Let Us Prey: BBW Military Paranormal Romance (Wild Operatives, #2) (7 page)

“I understand, Leigh.”

The thing I hated about Ian was no matter how much I ranted and raged, he kept a cool head and waited it out as I transitioned from despair to fury.

“The hell you do!” My sharp scream startled me, but it failed to coax a reaction out of him. “What do you know except that your current charity case is about to lose her daughter for good? Why do you even care? You don’t have anything to gain from this. Why are you here at all?”

“Are you done?” he asked gently.

Sniffling, I wiped my eyes with his handkerchief and nodded. Crying was exhausting business.

“Good. You want to know why I care so much, so I’ll tell you, Leigh. I care because after my dad died,
my
mom gave me up. She didn’t want me. When Gramps passed away, it was just Grams and me and a lot of people didn’t think she could raise a little boy alone. Maybe she didn’t make your mistakes, but she did right by me. I believe you mean it when you swear you’re off the drugs.”

The story of Ian’s family history jarred me out of my self-pity session. I stared at him through the haze of my tears. “She gave you up?”

“Yeah. I was about to celebrate my sixth birthday. She walked out of my life and didn’t try to contact me until she heard I had a big military commission. Tried to write her son the Colonel, and she made sure to ask me for money, too.”

I couldn’t imagine walking away from a child without a damned good reason for doing it.

“Did she ever tell you why?”

“Yeah, she did.” Ian’s pained smile told me everything I needed to know. I didn’t pry. “Anyway, why don’t we go and have lunch to give them a chance to return home.”

“They won’t listen to you, Ian.”

“They will. Trust me. When I finish with what I have to say, they’ll be glad to give Sophia back to you.”

~Ian~

I
knocked on the door to the James household without a single plan in my head. I knew they loved the kid, but what they had decided to do went above and beyond the call of justice. They were trying to replace their child with someone else’s daughter.

Leigh made her mistakes, but she’d received her punishments and fulfilled every stipulation set by the law. So why hadn’t the judge restored custody at the hearing? I had my guesses.

Someone peeked at me through the peephole then I heard the rustling of a security chain. As the door cracked open, I assumed my most unintimidating stance, with my hands folded together behind my back and my spine straight.

The portly older man in the doorway smiled at me, no doubt aware of the reason for my visit. “Mr. MacArthur, what can we do for you?”

“I’d like to talk to you about Leigh and Sophia. May I come in?”

Mr. James stiffened and clenched his jaw. “I think we’ve spoken enough about Leigh and Sophia.”

The whole town knew I served in the military. I had a reputation here, and I certainly didn’t plan to fuck it up by scaring an old man in his own home. I wanted to chat with him on the level, but he was making it hard to remain patient when I couldn’t even get a foot in the door.

“You haven’t talked with me personally on the matter,” I said quietly. “You can let me in now, or you can wait until I contact a lawyer. Which will it be?”

“Lawyer” was the magic word. The old man let me in this time, and we took seats in the living room, him in his chair and me on the sofa.

“I’m sorry about your son, but I’m going to cut straight to the point, Mr. James. None of you have any reason at all to suspect Leigh hasn’t turned over a new leaf. She’s clean. She’s passed every piss test the state has thrown at her. She’s working—”

“At a job you created for her,” the man cut in.

“A job is a job,” I replied mildly. “This recent request is a slap to the face. Don’t you think it’s been long enough? A child deserves to have a mother. Leigh loves Sophia. She’d do anything for her — has done everything for her. She’s been clean almost four months.”

“And when she relapses, then what? Sophia’s gonna be the one to suffer.”

“She won’t.”

“You don’t know that,” he insisted while rocking in his chair.

“You can’t punish her for something she hasn’t done yet, either.”

“She is my grandbaby. I’m not going to let her mom ruin her life, not when we can give her better.”

The way they gave Dennis better? I bit back the retort and kept the irritation from my expression and my voice. “Sophia will have a great home. With her mom.”

“In that ramshackle drug den of hers? No, Mr. MacArthur, I don’t think so.”

“No. In
my
home. I plan to marry Leigh. We’re on our way to the city hall now for the marriage license,” I spit out. My temper got the best of me and took charge, sweeping me down a road I couldn’t reverse. “I’m going to marry her and adopt Sophia. So you can listen to me now and back off, or wait to see the both of us in court. I promise you, it’s going to be costly, and you won’t like the outcome if we take the legal route.”

I knew he had Judge Ritts in his pocket, and their fishing buddy friendship was the reason Leigh couldn’t get a fair shot. What Mr. James and Judge Ritts didn’t know was one fucking phone call from me would have him removed by morning. I was willing to take a chance and call in a favor.

***

“W
hat do you mean we’re getting married?”

“I kind of lost my temper and said I plan to marry you. Then I said we’ll see them in court.”

For my safety, I decided to lay the news on Leigh after we were on the road and driving toward the next town.

“Where are we going?” Leigh demanded.

“To buy a marriage license.”

“Fuck no. I’m not marrying you.”

“Well, you might want to listen to the rest of what I have to say before you make up your mind.”

Leigh settled back in her seat and fixed me with a scowl so dark it could curdle milk. I winced and turned my attention back to the road. “I’m waiting.”

“If I’m married to you, I have the legal right to stand beside you in court. And just between you and me, I have a military history, no criminal record, and enough money to buy half this town. Alternatively, I can also pull a lot of strings to get Judge Ritts disbarred. What he did today was a severe miscarriage of our justice system, and I’ll be damned if I allow him to get away with it. You met their requirements.”

“I don’t know, Ian. He’s been a judge for forty years. He’s not a bad man. It’ll ruin him and drag his name through the mud.”

“But he’s discriminating against you,” I pointed out.

“I know but—”

“Do you want Sophia back?”

Leigh silenced. With her eyes on the window, a thoughtful expression came over her pretty face. She’d made mistakes, but the James’ decisions would follow her for a lifetime. “I want my baby, Ian.”

“Marry me, Leigh. I have a big house you and Sophia are welcomed to share with me.”

“What about...” She cleared her throat and gestured between us. “I mean, we haven’t even had a first date. Not really. Marriage is...”

“It’s convenient for both of us. In a year or so, after you finish school, we can have it annulled or divorce to go our separate ways. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable.” Like hell we would. My deepest hope was she’d come to feel for me what I felt for her.

“So that’s it? A fake marriage and I get to live in a big house?”

“Did you expect more?” I took a shot in the dark and stole a look at her from the corner of my eye. “Some kind of perverted sex stipulation?”

Hot color spread over her face. Bingo.

“Sex is a very personal, intimate thing for me, Leigh. It goes against my principles to expect you to lay down with me just because I’m giving you a hand.”

Maybe it had something to do with my shifter half. Eagles mated for life, and the few times I’d have had sex with a woman simply to satisfy a craving, the lack of attachment made me feel empty inside. Incomplete. It was an impression I couldn’t shake, too intense to risk repeating unnecessarily.

“It’s personal for me, too,” Leigh confided.

“I meant what I said about taking you out and getting to know you better, Leigh. Look, my house is big enough for you to have your own bedroom. We’ll take it slow and see how things develop.”

“What if I don’t want to marry you?”

“Then I’ll find you the best lawyer I can retain on short notice and we’ll take this to court.”

“What if I marry you and it gets awkward?”

“Then in a year, they’ll see you haven’t relapsed and we can split.” The idea had its charm and gave me a year to show her I could be the man she wanted for the rest of her life.

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“I’ll marry you.”

“Church or courthouse?” I glanced over at her and grinned. Leigh wiped the tears from her face with one hand and grinned back at me.

“Courthouse. Think I’ve had enough of church for a while.”

***

“W
ait, wait, what?” Russ choked on his beer until his girlfriend slapped him on the back.

“I said I need a best man. A witness. Whatever it is.”

“You’re joking, right?”

Dani swatted Russ. “I don’t see him laughing, hon. Of course we’ll come, Ian.”

“Thanks, Daniela, it means a lot to me.”

“Hold on a minute now. Don’t you think you’re rushing into this? Have you talked to her or told her
why
you feel so strongly about her already?” Russ asked.

Daniela rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to the bear stalker over here. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you strange shifters, it’s that your hearts lead you to the right place.”

Abashed, Russ exhaled a low sigh. “Sorry. I guess she’s right, but are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“I had all night to think about it, Russ. We were supposed to have our first official date yesterday, but after we bought a marriage license at the county courthouse, I spent the evening letting her cry on my shoulder instead,” I said.

“What I don’t get is why it’s taken so long for Ian to find his fated mate,” Dani mused.

“There could be any number of reasons, darlin’. Could be he wasn’t truly ready to settle down,” Russ explained.

I nodded in confirmation. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘there’s someone for everyone’? It really should be ‘there’s a few people for everyone’ because as our life circumstances change...”

“So do the people we’re destined to find,” Russ said. “Katie was always the woman for me, but her death made room for you, Dani. You were my other soul mate, the one I never knew I had. Because I’d bonded once in my life, it took a while for me to realize you and I bonded.”

“You guys make it sound so romantic. It would make a beautiful movie plot line, I bet. A tale of a man searching his whole life for his other half, only to find her where he least expects her.”

“Yeah, in a church of all places,” I grunted.

“My dad used to say church was the best place to find ‘em,” Russ commented.

“I guess that’s why Dani found your lazy ass in her yard like some hairy sleeping beauty instead of down the road at the Methodist church around the corner.”

Russ grunted this time. “Anyway, back to your problem. We’ll be there. Just let us know if you need anything else, like help moving her things.”

Where would I be without the support of my friends? “Nah. We’re going to start tomorrow.”

We waited two days instead, taking Wednesday as a cooling off time away from each other to decide what was best. While waiting, I contacted Argus and placed my thumb on a couple contacts who owed me favors. I prepared for the worst possible outcome, which was Leigh deciding she wanted me to go after Judge Ritts. Alternatively, if she wanted to fight, a fancy lawyer from San Antonio was waiting to come to the rescue. The man was so good my pal Argus claimed by the time he finished our defense, Sophia would be back in Leigh’s care and her grandparents would be paying child support.

Leigh didn’t want that either.

By Thursday, I drove up in my Escalade to find her wrapping photo frames and small keepsakes. Russ planned to visit later in the evening to fetch her couch with his pickup. It was too new to leave behind like the bed.

I waited until the next day, after she was long gone and clear of reprisal before calling the police department about her dealing neighbors. While Leigh unpacked some of her clothes into her new bedroom, I snuck away into my office and got on the line to the Quickdraw Police Department.

“We’re aware of some problems from that house, Mr. MacArthur,” the young woman said. She didn’t sound like an officer and had to be one of the girls in the office since I knew we had an all-male force.

“Excuse me?” I asked. “If your officers are aware of it, why aren’t they doing anything?”

“I can’t answer those questions over the—”

“I’d like to speak to the chief.” She put me through a ten minute wait before Montgomery answered the line.

“What can I do for you, Mr. MacArthur?”

“There are people openly dealing drugs down on Denning Street and you aren’t doing anything about it?”

“We’ve gotten calls, Mr. MacArthur, nothing else. There’s no proof of wrongdoing there.”

“That’s bullshit, Montgomery, and you know it. I sat outside Leigh’s house fifteen minutes the other day and saw everything I needed to know. They’ve even got the little kid rushing down the steps to peddle their dope because they’re too lazy to get off their asses.” Leigh had a card from her CPS caseworker, and while I hated to get any parent into trouble with the law, my conscience wouldn’t allow it to rest. I had to call.

“Now hold on a minute, Ian.”

“Oh, now we’re on a first name basis, are we? My fiancée is out of that house now, but I want to know what you plan to do about it. I can drive through north side at any hour of the day and catch a handful of drug deals going down by the Dixie Quarters. Why is this happening?”

“There are things happening behind the scenes that I can’t discuss,” Montgomery said. His snide tone made me wish I could strangle him over the line. “Sometimes, it’s to our benefit to allow some small fish to go free until we catch the keepers, if you get my drift.”