He slowly slid out of her, and pulled her to him, crushing her against him and wrapping a leg around her. She lay there in his arms, stars sparkling behind her lids, a purr of contentment rumbling in her chest.
“That was so good,” she moaned.
“Yes, it was,” he agreed smugly, tracing circles on the sweat-beaded flesh of her back. “And I’ve just discovered how much I truly love pussy…cats. Now are you ready for round two, or do you want some dessert first, so you can keep your strength up?”
Chapter Nine
“I’m not even going to ask what’s behind that dopey-ass grin on your face,” Loch said as Tate strolled in the door of his office. “Let’s see, you’ve got circles under your eyes, your shirt is buttoned up wrong, and everyone in town knows you and the bobcat spent the night at Henry’s house. Did you get any sleep at all?”
“She’s incredible.” Tate’s grin stretched from ear to ear as he quickly unbuttoned his shirt and rebuttoned it properly. He was filled with a warm glow. “Weddings are great, aren’t they? Maybe I should have one.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with my cousin?” Loch asked.
“Ha. The world is a beautiful place. Why aren’t you smiling?”
“More developments in the tiara case. I’d like to be enjoying the fact that I’m getting married in four days, not dealing with this crap.”
“What now?” Tate settled into a chair and sighed. Could anything ever run smoothly, for once?
“Remember we were looking for Meyer’s buddy, Rodney McColl?”
“Yep.”
“We picked him up yesterday evening in a park, passed out drunk. He’s sobered up now, and he tells us that the day before Meyer disappeared, he overhead him talking on his cell phone to someone about the night of the theft. He doesn’t know who Meyer was talking to, but it was clear that Meyer was trying to shake the person down for cash, in exchange for his silence. Meyer definitely said something about Portia entering the jewelry store the night of the theft.”
That was not good news; tensions were already running high with the Sinclair pack. “Did you try to contact her yet?”
Loch nodded. “Yep. Her cell phone goes straight to voicemail. We tried tracking the cell phone location, but it’s apparently turned off, and it hasn’t been used at all since the night of the theft.”
Tate was puzzled. “If she broke into the jewelry store, I could see her stealing the tiara out of spite, to mess with you and Ginger. But why would she disappear afterwards? You’d think she’d want to stick around and enjoy the fireworks she created. Disappearing is bound to raise questions.”
“I don’t know. I’ve called in the Sinclairs to see what they’ve got to say about it.”
So that’s why Loch had called Tate in, so they could present a family show of unity before the hostile leaders of the Sinclair pack. “No wonder you don’t look happy.”
The Sinclairs strode through the door several minutes later. Quincy had brought Aurora and Cornelia with him. Loch gestured at the chairs in front of his desk, but Quincy frowned and shook his head, his face bearing the expression of someone who’d smelled something foul.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Quincy said. “Why are you asking about Portia’s whereabouts?”
“We’ve received word that Portia was seen entering the Hooper’s jewelry shop early Saturday morning, a few hours after midnight,” Lance said.
Quincy straightened up, eyes snapping with anger. “Who said this?”
“I can’t reveal that at this point. It’s an active investigation. When we tried to contact Portia, her phone went straight to voice mail. When we tried to call her at work, we were told she wasn’t in. She hasn’t responded to email or texts. We went by her house and nobody answered.” He turned to Cornelia, who owned a real estate business where Portia had recently started working. “Has your daughter been in to work this week?”
Tate expected them to explode with anger, but instead, Cornelia glanced at Quincy, who frowned and nodded.
“She never came to work Monday morning, and she hasn’t answered any of my calls,” Cornelia said, her lips pinched and her eyes glittering with angry tears. “She hasn’t come to work all week. We went into her house on Wednesday. There was a pile of mail inside the door and she clearly hadn’t fed her cat in days. Her purse wasn’t there, but her suitcases are in her closet. It doesn’t look as if she packed to go anywhere.”
“Why didn’t you report her missing?” Loch asked angrily.
Cornelia flushed. “As if you would have cared. The way you led her along and then dumped her. Whatever happened to her, this is all your fault!”
“Cornelia, leave the room,” Quincy ordered.
She stood and flounced out, tossing an angry glare over her shoulder at Loch.
Aurora got up and shot a dirty look at Loch. “You see what you’ve done?” she asked icily. “If you’d called off the wedding, my niece wouldn’t be missing.”
Tate wanted to jump in and snarl at her in defense of his cousin, but he knew that emotions were running hot, and he’d just end up making things worse.
Aurora turned and swept from the room with an angry, wounded air. Quincy waited until Aurora slammed the door with a loud bang, then turned back to Loch. “Our family has a reputation to uphold, and we do not air our dirty linen in private. While I am concerned, Portia does have…well…a flair for the dramatic would be the best way to put it. She’s actually left home before when things didn’t go her way, and made a big point of turning off her phone and not coming home until she was good and ready. She does it for the attention. We will not be filing a missing persons report on her yet.”
“You’re kidding.” Tate was shocked.
“You don’t know Portia the way we do,” Quincy said loftily. “She will turn up. This is Portia having a temper tantrum, and nothing more.”
“What about her leaving behind her suitcases and not feeding her cat?” Loch asked.
“She is unusually upset, which is not surprising under the circumstances. When she first met you, she immediately began telling everyone that she and you would marry. Portia has always been ardently pursued by men, and she had no reason to believe that you would not want to enter into a marriage agreement with the most prestigious and well-respected pack in North Florida.”
Loch and Tate both let out low growls at that, but Loch didn’t bother to challenge Quincy, and Tate followed his lead. Quincy was known as a braggart and a bully.
“So,” Quincy said, sounding aggrieved, “Portia had every reason to believe that you and she would be married, and she was very humiliated when you—”
Loch let out a louder growl this time, his eyes glowing with anger. Tate knew he’d had enough of the Sinclair family spreading false stories that he’d proposed to Portia and then dumped her for Ginger.
“When you chose not to continue the relationship,” Quincy finished in a sullen tone.
“There was no relationship,” Loch said coldly. “She asked me out on a date, I went out with her twice, while making it very clear that I was not interested in anything permanent.”
Quincy scowled, but Tate doubted he’d say another word. Quincy had pushed Loch as far as he dared.
“We have more information,” Loch continued. “We’ve been told that Meyer Schofield placed a call to someone on Saturday night, threatening to reveal that Portia had broken into the store if the person he was talking to didn’t pay him hush money. Would you happen to know anything about that?”
Quincy’s ears briefly turned pointy and hairy. “I sincerely hope you’re not implying that I or anyone in my family had anything to do with that.”
“I have to ask,” Loch said.
“No, I do not know anything about that.” Quincy pinched out the words. “I will provide you with a list of Portia’s friends and acquaintances, but we’ve already checked with them and she hasn’t been seen or heard from by anyone.”
“Are you sure you don’t
want to report her as a missing person?” Loch asked.
“I don’t intend to repeat myself on this matter,” Quincy said in a snippy tone. He turned to go, then paused and glanced at Loch. “If you hear anything about Portia, you will inform me immediately before talking to anyone else.”
“I’m in charge here, Quincy, not you.”
Quincy stood there for a moment, his breathing deep and angry. Tate stood, ready to step in if the Alpha failed to control himself, but Quincy reined himself in. “I will be acting as her attorney in the matter of the tiara, and any other criminal charges.”
“Duly noted,” Loch said. “If we pick her up somewhere, and she chooses to invoke her right to have an attorney present, I’ll call you.”
Quincy left the office without another word.
“Damn, you could have gone a lot more Alpha on him,” Tate said.
“I would have, but I have a feeling that something bad has happened to Portia, so I’m trying to be a little sensitive.”
“A sensitive Alpha? Isn’t that an oxymoron? But yeah, you’re right, I don’t have a good feeling about this. New theory. She broke in to steal the tiara, someone caught her in the act, she attacked the person, and ended up dead.”
“But why wouldn’t the person tell us, in that case?” Loch asked. “The other person could claim self-defense.”
“Maybe, but the Sinclairs are a wealthy and vindictive family, and everyone in the area knows it. They’d harass and terrorize whoever did it, and with Quincy being a lawyer, they could make life miserable for that person.” Tate frowned in thought. “Can you have Ginger go to her house, try to communicate with her, see if she’s dead?”
“Legally, we can’t do that, unless the Sinclairs file a missing persons report. Ginger is certified as an After-Death Communications facilitator. She can testify in court, but only if she follows very specific procedure, unfortunately. We don’t have a body, so we don’t legally have a reason to start the after-death communication process.”
“That’s a stupid law,” Tate grumbled, standing up to go.
“Hey, I don’t write the laws, I just enforce them. As do you. Go take a nap, why don’t you?”
“No time. Flowers to plant, hedges to trim, you know the drill. Apparently some hotshot Alpha’s getting married, and if his flower beds don’t look pretty, he’ll cry.”
“Ha ha,” Loch snorted. “Screw you. Go play with your bobcat some more, maybe it’ll sweeten your disposition.” It was tough talk from one Alpha to another, but the deep bond of affection that ran between the two cousins was as solid as iron.
Tate gave Loch a mock salute and left the office. He’d parked the car out on the street, under the shade of an oak tree, in the hopes that it wouldn’t be meltingly hot when he climbed back in.
As he walked toward the car, a smile tugged at his lips despite the fog of exhaustion that hazed his mind after his sleepless night of raw, animal sex. He was already mentally rearranging his house with Lainey in mind. He’d move to the big bedroom at the back of the house, where he and Lainey could have plenty of privacy at night. Megan’s room was on the same floor as the children, so she could keep an ear out for them in the evenings.
He had asked Lainey to stay, and she seemed to be strongly leaning toward saying yes.
She was so utterly perfect, he couldn’t believe that he’d been lucky enough to find her. Sexy, beautiful, sweet but sassy, and even more amazingly, his brothers and sisters liked her and she was absolutely wonderful with them. His brothers and sisters had hated the last woman he’d dated, the woman who’d secretly tried to ship them off to boarding school. They’d had temper tantrums every time he went on a date with her. That should have been a sign, he realized now.
But Lainey, or Kat, or whatever he was going to call her…now that was perfection wrapped up in one lush, delicious, puddy-tat package. His grin stretched wider at the memory of last night.
Then he reached his truck, and his smile disappeared.
Someone had heaved a rock through the driver’s side window and slashed two of the tires.
He tilted his head back in the air and sniffed. Frank Sinclair, of course. He could also pick up an odor of scentsbane, which Frank obviously didn’t know how to use, or Tate wouldn’t have been able to smell him. Anger boiled up inside him. Why couldn’t the whole Sinclair pack just run off a damned cliff?
He knew he could issue a Death Challenge to Frank or Quincy. He’d win, but after what he’d suffered with the loss of his father, he didn’t take killing lightly, even when it came to a useless little punk like Frank.
With a rumbling growl, he pulled out his cell phone and called the number of Quincy’s law firm. He told the secretary about the truck in clipped, angry tones. This once, he told Quincy’s secretary, he would not issue a Challenge to Frank or Quincy, but this was the last straw. He expected Quincy to pay for the repairs to his truck, and if he ever caught Frank anywhere near Megan or his family, or anywhere in his pack’s territory, he would issue a Death Challenge without a moment’s hesitation.
Chapter Ten
“So, he’s the one you were talking about? He’s my fated mate, right?” Lainey asked Marigold. Marigold was dusting the books in the boarding house’s sitting room, and Lainey had grabbed a broom to help her.
“Does he feel like your fated mate? Jeez, we need some books from this century. Some hot, sexy romance would be nice.” Marigold swept a feather duster over the Little House on the Prairie collection, and sneezed.
“He feels…amazing.” Lainey giggled, blushing at the memory of the night before, of Tate’s intimate explorations of her quaking body.
“I bet he does. He’s got quite the hot body. If I didn’t have an awesome fiancé, I’d be drooling all over him.”
“So, do psychics always answer a question with a question?”
“What makes you ask that?” Marigold asked with a devilish grin and a flourish of her duster.
“The fact that you—hey! You did it again.” Lainey poked at her with her broom.
“So, are you going to see Mr. Hot Stuff again tonight?”
“Yes, in fact, I am, Miss Nosy-butt. We have another dinner date at Henry’s house this evening. Thank you for letting us have sex on your fiancé’s bed. Don’t worry, I washed the bedding this morning, and I will do so again tomorrow morning.”
“It’s all good. That bed has a sturdy frame, doesn’t it?” Marigold reached up to dust a high shelf. She suddenly stiffened and scowled, setting her feather duster down on a side table. “I feel the presence of evil. Or at least something really annoying.”
“Are you sure it’s not just dust?”
“Do not question the evil-meter, woman. I’m a psychic.”
“You’re a love psychic. That’s different.”
Then Lainey heard a voice calling from the front of the house. “Lainey? Are you there?”
It was her mother.
“Oh, damnation,” Lainey groaned. “Fine. Your evil-meter is in perfect working order. Frickin’ hell. Why must she come here and harsh my mellow while I’m still bathed in post-coital bliss?”
Her mother walked through the sitting room door with a determined smile pasted on her face.
She turned to Marigold first. “I know we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Renee Robinson. It’s ever so delightful to meet you.” She extended her hand as if she were royalty about to actually touch a filthy peasant, beaming with self-congratulation.
Marigold didn’t move from the spot or change her expression, which was the exact same expression a person would wear if they realized they’d just stepped in a big, fat cow patty.
After a moment, Renee dropped her hand and turned back to Lainey. “I understand that you are upset with Miles, but you need to rethink your hasty decision. A marriage isn’t just about love. It’s about duty to your family and planning for the future. I have been informed that you’ve been gallivanting around town with a completely unsuitable man, a wolf shifter at that,
not even a bobcat. Miles comes from a very successful family, and your children would bear the name of the Bauer family. Remember how excited you were at the thought of becoming part of the Bauer family?”
“No, that was you,” Lainey said. “You were excited about becoming part of the Bauer family. If you like them so much, divorce Dad and marry Miles yourself. He’s made it clear he’s not picky. He just wants a paycheck.”
Her mother didn’t notice the insult. “Don’t be foolish, young lady, our people don’t divorce. You are consorting with a man with very little money and no future. Do you want your children to be poor? To worry about where their next meal is coming from?” Renee’s smile was starting to waver at the corners, but she kept it pasted on her face like a beauty queen at a pageant.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. We’re shifters. We can hunt our food, not that he’s a pauper, anyway. He owns a business. The fact that he’s not a multi-millionaire doesn’t mean he’s poor.”
“Hunt your food?” her mother looked utterly horrified at the thought. Civilized city shifters did not hunt for their own food.
“You can blow hot air all day long,” Marigold interjected, “but it won’t change anything. Tate Calloway is her fated mate.”
“Nonsense. That’s a myth.” The pageant smile stayed put, but Renee’s eyes were bright and angry.
“No, it isn’t,” Lainey said boldly. “The moment his eyes met mine, I felt like I’d been hit by a thunderbolt. I never felt like that before, and I never will again. He is the one for me. You and Dad showed me the right way without even meaning to. You’re rich, successful, you’ve social-climbed to the top of the ladder, and you are the most miserable people I’ve ever met.”
“This man just met you, and he’s using you for sex because he thinks you’re going to leave town.” Renee was no longer smiling. Her lips thinned to a hard angry line. “Miles is offering you marriage and a secure, comfortable future.”
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