Dwayne: Bishop’s Snowy Leap – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  Had he left it in the car? Right now, he was beginning to think he’d not. The kids had been silenced. Bree too. She was a good fuck, but all the while he was giving it to her, she was sobbing and wailing like a damned fool. It was almost as bad as fucking his wife he’d had at one time. Laughing, he thought that the old saying of cops being able to get away with murder was truer than any other saying about cops.

  Howie had gotten away with it about a dozen times over his lifetime. That brought him around to thinking about his son. Well, he’d been a pussy too. Howard refusing to leave his wife and kids by the side of the road so Howie could live with him had been the final straw. Though now he understood why he didn’t speak to him in those last few minutes. He couldn’t. Damn, he was glad now that he’d killed him too. Who the hell wanted a cripple around all the time anyway?

  A lot of the things that had happened in those few days it had taken him to get rid of the dead weight of his son was making more sense now. Howard hadn’t spoken a word to him. And when he’d had to move him from the house to where he’d killed off the others, Howie had had to drag him. He’d thought that Howard was being stubborn, but now he knew the real reason. He couldn’t walk.

  Howie had hated Bree. Even fucking her, taking her against her will, hadn’t endeared her to him at all. And those fucking kids? Christ, they should have thanked him for taking care of them rather than being pissed off by them.

  Deciding he needed medical care, he made his way to his car so he could get to the hospital. There was a nice one here in town that he’d been to a couple of times. He just hoped they didn’t try and charge him. He didn’t have the money to go around paying bills that didn’t give him anything in return, like going to the hospital.

  There was money in his accounts—also stashed around his home. But at the moment, he couldn’t get to his house due to termites. Whoever heard of such a thing of tenting a house to get rid of the vermin. He just killed his pests. But he had money buried in the backyard, as well as in the very car he was in now. Guns were also planted everywhere. Howie didn’t want to be caught unawares like he had been this morning.

  Bree’s sister? What was her name? He knew eventually it would come to him. But now he had to get some help. While he was sure he wouldn’t die from blood loss, he couldn’t get it to stop bleeding.

  After three hours in the waiting room, he was finally taken to a room. Before the nurse left him, he told her he wanted to see someone stitch up his hand now. Not in another three hours. All she did was close the door to his room and leave him there. Howie would have walked out if not for the fact that he was still soaking through paper towels. And the one towel he’d put on it that he’d stolen from the clothesline he’d passed on the way here was so wet with his blood that it weighed about fifty pounds. Not really, but it was soaking wet.

  The doctor came in a few minutes later. Howie was beginning to get sick to his belly. It might well have been from hunger, but he wasn’t sure. The man took one look at his hand and sat down and said he couldn’t sew it up.

  “Why the hell not? It’s nearly to the bone.” The doc asked him if a shifter had done it. “Yeah. Now that I think on it, he had a white paw. And a gun with a fake badge. Biggest fucker I’ve ever seen, too. What does that have to do with you sewing me up before I bleed to death?”

  “It won’t heal. Nor will it stop bleeding until you make restitution for whatever it is you did to him. I would say you should go apologize to him, but I’m doubtful that will work.” He asked him why not. “It must have been my brother that cut you. He’s the only one that carries a badge, which is real, and a gun all the time. Yes, he won’t accept your apology anyway. You’re Howie Lane, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” The doctor stood up to leave. “Aren’t you going to at least try to seal them up? Damn it, I’m losing a lot of blood here.”

  “I could glue them closed, but I don’t believe that will work anyway.” He told him to do it. “Nope. I don’t like that you killed two small children and a nice woman and her husband. I just spoke to my brother, Sawyer Bishop, and he said to tell you to fuck off. I’d have told you the same thing, but I do dislike being redundant. He said for you to remember his name because he’s going to be coming after you soon. All the police department will be. Also, the Feds. They’re good friends of the family, it turns out. Anyway, good luck with trying to find someone that will try to fix that for you. It certainly won’t be anyone at this hospital.”

  Howie just stood there for five minutes, hoping the man was kidding and would return. When the door opened, he smiled, ready to tell the man he liked a good joke like anyone else. But it was billing.

  “Mr. Lane? How would you like for us to bill you? If you pay today, you will get a ten percent discount. Would you like to take advantage of that and pay today? We take all major credit cards.” He asked her how much they were going to charge him for doing shit for him. “The total comes to just under nine-hundred-and-sixty dollars. You’ll save ninety-six dollars if you pay right now.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me. A thousand bucks for just having a crackpot of a doctor coming in here and telling me he’s not going to help me?” The woman told him Doctor Bishop was a great doctor and that he should behave himself. “Behave myself? Christ. I’m not paying that. Not today for hundred bucks off, nor at any time you send me a bill. He didn’t do shit for me.”

  “Then I suppose we’ll have to turn you over to a collection agency if you refuse to pay.” He told her to go right on ahead with it. He was already a member there. “Good day, Mr. Lane.”

  She left him and left the door open behind her. Howie wasn’t going to leave until he got taken care of. However, when security showed up with the police, he left. Christ, if this kept up, someone would find him bled out in his hotel room in a couple of days.

  Leaving with a police escort, he was in his car when he decided he’d take care of his wound on his own. The pharmacy had all the things he needed—wraps, antiseptic cream, as well as tape. While standing in line waiting for his turn, he saw glue, the kind that could hold a man’s weight up on a ceiling. Buying several tubes of it, he paid for it all and made his way back to the hotel.

  Cleaning the wound was difficult, as all it did was bleed more under the water. Leaning over the tub, he dried the cuts and then squeezed an entire tube of the smelly stuff into the first long cut.

  Falling back on his ass, screaming his fool head off, he wished now he’d thought to pick up a bag of ice. No one had warned him that the fucking glue hurt worse than the cuts did. Hitting his head on the commode, he was out.

  ~*~

  Dwayne knew that both Brit and Jamie had slept badly. He could hear the little boy crying out and his mom racing down to his room. He had wanted to go, wanted to help however he could. But when he’d started to follow her, Brit told him she had it and for him to go back to bed. Going into his bedroom, he knew he wasn’t going to sleep now and decided to get some work done.

  The sun was coming up when he reached for his brother Quincey. Dwayne invited him to have breakfast with him at his house. Quincey said he’d like that, and they agreed to meet in twenty minutes. Just about enough time, Dwayne thought, for him to form his questions for him.

  “Good morning. How long have you been up?” Brit always brought a smile to his face when she just came near him. Feeling sappy, he told her he’d been up for a while. He didn’t want her thinking she’d awakened him for good when Jamie had cried out. “Jamie is getting up too. He’s not sleeping well, as you know. I’m hoping I can get him in to see Quincey this morning to get something for him to rest.”

  “He’s coming here for breakfast with us.” She smiled at him again and went to the kitchen. Following her, he saw Jamie coming down the stairs. He looked terrible. “My brother is coming over to see you this morning, buddy. Hopefully, we can work something out that will have you feeling better.”

&n
bsp; “I was going to talk to you about that. I was wondering if you could fix me up.” Dwayne asked him what he meant. “How Raven and Sawyer fixed Molly. I’m really dying here, Dwayne. My head hurts when I try to sleep because I’m a back sleeper. My teeth hurt too. And I can’t see much of anything because everything is so blurry. Quincey said that could be an option, but at the time, we didn’t have Mom there to tell him it would be all right.”

  “That’s something you’ll need to talk about with your mom, buddy. That’s not something that can just be done without consequences. If she agrees, I’ll help you. Otherwise, you’re going to have to suffer like all other humans I know.”

  Both of them laughed, but he could tell Jamie was in pain. Even touching his forehead to get his hair out of his eyes had him moaning.

  As soon as his brother arrived, Dwayne hugged him. Asking him about his night, Quincey told them how Howie had come in to get his hand stitched up. He was laughing almost too hard for them to understand him.

  “Then he arrived by ambulance last night. He’d been in his hotel on the floor after falling and bumping his head on the toilet just after he’d been at the hospital, I guess. A little over a week ago. But that wasn’t what caused the entire staff at the hospital to laugh. He’d put an entire tube of that monkey glue—I don’t remember the name—right into his cut. Christ, that must have hurt.” Jamie told him what it was called. “That’s it. Right. The only way to get that stuff out of his wound was to cut it out. Like cutting the flesh that was covered with it off and then covering him up like he was a burn victim. And it’s still bleeding from what Sawyer had done to him. I tell you right now, that man is all kinds of stupid.”

  “Stupid and dangerous.” Brit sat down with them with a cup of hot tea. “I have a question before we get too deep into the intelligence of Howie Lane. I would like to know if it is possible for someone—I’m assuming it would have to be Dwayne—to give him some of their blood. He’s not healing quickly enough for me to feel good about leaving him to go to New York.”

  “You’re going home without me?” Jamie looked at her, then at him. “What did you do to her that she’s leaving? Did you hurt her after promising me you’d not? Figures. You—”

  “That’s enough.” Dwayne looked at Brit. “Can you tell him why you’re going back to your home? I’d like to not be the bad guy for you two.” Brit looked as shocked as he felt. Looking at Jamie, he told him what was going on. “She’s going home to pack up yours and her place so she can work from here. We’ve figured out a way for her to start transferring her merchandise to here slowly and still have the warehouse there. Christ. Do either of you ever check out what is really going on before you start pointing your finger at the innocent person in the room?”

  Getting up, he thanked his brother for coming over this morning, then told him he was sorry he’d had to witness that. Leaving by the front door, he was in his car and down the road before Quincey contacted him.

  While I don’t blame you for leaving—that was harsh—could you please return and give Jamie some of your blood? Or I could do it. His mom is upstairs sobbing. I can hear her from the kitchen, where I still am. Jamie is crying too, but he’s more pissed off at himself than anything. Do they do this to you all the time? He told him just the one time before. I don’t know if I could stand that, being a bad guy all the time. By the way, Brit had some pretty harsh words for her son after you left. She was royally pissed at him.

  Good. I’m turning around now. I don’t like this either. I know they both have a great many trust issues, but I’ve done nothing wrong at all. Quincey said he knew he hadn’t. I’m nearly back. Tell Jamie for me that I’m going to do this, but I don’t want to talk to him. I’m still hurting.

  Dwayne was nearly to the kitchen when Brit came down the stairs. She had been crying. When she wrapped her arms around him and told him how sorry she was for what her son had said, he held her to him. When he kissed her on top of her head, she looked up at him.

  “Jamie lashing out at you is my fault.” He said it wasn’t. “It is. I had no one to unburden myself to, and he was there. I told him things…well, it’s small wonder he doesn’t trust people. He’s been told by his mom that she’ll never trust someone again.”

  “What about me? Where do I fall in this line of terrible people who did terrible things to you? I need to know if this is going to be a battle I have to fight all the time. If it is, I can’t do this. It’s too much.” She told him he was right. It was too much for her too. “I’m not going to make you trust me, Brit, but a little consideration would be nice. I’ve never hurt you or Jamie. And I don’t think I’ve given either of you cause to not trust me. Have I?”

  “No. And I’m going to start believing my heart over my head from now on. You’re a wonderful person. I don’t know that I would have returned, but you did, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me.” Jamie said it did to him as well. “You owe Dwayne an apology, young man.”

  “I do. Not just for today, but for a lot of things I’ve been thinking too.” Dwayne looked at his brother, who just shook his head. No, he was telling him, he’d not had anything to do with what Jamie was saying. Coming toward him, Jamie spoke again. “You’ve been the best person to me, and I’ve been a little shit.” Jamie glanced at his mother. “I have been.”

  “You’re not going to get any kind of disagreement from me. I have been as well.” Jamie looked up at him, and, letting go of Brit, Dwayne got down to his level before speaking to him.

  “I’m so sorry. Sorrier than I’ve been about anything, even things that hurt my mom—this is me being sorrier than ever.” Jamie wrapped his arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. “I’m not doing this as a suck up. Quincey told me to tell you that right off. But I’m asking you if you’d allow me to call you Dad. I know you’re going to have to think about it. Who would want such a rotten kid to be—?”

  “Nothing would make me happier than to have you call me Dad.” Hugging the two of them, he felt his own eyes fill with tears as they hugged. “As your father, I should punish you, but I think you’ve had enough trauma for one lifetime. If it’s all right with your mom, I’ll help you out with the wounds now too. I was going to anyway, but now, being your dad, I feel proud to do it.”

  Quincey walked him through how to lick the wounds closed. Dwayne was slightly afraid of this method and was thrilled when Brit told him to give him some of his blood. Licking such a huge wound closed so near the brain wasn’t anything he’d ever done before. Even if Jamie were his biological son, he thought he’d still have trouble with it.

  Taking a knife from Quincey to open a wound, he cut slightly into his finger and let several drops fall onto Jamie’s tongue. Quincey told him to stop when he realized he might well have given him too much. Jamie sat on the couch with his eyes closed and a smile on his face as they watched him.

  “I can touch my head to the back of the couch now. It feels amazing.” Brit laughed and asked him if he was going to take a nap. “I think I might. But I just want to feel this for a little while to remember how it felt.”

  “I’d like to check your wound before you go to la-la land. I think that’s what Dad calls his nap time.” Quincey had pulled the staples out before Dwayne gave Jamie blood. Smiling, he looked at him. “It’s already healed. Even the hair that needed to be shaved off is growing back. I would like to check on you tomorrow, so come by my office. But I think you’re going to be just fine, Jamie. However, I want you to still take it easy. Our blood is very strong, and I haven’t any idea how it might affect you.” Quincey said he’d see them later and headed home.

  “Thanks, Dad. I feel wonderful.” Dwayne felt him being called Dad all the way to his heart and spilling over. It was so full of love for the kid. “Mom, is it still all right that I stay here while you’re gone to New York? What did the landlord say?”

  “I fired him. Right after I bought the buildin
g.” Both Jamie and Brit stared at Dwayne with open mouths. “What? He was enforcing rules that were not very nice. Also, he was charging more rent from you and the other tenants, double what the owner had set in place for him to collect. Also, the water rule? The owner thought it was just as ludicrous as we all did. So, your mom is going back to collect her things from the house and have them brought here, then she’s going to spend a day making arrangements with her job. Mr. Little, I think you met him, he’s going with her to help set up cameras in the warehouse, as well as a better computer system here and there so she can work from anyplace.”

  “What do you mean, anyplace?” Brit answered Jamie as in anyplace. “So, if we were to take that cruise we’ve been talking about forever, you could work from there too? I mean, not miss a client or anything?”

  “That’s what it means.” Jamie left them then to go up to the room he’d been using before Brit stopped him. “I’m going to need to know what sort of things you want from your old bedroom. All right? Make a list.”

  “When you get there, you can video chat with me, and that way, I can tell you when I see the stuff. Wow, does that mean I’m going to someday have more brothers and sisters? This is so cool. I can’t wait to tell GGMa Holly. She’ll bust a gut.” He was still laughing as he went out of sight.

  “Well? Does this mean he can have more brothers and sisters?” Dwayne told her that was up to her. “I’d love to have an entire houseful of them. Just not all at one time.”

  “You do know we’re going to have to have sex in order for that to happen.” Brit told him she knew how it worked. “I’m just saying. When would you like to start on his family of his?”