CHAPTER SIX
“You see the truth,” he stated it as a fact. A fact that seemed to impress him greatly. He paused, studying her expression for a moment before he went on. “All the people around me are my family. My Clan. I do not have a girlfriend among them. It’s been…a while…since my last relationship. I got a little tired of the vapid human women who were all too easy to catch and only interested in what my money could buy them. My beast prefers a more delicate hunt, and as I get older, both parts of my soul would prefer to find a single, true, mate. Someone to share the rest of our life with. Someone my Clan could accept as Alpha female. Someone who could accept them. Love them the way I do. My Clan needs strong leadership. I’ve managed on my own for a long time, but they need a steadier influence. A mated pair would help the Clan get to the next level. A stability in which to forge families and raise the next generations.”
Whoa. She liked that he was being honest with her, but what he was talking about was a little too intense, so soon into their acquaintance.
She put both palms on his chest and pushed back, just the slightest bit. She liked that he immediately moved back, giving her more space, responsive to her desires.
“I can’t speak to all that right now, but I’m glad you’re being honest with me. I’ll return the favor.” He hadn’t asked, and she was almost positive his security team had run a detailed background check on her already, but it was only fair to tell him where she stood. It would also give her a chance to catch her breath, both physically and mentally. “I’m single. I haven’t been in a relationship in a very long time. I’ve been disappointed by men a few times in my life, and that has left me somewhat gun shy. So, if you want to start something here…well…you’re going to have to bear with me.” She looked down at her hands, still resting on his muscular chest, feeling a bit shy now that the bare truth was out there.
One of his hands came up to stroke her cheek. “I can be patient,” he whispered, then chuckled. “Not easily, but for you, I can try.”
She grinned, looking up to meet his gaze once more. “Well, at least you’re honest.”
“Honesty,” he repeated, pausing slightly. “That is vital between us. It’s what I want, always. A firm foundation on which to build.”
“You might regret that. I’ve been told that, sometimes, I’m a little too honest for my own good.”
And she had. Her big mouth had gotten her into trouble more than once.
“Never worry about that with me. I read something once that stuck with me. The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie,” he quoted.
“Who said that?” It sounded familiar, but she wasn’t sure where she’d heard that before.
“Ann Landers,” he told her, grinning widely. She had to laugh. Big, strong, burly man read advice columns? “My cousin, Nicole, texts me these things, and some of them are actually pretty good.”
“Nicole sounds like quite a character,” Shelly allowed.
She liked the warmth in his voice when he talked about his relative. She could tell he truly loved this cousin of his, which was somehow reassuring. The heartless playboy the press had painted was nothing of the sort, she was happy to learn.
“She is. But you’ll get to meet her tomorrow if you come to the island.”
Was he concerned she would back out now, after having given her word? He’d soon learn she was made of sterner stuff than that. Her word was her bond.
“What time do you expect we’ll get started in the morning?” she asked, moving away.
The intimate interlude was at an end, and rightly so. She didn’t want to end up in bed with this guy on their second encounter. She might be able to stretch and call this a date because he’d brought a meal, but their first encounter had been anything but pleasant in the beginning.
Still. She wasn’t the type of woman who fell into bed with a man on their first date. Or pseudo-date. Or whatever this was. Best he realize that now. Though she was having a hard time controlling her impulse to tackle him down to the sofa and have her wicked way with him.
Acting on every impulse was a good way to get into trouble. She knew that from harsh experience.
He allowed her the space she needed and seemed to accept that she was hitting the brakes for now. A true gentleman. Nice.
“Is eight too early?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t mind an even earlier start if it means more daylight to scout the building site,” she offered.
When he grinned, she knew she’d said the right thing. “How about I send a car for you at six? We can be in the air as soon as you make it to the airport, and hopefully, nobody will discover we’re going someplace together. I assume you like your low profile?”
“I enjoy the notoriety my last name garners in some quarters, but you’re right. I prefer to stay off the society pages and out of the gossip columns.” She reached for her glass, taking a sip as she put even more space between them.
“That may not always be possible when you’re with me, but I promise to do everything in my power to keep things quiet as much as I can. In fact, I prefer that myself, believe it or not.” He gave her a rueful grin.
“You may prefer it, but the papers seem to follow you wherever you go. Must be hard to live your life in the spotlight like that,” she commiserated.
He shrugged. “You get used to it. Up to a point. I let them see as much as will benefit my Clan and keep the rest as quiet as we can. Some of my reputation and supposed exploits is a carefully constructed smokescreen designed to keep the secrets of my Clan. Sort of hiding in plain sight.”
She nodded slowly. “I see. That makes a devilishly clever sort of sense.”
They talked for an hour or so more until, finally, Nick knocked on the front door with a reminder that Mark probably ought to be seen leaving during daylight hours. Mark shut the door in Nick’s face and tugged Shelly into his arms for a long, lingering kiss goodbye.
Her head was still spinning as she watched his car disappear down her long driveway. A slinky shape was outlined briefly in the red glare of the brake lights, and Shelly could swear a feline head turned to stare at her, nodding once before loping off into the trees.
She realized she was clutching one hand to her heart, holding her breath. He’d really left some jaguars on her property to guard her. Sweet stars above! What would the neighbors do if anybody caught a glimpse of the prowlers in the woods—either in human or cat form? She could just see it now—local police with German shepherds and searchlights streaming through the woods looking for intruders. She hoped like hell that the jaguars knew what they were doing.
Then again, they were part of Mark’s Clan, and Mark Pepard had a reputation throughout the world for hiring and working with only the best of the best. She knew now that those closest to him were like him. Shapeshifters. Members of his Clan. By all accounts, these shifters were very accomplished people.
That thought firmly in mind, Shelly turned and locked the door. She had a few hours of daylight left and she knew just how she would spend them. Pencil in hand, drawing up lists the old fashioned way. And packing. She was already thinking of what she would need.
But first, she cleaned up what little remained of their lunch. Mark and Nick had taken out the items they’d brought with them, but she’d made coffee using her cups and spoons. She set the dishwasher to run and headed up to her studio to gather a few things she’d need for the trip.
Dawn would come early, and it was time to get ready for what could very well be the biggest adventure of her life.
*
As Mark sat in the back of the black town car, allowing himself to be driven away from Shelly’s house by one of his people, he read the encrypted report the wolves had sent through on his phone. Shelly had been hassled by someone on her way out of the hotel. He knew that already from the quick debrief. But the wolves had done a deeper investigation.
His eyebrows rose when he reached the part where Cassius had positively identified a Venifucus tattoo on the man’s inner wrist. This was not good news.
Mark had known he was a big target for anyone aligned with evil, but to have someone with the might of the secretive Venifucus behind him on his trail was troubling, indeed. Mark had no doubt now that the man who had shot at him had merely been a stooge for this other character. For the Venifucus would know all about shifter weaknesses and try to exploit them. Hence the silver hollow point bullet filled with pure silver dust.
A bullet designed to take down shifters. A bullet designed to maim and kill with as much agony as possible. For evil fed off such things.
If the Venifucus was gunning for him, Mark and his people would have to be extra cautious. Mark forwarded the report to Nick, adding a few comments of his own. He was especially glad now that Shelly had agreed to accompany him to the island tomorrow. She would be out of harm’s way once they arrived. Nothing and no one came to the island without the entire Clan knowing about it. She would be safe there.
*
The next morning, Shelly was ready and waiting at six a.m. when the car pulled up. The chauffeur was tall, dark and handsome. Had to be a shifter, Shelly thought as he introduced himself as Mario and showed her an employee I.D. card that said he worked for Pepard Industries as a security consultant.
He was driving a long black limousine with darkened windows. As he took her bags to put in the trunk, Shelly’s cell phone rang. She answered, surprised to find it was Mark on the other end.
“Did Mario get there all right?” he asked after a quick greeting.
“He’s putting my bags in the trunk right now,” she told Mark.
“Good. Can you put him on the line for a moment? I just want to make sure.”
Shelly walked over to the car and held out her cell phone. Mark wanted to make sure…of what, exactly? That Mario was who he claimed to be? That didn’t sound too safe. If he was an imposter, Shelly would be in a very vulnerable position. Still, she trusted Mark to know what he was doing. Perhaps he would be able to do this in a way that wouldn’t put her in any increased danger?
“He wants to talk to you,” Shelly said as the driver turned to her. Suddenly, she saw faces in the trees.
Oh, they weren’t obvious, but she somehow knew there were shifters watching her every move from just within the trees that bordered her small yard. They were Mark’s people. If this driver was a threat, they’d help her. Once again, she trusted her instincts that said the watchers were on her side.
“Alpha?” the man who’d introduced himself as Mario spoke into the phone. Shelly relaxed marginally. He’d called Mark by the shifter title. The Jaguar Clan Alpha. Would a bad guy know to do that? Probably not. She hoped.
After a few words, Mario handed the phone back to her with a sheepish grin. “It’s okay. He was just checking,” Mario told her, rather vaguely, then went about closing up the trunk and headed around to the passenger compartment to open her door while she got back on the line with Mark.
“Um… Okay?” she asked him, not sure how to phrase her concern in a way that wouldn’t sound like it. It was too early to be playing word games.
“Yeah, Mario’s good. He’ll get you to the helo pad. You can get in the car. And don’t be concerned if you see a few other cars following or ahead of you. The security team is going to leave a small presence at your house, to make sure nobody tampers with it while you’re gone, but the rest are going to be escorting you to the plane. A blond guy named Heinrich will be your chopper pilot. He’ll be in one of the security cars.”
“I’m taking a helicopter to the airport?” That was news to her. And kind of exciting. She’d never been in a helicopter before.
“It’s the quickest way. Is that all right?” he asked, almost as if he was unsure of his strategy.
“Yeah, it’s fine.” She tried to sound as if she flew in helicopters all the time but probably wasn’t very convincing.
A wry chuckle sounded at the other end of the line as she got into the limo. “Next time, I’ll be sure to run my plans past you before I spring them on you. Sorry for the surprise. I’m not used to consulting anyone else, but I’ll get better. Promise.”
Why he’d want to get used to consulting her on his plans was something she didn’t quite want to contemplate at the moment. He sounded so serious about her, but she was still getting used to the idea. It would take time for her to catch up to him.
That was new. Always before, in the few disappointing relationships she’d had to date, it had been her unrealistic expectations that had gotten her into trouble. Or—maybe her expectations hadn’t been all that unrealistic. Maybe the men she’d been expecting things from just hadn’t been quality candidates for the position of husband and life mate.
She’d been way more committed than any of her past boyfriends. As she’d told Mark last night, that had made her more than a little gun shy. She was hesitant to commit her feelings to anyone now. She’d been burned once too often.
In a huge switcharoo, Mark was the one who seemed to want to rush into full-blown future planning. She was on the other side of the equation this time, and it felt damned odd.
Mario was driving down the road as she finished the call with Mark, with a promise to see him soon. He’d be waiting, he’d told her. A shiver went down her spine at the thought of seeing him again.
This would be their third encounter. Possibly their second date, if being whisked away to a private island constituted a date. She thought it probably did.
Was it still too soon to consider sleeping with him? She hoped not. She was quickly running out of excuses. Her instincts said to grab the brass ring while it was close enough to touch. The future was uncertain. She should probably enjoy the time she had with this amazing man while she could.
As she daydreamed about what might happen on the plane, or when they got to the island, she noticed the cars he’d mentioned, following behind. There was one in front, as well. She probably wouldn’t have spotted them if Mark hadn’t told her about them, but since she knew what to look for, it was pretty clear she had an escort.
When they reached a private heliport, she noticed that a total of three cars, including the limo she was in, drove straight out to a hangar in the distance. At least one other car stayed near the entrance, possibly to run interference.
Her limo drove right up to a helicopter that was attended by two tall, good-looking people—a male and a female, who nodded to Mario and helped move Shelly’s luggage from the trunk of the car to the back of the chopper. A handsome blond man went straight from one of the other vehicles to the helicopter and started checking things over in a confident way. The woman who’d been standing ready with the chopper conferred with him as they discussed points on a clipboard she held.
When Shelly’s bags were safely stowed, Mario took his leave of her and drove the limo back the way they’d come. She was escorted into the helicopter by the man who’d helped Mario with the bags. He made sure she was securely buckled in and gave a headset, plus a little basic instruction on how it worked. Then he left, going back into the open hangar behind the helicopter.
By the time all that was done, the blond man was in the pilot’s seat, the woman beside him. Both had donned headsets as they began to power up the machine. Shelly didn’t want to interrupt them, though she found she could switch channels on her headset and listen in on their discussion of the pre-flight checks.
It was typical pilot jargon that she only half-understood, but it was reassuring, in its way, to listen to them talk so casually. They obviously knew their stuff and were experienced pilots. When they finished, the blond man turned in his seat to look back at her. The passenger compartment was big enough to seat four comfortably, but Shelly had it all to herself.
“I’m Heinrich,” the pilot said over the headset. “This is Lucinda.” He gestured toward the woman in the copilot’s position. “Are you comfortable back there?”
Shelly gave him a thumbs up, as well as verbal confirmation. “I’m ready when you are. And I’m Shelly, by the way. It’s nice to meet you both, and thanks for the lift.”
Both of them smiled back at her, but it was Heinrich who spoke. “Happy to help. Sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s just a quick hop to the airstrip. Shouldn’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes.”
Shelly nodded as the pilots turned back to their instruments and the blades began to turn in earnest. Within moments, they were flying.
A near-vertical takeoff was new to Shelly and something to marvel at. As was the scenery below them. She recognized the streets around her home as they turned toward the west, and then they were out, past her house, and headed for a nearby regional airport. They were flying much lower than airplanes flew, and the sky was clear, so the views were spectacular.
Almost too soon, they were coming in for a landing next to a private hangar that was some distance from all the others. Shelly saw a small jet waiting there and had to admire the shiny white vehicle. She didn’t know all that much about jets, but she recognized the quality of the vehicle and the fact that it was close to brand new. Only the best for the billionaire playboy who also happened to be the secret leader of a band of highly magical shapeshifters.
For a moment, Shelly wondered if she was hallucinating this whole situation, but then, she looked at Heinrich and Lucinda—two impossibly good-looking and lithe beings—and realized they were shifters. Probably golden jaguars with spots. Slinky. Sleek. And intensely powerful.
And Mark was their leader.
Faced with the proof of them right there in the helicopter with her, she had to admit, this was probably real and not a dream. She waited for Heinrich’s signal that it was safe to unbuckle her seatbelt and then let the impossibly handsome and muscular ground crew open the door and let her know it was safe to come out.
She was escorted to the waiting plane without any delay, and she saw someone following with her bags. She felt a bit like royalty, the way they were seeing to her every need. As she mounted the steps up into the small jet, she noted Heinrich following close behind. He veered left into the cockpit as she was ushered into the body of the plane, where Mark was already seated, waiting for her.
He got up to greet her with a kiss on the cheek, and she blushed as she became aware of Mark’s people watching them very closely. Lucinda had also come aboard and was heading into the cockpit behind Heinrich. Through the open door, Shelly spotted another man already in the pilot’s seat, flipping buttons and talking into a headset.
When the cockpit door closed, only Mark and Shelly were left in the cabin for a moment. Shelly had seen her bags being stowed in a closet near the door by the man who had brought them up into the jet. Then, he’d left again with a quick nod to Mark.
“Was the chopper flight okay?” Mark asked as he motioned for Shelly to pick a seat from the choices available.
The jet was laid out like someone’s living room, not like a commercial airliner. Instead of rows of seats, there was a conversation area with a couch and coffee table. There were also a few seats that looked like they had workstations built in for those who might want to set up a temporary office while they flew from one place to another.
Mark had been seated in one of the comfy-looking chairs, so she chose the one next to him. She’d try it out. They could always move later, she supposed, if they wanted to.
“I’ve never flown in a helicopter before. It was seriously cool,” she admitted, grinning at him.
“I’ll have to take you up more often,” he said, smiling in what looked like approval. “We’d better buckle in for takeoff. The sooner we get off the ground, the sooner we get to the island. I can’t wait to show it to you.”
He sat in his seat, next to hers. They took a moment to buckle in, and when Shelly looked up, she realized they’d been joined by a few more people. There was an older woman with a kind face, a younger woman who looked enough like her to be her daughter, two very large men who could have been twins, and Nick. They were all buckling into seats farther up the cabin, closer to the cockpit.
“I’ll introduce you once we’re underway,” Mark told her quietly as the jet started taxiing toward the end of the runway. He surprised her by taking her hand in his. Their chairs were close enough that her left armrest brushed against his right. He lifted her left hand to rest between them, entwining his fingers with hers. “I missed you.”
His softly voiced words rang true in her mind, and she realized she’d missed him too. Odd as it seemed. She’d almost been counting the hours between the moment he’d left her last night and this morning when she’d see him again. She couldn’t remember ever being this eager to see a man—even when she’d been a hormonal, daydreaming teen. Only Mark elicited her stalker-ish tendencies.
The flight passed in a bit of a blur. Mark introduced the team once they were airborne, but the others kept a respectful distance for the most part. The older lady proved to be Marie, Mark’s personal chef, and the younger woman was, indeed, her daughter, Janice. They produced an array of breakfast foods they had packed to share among them all. Shelly noted that they brought trays up to the cockpit, as well.
There was no real demarcation between Mark and his people. Sure, they all treated him with respect, but he treated them the same way. As if he valued each and every one of them. Like they were family, not mere servants. Shelly liked that.
For the most part, she sat and talked with Mark about his visions for the type of community he wanted her to design on the island. He described some of the terrain and showed her a smaller version of that topographical map at one point, but she knew the reality of the place, when she saw it, would spark her imagination.
Although…some of the motifs Mark was describing were already causing creative thoughts to flow. He’d brought along a portfolio of inspirational images. Everything from penthouse apartments to ancient ruins in South America. The jaguar motif was something he wanted to feature, not hide, and she thought of ways to include the cat’s attributes into her buildings.
There would be the obvious artistic representations, of course, but she also thought about doing something subtler. Like using the sinuous tail of the cat as a model for the curved façade of one of the larger buildings. It would be like nothing she had ever designed before. It would be unique. Magical. Challenging.
She was looking forward to getting started.
By the time the jet landed, Shelly was ready for her adventure to begin. She peered out the window of the plane eagerly, not surprised to find a lush green landscape waiting for her. It looked like a tropical paradise. She could also see the classically-styled mansion set on top of a nearby hill.
“That’s the original owner’s house. We use it as a base of operations now. After the new community is built, the mansion will serve as a buffer between our Clan home and the outside world,” Mark told her as the jet taxied toward a distant hangar. “We don’t get a lot of outside traffic here, but there is some, and we do have to maintain the human fiction for the rest of the world. As far as anyone outside the Clan knows, I’m going to live in that monstrosity over there, and you’re here to design unobtrusive staff housing.” He shrugged. “We might even build a bit of it in plain sight near the mansion, in case anyone is watching via satellite, but the real work will be under cover of the jungle canopy, where eye-in-the-sky can’t see too well.”
It was an ingenious plan. He’d hide his new community in the jungle where few, if any, would ever even suspect it. She already knew all the building would be done by his Clan members. They’d probably also be the ones bringing in the supplies. It would be next to impossible for anyone outside his Clan to keep track of what they were building here. The plan was nearly perfect.