Moonlit Embrace (12 page)

“He was crazy. There’s no accounting for his behavior. Don’t try to make sense of it. Just take me home.”

When they reached the outer ring of the tents, she started the stinging, throbbing task of walking on her own. If anyone noticed the torn pants or the strips of cloth wrapped around it and coated in red, they gave no indication.

The park itself was a different story. While parents talked and typed, their children were quick to notice her injuries. There was more laughter than screaming and Baron’s quick pointing to a group of birds nearby distracted the kids enough that they could jog ahead to the car.

The pounding pavement sent nails up her legs, but she was alive and so was Baron. Nothing mattered more than that.

“I’m going to take you home then deal with Belinda.”

“We’ll finish this together. Someone should be with her at the end.”

“Johanna, you can’t. No one can. She’s gone. We’ll find a place for her. And—”

“No. We’ll take her to the police or the fire department or—”

He sat her down in the car and kneeled next to the passenger’s seat, slowly lifting her legs into the vehicle. “We can’t do that.”

“We have to. I don’t think many people cared about her in life. I won’t do the same in her death.”

“This?”

“Yeah?”

He dropped a kiss on her forehead and closed her door, not answering until he got in on the other side. “This is why I love you.”

He knuckled away the tears running down her cheeks and she knew beyond any shadow of doubt, that she loved him too.

T
hey’d settled on a compromise that night and called Jack in to help sort the situation. Despite Baron’s objections over owing dragons anything, she opened the door to Jack’s knock.

“How’s my favorite wolf couple? Is it here,” Jack asked.

“It?”

“Your sister.”

“What could you possibly...never mind.” She took a seat on the couch next to Baron and waited for Jack to join them.

The tall man sat on the arm of the loveseat, eyes shifting from her to Baron. “What’s wrong?”

“Where to begin?”

“The beginning. Wait. Am I Hero Jack or Officer Jack right now?”

That sooooo depends.
She cleared her throat and started talking. Halfway through the story, Baron wound up in handcuffs. Fair enough, it was right about the time they mentioned possessing the frozen corpse of a woman not yet reported missing.

“Is this really necessary?”

Jack shoved the pinioned Baron onto the couch before answering her. “Is that a serious question? I’ll put it to you this way. It’s as necessary as hiding a corpse. How’s that?”

“I can explain everything,” she said.

“Somebody better.”

“It’s just that Baron’s ex-girlfriend was killed too.”

Okay, not the best thing to say. Jack’s eyes went yellow and his fingers lengthened to claws. This proved too much for Baron, who broke free of his cuffs pretty freaking easily.

He shifted.

Then Jack shifted.

Wolves are big. Dragons, however, take up whole rooms.

Wolves have teeth. Dragons, have purple veined wings with spikes at the end. Never mind the eyes as big as her head.
Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit.

“Guys, please stop. Just listen, Jack. Please. Baron’s been framed and we know the guy who did it. We killed him.”

Oh damn.

The huge, green head swiveled to her corner of the room. Golden scales of Jack’s underbelly shivered and quaked.

Well, them and the floor. It wasn’t built to sustain this kind of weight. She had to stop this right now or give her downstairs neighbors a hell of surprise.

“It’s the last robber, Jack. The man who shot me. You know his scent. All you have to do is go and see for—”

The door burst open and every head in the room, reptilian and mammalian, whirled to the sound of a cocking handgun.

“Kate?”

Her sister’s stilettos rapped across the floor. “Just tell me who to kill, sweetie. Both?”

“Neither.”

The shaggy wolf shook with such force that spit flung out the sides of his mouth.

Ditto for the dragon-lizard thing, now burping sulfur and coating her walls with slime.

“Damn. Care to tell me what all this is about?”

She explained everything. The matching scents, Zed Corlin’s obsession and everything Baron had told her about Nikki’s death.

Jack shifted back first and stalked to his jeans, now ripped to pieces. He picked up his phone and gun from the strips of cloth. Still naked, he held the cell with one hand and the firearm with the other. It was trained directly at the shifting Baron. “It’s Jack,” he said to the person on the other end of the line. “Run the name Zed Corlin and tell me what you know.”

She slid over to Baron’s side while they waited. His arm latched around her, face still red and veins popping. He looked like a man about to lose it. Smelled like one too. Jack’s head jerked up and he lowered his weapon.

Kate didn’t.

Jack smiled.

Kate didn’t.

“Zed Corlin is under investigation for the murder of one Nikki James. Her case has been reopened.” Jack tossed his phone to the floor. “My bad.”

Baron blew up. “Your bad? I wouldn’t have called you if I’d done something wrong. If Zed had tied both women to me, it’d take the heat off him. Fuck it. Shoot him, Kate.” 

Jack cracked his neck as his bones popped back into place. “You’re pissed. I get it.”

“Pissed?” Baron stepped forward, chest heaving. She calmed him down the only way she knew how. With a kiss. It might have worked, if Jack had shut up.

“The guy’s a bad seed. Hell, according to central records, even his mother put out a restraining order against him. Some poor lady named Theresa.”

Baron rocked back against the wall, repeating the name in haggard breaths. She almost asked what it meant, then remembered the story of Nikki’s faithful maid and laid her head on his chest. Jealously and madness led them all right here.

But they’d survived it.

“It’s over now, Baron. It’s all over.”

A
ringing phone yanked Johanna to the hostess station. “Lucky Capone’s Grill.”

She strained to take the reservation over Kate’s growling and Jack’s equally thundering response in their Argument of the Day. Baron’s head popped out from the kitchen and the combatants retreated to their corners, arms folded and lips twitching.

Such was Johanna’s new life and it was a damned good one. She had her man, her sister, a new career and a new sense of self that came with managing all those things. She’d come into her own and all because some silly wolf needed a business license so long ago. Now, it was a time for peace. A time to grow. She couldn’t think of a single thing that could ruin her mood...

“You’ve lost your friggin’ mind!”

...not even Kate completely losing her shit.

The whole restaurant turned to see her sister toss a glass of red wine into Jack’s face, before storming out the door. Her gaze shifted from the back of her sister’s head to the grinning policeman. His hands were raised, one pointing to the other. “Maybe I copped a feel.”

“Oh, Jack!”

He winked and took off after Kate.

Baron came up behind her and sighed against her shoulder. “I haven’t banned them from our restaurant yet.”

“I know.”

“That’s how much I love you.”

“I know that too.”

Then he leaned down to kiss her before ducking back into the kitchen.

In other words, a normal Friday afternoon in Miles, New York.

*

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Moonlit Embrace
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