Chapter 3

Tanner was ready to rip Serena’s ex-roommate to shreds for stealing her money, though he was thankful Harold’s actions had caused her to leave wherever she’d been living and return home. “Do you want to show Harold’s picture to my brothers and cousins?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” She handed her phone to Tanner and he leaned forward and handed it to Heath. “Everyone can stay at the house until we resolve this money situation with my ex-roommate,” she told the brothers as they drove her home.

“Are you sure you don’t need more muscle?” Fisher asked. “Four of us should be able to convince the bastard what a mistake he’d made.”

“Who would be left to run the factory?” Shawn asked. “Tanner’s in charge there.”

“I’ll leave you in charge,” Tanner said.

The brothers smiled. Never in a millennium would he think to give up his position as the manager of the facility to one of his brothers for anything other than being near death.

“I’ve got to stay in case we have any medical emergencies,” Heath said, handing the phone back to Tanner.

He passed it back to Fisher.

Fisher gave an exaggerated sigh. “The plant needs me. Unless Devlyn declared a holiday for the staff and we could shut down for a few days.”

“We have too many outstanding orders to do that,” Tanner warned.

“Okay, so you’re it. But if you need any help, we’ll be out there in a heartbeat,” Fisher said.

“Deal.” Tanner got the phone back from Fisher. “Do you mind if I share the photo in a text to some members of the pack?”

“Sure. And thanks,” Serena said, and for the first time, she seemed to relax.

“Are you sure you don’t mind us staying at the house longer?” Fisher asked.

“We’ll be gone and when we get back, we’ll see what happens then.”

“You can’t mean to leave the pack after you return,” Shawn said. “Bella would be devastated.”

“I don’t want to leave my sister. We need to catch up on everything that’s happened over the years. Has she had any kids yet?”

Heath said, “I wasn’t sure if she wanted to be the one to give you the news first. But since you asked, she’s due to have triplets in a few months.”

“Ohmigod, that’s wonderful. Well, that decides it. I’m not leaving.”

Everyone whooped and hollered, and she laughed.

The whole pack would be damned glad she was sticking around. They’d all make her feel welcome.

“Are you sure you’re all right with us staying at the house tonight?” Shawn asked.

“I’d like the company.”

“And you need to be watched in case you’re in further pain or have any complications from your fall,” Heath said.

Tanner and his brothers agreed.

As soon as they arrived back at the house, all the brothers coddled her—setting her up on one of the brown velvet couches with pillows and blankets and providing a steak dinner for two that Tanner prepared himself, since they’d both missed out on the beer and pizza. She seemed to appreciate that he’d fixed it for her, though she’d said she didn’t want him to go to all the trouble.

He wanted to. What better way to prove he could be the right wolf for her? “Tell us all about this ex-roommate. Is he a wolf?”

“He is. And so is the woman he took off with. I smelled her scent in the house when I returned from the library, my last day after they gave me my layoff notice. I suspect he waited until the last minute to leave because he was always that way. He knew he didn’t have any time left. Once I was home, I could have caught him at whatever he was up to. I’d asked him if he wanted to go for a run, but he hadn’t. When I returned, I saw he’d taken my car without my permission. And I smelled the unfamiliar she-wolf who had been in the house. I tried calling him, then texting him, but he didn’t answer. I assumed he took my car because his truck was in the shop and I was without a job. But I felt something was off. He would have told me he needed to borrow the car and asked me for permission to use it. That’s when I checked the closet and realized he’d taken his clothes and a couple of suitcases. I started checking his email and learned where he’d gone. Grand Cayman Island. The bastard.”

“And the woman?”

She hmpfed. “A gray wolf like him.”

The brothers exchanged looks.

She sighed. “Okay, yeah, after the experience I had with him, gray wolves were on my blacklist. But you all have been great and I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me already.”

Tanner showed her his phone. “The earliest flight out for us here tomorrow is at 8:30 a.m., arriving there at 3:27 p.m. It’ll take us an hour and a half to get to the airport from here.”

“Okay, I’m game.”

“Do you want us to drive you?” Fisher asked.

“No. That’s a three-hour round trip for you. We’ll just leave the car in long-term parking in case it takes a while,” Tanner said.

His brothers smiled at him, sure that he wanted her all to himself. Which he did.

* * *

Early the next morning, Shawn handed Serena her car keys while she and Tanner had breakfast before they left for the airport. “We all looked for the keys last night so we could move the car and carry your bags into the house,” Shawn said.

“Oh, thanks so much for all your help.”

“How are you feeling?” Heath asked.

“Much, much better, thanks.”

“We’ll have to look the part when we get there. Do you have anything that you can wear there?” Tanner asked.

“Sure. I had to vacate my rental house. I brought everything I owned.”

“You can leave what you don’t need here and just pack up what you need for a summer vacation. Do you have a bathing suit?”

She smiled at him.

“If you don’t have one, I’ll have to buy you one.”

“I have a bathing suit, though this is not a vacation,” she reminded him. “What about you?” Swimming in the surf total appealed, if they could swing it.

“Absolutely. Sunscreen. Flip flops. Board shorts. Sunglasses. We’ll need to look the part of tourists. ACP—an automatic Colt pistol, just for backup. I’ll get in close to where they’re staying to do surveillance. We’ll rent a car. You can wait for me at the bungalow since Harold knows you. I can scope out the situation and then we can make plans.”

“All right. Sounds like that will work.” As soon as she finished eating breakfast, she hurried to repack her suitcases, so she had her laptop and camera in a carry-on, and her clothes and other essentials in a midsize bag.

Tanner had already packed and the guys were waiting for her to finish, then Shawn carried out her bags to Shawn’s SUV.

The three brothers gave Serena hugs and wished her luck, slapped Tanner on the back, and then she and Tanner headed out. “I wish we could have reached my sister before we left,” she said.

“I agree. She’ll be glad to hear from you as soon as she’s able.”

Serena was feeling much better, both physically and mentally, about everything. Their faster healing abilities really were a godsend. And with the support of a pack, she felt she could manage anything. Even letting this go, if she had to. Family and friends were more important than anything, but she still had to give this her best shot or she’d forever regret that she’d let Harold get away with it.

She was certain Tanner could convince Harold to give up her money if she couldn’t access his accounts covertly. And she felt good about getting to know the brothers better, even though she hadn’t met the rest of the pack yet. Would she have trouble with any of them? No sense in borrowing trouble.

With her sister having triplets, she was excited about being part of that. Wolves naturally helped take care of other wolves’ pups, and she was thrilled to be there for her sister. She couldn’t wait to see her.

“I made reservations at a resort down the beach from Harold. Their place was full, but I thought it was better for us to have a little distance between us anyway; this way we can do some surveillance before we confront them.”

“Sounds good. You won’t be in trouble for taking off like this when your pack leader left you in charge at the leather goods factory, will you?”

“I don’t believe Devlyn will fault me too much. Your sister is a different story. I can just imagine her being irritated with me for taking you with me in the event this guy fights back. What kind of a wolf is he? Alpha? Beta? Omega? A lone wolf?”

“He’s a lone wolf, no pack. He’s alpha, except when he did his cowardly, beta act of stealing my money and slipping away like a thief in the night.”

“What about the woman?”

“I never met her. I have no idea where he picked her up. It makes me wonder if he’d planned this all along.”

“Wolves don’t have sexual relations unless they agree to mate because we make a lifetime commitment to one another. Had he led you to believe that he wanted that with you?”

“No. Neither of us had. For the time being, we just needed each other to share the cost of a furnished rental house. I couldn’t afford a place of my own in Omaha, not on a library clerk’s hourly wage. Renting an apartment would have cost more than splitting the cost of a rental house. I couldn’t live in an apartment anyway. You know how it is with our enhanced hearing. Since he was a wolf, he was more compatible as a roommate than a human. I couldn’t find any female wolves to room with. And Harold and I became friends. With us, there was more of a friendly vibe rather than anything physical.” She shrugged. “I hadn’t been around wolves for eons, and when I met him, it was the first time since the fire. I didn’t know what it was like to feel anything like…” She hesitated.

“Carnal pleasure between wolves?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah.”

“How long were you together?”

“Three months. Which makes me wonder if he planned this or if it was something that just happened. He met another she-wolf, decided to mate with her, and help himself to my savings before they left? Or maybe she’s a relation.”

“So, the plane reservations were for two.”

“They were. The woman’s name is Velvet Jamison. Different last names, but that could be for any number of reasons.”

“Velvet?”

“That was the name on the reservation. One male, one female.”

* * *

After arriving at the airport, Serena and Tanner checked their bags and hauled their carry-ons onto the plane. She and Tanner had both taken laptops. Thankfully, Harold hadn’t stolen that.

They finally settled in their seats on the plane, but they’d have two stops and would have to change planes both times before reaching their destination.

“What if he says he didn’t take any of my money?” she asked Tanner.

“Why would you travel all the way to Colorado to look for a buried treasure in your parents’ basement if you hadn’t been robbed of all your savings?”

“I can show the account was closed, but he could just say I did that. I don’t have any hard evidence it was him.”

“Bastard.”

Serena glanced out the window. “Makes me feel like doing what I initially wanted to do.”

“Take ’em out permanently.”

She squeezed his hand. “I know I shouldn’t feel that way, but—”

“Not only did he take all your money, he hooked up with another she-wolf to pull it off.”

“Right.” She let out her breath on a heavy sigh. “I was angry. Then you and your brothers treated me so nicely, and it helped me to feel a little better.”

“To know you weren’t the only wolf left in the world with no one to watch your back?”

“I admit, I was feeling that way. You think you know somebody, and then you learn just how much that isn’t so.”

“Well, one thing about the pack, if anyone did that to another pack member, there would be hell to pay.”

“I never thought there’d be a pack in the area where we’d lived. Not a shifter pack. And that gray wolves would be living in my home, or that my own sister would be alive and mated to the pack leader. It’s all still a shock.”

“All good, right?” He leaned over and pulled her against his shoulder so she could rest.

She smiled, then frowned. “Until we get to the island.” Yet, this was nice, she thought. Resting her head on the hot wolf’s shoulder, she breathed in his spicy, male wolf scent, listening to his steady heartbeat, feeling his warm touch. Really nice.