Leah's Triplet Mates (9 page)

He headed back to the house to try to speak to Leah, only to find the four women piling into her car. “Leah?” he called.

She stood at the car door waiting for him to cross the parking lot.

“Thanks for helping out. It means we can spend an extra half-hour at the women’s shelter.”

“Women’s shelter?”

Her mom stuck her head out the passenger window. “I’m sorry, no men are allowed on the property. Some of these women have been traumatized by the very men who should have protected them. Fathers, brothers, partners. But we truly appreciated your assistance today.”

Leah gave him a small wave, climbed into the car, and then pulled out of the parking lot. Bram raced over to him. “Where have they gone? Why can’t we go, too?”

“They’ve gone to the women’s shelter, and men are banned. We need to decide how we can see Leah again. Also, how we can get a decent amount of money for those stamps if they’re any good.”

“We have to help them get more sponsors for the food. I couldn’t bear to think of those people going hungry when there’s something easy we could have done,” said Hardy, joining them.

“Right now, we need to think about how we’re going to get home. We don’t have a car, remember, and I’m tired.”

Saxon felt exhaustion wash through his body as well at Bram’s words. They hadn’t been to bed yet, it was mid-afternoon, and he had so many things he had to do before seeing Leah again.

“Call one of the Reed brothers to pick us up, Bram. Hardy, get your car to a collision specialist and make sure they give you a loaner while it’s being fixed. Tomorrow we’ll have to be waiting outside that damn bakery at six to make sure we see Leah again. We need to talk to her about our mutual future.”

Talk wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. Dungeon time would be better. But right now, her problems were much bigger than theirs. Except… “Fuck! I have to get those jewels back to their rightful owner. Bram, you’ll have to come with me since Hardy will be sorting out our wheels.”

Bram said, “Diego will be here in half an hour to get us, but I don’t know whether he’ll let us borrow his car to take the jewels back. Where did you put them?”

“Nowhere. They’re still in my pocket.” The solid weight of them dragged his pocket down and he’d have known instantly if he’d been robbed. It hadn’t been the safest or smartest place to have them, but there really hadn’t been any time to lock them in his room or whatever.

Hardy walked over to a tree and leaned against it. “Half an hour to wait. I wish I could take a nap. Damn, I’m tired.”

Bram dropped onto the grass at Hardy’s feet. “Me, too.”

“It’s a hell of a lot of work, running that lunch program here. And they do it six days a week. I don’t know that I could keep up such a hectic pace,” he said, joining them.

“Hell no. And then they rushed straight off to the women’s shelter,” said Hardy.

“Forget about them for now. Let’s talk about the jewels. First I’m thinking about a thousand-dollar finder’s fee. That fits with our usual prices.”

“It does, but it was a very easy recover. It didn’t take us long, and the house was easy to get into. I bet Lutterworth has other people’s stuff as well. He had that stamp album and the jewels. He seems to be a complete conman. If only we knew it, I’m sure there would have been other things we could have retrieved as well and made even more money,” said Hardy.

“I’d have paid the owners of the jewels a thousand dollars because we found Leah there. Our mate. Our one perfect woman.”

Saxon liked Leah a lot and had been very much drawn into her life and her family, but he wasn’t ready to claim her as their mate yet.

“Calling her our mate is a big deal. We need to be very sure before we do that. There’s no such thing as divorce, and we can’t afford to get it wrong.”

“I know that. But no one has ever aroused me the way she does. Admit it, Saxon. There’s not one woman any of us has ever met who appeals to us as much as Leah does.”

Bram was right. Just thinking about her made his dick leap with hope that they’d be able to see her again soon. Although six a.m. wasn’t really the kind of time he had in mind, and a church wasn’t the place either. The dungeon or the bedroom would be better.

“We need to find a way to accompany her to sell the stamp albums. At least that’ll get her alone with us for a few hours.”

“You’re forgetting that it’s Maia who’s done all the work with that. Maia will be with her, too.”

Damn!

Diego Reed, the youngest of the Reed triplets, had always been Bram’s best friend, so he was naturally the one Bram turned to when they needed a ride home.

“Fuck, Hardy. I saw your car in the basement parking lot at the warehouse. What happened to it?” Diego asked as he pulled up.

“Shut up.”

Bram tried hard not to laugh at Hardy’s response, but the entire pack was going to find out about Leah sooner or later, so they might as well tell Diego now.

“We’ve found her mate, and she’s feisty.”

“Ah, man, she has to consent. Freely consent. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course we know that. Shut up, Bram. You talk too much.” That was Saxon in his usual bossy, oldest brother style.

“Like the whole pack isn’t going to notice what’s happened to my car,” complained Hardy.

Bram laughed again. He could hear Leah’s voice in his mind, as clear as anything. “You shouldn’t have locked me in the trunk if you didn’t want me to damage your car.”

Although it would never have occurred to him in a million years that she’d smash her way out of the car and escape.

“So where did you meet this feisty mate? And why did she smash your car? Or were in a road accident with her? Wait up. Weren’t you supposed to be out on a job last night?”

“We were on a job last night, and that’s where we met her. I don’t think the details are any of your business, Diego,” said Saxon dismissively.

“Uh-huh. Perhaps you’d prefer to walk home. It can’t be much more than ten miles from here.”

They’d just reached the freeway, and Bram was looking forward to a long nap and a hot shower. Certainly not to walking home. “Loosen up, Saxon. Everyone is going to know about Leah soon anyway. We met her at the job. She was in the way so we put her in the trunk of Hardy’s car.”

“She escaped,” added Hardy.

“Trashing your car in the process. I see. But how did your car end up back at the warehouse while you three were all the way back in town.”

“We wanted to see where she lives,” said Saxon.

“To learn all about her,” added Hardy.

Bram nodded. “She’s special.”

“Does she know we’re shape-shifters?” asked Diego.

That was a damn good question. He wondered if maybe she did, but how could she? It wasn’t like they’d told her. Hell, they hadn’t really had any proper conversations with her at all. He’d talked more to the people on his table over lunch than to Leah. But with the whole triplet thing, her parents had exchanged looks that made him wonder.

“We haven’t said anything to her about that,” said Hardy slowly.

“But?” asked Diego.

“Her parents exchanged knowing glances when they saw us. They spoke about meeting people with several sets of twins.” Saxon was speaking even more thoughtfully than Hardy had done. Bram knew he was right. They were triplets and shared the same DNA. There were times like this when they all thought very much the same thing, without having discussed it previously.

“I think her family knows about shape-shifters and has worked with a pack in the past. Maybe panthers, but maybe some other type of shifter. I think they recognized us for what we are. But I don’t know whether Leah herself made the connection.”

“It’s immaterial anyway. We haven’t made any decisions yet,” said Saxon.

Maybe not, but Bram knew none of them planned to let Leah go. She was theirs, whether she knew it and Saxon accepted it. Facts were facts, and Leah was a fact.

When they returned to the warehouse, Hardy moved his car out of the compound onto the roadside before he called the tow truck. In the end, the three of them stayed together. It would be easier to all get in the replacement vehicle and return the jewelry, as they could use the travel time to decide what they were going to do next about Leah.

The mechanic stared at Hardy’s car and then patted its hood gently. “Poor baby. Let Papa make you all better.”

Then he turned to Hardy. “What did you do? Park beside a soccer riot or something?”

“Almost. I get the impression someone didn’t appreciate me,” said Hardy.

“Yeah, well, stay away from them in future unless you want to fund my kid’s college education. This’ll take a couple of days, okay?”

“Thank you.”

The three of them piled into the loaner, with Hardy driving and Bram in the backseat by himself. He stared out the window, not really thinking about returning the jewelry or the tasks he needed to do for the Alpha. Everyone in the pack was expected to contribute, and repossessing misappropriated goods was the most usual way the pack funded themselves.

The pack worked not just for other shape-shifters, but also for a number of secretive government agencies, tracing and returning items that were lost or stolen. Of course, some jobs took months to complete, but they earned them tens of thousands of dollars.

Right now he didn’t want to be sent off somewhere on a long-term job, though. He wanted to be nearby to get to know Leah better. But that meant finding some jobs that would earn them decent money. The three of them needed to stay together to woo Leah. They couldn’t do it apart. A ménage mating had to be agreed to by all of them together, and that meant planning BDSM scenes and bedroom scenes that would arouse Leah because there were three of them. Scenes that couldn’t be replicated by a single lover working alone.

“I don’t suppose we could do the research, find out who else Lutterworth has treated badly, and retrieve their possessions before he gets back from his trip to D.C.?” he asked. Actually it was more a statement than a question. The answer was definitely no.

Saxon shook his head. “It might be possible to get him out of his house quickly, though, before he has a chance to realize the jewels and the stamp albums are gone. It’s fall. The weather is already starting to get cold. I wonder if someone would invite him somewhere warm for a week or two so we could do the research and reclaim the goods. That would muddy the waters a little bit, too, because it would mean he couldn’t be so sure when the items were repossessed. Let me talk to the Alpha.”

Bram remained silent, watching Hardy drive the loaner as they made their way across town to return the jewelry. Saxon explained the situation without mentioning Leah, and the Alpha must have said to leave the matter with him because Saxon closed off the call by saying a simple thank you.

Hardy drove into the huge multistory parking lot at a large mall, and they walked to the elevators and inside. Their client had an office in the professional suites, and Saxon called him as they waited for the elevator.

“He said to come on up.”

Hardy laughed. “It’d be too bad if he hadn’t said that since we’re already here.”

“He wants them back. He wouldn’t have made us wait too long,” said Bram.

The man was standing at the open door of his office. “Come in, come in. I’m so glad to see you.”

Bram followed his brothers inside and stood by the door after he shut it. Not that he thought the client would refuse to pay or anything, but they were always careful not to stand in a close-knit group in situations like this just in case there were bad people around.

The man looked carefully at the jewelry and then sighed. “Thanks so much. My sister just handed them over to Lutterworth without a thought or a receipt when he said they needed cleaning. Stupid woman. I half expected him to have had them copied and to give her back fakes already. I’m so glad you were able to reclaim them quickly. Now, are you available for other jobs like this?”

“It would depend on the task.”

Saxon pocketed the cash the client handed him without a blink while he answered. Bram remained silent, listening carefully. His panther had better hearing than the average human, but he heard no worrying noises as if someone was snooping, and there were no unexpected scents either. As far as he could tell, everything was fine.

“The reason I was so concerned about Lutterworth is because one of my associates is certain some of the ceramic figurines she inherited from her great-aunt aren’t the ones he sent off for cleaning.”

“Can you please tell us the full story?” asked Hardy.

The client looked at his watch and then waved at a group of easy chairs beside a coffee table. “You’d better sit down.”

Ten minutes later, it seemed the “associate” was a woman the client was friends with, who wasn’t his wife. She’d inherited about twenty figurines from her great-aunt. She’d loved them since she was a child, and she’d held them, played with them, and cherished them for years. One had a tiny chip where she’d knocked it against a shelf once, and she’d been heartbroken at spoiling it. Either the chip had been replaced so perfectly no one could see it, or that figurine wasn’t the original one. There was also another one where the eyes “seemed different,” according to the associate. All in all, it sounded to Bram as though the originals were gone and replicas had been given to the woman.