“What now?”she asked gruffly, not liking the train of the thought.
“Now we focus on the Pride for a while.The funeral arrangements, as important as it is, will give us some time to look over our people.I usually have a lot of pissed off members painting targets on my back, but a bomb is a different kettle of fish.It’s cowardly and disrespectful.”
She could think of better adjectives to describe that particular attempt on his life, El thought ruefully.“How are you going to look over them?”she asked, well aware that there was no point in saying ‘we’ or ‘us’.They’d never involve her in this.
“There are a few Lions who are severely pissed at me.We’ll start there.I already had them under surveillance.”
“Surely your security detail would have told you if they’d been doing anything particularly suspicious?”Shawn questioned, his brow furrowing into a deep scowl.
“Yeah, they would, but I don’t particularly trust the security details now.”
“Oh,” Shawn murmured.“You should have said.I’d have looked into them.”
“That would be like sticking a square peg into a round hole,” Trip retorted.“Everyone notices you, Shawn.”
“Exactly.Sometimes, it’s not a bad thing when people know they’re being watched.”
She pursed her lips at his retort, then mentioned, “Jeb followed me once to the pavilion.Not long after the bomb blast.”
Trip sighed.“I meant to tell them that.”
She patted his leg.“You were in a lot of pain back then.I got you back to the lodge and you were more interested in napping than doing anything else.That tells me your frame of mind right there.”
“What did he want?”Ryan asked, turning back to look at her.
“Nothing.Just to talk.I didn’t like him though.My cats didn’t either.They were agitated by his presence.”
“He has that effect on most women,” Trip retorted ruefully, making her laugh despite herself.
“Well, I can imagine that, but this was a little different.”
“Jeb’s on the watch list.He was probably making a power play.”
El shrugged.“It didn’t work.”
“That’s another effect he has on women,” Marc quipped, and she chuckled.
A sigh escaped her.“Does anyone else feel like we’re going around in circles?”
Trip nuzzled into her.“It may feel like that, but we’re getting somewhere.At least we know the Pantera aren’t involved.”
“No, we just know that, for whatever reason, my mother decided to abandon her mate and cub because of something that happened to her.Something that has nothing to do with the Pantera, but could be for a whole host of reasons why.
“We also know that, yay, my attempted kidnapping was for my fortune, and one of my mates has a hit list of men who want him dead.”She cut Trip a glance.“What a day to be alive!”
Chapter 13
Shawn grunted as the heavy dumbbells in his hands tore at his muscles.The ache was a byproduct of the tension he was burning through as he worked out.
In times of stress, he’d found that bicep curls were some of the best exercises in relieving that tension.
Of course, it didn’t always work, and today was one of those days.
But then, life had been particularly tense as of late; maybe it was too much to expect of a set of dumbbells and his arms when, only that morning, he’d received a call that had turned his frown upside down.
After a night spent with El, he was used to waking up with a smile on his face.And he had, there was no denying she’d worked that particular miracle on him.But when his Auntie Joni had called two hours later, it was as though he’d spent the night listening to his mate fuck one of her other lovers.
He didn’t talk to his mamma that often, yet they were still close.At least, he considered them as being close.They were thousands of miles apart, but he knew her schedule at the doctors, new when her prescriptions ran out, and was aware of when she had some groceries delivered as the invoice usually pinged in his email.
