“I seriously contemplated changing cabana arrangements when we stayed at that jungle town.”

She laughed. “You know Allan and Paul were trying to get a reaction from you.”

“That’s why I whispered in your ear. I was dying to kiss you.”

“And you did. Some kiss.” She licked his nipple and snuggled tighter against him. “Nathan made us recognize how important the pack is. I want to see him and Jessica do well.”

“We’ll discuss it with them and see what they want to do.” Bjornolf wasn’t sure he was ready to be a surrogate grandfather when he hadn’t even had his own kids yet. He ran his hand over Anna’s belly. He was working on that, though.

“We haven’t even talked about our schedule for after this business is finished,” she said.

“Schedule?” he asked. He hadn’t found anything in her profile that indicated she was fanatical about scheduling herself for anything on a regular basis.

“Sparring practice,” she said.

“Every day of the week,” he wholeheartedly agreed. He definitely would ensure that they had one room for sparring in their new home—and whatever else came up in the process. “And massages.”

“You had regular masseuses rubbing your muscles down after a workout?” She looked cynically at him.

“No, but now that I’m going to have a regular sparring partner and she’s you, I’m adding massages to the schedule. After the workout. Maybe before… to loosen us up a bit.”

She chuckled. “Yeah. Like we’re going to get any workouts done then.”

“Oh, I’ll guarantee you that we’ll get workouts. Plenty of them.”

Still grinning, she shook her head. “And weekly trips to the firing range.”

“Gotcha,” he said.

“If I get a mission that you aren’t invited to go on, then what?” she asked.

“I’ll go. Just ghost you.”

“Okay. If you get a mission that I can’t go on?”

He hesitated to answer. If the job was too dangerous, he wanted her home. He was certain she wouldn’t like that answer. He’d even thought of saying she could go on a different mission without him. But he couldn’t go along with it. For one thing, he didn’t want her anywhere on a dangerous job without him watching her back. For another, he was certain she wouldn’t appreciate that he’d sound like he was telling her what she could and couldn’t do.

He smiled and kissed her head. She was watching him, observing him as if she could read every thought going through his mind. He finally said, “If someone asks me to take on a job that’s too dangerous for you to go on, it’s most likely too dangerous for me.”

He loved the way she smiled up at him, and that led to him kissing her all over again.

***

The fire had gone out, but the Christmas lights were still twinkling on the tree when Bjornolf’s phone rang in the laundry room around two that morning. He carefully replaced the cheery, yellow-and-red quilted comforter over a sleeping Anna and then sprinted for the room.

He missed the call but saw the text. Call me. Nathan.

Bjornolf hit autodial as he pulled Anna’s white sweater out of the washing machine and laid it out gently on top of the dryer to dry. He stared at the streaks of light brown and frowned.

The phone was asking him to leave a message, so he did. Then Bjornolf pulled her jacket out of the wash. Pale mud stains streaked the front and the back. He checked the labels on the jacket and sweater, and decided it was time for some online shopping. He left the jacket to soak some more.

He opened a browser on his phone and began searching for a replacement for Anna’s lacy white sweater. Elated to find the online version of the store, he clicked on the link for sweaters and saw hers on the first page.

He glanced at the color selections. Ice white! Yes! He began to click on the links to the other colors just to see what they looked like. Stunning Black. Ecru. Royal Blue. Red Hot, Pleasing Purple. Hell, yeah, he’d have to get them all. She’d look amazing in any of the colors. Then he looked for white fleece jackets, found one, and ordered it, too.

In the meantime, he tried calling Nathan again.

“Bjornolf,” Nathan said, his breath short as if he’d run to get the phone.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Bjornolf let the water out of the laundry sink, squeezed the excess water out of each article of clothing, and then threw them into the washing machine.

“Jessica and I couldn’t sleep. She told me there’s a safe in her parents’ home where they keep important papers. She thought it might help us find some answers about the DEA agents or maybe even about her birth.”

“The feds will have a search warrant and investigate the deaths,” Bjornolf said.

“Yeah. If they can find the safe—it’s hidden. Even if they do, would they be looking into her birth records? What if they open the safe and just take everything? Then we’ve lost the chance to learn who her parents were.”

“There might not be any record of her birth. We make up our own birth records when we need to because we live so long that we have to change our records from time to time. We homeschool our children so they don’t go to public school.”

“She did.”

“Okay, so she would have had some records. Falsified maybe. It might not help.”

Nathan didn’t say anything.

Bjornolf said, “What’s going on, Nathan? Why do you really want to go to the house?”

“Jessica says that they’ve got some evidence against the Wentworths,” Nathan said. “She heard her parents talking about it. Her dad knows William Wentworth is up to his eyeballs in illegal stuff in Colombia. Everton’s mother died two years before his father. Before that, the will stated that if both parents should die, the estate would be divided equally between William, Jeff, and Roger. If either parent died first, the will remained the same. After Everton’s mother died, the will was changed.

“William coerced their father to alter the will. When their father died, all the money was left to William and Jeff. Roger got a dollar from the estate, showing that the father hadn’t left Roger out of the will by accident. That was all he got. He and Dottie talked about it a lot. A year has passed and they are still mad that William cheated him out of the estate.”

Bjornolf frowned. “So he had evidence to blackmail William.”

“That’s what we figure. Hunter said your team might have been set up. What if the evidence is in the safe?”

“All right. I’ll check it out.”

“We’re coming with you.” Nathan sounded both eager and adamant.

“No.” Bjornolf didn’t need the kids getting in trouble if he and Anna get caught trying to get into a safe in the Evertons’ home.

“We have to. Jessica’s the only one who knows where the safe is hidden. And I’m not letting her go alone.”

Bjornolf suspected that if she told him where it was located, he could find it. He couldn’t fault Nathan for wanting to help. Or be first on the scene if Bjornolf and Anna did learn the truth about Jessica. “Can she get into the safe?”

“She thinks so. You’re bringing Anna, aren’t you?”

Bjornolf would rather let her sleep, but he wasn’t leaving her behind. “Yeah.”

“We’ll meet you there in half an hour.”

“I’ll let Hunter give the family you’re staying with a heads-up that you’ll be meeting us there. If you get there first, wait for us before you enter the house.”

“Will do.”

They ended the conversation and Bjornolf called Hunter.

“Yeah,” Hunter answered the phone, sounding half asleep.

Bjornolf relayed the information to him, though normally he would have just done his job and not informed anyone he was doing it. He kind of liked the idea of having backup and not being out on a limb all by himself for a change.

Now, Hunter was fully awake. “Who do you need?”

“Jessica and Nathan are meeting us there.”

“I don’t really care for that setup,” Hunter said, but he didn’t object. He trusted Bjornolf to do what was right.

“I know. Me, neither. If she’s the only one who can show us where the safe is and can get into it, I’m going to let them go along to help out.”

“I’ll send Finn and our police officers for backup. They’ll keep perimeter watch in case anyone comes snooping around.”

“All right. We’re on our way.” Bjornolf ended the call, saw a shadow move into his space, and glanced at the entryway to the laundry room. He smiled to see Anna dressed all in black. Boots. Jeans. Turtleneck. And jacket. Her hair was tucked into a bun.

He took her into his arms and kissed her. “Good morning.”

She slid her hand down his naked chest. “Are you going as a wolf, or are you getting dressed first?”

“If we had time, I’d take you back to bed first.”

“Promises, promises.” She glanced at the mud left in the laundry sink. “Thanks for taking care of the rest of the clothes. I’ll just clean this out while you get dressed.” Then she looked at her sweater and jacket laid out on top of the dryer. She didn’t say a word, but he could see by her expression how disappointed she was. He wanted to tell her he’d bought replacements, but he also wanted them to be a surprise.

“Sorry for the late-night clandestine operation,” he said, trying to cheer her up.

“All in the job.” She smiled up at him. “We can make up for it when we get home.”

“Too bad we couldn’t get started on making up for it before we go.”

Chapter 21

When they reached the tree farm, Anna couldn’t help but look in the direction of the pit Everton had dumped her into. She’d felt the cold seep into her bones as soon as she and Bjornolf arrived.

“You alright?” Bjornolf reached for Anna’s hand, giving it a squeeze.