That hurt. He didn’t have any idea why it felt like his heart was broken into pieces, but it hurt him to his core. When he asked her what she was thinking, she looked at him for a long time, so long that he didn’t think that she was going to answer him.

  “I don’t like you. I know that it doesn’t matter to you one way or the other, but I don’t believe that I’ll ever want to either. You’re a mean person, especially to me when I had nothing to do with what has happened between us. That being said, I’ll have sex with you—but absolutely no kissing. We’re not in love, nor will we be, and kissing seems so intimate to me, and we’re never going to be that way. But with sex? It’ll be just the one time to bond or whatever it’s called, but I don’t want you to come near me again.” Again, his heart hurt and he put his paw over the pain to see if his heart was beating still. “There is something else that you should know. I have money. A great deal of it. And as of an hour ago, your name is on all my accounts. Also, I have a couple dozen houses all over the world that also you own with me.” He started to speak, but she cut him off. “Don’t tell me that you don’t want any of it. Because if you don’t have all that I have, I won’t help your brothers either. And I like them a great deal more than you. So, do I call my attorney or not to change it from our name to just mine.”

  “No.” She told him he was a smart person. He wasn’t nearly as pissed off at her than he thought he should have been. “And I agree with you. Absolutely no, not ever kissing. Not even for show. No kissing. As for money? We have very little money. Not even enough that we could live off of for the rest of the month. There is pack money, too, as well as money that will be paid to us monthly. But I don’t know how much or how much we’re to get paid when it’s time.”

  “All right. You’ve made your point about kissing. Money? You don’t need it. We don’t need it, I mean.” He asked her how much money she was talking about if they didn’t need the monthly to pay them for being pack alpha’s. “Billions of dollars. Not including houses, stocks, bonds, businesses and anything else that you can think of. And I own the Rodeo Burger company. There are five thousand restaurants across the United States You do as well. So, do you want to have sex out here or in a bed someplace? As I said, I have a house, it’s close to here.”

  He got up and shifted. Lica was glad that he was clothed, but he wasn’t thrilled about the callus way she was treating him about sex. Walking by her, he made his way back to the house, and he knew when she turned and followed him. He could feel her pain, her heart hurting, but he couldn’t do anything about it. His own was shattered as well. The thing was, he didn’t understand why. She’d been right on all the stuff that she’d said. They didn’t even like one another, didn’t get together, but because they’d been fated. But her talking about sex like it was a duty—he caught himself when he thought that. Because that’s exactly what she was saying, too. It was a duty for them to have sex. So that he could take over the pack and be able to run it safely. Christ, he wished he’d never met her. Sort of.

  She was treating him the same way that he’d been treating her. Cold indifference. He no more wanted her than she did him, apparently. When he was ready to go into the house, he turned to her and asked her if she wanted to sleep here or someplace else. She didn’t say a word but went into the house and into the living room. When she got onto the couch, a lumpy piece of shit that had come with the home, he sat on the other couch. After she pulled the blanket that had seen better days off the back and laid down. He supposed he deserved whatever he got from her.

  Reaching out to Lincoln, he told him that he’d take the pack. As soon as he laid down, he felt the magic roll painfully over him. He would have gone to Brandy, too, he didn’t know, to help her when she started screaming, but it was too late for both of them. They were getting the magic that came with his new position as the new pack alphas.

  Chapter 4

  Alan watched his daughter as she sat at her desk, making decisions right and left like she had met her mate every day, and it was no big deal. He knew a bit more about being a mate to a wolf than he had a few weeks ago. He had several shifters working for him, and they’d been very helpful in giving him information, more than his daughter would have if he were to question her about it. His employees were very forthcoming too about the information about her being mated to an alpha than he bet Lica knew. The way the two of them went about, he would wonder if the rumor was true, that the two of them would be powerful alphas. For the most part, the two of them ignored each other more than anything.

  Alan wanted it to work for them both. He enjoyed Lica’s company, and he so wanted his daughter’s happiness. Brandy finally looked up at him. Her eyes looked glazed over just a little, but then she smiled at him.

  “How long have you been here, Dad? Did I miss a meeting with you?” He said that he’d not been here long, only a few minutes, when he knew it was closer to an hour. “What’s up? I’m trying to catch up on the things I missed while I was resting.” So that’s what she was calling it when she and Lica had been knocked cold while getting the magic? Resting.

  “Yes, you were resting for a few days. It worried your mother and me a bit, but we were assured that the two of you were just fine.” It had taken him an entire day to get over the fact that his daughter was now going to be magical. Then he’d gone to his closet and— “Did I tell you that I can change my clothing with a thought? Scared me a little bit, I’ll have to admit but your mom loves it. She said she’s never going to have to go shopping for evening gowns again.”

  Brandy laughed with him, but she was distracted. He could see that, so he tried tripping her up so that he could get to the bottom of whatever was bothering her. He asked her if she had picked out the raccoons for the backyard display. He was sure that her distraction had to do with Lica and her being mated to him, but he liked the young man. As well as all of his family.

  “The raccoons come around on their own, thank you very much. I’m paying attention, Dad. I just have a lot to—I took Ayden’s advice on the local Rodeo. I got rid of everyone who worked there and denied them unemployment. Which I can do because they were a public hazard—Dad, everyone was in on that entire gross food catastrophe so I closed the place down. It was torn down yesterday, and I’ve put the land up for sale. Ayden suggested that if it doesn’t sell, put something else there that has nothing to do with food.” Alan loved that idea and told her so. “I’ll wait a few years and then open something else around here. I’ve had offers on the land, but I’m holding out until the place is cleaned up. People might not like that it was such a terrible place to…well, eat. Since it’s in a good location, I think it will be worth more after a couple of years anyway.”

  “You made us rich by having wonderful ideas like that one. What are you going to do with Ayden? I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that he’s going to be working for you soon.” She told him that she hired him a few days ago, and he was going to be an undercover shopper for her. “If you don’t just mean him going to Rodeo’s, that’s a lot of traveling, but I think that he’ll enjoy it.”

  “He was so excited to get his passport that I thought he was going to dance around the room to celebrate. The officers certainly found it to be funny. He’s supposed to be picking out him a smallish building to work from here as a base operation, or he can work from home. I suggested that he find himself a place from home so he can have a down time place to go.” After she told him about hiring the other brothers for different projects she had going, neither of them mentioning Lica, he asked her about the cattle ranch. “I don’t have anything to do with that. Since Lica and I don’t talk all that much, he doesn’t bring me in on any decisions that he makes on that side. I’m all right with that. I know about as much as he does in having a corporate meeting with the few shareholders we have. It’s working out for us for now.”

  It wasn’t, and he knew it. His little girl was sad, not always, but most of the time. He talked to her about the two ventures that they were both in on, and she seemed to have a handle on those as well. The only thing was her personal life, and it was in the shitter, as Brogan was fond of saying.

  They’d always been close, the three of them. Her mom was better at talking to Brandy about boys—well, he supposed men now, but how would one start a conversation about a man that you’d basically been married to because of him not being a human. Shaking his head a little, he looked at his baby girl.

  “Honey, I’m worried about you.” She turned away, but not before he could see the hurt in her eyes. “Want me to have a talk with Lica? Figure out what’s going to be going on with the two of you? I don’t know what is wrong, but you being sad all the time is really breaking my heart.”

  “I’m all right, Dad. Really. And no, I don’t want you talking to Lica. If he has something to say to me, I know that he’ll come to tell me. Thank you, but we’re doing just what needs to be done. We’ve not had sex, I guess that will mean that we’ve bonded or something and make us stronger, but I have no intention of doing it the one time for that to happen. I told him that, too. He seemed all right with it as well.” They’d always been able to talk to Brandy about a lot of things, sex, however, knowing that she was mated to the big wolf embarrassed him like it never had before. “I guess you could say that we’re coexisting. Not really, since he’s staying at the ranch house and I’m at my home, but it’s working out for us. I just wish he’d get it over with so that I can move on. I’m as nervous as a cat in a room of rockers. I got that from Brogan.”

  Alan laughed when she did. There wasn’t anything funny about what she’d said. He knew more than most that knew his daughter that she had always been good at covering up her feelings better than most. Even her happiness, short-lived as it was nowadays, was something that she didn’t share with many people.

  “Brandy Conner-Fraizer.” He’d forgotten that she was calling herself Fraizer now. It startled him that she would be so casual about it, too, when the phone rang and she answered it that way. When she asked who was on the other end of the call if she could put it on speaker phone, they must have agreed. “My dad is here now. Go ahead, Edmond. Tell us what you think of the new shop that is going in town. Wait, let me give him a little bit of back history with it.

  “A place that I was looking at for some office space has been rented out. The man at the downtown offices of land transfers said that he didn’t know what they were doing but they’re saying that it will bring in five thousand new jobs. That seemed odd to me because the building can’t hold five hundred people, much less five thousand. So Edmond said he’d go and check it out for us.” She asked her dad if he needed more. “Okay, Edmond, we’re both ready now.”

  “It’s a scam. Everything about the place is a red flag. I tried the phone number to call in for jobs, and they wanted my bank account information so that they could prove I was a real person. I hope no one here falls for that. I went by here today, and all the doors and windows are papered up so that you can’t see inside the place to see what is going on. But I didn’t let the ‘no trespassing’ signs give me too much trouble and I got inside. There is nothing going on in here that would have me thinking they’ll be ready for their grand opening in four days. The entire first floor looks like it did ten years ago when the shop closed down. The boxes that we noticed coming off the trucks are just stacked up in one corner like they’re waiting on someone to open them.” Alan asked if there were any names on the boxes. “Good point. Let me look. Hang on, Lica’s here too. He’s got a knife we can use.”

  Just a glance at Brandy made him realize that she had tensed up. She laid the phone down on the desk and got up to go to the fridge. It was very telling to him that she was getting as far from the phone as she could, and thusly, Lica. He told them the name on the boxes.

  “It sounds as if they were just taken out of random trash bins. Wait. They’re full of some kind of merchandise. Here’s one that’s for the ranch that has lubricant in it for the cattle.” They could hear boxes being wrestled around and it made him nervous a little that they were in a building that didn’t belong to them. “Is Brandy there with you, Alan?” He said that she was. “Brandy, did you order something from a catalog and it didn’t turn up at your home?”

  “Yes. It was supposed to have…let me look.” She went to her desk and opened her computer. “Yes. It’s signage that goes out front of the property that we’ve just closed up. Not the Rodeo but a diner that had been losing money for decades. Is the box there?”

  “There are several full boxes here for different addresses around town. Two for you. One for the ranch. A couple for a couple of neighbors. All of them are open, but the items are still in the box. I think I’ve figured out what’s going—”

  “What the fucking hell are you doing in here? This is private property.” Lica told them to call the police. The people had shown up with guns. As soon as he hung up, Brandy did just what she was told. Sending them to the building, saying that there were guns involved, she grabbed her jacket and asked him if he was going.

  “Yes. Of course.” They were out the door and running across the street, arriving before the police arrived. Four cruisers pulled up just as there was gunfire. He didn’t want her to go inside, but she was nearly in the doorway when the gunfire sounded. Alan directed the police inside and told them who was inside. Christ, this was going to be trouble for someone.

  The talking to him link thing made him jump every time someone used it to talk to him. His wife said the same thing. It was as if someone had snuck up behind them to scare you. But this time, he knew the voice. Lica told him that he and Brandy had been walking along to the store and heard the noise. Nothing more but to keep their mouth about anything else unless he tells them.

  They were both asked the same question, why were they there. He might well have said that they were looking around, but he said just what he was told to say. It was Lica who started talking that, making it sound like they were just passing by, and he heard his wife.

  “Some of these boxes are hers, and I was just wondering about that.” The man in cuffs, down on his knees with two other men, asked why he thought they’d be in this building. “But they were in here, weren’t they? You can’t dispute that. Even something from the ranch. I’ve called the company complaining about not receiving it when it’s been just sitting here all this time. This isn’t the address that I gave them to send me my things. I doubt very much if any of these people’s merchandise had been shipped here. I’ll have to go home and look, but I have cameras there. I’d like to see how they—”

  “He’s lying. We looked hard. There ain’t no cameras anywhere around that ugly farmhouse. Not her business either.” The officer asked his daughter if she had cameras. “I just told you that she didn’t.”

  “We have cameras all around the building. Remember when I came to you last month and had our company set up in a specialized room for you to watch over after hours? While I don’t know when my boxes were taken, you can bet that there is a recording of it on the back cameras to see what happened.” The man on the floor just started cursing. It was hilarious to him that the man, even with all the evidence they had on him, kept telling Brandy that he’d looked for cameras while he’d been stealing and hadn’t found any at all. Finally, it was Lica who told him to shut his mouth.

  After that, all three of the men were arrested. Lica and Edmond were admonished about entering buildings where they weren’t supposed to go but also thanked for finding the porch pirates that had the police baffled for the last several months. He thought it was a good day all the way around.

  Alan said that he was hungry and would buy them all lunch, even the two cops if they joined them. The officers declined, as he knew they would, but Lica and Edmond said that they were hungry, and his daughter said she’d come too. He thought that it was a win-win for all of them.

  ~*~

  Lica hadn’t been able to eat out as much as he was since he and Brandy had found each other. It was a blast also for him to be able to just go into any place and order whatever was on the menu. He didn’t do that, of course. Even with her having billions and billions of dollars, he knew that in order to keep that much coming in, they’d have to cut corners even now. He cleared his throat to ask about the cameras that he didn’t have around the ranch.

  “Cost? Well, if we find someone to come out and put the system in for us, and one cow or whatever it is you’re worried about gets stolen, then it will make the cost worth it, correct? I mean, how much do you lose if one, dollars to dollars when something comes up missing…I don’t know what you do, so I can’t figure out a price per whatever.” He told her, thinking it was funny that she was willing to tell him she didn’t know anything. “Okay. So, a standing on the hoof cow would weigh in at about twelve hundred pounds. Christ, that’s a lot of steak.”

  “We sell on the hoof. Which means that they weigh the steer while it’s still alive and standing on its own. Each one will cost per pound that way. One of the reasons that we’ve never butchered our cattle for the public is that you have to have a slaughterhouse that is inspected every few months. Not that we’re not clean where we sell our meat, but this was an inexpensive way for us to raise our cattle and then make a profit, too.” She asked him if they made any profit at all in doing this. “Yes. Not as much as most jobs, but it kept us in food and a roof over our heads for the last few years. Here, let me explain it to you the way that I learned it. Say your dad came to buy a steer, take it to his own butcher and have it cut up to suit his needs. But, and this happens no matter who does the butchering on a twelve hundred pound steer, your dad is going to lose weight. About four hundred and fifty pounds of the weight will be skin, some bones, and hoof.”