Sheppard: Marshall’s Shadow – Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance (Marshall's Shadow Book 1)

by Kathi S. Barton

  “Nothing, my dear.” He leaned over her hand, and she felt the small nip to her skin. When he was finished, he offered her his. Cutting open the vein on his wrist, Shep took a small sip, and then she did as well. When she staggered back, Jason laughed. “A bit of power is yours now. Let me tell you what I know.”

  Chapter 14

  James wasn’t sure that he wanted to talk to his sons. So far as he was concerned, they’d been mean to their father, and he didn’t think that was right. He was a changed man now, and they should be able to forgive him for being the way he was. James laughed a little, and thought that with Jill Ann gone, he had to be good. And the boys were bigger than him too. But they should be the forgiving kind to their daddy.

  When he was allowed into the house, he could only marvel at it. His boy had done well for himself, and he should be able to fork over a little cash for his daddy. The smells that were coming from the other rooms were making his mouth water. James knew that there was beef involved in the meal, and that was all he thought about until Shep came down the stairs after the butler took his hat.

  “Dad. I’m glad that you made it. I was just working on one of the bedrooms when they told me you were here. The others are in the living room. Just through here.” He asked about his wife. “She’ll be along. Dad, she’s promised to not kill you if you behave yourself. You will, won’t you? I don’t want you to fuck this up.”

  “What a way to speak to me. I’m your father, and you’d best not forget it, Shep. I swear, kids nowadays, they sure don’t have any respect for their elders.” His own daddy came into the hall and asked him what sort of respect he had for him. “You can only get what you hand out, Daddy. Weren’t you the one that said that to me all the time?”

  “I did. And it didn’t seem to stick to you very well. But we’re not going to be nasty to each other, do you hear me, son? If you are, then you’d best be getting on out of here now.”

  James hated his father. He was a mean, grumpy old man, and he just hated the way that he treated him. Walking past his son and father, he entered the living room.

  “Good Christ, this is huge. Can you imagine the parties that we can hold in here?” He’d forgotten that he wasn’t going to bring up him living there with them, but now that he’d broken the ice, so to speak, he was going to do it now. “I could live here with you, son. You’d never know I was around. Well, except for mealtimes. You eat them all together?”

  “Unless you know of a house someplace that is not on this property, there is no way in hell you’re living around here. Hello, Grandda.” Harris kissed his dad on the cheek and hugged the others. “I do hope you know that we’re serious about this, James. We’ve all talked it over before you got here, and we’ve all decided that you’ve made your bed and you can lie in it or not. We’re not going to house you.”

  “You are the worst kind of person that I’ve ever met.” Harris thanked him. “It wasn’t any compliment, damn it. I was telling you that I don’t like you. You’re rude, and too outspoken for this family.”

  “She’s perfect.” James rolled his eyes at his father. “She is. Just like Jill Ann was before you put her in an early grave. Had you been around she’d have not had to go out to the grocery in the middle of the night. It should have been you driving when that car came out of nowhere and hit her. You did that to this family.”

  He told his dad to shut up, he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. His sons, all of them, stood up, and looked like they were ready to do battle. He told them that he didn’t need their help. Rodney laughed.

  “It wasn’t you that we were going to protect, Father dear.” There was a tone there that he didn’t like, and said as much. “I don’t care what you think of my tone. I’m a grown man with my own life. One you’ve had very little to do with. Not that I want you around now, because I was thrilled to death when Mom finally kicked your ass to the curb.”

  “She was hateful to me. All the time hiding money away so that I’d not be able to take it. I have to tell you, I surely thought that she’d be nicer to me when I hit her around. She was never like other women that were beaten into submission. She never learned her lesson.” James laughed. “Well, she learned her lesson, didn’t she?”

  “What do you mean, son? What do you mean, she learned her lesson?” James knew that he’d said too much when they all stared at him. His father asked him again what he meant. “James, did you have something to do with your wife’s death?”

  “I did not.” He hadn’t, not really. He’d paid someone to do it. James looked around the room, and knew that the woman there knew something. “You think you’re so high and mighty, don’t you, missy? Well, you don’t know shit. I don’t think I want to live here anymore either.”

  “Tell them how you paid a man with the insurance money that you didn’t have to kill Mom, Dad.” James started to back away. “You knew that there wasn’t any insurance money coming to you, didn’t you? But that didn’t stop you from having this man, Arthur Berry, to T-bone her out in the middle of nowhere so that she’d surely die before anyone would know. Then you killed him, because he was going to the police about what you made him do.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Get away from me, Shep. Before I call the police.” James was in deep shit here. He was going to have to get out of here without any funds, because he had a feeling that asking them now was going to get him into more shit. “I’m leaving here. You all ruined it for me. I was going to have a pleasant dinner with my family, and now you’ve messed it up for you all.”

  “You’re not going anywhere until you tell us why you murdered our mother.” So they all knew, did they? First Shep, then Dean. There wasn’t any way that he was going to live here with them either. “We found his body.”

  “What?” Dean repeated himself. “No, you’re lying. There isn’t any way that you did any such thing. You want to know why? You can’t sniff out lye where I took him. I suppose next you’re going to tell me that you found the car too. No way on that either. It’s been parted out a long time ago.”

  “I work for the FBI. Did you know that, James?” He paled when she said that. “We have ways about us that make all kinds of thing come to light. Like the fact that the people that you donated the car to, they knew that it had been involved in a homicide, but since what they were doing wasn’t legal, they left a note in the car about who had sold it to them and who they thought was involved in the murder of Jill Ann. We found it just this morning. The body was easy to find after that, too. You buried it right here on this land.”

  “There wasn’t anyone living here. How the fuck did you find it? It had to be nothing but bones by now. Damn it, woman, if I had a gun right now, I’d blow your fucking head right off those shoulders of yours.” She handed him a picture, and he sat down on the floor when he looked at it. “No. This isn’t right. It’s not fair at all.”

  The police entered the room then and put cuffs on him. James kept looking at the picture that had Arthur’s name on it. The place he worked was there too. It was a little rotted, but he could make it out. He was read his rights and then dragged to the car. He didn’t even get to have anyone handing him over some money.

  They were all out on the porch when he was sitting in the back of the car. The cops were talking to them all like they were best friends. Well, he’d show them all—he wasn’t saying another word. Besides, it was his word against theirs, and he was related to very rich people.

  He was charged with two murders. Then they started adding on things like mutilation of a corpse. Insurance fraud, which he didn’t understand. Threatening a federal officer, to which he pointed out that she was his daughter-in-law and that didn’t count. They didn’t listen, but just kept naming off things that he didn’t have any idea where they got all their information from.

  James was settled in a cell, but told not to get too comfortable. Like that was even possible with him having no beef dinner or a nice bed to lay down on. He was told t
hat he was being transferred to a federal prison, because of the threat. Then they told him that if he mentioned being her father-in-law again, they were going to put tape over his mouth.

  At nearly dark, James heard someone coming down the hall. He didn’t get up. If they were bringing him another meal, a good one this time, they’d have to ask him to take it. He wasn’t about to be treated like he was some kind of bad guy.

  It was Harris, dressed up in a nice suit. High heels just tall enough to make her legs all sexy looking. He wasn’t ready to forgive her yet, but if she’d come to bail him out, he might be a little nicer to her. When she told him to stand up, he did so without hesitation. Her cat was stronger than his, he realized.

  “You’re a pain in the ass, did you know that?” He told her he was no such thing. “I’ll be the judge of that. You’re going to prison, James. For a very long time. And even if you live to be one hundred and fifty years old, you won’t have shit to fall back on. I’ve made sure of that.”

  “What did you do to me?” Harris told him that it was no less than he deserved. “You’re not the least bit nice, are you? What if I told Shep that you made a pass at me? You think he’d be so quick to take you back?”

  “Me, make a pass at you?” She laughed long and hard, and he wanted to hit her for it. “I’d rather sleep with a crocodile than you. I’m sure that I’d be safer. But what I’ve done for you is this. You’ll spend most of your days in solitude. I doubt very much that anyone would want to be around you for very long anyway. You’ll get your three meals a day, and they’ll be only what is required by law. A meat, vegetable, and a fruit. Drinks too, but only water.”

  “The meat will have to be steak. I don’t want to ever have to eat bologna again. Nor do I want you to have them give me vegetables. You can substitute that out for some other kind of meat. I don’t like water either.” She told him too bad. “You’ll do this for me. I’m related to you.”

  “Not anymore you’re not. Once you go to where I’m having you sent, you’ll be only a number to anyone. They’ll call you that so often that you’ll swear that it’s your name. I’ve spoken to a federal judge, and we all agree that since you confessed to everything we have on you, there is no point in wasting the taxpayers’ money on a trial. I’m sending you away for life without any chance of parole. You’ll die behind bars.” He stood up and shook the bars. “You’re lucky that it’s me that is giving you the sentence. Your sons wanted you to be strapped to an electric chair today. They told me that as far as they’re concerned, you’re already dead.”

  “You can’t do this to me. I’ve done nothing wrong.” She didn’t even say a word to him. “Listen, we got off on the wrong foot, you and me. Why don’t we start over and you forget all that other stuff? I won’t even try and live with you.”

  “That’s good, James, because you were never going to. There is something that Shep told me to tell you as well. Your grandchildren will never know of you. No one will tell them what sort of person you were. To them and your sons, you are already rotting in a grave. They also decided that you can be buried in the graveyard around the prison. With your number carved into the stone at your head, just like it is on the chest of your uniform.” James staggered back from the bars, his heart hurting with the things she was saying to him. “Also, the name that you passed onto your son, Sheppard James Cartwright, will end with him. Shep is going to not name his sons after a monster such as you.”

  Harris must have left him at some point while he was thinking about what she’d said to him. The part about grandchildren, that hurt him the most. No little boys coming to sit on his lap? No one to call him Grandda? He’d never in all his years thought about them until just then. And now they were taken from him with a swipe of a hand, so to speak.

  The lights went off. James had never been one to wear a watch, and he couldn’t afford a cell phone, so he didn’t have any idea what time it was. Lying on the cot, he thought about all the things that they’d accused him of, and decided that at some point someone was going to ask about him. He had friends that would care about him, even if his sons didn’t.

  But as the sun came up over the window in his cell, he hadn’t thought of a single person that would be called a friend. There were people that he knew, but of late they had been avoiding him. Crossing the road to get away from him.

  When the men came to get him that morning, he didn’t even speak to them. James had been dealt a shitty hand, and it was all because of that Harris woman. The van ride was long, but it didn’t bother him. He wished that he had someone to tell that he’d be gone for a while, but again, didn’t know who that would be.

  “Can I make a phone call?” He was denied that as well. “I just want to call my dad. Tell him where I am and that he needs to try and bail me out.”

  “There isn’t any bail set for you, so it would do you little good. Also, I’m to remind you that your number from now on is seven-three-six-nine. You will be called that from now on. You don’t answer, then things will not go well for you. Understand?”

  He was in his cell before he realized those numbers meant something to him. Well, not meant anything, he thought, but he knew them. They were Jill Ann’s birthday. July third sixty-nine.

  For the first time in all his life, James cried. Not for the loss of his wife and children, but because no one had loved him. Not ever. When he got out of here, and he would, he was going to make them love him. He’d tell them that everyday that it was their duty to love him. He was their dad. Yes sir, that was what he was going to do when he got out of here. He was fucking going to be loved.

  Before You Go…

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  Kathi Barton, winner of the Pinnacle Book Achievement award as well as a best-selling author on Amazon and All Romance books, lives in Nashport, Ohio with her husband Paul. When not creating new worlds and romance, Kathi and her husband enjoy camping and going to auctions. She can also be seen at county fairs with her husband who is an artist and potter.

  Her muse, a cross between Jimmy Stewart and Hugh Jackman, brings her stories to life for her readers in a way that has them coming back time and again for more. Her favorite genre is paranormal romance with a great deal of spice. You can visit Kathi online and drop her an email if you’d like. She loves hearing from her fans. aaronskiss@gmail.com.

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