The Billionaire Jaguar's Curvy Journalist: BBW Panther Shifter Paranormal Romance (14 page)

She wiped the counter down, but there really wasn’t much else to do. Paul did a good job picking up after himself.

Paul was on the couch talking when she gave up and walked back into the living room. “You’ll have to meet him,” he was saying. ‘When he’s human. He said he thought he had eyes on you at one point, but—”

“Yeah, I work pretty hard to blend in.” Aaron was sitting on the big armchair, his knees turned toward his brother. “I do all right, for self-taught. I did know a woman—well,” he shrugged. “That was years ago. Knew she wasn’t going to be my mate, felt it, but...it was still hard to let her go. Go back to being the only one.”

“You’re not the only one now,” Paul said. “You’ll never be the only one again. We know plenty of shifters. Kind of got a little underground going.”

“‘We’?” Abby asked.

“Well,” Paul said. “He said I could tell you, so I guess I will. Chris and I—we don’t just have that plane crash in common. He’s a shifter, too.”

“A cat?”

Paul laughed. “A bird. But a big one, a hawk.”

She tried to picture Chris turning into a hawk. He certainly had enough energy to fly, she’d believe that. “Wow.”

“And he’s South American, like we are?” Aaron asked.

“More than we are. Mom was half Spanish. Both Chris’s parents were Quechua—she was a doctor, went to medical school in the States and stayed here until his dad died; that was cancer. Then she went back home, but Chris stayed up here for college and never left. She still came up to visit him, or he’d go down—probably just a coincidence that she was on the flight, not him.”

“Pretty big coincidence,” Aaron said.

“Yeah,” Paul said. He looked over at Abby and stretched his arm out. “Come on, there’s plenty of room for you.”

“Well,” she said. “If you insist.” She smiled a little and settled down into his embrace, enjoying that feeling of belonging she got every time she touched him.

“Aaron’s got a hell of a story for you.”

“It’s not much of a story, honestly,” Aaron said. “Just a lot of suspicions. Well, it was a lot of suspicions until they went after you. That...that’s a little hard to dismiss as just my imagination.”

“I’d say,” she said. “How did you track me down?”

“I googled a bunch of local papers and found your picture online,” he said. “Then I knew who you were, and I knew you’d called me ‘Paul,’ which—that’s my brother’s name, you know? I didn’t figure the odds of there being another panther shifter around here with the name Paul who didn’t look like me were very high.” He sat like Paul too, poised like the panther he was. “I tried your apartment, but I saw about half a dozen police cars, so I didn’t figure I should go knocking on your door. So...I called in a couple of favors. Figured out that Paul had rented some property here, and figured—” He shrugged. “Worst case scenario, I’d say, ‘whoops, wrong address.’” He shrugged. “I changed outside your parking lot, and I knew the smells were familiar. From there, it was just knocking on the door, and crossing my fingers.”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Abby said. “I...Paul’s said so much about you.”

“Yeah?” Aaron’s face just lit up. “I...I thought about you, all the time.”

“We wanted to—we could never think of a way to find you. Not without Dad knowing, and he—” Paul fell silent.

“He what?” Aaron said. “What did he want?”

“He just...he found out, about me. And he didn’t want anything to do with us. Mom thought you’d be all right, she said hardly anyone has two shifter children. And—I don’t know what he would have done if we’d tried to stay. Mom left with nothing but her jewels. And me. She sold...she sold so much off just to give us a place to live. To get started again. And by the time I was on my own...I didn’t even know where I could start. If you weren’t a shifter, how would you believe me? And if you were...then I’d abandoned you. How could I even begin to apologize?”

“You don’t have to,” Aaron said.

“Well, I know that now.” Paul grinned and pulled Abby tighter. “And now...I’ve got everything. My brother back. My mate.”

“I have so many questions,” Aaron said. “But...I think they can wait. We need to figure out what Brisbane Chemical is doing, and we need to figure it out sooner, rather than later. They’re definitely dumping or leaking something—I can smell the chemicals. Figure you can too.”

Paul nodded. “But it doesn’t smell much worse than...well, any of these chemical plants. I can’t see anything unusual.”

“Something’s out there,” Aaron said. “Seeping in. I’ve taken some samples, and there’s something off, but my scientists have only seen what’s broken down—the component parts. I’m not sure what exactly it is, and they can’t tell, either. We’re going to have to get in closer, or find another way.”

“Abby might be able to help with that,” Paul said. “She’s pretty good at her job.”

“You definitely caught the wrong kind of attention,” Aaron said. “And I bet you can figure out what’s going on here. Especially with our help.”

“You have more favors you can call in?” Abby asked.

Aaron shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m kind of stuck. Dad’s a major investor in Brisbane Chemical. I’ve had to be really careful.”

“Are you going to be okay if he finds out...we’ve found each other again?”

“I don’t know, honestly,” Aaron said. “He doesn’t exactly talk about you a lot. Doesn’t talk about family at all, really. I spent a lot of years off at boarding school so he could wine and dine the glitterati.”

“I’m sorry,” Paul said.

“It’s not your fault,” Aaron said. “I—I thought about calling you a bunch of times, too. Just never seemed like the right time, and then it seemed like it was too late.”

“No,” Paul said, and Abby couldn’t see his smile, but she could feel it. “Definitely not.”

“I think you should both put the blame where it belongs,” Abby said. “And it’s not you guys. You were kids. Don’t be so hard on yourselves.”

“I thought about you all the time,” Aaron said.

“Me too,” Paul said. “Well, I thought about you. All the time.”

“I should let you guys—”

“No,” Paul said, squeezing her. “I don’t want you to go. Not yet. I...something could’ve happened to you today. I’m not ready to let go.”

“I’d just be in the next room,” she said.

“Are you tired? I’ll let you—”

“No, I’m fine,” she said. “As long as you guys are all right. I just—you guys have a lot to catch up on.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start if it was just the two of us,” Paul said. “At least this whole pollution thing gives us something to talk about.”

“Do you—do you have anything written down? I could start going through things.”

“I have a lot written down,” Aaron said, getting his phone out of his jacket. “I can share files with you, or let you look through my phone—”

“Let me get my laptop, that’ll be easier.”

Paul kissed her cheek. “Go. Do what you were meant to do.”

20

There was so much to talk about with Aaron. It started slowly, but then they were talking about everything. College. Girls. Work. What life had been like without each other.

“She never stopped thinking about you,” Paul said. “I know she was hoping to find you, when you were older. I knew I should’ve done it myself, I just—” I just couldn’t, with her gone.

Aaron had found out he could shift when he was sixteen. He’d done it over and over again in the mirror, watching himself, trying to figure out how it had all happened. He’d never dared tell Dad. “I knew I couldn’t,” he said. “I don’t know how I knew, but I did. For a while, I was worried I was the only one.”

“You’re not,” Paul said. “You’re not...not even close.”

“Yeah, I know. Finally figured that out thanks to the Internet. And a couple of leaps of faith.”

“You—do you have anyone? A mate?” Paul glanced over at Abby, happily researching on her laptop. He hadn’t known her long, but her reporter’s instincts were impossible to hide.

Aaron shook his head. “I’ve got some good friends. But...it’s been easier not to date, honestly. I’ve felt like I have plenty of stuff going on. And I sure couldn’t introduce a shifter girl to Dad, if she turned out to be my mate.”

“No,” Paul said. At least Aaron’s instincts there had been solid. Of course, if he’d looked around online he would have known that shifters ran in families. “Do you...do you remember anything about when we left?”

Aaron shook his head. “Not really. I think—I more remember impressions. That there were things we weren’t supposed to talk about. That dad was really, really angry. I think I remember Mom crying.”

“We cried a lot,” Paul said. “Though for me it was mostly after we left. She moved fast when she realized—” He shook his head. He still remembered the look of horror and disgust on Dad’s face. He’d never forget that.

“I was kind of hoping you’d miss all that.”

“Dad doesn’t know,” Aaron said. “He thinks I’m...normal.” He crossed his arms over his chest, nervously. “I’ve been saving some money of my own. Working to establish my own contacts.”

“I can help you, too.” He wanted to. He remembered walking to school with his little brother, looking out for him. He wanted that back.

“I’m an adult now, you know,” Aaron said, with a little smile that looked like the one he’d had when he was a kid.

“I know,” Paul said. “But you’re still my kid brother.”

“I missed you,” Aaron said. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too. I kept wondering—”

“Got it!” Their heads both turned toward Abby.

“Don’t tell me you solved this already,” Paul said. “That’s cheating.”

“Not exactly,” Abby said, swiveling around in Paul’s rolling chair. “But I’ve got a nice smelly lead. Three years ago, Brisbane Chemical was investigated for off-the-books experimentation. On humans. Without authorization from...well, just about anyone. Some of the chemicals they were using match the traces that Aaron found here in the water.”

“Interesting,” Paul said. “Veddy interesting.” He leaned back, stretching his arm out. “Come here, get your reward.”

“Very funny,” she said, “but you two need to catch up, and I’m just getting started.”

Aaron laughed. “She’s great,” he said.

“She sure is.”

They talked until Paul felt his eyes drooping.

“Shit,” Aaron said. “We’re both ready to drop. Abby, how’re you?”

“You guys can go to bed,” she said. “I’m almost done.”

“She’s a machine,” Aaron whispered to his brother.

“I heard that,” Abby said.

“Well, will you come to bed with me?” Paul asked. “Aaron needs to sleep out here, if he’s staying. You don’t want to keep him up, right?”

She sighed. “All right, I guess not. But let me work while you get around.”

“Fine, fine,” he said. “But then we sleep. You need it, too.”

By the time Paul woke up, Abby was already out of bed. He could sense her back at the desk, her senses alive, her heart beating with what the panther knew was happy excitement.

He smiled. She certainly was a mate he could be proud of, though he had missed having her warmth and scent at his side.

“Aaron’s out getting breakfast,” she said without turning around when he walked into the living area. “He said he wanted to surprise us, and he’d be back.”

“Did you send him to your friend’s place?”

“Thought about it,” she said. “But he said he was too hungry to drive that far.” Her fingers clicked on the keys, then came to a stop. She turned around and smiled happily at him. “Hi,” she said. “I already called into work. Told them I had a scare last night.”

“That was true, anyway,” he said.

She nodded. “I don’t feel afraid now, though. Not when you’re here.”

“Well, I’m glad,” he said. He couldn’t stand at the bedroom door for long; he had to walk over to Abby, touch her, taste her.

But she wiggled a little when he took her in his arms. “Wait,” she said. “I’ve got to finish this. I think it’s going to get us one hell of a headline.”

“This a proposal?”

She nodded.

He read over her shoulder:
Is Brisbane Chemical back to their old tricks? Sampling at Whitefin Lake indicates that unauthorized experiments may be happening again.

“You can tell that? Because Aaron said he didn’t get very far.”

“I found an old FOIA—Freedom of Information Act—request that had a lot of detail. A
lot
of detail. And then I checked with my friend Irene this morning—she’s a chemist—and she helped me walk through what the potential by-products of dumping the chemicals in the FOIA stuff would be. And voila, I had a bunch of matches. I’m not sure they’re really dumping this stuff, it might be an accidental leak. I wouldn’t think they’d want the FDA to know they’re doing this stuff again.”

“So pretend I don’t know anything about the first time Brisbane Chemical. Because I don’t. What did they get in trouble for the first time?” He balanced his chin on her shoulder so he could watch her work.

“The first time, they were doing research on human subjects without sufficient approvals, with chemicals that had never been used before in combination, and—oh yeah—they didn’t tell the human subjects the full risks of what they were exposed to, probably because they were doing it in secret without sufficient approval.”

Wow.
“How...how did they get away with that? How are they still in business?”

She shrugged. “No one actually got hurt, that was the most important thing. They still got in a lot of trouble. Huge fines, and the whole company, not just the R & D department, reorganized. Most of the people responsible for those first experiments aren’t in place any more.”

“Most.”

“The investors are still the same,” she said. “So it may be that someone holding the purse strings has taken charge.” She sighed. “That’s...where things get a little complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“There are two major holding companies that are the primary investors in Brisbane Chemical, who’ve been key since the founding. And one of them is...well, it’s Mallory Holdings.”

Mallory Holdings was his father’s company. Aaron’s company. “Complicated,” he said, as he thought about what that might mean.

“Yeah,” she said. “Exactly.”