Primal Instincts Page 3

  Of course his father caught on quickly. “Dillon does. I figured I would check her out. Plus, she has some contacts in remote areas of Texas, so I asked her to check out the murders.”

  While Jake was the Alpha of the pack, his father had been the one before him. He always talked to his father about pack business—and especially about something like this. Those deaths had all gone without notice from the pack because the families had moved out of town.

  “Ah. Yeah, if the mayor starts calling around, it would be suspicious,” his father said. “And you think Littlefoot is a wolf?”

  “Not me, Dillon. Says he picked up her scent.”

  His father frowned, apparently thinking over the comment. “It would explain why you hired her.”

  “Are you questioning my judgment?”

  His father chuckled as he gave his wife a squeeze before walking over to the bar. “No. I know better than to do that.”

  Of course his father did. He’d held the position of Alpha for over twenty years. It had been a tumultuous time when Bud Sanderson had assumed command. While Jake remembered parts of it, he had been a little young to understand the politics of it at the time.

  “So, explain that comment.”

  “Well, she had a bad time of it in San Antonio. Losing a partner isn’t easy to recover from for a cop. Plus, they held her responsible.”

  “True. But we didn’t need someone who had to worry about gangs and the like. We needed someone to keep order and teach us how to have a police station.”

  They hadn’t had any issues, but they were gaining more and more prominence thanks to tourism and a few movies that had been filmed in the area. They’d had sheriffs before, but they had been more about keeping order within the pack. With strangers popping into the area for whatever reason, Jake had known they needed someone to run a real police station.

  Before his father could answer that, the doorbell rang. For some reason, his nerves jumped.

  His father walked over and slapped him on the back. “There she is. One of us will make sure she’s just human.”

  Jacob hoped his father was right. If she was one of them, it might explain why he had been obsessing about her for months.

  The moment his father opened the door, Jacob’s nerves ramped up and he felt as if someone had rubbed against his fur the wrong way—again.

  His mother gave him a look from the side of her eye, and he could feel his face heat. There was no hiding sexual frustration within the pack. Normally, it didn’t bother him if anyone picked up on his arousal, not even his parents. As shifters, they were free with their sexuality. It was part of their lives. Affection was also highly encouraged.

  His mother ran her hand down his back. It was a sign she knew he was anxious, and she was offering comfort.

  “Good evening, Chief,” his father said.

  “Please, call me Alex.”

  “Only if you call me Bud.”

  Then, she smiled at his father. It was the first genuine smile he had ever seen from her. It lit up her eyes, as well as her face. He couldn’t stop the way his body reacted. His pulse picked up a beat or two as his blood warmed.

  “Of course,” she said as his father stepped aside so she could walk past him.

  “You know my wife, Abigail, yes? And of course you know Jake.”

  His mother and Alex exchanged greetings, then they both turned to him. He blinked trying to get his thoughts in order. His inner wolf growled as his agitation grew. His primal self clawed to escape, to be able to claim.

  And in that moment, he accepted what he had been avoiding the last few months they had known each other.

  Alex Littlefoot was his mate.

  Chapter Four

  Alex was good at tests. She always had been. Through the various foster homes and schools, she had done amazingly well at school. It had always surprised her social worker, and that aspect of it had pissed her off. She particularly liked being challenged—either mentally or physically. To escape the cycle, she had known she needed a decent education. Between school and the academy, she should have been prepared for anything, even an evening with the Sandersons.

  Dinner was an experiment in how well she could handle pressure—something she had excelled at for years. The Sandersons were as nice as anyone she’d met, but she felt something else going on beneath the surface. Her instincts had served her well for the most part. It was one of the things that had kept her safe as a foster child and as a cop…until that last day. She had thought she’d lost it until tonight.

  “How are you getting on with the new job?” Bud asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  “Pretty good. Of course, it isn’t as busy as when I was with SAPD, but that isn’t such a bad thing. And speaking of which, I have that information you wanted,” she said, directing her attention to Jake.

  “You can talk about it in front of my folks. Dad used to be a…mayor. I mean, the mayor of Sanderson.”

  For a moment, she stared at the Jake. It was a strange slip up by a man who chose his words very carefully, but she let it go.

  “Okay. Well, you were right. You had the facts wrong about one of the killings. Emily Reynolds was found not too far away from here.”

  “Is that right?” Jake asked. “I could have sworn it said San Antonio.”

  “It did. It was a mix-up on the paperwork. They listed her place of death as her home. Stupid really, and messy, but the county sheriff is new and not very well trained.”

  “So, they found her nearby?” Bud asked

  Alex nodded. “She was just on the county border. So, there is a jurisdiction issue there. Plus, this is a remote area and, when you’re just outside of town, there isn’t much in the way of anything but wildlife.”

  “They believe she was murdered?” Abigail asked.

  “Yes. Although, cause of death is very hard to figure out at this point in time. She was left in an area with predators, some coyotes got at the body in the three days she was there. Plus, it was that week last month where we hit in the one-tens for four days. They had to list her death as undetermined.”

  “There’s something else bothering you,” Bud said.

  She drew in a deep breath, then released it. “I found two more in addition to Emily.”

  There was a beat of silence around the table. “Two?” Abigail asked.

  Alex nodded. “There seems to be a pattern. I can send you the rundown I came up with, but the thing that bothers me is, other than a stint in the Big Bend area, they are so far apart geographically. At least where the women were found. All of them were from small towns, and all of them had some connection to this town.”

  No one said anything for a few moments. She figured they were taking in everything.

  “You say they have connections to this town?” Bud asked.

  Jake said nothing. He just continued to follow the conversation.

  “Yes. All of the women lived here at one time. Emily Reynolds, Tammy Sawyer, Michelle Michaels, Susan Vickers, and Jackie Davidson.”

  The color seemed to wash out of Abigail’s face, and Alex wanted to kick herself for naming them off. In a town the size of Sanderson, everyone knew everyone else. More than likely, they had watched these girls grow up from cradle to adult.

  “I had no idea,” Abigail said, her voice hoarse with grief.

  “I’m sorry. I should have taken into account you knew them all.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s best to know about it now. And you are right. They all lived here at one time. Emily was the only one with family still here.”

  Alex tucked that bit of information away. “I’ll do some more searching, because it bothers me that no one made the connection.”

  “Because they’re jackasses.”

  Bud spit out the comment, but Jake shook his head. “Dad, you know the state agencies are undermanned. This has no direction and, more than likely, they are spread out over an area with several different offices in charge. You know how that goes even in this
day and age of computers.”

  Sometimes, she forgot how sharp Jacob was. It wasn’t that she thought he was stupid, but the son of the richest man in the county didn’t always have to try to be smart. That was a point in his favor.

  She nodded. “I plan on going out to the area tomorrow, checking it out. I might pick up on something that they missed. When you have not been at a lot of homicides, it is easy to miss things. Plus, I’d like to get a feel of the area.”

  “A feel of the area?” Bud asked.

  She nodded. “If I can see it as the killer saw it, sometimes it will give me an insight into who that person is. Different locations often point to different motives.”

  Jake turned his attention completely to her. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stirred. “I don’t think you should go alone.”

  She laughed at that. “I can handle myself, don’t worry.”

  He stared at her a long moment, then broke way. He didn’t agree or disagree, and she really didn’t care.

  Jacob needed a break after Alex left. It had been a few days since he’d done a run after a shift. There was a chance that the needling he felt under his skin was a need to be free. He figured he would be better safe than sorry when it came to that.

  “Are you heading out already?” his mother asked.

  “Yeah. Need to have a run.”

  She nodded in understanding. “Before you go, do you want my opinion on her?”

  That stopped him. “Yeah.”

  His mother smiled and leaned against the kitchen counter. “She’s at least half shifter.”

  “How can anyone be half of a wolf?”

  “You know humans can mate with us with no problem.”

  “So, why would she have been left out on her own like that? If she were even part wolf, she would have been accepted.”

  “Sometimes. I will say I have only heard it happening with a human female and male shifter, not the other way around.”

  “Why would her mother not come to us, or to another pack?”

  The question was logical. For those who accepted humans as mates, there was a way to turn them so they could be part of the pack. Most accepted it, especially if they wanted to mate. He didn’t think he had ever heard of anyone not choosing the path though.

  She sighed. “Maybe she didn’t know. It isn’t like everyone is honorable. And if she was one who could breed with a wolf…you know that’s all that’s needed.”

  “You think that happened with her mother?”

  “There is a very good chance. In fact, there’s a good chance that the father was dead before her birth or didn’t know about her. I don’t know if I have ever met a wolf who didn’t hunt down his pups, but again, not everyone is honorable. And remember, many packs haven’t survived intact. Many of them scattered and never regrouped.”

  During the last part of the nineteenth century, packs were hunted down along with the Native Americans. Some packs didn’t survive the bloody battles, and even the Lonestar Wolf Pack had spent the first half of the twentieth century rebuilding.

  “I find it hard to believe if the father did know about her that he wouldn’t look for her.”

  Whether or not a male had been bonded to the mother, he would not willingly give up his child. They were very protective of their offspring and would give their lives for their children’s in any situation.

  “Go have a good run. I’ll make a few calls tomorrow and ask about it. I know some healers still in the business.”

  He nodded and made his way out of the house and stripped down to the skin. He drew in a deep breath and shifted. Fur appeared in a spark of light as he fell down to all fours. His body shortened, the shape of his face transformed to a long snout as his human ears dissolved then reappeared on the top of his head. Sparks of white light danced around him, then faded away when he had completed the shift.

  Raising his head, he sniffed the air. He could smell her, the musky scent that always seemed to draw him to her. He had thought that his preoccupation with Alex had been because of work. Jacob had told himself that it was normal to worry whether or not she could do her job. Now though, the very thought of being separated from her made his hair bristle with irritation.

  He shook his head and decided what he needed was a long, sweaty run. He wanted to see the place where his pack mate had been left.

  Alex parked her truck and grabbed a flashlight. She glanced around the area. Dark, desolate, barren. Not the place a girl would come by herself.

  This wasn’t the smartest thing she had ever done, but she’d wanted to at least see where the woman had been found. The road wasn’t well traveled, especially at night.

  She wound down the window and used her flashlight to look around the area. In her mind, the woman had to have been dead when they’d brought her there. Or at least, under someone’s control. There was no way for her to wander down here by herself, even though this Emily Reynolds had a history of drugs and prostitution. But that had mainly been in San Antonio. So why was she out here, over ninety minutes away from where she was last living?

  Something moved in the shadows and her body went on alert. She was safe in her truck, but she watched as the biggest wolf she had ever seen walked through the brush and to the front of the truck. It made her nervous because, even though they were seen as predators, wolves were smart enough to disappear when there were people around…unless it had rabies. This one, though, he seemed to be watching her as if trying to figure out what the heck she was doing there. It was almost as if he recognized her.

  She scrubbed her face with her hand, trying to clear her head. Lord, she was losing her mind. She thought wolves knew who she was, and she was sitting on a deserted two-lane highway where the last body was found.

  With a sigh, she turned off the flashlight and tossed it on the seat beside her. She backed away slowly and returned to town. She’d use her insomnia to do a little digging into the situation, and then return tomorrow.

  When she glanced back in the mirror, she saw the wolf standing on the side of the road watching her drive away.

  Chapter Five

  Loud banging brought Alex out of a deep sleep. She rolled over and found nothing but air. She fell, smacking her knee on her way down. She hit the ground hard, her face making contact with the floor.

  “Fuck,” she muttered.

  What a glorious start to her day off. She leaned up on her elbows and blinked. The room wavered and seemed to revolve a bit. Damn, she was dizzy from the fall. With cautious moves, she rose to a sitting position and glanced at the clock. It was just after eight in the morning on her day off. Someone was going to die. First, she would make them cry…then they would die.

  “Alex, I know you’re in there,” Jake said from the other side of the door.

  Well, hell. She couldn’t get away with killing Sanderson’s favorite son. She could but she needed a plan to hide the body. And just when in the hell did he start calling her by her first name?

  She took what little energy she had and pushed herself up off the floor. Stumbling to the door, she unlocked it, then pulled it open. He had his hand raised to knock again, but stopped as soon as he saw her. His eyes widened, then his gaze traveled down her body.

  Oh, shit. She forgot she was wearing nothing but boxers and a tank top. A small, very thin tank top.

  He didn’t hurry in his study of her attire. When he finally made eye contact with her again, she felt as if she wasn’t wearing anything. How did a man do that?

  “I went by the…uh…office and you weren’t in.”

  His voice had deepened. The sound of it brushed over her nerve endings. She had to pull in a deep breath before she could answer.

  “It’s my day off.”

  He said nothing but kept staring at her.

  With a sigh, she asked, “Was there something you wanted? You could have called.”

  “Yeah, I wanted to be sure to catch you before you went out to the site again. I mean, this morning.”

&nb
sp; She frowned at another odd turn of phrase from him. In fact, she would say he was normally one for watching every word that came out of his mouth.

  “Let me wash up and we can go.”

  He kept standing there, and she sighed again. Alex had rarely entertained, even when she lived in San Antonio. When she did, it was cops. Regular people made her nervous.

  Stepping back, she let him step in and shut the door. The tiny room seemed even smaller now that his massive body was occupying it.

  “Give me a second to clean up.”

  He said nothing but he nodded. Then she escaped, grabbing some clothes on her way to the little bathroom. She wasn’t in the mood for this. Well, she wasn’t ever in the mood to be embarrassed. It wasn’t that she minded not being as rich as Jake; it was that she didn’t like being unprepared for a meeting.

  She looked at herself in the mirror and stifled a groan. Her hair was a mess, she looked like she’d been out on a bender, and Lord, she could see her nipples beneath the thin fabric of her tank top.

  Knowing there was nothing she could do about it now, she turned on the water and began to clean up.

  Jacob looked around the small room the town paid for and inwardly winced. He definitely needed to talk to the town council about doing something else about housing for Alex. She should have an actual house, not a run-down motel room. As a leader in the community, she deserved more.

  He drew in a deep breath and tried to concentrate. Even just being in her room was driving him crazy. He still stood by the door, afraid to move any closer to the bed. It was too much temptation, especially seeing her as he had when she’d first opened the door.

  He closed his eyes and counted backwards from ten. His body did not listen. Need wound its way deep into his gut. The fact that he now thought she was his mate didn’t make things any easier. His inner beast wanted to touch, to taste, to possess. He opened his eyes as he drew in another gulp of air. That was a big mistake. The atmosphere was tinged with her scent, the one beneath all other smells in the room, the one only her mate would be able to detect. It sent another surge of lust spiraling through his blood, urging him to act.