Not Bad for an Amateur (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (7 page)

Joel was waiting for his prey to emerge from the door he had pulled opened with a great deal of trouble. Holding a gun and yanking the smashed door open took a lot of strength and coordination. “From the way you are whimpering like a whipped puppy and cursing like a teenage boy, I think you are going to live. Now get your fucking ass out of the truck before I make you a permanent roadside spirit walker.”

The man tried to step out of the truck, but his ankle gave out when he tried to put weight on it, and he went down fast face-first into the dirt. The man let out a wail of pain, but Joel ignored him. His eyes found the body of a dead wolf that had fallen from a tarp in the small jump seat behind the driver’s and passenger’s seats. Joel’s mind sent the picture of that broken, furry body into his twin’s head, and Jim grabbed the man by his broken arm and yanked him to his feet then pushed him around the back of the truck until he was standing next to the fallen man. The butt end of Jim’s shotgun slammed into the driver’s head, and he dropped where he was standing.

Joel knelt by his captive and snarled “fucking traitors” then slammed his fist upside the man’s temple, causing him to go unconscious. The men were not dead, but they would soon be begging for death as far as the twins were concerned. First every item of information would be wrung from their bodies before the wish for death would be granted in a very slow and painful way.

Lily jumped down from the high seat onto the running board and then another hop onto the dirt. She walked over to the twins and looked at the men unconscious on the ground at Joel’s feet. “This can’t be good, oh no, It can’t be good. They know who I am then.” She let her shoulders sink forward and folded her arms together protectively. There lying on the ground was the park ranger that she had passed on the road when she left the forest where she had caused a man’s death. Lily didn’t recognize the other man lying there. Right now she felt that she needed a place to hide.

Joel and Jim had heard her whispered comments. Obviously she knew one of the men and thought the men were after her, not the twins.

They loaded up the prisoners into Jim’s truck. He took great pains to treat the dead wolf’s body as kindly as he could. When his arm went under the body he stopped and pressed his fingers over the neck of the animal. The wolf was alive. He carried the furry body to his truck and gave it to Joel to hold until they got back to the compound.

* * * *

The prisoners were chained to cots in the infirmary and the wolf was being fed intravenously. Malcom, the pack doctor, gave the two men shots to keep them quiet and allow the wolf to heal enough to tell Jim what happened to him. He didn’t smell like any of their surrounding packs, but then with the stench of human hanging on the vehicle none of them smelled like wolves until you got very close to them.

Joel took Lily into the main house where he and Jim lived. It was the house that the twins played in as children in and hoped to bring the love of their lives to so any children they might be lucky enough to have would have a great house to play in with all of its small cubbyholes and the secret passages. Joel thought that it had been too damn long since children played here. Maybe, just maybe the tiny little she wolf would provide them with a laughing brood if they were fortunate.

Joel led Lily to the master bedroom. He told her to make herself comfortable and that he would see her in a little while. Then as if he couldn’t help himself, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. It was not the usual type of kiss either, more like his mouth took possession of hers and claimed it for his own. His hands traveled down to her chest, and his fingers worked the buttons of her blouse loose then parted the material to access her breasts with his fingers. She whimpered and moaned as his fingers pulled the rounded globes from her bra. When he cupped her breasts and then pulled the nipples and pinched them, Lily felt even more wetness gush from her needy core. His hand began to slowly make its way down to her thigh, and when he used both hands to hold the cheeks of her ass, he let her mouth go, steadied her back into a standing position, and whispered that he would be back soon.

Lily took stock of her surroundings. It was a huge space with custom-built cabinets lining one wall instead of closets. The large windows had half moons of stained glass over the regular rectangular windows and the walls were a warm sandstone color. Sage green curtains and bedding completed the look of warmth. Lily laid her hands on the big bed and tested the mattress. She could curl up in the middle of that bed and sleep like a baby. There was a fireplace with pipes sticking out into the room for extra warmth when there was a fire going in the grate. She loved this room.

The master bathroom was huge, the flooring was smooth stone-colored tile, and the walls were a beautiful gray with a green tint. There was a hot tub that seemed to double as a bathtub, there had to be close to a hundred water jets recessed into the fiberglass sides. There were seats and a higher, wide shelf that a person could sit on and just dangle their feet if they wished. Lily knew she would wallow like a pig in mud in that tub. It was almost big enough for her to swim in. If this was to be her room, she was going to enjoy that tub tonight.

The men met in the study and read through the hundred or so pages of the report that Lily handed them when they got home. Hours later they could only look at each other. The wolf that they thought was a victim could very well be one of the bad guys. All three were suspect and would be treated as such. Joel called to the infirmary and told the nurse to have the wolf restrained also.

A search of the wrecked pickup showed that the vehicle was property of the forestry service, but the twins knew that the Glock and the two Sigs were not government Issue. Neither were the two AK-47s. There were two cell phones that were prepaid throwaways, and one that was a smart phone with information no one knew how to access. Jim sent his sister Ruby to get Lily. She knew about computers and maybe she could get more information from the devices.

Lily opened the bedroom door to see a beautiful young girl with the prettiest brown hair and trusting brown eyes that she had ever seen before. Ruby introduced herself and told her that the Alpha requested her assistance in the study as soon as it was convenient for her to come. Lily smiled and walked with the tall, slender beauty.

As they walked down the hallway and through the house, Ruby explained that she was the sister that the twins loved to treat as their errand girl. There was no malice when she said it, only a rueful acknowledgement of her brother’s bossy natures.

Lily learned a great deal in the short walk. Ruby liked to chat. She gave Lily a brief, but information filled family dynamic as they walked.

Ruby was the Alpha’s youngest sister. She was the last of the five children that the Logan family had before the elders retired to Canada, choosing to live together in the wild until then end came for both of them.

They were bonded mates, and when one took the last breath of life, the other would follow within days if not hours. Normally Weres lived until almost double a human’s life span. Sadly the patriarch had lost the battle with prostate cancer. It was just a matter of time before both elder Logans would pass this realm into the spirit wind to run free again.

Ruby left Lily at the door to the study and promised to get together to have a nice long girl chat soon. Lily tapped on the door and then walked in. The handsome men looking at her almost took her breath away. Both were wearing T-shirts and jeans, both had bulging biceps and wide, thickly muscled chests and shoulders.
The two men would make a professional prostitute blush from the way they looked at a woman.
They smiled, and she knew she would do just about anything to keep those approving smiles coming her way. Lily had a feeling that they knew how potent they were.

“We need your help with this electronic stuff, Lily, I bought this expensive desktop set up a few months ago believing I could figure it out, but right now all I can use it for is a expensive paperweight. I know a little about computers but not enough.” Joel smiled at her and handed her a new iPhone. “My phone is as basic as I could find. This thing baffles me. Can you get the information from it?” He actually had the nerve to look more handsome by the minute.

Jim was not about to let his brother get all the brownie points with the little shewolf. He came up beside her and took her other hand to raise it to his neck and he swept in for a long, toe-curling kiss. “I deserve this for messing up the paint on the bumper of my truck, and for the fact that you only had this oaf to cuddle today while I was busy doing manly things.” His lips trailed down her throat and to the side. He licked the sensitive skin under her earlobe and whispered into her ear. “He may look like me, and he may be the same size as me, but you will find out soon that we are different men underneath it all.”

Lily wanted to laugh. The men were identical in looks and mannerisms when they had an audience to play to. But she had met Jim first and knew that he was the hothead of the two men. He demanded and seldom asked. She also remembered a certain few days that showed how stubborn he could be, waiting for three days outside that rock cavern must have driven him nuts. Joel was more the diplomatic type.

She did not doubt that Joel could be as hotheaded as his twin, he just seemed to hide it better. She had enjoyed a front-row seat during this afternoon’s activities. Joel had not been nice or at all easy on the prisoners, in fact Jim talked him down from killing the driver and passenger then leaving their dead bodies in a field for the carrion to dispose of. Joel had argued the good points of not bothering with the captives and just killing them outright with a calm voice and solid arguments. Jim wanted to dismember them in the circle with the entire pack as witness.

The iPhone chirped. All three of them stared at the caller ID on the screen. No one answered the call. Joel wanted the caller to leave a message and was rewarded with the little bleep the phone made when the caller was finished.

Lily walked around the desk and booted up the computer. It was a nice one, and she was slightly envious. Her equipment was good, but this had all the bells and whistles. “Why buy a computer with the elaborate stuff on it if you have no use for it?” Joel didn’t answer her question, so she glanced up to see a sheepish look cross over his face. “You might as well tell me now, if the reason is in this computer I will find it out and then you will get upset that I invaded your privacy.”

Joel would never admit that the girl that sold him the system had flirted outrageously and that he was showing off when he bought it. He wouldn’t admit to the salesgirl that he had no idea what she talked about when they discussed gaming and megabytes or gigabytes or even the reason behind the fancy mouse that looked like a kid’s transformer toy. He went along with the assumption that the pretty brown-eyed redhead came to, that he was a gamer and needed the best system for everyday work, too. He never showed his shock at the check for three grand he wrote to pay for it. Or the chagrin when he got the set home and couldn’t figure out where to put what cords. The cords were currently tied together with bread-wrapper ties, and he hoped that Lily wouldn’t give him grief about his ineptness.

The best defense was a good retreat, so he suggested to his twin that they needed to check in with Malcom to see if the men would be physically able to talk anytime soon.

They left the room, and Lily began the tedious work of uploading the numbers on the iPhone’s history and pictures, anything that was not a game or an app was fair game to her. She laughed softly as she had to shut the system down and reroute most of the wires and hook up the printer and fax line. How in the hell he had thought that the mouse was supposed to be plugged into the tower was anyone’s guess. At least he plugged the ends into a heavy-duty power surge bar with a ground switch to keep lightning from frying his machine during an electrical storm or other power surges…
Kudos, Joel
. He even added a battery backup to his expensive toy. Now if I can just get this system running like it is supposed to run we will be in business, she told herself.

Lily ended up remotely accessing her computer system at home. This was not something she would normally do, but she needed the programs, and this expensive machine was set up for gaming. If Joel was a gamer she would eat her keyboard. When she finally downloaded and checked the iPhone information and checked the most recent numbers, there were more questions than answers. One of the calls was made to Jackson, her stepfather.

The message that the newest caller left was to the point. “What the fuck are you guys doing? It can’t take that much effort to follow and tag a little woman. Especially in that red car of hers. Call me and make damn sure you have good news this time.” Lily sat listening to that voice telling those men to kill her. The man was correct, she was easy prey.

The thought filtered through her mind that Jackson wanted her dead was rejected immediately. He might be a cold sonofabitch at times, but and especially after three days ago, Lily knew he loved her and would cut off his own arm before he hurt her. Since she was a little girl the family had a protocol for dealing with someone kidnapping her mother or her because of Jackson’s job. He made a lot of enemies in his capacity as deputy director and more than a few threats were made over the years.

Lily opened the Facebook account that she and her mother kept open just for such occasions. Prunella Forcythe’s status for the day would be strange to say the least.

Today I went to a party with two of my friends. I couldn’t believe how much fun I had fending off not two but three admirers, and one of the men had a wife named Demi of all things. She kept calling him, demanding to know where he was, and did he finally dump that trashy girlfriend with the Mustang? She was so insistent that he hurry home and give her a blow-by-blow account that he decided to hide out with his friends. All is well until she tracks him down again. Call me sometime and we can get together for a cozy chat, my friends.