Chapter 13
Robert was so glad that he and Maisie got to run like this. Edeen’s acreage was substantial—a hundred acres in all, of which she had gifted him half because they were family—and they hadn’t run all over it yet. He’d used some of the money from his inheritance to build his home and clinic, so his places were clear and free of mortgages. He had taken Maisie to the MacQuarries’ property to extend the run, to show her their beautiful surroundings too. She seemed to be having as much fun as he was. He realized he had never run with a she-wolf that he was dating, and the experience was amazing. She kept bumping into him in a playful way, and he loved it. He played with her just as much, nipping at her cheek, bumping her, chasing her tail, and that had her yipping and shooting off to keep ahead of him.
He quickly caught up to her. He couldn’t believe Maisie wanted him in her bed with her tonight, but he was all for it. He hoped her sister wouldn’t object or that Maisie wouldn’t wish she hadn’t done it after the fact. The secret would be out soon enough because wolf packs shared these things. It wasn’t a bad thing, really, because in the case of relationships, the other wolves in the pack would be hesitant to encroach on a bonding. Wolves outside the pack might still try to cause problems though. Some alpha males just figured they had what it took to get any female they wanted, even if she was seeing another wolf.
Robert and Maisie were headed back to the dike when they heard some wolves howling. They howled back in greeting. He loved her beautiful howl and howled again just with joy at being with her like this. She nipped at him in playfulness, and they continued on their way.
Once they were through the dike, they raced each other back to the house. He was longer legged than her, and he knew he was going to reach the house first, so he was in a quandary. Should he just beat her or let her win? Everyone reacted differently to a situation like that. His sister always wanted to try to win a race on her own. But his mother had always wanted him to hold back when they went running as wolves so she would have a better chance to win. So which would Maisie prefer?
He decided to stick with her and ask her about it later, but he might win by a nose. What he didn’t expect was her nipping at him, distracting him right before he reached the house, and her bolting ahead. He loved her for it. She was so cute.
They headed inside the house, and she shifted and laughed. He shifted and pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “You tricked me.”
She chuckled, sounding so pleased with herself. “You were being so sweet not to get ahead of me. But I had to beat you. I probably should have told you about my competitive nature.”
He laughed. He was having so much fun with her. “Yeah, I wasn’t sure if you would want to beat me on your own or if you wanted me to give you more of a head start.”
“Oh, I want to beat you on my own, but if you want to make allowances for me, I’ll take advantage of them.” She was so cute.
Smiling, he kissed her again, loving the way she was so much fun. Okay, so now he knew how she felt about running with him. She wanted to win—in her own way. “I guess we’ll get dressed and head over to the inn.”
“Absolutely.” Maisie started pulling on her clothes.
Robert quickly pulled his on too. He got them some glasses of water, and they drank them. “I’ll pack a bag and take your camera equipment out to the car.”
“Okay. I’m sure Anne will be glad when we get back. I wonder who the mystery guard wolf is.”
“We’ll find out soon.” He packed enough clothes for several days and rejoined her in the living room. Then they packed up her stuff.
“What about Mittens?” Maisie was cuddling with the cat.
He loved that Mittens loved to be held or sleep on his lap or curl up in bed with him.
“We’ll drop her off with Edeen so she can have all the other animals’ company while I’m staying with you.” He could have left her at the house and Edeen would have dropped by to feed her, but Mittens loved all the other animals and she loved people, so she would be happier at Edeen and Lachlan’s house.
“Okay, that will work.”
Then he packed up Mittens and her food, toys, and litter box and called his sister to let her know.
When they drove over to Edeen’s house, Lachlan came out to get the litter box and food while Edeen took Mittens in her arms.
“See you later,” Edeen said.
“Let us know if you need us for anything,” Lachlan said, and Robert knew he meant in the event they had trouble with the murderer.
“We will,” Robert said.
“’Night,” Maisie and Robert said, and then they headed back to the inn.
At the inn, Anne was having tea with William Playfair. He was as dark-haired as Colleen, his eyes hazel. So one of Colleen’s Texas cousins was going to stay with them. Robert wondered if William’s twin brother, Edward, felt like he’d lost out.
“My bedroom is in there,” Maisie said to Robert, making it clear to both her sister and William that Robert was staying with her in her bedroom tonight.
He carried his bag into her bedroom and set it in the corner, out of the way. Then he helped her carry her camera equipment in from the car, and she took out the memory card and put it in her laptop. “I’ll edit these in the morning,” she said.
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. It’s getting late,” Robert said. “Though I want to know if anyone looked at the security videos for the inn yet.”
“Yeah,” William said. “Anne, Iverson, and I watched it and saw Gus parking at the inn, getting his key, then leaving his bag in the room. He met Maisie and asked her out to dinner. Then he left with Maisie and returned about an hour and a half later.”
“And then?” Maisie asked, all ears, grabbing some water for Robert and her.
“He left again,” William said. “After an hour, he returned. But he wasn’t alone.”
“He was with the killer?” Maisie asked.
“A woman,” Anne said. “She had curly, chestnut-brown hair, pretty features.”
“Sheesh, I really pick them, don’t I?” Maisie said. “Here he asks me out to dinner, then he has a woman stay with him afterward? I kind of assumed he was seeing a woman from the way he hesitated to talk about it when he said he was meeting up with someone.”
“He was with her for only about an hour. Then he left again, taking her with him,” Anne said, “and aye, they were all lovey-dovey. Which really made me mad, considering he’d asked you out first and never indicated he was seeing someone else.”
“Been there before,” Maisie said.
“Yeah, I think your luck might just be changing.” Anne glanced at Robert and smiled.
“Not all wolves are like that for sure.” Robert drank some of his water. “If the guy wasn’t already dead, I would have had words with him.”
“Then the guy returned to the inn again,” William said. “He was wearing a gray hoodie and a wrist splint and black boots.”
“Gus wasn’t wearing a wrist splint or a gray hoodie,” Maisie said. “That has to be someone else.”
“He was driving Gus’s car then,” Anne said. “If the murderer met up with him and then drove his car back here to the inn, no one would have been the wiser. Then he took Gus’s bags from the room, loaded them in the car, and drove off for the final time. Gus’s body might have been inside his vehicle. The man on the video was the same size as Gus, but we couldn’t see his features that time because of the hoodie.”
“Did we get any footage of the garden?” Maisie asked, hopeful.
“No. The cameras don’t capture images in that spot. We didn’t have any reason to concern ourselves that anyone would steal from the flower garden,” Anne said.
Maisie sipped her tea. “That’s true.”
“Iverson said he was going to put up another couple of security cameras to cover some more areas that we don’t have coverage for right now.” Then Anne frowned. “Wait. What if the two things are related? Gus’s driver’s license in the garden and Jude’s phone being out there?”
“It seems like too much of a coincidence if they aren’t related,” Maisie said.
“Speaking of the phone, Iverson left it here for you to look at. He unlocked it and he left a charger for it. He couldn’t really find anything on it that would explain what he was doing here, but maybe—since you knew him a little better—you can learn something more from it,” William said. “Iverson did say that Jude had a couple of recent calls that he hadn’t answered and some text messages he hadn’t responded to since he dropped his phone in the garden—which shows he dropped it on the same day that you went out with Gus.”
“Well, darn, I had hoped Jude would reveal something more to us, but the timeline helps,” Maisie said.
“What about the boot prints?” Robert asked.
William said, “Iverson got some good prints off it. He’s running it through a database to determine what the brand of boots is if he can discover it.”
“I wish we knew what size Gus’s shoes were,” Anne said.
“They could have been Jude’s,” Maisie said. “I have no idea what size shoes he wears. I just know he had big feet. The night we went to dinner, I didn’t notice what Gus was wearing on his feet. We also need to find Gus’s car.”
“Iverson took the information Gus gave you on his registration and is looking into it,” William said.
“Where’s Mittens?” Anne suddenly asked, sounding concerned she was on her own.
“She’s at my sister’s place, getting lots of loving.” Robert finished his water.
“Okay, good,” Anne said. “William, I wanted to tell you about our routine for the inn so you know what we have to do in the morning. Sometimes we make breakfast for ourselves before the guests come in if we get up early enough. Otherwise, we have to wait until they’re done eating.”
“You can stay in our guest room, William,” Maisie said.
Each of the three bedrooms had a bathroom en suite, and another bathroom was accessible to the living room.
“There are spare towels in the bathroom you’ll be using, William. If you want anything from the kitchen, feel free to raid it. I’m off to bed. ’Night, everyone,” Anne said.
“’Night,” Robert and Maisie said, and Maisie took his hand, grabbing Jude’s phone off the dining room table, and led Robert to her bedroom.
“’Night,” William said.
“I’ll take my shower after you,” Robert said to Maisie as she closed her bedroom door. “I’m going to talk to William about the case for a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, sure.” She went into the bathroom, stripped off her clothes, and began showering.
Robert went to check on William. He had taken a quick shower and was wearing a pair of boxers and grabbing a cup of water from the kitchen. “Are you going to stay here until we know what we’re up against?” Robert asked.
“Yeah.” William motioned to Maisie’s bedroom. “Looking good.”
Robert smiled. “We’ll see. You made out alright on the lottery.”
“Yeah, my brother wanted to trade places with me in the worst way. He offered to do my chores for a month. Two months even.”
Robert laughed. “I bet. Did you learn anything else from the crime scene?”
“We went over the guest room with a fine-tooth comb. It didn’t appear that Gus was killed in the room. Neither of the sisters had seen any disturbances—no furniture overturned, everything was neat and tidy—which would have concerned them. But one thing Anne said was odd was that the bed hadn’t been slept in.”
“Like he’d been murdered before he had a chance to retire,” Robert said. “But he’d been with the woman there, and I had assumed they wouldn’t have just been talking. So that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Right. Anne said the shower had been used.”
“Okay, so if he was intimate with the woman, maybe they did so in the shower. Was Anne able to smell any wolves in there?”
“Yeah, the woman who had been there was a wolf too. At the time, Anne hadn’t thought anything of it until she saw the security video,” William said. “I wonder if he met up with or ran into the guy after seeing the woman and that was the end of him. What about the autopsy? What did it reveal?”
“He was manually strangled and died before he went into the water. He had no identification on him, so it was good that we recognized him from his driver’s license. He had a cell phone in his pocket, but because of the corrosive nature of salt water, it was probably destroyed. I have it drying out though, just in case.”
“That’s a good idea, in case the other guy texted him to have the meeting. Or called him,” William said. “Even the identity of the woman might be on it.”
“Right.”
“Anne gave Iverson and me the information on Gus Anderson. He was here alone. We’re looking on social media and searching Glasgow for his family and friends. We haven’t located his brother, Ike, either. He’s not answering his cell phone, but we assume Ike was the one who picked up the ID. We don’t know if Gus had a job in Glasgow or not, so we’re still checking. We want to know if he had any known contacts in this area—like the guy who met up with him, if it wasn’t his twin brother.”
“Okay, so Gus was a wolf. What we need to know is if the guy who murdered him was too,” Robert said.
“Well, we’ll have to take care of him no matter what, right? I mean, we can’t tell humans what happened to Gus, and so we can’t let human law enforcement deal with him.”
“True. We need to know if anyone else was involved also,” Robert said. “But I’m also wondering about this strange business with Maisie’s former boyfriend being here and losing his phone in the garden.”
“Yeah, it makes me wonder if he lost it when he was grabbing the stone from the garden. If he killed Gus, then maybe he meant to get rid of his driver’s license so if anyone did happen to find the body, they wouldn’t know who it was. But then Jude lost his phone and Gus’s driver’s license in the garden. We need to learn if he knew Gus. Though it could have been a random encounter,” William said, “and something just torqued Jude off.”
“True.”
The shower had shut off in Maisie’s room a while ago, and Robert glanced in that direction.
“Join her. I know I would if I had the same rapport with her that you do.”
Robert smiled. “Good night, William. See you in the morning.”
“Night, Robert.”
Robert headed for Maisie’s bedroom, and when he opened the door, he saw her in bed, under the covers, smiling at him, waiting for him, Jude’s cell phone in hand. She had left the reading lamp on for him. He dug a pair of boxer shorts out of his bag. “I’ll be quick.” Then he was in the shower, soaping off and rinsing off. Once he dried off and put on his boxers, he left the bathroom. He still didn’t know if she wanted the intimacy or just wanted him to sleep with her. He was definitely ready for either.
“Did you learn anything from Jude’s phone?” he asked.
She pulled the covers aside for him, and he joined her in bed.
“There has been no contact between him and Gus. Jude dated a woman named Chelsea, but I couldn’t find any mention of him coming to the inn for any reason or that he was intending to get in touch with me.” Maisie put the cell phone on the bedside table.
“Okay, we’ll figure this out.” As soon as Robert pulled the covers over them, he moved in close, judging her reaction.
She took him in her arms and began kissing him. He was all for the intimacy between them to continue and deepen.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” Robert said, cupping her face and kissing her deeply. He was glad they were in bed together, having thought of being with her in bed like this since they’d snuggled with each other on the beach. This was much more comfortable, private, and enjoyable. She was soft and warm, and her kisses made him want so much more.
“Don’t stop,” she murmured against his ear.
Already his blood was fired up, his pheromones taking charge, telling her just how much he wanted this with her. Her pheromones were giving him the go-ahead too.
He slid his hands over her pajama shirt, feeling her lovely breasts under the soft cotton fabric. Her nipples grew taut, and he could feel them against his palms, enticing him to go further. He continued to massage her breasts, and she moaned with pleasure. He wondered just how soundproof her walls were or if her sister could hear everything that was going on. Maybe William too.
As if Maisie could read his mind, she broke off their kiss and whispered, “Anne will be listening to music on her headphones. She always does before she goes to sleep.”
“Good.” He didn’t want to disturb her sister, but he really wanted to go as far with Maisie as she wanted to go. He hoped they wouldn’t disturb William.
He slid his hands up her shirt and cupped her breasts, massaging them, loving the feel of her warm, soft flesh in his hands.
They were kissing, tongues sliding over each other’s, mouths pressed together. He slid her shirt off so he could move his mouth to one of her breasts, licking the nipple and then the other. She ran her hands through his hair and sighed.
She seemed lost in his touching her. He was thinking he would love to have her in his bed at home; then there would be no worry if they got rather noisy. He hoped he wasn’t thinking too far ahead of himself here.
His gaze centered on hers, and she smiled. He told himself he hadn’t known her long, but what little time they’d been together with all their wild adventures just showed him that he sure wanted to be with her more. Though maybe not on those kinds of adventures in the future. More like running as wolves tonight, preparing and sharing a meal together, fishing, scuba diving—just fun things.
He slid his hand down her belly to her waistband, and she held her breath in anticipation. He slipped his hand under her waistband, his fingers sweeping over her short, curly hairs, until he found the dewy softness between her feminine folds. Her body was definitely ready for him, but he couldn’t consummate the relationship or he would be mated to her for life. He ran his finger over her nubbin and began to stroke.
She quickly slid her pajama shorts down her hips, and he removed them the rest of the way. Then he was back to stroking her feminine nub, hoping he was doing it the way she liked best. She arched her back, pressing herself harder against his finger, wanting more. She was tense as he rose up to kiss her mouth again, his finger keeping contact with her, stroking, bringing her to climax.
He could tell she was about to come, and he quickly covered her mouth with his as she cried out against his lips, their tongues stroking hard, her arms wrapping around him tight and holding him there for a long moment. “Oh God,” she whispered. “I’m so glad you caught me.”
He thought she meant about muffling her cry so William and Anne wouldn’t hear her. But then she said, “The fishhook.”
He smiled and kissed her nose. “That was the best fishing I ever did. Definitely the catch was a total keeper.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” She pushed him onto his back and removed his briefs, which was a bit of a struggle because he was fully aroused. She smiled and threw the covers aside. She began stroking him, making him feel as though he’d gone to heaven.
In the worst way, he wanted to enter her and consummate the relationship, mate her with his heart and soul. But he could be impulsive at times, and he wondered if she was too.
Right now, she was stealing every thought he had from him, and all he could do was smell her beautiful she-wolf scent of flowers and sweet wine, of sex and pheromones that were still through the roof, telling them to do it, to mate, to go all the way.
She leaned over to kiss him and continued to stroke him all the way to the end. He was absolutely in ecstasy as he climaxed and pulled her against him, wanting the intimacy to continue between them after what they’d shared.
Then he rolled over with her in his arms and out of bed to avoid messing up the sheets and carried her to the bathroom. Finishing up in the shower only added to the sensual pleasure he’d experienced with her so far.
***
The next morning, Maisie woke to see Robert smiling at her. He kissed her forehead and then her mouth. “No regrets,” she said, “in case you’re worrying about it.”
“I definitely have no regrets. I’m glad you have none either. You are sure nice to wake up to.”
“Hmm, I feel the same. I didn’t disturb you by cuddling with you during the night?”
“No, it was really nice.”
She sighed. “Same here.” Better than nice.
They smelled ham and eggs cooking in the kitchen, and she pushed her covers aside, got up, and began getting dressed. “Anne is up making breakfast for us. I should help her, then after we eat and clean up, we’ll make breakfast for our guests.”
“Can I help at all?” Robert looked perfectly happy to stay in her bed, which she loved.
“No. Stay in bed and continue to look sexy, but I won’t be able to come back to bed with you.”
He chuckled and got out of bed.
“Or,” she said, eyeing his package, “you can get out of bed and look sexy.” She gave him a quick hug. “See you in a few minutes.”
Before she changed her mind and returned to bed with him, she left the bedroom and joined Anne in the kitchen. “Where’s William?”
“He’s out looking around the property for any other clues of what had happened.” Anne served up their breakfast. “What about you and Robert?”
“Hmm, it was good.”
“I heard the guys talking about the case last night.” Anne poured cups of tea for them.
“I meant to ask Robert what they had talked about, but we didn’t do a whole lot of talking once he joined me in bed.” In truth, Maisie had totally forgotten about it, which was really unusual for her.
Anne smiled. “I’m not surprised. I would have been worried about the two of you if all you’d done was talked about the case. What about Jude’s phone?”
“Nothing on it except he was dating a woman named Chelsea. Nothing connecting him to Gus or mentioning coming out to the inn or harassing me.”
Anne shook her head. “Figures we wouldn’t discover anything.”