A Mate to Share [Wolf Pack Mates 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (11 page)

There was also the mystery of the man and the purse. What was the story about that? It made no sense at all. Why leave money behind? If he wanted to give them money why not just hand it over? And if it was payment for drugs or something illegal, doing it in the middle of a busy craft market was insane.

Eve had to pack the wall hanging for transport and said she planned to sleep in on Monday morning, so he and Jett had arranged to borrow one of the pickup trucks and collect her a little before noon. They’d deliver the wall hanging and then take her out to lunch. They needed to both tell her and show her they loved her. Hopefully helping her was the start of showing her. Likely they’d need to do more as well as say the words, though.

Consequently, he wore a button-down shirt with his good jeans, although he still wore boots not wanting to risk anything heavy landing on his foot. Breaking a toe was not part of his plan. But he did take the time to polish his boots until they shone.

Jett had booked them a booth at Ted’s for one o’clock. It was the best choice they could come up with. Being in a booth meant their conversation would be a little more private, and Ted’s had a lot of choice menu items. Hopefully there’d be food Eve liked, and good conversation, and they could manage to do and say something romantic. The romantic part was hard. Morgan had a sinking feeling he was a bit too ordinary to make romantic work. But he’d do his best. And maybe Jett would pull it off for them both.

When Eve answered the door at the old schoolhouse, Morgan almost swallowed his tongue. She was wearing a fitted dress that was dark green at the throat and the tops of the sleeves, then gradually the green faded lighter until the hemline was a sunburst of whites, yellows, and oranges. It was eye-catching and unique.

“That dress is amazing.”

“It’s my ‘visiting a wealthy client’ outfit.”

“I can see why.” Jett’s voice was as hoarse as his felt.

“The hanging is in the shipping room,” she said, leading them to the door and pointing out the well-padded parcel. It was taller than him and wider as well. Suddenly he smiled. “What would you have done if we didn’t offer to help you deliver this?” he asked.

“Asked you, of course.” Eve laughed, and so did he and Jett. Jett picked up one end of the heavy frame and he took the other, and they walked out to the pickup and slid the parcel in the back.

He noted that Eve locked the shipping-room door behind her and then locked the back door, and was again reminded they hadn’t started work on the internal bathroom yet. He needed to check up on that. The sooner it was completed the better, and it’d never be completed if it didn’t get started.

But today was all about romance, not business, he reminded himself.

As they pulled out onto the secondary road that would take them into town, Morgan asked, “When you’re not involved in your craft, what do you like to do?”

“What do I actually do, or what would I do in an ideal world?”

“Both,” said Jett.

Good answer. It’ll tell us a lot about her.

“Mostly, if I’m not working on my craft in some shape or form I’m doing chores or asleep. My whole life for the last two, three years, has been focused on making my business a success. If I’m not working at one of my looms, I’m sketching designs, or updating my website, or reading blogs about my work. Last week we all were in such a fever to make more goods to sell we only added a couple of pictures to our websites about the craft market. Today we went through the dozens of pictures we’d taken—well, it was mostly Taige who took them—and chose different ones, each showcasing our own work as well as demonstrating the good crowds we had come.”

Morgan thought that really explained her to him so well. She loved her work and enjoyed doing every aspect of it as well as was damn good at it. Besides, she must take her job very seriously to be constantly updating her website and reading blogs about craft, as well as constantly designing new pieces.

“And what would you like to do?” asked Jett.

“Oh, that’s easy. I’d travel. It was so funny. Dad hated having to go to Africa for his work. You’d have thought the company was torturing him instead of sending him around the world business class, staying in five-star hotels, to meet with his counterparts in other countries. He spent half the plane ride there saying to me over and over, ‘I don’t understand why I can’t do this on Skype.’”

Morgan hadn’t thought much about traveling. He supposed it might be interesting to see Machu Picchu though, and the pyramids in Egypt. “Where else would you like to go?” he asked.

“Oh pretty much anywhere, really. Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, the Norwegian Fjords, Europe.”

“So was Africa on your list of must-see places, or was it just where your father was sent?” asked Jett.

“Both. It was high up on my to-do list, but the only reason I went there was because Dad was sent and he was allowed to take his personal assistant with him, but she has a young child and didn’t want to go. So I jumped at the chance. The hardest part about working for him was stopping him from saying a dozen times a day that he wanted to go home.”

“Seriously?”

“Just about.”

“Where in town are we going? The first exit is coming up in a couple of miles,” asked Jett.

Eve rattled off the address.

“What?” Morgan heard what she said, but it was taking him a moment or two to assimilate it.

“You know Josie, don’t you? Do you know the company she works for? Do you know why her boss let her choose the wall hanging without even looking at it?”

“Not
know
exactly. More
know of
,” Morgan hedged.

Eve poked him in the ribs. “Spit it out. Who and what are Vukic Industries Ltd.?”

“The company owns that entire multistory building. I suppose it’s an integrated company in many ways. Shops, businesses, offices, and apartments. I guess there’ll be signs up in the foyer saying what services are provided by the various sectors of the company,” he answered.

Eve stared at him. “That’s not exactly a helpful answer. I now know he’s well able to afford the hanging if he owns the entire building. But I still have no clue as to what the company does.”

“It’s predominantly a communications business, I think. IT and so on,” said Jett.

“Thank you.”

Eve smiled at Jett and Morgan heaved a sigh of relief. Thank all the fates that Jett had been able to think of a true and relevant answer that didn’t give away any secrets. Mr. Vukic was the Supreme Alpha of North America. Wolf Central was the home of his pack. All the shops, businesses, offices, and apartments in the building were run by his werewolf shape-shifters and not only provided them with a living, but also networked their wolf pack with all the others across the nation. That was essential for the Supreme to keep in touch with everything to do with wolves throughout the nation. No matter what happened or where it happened, if it involved wolves, it was important that the Supreme knew about it. Morgan had never seen the Supreme and hoped he never did. The man was said to be almost supernaturally intelligent, with an aura of power ordinary wolves could feel. Morgan might be boring and ordinary, but he preferred that to risking antagonizing anyone as important as the Supreme.

However, it was very interesting indeed to know the Supreme had sent Josie to purchase a wall hanging from the craft market. Jasper had said the Supreme had approved his mating with Taige. Did that mean the Supreme would also approve Morgan’s mating with Eve? To have the Supreme’s approval would be the most wonderful blessing on their mating he could ever imagine. It was natural the Supreme would take an interest in all the Alphas under his control. But for him to give an additional blessing to other pack members was amazing indeed.

The security guard at the gate to the basement parking lot was expecting them and had reserved a parking space for them right next door to the elevators. So Eve held the elevator door open while he and Jett manhandled the huge parcel into the elevator. They went directly up to the level above the stores where Josie had her desk.

Josie took her headset off and waved for another woman to take over for her at the reception desk when they arrived. “Hi, Eve. What a beautiful dress. Did you design it yourself?”

Morgan almost slapped himself upside the head. Of course she would have designed the dress herself. It was exactly the kind of inspired artwork she displayed in her wall hangings. Why didn’t he think of that?

He and Jett stood to the side, still holding the parcel as Josie and Eve chatted for a few minutes, then Eve said, “I want to see where it will hang. The colors are so important I need to be able to visualize it in its new home.”

“That’s easy. It’s going to be hung right here, opposite the main staircase from the lower levels so everyone will see it as soon as they arrive.”

Eve turned and walked across to the stairs as if she’d just walked up them. Morgan watched as she tilted her head back, her tidy blonde braid sliding down her spine as her head lifted higher.

The wall Josie had pointed out was quite bare and was the ideal place for an enormous piece of art. And the colors would be perfect. The boring beige expanse would be lit up with the strong reds, blacks, and greens of the wall hanging. Besides, now that he thought about it, those colors were just right for a man with as much power and influence as the Supreme. Black for anyone who opposed him or displayed evil, red for his energy and vitality, and green for his integrity. Josie had chosen something absolutely ideal.

A man in jeans, with a tool belt slung low on his hips, exited one of the elevators and walked across to Josie. “Eve, tell Alex what he needs to know about installing your artwork.”

Josie left Alex and Eve together and walked across to Morgan and Jett where they stood with the parcel between them. “I’ve told Jasper, but I’m telling you, too. The police will be explaining to the women about the purse and the stolen money. But the wolf who tried to plant the money at the craft market is not important. What’s important is that Sard Varg has told a group of wolves from your pack that if they get rid of Eve and Ginnie he’ll provide them with female wolves from a pack somewhere else. He seems to think there are packs around with an abundance of females, which, I expect you know, is not true, but the wolves believe him and are following him to get mates. Jasper is going to have his hands full dealing with that. Meanwhile you need to protect your own mate.”

“Thanks for letting us know. What the fuck is Sard thinking? Spare female wolves? Where does he think he’s going to find them?”

“The Supreme is in constant contact with the Supremes of all the other continents. We know for an absolute indisputable fact that there is no pack anywhere with more females than males. There is not even any pack with an equal number of males and females.” Josie broke off and turned around.

“Just leave the artwork resting against that wall over there for now. Alex will deal with it.”

Morgan blinked at the change of topic then guessed Eve was on her way back to them. And now they’d be going out to lunch. It was time to bind Eve to him and Jett with love. But protecting her was going to be the issue that occupied his mind after lunch. How was he going to do that?

* * * *

Once again Eve was certain there was something going on that was being hidden from her. Again and again she got an itchy feeling between her shoulder blades that there was some really important piece of information that she didn’t know. Something to do with the men. Something she absolutely had to know and deal with if she was going to stay with them.

The feeling of helplessness was driving her insane. It was right there, like the word a person knew but couldn’t bring to mind. In this case it was a missing piece of information, something key and central, but that she couldn’t see. Eve knew if she could just go for a long walk alone and think about something totally different, it would come to her. But she had no time for that. While the weather was nice they needed to have a craft market every weekend to make enough money to carry them through winter when people would be less likely to come out and visit, and when snow might close down the roads anyway.

Next year they’d have much longer to prepare a big stock of items to sell over summer, but this year she needed to keep her fingers creating, and her mind on her work. Not on two deliciously handsome men who she’d really like to spend a lot more time with, preferably naked and in bed, but who were keeping a secret from her.

She was certain it wasn’t an instant deal-breaker like that they were already partnered. Taige would have told her if they were. Plus her ideas that maybe they were involved in crime didn’t really add up, despite a purse full of cash being planted under a table. The police seemed to think it was more of a kids’ prank than anything else. But that wasn’t right. The man had been young, yes, but he was no adolescent. She guessed him to be in his early twenties, quite old enough to be past playing childish games.

Dammit all to hell! What am I not seeing here?

She said her goodbyes to Alex and Josie, then followed her men back to the pickup truck. The moment the truck exited the underground parking lot her cell phone rang. Eve didn’t recognize the number and hoped it was another potential client. “Eve Lang, yarn craft.”

“Ms. Lang, this is Officer Stokes. The money in the purse was the combined proceeds of a number of small petty thefts from around the neighborhood. We assumed all along it was kids committing opportunistic crimes. Presumably another person was supposed to collect the purse during your craft market and replace it with drugs or whatever the young people wanted to buy. Anyway, I’m letting you know the case is closed. I’ll be speaking with Ms. York and Ms. Thomas today to inform them as well.”