The Bobcat's Tate (6 page)

“You don’t have to pay me
,” Lainey protested.

“Of course we’ll pay you
.” Ginger turned to Marigold. “We should go. My mother has a full day of driving me crazy scheduled, and we wouldn’t to disappoint her, would we?”

“Oh, look,” Marigold said as they stood up.
“Your handsome husband-to-be is here.”

Loch had just pulled in to the parking lot
. Lainey found herself looking to see if anyone was with him, like, for instance, a handsome wolf shifter…and she was annoyed at how disappointed she was to see that Tate was nowhere in sight.

When they walked outside, Loch
threw his arms around Ginger and pulled her close in a tight embrace.

“My very own stalker,” Ginger
said affectionately. “We’re just headed over to the Beaudreau mansion. I was thinking of hitching a ride with a hot stranger. Do you happen to know any?”

“Hmm, hot stranger fantasies. I think I can oblige,” Loch said, planting a lingering kiss on his
fiancée’s full lips.

“
Eww, get a room,” Marigold groaned. Lainey had parked her rented car behind Marigold’s, so Marigold tugged on her sleeve and they headed toward their cars. “Come on. Let’s leave before they do it right here in the parking lot.”

“Why did you need all the subterfuge about me doing sketches
at the wedding? Why not just tell Ginger that you had some kind of psychic vision and I needed to be there?”

“That’s not how these things work,” Marigold said.

“How, exactly, do these things work?”

But Marigold was ignoring her. “Oh, crud,” she said irritably.
“That’s Aurora Sinclair.”

The woman
Lainey had glimpsed when she’d first arrived in town was walking towards Loch and Ginger in a determined fashion. By her side was a wolf shifter who appeared to be in his fifties, and there were several people trailing them. All wolf shifters, Lainey could tell by their scent. The group came to a stop just a few feet away from Ginger.

“The
Sinclairs. Those a-holes,” Marigold muttered, and she changed directions to return to Ginger’s side. Lainey followed her, as Loch, scowling, stepped forward.

“She broug
ht the whole gang,” Ginger said softly, looking unhappy.

“That guy is Quincy Sinclair, A
lpha of the Sinclair pack,” Marigold whispered to Lainey. “They’re all pissed off because Quincy wanted his niece, Portia, to marry Loch, but Loch wasn’t interested. They went out on a couple of dates, so Loch tried to be nice about breaking things off, but she pretty much started stalking him. When he proposed to Ginger, Portia actually went around telling everyone that Loch had proposed to her first and then cheated on her with Ginger. Total lie. Now Portia’s boo-hooing that she’s too devastated to come to the wedding, which is actually a good thing because she’d probably try to sabotage it.”

An older woman, slim and pretty with her hair cut in a severe bob,
stood next to Quincy, scowling at Loch.

“Who’s that?” Ginger asked.

“Cornelia, Portia’s mother. Thinks she’s a big shot because her brother’s the Alpha for their lame-ass pack.”

Lainey
hoped they couldn’t hear Marigold. There was little chance they’d miss how Marigold glared at them, though.

Loch was standing directly between the Sinclair family and Ginger,
his forehead creased in a frown. “We already discussed this yesterday,” Loch said to Aurora.

Quincy was carrying a briefcase,
from which he pulled a sheet of paper. He handed it to Loch. “We have spoken to everyone from my family who’s in town, and they have provided their whereabouts on the night in question. I should note that we do this under protest, and we consider this a deliberate insult to our family’s good name. For the sake of peace between our two packs, we are willing to overlook the insult. This time. We may not be so forgiving in the future.”

“If you want to issue a
Death Challenge, you know where to find me, any time, day or night,” Loch said coldly. “Why wait? We can get down to business right here in the parking lot.”

Quincy swallowed hard. Loch was a big man, packed with muscles, with a dangerous energy crackling around him with every step that he took
. Quincy was also a large, solidly built man, and he didn’t appear to be a pushover—he couldn’t have been an Alpha if he were—but he was clearly outmatched.

“
That won’t be necessary at this time,” Quincy said, his face flushing. Lainey could tell he was still trying to save face and talk tough, but he was failing badly. He took a step back, and hung his head submissively, glowering at the ground. The family members who came with him all looked as if they’d just taken a big gulp of sour milk.

“I appreciate the
Hooperation with our investigation,” Loch said in a calm, even tone. “We have asked hundreds of people to tell us their whereabouts on the night in question. As you well know, if I declined to question the entire Sinclair family, it would raise a lot of eyebrows, and it would be perceived as either favoritism or fear on my part. We’ll get back to you if we have any more questions.”

He turned to walk away, but Aurora called out
, “Wait.”

Loch turned back. “What?”

“Given what the Cypress Woods Witch said, I think you should call off the wedding for now. Maybe permanently.” Aurora stood tall, eyes blazing, staring at Loch defiantly.

Ginger gasped in outrage, and Loch let out a warning growl
. His eyes glowed with anger, and Lainey saw hair sprout on his face and the back of his hands. Bones rippled in his face, and black claws shot from his fingertips.

“Everyone’s talking about it. The Cypress Woods
Witch spoke to a visitor, and she said that the wedding shouldn’t take place, and everyone would be in danger if they attended. I’m sorry, Loch, but it appears as if I’ve been right along and this wedding simply isn’t meant to be.” Lainey thought her smile looked poisonous, although her tone was wheedling.

“That’s interesting,” Loch ground out, “because the last time the Cypress Woods
Witch spoke out, you said that she was crazy and nobody ever took her seriously. That was when a rogue shifter was killing local farmer’s sheep, and she warned everyone to beware the J wolf. Then it turned out that your cousin Jarrod was the rogue wolf. Remember that?”

Aurora’s smile was still pasted on tight, but her dark obsidian eyes
glittered with anger. “Nonetheless, if you care anything about the safety of your town and your wedding guests, you should—”

This was just too much
. Lainey stepped forward. “Hey!” she snapped. “That’s not what the Cypress Witch said at all.”

Aurora’s smile vanished, and she swung on
Lainey with a growl, her face lengthening into a snout and her ears turning pointy.

Lainey
stood her ground, her own ears turning pointy with tufts of fur sprouting from them, sharp claws springing from her fingertips. Her fangs shot out of her gums, and she let out a feline hiss of warning.

Aurora snarled.
“Who do you think you are, to speak to me this way, you mangy cat? Do you know who I am?”

“I’m the visitor who actually spoke to the Cypress Woods Witch, and she didn’t say a damn thing about calling off the wedding.
You might want to verify your facts before you run around spouting crazy gossip. She said beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and there would be a dark cloud. She actually told me I’d be going to the wedding. She didn’t say it should be called off.”

Aurora stood perfectly still for a moment, raw fury radiating off her in waves
. Then she shot a dirty look at Loch. “Go ahead and hold the wedding, and put everyone’s lives in peril. We’ll still attend. Perhaps we’ll be able to save some of the lives that you put in danger with your foolishness.”

Then
the Sinclairs turned and walked away.

Loch hugged Ginger, who was shaking.

“Ginger, she’s just a crazy, power-hungry bitch,” Marigold said. “Don’t let her get to you. Your wedding day will be beautiful. You’re marrying Mr. Hot Stuff here. How could your wedding be anything less than awesome?”

Ginger took a deep breath and then let it out
. “I’m fine,” she said, with the slightest quaver in her voice. “I guess it wouldn’t be Blue Moon Junction without drama, would it?”

* * *

The wedding was being held at the Beaudreau mansion, a nineteenth-century Georgian Revival building which sprawled over a huge estate on the north end of Blue Moon Junction, right outside the city limits. The wedding itself would take place in the main building, and the reception was being held in one of the other houses on the property, a mansion in its own right which had belonged to the Beaudreau family’s daughter.

“It’s lovely,”
Lainey said, staring at the massive red-brick home with two-story-high white Corinthian columns framing the enormous front double doors. The doors were topped with an ornate triangular pediment with little carved wooden cupids in it. “Good lord, you could drive a horse and carriage through those doors.”

“I know, right? Alpha weddings are so over the top.
I’m glad my fiancé’s a beta.” Marigold turned back to Lainey. “You should walk around and get to know everybody while you do your sketches. Your fated mate could be here now.”

“Alright
, already. You can’t follow me around, though. You’re making me nervous.”

Marigold shrugged and walked over to Ginger, who’d just arrived with Loch.

The grounds were huge, and there were crews of men all over the place. Electricians, landscapers, handymen…

This is ridiculous
. How would I figure out if any of these men were my fated mate, if such a thing even exists? I’ll just walk around and check out the scenery for a while, and tell Marigold I gave it my best shot.

She wandered around the outside of the main mansion, admiring the landscaping
. Hundreds of flowers sat out in little round plastic pots, ready to be planted around a gazebo that was under construction.

Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out, grimacing
. She really should have left the phone back at the hotel instead of bringing it with her.

A message flashed acr
oss the screen. “Your brother has been badly hurt! We’ve been trying to call you!”

Her heart sped up with panic. Her older brother
, Donavan, had struggled for years with substance abuse issues. In trouble with the law, running with a horrible crowd, in and out of expensive rehab centers…

It seemed like he’d finally straightened out his life, married a sweet bobca
t shifter, quit working for their parents’ construction company and found a job in another city, which was the healthiest thing he could possibly have done. What could have happened to him? Had he relapsed? Gotten in an accident?

I am a horrible person for not having called my parents back
. Donny’s probably lying in a hospital bed somewhere, wondering why I’m not there. I don’t deserve a fated mate; I don’t deserve any kind of mate.

She frantically punched in her mother’s number
.

H
er mother answered on the first ring. “Well, there you are,” her mother said irritably. She didn’t sound anywhere near as upset as she should be. Maternal warmth had never been her strong suit.

“What happened to Donny?”
Lainey demanded. “How bad is it?”

“First, you need to tell us where you are.”
Frost rimmed her mother’s words.

“This is simply not acceptable,” her father chimed in. “You’
re making us look like fools in front of our friends. Nobody cancels a wedding that has been announced in the paper. You simply carry on. That’s what your mother and I do.”

Her mother and father couldn’t stand each other and slept in rooms at opposite ends of the
ir very large house.

“Since the wedding was based on a lie
created by both of you, I certainly can, and did, cancel it. Tell me what happened to Donny.” She bit the words out, simmering with frustration.

“If yo
u want to find out what happened to your brother, you will tell us where you are.” Her mother’s voice was firm and unyielding.

Fury boiled up inside
Lainey, and for a brief moment, resignation. She needed to know where her brother was. She’d have to tell them where she was. Then they’d come out here and find a way to drag her back to Philly.
Goodbye to freedom,
she thought.

How could her parents be so heartless? How could they sound so calm when Donny was hurt?

And then a terrible suspicion swept over her. If something had happened to her, yes, they certainly would sound this calm. But to Donavan? No way. They’d be frantic, hysterical. He was, had always been, the favored child. Handsome, athletic, not fat…her parents had indulged his every whim. If they were shopping and he glanced at a toy, they rushed to buy it for him. They skipped Lainey’s plays and piano recitals because they were always too busy with work, but they went to every soccer game, every basketball game, of Donny’s.