’d all nixed the idea that Jeff’s kidnapping had anything to do with his work, and had everything to do with his connection to Mara and Harry and that damn lab. What had Jeff seen that would make someone want to tear his place apart or worse, hurt him?
Jesus. At this point, was Jeff even alive?
Mara’s stomach coiled into a tight knot of fear. Someone had lured Harry to the lab, and that someone had seen what had gone down that night. There was no escaping that.
She’d worried all last night about Jeff, wracked her brain to find his connection to this, other than that he was a convenient way to get Harry to the lab.
She’d notified Keegan and the council about Jeff, who was very human. If Jeff was hurt, or even if he wasn’t, the council had been clear, this revelation could lead to more charges. The only solace she took was in Keegan’s words that he’d do whatever it took to find Jeff.
She sighed, forcing her fears to quiet. Today, Mara was determined to enjoy Mimi and Fletcher for their short visit to tube along the hills behind her cottage. It was a rare opportunity for Harry to spend some time with them in this madness, and it was important.
With nothing else to go on, no clue where to look for Jeff, they’d entered the frustrating land of limbo.
And if she didn’t find something else to focus on, she’d go crazy.
Mimi’s and Fletcher’s excited voices drifted in from the living room where Nina made them hot chocolate with marshmallows and explained why Carl was such a strange color and couldn’t speak. She didn’t balk at their questions. She didn’t chastise them for being curious.
She invited them to ask her anything and everything to create an open dialogue about his differences, yet alleviate the fears they surely experienced upon seeing him for the first time.
“Fear created chaos” was Nina’s motto, and while she didn’t exactly tell them the truth about Carl, she was as honest as the situation allowed, telling them only that Carl had been in an accident that left his skin a different shade than what was considered normal and his limbs stiff and difficult to use.
As they giggled and chatted, she’d encouraged them to hold Carl’s hand, and when he’d grunted his pleasure, they’d all gone about their giggling and chatter like they hadn’t just met a real, not so alive, zombie.
“I have to give it to Nina, she’s an amazing guide to parenting,” Harry said, wonder in his voice. “The kids have accepted and moved on to the topic of what would happen if you woke up and there was an alligator on your floor.”
“We can all only aspire,” Mara said on a forced smile.
He grabbed her hand to prevent her from avoiding him, warm and reassuring. He stroked the skin between her thumb and index finger. “So we still haven’t talked.”
She squeezed it, loving the feel of it, the calm strength of it. “We will.”
“When?”
She didn’t want to spoil this precious time with Mimi and Fletcher. Avoiding his eyes, she said, “Soon.”
His handsome face filled with admonishment. “You said that last night after we got back from Jeff’s.”
“And I meant it. But I was so tired from the day’s events, I passed out. Sorry.”
Harry eyeballed her, and it was full of his skepticism. “No. You’re avoiding.”
She gave him a shy smile. “And I’m good, right?”
“So good I almost believed you were actually passed out last night when I got into bed—or not.”
She’d feigned sleep when Harry had finally stopped trying to figure out what the note meant and whom it was from and had come to bed. He hadn’t pushed about her meeting with the council, just gathered her in his arms and stroked her hair until she’d fallen into a fitful sleep.
She loved that he’d come to her room without hesitation, as if their lovemaking hadn’t been only rise-of-the-full-moon related. Whatever the reason, she’d treasure that memory. It was clear, strong, and easy to recall how he held her like no other man before him.
If she had the power to freeze that one moment in time with him—stay in his arms forever, she’d have made it so. “I had a headache.”
“You had avoidance aches.”
Mara sighed, refusing to spoil this day. “Listen, you haven’t seen Mimi and Fletcher in days. They need to see you. They need to spend time with you, and you need to focus on them, nothing else. Everything’s going to go to hell in a handbasket when the police start questioning the connections between Jeff and us. For the moment, while it’s quiet, let’s just let everything go and have some fun. Okay? I promise I’ll tell you everything tonight.”
Harry smiled his beautiful, fabulous, heart-wrenching smile. “Swear it?”
Mara crossed her heart over her oversized down jacket. “On my Dr. Who DVDs.”
Harry wrapped an arm around her waist, hauling her to him, his smile full of amusement. “You watch Dr. Who?”
“All while I drool over the TARDIS.”
“God, you’re hot,” he mumbled before he lowered his lips to hers, claiming them in a kiss that made her toes curl.
Laughter from the doorway made them both break apart in guilt.
“Uncle Harry’s kissing Mara—so gross!” Fletcher shouted before hiding his embarrassment by running at Harry and grabbing onto his forearm, burying his face in it. Harry pumped his arm up and down while Fletcher clung to it and laughed.
Mimi’s eyebrow was comically raised, her tone sassy. “Do you loooovvee Uncle Harry, Miss Mara?”
Mara scooped her up, swinging her in a circle to the tune of more raucous giggles. “I love that we’re going tubing! So how about a lot less talk and a whole lot more snow, huh?”
Mimi’s face lit up, her angelic features full of chubby delight when Mara hauled her upward and wrapped her legs around her waist. “Last one to the top of the hill smells like Uncle Harry’s stinky socks!” she hollered, taking off out of the bedroom with Mimi still in her arms.
She bolted out the front door into the cold, clear day, Harry’s and Fletcher’s laughter just behind her, filling her soul.
* * *
MIMI latched on to Mara’s hand as they made their way back up the winding hill to grab another tube for one last trip down. Snow crunched beneath their feet, Mimi’s purple boots, courtesy of Marty, made Mara smile. “Are you having fun, Mimi?”
Mimi bobbed her head, her grin wide; her cheeks dusted a healthy red from the cold air. “Can we have hot chocolate and marshmallows again when we go inside?”
Mara tugged at one of her springy curls poking from beneath the purple hat Auntie Nina bought specifically for this tubing occasion. “Wouldn’t miss it. You can help me make it. But remember, I like lots of marshmallows. So no skimping,” she teased.
Wanda’s excited scream as she whipped past Harry and Fletcher, racing the pair on her tube, echoed in her ears.
Archibald, in his comical combination of red galoshes, hat with earmuffs, and stately black manservant uniform, chided Wanda for being so competitive with the shake of his finger until she began throwing snowballs at him.
“Miss Wanda, I fear I must exact revenge upon you! Duck, Sir Fletcher! Bombs away!” he shouted his devilish delight, landing a snowball in the middle of Wanda’s back.
Mimi stopped walking, watching the four engage in an all-out snowball fight. Yet her mind was still somewhere else. With Donna. “My mom used to make hot chocolate for us when it snowed. I miss Mommy. Daddy, too,” she whispered as though it were a secret she’d kept to herself and she was embarrassed to say the words out loud.
Mara’s heart felt like it was in a vise grip. She knew what it was to miss the influence of a female pres
ence at a young age. She ached for Mimi and the loss she’d suffered.
But she decided not to avoid the issue of talking about Donna the way her brothers had avoided talking about their parents’ death. In their efforts to soothe her, they hadn’t allowed her to mourn. They’d rushed in to protect her, but sharing her feelings with two boys was awkward, and while they hadn’t discouraged it, they hadn’t inspired it, either.
So Mara followed Nina’s lead in, believing that silence led to fear and misunderstanding. She wanted Mimi to remember, and when the pain wasn’t so fresh and she understood loss from a more mature perspective, she hoped Mimi would fondly recall sharing all the wonderful things she’d loved about her mother. “You absolutely can miss her, fancy pants. She was a great mother. Your Uncle Harry told me. Maybe sometime, you can tell me all the things that were great about her, too. I’d love to hear them all.”
Mimi set her gaze toward the purple streaks blazing across the sky, signaling that nightfall was coming. Her lower lip trembled. “Do you think she can see us?”
Mara squeezed Mimi’s gloved hand, tucking her jacket around her neck. “I think she can. I think she can see that you’re trying so hard to be good for your uncle.”
Mimi nodded, but it was slow. “Uncle Harry’s always too busy to talk about Mommy.”
Ah, the run, hide, and divert tactic. To avoid experiencing his own personal pain, Harry’d shut everyone else down in the sharing process, too. “Know what I think? I think Uncle Harry might not be so good at talking about your mom because he loved her so, so much. For some people, it hurts to remember. But he told me she was the best sister ever, and he really liked your daddy. So next time you want to talk to him about your mom, how about you just ask him if it’s okay for you to miss Mommy together? Oh, and be sure to give him a big hug when you do. He loves hugs.”
A tear slipped from Mimi’s eye, making it painfully clear she was trying to remain stoic in light of the fact that the one person left in the world who was closest to her couldn’t open up. “Bet Mommy has the biggest, sparkliest angel wings ever.”
The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) Page 22