Hard As Steele (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack) (14 page)

             
“Roxanne. Is this true?” he demanded urgently. “Do we have a baby?”

             
Roxanne’s eyes went wide and her face went white. She fell to her knees.  Steele knelt down next to her.

             
“Oh my God!” she screamed. She looked around the room wildly. “I remember. I have a baby boy.   His name is Flint.  We have to find him. Dr. Polaski did it, he helped those men kidnap me. I told him all about my weekend with you, and how I’d seen you turn into a wolf.  He injected me with something and the next thing I knew I was in the back of a van, and they took me somewhere underground, and after I had my baby…” she was panting.

             
“What? After you had him, what?” Steele grabbed her face with both hands. The humans tensed, shifting uneasily and training their guns at his head, but he didn’t care. He had to know.

             
“I was…we were underground, in an old mine that they’d made into a prison. They kept taking him away from me for blood tests, but they’d always give him back. Then last week, they took him away and wouldn’t give him back to me, so Bertrand…he was a mountain lion shifter…he helped me…” her eyes glazed over. “He did something. I don’t remember what.  He killed guards, and we were going to escape, but something happened. Dynamite. Bertrand had gotten ahold of dynamite. He blew up the tunnel behind me, and he was killed, but I got out.”

             
Steele felt his world tilting on its axis. He had a baby, and it was being held prisoner in a secret laboratory. He was a father, and his baby was in danger.

             
He couldn’t control himself.  Fur rippled under his skin, and then burst through, and he felt himself starting to shift.

              Alarm shot through Katherine as the big man named Steele went furry and sank down to all fours.  He was intimidating enough as a human; if he turned into a wolf, forget about it.

“No!” she screamed, and at the same time she shot him with the tranquilizer gun which she’d swiped from her uncle, a large animal vet.

The wolf let out a yelp, fell to the ground, and the fur vanished. His body rippled and contorted, tail disappearing, ears sinking back into his head, and a minute later he’d turned human again.  Roxanne had been telling the truth; she really had been with a man who turned into a wolf. 

This explained many things, including all the stories she’d heard whispered as a child. 
Katherine felt a chill run through her; the world was suddenly a much scarier place. 

The man
lay sprawled in the doorway, half naked.  “How long will that last?” she asked Edvin.

“I’ve never been shot with a tranquilizer dart, so I wouldn’t know,” he said.

Funny how he said that.  Was he comparing himself to a wolf-man? Katherine was dying to ask him if the rumors were true, but it seemed rude, somehow. 

Roxanne was staring at Steele’s sprawled out, unconscious body. “Who is he?” she demanded.  “What happened?
Katherine…why are we here? We should call 911, he might be hurt.” She peered closer. “He looks like he’s breathing.”

             
Katherine grabbed Roxanne’s arm. “He was holding you prisoner. He’ll be fine. We need to get out of here,” Katherine said, despair washing over her as they rushed to her car.

             
Roxanne climbed in the front seat, Edvin climbed in the back, and Katherine scrambled into the driver’s seat. They quickly pulled out of Steele’s driveway and sped away.

             
Katherine was starting to get really worried. She thought that she’d swoop in, rescue Roxanne, and everything would be fine, but clearly her memory problems had gotten much worse. Before, she’d be fine for weeks on end and then forget an entire day or two.  Now, she seemed to be forgetting some things and remembering others every few minutes.

             
What could Katherine do to get her help? She was afraid of what would happen if she called the authorities.  She already knew she didn’t trust the police chief in Lonesome Pine, so who could she call? Not the sheriff of Timber Valley – according to what Roxanne had told her when she’d called the day before, that was the man they’d just shot with a tranquilizer dart and left lying in the doorway.

             
Was there no law enforcement she could trust, anywhere?

             
“What are we doing?” Roxanne asked.

             
“I need to call my father,” Katherine said. “We’ve got no other choice.”

             
Her father answered, sounding annoyed. “Where are you?” he asked.  “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. I stopped by your house and you weren’t there. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“
It’s going to be really hard to explain this to you without you thinking that I’m completely crazy,” Katherine said. “I want you to try to keep an open mind about this.  Roxanne is with me, and also, werewolves are real.”

             
“Oh, everyone knows that. Are you talking about the Gund family?” her father said. “It’s been kind of an open secret among the older people here in town for generations now.   What does this have to do with Chief Fennell? How does Roxanne fit into all of this?”

             
Katherine glanced in her rearview mirror.

             
“Are you a werewolf?” she demanded of Edvin.

             
He shrugged. “If you mean can I turn into a wolf when I want to, then yes.  Our family doesn’t normally talk about it with outsiders, but since you already saw that man back there turn into a wolf, I guess the cat’s out of the bag. So to speak.”

             
“Who are you talking to?” her father asked.

             
“Edvin Gund. I asked him to come with me because I didn’t know who else to ask, and you never took me seriously when Roxanne disappeared. I was afraid you’d go to Chief Fennell if I told you I’d heard from her again.”

             
“Tell him I say hello.”

             
“You knew the Gund family were really werewolves, and you never told me?” Katherine squawked indignantly. “I totally thought that grandma made all that up to keep me from going into the woods by myself!”

             
“Only some of them are werewolves,” her father said, as if that made everything okay. 

Freaking werewolves! She’d grown up living only a few miles away from werewolves, and nobody felt the need to share that information with her?
Nobody but her grandmother, who barely had half of her marbles?

             
“Anyway, the feeling around town was that it’s really their business, and if the word got out, they’d be in danger,” her father continued. “Unfortunately, I think that’s turned out to be true. The Gund family came to me a couple of years ago when Axel disappeared, and they said that they believed that Chief Fennell had something to do with it. I’ve been trying to look into it, and a few of the city council members have too, but so far we haven’t been able to come up with any solid proof.  You still haven’t answered me. Where are you, and what’s going on?”

             
“I’m in Colorado, but we’re headed back your way now.  Edvin and I drove to Colorado to pick up Roxanne, because a couple days ago, out of the blue, she called me and told me that she had found that man she’d spent a weekend with, and he was a werewolf, and she was at his house and…oh, God, it’s so complicated.  She may have been held prisoner ever since last February. Her and her baby.” 

             
“Roxanne’s baby?” her father said, sounding bewildered.   “You’ve completely lost me now.”

             
“It’s just way too complicated, I need to tell you in person.  Here’s what you need to know right now.    Dr. Polaski is a kidnapper.  Remember how Roxanne went to see Dr. Polaski back in February, but he claimed she never showed up?  She went to see him because she had realized she was pregnant. She was actually almost ready to have her baby – and the father is the werewolf that she spent the weekend with, after the car accident.   So Dr. Polaski kidnapped her, and he conspired with Chief Fennell to keep it secret. And I’ve been following Chief Fennell into the woods and I’ve seen him meet with a bunch of military looking guys out there, several times.”

             
“I see.” Even though her father wasn’t right there with her, Katherine could practically see the wheels turning in his head. He was calmly, methodically making plans.

             
“You need to be way more freaked out about this!” Katherine yelled. “There are freaking werewolves, and crazy soldiers kidnapping them, and they still have Roxanne’s baby!”

             
“What good would it do for me to get hysterical? I believe you’ve got that covered for both of us,” he pointed out. She hated it when her father acted all reasonable. “We need to find out where these soldiers are stationed. If they’ve been having meetings with the chief near town, then they can’t be too far.”

             
“Roxanne said that she remembered being held in some old mine.”

“Well, nobody knows the mines like the Gunds,” her father said.  “
I’m going to call them right now. If Chief Fennell really is in on this, I don’t want you coming anywhere near town. I’m going to start driving towards you so we can meet up halfway. Just tell me where you’re headed.” 

             
Katherine had always known her temperament came from her mother’s side of the family. She wanted to scream and jump up and down and throw things.  Unfortunately, she had to drive, and her father, as usual, was right. Having a hysterical meltdown wouldn’t help Roxanne get her baby back. It sure would feel good though.

             
“Hello,” Roxanne spoke up. “Are we making any progress towards finding Clara?”

             
Katherine felt her throat clenching with panic. “Who is Clara? You said your baby’s name is Flint.”

             
“I’m sorry, did you just say my baby?” Roxanne stared at her in bewilderment. “I’ve never, you know, been with a guy in that way. I couldn’t possibly have a baby.”

             
“Dad!” Katherine wailed into the phone. “Roxanne’s forgetting things like every five minutes. What do I do? Apparently some of the werewolves can erase memories, but they can supposedly also bring the memories back. Do the Gunds have someone like that?”

             
“I’ll ask them when I call them,” her father said. “Now, we need to decide on a rendezvous point.”

* * *

             
The world was fuzzy and blurry. There was an annoying ringing sound in Steele’s ears, and the ground was hard, and he needed to wake up because there was some emergency, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

             
The baby!

             
Steele sat bolt upright, panic shooting through him.  Roxanne had been kidnapped. His baby was missing.  Roxanne was the only person who could help them find the baby, and she was gone, and he had no idea where those people were taking her. How long had he been under?  Would he have time to catch up with them?

             
His cell phone was ringing. Without thinking, he fumbled for it. It lay on the floor next to him.

             
“Hello?” He pulled himself to his feet. A wave of dizziness rolled over him, but he fought it off.

             
“Jeez, it is about freaking time!” Isadora yelled at him. “Get in your car and start heading north.  I’ve still got them in my sights.”

             
“Who?” He had a metallic taste in his mouth, but the dizziness was abating.

             
“The humans who kidnapped Roxanne!  I haven’t called anyone else yet, because you told me you were going to leave town forever and I thought that maybe the wardens had some kind of kill on sight order out on you. What the hell is going on?”

             
“I’m getting dressed while I’m talking,” Steele said, stumbling through the living room towards his bedroom. “How did you know about the humans?”

             
“I saw their car pass me while I was leaving, and I was like, what the heck are those people doing here in Timber Valley? So I doubled back and followed them and I saw them pull up in front of your house,” Isadora said.  Steele, still woozy headed, pulled on jeans and a shirt as Isadora talked.

             
“I parked by the side of the road and shifted so I could get closer, and I could smell that one of them was human and one was a wolf, which is weird as hell. I saw them shoot you with that tranquilizer gun.  When they left, I ran over and pulled the dart out, but I couldn’t wake you up, so I ran back to my car and started following them,” Isadora said. “Also I put the phone by your head and I kept trying to call you. Jeez, you took forever to wake up, you lazy bastard.”