There wasn’t much in the way of fencing around the airport, but Trevor had walked it at least a dozen times now, finding no sign of Andrea. Nothing to offer up evidence that she’d spoken to him at all. Trevor moved to sit in front of the camper that he’d purchased three days ago and was living in until he had some kind of word.
The plane had gone down eight days ago, and in that long week he’d been able to find some luggage that had been tossed out of the wreckage, two more bodies, as well as a few personal items of the pilot and co-pilot. These things, all of them, he had turned into the police. They were…well, ungrateful was the only word he could think to use for his help.
Finding things, he’d been told, was only making the others suffer more…the ones that were dealing with the loss of their loved ones in a healthy way. He knew they thought he was insane. Hell, so did he most of the time. But his mate was alive and the sooner he found her, the better he’d feel. Today had been a bust, other than finding a cell phone that had belonged to one of the passengers.
When it became apparent that he wasn’t welcome on the sight, he’d purchased the tract of land nearby and parked his camper. Then when the police started coming around asking him questions about how he was living, he’d had his attorney call them and tell them to back off. It had worked so far. But there had been no sign of Andrea.
Trevor had spoken to her on the second, then third day of his searching for her. Then the last five days, nothing. He knew that she was alive—their connection was that deep—but she no was longer speaking to him, and she was getting better and better at blocking him out of her mind. His wolf was going crazy wanting to find her.
“So am I, buddy. So am I.” He moved from the chair that had been close to the fire pit that he’d set up, in hopes of her seeing it and coming to him, and moved into the camper. The air was constantly running and he was sure that he was going to burn up the thing, but his wolf wanted it cooler and the poor guy had suffered a lot. They both had.
The map that he’d hung over the table area was spread out, and the little tabs that he’d put in place were a blaring reminder that he was looking in the wrong places. He’d been all around the area so many times now that he could point out each and every tree and plant that was there. Even his wolf was getting sick of seeing the same ten trees and the hundreds of weeds he had no name for. But his Andrea just was not there.
Boss? I’ve talked to the firm she works for. Mike Manhouser has not heard from her at all either. He did say that she was a recluse and that there were times that he’d not hear from her for weeks at a time. But he did finally give me her address. Wasn’t happy about it, but he figured that when I slapped him with that lawsuit I meant business. Trevor had to bite back a smile. Sara was a hellion when she wanted something done and things were not going her way. Also, there are any number of sightings of her. I’ve broadcasted her picture everywhere, like you said. And we’re checking those out.
I’ve seen the list you sent me. Thank you. Trevor moved to the refrigerator and opened the door and stared in it. I see you’ve sent someone here to stock me up again. I’ve asked you not to do that. I’m fine.
Sure you are. And the fact that nothing has been moved from the refrigerator since the last time they were there says to me that you’re either not eating or you’re going out. And since I know you well enough to know that you do not go out if there is food for you to eat, I’m assuming you’re not eating. He closed the door and thought about firing her again. You do and I will leave you all alone. I’ve eaten men like you for lunch and had a good crap afterwards, and that’s all they meant to me. You’re my friend and boss, so don’t even go there.
Trevor sat down and tried to think of a snappy comeback as well, but his heart just wasn’t in it. When Sara started telling him about what he needed to do for her over the next few days, he leaned back and closed his eyes before speaking to her.
What if she’s out there and has decided that she no longer wants anything to do with me? It was something that he’d been thinking about since he’d gotten up this morning. I mean, I never told her what she was to me. I just fucked her and marked her so that she’d be mine.
I’m sure that she’s looking for you as well. You told me that you thought you and her connected on a deep level. I think that something else has happened to her, like…I don’t know, but something. Trevor, don’t give up. His name again. Sitting up, he tried to focus on something good, but again his heart wasn’t in it. Boss, you need to come to the office for a little while. I have things you have to sign off on. Not to mention there are any number of things that only you can okay. Then there is the thing with our brother, Burton. His birthday is in a couple of weeks.
I know. I was…I was actually thinking of coming there on Monday. She told him today was Monday. Okay, then tomorrow. I have a car now so…I won’t be able to stay very long. Set up an appointment with him. Tell him nothing more than I need to see him. I don’t want to deal with him, but it has to be done. I’m not staying though. Just…just in and out, okay?
I can have it all lined up and ready for you when you arrive. There are a couple more things, like I said, that you have to deal with, but that should only keep you here for a few hours. He didn’t want to be gone any longer than he had to and told her that. I understand. I’ve also contacted that alpha of ours. He’s worried for you as well. Did you know that someone challenged him recently? Well, nothing came of it if you hadn’t heard. The guy just up and left. I mean, from what Margo told me, he left his house, the stuff in it, and even his car. Like he just disappeared. I…I’m looking into it. Sounds wonky, if you know what I mean.
A lot of that going around. Do so carefully. I don’t want to have to hurt anyone. His heart twisted when he thought of Andrea out there all alone. When you call on Burton, can you do something for me?
Yes. He could hear suspicion in her voice. No one cared for Burton, not even him most of the time. But he’d promised his mother that he’d keep an eye on his brother and he was doing that. I’ll set up an appointment with him in here but…you’re going to tell him, right? I know that it’s none of my business, but he’s a grown man, damn it. Should I have some cash here for you as well?
Trevor wanted to tell her that he’d made a promise and needed to keep it. But she’d heard it all before, and he was as sick of Burton as she was. Burton would say how well he was doing. That he had it all figured out. And then he’d hit him up for some cash, just to keep him afloat. All in all, Trevor thought his brother’s floatation device had cost him more than the biggest yacht in the world, as well as the people to run it. Millions had been spent keeping his brother afloat. But it was nearly over. He was done with the deathbed promise he’d made to their mom.
Burton was older than him by five years, and all they had in common was that they were both from the same parents. While Trevor was driven, hardworking, and saved his money or invested well, Burton was lazy, spent money that he didn’t have and a lot of it from other people, and thought that Trevor should keep him in a way that he wanted, not what he made for himself. Trevor knew that some of it was his fault, but a great deal of it lay at their mother’s feet too.
Burton was like a spoiled child when he didn’t get his way, and worse than that, he would throw temper tantrums that would rival even the worse two year old. The only difference was, a kid would get over his anger quickly, while Burton could and would hold onto it so long that it would become like a festering sore that would burst when it got the better of him. Which usually meant that people, a lot of them, got hurt. Sometimes killed.
After telling her to half the money that Burton wanted, he closed the connection between them. It was more than likely a bad time to see his brother, but with the fact that he’d emailed him last night with some news about a new venture, Trevor knew that it was time. For a lot of things.
Burton would be thirty-five next month. His mother had told him that anyone should be on their feet by then, and that was all she’d asked him to do. Watch over Burton until he was at that age; then she’d told him to let Burton live his own life. She had made sure that Burton was aware of her request, as well as the time when he was going to be made to stand on his own two feet.
Back then Trevor had had some money from working every odd job he could find and saving every penny; not nearly the amount he had now, but it had been the beginning of keeping his brother happy. His mother, Trevor was sure, would not have condoned Burton taking advantage of him this way had she lived. But Trevor had thought it was easier to just let it go and pay him rather than deal with him anymore. It was time for him to deal.
Going to the big bedroom that he’d had outfitted the way he’d wanted it by taking out the dressers as well as the closet, he lay down on the oversized bed. The other things, he’d told the salesman, the dressers and stuff, would be used in the other bedroom, but this one was for sleeping. And to be honest, there had been very little of that going on since he’d purchased this thing.
Trevor thought of Andrea. The one and only time they’d had sex was on the plane just before it had lost an engine and went down. Lucky for him and her, they’d not been as high in the sky when it had crashed, just a few thousand feet rather than the thirty it had been when the trouble had started. The pilot had done a good job of getting them down, but it had still taken the lives of nearly everyone on that flight, the pilot included. He and Andrea were the only survivors. He reached for her now.
Her pain was the first thing that hit him. It was the first time he’d been able to feel anything but a wall for days now, and he didn’t speak to her. He was afraid that if he startled her that she’d close him off again. So as gently as he could, he searched for some clue as to where she might be.
Burton hung up the phone. For the last several years he’d been trying his best to get that woman who worked for his brother to just send a message to his phone. But she, like on a lot of things he wanted, wouldn’t cooperate. First it was the apartment that he was living in, and then there was the car that he didn’t get, as well as a long list of other things that he’d been asking for and never getting. Maybe this appointment that Trevor had set up with him was going to bring things to a head. He certainly hoped so.
Burton didn’t think it was too much to ask for a list of homes that Trevor owned. If he was in the area of one of them, it was just a simple matter of him staying in one of his homes rather than him trying to find other accommodations. And if, like now, he was bored or needing a nice change, he could stay there indefinitely. Sara had told him that wasn’t going to happen. And even asking Trevor had not gotten him a list. He knew that he had more than the house he lived in on Central, but Burton had no idea where they were.
The apartment that he was living in was okay, he supposed. It had three bedrooms that had nice things in them. His own room had a large television that he’d gotten for his birthday a few years ago, but Burton wanted new. He liked new things. But the place was no way near as lovely as Trevor’s house was. Not even close.
First of all, there were only the three bedrooms in his place, and Trevor had nine. There were two baths, compared to Trevor’s six. As well as the garage full of cars that Trevor also refused to let him use. It wasn’t like he could drive them all at the same time, now could he? It was selfish of him to not at least lend him one or two of them when he’d asked. And so what if he didn’t have a license? Trevor could take care of any complications that might arise. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford anything that came up. Burton knew that on some level he was the one being selfish, but since his brother had provided these things for him, he should at least make sure that they were suitable to him.
That was something else he wanted to discuss with him…the monthly check he received from him. It was entirely too little for him to live on. As he got older, and smarter he supposed, his tastes had grown as well. The fact that his rent as well as his monthly bills were paid off was good, but to think that a man his age could live on only six grand a month was ludicrous. What was Trevor thinking when he told him that was all he would get? Burton would have to remind him again of the promise he’d made to their mom.
Thinking of that promise made Burton think of something else. Something that he was hoping that his brother had forgotten about; the promise to end this at his next birthday. His mom had been very strict in telling him that at thirty-five, he’d be on his own. How the hell they came up with that age was beyond him, but he’d had to even sign a sheet of paper saying that he understood. Trevor, he knew, would not want his brother to suffer; he was counting on it. His mom had not understood then what she was making him do. Burton needed Trevor to keep doing what he was doing. It was unfair for anyone to think he should suffer.
The knock at the door startled him and he went to see who it might be. The landlord again. Whatever the man wanted, he’d have to take it up with Trevor. Burton knew that the rent was paid up monthly, and he’d not done a thing wrong lately to bring in the police. When he knocked again, harder this time, Burton opened the door to him.
“I have a new lease for you to sign.” Burton frowned and took the paper. “You have to have it back to me by the end of the day. I have to update my records. If you have a lawyer to go over it, then you’ll have to let them know to hurry with it.”
“I don’t need a lawyer. Send it to my brother. He takes care of this.” The man told him no, he needed it today and that Trevor was out of town. Since he’d not known that, Burton wanted to ask him why he’d not been informed but held his tongue. There was no reason to let everyone know that he and Trevor were not close. “I don’t sign these things. You’ll just have to wait on it.”
“Can’t. The Feds are going over my files and I need it signed off on or you’re out today.” Burton had no idea if that was true or not, but would straighten it out with Trevor tomorrow when he talked to him. “Don’t you want to have a lawyer look at that?”
Not bothering to answer him, Burton took the form to his table. He had to search for ten minutes for a pen before the landlord gave him his. By the time he signed the thing in all the marked places, Burton was pretty pissed. Why did they need him to sign it in ten different places when his name at the bottom should have been enough? But since he’d never signed a lease before, he didn’t want to look foolish asking the man.
He was given a copy of it with his signature on the same places, and the landlord smiled at him. There was something really creepy about that look, but Burton couldn’t figure it out so just shut the door in his face when he started to talk.
Tossing the new lease on the table, he went to find a notepad to write down the things he needed to talk to Trevor about. Money was first on the list, as well as some things that had come up. He’d had a rather nasty party a couple of weeks ago, and the man that had owned the house was hounding him for money. He thought it was a little more than the damage should have been, but the man was insistent that Burton pay for the pool to be cleaned as well as the walls repainted. So what? A little blood had never hurt anyone.
Burton’s wolf, never a very stable thing, had gotten out of control at the party, and he’d done nothing to pull him in. He knew that two people had been hurt…he’d read that in the paper. That was something else he’d have to talk to Trevor about; having a lawyer of his own on retainer. Shit was getting real now, and he had no way of contacting the one that Trevor used. No one knew, of course, that it had been him and his wolf that had gone a little nuts, but that, too, would come out if they ever found him. There was no way he would be able to control the wolf if people continued to piss him off. Trevor would just have to make that go away too.
As his list grew longer, his thoughts kept returning to his birthday. He was going to be the big one next month, and he was a little worried that no one would care. Last year for his birthday Trevor told him he was too old for parties, and he’d had to go out and give himself one. That might be the reason Trevor wanted to talk to him now. To warn him, as he’d done after the mess that had happened last year, that there would be no more bailing him out.
“But if he had done what I asked, then there would have been no problems.” Burton smiled at he continued to talk to himself. “Trevor, you are going to have to come up with a better party than just the lame-assed dinner for us that you wanted. I’m going to be thirty-five. A grown man.”
Yes, he thought to himself, he was going to be thirty-five. Again his mother’s words haunted him. She’d told him that at great cost to her she’d asked Trevor to care for him until he turned that magical age. He had no idea why she’d asked him to do it in the first place. He’d been doing just fine before, he’d thought. Of course, there had been the jail time, then prison. And he’d had to spend a great deal of time at community service to make up for the shit he’d done as a teenager. But he’d been his own man, answering to no one but himself. But she had worried and had asked, she’d told him.
“I won’t be around forever, you know. And someday Trevor might meet his mate, and what will she think about him being a nursemaid to a man such as yourself?” He told her that he didn’t need Trevor. “But you do, don’t you? You can barely hold down a job for more than a week. Your driver’s license has been revoked for life. And you have nowhere to live, now that you’ve been kicked from your apartment. What will you do if he doesn’t help you?”
That had been just after he’d turned twenty-four. By then he’d managed to do more things wrong in his life than right; he had no money and no job. His mother was hounding him to take care of himself, and his little brother Trevor seemed to have it all. The more he’d thought about it back then, the more he liked the idea of being cared for. Then she’d told him that it wasn’t going to last forever.
“We’ll see about that, won’t we?” Burton moved through his apartment to see if he had any clean clothing to wear tomorrow. Sara had told him that he was to come to the offices, and that if he wasn’t dressed properly, then he might as well go back home. Burton smiled when he thought of the last time he’d gone to see Trevor. He’d been dressed in a pair of the holiest jeans he had, even going to far as to have his ass showing—as he’d gone commando that day—and no shoes. He couldn’t find them and had simply left without them. Sara had thrown a fit, and Trevor had been “disappointed,” he’d told him.
And disappointing Trevor had cost him for a few months the last time he’d not done as Sara had told him and dressed properly. Burton was never sure who had held up his check that month and the two after, but he’d be willing to bet it was Sara. Her passive aggressive way of making him do what she wanted, he supposed. The old bitch had never liked him, and Burton knew this. Not that he really cared…she was nothing more than a means to get to Trevor for him, but she did have his brother’s ear and that was something to be in awe of.
Laying out what he thought was nice, but not the best things he had, he decided to go out and have a little pre-celebration for his upcoming party. When a man turned thirty-five, Burton thought the entire world should have fun with him.
The first place he went to was the hotel down the street. They had a nice bar there and he had a tab. Well, Trevor had a tab. He ordered himself a drink, then dinner. It was nearly time for him to get fed so that he’d not have to be bothered by it later. As he called for another drink, knowing that it never bothered him, he went over his agenda for the night. First and foremost he had to get laid.
He liked sex all right, he supposed, but lately it, like a lot of things, had grown boring. There was something so…well, sterile about it. He got off, and the woman did too if she wanted, and then…nothing. Not any kind of afterglow, and certainly nothing like the utopia that he used to get after a good fuck. Just nothing. Maybe he needed to try something new.
Like…like what he’d heard about last week. His wolf stirred along his skin when he thought of the way the other wolf had told him he’d gotten off. His wolf too had had a fucking fantastic time, and had been so mellow since he’d done it that he was thinking of getting together with a bunch of his friends and doing it again with a couple more women. Burton paused in cutting his steak to think about it.
The man had found him a woman that was…well, she’d been willing at first, he’d told him, but later it had turned to where she’d made his wolf so excited that he’d nearly killed her chasing her down. He had eventually, of course—he couldn’t leave witnesses—but he’d really had a wonderful time while she’d been alive, apparently. She’d run from them, screaming and going on and on just like they wanted her to, until later. Then things had gotten fun. Really fun, according to his friend. It had turned into an all-out girl-hunt, wolf style.
“She was hot for it at first, like I said…running around like she was. Then when my wolf came up on her, she started screaming to no end and he wanted to taste her. The fucking bitch sure did make him want to take her all the more when she did that to him.” Burton had asked him what he meant by taking her. “You know, eating her pussy. Some prime taste there. The wolf, any wolf, would just about come all over himself to taste a woman’s pussy. I know that when he did it she sure did scream.”
“You mean she had a climax.” The man—Bill, he thought his name had been—said no, it had been painful for her, but what did he care? “Care? No, I can see that. She asked for it, right? And when humans ask for it, who are we to turn them down?”
“Yeah, she did ask for it, and you got that right. When they want it from us, we should be willing and able to give it to them. And when he was done with her, I had me a good fuck too. Hard as I wanted and all. You know us wolves, we can’t have it hard enough. Or fast enough either.” Then Bill shook his head with a hardy laugh. “But it was a little too much for her, I’m guessing. Me being built like I am, I must have ruined her. There was no saving her from that, so me and my wolf helped her along.”
Burton had nodded. He’d killed her, he was telling him. Ended her suffering so that…well, so that she’d not tell on him most of all, and so that no one would come looking for him. And now that he thought about it, maybe that was what his problem was. He wasn’t getting a good fuck like he wanted. He decided right then and there he was going to find him a woman, take her to the woods, and chase her down. Maybe he’d even tie her up to some tree, too. That appealed to him more than a little when he thought of it. Tying a woman to a tree and having his wolf go at her. Damn. Burton had to adjust himself twice before he could finish his dinner.
And then after he was done fucking her like he wanted, he’d have Trevor clean up the mess. Yeah, Burton thought, this was going to be a birthday gift to remember. He’d have to thank his brother real nicely after he was done, and maybe even let him take care of it again and again for him if Trevor didn’t bitch too much. Smiling, Burton finished his dinner and then went to the bathroom to jerk off. After that, he called Bill to set up some arrangements.