Mate Marked(38)

She still wasn’t entirely sure what made him think their land was so valuable. He’d been hanging around her house for the last couple of days, ever since he kidnapped her brothers, and he’d taken a few phone calls while he was there. She’d eavesdropped on his phone conversations. He was talking to some developers from California, and she gathered that he planned to open up a hotel—half on her family’s property and half on the shifter pack’s property. He’d talked about some tests he’d run. Tests on what?

It didn’t make any sense to her. They were so far out in the wilderness, so remote. Who would come stay at a hotel here?

Whatever the reason, he’d really been working hard on it for a while. He’d captured a few wild wolves, used them to kill his own sheep and tried to pin it on the shifters, several times now. He’d stolen items of clothing and shoes from the shifters’ camp on one of the rare occasions they’d left it unguarded. He’d planted the items, along with shoe-prints from the stolen shifters, next to the dead sheep, but apparently her brothers had found the sheep first and had erased the shoe-prints and stolen the pieces of clothing from the site. They’d been trying to protect Roman’s pack.

That was why Mitch had been raging about the shifter investigator covering up for the pack—because he’d kept expecting there to be incriminating footprints and shreds of the pack’s clothing at the site of the sheep killings, and there never had been.

Why had her brothers done that, and why hadn’t they told her? Why were they trying to protect Roman’s pack? She desperately wished she could ask them.

They’d been doing it again a couple of days ago when he’d caught and kidnapped them. And now he was holding them hostage while he planned his next move.

He’d found out that Paul had a soft spot for her, apparently. Mitch was going to force her to lure Paul to the property, and then he’d kill Paul and plant his body next to more dead sheep. Mitch would claim that he’d caught Paul in the act of slaughtering the sheep and had no choice but to shoot him.

She’d managed to stall for the time being, saying she didn’t have Paul’s number and she’d have to get it from him when she ran into him at work. But she couldn’t stall much longer, she knew.

He slapped his hand down on the place setting in front of him on the table. “Where’s that stew?” he demanded. “I do like a woman who cooks for me.”

She swallowed hard and began ladling the stew into a bowl.

“I need to go find my grandmother,” she said, her hands shaking. Some of the stew splashed onto the counter. “She keeps going out to the mineral springs. She shouldn’t be alone in her condition.” For a senile old woman, her grandmother was amazingly good at sneaking off. If Joyce survived this, she swore she was going to put a damn bell on Edna.

He flashed an ugly smile as she set the bowl down in front of him. “I’ll go with you. Don’t like you wondering around out here by yourself. It’s not safe.”

The back door banged open, and Mitch started and reached for the gun he kept holstered at his side, but it was just Edna.

“What’s not safe?” Edna yelled. Apparently there was nothing wrong with her hearing. Her hair was dripping wet, and she wore a terrycloth bathrobe wrapped tightly around her as she walked in. Joyce thought that Edna seemed to be moving much more gracefully than she used to, so maybe the mineral springs were helping her a little bit.

“It’s not safe for you to go wandering off alone,” Joyce said, exasperated.

“Well, come with me next time, dear. Who’s this you’ve invited over for lunch? Shall I brew him some tea?” She moved towards the coffee pot.

“No!” Mitch barked, involuntarily flinching and fixing her with a steely glare.

“Listen,” Joyce said quickly, to distract him. “The thing you asked me to do. Calling Paul. I’m not going to do it unless you bring my brothers back here.”

His lip curled up in a sneer, but she rushed forward with her argument. “Don’t bother to threaten them again, because if you hurt them, you’ve got nothing to use to force me to cooperate. I will never sign the land over to you.”

“I’ve got your grandmother.”

“If you touch her, I’ll kill you with my bare hands or die trying.” She glared at him. “Getting this land is so important to you? Bring the boys back here, or you’ll get nothing from me.” She paused, swallowed hard and made her voice softer. “Besides. You keep saying that you want us to be friends. You want to get to know me better. Do you really think that will ever happen if you hurt my brothers? I can’t concentrate on anything until they’re back here. Then we can talk about the hotel and all the money you’re going to make from it. I do like a man with money.” She thought of how much she wanted to see her little brother’s faces again, and forced a smile. “Maybe we could talk about it over dinner.”