Colin: McCullough's Jamboree - Erotic Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance (McCullough's Jamboree Book 1) (9 page)

Colin came into the room with ill-fitting clothing on and asked to speak to him. Right now it was the last thing he wanted to do, explain to this man what he thought, but he nodded and followed him to the study that was still under construction.

“She’s resting now. I gave all the meds I could find in her bathroom to that guy. Was it necessary to have someone with him with a firearm?” Tony told him it was for now. “Why? What do you think is going on?”

“She told me yesterday morning that she was getting sicker. Lauren never complains. I mean, even with a knife wound in her side, she only said that it pulled…never mind. She never complains. So when she told me that she was sick, I set her up an appointment with the company docs. She was to see them again tomorrow.” Colin asked him if he thought she was being poisoned. “Yes. I do. I don’t know why, but yes. Whoever this is, they’re working hard to have her dead. I’m going to put your brother in protective custody too, as a matter of fact.”

“I’m going where she is.” Tony started to tell him that was a bad idea. “You either make this work for me or I’ll hurt you. I’ve just had to pin a man to the floor and wait for you to come and get him rather than just kill him and bury him in the back yard for no one to find. Either make it so I can be with her, or you’ll be the first one I bury on this property.”

It wasn’t a threat—though it was a good one—but a full out promise. And he had a feeling that the man would do it too. Just as he was ready to call his bluff, even if he thought he could, the door behind him opened and there stood Peter Burcher with his son.

“Where is she?” Colin told him she was upstairs in bed and his mom was with her. Peter looked at Colin. “You did this? You hurt her?”

“No, sir. Not this time. I promise you.” Peter watched him for several seconds, but then looked at Tony again. “He didn’t hurt her either. There are some pretty shitty men after her. He’s been taken in and we’re doing all we can to make sure that she’s not in this situation again. I assure you.”

“What are you going to do to protect her?” Tony started to answer the big man, but before he could form a thought, Colin spoke.

“Everything within my power. My family will as well. If you could lend a hand, I’d really appreciate that too.”

Peter seemed to calm a little. Tony wondered if either of them thought that Lauren could easily protect them when she was healthy. But right now, she did need the help. And he was going to give it all to her.

When his cell phone rang, he felt a shiver of apprehension run up his spine. He knew that ring tone over even his own children’s. Walking out of the room and onto the deck behind the house, he answered the president’s call.

An hour later, feeling like he’d been run through a ringer, he sat down on the large wheel that held wiring at one point. He knew that Lauren had been having work done on this place, but he’d not had any idea how extensive it was. Looking up when the door opened behind him, he looked at Colin and figured now was as good a time as any to tell him what he’d been told.

“A group has claimed responsibility for killing Lauren’s men. They’re a militant group that says that no woman should be allowed to be in the armed forces, and they certainly shouldn’t be in charge of a group of men. This particular group of ass wipes have just made it perfectly clear that they’re not going to stop until every woman in the service of their country is dead.” Tony looked at Colin. “They killed two women this morning by bombing the recruiting office that they were working in. Two more were killed yesterday when the bar they were in, having drinks after a long week, was also bombed.”

“She’s not going to be happy about any of this.” Tony thought that was a gross understatement. “What do we do now? Lauren doesn’t strike me as one to let others keep her safe. And I don’t think I can do this on my own. My brother told me some of what happened to them.”

“Lauren doesn’t follow orders. Not usually when she thinks she’s right. And so you know, most of the time she is. But when she was sent there, I knew something was off and had been working on seeing who had put the order in for her and her men to be there. I’m still looking, and now…well, now I have answers I think no one is going to like.” Colin asked it if was true that Lauren and the president were friends. “Yes. It’s true. And the reason is classified, but I’ve been given permission to let you know why and anything else you want to know too. She saved his life. Not just his, but his son’s and wife’s as well. A formal reception, in Lauren’s honor, was to take place the next night. Lauren had been invited to have dinner with the family before it started, for them to get comfortable with each other. But she showed up twenty minutes early with your brother. While there, she made her way to the kitchen to see if her old friend was still working there. She walked in on a shit storm and killed nine people before they made their way to the president’s suite. Where we all assumed these men planned to kill the president.”

“When?” Tony told him. “I don’t remember seeing anything about that. I mean, that’s about the time that Hawkins started disappearing for longer and longer periods of time.”

“You wouldn’t have either. And yes, Hawkins had only been in the service with Lauren for three weeks; he was there with her as her escort when things went to shit. They were friends, meeting up when he came to the recruitment meetings before he got out of high school.” Tony watched the man’s face. If he was pissed about his brother seeing Lauren, he didn’t show it. “They were friends and nothing more. But when she could, she recruited him to her team. He’s been there since. A valued member, I might add too.”

“I know that they’re friends. I’ve seen how close it is too. And even if they were more, I’d know that too.” He supposed he would. From all accounts, Colin was a man who got answers. “What else do I need to know?”

“I’m to stop at nothing to keep Lauren and your family safe.”

Tony nodded and waited for the questions he was sure were going on in Colin’s head. Instead, Colin surprised him again by only looking out over the field and not saying anything for several moments.

“Her parents, her biological parents, what do you know about them?” He told him they were dead. “Did she do it? Peter thinks she might have.”

“No. She didn’t have anything to do with their deaths.” Tony waited for the next question and when it came, he was ready. “Victoria killed them both. Not long after Lauren ended up at the Burcher home and became a part of their family, Victoria had a run in with the Richards, Lauren’s parents. Victoria didn’t know who they were, but they had…hurt her, then tied her to a wall to let her die after taking all the money and other valuables from her. The sun had already started to do its business on her when Lauren found her. All Lauren did was cut Victoria free of the stakes that held her. Two days later, the Richards were found…I think the word destroyed would best describe what had happened to them.”

“Do I want to know what was done to them?” Tony assured him that he did not. “Peter told me how he found her. That the place she was living in wasn’t fit for an animal, much less a child. He said that they adopted her and changed her name. There’s more to that story too, isn’t there?”

“Yes. But it’s not my story to tell you. I’m sorry.” Colin nodded. “You’re here because you’re her mate, right? I’ve heard a little about you and your family from Hawkins. He talked about you guys all the time.”

“Yes, I’m her mate, but I was…I’m an ass, and I said some things to hurt her and my family. I’m here to see if she’ll forgive me.” Tony started to tell him good luck with that when Colin continued. “I doubt very much she will. I wouldn’t if I was her. But I’m going to try. Today, when I saw her, all I could think about was how I was going to save her from herself. Now I’m thinking she can save me if someone else comes here. She’s not what I thought of when I thought about a mate. I’m trying to change my ways of doing things before she murders me.”

Tony thought the boy was on the right path. “You’ll do good to tell her that. Just like you said to me. Lauren does not suffer fools well and she hates a liar. She has this uncanny ability to know when you are lying too.” He looked out over the same field. “She found out yesterday that she and the service must part ways. The president just told me she’s a lifer no matter what. You should think of that when you talk to her. Lauren and the army are one. And very little will come between her and that.” He looked back at Colin before continuing. “Something is off, Colin. She’s been sick, and in a great deal of pain. More than I think she should be for having a vamp save her ass. But…I’m having some tests done on her vomit. When I get them, I’ll let you both know.”

“I’d appreciate that. I’ll have my brother Boyd look into a few things too. Him I trust.” So did Tony, but he didn’t say anything. “You need me, I’ll be here with her. For as long as she’ll let me.”

Tony didn’t think that would be long, but he liked the man and hoped they could work it out. At least long enough for him to figure out what the fuck was going on anyway.

Chapter 5

Lauren looked at the list of drugs that had been in her system and the things they could do to her. Nineteen drugs in the three pills she was supposed to take, none of them what they were supposed to be prescribed for, had been poisoning her for several days. The doc—not a company doctor this time—told her that the only reason they hadn’t killed her was because she’d been given something to counteract it in a way. Vampire blood had saved her.

Colin was sitting in the chair closest to the window, and Tony was standing by the fireplace. The room, for all intents and purposes, had been planned to be her office. Now, she thought, it would make a good dining room. She had no idea why that thought popped into her head. She supposed it had to do with the amount of stress she was dealing with.

“Do you know who did it?” Tony told her that the prints on the bottle beside hers were Penick’s. “So he’d been in this house before yesterday.”

Not a question, but Tony said he had been. “More than once, from the looks of things. The men I had come in, while you had your beauty sleep, scanned each room and found over three dozen cameras, and a dozen more on the outside. We think that when you came in that day, he’d been doing some adjustments. You and Colin caught him off guard.”

Lauren glanced at Colin and then looked at Tony again. He was making her nervous the way he just kept watching her. As if he was ready for her to fall apart or pull a gun on him again. Her weapons were all over the house now, having been placed by Hawkins when he’d brought her a few extra clips.

She was still thinking about Colin when she heard him laugh. How she knew it was him and not Tony was beyond her, but when she looked at him again, she realized that Tony had left and Colin was sitting in the chair he’d been in.

“What’s so funny? And don’t get too comfortable here. I don’t want you around.” He only leaned back in the chair and said nothing. She could do that too, go for hours without speaking, but for some reason he made her squirm. And Lauren didn’t care for the feeling. Then he started talking to her. Not at her as he’d been doing before today, but to her.

“When I found out that you’d been poisoned, I wanted to go and find this Penick person and kill him. But Tony assured me that he’d be more useful alive than dead. But that didn’t lessen the fact that I still want to kill him.” She asked him why he’d even care. “I’ll get to that. My mother slapped me, did you know that?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that. Besides, I’m pretty sure she wants to knock me around a little too. For a mom, she’s pretty mean.” He just grinned at her. “Why did she finally get around to slapping you?”

“Yeah, I wondered that too when I got over being pissed about it. Not why she hit me—she told me that—but why it had taken her so long to get around to doing it. Do you want to know what I came up with?” She told him she had an idea that his mother loved him. “She does. And that is why she hit me. I think I drove her to it.”

“You normally this quick on your feet for getting things in that thick head of yours?” He didn’t answer her. “I don’t want you here. Someone is trying to kill me, and it would be better if you were not here.”

“I’m not going anywhere. That is if you’ll let me stay.” She started to tell him she could take care of herself better without him there, but he started talking again. “A few days ago I would have told you that I was staying here to keep you out of harm’s way. But I’ve come to realize that you’re much more capable of keeping yourself safe, and me too, than I’d ever be. Even as beat to shit as you are and taking all kinds of meds that should have killed you, you managed to not just save your own ass but mine too.”

“What’s happened to you? I mean, are you some pod person? Or are you trying to fuck with my head and convince me that I’m off my noodle and need you here?” He told her that he was just him with a better outlook on things. “Yeah, well, people don’t change like this overnight. I’m sure that in a few hours you’ll see that you’re being weird and start giving me orders again. I don’t take orders well.”

“So I heard.” She felt her face heat up when she thought of all the times she’d told Tony to fuck off over the last few hours. “That man, the one that was here today, he said he’d been sent by Phillips. Why would he say that when it would be easy for you to check out?”

“We would have been dead before I could find out. And he would have killed us both, just so you know. No witnesses is better than taking a chance that someone can identify you later.” She thought of something then. “You said he was a bear. He could have told someone else that you were here and that we’re onto them. You might be in danger even now. It might be too late for you to run.”

“Good point. He might have told whoever sent him that I was here. And that you’re involved with me.” Lauren told him she wasn’t involved with him. “We could be. But I’m not going to rush you. I don’t want you to draw a gun on me again. Twice is more than enough for me to get that you can and will kill me.”

“I’m not…you said you talked to my parents. You have to know what kind of childhood I had.” He said that he did. “And you should also know that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’m like them in so many ways.”