Samuel (Samuel's Pride Series) (11 page)

Alton backed out of the pub. He hadn’t
realized that there were so many people in the place when he’d been inside, but
now he could see that he should have been watching. The fifty or so people in
the place stared at him as he moved out, and every one of them was armed. He
was nearly to his car when the door opened and several of the patrons spilled
out to watch him.

Alton started up the road again but was
blocked by three of the biggest men he’d ever seen. Blazing red hair and big
bodies simply stood in the street until he backed up and turned around. He was
perhaps a mile down the road when he noticed that while they didn’t follow him
down the road, they did watch him. Alton decided that it was his first and last
trip to the Emerald Isle.

Picking up his phone, he had to pull
over until he had a signal. When he had what he hoped was enough to make a call,
he dialed Shamus’s number. It went to voicemail almost immediately. Alton
thought that if Shamus had his calls set up so that they went straight to voicemail,
he was going to kill the man much more slowly than he’d first thought. On the
third try over three hours later, he finally got a hold of the prick.

“You lied to me.” There was enough noise
in the background that Alton wondered if the was at a party, and that pissed
him off more. “Do you think you have something to celebrate, you motherfucker? I’m
coming for you now, and you’ll not be laughing it up then.”

“Laughing? Are ye fucking nuts?” Then
when he didn’t answer, Shamus started stammering around. “I doona know what ye
be talking about. I dinna lie to ye.”

“Are you or are you not in the United
States when I’m sitting over here in Ireland looking for your ass?” Nothing
forthcoming again. “I asked you where you were. You said you’d be waiting for
me to get here. What the—?”

“You dinna expect me to wait until ye
got there for ye to kill me, did ye?” Laughter was not something that Alton
wanted to hear from the man. “I doona know how you do things where yer from,
but a mon does not wait for his death. An Irishman goes out with gusto.”

Alton felt his temper snap. He’d had
enough of this man and what he’d been putting up with. As soon as he thought he
could speak without spewing things that wouldn’t make sense to either of them,
Alton spoke quietly and enunciated each word.

“When I find you, I’m going to tie you
to a chair before I start cutting parts off you one at a time. I’m going to
start with that tiny dick of yours and shove it up your ass. Then I’m going to take
out your lying tongue.” He looked around himself and felt his temper go
nuclear. He’d just threatened the man with witnesses.

Closing his phone, he tried to smile off
to the people surrounding him that he’d been joking. The airport was busy for
this time of night, and he had to finally get up and move to another part of
the lobby before he felt he could feel like a thousand eyes weren’t staring at
him. Alton never lost his temper, and when he did find Shamus Buehler, he was
going to make him pay for that as well.

It took him over nineteen hours to get
to Ohio. The plane he’d been about to board had had undiscovered issues just as
they were boarding, and they had to wait on some fucking idiot to make a
decision to get another plane. He had a car waiting for him in Columbus, Ohio,
and simply took a hotel. He’d go the rest of the way in the morning. He was too
fucking tired to mess with Shamus tonight. He called his man to see if Shamus
had bolted again.

“Nah, he’s holed up in some little hotel
in that town I told you about earlier.” Anderson was his go-to guy when Alton
needed someone found and the first person he called when he wanted Shamus
found. “I think he believes he’s untouchable. You’d think the prick was on
vacation or something?”

“He’s going to be when I’m finished with
him.” Alton felt himself loosen up just knowing that this was nearing an end. “Have
you located Kennedy yet?”

“Yeah, she’s around where he is. I found
an addy for you, but you’re not going to be able to just go in. The guy has her
in lockdown so tight that the only reason I know she’s there is because I
happened to see her going in. Guy by the name of Samuel Payne. Rich son of a
bitch too. Not as much as the Buehlers used to be but close.”

Alton nodded and stretched his neck. He
knew that at one time there was a great deal of money to be had by the Buehlers,
but Shamus had taken care of that. After asking Anderson to keep an eye on the
place until he got there, Alton put his phone down and lay down. He had a great
deal to do before meeting up with Shamus, and he wanted to be in top form when
he found him. The son of a bitch was certainly going to wish he’d never met
Alton Stockberry.

Chapter 11

Every time Samuel thought of Kennedy,
his cock ached to find her and take her to bed. She wasn’t going to be any
happier with him now if he went to the kitchen and pulled her away again. This
morning had been bad enough, he thought with a smile.

She’d been making something that had
involved a great deal of flour. He’d seen her standing next to the counter with
her short shirt and little shorts, and he’d walked up behind her and pulled her
into him. After she’d moaned and leaned back into him, he figured that she was
ready for him.

He’d never been so wrong in his life. Oh,
she was ready for him, all right, but the rest of the staff was not. When they’d
walked into the kitchen forty minutes later, it was to find the mistress and
master of the house lying on the floor, both of them covered from head to toe
in the white powder. The bowl had fallen at one point, but he couldn’t remember
why or when now. All he knew was that she’d screamed out his name several times
and he’d bitten her twice.

“There’s a call for you.” He looked at
Brigitte and tried to think what the hell she’d been saying. Her laughter made
him flush. “You’re deeply in love with her, aren’t you?”

“More than I ever thought possible.” She
nodded to the phone when it rang. Picking it up, he made short work of the
question that Aggie had for him and asked Brigitte to have a seat.

“Your missus won’t even look at any of
us.” Samuel had the good sense to drop his head before he smiled like a fool. Brigitte
apparently wasn’t fooled. “Crow like that around her and I think she’ll brain
you.”

“I didn’t mean for her to be
embarrassed. I wanted her, and there she was.” He flushed at what he’d said,
especially when she laughed again. “Christ, I’m going to be lucky she doesn’t
follow through with her first threat and put soft peter in my food.”

“I doubt she’ll do that.” This time he
was the one who was embarrassed, but she continued as if he wasn’t bright red.
“I would ask you for a favor, sir. It would be about the house you have in
Ireland.”

Samuel had had a solicitor send him what
he had on Rose Manor. After going over the house plans several times, he’d
finally had to put the blue print away and try to work on something else. The
house was a great deal bigger than he’d first thought. He nodded at Brigitte
when she smiled.

“I’d like…Peter and I were hoping that
when the two of you go to see the house, you’d take us with you.” He hadn’t
thought of going to see the place and was surprised by how eager he was.

“I’d like that very much. But if you go,
it’s to be a vacation for the two of you. You might as well get to see it the
first time when I do.” She nodded then shook her head. “You don’t want it to be
a vacation?”

“No, I mean yes, but it’s not our first
time there. Peter and I honeymooned there when we were younger. Much younger.” She
grinned at him as she continued. “I’d like to go back before my bones are too
old to travel over those roads again. I’ve never been to where the missus is
from, but I would very much like to see it.”

“The
Lough Neahg
is only about
twenty-five yards from the castle.” He pulled out the map he’d been looking at,
and had her come around the desk to look at it with him. “And look at this, the
little burg that we’re to keep has bed and breakfasts as well as a festival in
the spring and fall that millions of people come to.”

“Can you imagine living in a beautiful
town like that one?” They both looked at the doorway when a short knock
startled them. He watched Kennedy turn bright red again and felt badly for
making her so uncomfortable. But Brigitte asked her to come in. “We were just
looking at the maps to see where your ancestral home is.”

She walked toward them, and he almost
laughed. He’d not noticed that she’d changed and into something so hideous that
he wanted to pull her into his lap and strip her down. If she thought wearing
something so big was going to stop him from wanting her, she was very much
mistaken.

She stayed on the other side of the desk
from him. He didn’t care. Her scent called to him, and he knew the exact moment
that she realized it. Her nostrils flared, and he could feel her lioness as she
moved along her skin. Samuel watched her struggle with the cat inside of her
and hoped that she’d go out to the woods with him tonight and shift. She’d been
so afraid since she’d been changed that she’d been begging him to wait. It was
time.

“We have a boat that we used in the
summer months. The cook would go out too to get fresh seafood for dinner
sometimes.” She pointed to Lough Neahg. “‘Tis the longest river way in Ireland
and boosts the best fishing. In the spring during the
Féile an Earraigh
,
we’ll let people come through the house to see what it’s like. Shamus hated it,
but it brought in a great deal of monies for the village.
Seanmháthair
had
said that it gave a little back to the people by letting them be proud of the
house that they cared for.”

Samuel asked her to repeat the word for
grandma several times before he felt he could say it without embarrassing
anyone. Brigitte got it quickly, of course, and left them alone after saying it
several times to help him. When she was gone he looked at Kennedy. She was
upset about something.

“They’re calling me ‘lady.’” Samuel
nodded and told her how they were calling him ‘lord.’ “I’m not. The lady of the
house is my mother. I’m simply Kennedy.”

There was more to this than she was
saying right now, and he let it go by changing the subject. “I’ve been looking
into this idea I have. It’s about time I found another project, and this one is
something that I feel we can work on together.”

She looked at him, shocked. “You want me
to work with ye? I thought that you said I was to behave and stay out of
things.”

He leaned back in his chair, knowing
that this was going to come back and bite him in the ass soon. Samuel had said
a great many things to her when he’d first met her, and now he was realizing
what a fool he’d been.

“I want you to work with me on
everything. I’m not going to tell you what to do or how to do things. As you’ve
pointed out to me several times and quite loudly, you’re capable of doing
whatever you want, whenever you want.” She flushed, and he laughed. “You can’t
be embarrassed, because you have a mind of your own, love. I’m beginning to
think that you could run a business better than me.”

“More than likely.” She looked away, and
he saw the sadness before she said anything else. Wanting to ask her what it
was wouldn’t work with her. She was a great deal like her grandmother and had
to work things out in her mind before she’d talk to anyone about whatever was
bothering her. When she looked at him, he could see the fresh tears, and went
to the other side of the desk to sit beside her in the other chair.

“What is it, love? Are you homesick? Or
is this because of this morning. I swear to you I never meant for anyone to
catch us in that position. I saw you there and had to have you.” She shook her
head. “I love you,
mo ghrá
.”

“You’ve been talking to someone. ‘My
love’ is a very nice thing to say, but ‘twill not get you directions if ye be
lost in the great green world.” He pulled her out of her chair and onto his
lap. “My mother says she wants me to give her the stipend she’s entitled to so
she can never return to Ireland.”

Samuel wasn’t sure what to say, so he
said nothing for several minutes. He knew that her mother wasn’t happy with her
eldest daughter. Every time the older woman spoke to Kennedy, Samuel found
himself wanting to slap her. She never had anything positive to say to her
daughter, and rarely had anything good to say about anything. Kennedy’s brother
Michael said that their fighting all the time was one of the reasons that
Kennedy had gone to stay with their grandmother so much.

“If we give it to her, what do you think
she’ll do?” He felt her relief and wondered about it, but she got up and
started pacing the room before he could touch on it with her.

“My parents never really got along.
There were times when I wondered why they stayed together. I knew that my
mother was a very proud woman, and my father could be….” She stopped pacing and
stared at him with a frown. “He was a mon’s mon. He liked to walk the estate
once a week even if it was in the rain, and he would be known to muck out a
stall with the help if they were shorthanded. She thought it beneath him.”

“Your mother is a snob.” He’d meant it
as a joke, but she nodded. “And you think that she’ll be embarrassed by me when
I go there to run the estate.”

“Nay, she thinks you’ll do a fine job of
it. She told my sister that you’d turn a profit on a nag if you wanted. She
thinks it’ll be me that’ll embarrass you and the estate.” Samuel started to
laugh, thinking she had to be kidding. “I’ll try not to mind, but I’m who I am.”

“Thank God.” She stopped pacing again
and stared at him. “If you try to be something different, I’ll paddle your
butt. I love you just the way you are, and anyone that thinks differently will
have to answer to me. You should hear the lawyer that I spoke to last night. He
thought you being lady of the manor was the best thing that could have happened
to it. He claims you’re a great deal like your grandmother and that you might
be a tad more fun to deal with.”

“My grandmother is wonderful.” He smiled
at her defensive stance. “I’ll knock anyone sideways that says differently.”

“I think he might have meant that he was
looking forward to working with us.” She flushed, and he held out his hand to
have her come to him. When she was settled on his lap he held her under his
chin. “What do you want to do about your mom?”

“Ship her to another country?” They both
laughed. “I doona. I was hoping we could work it out so that she’d be okay with
me there, but…well, I doona think she wants to. Her mind is set.”

“I’ll have my attorney get with the
estate one and we’ll see what we can work out. I’m thinking that maybe after a
few years she’ll come around. Especially after we have a few children.” He’d
thought of her large with their child more and more lately and wanted to talk
to her about it. But when she looked up at him, he could only think about how
much he loved her.

“There’s something else we need to talk
about.” He nodded as she continued. “I doona know what to do when my body screams
at me.”

Her lion wanted out to play. Samuel
thought about saying that to her but didn’t want to frighten her any more than
she already was. Instead, he tried to think of what might work and started to
tell her what he wanted to do to her when she was a cat.

“I want to chase you through the woods. You
have a scent now that calls to my cat and he wants her to come out and play. He
knows that you’re tense about shifting, and he’s trying to be patient, but he’s
not very nice, not like I am.” She looked up at him with a grin. “I’m telling
you right now that of the two of us, I’m the nicer. He wants to run you down
and take you hard from behind while he sinks his teeth into your cat.”

The plan was backfiring. He was so hard
right now that he was sure that he wouldn’t be able to walk without letting his
cock free. When she shifted on his lap, he smiled when she moaned. There was no
way they were getting out of this room without him taking her over the desk.

“I want you.” He moaned at her
statement. When she moaned, he shifted her around so that she was facing him on
his lap. Her fingers wound into his hair, and she pulled his mouth to hers for
a long, wet, hot kiss.

When she suddenly pulled away and stood
up, he felt his cat snarl along his skin. Kennedy must have felt it, because
she growled back low. Her cat seemed to dance along her skin until he was
having a hard time telling her from the cat.

“I hurt.” He nodded and stood up.
Pulling her into his arms, his own cat started to take him, his need to have
his mate almost as strong as Samuel’s need.

“Come on, baby, let me take you outside,
and we’ll—” He stepped back when he felt her shift. The lioness took her master
swiftly, and in seconds she stood where Kennedy had.

Christ, she was big. Samuel knew that an
average lioness would weight over four hundred pounds, but Kennedy looked to
weigh at least a hundred pounds more. Her fur was sleek and the lightest shade
of tan he’d ever seen. Leaning closer to her, he realized she wasn’t just tan
but almost white.

I’m a lion
. He nodded to
her when she spoke to him. Samuel watched her carefully when she started
walking around the room. As much as he wanted to laugh at her when she stumbled
a couple of times, he didn’t. She was much meaner than he was right now.

“We’re going to go through the house,
and I’m going to stay human until we’re outside. Then we’ll go to the woods,
and I’ll shift too.” She moved along his legs, marking him with her scent. “Kennedy,
you have no idea how beautiful you are right now.”

He pulled out his cell phone, intending
to take a picture of her, when someone knocked on the door to the office. Samuel
wanted to tell her to go hide because he had no idea who it was when she
growled low in her throat. When the door opened, Kennedy went to it and pressed
her body against it to keep the door closed.