Redeemed (26 page)

“My head hurts like a motherfucker.” She glanced to the side and gasped. “Not as bad as his though.” She lifted her gaze back to Ashley and smiled. “You did it. You fucking killed the bastard.” Her voice was rough.

Ashley stood and backed up a few paces. “I’ll go to jail, won’t I?” She shook her head. “I’m a murderer.”

“No. Sweetie…you’re not a murderer. He is. You won’t be responsible for any more than answering a few questions at the scene. He came here to kill you—and me, for that matter. You acted in self-defense. That’s different.”

“Are you sure?” What if she never got to hold Evan again or feel his arms around her?

“Absolutely.”

Ashley shifted her gaze to the dead man on the floor. Blood. So much blood. Who knew the human body held so much blood? It pumped out of his chest where the knife had been and blended with the white paint to create a stream of pink across the floor.

Ashley glanced down at the knife in her hand and suddenly released it as though it had the plague. If she never touched another knife in her life, it would be too soon. It clattered to the floor and she watched as it bounced into the paint.

Sirens. She lifted her gaze and listened. The police were coming. The sirens grew louder by the moment and her chest began to pound. What if Samantha was wrong? What if they arrested her? She’d killed a man. Never mind he was a bad man.

She looked back down at his body, memorizing this scene so she could replay it again in the future. She never wanted to forget his dead lifeless body splayed out on the floor. It would cut down on the nightmares and help her remember she was alive and he could never hurt her again. No matter what Fate lay in front of her.

Ashley closed her eyes as she listened to the squeal of police vehicles screeching to a halt around her house.

She took a deep breath.
It’s going to be okay… It has to be
.

Evan held his mate close. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and leaned in to breathe her in—a mixture of her shampoo, her girly soaps and her own personal scent.

The warm breeze coming off the ocean whipped around them both, blowing her hair into his face. He didn’t care. His vision was blocked to the sunset she’d so badly wanted to see over the endless water. It had been her dream, not his. He didn’t care if he never saw another sunset as long as he had her with him.

He’d insisted on a vacation after they’d finally worked through the red tape with the police department. She’d worried endlessly about being arrested and it had taken days to convince her no one was going to accuse her of murder.

When she said she’d wanted to see the ocean, Evan had known immediately they would come to Florida and she could meet his parents. His mother had been ecstatic when Evan told her they were coming. She’d rolled out the red carpet and prepared the guest room as though he and Ashley were royalty.

Ashley and his mom hit it off in minutes, sharing their love of art as Veronica had given Ashley a tour of the entire beach house. Evan’s father, Roland, was more reserved, but Evan had seen the twinkle in his father’s eye as he’d congratulated the two of them on their mating.

The beach house was the perfect vacation spot. They could enjoy endless sun and warm water, while sleeping soundly in a home protected by Evan’s parents. He’d known Ashley would relax better with more people in the home. Eventually they would have their own place, but in the meantime, his little mate relaxed incrementally the more people she had surrounding her.

As much as he wanted her all to himself, he enjoyed her calm and peace more.

Evan still worried about whoever Damon’s supplier was. It niggled in the back of his mind that Damon hadn’t acted alone. Someone had to have been supplying him with the drug he’d used on Ashley. The evidence concerning other women was piling up. Any day now he knew a team of people were poised to advance and make a sweep in several cities at once.

The only thing that calmed Evan was convincing himself the drug supplier had no motive to be interested in Ashley. She was a victim and no threat to the chain of command.

Ashley had woken up screaming every night for the first several nights, sweat pouring off her body and soaking the sheets where they slept in her childhood room at her parents’ house.

They’d never go back to the house he’d owned when he met her again. There were very few things they even wanted to salvage from the place that now held so many bad memories. Josh and Nathan had gone in to retrieve her artwork and several other items of importance. They’d packed up Evan’s office and moved everything to Ashley’s parents’. The rest would be sold along with the house.

They would build another, design it together as soon as she was up to it.

For now, they were taking a week to rest and recuperate.

He closed his eyes and held her tighter until she squirmed. She giggled. “Evan, you’re going to break a rib. Not so tight.”

He smiled into her neck and nibbled his way to the back of her ear. So sensitive. Her skin was so smooth. He dragged his tongue down the long muscle.

Ashley squirmed to get away from him. “Stop licking me. It’s weird.” But her voice was jovial. She wasn’t the least bit chagrined by his attention. In fact, he knew from experience how much she liked it when he licked a path across her neck, her nipple, her clit, the soft folds of her pussy…

He stopped anyway and lifted his gaze toward the setting sun.

“It’s so beautiful,” she muttered under her breath. She twisted her head to briefly look into his eyes. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he teased.

“For bringing me here. For loving me. For making me the happiest woman on the planet. I love you.” Her face lit up as she said those words. She said them often, but they couldn’t be said enough. He would never tire of hearing them from her lips.

He was so lucky to have found her. It would take a long time for her to heal fully, but she was strong. His little mate was made of fire. She would survive and thrive. And it was a good thing because… “Ashley, I need to tell you something.” He ran his palms down her torso and splayed them across her belly.

“What?” She turned to him again, worry filling her eyes as they widened.

“You’re pregnant.”

“What?” She nearly screamed. She twisted in his arms until she faced him, the sunset forgotten. “How do you know?” She shook her head.

“I can smell it, baby.” He grinned at her. “And you’ve been ignoring the signs.”

“What signs?” She bit her lip, not willing to accept his words, to hope.

“You’ve been tired. You’ve been queasy. You’ve had trouble eating in the morning. Your breasts are fuller.” For emphasis, and because he couldn’t resist, he lifted his hands to her chest and lifted the swollen globes in each palm. He set his forehead on her temple as her mouth opened. “And your nipples are sensitive,” he added, stroking his thumbs over the distended tips, making her moan.

Her eyes shut. Her chest pounded under his attention. “I thought I was upset from…”

“I know you did. But believe me, you’re pregnant. You’re going to have a sweet little girl in about seven months that looks like you, and I’m going to wrap her around my finger and spoil her until she’s so rotten no man ever wants to take her away.”

Ashley giggled and opened her eyes. “You can’t know it’s a girl.”

“Nope. But I can hope. And if it’s not, the next one will be. Or the one after that.”

She gasped. “How many kids do you plan on having?”

“I don’t know yet. As many as you’ll let me impregnate you with, I guess.”

“Let’s start with this one and then talk.” She turned her head to one side and leaned her face against his chest as he hugged her tight.

“I love you, Ashley Harmon.”

“I love you, too, Evan Harmon.” Her breathing slowed. Finally she muttered into his chest. “We missed the sunset.”

“We’ll catch the next one. I hear it happens every day at about this time.”

“Ha ha. You’re so funny.”

“We have a week. I want you to spend that time relaxing and worrying about nothing except gaining more strength, soaking up the sun, and staring at the sunsets. Leave the rest to me.” He pulled her back to arm’s length. “Deal?”

“Deal.”

Becca Jameson lives in Atlanta, Georgia. When she isn’t writing, she can be found reading, editing, scrapbooking, running, swimming, biking, or taxiing kids. After enjoying several years on the editing side of the business, she decided to give writing a try. Now she can’t stop! And the voices in her head are clamoring to get out faster than she can get them onto “paper”. Becca writes both contemporary romance and paranormal, but there is no telling what she may come up with next.

http://www.beccajameson.com
  

“What in the shit did you do our mate, Jackson?”

Marc flipped a lock of hair off the cheek of their sleeping mate and smiled when she turned her face into his hand. A bruise had bloomed above her left eye, courtesy of Anna’s up close and personal meeting with the floor. They’d be lucky if she didn’t have a concussion on top of the migraine Jackson hadn’t believed she had. Behind him Colton questioned Daniel Jackson, part of their pack and the officer who had pulled over and falsely arrested—or brought in for questioning as he claimed—Anna for stealing her own car. Colton was looking into who had made the claim in the first place, though both of them felt it had to have been her ex, now known as Peter Belky.

“Nothing, Alpha. I swear. She started looking sick in the car and said something about a migraine. I thought maybe she was on something. As soon as I got her into the station, she puked all over me and then just kind of fell over. I’m sorry, Alphas. I called you as soon as it happened, since she said she’d been talking to you.”

Marc snorted, and with one more caress of his thumb over the knot on her forehead, stood and turned to Jackson. “You deserved to get barfed on, dumbshit. Didn’t your mama teach you better than to treat females with such disrespect?”

“Yes, sir.” Jackson’s cheeks were ruddy with embarrassment. He fidgeted with his hat, ready to bolt at the word go. “I didn’t know she was your mate, Alphas.”

“No one does. We just found her today.” Colton stepped closer to the couch.

“And since we haven’t even spoken to her yet, you’ll do well to keep your mouth closed until further notice. Do we understand each other, Jackson?” Marc crossed his arms over his chest and begged Jackson to say anything other than yes.

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Now get out of here. Oh, and where’s her car?”

Jackson stopped his quick retreat from the lieutenant’s office where they’d taken Anna to lay on the couch when she’d fallen off the chair, and swallowed. “Probably already at the pound. I called it in right after I stopped her for speeding and learned the car had been reported.”

“Fine. We’ll take care of it.” William Shine ran the pound, and he was one of theirs. They’d have no problem retrieving Anna’s SUV. In fact he watched Colton pull his phone from his pocket and dial before Jackson had completely exited.

Now their mate was sacked out on the couch, dead to the world after one of their paramedics had given her a shot of something for the pain. Must have been one hell of a headache to make her throw up and pass out on the floor. Having never suffered from such a burden, he couldn’t comprehend.

“How often do you think this happens to her?” Colton kneeled next to the couch after his quick phone call and stared at Anna. Marc could tell his brother wanted very much to touch her.

“Hell if I know. Not too much, I hope to God.”

“Zach went through her purse and found a bottle of prescription pills.” Colton gave in to temptation and drew a finger slowly down the skin of Anna’s arm. “That means it happens enough she has to carry it with her. Damn thing was just filled two weeks ago, and he said there were two missing. He also found an epi-pen, which means she has some kind of severe allergy to something. We’ll have to find out what and be hyper-aware until we can mate her.”

“Damn. On both counts. Thank God for shifter DNA. It’s always made human mates healthier and live longer in the past, so it should help with this also.”

“I sure as shit hope so. I won’t be able to stand watching her be in pain.”

Anna moaned and curled into her hands beneath one cheek. A second later she grimaced and opened one eye. It blinked several times at them, as if trying to decide if she really saw two men standing in front of her or had double vision.

“Am I in prison?”

Colton threw his head back and laughed while Marc joined him again in his kneeling position.

Anna reared backward. “I really don’t see anything funny with going to jail.” Her eyebrows lowered and swiped a hand across her forehead. “Where am I, how long have I been here, and why do I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck? And why is there cotton on my tongue?” Pushing her tongue in and out, trying to moisten it, she made a move to sit up, and both Colton and Marc took an arm to help her.

“At the Grundy County police station, a couple hours, and probably because you conked your head on the floor. There’s a pretty good goose egg there now. As for the cotton, that’s most likely due to whatever the medic gave you for pain. Apparently you were pretty vocal after you fell off your chair.”

She blinked again when Marc finished. “Who are you?”

“Marc Newberry.” He offered his hand when he would have much rather pulled her into his arms and kissed her senseless. If he didn’t think she’d take immediate offense, he would have.

Her gaze lasered into him for a moment and then shifted to Colton. “And you, Detective Albatross, what are
you
doing here?”

Colton growled, which had Anna backing up again and sucking in a breath. “A: my name is Montross. Colton
Montross
. B: this is my station, the one I’m assigned to, and C: I’m here because Officer Jackson called me when you mentioned my name to him.”