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CHAPTER NINETEEN“What do they want with you?” Bradley asked after she told him about the encounter.
“I don’t know. They didn’t say. They only told me not to tell you and to show up to meet them tomorrow or suffer the consequences.”
“What sort of consequences?”
“I have no idea. They didn’t tell me anything beyond that.”
“And they came here? They were on our property?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“Think so?”
“I’ve been going for walks through the woods. I found a large pool to relax in past the blanket of trees and the stream. The stream flows into it.”
“Yes, I know the one. That’s at the edge of the property. If you are on one side, you are on our property line. The other side belongs to some food corporation that owns acres and acres of crops on the other side of the woods that separate us, but their boundary comes up to the edge of the pool.”
“That explains why they were all gathered on the one side. They didn’t want to come onto the property for some reason.”
“Warrants. I’m guessing they didn’t have one.”
“What do you think they want, Bradley?”
“I don’t know. We’re a bear clan. There have been deaths. You know that. Perhaps this ties back to Cullen somehow. Did they know who you really are?”
Kay looked up, surprised she had forgotten to mention that part of the discussion.
“Yes. They knew about my new identification and about our fake marriage. Does everyone know all about me? I paid that place ten thousand to keep my new identification under wraps.”
“I paid them another ten thousand to keep our fake marriage private. Surely, they aren’t this stupid? They’d be quickly out of business just by word of mouth with this kind of success rate, or lack of success rate.”
“I don’t know, but they are after something and it doesn’t seem to be about me. It seems to be about you or this clan. What they know about me is just leverage to get me to talk to them.”
“All right, well, this is what we are going to do. Tomorrow, you will take the Lexus and go into town to meet with them. Say nothing about our discussion and tell them nothing. Just hear what they have to say and then tell them you’ll have to think about cooperating. It’ll buy you maybe a day. They won’t wait long, but it’ll give us time to figure out what this is about.”
“Maybe it is about the marijuana you’re growing in the woods,” Kay offered.
“What?”
“I’ve found three fields so far,” she told him.
“Three fields where?”
“You really don’t know?”
“Absolutely, I don’t. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want certain people to have control of this place. They planted it while they thought Walter was too sick to notice. I forced them to destroy it. I can’t believe they managed to get it back out there without me noticing. I’ve been too busy to traipse too far through the woods.”
Kay told him where the fields were located. She believed that he knew nothing about them, but would the FBI really be sending so many agents to get her attention over a few fields of pot? It didn’t make any sense. Then again, perhaps the pot wasn’t all they were cultivating.
“I’ve got to go out. I’m going to get a few of the guys I trust to shift and go with me to locate and destroy those fields. We’ll need to look for any you might not have found too. Better to do it tonight while they aren’t expecting us. They’ll be watching this place come daylight, probably tonight too, but they won’t be expecting bears.”
“Be careful. Those guys were armed to the teeth.”
“I will. I’ll be back before you leave in the morning. We’ll go do some recon now and then clear whatever we need to clear after dark falls.”
“Okay. Be careful, Bradley. I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said before heading for the door. Then, as if it was an afterthought, he stopped and turned back to her. “Thank you for trusting me, for telling me.”
Kay smiled at him. Of course, she trusted him. There was a part of her that knew there were things that he hadn’t told her, but she had come to believe him when he said it was to protect her. It was just something she would have to accept being mated with the alpha of their clan.
She went to bed that night, determined to get some rest before whatever came her way in the morning, but sleep was hard to find. Eventually, she dozed off, managing to get a few hours in before it was time to get up and tend the horses before her appointment.
“Good morning,” one of the ranch hands named Thomas said to her as she made her way downstairs.
