“Did I mention that her brother tried to rape me when I was her age?”
“Several times. But there is no record that Lance Brown has ever been charged with rape or child abuse.”
“So it’s a she-said, he-said thing?”
“Mmm, hmm. On the other hand, it looks as though Kyle Brown is enjoying a holiday in the State Penitentiary until he comes up for trial for resisting arrest, possession of cocaine and violation of parole. Perhaps the best thing would be to put Shelly into school and wait and see.”
So “Dad had to go away for a bit,” translated into Kyle’s in jail. Great. Some fine tale to tell Will.
Martha enrolled Shelly in fifth grade. It wasn’t ideal, but she was clearly not even ready for fifth grade let alone ninth. The principal explained Special Ed would take a while to arrange. Perhaps next school year. There would have to be tests. Shelly’s records from Milwaukee would have to be obtained. Perhaps Martha could discover which elementary school she had attended.
Will’s mother called and apologized for her son. Katrina Enright had a heavy Eastern European accent and sounded kind and nosy.
“Maybe you should come anyway and eat your Thanksgiving with us. Meet the family.”
Without Will. She didn’t think so. “As it happens, Mrs. Enright, I’ve had some family problems come up. My fourteen-year-old cousin is staying with me.”
“Is so? You bring. Is always room for more.”
“Shelly is having some trouble coping with the changes in her life. I don’t think she would do well with travel on top of that. But thank you for including her.”
The following week Martha went back to work. She bought pepper spray and carried it everywhere, even down to the laundry room. She added a dead bolt to her front door. Will sent no further texts.
She and Shelly made Thanksgiving dinner together and ate it. Shelly seemed happy at last. She watched TV and played video games and sat entranced in the dojo while Martha had class. Master Hong came over for an introduction after the final bows.
“This is my cousin, Michelle. Shelly, this is my sensei, Master Hong.”
Shelly put her small pudgy hand in Master Hong’s. She returned his elegant bow with a clumsy one of her own.
“Bring her on Saturday to the children’s class,” he instructed Martha.
Martha swallowed. “I don’t know if she will still be with me then,” she admitted.
Master Hong looked grave. “Bring her if you can.”
Shelly held on to Martha’s arm and swung it frantically. “I want to come,” she said in her unmodulated shriek.
“We will, if we can,” Martha promised.
Shelly’s agitation lasted until bedtime. It was obvious that she was afraid of being returned to Lance. And who could blame her?
“Lance brings the bad men,” she said sobbing. “Don’t make me.” She repeated this until Martha could no longer bear it.
“What did the bad men do?” she asked for the hundredth time.
“Mustn’t tell. Mustn’t tell.” Shelly huddled in a ball on the bedroom carpet and wet herself.
“I won’t let them hurt you again,” Martha told her. And how in hell was she going to do that? Where was Will when she needed him?
They went to Master Hong’s children’s class on Saturday. Shelly was no star, but she tried hard and the other children treated her with the elaborate respect that Master Hong insisted was the correct deportment for Taekwondo. Martha thought it would be good for her.
Martha got a call at work from the principal’s office the following Tuesday. “You really must send a note if you are going to remove a child during the school day,” the administrative assistant told her.
“If I ever plan to take Shelly out of school, I’ll do so. But I didn’t and I haven’t. Where is my cousin?”
“The kids in her class said she got into her brother’s car at lunchtime.”
“Oh my God. How do you know it was her brother?”
“Apparently she told some kids that’s who it was.”
“Some guy snatches Shelly out of the school yard at lunchtime and you don’t think that’s sketchy enough to call the cops? Let me speak to the principal. Right now.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Will was livid with rage. He had been two weeks at sea, unable to contact his family or Martha. He had missed Thanksgiving and let Martha down. And now that he was finally back in LA, he had to play nursemaid. Powell was AWOL and he got to track him down and bring him back, instead of using his twelve hour furlough to see Martha.
His Rear Admiral had asked him as a favor. The kind that was actually a direct order. “Kid’s a wolf. He’s Special Ops and part of your team, Enright. We need him back.” Left unsaid was by Admiral Hanson was the reality that shifters took care of their own.
So here he was, scouring shifter bars for a werewolf, when he should be enjoying his one evening of freedom before the mission. This was the fifth place he’d been in. He knew it by rep. It was a rough trade sort of dive. Apparently they had a room in the basement where they staged mixed shifter tournaments.
Which was just the sort of stupid crap that a freaking showboater like Powell would think was manly. Good way to get your ass kicked. Good way to die. And, bucket balls, there was Powell’s scent.
“What do we have here,” said a short man who was nearly as broad as he was tall, and was drunk enough to challenge six foot eight of seething fury. He stepped into Will’s path. “It’s a big night for sailors,” he said and belched.
Will grasped him by his unclean singlet and lifted. The fabric strained but held. “Where’s the other sailor?” he barked.
“Shaddup, Larry,” said an immense guy in biker leathers and a red do-rag. “Put him down. I’m the only one gets to touch the patrons.”
Will dropped the man he was holding on the bouncer. Both men landed on the floor. Will put his boot on the bouncer’s crotch and pressed. “Where is the sailor? Downstairs?”
“Yeah. Gettoff,” the bouncer wheezed.
Will picked him up and relieved him of his knife. He tossed it casually into the valance surrounding the bar. It landed point first and quivered ten feet up in the wooden frame. “Let’s go, son,” he said. “I’m in sort of a hurry.”
Of course that sugar for brains Powell had challenged a mountain cat. Will watched as the wolf and the cougar squared off. Powell was about to die. Will knew the drill. He threw his shirt down and issued his own preemptive challenge. The shifters who were gathered around the makeshift ring, catcalled and booed.
“Let’s see the color of your money,” demanded a paunchy guy with greasy hair.
“You the boss?”
“You betcha. Lance. A grand’ll cover your challenge.” He held out a beefy hand.
Will counted one thousand dollars in fifties into the outstretched paw, thanking his stars that he had anticipated needing a stake. He sniffed. Lance was some sort of a bear. Not that there would be any ursine solidarity in here tonight.
Powell had taken human form again and was sulkily putting on his clothes. He was so drunk he could hardly find his pant legs.
Will stripped and folded his clothes while he looked the mountain cat over. The cougar was big and he had the scars that indicated he made a practice of this sort of thing. Well Will had a few scars of his own, and a lot of practice in hand to hand combat.
He took bear form and the cat lashed his tail in surprise. Will was an American Black Bear. His bear weighed 900 lbs and was seven feet of compact muscle. His claws were razor sharp since he spent very little time in shift.
Now he waddled into the ring, moving as though he too were drunk or clumsy. The cat gathered himself to spring. Will judged his opponent would move left so he moved right. He struck the cat sideways with his full body weight and leaped onto its back.
He opened his huge yellow muzzle over the cougar’s neck as the big cat writhed beneath him and tried to buck him off. He bit down just hard enough to taste blood. The li
on abruptly yielded and went limp. Will stayed in place with blood dripping out of his mouth and running onto the padded floor. A bell rang. “Time,” someone yelled.
Lance was looking shifty and pissed off. Will put his clothes on. “Prize?” he demanded.
Lance thrust a duffel the size of a hockey bag at him with one beefy mitt. With the other he grabbed a short pudgy girl and pushed her into Will’s arms. The shaking child had a head of black curls and a frozen look in her dilated eyes .
“Two hundred grand,” Lance announced loudly, “And a sweet piece of virgin bear ass.”
Will caught the little bear before she fell and put his arm around her waist. Forking sugar on a frozen stick. Now what?
The door to the staircase swung open and a woman came bounding down the steps two at a time. Someone put out a hand to grab her arm, and Warrior Woman flipped him easily. He landed with his head against the wall and didn’t move. Lance looked up and put out his hands.
“You piece of shifter shit,” said a voice Will recognized. “What have you done to Shelly?” Martha sprayed Lance’s face with the can in her hand and held it up in case anyone else wanted to breathe pepper spray.
Martha looked from Will to Shelly in disbelief. This is what he did when he was supposed to be on a secret missions? Will thrust the duffel into her hands. He pulled out a pistol. “Move,” he barked at Powell. He tossed the little bear on his shoulder and herded them up the stairs and out into the night.
Will thrust Powell into the first cab he saw. “Wait for me,” he told the cabbie. “Did you drive?” he asked Martha. She nodded and he spotted her little Focus. She threw the duffel in the back seat and he put the kid in the passenger seat and closed that door. “I’ll meet you at the apartment,” he said. “But I gotta get this jackass back to base first.” Martha drove off without replying.
“It’s okay, Shell,” she said softly to her cousin. The younger girl slumped in the seat belt and didn’t answer. Martha detoured to the hospital. The resident thought Shelly should be observed overnight.
The ER nurse rolled her eyes. “We need to pump her stomach, Doctor. We don’t know what she was given.” The resident allowed that might be best.
Martha sat in the chair beside the hospital bed watching the IV as Shelly was rehydrated. Nurses came in and checked her vitals every half hour.
“She’ll probably be fine,” one told Martha around dawn. “Tox screen will be ready by ten, and we’ll know for sure.”
Martha nodded. What the hell was she going to do? She had tucked Will’s duffel under the bed and now she retrieved it and cracked the zipper. It appeared to be full of twenties. Will had handed her his prize money. Who would have thought that her lousy luck would have mated her with a freaking shifter who made his money in backstreet tourneys? He and Lance were two of a kind.
God knew how long Lance had been pimping Shelly. Even if the tox screen showed a date rape drug, she had no proof that Lance had administered it. CPS seemed powerless to help Shelly. Will was shifter trash. Lance was something worse.
But she had her purse and her ID. She had her credit cards and her car. And a bag full of cash. She could disappear. The name on her birth certificate was Martha Amanda Metcalfe and even though she had not used Metcalfe since Aunt Tanya took up with Kyle Brown, it was still her legal name. Once Shelly was released, she could load her into the car, call work, quit, and drive east.
They could go back to Wesheno and live among the Menominee. She and Shelly were at least part Menominee, and long ago she and Aunt Tanya had been part of the community. She would be safe there and it was unlikely that Lance would think of looking for her in Wisconsin.
Will could go kiss his hairy bear ass. She was done with men. Done with shifters. She would take her lousy judgment as a life lesson. She and Shelly would do fine all by themselves.
CHAPTER FIVE
Four years later…
Will stared in disbelief at his brother Jack’s mate. With her long dark hair and big, bold physique, Hannah Metcalfe looked so much like his missing Martha that his first thought was that he was going to have to kill his twin.
But when Hannah Metcalfe spoke, she didn’t sound like Martha. And she didn’t smell exactly like Martha. It wasn’t just that Hannah smelled pregnant. It was something more basic. But she had to be related to Martha. After four years, at last he had a lead on his mate.
His mother had both arms around Hannah and was welcoming her to the family in her own unique style. Hannah didn’t know it, but she was about to be kidnapped and taken to the Enright compound and she didn’t stand a chance. She sat shell-shocked on her plaid couch while they ate her delicious chocolate cake and drank her coffee and Katrina interrogated her. Will leaned back to enjoy the show.
“I’m an orphan,” Hannah replied in answer to one of Katrina’s questions, “I don’t have any family.”
Will leaned forward, flummoxed. He scanned Hannah’s flushed and pretty face. The bone structure was identical. Maybe Martha’s eyes were a shade less brown and more hazel, but the shape was identical and they had the same nose and eyebrows. And the same black Irish complexion. He figured she was shorter than Martha by an inch or two, but they shared the exact same lush figure.
Katrina kept talking, hammering away at this bemused young woman who was clearly unsure of how to take his mother’s brand of warmth and nosiness. Will tuned them out while his mind dealt with the mismatch between Hannah’s claim to have no family other than her adopted clan and her resemblance to his mate.
“Don’t you have any brothers or sisters?” he interrupted desperately.
Hannah shook her head. “I’m an orphan. I really don’t know anything about my birth family,” she said.
Will’s lips twisted sourly but he said nothing. Katrina elbowed him to silence and resumed her interrogation, leaving him to wonder if Hannah was lying. She seemed rather shamefaced about her lack of relatives, so probably not. But maybe she would let drop something that would lead him to Martha.
“Oh no, she was saying, “I didn’t grow up in Seattle. I’m only moved here when Washington Life transferred me.”
Will wanted to ask her where exactly she had grown up, but Katrina shot him a look that silenced him and he learned that Hannah was a CA and had just received a promotion on the strength of which she had purchased this house.
He looked around appreciatively at the Craftsman and nodded. For sure Jack would like this gold paint and mellow varnished wood. And Hannah’s furniture was big enough even for his six foot eight frame, so it would accommodate his brother’s shorter stature. He decided he approved of Hannah. If only she could give him a clue about where to look for Martha.
That night at supper in Hanover, he maneuvered to sit next to Hannah, and at the first opportunity he asked her where she was from. Madison, Wisconsin was so unexpected that he had to think about what that meant against what he knew about Martha. Had he spent four years scouring California for Martha Brown when he should have been looking in Wisconsin for Martha Metcalfe?
He turned back to his plate of roast pork and tucked in with a better appetite, responding good naturedly to his brothers’ jokes and teasing them in return. Tom and Sam were happily married and it looked as though Jack was going to be—if he could get Hannah to forgive him for forking off for two years.
After dinner, when he was tucking one of his two-year-old nieces into her car seat, Katrina came to stand behind him. “You are again going to leave?” she asked sadly.
He put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. “I may have to, Mom.”
She looked up at him and shook her head. “Four years now you are looking for this woman. If she wanted to be your wife, you don’t think she could find you?”
Will shrugged. “She’s the one. My life-mate. I have to find her.”
“You think our Hannah is the one?” she asked sharply.
“No,” he assured her. “A sister, maybe, or a cousin,” he said. “How did you know?”
Katrina patted his arm gently. “These things are obvious to a mother,” she said. “You go. You find. You bring her here.”
CHAPTER SIX
The big black bear stretched its limbs and launched into a thundering gallop, making no effort to be silent. The doe that had been browsing the tender lower leaves of an aspen froze as the bear crashed through the undergrowth. But the big animal did not break stride, it swerved around the stand of trees where the doe’s fawn was hidden and made for the river. The deer went back to nibbling greenery.
The bear made its sure footed way to where rocks jutted high above the river and a natural pool had formed at its base. The gigantic animal gathered its powerful hind quarters and leapt into the darkness. It plummeted into the pool beneath the rocky outcrop. Only the screech owls hunting among the trees witnessed it disappear beneath the swirling water.
Bear Fursuits Books 1-4: Bear Fursuits Page 12