Marc (14 page)

“I don’t know. I don’t even have a
passport or anything.” She didn’t have clothes nice enough to go to the picnic
either, and when he lifted her chin up, she blurted that out to him.

When he stood up, he pulled her along
with him. They were out the door and into his car before she could ask where
they were going. When she asked him if maybe they ought to have said something
to someone, he took out his cell and handed it to her.

“I don’t know how to use this thing.”
She shoved it back at him, panicky, but he wouldn’t take it. “I’ve had one
before, but all it would do was ring and I answered. This one has more icons on
it than I’ve ever seen.”

“Just slide your finger across to the right.
There at the bottom is a little thing that looks like a telephone. Press it.”
She glared at him, and he grinned. “I’m showing you how. Now slide you finger
upward until you find Khan’s picture. Once you do, press it and he’ll hopefully
answer.”

“I really hate you right now.” He
laughed as the phone rang. Khan answered. “It’s Jonny Thomas. I have your brother’s
phone and he’s left your house. So have I, but we’ve left your…I’m so stupid.”

Khan’s laughter made her smile. “Take a deep
breath and let’s start again. I get that you’re both not here. Should we hold
dinner?”

She asked Marc. “He said no. I don’t
know where we’re going. Perhaps you could have me ask him so he’ll tell you and
I’ll know too.”

“Yes, since I may have to go and bail
you out of jail for murdering him—that might be helpful. Also, I can avoid that
place if I decide to go out tonight. That way I can honestly say I wasn’t
there.”

She turned to Marc. “Are all of you Bowens
smart asses? Because I have to tell you, it grates on the nerves after a while.”

Both men laughed, and Marc took the
phone. “I’m taking her to Sables, then to dinner. You need me to get anything
for you while I’m out?”

Apparently not. After the phone was
handed back to her, she put it on the console and decided she wasn’t going to
ask who Sable was or where they were going for dinner. She was pissed. Again. She
realized she spent a great deal of her time mad at him for one thing or
another.

They pulled into the drive of a lovely
looking home. It wasn’t until they were nearly to the deck that wrapped all the
way around it that she realized it was a shop. She turned to look at him when
he turned off the car. He leaned against the door and watched her.

“I suppose you think that whatever is
inside is going to make up for you dragging me away from helping with dinner
and reading a bedtime story to little George.” He nodded. “Fat chance. We were
just getting to the part in the book where Wilber sees the web.”

He got out and came to open her door for
her. She got out and he pressed her against the car and nipped at her lobe. She
got all melty inside and tried really hard not to let him see it.

“You be a good girl in here and let me
do what I want. I’ll make it worth your while.” She looked at him suspiciously.
“I swear to you nothing in here is going to hurt you.”

“I’ve heard that from you before. You
seem to think that anything you want me to do is not going to hurt me. Maybe I
liked being hurt.” The words were out before she could censor them. “I didn’t
mean that the way it sounded, I swear.”

Marc licked along her throat to her mark
he’d put on her again that morning. She couldn’t stop the moan any more than
she could curl her hands into his hair. This man was lethal. And she was pretty
sure he knew it.

“Are you sure? Because instead of taking
you in here and buying you clothes, we could go back to our house and find out
if you like to be hurt or not. We could even stop at a couple of much more fun
shops to buy some toys if you’d like.” She looked at the house and then back at
him.

“I do need clothes really badly. You
keep tearing them off me.” He nodded. “But toys? What sort of toys were you
thinking?”

He growled low and stepped back. “You
are a very bad girl. And so you know, you’re going to pay. Come on. If we don’t
go in now, we won’t be.”

She followed him in, stopped in the
doorway, and simply fell in love. “Oh my. Oh my, oh my, this is beautiful.”

Chapter 14

Roy was waiting for her. Jonny said
she’d be at the restaurant at six and it was five minutes till. He knew she’d
be right on time. She was for everything. “On the Dot Jon” was what some of the
others had begun to call her. When he saw her coming toward him, he stood, and
that’s when he noticed the man with her.

He was extremely tall—but then standing
next to him any man would be—and he looked good standing next to Jonny, like
wedding cake toppers. His suit was expensive, probably worth more than Roy’s
entire closet, but it was the way Jonny looked that took his breath away.

She was wearing what he could only
describe as amazing. A black dress that fit her trim body like it had been
painted on her. Short, so that when she walked in those black high heels it looked
like the length of her legs was twice that of her body. And damn what a body
she had. He’d never noticed just how beautiful she really was. When the man pulled
out the chair for her, Jonny sat down. Roy sat when the man did.

“I didn’t know we were bringing company
to this meeting, Jonny. I would have brought a date as well.” She smiled at him,
picked up her napkin, and put it across her lap without answering. The waiter
came to take their drink order. She ordered a white wine, the man bourbon
straight. Because of the pain pills that were running through his body, making
this meeting possible, Roy declined and drank his water.

“I said I’d do this one gig and I’m
done. You’ll leave my family alone, and me as well. Are those the terms we
agreed to?” He didn’t like this Jonny. He wanted to bring her down a notch or
two before she got out of hand.

“No, I said I would agree to this after
you did the job. If the job doesn’t net me what I wanted, why should I give you
what you want?” The man stood and pulled out Jonny’s chair. “Wait. What are you
doing? I thought we would discuss this.”

“A discussion, by the very definition of
the word, means we talk about terms and we both come to some sort of agreement.
You said you wouldn’t give me anything until you got what you wanted. Not very
fair if you ask me.” She put her hand on the man’s arm and started away, and Roy
panicked.

“Come back here. I’ll listen to what you
want and be more opened-minded.”  She looked at the man and he nodded. “You
know that it would be polite if you introduced me to your date. That would be a
good beginning, don’t you think?”

“Of course. Roy Dawson, this is my soon-to-be
husband Marc Bowen. Marc, this is the man that I was telling you about. The
thief.” She picked up her glass, and he noticed the diamond.

“Christ, is that real?” Marc laughed and
Roy felt himself flush. “I didn’t mean to say that. I’ve been a little under
the weather and I’ve been on pain pills for a while.”

“Of course you have.” Marc leaned back
in his chair, and Roy felt sweat roll down his back. “You’ve been hurting my fiancée
for a number of years now, and I’d like for it to stop. As of this moment, as a
matter of fact.”

Roy looked from her to him again. This
wasn’t going at all like he had planned. He started to say something else when
another man sat down with them, bringing a chair from another table.

“Hello there. You’re Roy Dawson, are you
not?” Roy nodded. “Thought so. You’re fucking up big time, buddy. There are
rules you need to follow, and you’ve pissed in about a dozen leaders’ shit and
they are not happy.”

Roy sat up straighter, even though it hurt
like hell. “I’m sorry, but do I know you? We’re trying to have a conversation
here and you’re being very rude.”

“I’m Khan Bowen, the leader of the
panthers in this area. When you asked a shifter to become one of us, you
violated about ten laws. Then when you kidnapped my sister-in-law, you set my
entire family on your ass. See?”

Roy looked around the restaurant and
whimpered. They were cats. Every person in the room was a large cat. And not
just panthers either. There were two Bengal tigers, one of them a snowy white. He
looked back at Jonny and the two men.

“I…where did they come from? Where…are
they all here with you?” Khan looked around the room, then back at him. Roy did
the same. Everyone were people again, humans just like before.

“Are you all right?” Khan asked. Roy
shook his head. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. There are some people here that
want to talk to you about this theft ring you got going on. None of them are
very happy that you’re making a profit off their subjects.”

“No. No I don’t want to meet anyone
else.” He stood up and then sat down when Khan barked for him to sit. “Please,
don’t hurt me. I’ll leave her alone. I swear this was going to be my last job anyway.
I’ll just leave as soon as I’m finished with Anita. I swear it.”

“What thing with Anita?” He looked at
Jonny. “I asked you what you are going to finish with Anita.”

“Her daddy wants her killed. He wants me
to let him know when she comes to the house again, and when she gets there, he
is going to have his men come in. They’re already at the house waiting. I can
hardly take a shit without one of them coming to see if she’s there yet.”

Roy flushed when he realized what he’d
just said. But she was looking at Marc again. He had a feeling they were
talking about him but found he really didn’t care. He just wanted out of there.
He glanced around the room again, then back at the other man. When he winked,
Roy thought for sure his eyes had changed, but didn’t want to think about it. When
Jonny looked at him again, he was relieved. Why on earth did he think this was
a good idea? Jonny snapped her fingers in front of his face when she started
talking.

“You’re going to go home now and call me
when Anita contacts you. I mean, the moment she contacts you. Then you can call
whomever else you’re supposed to.” Marc stood up and pulled Jonny’s chair out. “You
contact me again other than for that and I’ll….”

Her hand morphed into a paw, and claws
dug deep into his flesh as blood pooled in the cloth beneath his hand where she
held him down. She lifted her hand, and it was suddenly a human hand again. When
he looked around the room, everyone was staring at him, but with eyes that seemed
to glow in the restaurant lighting. He was done.

“I won’t call you again. In fact, once
I’m finished with Anthony, I’m fucking out of here. This place has gotten to be
scary.” Khan stood up, and right before his eyes, the man shifted.

Clothes tore from him and his skin
furred. His mouth filled with an ungodly amount of sharp teeth. He realized at
that moment he’d never had a cat this close to him. Not even Jonny had ever
been this upfront in his face in all the time he’d made her work for him. Roy
felt his bladder let go when the huge black panther licked his hand.

He sat there for a long time after they
left, not moving to pick up his fork when his dinner arrived. He didn’t
remember ordering it, nor did he have a clue what it might have been. All he
knew was that he’d wet himself, a panther had licked him, and he was seeing
things. He tried to think, one thing at a time, about what had happened here.

As far as pissing his pants was
concerned, and everything else for that matter, it was pretty fucking humiliating.
Not the end of the world when he thought of what he could have done to himself…like
crapping his pants for one, blowing his brains out for another. But he was
still alive to fight…no, not fight. He was finished fighting.

The panther licking the wound that Jonny
had given him was something else that freaked him out a little. He had watched
as it healed in a matter of minutes instead of days. He had a hysterical
thought that he should see how much he’d charge him to lick his back, but as
soon as the thought entered his mind, he let it go. Having that many teeth
where he couldn’t see them might be bad. Another short burble of laughter
escaped, and he put his hand over his mouth to stop it.

The people in the room being cats was
next on his list. He couldn’t quite put anything to that to make it right in
his head no matter how hard he tried. Had he been drunk? Maybe. The pain pill,
too, might have contributed to it, but he was pretty sure that hadn’t been
right either. They had made him see them as their natural state. That one had
merit. He had a feeling that Jonny wasn’t the only cat in the world, but having
seen so many in one place was…it had been too much. Roy looked up as Harris
came toward him and sat in the chair that Jonny had been in.

“Boss? I thought you’d have been out
hours ago.” Harris put his hand over his nose and looked around. “Someone wet
their pants.”

“That would be me.” Harris looked at him
oddly, then leaned in and sniffed. “Why would I lie about something like that? Bring
the car around and see if there is anything to cover the seat with.”

“You wet yourself?” Roy nodded. “What
the fuck did you do that for? Did someone make you?”

“Yes. It’s a new thing in terrorizing
people in plush restaurants. They run in with a gun, hold it to your head, and
order you to wet your pants or they’ll blow your brains out. Sometimes they ask
you to shit yourself, but I was lucky in that I only had to piss.” Roy had a
feeling that Harris was trying to figure out if he was kidding or not. “Go get
the car.”

“And Jonny? What we gonna do about her?”
Roy shivered and thought about her claw cutting into him, the other panther
licking it. He shook his head at Harris.

“Nothing. She’s a dead end as far as
anything goes. I’m out of the exotic animal business as of right now.” He stood
up with help and moved slowly to the front of the restaurant, leaving three
hundred dollars on the table for the check and tip. “And Harris, I don’t want
you to ever mention her name to me again. Do you understand me? Not ever
again.”

Roy rode home on his suit jacket. It
took him forty minutes to get from the front restaurant door to his bathroom,
where he took off every bit of his clothes and put them into the trash can. By
the time he was getting out of the shower, he was sobbing again. All this was
Jonny’s fault.

“But I’m not stupid,” he told his
reflection. “I’m not going after her, nor am I going to go after anyone in her
family. I know for a fact that I’ll live a great deal longer.”

By the time he was getting into bed, Roy
had a plan. Find Anita, help her get dead, and leave the country. He didn’t
even care if his house sat there for decades without anyone ever setting foot
in it again. He was done. Closing his eyes, he let his mind drift on the double
dose of pain medication he took. He saw cats big and small chasing him. But he
smiled. Soon it would all be over.

~~~

Marc was carrying in the last of the
bags when his phone rang. He put them down to answer. He leaned against the car
to talk to his brother, knowing just what he wanted. He glanced up at the house
and saw the bedroom light come on.

“How is she taking this? Any better than
when we left Dawson?” Khan sounded as concerned as he was. “She took it pretty
hard, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, she did. I think thinking that
your friend betrayed you and finding out for sure that she did would be a hard
one for anyone to take. Christ, I wish I could make it all better for her.”

“Monica said to give her a credit card
and let her take her shopping. For a reason I can’t think why, Jonny doesn’t
strike me as a ‘depressed clothes’ shopper.” They both laughed. “I would think
that if you took her to a range to shoot something, she’d feel better.”

He glanced up at the house again. “You
know, I think you might be right. I still have that target thing set up in the
back. I could take her out there and let her take her aggressions out on a few
hundred bottles.”

“Good. Now what are we going to do about
Dawson and Kidd? There has to be something we can do to protect her. She’s
family.” Khan laughed again. “That trick that Dylan did with the cats nearly
made me laugh out loud when I saw the look on the fucker’s face. Christ, he
really thought the room was full of cats, didn’t he?”

“I know. And he pissed himself when you
shifted. What the hell, Khan, were you trying to cause a riot?” But it had been
funny to know that his big brother could make a human do that.

“Dylan told me to. He said no one would
notice. And they didn’t. What did your mate do? She nearly took his hand off. How
did you get her to stop?” He told him he pinched her tight. “Good job. I’m
pretty sure she was going to take his wrist off if you hadn’t. Poor girl.”

Poor girl indeed. She was upset, and
everyone in the limo had known it. Calling Dawson had been Caitlynne’s idea.
She said it would be something to make him remember she was a predator. The
cats had been Dylan’s. He’d wanted to scare the man who dared upset his newest
sister-in-law. Khan wanted to show him the force of them all as a family, and
Marc just wanted it over with.

“I should go get her. If you hear some gunfire,
it’ll be us. I need to get her mind off this, for a little while anyway.” Khan
agreed with him. “I have about a dozen leads on Anita. When I get them narrowed
down to a few we’ll see what we can do about finding her too. Kidd killing his
daughter, does that sound right to you?”