Would he like some too? Jillian would offer if he would talk. Then she had a brilliant idea. She just didn’t want to send the wrong message to the guys she was working with, or the police officers either. But it would seem more authentic if she just dove into what she was going to do.
She pulled out her phone and quickly set it to mute, in case someone tried to send her a real call, then she pretended to answer it. “Ohmigod, good work, Demetria! Tell Everett and Miles they’ve done great too!” She paused while everyone in the jailhouse was listening, waiting to hear the good news. Probably wondering why she wasn’t putting the call on speakerphone. “Nah, he’s not talking. But as long as you’ve got her talking, we don’t need his testimony.” She avoided looking at Brutus, dying to see how he was reacting. She smiled at Vaughn and Howard as they stopped eating their pizza.
“Wow, really? Three dead husbands? How much life insurance money did she get?” Again, a long pause, allowing Demetria enough time to pass along further information, if the conversation had been real. Jillian put her fingers up indicating three and mouthed the word three, like she just couldn’t believe it, her eyes wide with expression.
“Wait, so she’s saying Brutus is her lover…like we didn’t know that. When Douglas caught the picture of them at the Kitty Cat Club with their tongues down each other’s throats and his hand on her ass, we sort of concluded that. But implicating him as the mastermind? Good. They’ll both go down, but at least we know he was more to blame than she was. Was he the one who killed her husbands? Staged the car accident, the killing at the overlook at the Grand Canyon, and the diving accident?”
Nice lengthy pause.
“Okay. Well, when you bring her in, Vaughn is taking us all out to dinner. Yep, he offered and he’s buying. It’ll be different from the cat club. Different atmosphere, I’m sure. You’ll enjoy it. Anything else you want to pass along?”
She pretended to listen, nodded, and said, “Right. Miles already told me he hadn’t been interested in her as a prospective mate, and once he saw her kissing her so-called brother at the club?” She smiled at Brutus. “Right. So I’m glad he’s not too upset about the betrayal.” But what she really wanted to know was who had shot Miles! She wanted to shoot the culprit for having done so herself. They didn’t know enough to be able to pretend they knew though. “Okay, thanks, Demetria. Wonderful news! See you soon.”
Then she turned her phone off mute and stuck it in her pocket. “Can I have another slice? This calls for a real celebration.”
Vaughn served another slice of pizza for her, but she could tell he was dying to learn if Demetria and the others had really caught up with Kira. She hoped he realized she was just playacting. Even so, Brutus was just watching them, not shifting, not acting like he was going to give his version of the truth. Maybe he knew Kira wouldn’t sell him out. Or maybe he believed she would, and that’s what he deserved for trusting her.
Jillian noticed Howard looked a little flushed, so she finished her pizza in a hurry. She didn’t want to say anything about him looking feverish, not in front of Brutus. But that’s what she was worried about. “Hey, Howard, while we’re waiting for the others to get here, you said you’d teach me a new board game.” He hadn’t, but she hoped he’d play along.
“Yeah sure, but let me tell you I won’t go easy on Vaughn. You can be my partner though.” Then Howard smiled at her, and he, Jillian, and Vaughn left the police officers to watch over the prisoner.
The officers knew to get ahold of them if Brutus shifted.
As soon as they were in the Land Rover and headed back to the guest house, Vaughn asked, “Did they catch her?”
Jillian smiled, glad he wasn’t sure and hadn’t totally fallen for it.
“No. But I had the notion that if he thought she sold him out, he might come clean. Didn’t work though.”
“He might have to think about it,” Howard said.
“Oh, don’t go to the guest house,” Jillian told Vaughn. “Howard looks like he’s running a fever.”
Vaughn glanced at him. “Hell, Howard, why didn’t you say so?” He turned around and went to the clinic.
After the doctor gave him antibiotics, Howard said, “I wondered when I mentioned playing a board game with you. I figured you needed to talk to us in private. Certainly not about this.”
“You and Vaughn and my brother. All peas in a pod when it comes to neglecting your health.”
“Since I’m staying at the other house now, why don’t you drop me off?” Howard asked. “And I’ll meet up with you when the others get in.”
She didn’t want to say she hoped he was going to rest, but she suspected he would. After they dropped Howard off at his place, she and Vaughn returned to the guest house and sat down to color on their pages for a while.
Wanting to take a break from the subject of the jaguars, Jillian figured she and Vaughn could get to know each other a little better. She began coloring one of the peacock’s feathers aqua. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you join the navy and not one of the other branches of the service?”
“I love the water. What about you? Why did you join the army?”
“My dad was a Navy SEAL.”
Vaughn didn’t say anything for a moment, then swore. “Don’t tell me. Kelly Matthews is your dad?”
“You know him?” She couldn’t have been more surprised.
“He was our training officer, and he tried to kill me several times.”
Jillian laughed. “He was just trying to teach you how to survive.” But she couldn’t believe they knew each other.
“Are you sure he wasn’t just psychic and wanted to make sure I didn’t end up dating his daughter? Then again, his daughter tried to kill me. Like father, like daughter.”
“I told you. If I had wanted to kill you, I would have. You don’t hold grudges do you?” She raised a brow.
He laughed, then got serious again. “I was surprised Martin would take your brother into the organization.”
Jillian frowned at Vaughn.
“Only because they’re a jaguar organization, and they don’t even have wolves permanently on staff yet. Well, us now, but that’s just a new situation.”
“Martin said he takes in at-risk jaguars and puts them through the rigorous training the JAGs offer. They often make better agents than the ones who join who weren’t screwups. Maybe they’ll do that with select wolf shifters now too. Miles will get paid for helping us with this mission, and once they reach Dallas, he’ll be scheduled for training. Sometimes, I think Miles got himself into trouble because Dad was such a strict military man. I think the training will be good for him.”
“What about us, I wonder? Are they going to send us through the training too?”
“Probably.” She talked about her mother, the military wife who gave up her own career as an accountant to move around with her SEAL mate. Now that they had their own climbing business, her mom did all the accounting and marketing, and her dad did everything else.
“What about your parents?” she asked.
“Gone. We had a really bad forest fire when I was young, and several wolves were cut off from any route of escape. Some of us were able to get to a river and were swept a long way downstream. Bella, my cousin’s mate, is a red wolf, and she’d lost her family too, then was taken in by the gray pack. We actually grew up together, and Devlyn had always loved Bella. The feelings she had for him were mutual.”
“Wow. Is she any relation to Leidolf?”
“No. Not that we know of.”
“I wonder what my dad will say when he learns we’re courting.”
“Hopefully, he won’t want to kill me.”
She laughed, then got a call from her brother. Worried they were having trouble in San Diego, she answered it, while Vaughn continued to color on his wolf.
“We’re headed out on the next flight. Be in by six tonight, and Demetria said to go ahead and make reservations for seven.”
“Howard is fev
erish. The two of you might have to delay taking Brutus back tomorrow and wait another day or so.” Then she told him about her attempt to break Brutus.
Miles laughed. “I’ve used the fake phone call when I was out on a date and bored stiff. I would never have thought you’d do that. But great ploy. I’ll tell the others what you did so we’re all on the same page. Too bad we really didn’t have Kira in hand. Oh, another reason why I had to talk to you… Dad’s going to be calling you. Just a heads-up. Sorry. I was telling him the news about what I was doing, that I actually have an honest-to-God job, and how I had been working with you on this case, and I kind of—”
She got a signal saying she had an incoming call. “Don’t tell me. You told Dad I’m courting a wolf.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s calling now. Talk to you later.”
Vaughn stood, pulled Jillian into his arms, and kissed her long and hard. She began to kiss him back with a quiet desperation, ignoring the way her phone was playing its tune, not wanting to take the call from her dad.
“Want to take it?” Vaughn finally asked.
She laughed. “No, but I’ve got to.” She sighed. “Hello, Dad?”
“I hear you’re courting a wolf. When do we get to meet him?” After she was mated to him? No way was she going to let her dad interfere with her social life.
“We’re working a mission and—”
“Miles told me. Good work on getting him straightened out.”
She ignored her dad’s comment about her brother. She could argue forever with her father, and she’d never win. Best to just let it go. “We have training after this. But we’re still working this case. I don’t know when I’ll be back to see you.”
“Miles says he’s a SEAL. What’s his name? Maybe I know him.”
Maybe he wouldn’t remember Vaughn. Then again, her dad usually remembered everything—people, places, faces.
“Vaughn Greystoke.”
Silence.
Vaughn glanced at her. She put her hand over her phone’s mouthpiece and whispered, “He hasn’t said anything. Not sure if that’s good or bad.” Then she put it on speaker so Vaughn knew what he was getting into.
“Hell, honey. Is that SEAL still alive and kicking?”
“Yeah. I even shot him, and you’d never know it.”
Vaughn chuckled.
“I knew you had it in you. Much better choice than the guys you’ve been dating. What about Brock, his twin brother?”
“I have it on good authority that he’s fine too.”
“Good to hear. So where are you going to end up?”
“We’re not sure. If Miles is in Dallas, we thought of joining Vaughn’s pack in Colorado so we’d be kind of halfway in between the two of you and Miles.”
This time she heard her parents talking in the background, but she couldn’t make out their words.
Then her dad got back on the line. “Okay, your mom says if you end up in Colorado, they’d better need a climbing gym because she’s not going to be that far away from her daughter when you start having babies.”
Jillian felt her face flush with embarrassment. “We’re not mated yet.”
“Hell, and he’s a SEAL wolf I trained?”
Vaughn smiled and rubbed her back.
“Well, we’ll let you get back to your mission. Be safe. I trained Vaughn well, and I know he’ll have your back.”
“Congratulations,” her mom said.
“Thanks, Mom, Dad. I’ll call you later.”
When she ended the call, she was afraid Vaughn might not like it that her parents planned to move close to them. Or that they’d decided they were mated before she and Vaughn had gotten to that point.
Before she could talk to Vaughn about her parents’ plans, he said, “I didn’t figure that you telling your dad that you shot me would go over too well. I’m surprised he didn’t ask if it was by accident or on purpose.”
“He knew it would be on purpose. I’d never shoot anyone accidentally.”
Vaughn laughed. “Hope he’s mellowed out some.”
“Nope, but you can handle it. They’ll be moving right next door to us.”
Vaughn groaned.
“That is if the courtship works out.”
“It’s going to work out.”
“Do they have a climbing gym in your area?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, well, that’s what my folks will be setting up. Believe me, if you’re not busy, my dad will expect you to be over there helping out. Oh, did I forget to mention? With me, you get the whole family.”
Smiling, Vaughn just shook his head.
Chapter 17
“Hey, Vaughn, we intended to see Douglas earlier when we had all the problems chasing down Brutus. Why don’t we run over there to see him now?” Jillian asked. “We still have about three hours before the others arrive and we go out to dinner.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me. And now that we’ve had this discussion with your parents about us, we’re going to have to decide when we’re going to do this.”
She smiled. “You mean a mating? Don’t you think it’s a little soon?”
“No way. You stole my heart at the Kitty Cat Club.”
“And then shot you here. Are you sure about this?”
“Absolutely.”
She loved a man who knew what he wanted and went for it. “We can discuss it tonight after dinner.” Should she insist on weeks of dating? Months? She would never last that long.
As soon as they went over to the clinic and walked into the room, the nurse smiled at them. “Douglas has had company all day, which can only be good for him. Our pack has taken him in as an honorary member,” Sally said to Vaughn. “Some of the children came in and read stories to him today. Everyone’s rooting for him.”
“That’s great. Any change?” Vaughn asked.
“Not that we’ve seen. He’s been taken off the medicine that induced the coma. As long as he didn’t have any brain injury from the loss of blood initially, he should be fine now. All his vital signs are excellent. Oh, the kids were sure he moved his fingers a couple of times, and one said his eyes opened and he smiled. The boy was persistent about it. The staff hasn’t seen any change. I have to tell you, that jaguar sure gave us all a real scare. Dr. Wilders ran all kinds of blood tests on Douglas to make sure the cat hadn’t injected anything into his IV. He hadn’t. You must have scared him off before he could do anything.”
Vaughn sat down next to the bed and squeezed Douglas’s hand. “Hey, Douglas, Miles said to tell you hi. And we’ve got some news.”
“I’ll leave you to speak with him and check in a little later,” Sally said.
“Thanks,” Jillian said, then sat next to the bed and took Douglas’s other hand, wondering what news Vaughn was going to tell him. Shouldn’t it be only good news?
“You know me. You probably didn’t think I’d ever settle down.”
She couldn’t believe Vaughn was going to talk about that!
“But Jillian—she’s the wolf holding your other hand—I think she just might be considering mating me. Not sure though.” Vaughn winked at her.
She was glad Douglas couldn’t see her blushing. “I thought it was a done deal.” She wasn’t being serious. “I mean, my parents are practically planning the wedding, the move to get near us, the prospect of having grandbabies even.”
Vaughn laughed. “I’m all for it, Jillian. Every bit of it.” And he sounded really serious.
“What about the trip to Hawaii?”
“We’re going to Hawaii?”
“I was thinking I could scuba dive there without having a bunch of training.” She swore Douglas squeezed her hand. “Oh, oh, Douglas, can you hear us? I’m Miles’s sister. He was shot before you got here, but recovered. We captured…” She paused. She hadn’t meant to tell him anything bad. She glanced at Vaughn. He was waiting for her to speak.
She swore Douglas’s fingers moved again, as if prompting her to fin
ish what she was about to say. “We took Brutus into custody. He’s not Kira’s brother. And she has three dead husbands, all accidental deaths, two with insurance policies that paid out. Thankfully, we learned all this before Miles got in too deep with her.”
“We all were at the Kitty Cat Club. Kira, her pretend brother, and their friend. We assume they overheard you talking with Miles about your plans to treasure hunt in Belize. Then guess who shows up on your boat?” Vaughn said. “You become friends, then guess who shows up here? Kira and her brother…well, lover. Only she’s pretending he’s still her brother, but she’s seeing Miles at his cabin when his sister isn’t around. You’re attacked, and a male jaguar is searching for something in your cabin and knocks Jillian down, giving her a mild concussion.”
Douglas’s lips parted.
“Ohmigod.” Jillian rose from her seat, not letting go of Douglas’s hand, and brushed his forehead with her other hand. “Can you hear us?”
Douglas’s eyes fluttered open, and he stared at her with groggy eyes. “Mate,” he said hoarsely.
She couldn’t believe after what they’d told him, all he was interested in was the mention of her and Vaughn mating.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Never thought I’d manage to capture such a treasure, did you?” Vaughn said smiling. “Hell, it’s good to hear you speak.”
Jillian got some water for him, and Vaughn called the nurse to let her know Douglas had come to.
“Mate?” Douglas asked again.
“If she’ll have me. She did shoot me already.”
A corner of Douglas’s mouth lifted.
Vaughn laughed. “Douglas always did have a dark sense of humor.”
Douglas turned his attention to Jillian. “Accept?”
She smiled. “No. He hasn’t even asked!” Though she was going to say they needed more time to get to know each other. But wolves recognized how well suited they were from the beginning. The longer courtship was more for their human halves. Their wolf halves knew when they’d found their mate.
“Ask,” Douglas said to Vaughn.