Chapter 8

“I don’t have a skull…or bones,” Max said, sprouting yet another one of his favorite movie lines, and making the Wallace kids laugh like crazy. Lana couldn’t blame them. He was making her laugh, too.

Lana, Max, Terence, Nina, and Natasha were sitting at a picnic table outside one of the dorm-style buildings of the Safe Campus emergency shelter, talking about animated movies while they worked their way through a ridiculous pile of cheeseburgers, fish sandwiches, onion rings, and fries. It hurt to see Terence eating his burger with one hand heavily wrapped in gauze, especially after knowing how the injury had happened. Even so, she couldn’t help smiling at the way the boy’s face lit up when Max talked to him. The connection between the two of them was obvious. It was like Terence had found an older brother to idolize.

Even the two girls were looking at Max like he was the best thing since sliced bread. The fact that Max had brought them both french fries and onion rings because he’d been worried they might not like one or the other probably had something to do with it. Or maybe it was because Max knew all the best lines from the movie Frozen, as well as the words to the songs, too. That probably didn’t hurt, either. Lana was definitely going to grill him on that surprising bit of knowledge later. Right now, she was having too much fun being around this family that was, maybe for the first time in years, happy.

Lana had been thrilled when Max called and told her that Mrs. Wallace and her children had gotten away from her abusive husband and moved into a safe place. She’d been even more overjoyed when Max asked her to go with him to visit them.

They had to sign in to get past security at the gate of the Safe Campus shelter on Preston Park. The guard there had gone so far as to check the bags of food they’d brought with them, even after Max had flashed his badge. But that was a good thing. No one wanted the wrong people sneaking onto the shelter’s property.

She and Max had talked to Mrs. Wallace briefly, while she’d been filling out paperwork to get assistance with longer-term housing arrangements. Lana had cried a little when the woman had tearfully hugged Max and said it was his words that had given her the strength to leave her husband.

“I always believed he would wake up one day and see what he was doing to us,” the woman told them. “But he got drunk last night and woke up this morning in a rage. When he came at Natasha with a kitchen knife because she’d woken him up with her laughter, I knew he was never going to change. It was like you said, that this would keep happening until one of my children ended up dead. Unless I stood up to him. So that’s what I did. I put my children first and walked out of there.”

Max’s eyes had gotten a little misty at that as well. He wasn’t the only one. Half the staff in the building had tears in their eyes. It was one hell of a moment.

Lana kept Nina and Natasha entertained, spelling words with all the french fries they had on the wax paper from the sandwiches, while Max and Terence went over to the nearby swings to talk for a while. The girls seemed to understand that their brother needed some time alone with Max, and didn’t complain about his absence.

“Are you two going to get married?” Natasha asked suddenly, a ketchup-covered onion ring halfway to her mouth.

To say the question caught Lana off guard was an understatement. The two blond-haired sisters regarded her expectantly, their expressions adorable.

“Um…” she finally said. “Well, we only met a few days ago, so we’re just dating now.”

Natasha considered that as she took a bite of her onion ring. “Don’t you like him?”

Lana glanced at Max, glad he couldn’t hear any of this all the way over by the swings. “Sure I like him. He’s great.”

“Then you should marry him,” Natasha said seriously before eating the rest of her onion ring. “If I had a boyfriend who brought me both french fries and onion rings, I’d marry him. Not that I’m old enough to get married yet. I can’t do that for another year or two.”

Lana nodded at that well-thought-out opinion. There was a certain logic to basing your marriage decision on a willingness to buy alternative side dishes. She’d certainly seen women get married for lesser reasons.

As she and the girls discussed the various menu options for her wedding to Max—just in case—Lana caught snatches of Max’s conversation with Terence on the breeze. What she heard made her want to cry.

“I should have protected my sisters better,” Terence said. “That’s what older brothers are supposed to do.”

“You protected them as well as you could,” Max insisted. “In fact, I’m willing to bet you put yourself in between your dad and your sisters a lot.”

“Yeah, but it was never enough,” Terence said. “I couldn’t stop him.”

“No, you couldn’t,” Max agreed. “Because the only person who could stop your dad from doing that stuff is your dad.”

Lana glanced over to see Terence sitting on the swing, staring at the ground. “I hate my father.”

“I know,” Max said softly. “And that’s pretty normal, I guess. But if you can, try not to dwell on that too much. If the only thing you ever let yourself feel is hate, pretty soon, that’s the only thing you’ll be able to feel. Instead, think about how much you love your mom and your sisters, and what kind of life you’re going to have with them now.”

That was good advice, Lana thought.

Max and Terence came back over to the table a little while after that, and they all sat there, eating the rest of the fries and talking about any silly subject the kids brought up. Lana couldn’t help but notice how patient and thoughtful Max was. He made sure each of the kids memorized his cell number, telling them they could call him day or night, even if they simply needed to talk. Or wanted french fries.

She was thinking about the fact that Max was going to make an awesome dad someday when another thought popped into her head. He wouldn’t merely make a great dad to a bunch of kids. He’d make a great dad to her kids.

Whoa. Where the heck had that come from?

She’d known Max for a grand total of three days and had spent the night with him once. Even if you counted multiple orgasms as separate sexual events, she still hadn’t been with him long enough to be thinking about having a family with him.

This was insane. No, this was about four miles past the turnoff to insane. But at the same time, she realized she couldn’t convince herself it was wrong. In some ways, it all made complete sense. Her head might have been trying to tell her she was moving too fast, but her heart—and those funny flutters in her belly—were saying this was exactly what she wanted.

She glanced at Max to see him regarding her with a smile that made her pulse go crazy. “You want some more fries?” he asked. “Or onion rings?”

Returning his smile, Lana reached over and took a handful of each.

Maybe Natasha was onto something here. How many guys would offer you fries…and onion rings?

* * *

Max opened the door of his apartment, holding on to Lana’s small overnight bag as she walked in ahead of him. He certainly hadn’t minded that Lana wanted to stay at his place tonight, but he’d been shocked when she asked him to stop at her friends’ place near Medical City Hospital first so she could pick up her toothbrush and some other essentials.

“Isn’t that stuff at your parents’ house?” he’d asked in confusion.

That’s when Lana mentioned she’d moved in with Brandy and Miriam after getting into a fight with her father that morning. He hadn’t pushed for details at the time, but now that they were back at his place, he figured it was about time she told him the rest of the story.

“So, does this thing with your dad have anything to do with me?” he asked, setting her bag on the floor by the couch and tugging her into his arms.

She shrugged, as if trying to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal. But Max could tell she was upset. He could feel the tension in her body.

“Yeah,” she said. “He told me that if I wanted to keep seeing you, I wasn’t welcome in his house.”

Max had feared it was something like that, but he was still stunned to hear it put so bluntly. None of this made any sense. Even if the deputy chief knew Max was a werewolf, why would he be this vehemently against his daughter seeing him?

He leaned down and kissed away the line of stress between Lana’s brows, hugging her close until he felt her relax.

“Do you think he’ll back off in a while, once he realizes that you aren’t going to give in to his threats?” he asked.

“If he wants to see me again, he’s going to have to,” she said. “You and I are going to be together—that’s as plain to me as the nose on my face. Dad is just going to have to get used to the idea.”

Max wasn’t sure the deputy chief would give in that easily and had no doubt that this would come back to haunt them at some point, but he had to admit, he was stoked to hear Lana talking like that. She might not have realized she was a werewolf or have a clue what it meant to find The One, but she could obviously feel the strong connection between them. At the moment, that was good enough for him.

He slipped a hand under her chin and tilted her face up to capture her lips with his. He’d only intended to give her a light kiss, but the moment he tasted her, he couldn’t help groaning as a familiar tingling sensation raced through his body. Damn, one little kiss and he was already getting hard.

Lana didn’t seem to mind. Reaching up, she wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and kissed him even harder, her tongue slipping into his mouth to tease the hell out of him.

Max wasn’t sure how it happened, but at some point, they ended up on the couch, Lana straddling his hips as she ground against him in the most arousing way ever. He’d been wondering if she wanted to watch a movie on Netflix or play some video games, but he decided this was a lot more fun.

When his cell dinged, he was seriously tempted to ignore it. But he was a cop and didn’t have the privilege of blowing off his phone whenever he felt like it. Lana behaved while Max dug his phone out of back pocket. She’d been raised in a cop family. She knew how this worked.

It was an email from Peterson. Max opened the message quickly. There were several photos and a pdf document, along with a note from the detective, letting Max know he was still working the animal-tranquilizer angle and reminding him to email back ASAP if Lana recognized their John Doe.

Max opened the photos first and frowned. One look at the John Doe’s injuries and Max knew he had to be a werewolf. Not only had he clearly put up one hell of a struggle, but he’d also sustained a lot more damage than Denise. A beating like this would have killed a normal human.

He skimmed the case file next, looking at injury diagrams and statements on where the body had been found and who’d found it. There wasn’t a whole lot to go on, certainly nothing that connected directly to Denise—or Lana.

Up until now, Lana had been waiting patiently on his lap, but she finally reached out and pulled the phone down a little to give him a curious look. “Everything okay?”

He sighed. “Yeah. I hate to do this, especially in the middle of kissing you, but Peterson sent me some photos of a John Doe they found murdered, who they think might be related to Denise’s death. They’d like you to take a look and see if you recognize him. The ME cleaned him up, but I have to warn you, it’s still pretty bad.”

“Like Denise?” she asked hesitantly.

Max nodded, wishing there were some other way to do this.

She climbed off his lap and sat next to him, then took a deep breath. “Okay.”

He pulled up a photo that cropped out just about everything but the man’s head and shoulders, although that was still pretty bad.

Lana studied the photo carefully, then shook her head. “I don’t recognize him.”

Max breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t expected Lana to know the guy, but until they got the toxicology report back confirming there were no animal tranquilizers involved and that the murders had nothing to do with werewolves or hunters, Max was going to be on edge.

After he shot a quick text to Peterson, he filled Lana in on what little they knew about this newest victim; then they headed into the kitchen for a couple slices of cold pizza. Mostly because neither of them felt like immediately picking up where they’d left off before he’d gotten Peterson’s text, but also because the burgers and fries they had with the Wallace kids earlier simply hadn’t been enough to eat. Lana tried to play it off like she wasn’t hungry, but she took a small slice out of the box he tossed on the kitchen table anyway.

As they ate, they talked about the Wallace family. Max had been thrilled to get a chance to see Terence and his sisters, and he especially liked watching Lana interact with Natasha and Nina. Those girls adored Lana, and overhearing them talk about boyfriends and getting married had been downright hilarious. It had been tough keeping the grin off his face when he and Terence had joined them at the picnic table.

“You were pretty good with those kids,” Lana said as she nibbled on her pizza. “Terence really looks up to you.”

He took a swig of diet soda. “He’s so much like me when I was his age that it’s tough looking at him without thinking about the way things were for me.”

Lana smiled at him. “Well, things are going to be different for his family than it was for yours. And that’s all because of you.”

“All I did was give some advice,” he insisted. “It was their mom who made the hard call by walking away.”

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit,” Lana said, slyly reaching over to grab another slice of pizza, as if he wouldn’t notice. “But that’s cool. Those kids know what you’ve done for them, and that’s all that matters.”

They chatted about the kids for a while longer before Lana finally picked up the half-eaten box of pizza and shoved it back in the fridge.

“If I don’t, you’ll eat the whole thing,” she pointed out.

Max chuckled. “Yeah…me…all by myself, right?”

“Of course you,” she said, coming back over to the table. “I ate more than enough at the shelter. I just had a slice with you so you wouldn’t have to eat alone.”

“Mm-hmm. Sure, whatever works for you.” He stood, taking her in his arms. “You feel like putting on a movie and snuggling up on the couch for a while? Or should we go out and get some exercise, so you don’t have to feel guilty about eating that pizza?”

Lana hooked her arms around his neck, giving him a sexy grin. “We can move to the couch, but why don’t we skip the movie and go straight to the exercising? I’m sure we can come up with some way to burn off a few calories.”

Max felt himself get hard again just from the way she was looking at him. Not that he was complaining. If Lana was interested in a little physical exertion, he could definitely help with that.

“I’m game, but shouldn’t we wait for at least an hour after eating before doing anything strenuous?” he teased.

Lana laughed. “You’re thinking about swimming, but don’t worry. We’ll start slow and work up to the strenuous part later.”

“Slow works for me,” Max said, scooping her into his arms and heading for the couch.