Sheppard: Marshall’s Shadow – Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance (Marshall's Shadow Book 1) Read online

  Packing was a little harder than he thought it would be. Not that he owned a thing that was heavy, but the memories would flood him so badly that he’d have to sit a spell and think on things. The quilt that laid on the bed when he and his Millie had been married. There was the blanket that she’d made just for sitting that he used in the rocker in his room. Even the shirts that he had, most of them as checkered as his son’s past, were soft as cotton and warm as toast.

  His Millie had gotten him one for every birthday and Christmas. He’d teased her once that he had enough to open himself a department store. She didn’t stop buying them, and he didn’t care. It was wonderful to have a new one twice a year, and to know that she’d picked them out just for him. Sheppard missed that too.

  By the time he was finished packing up, he needed some food. Sheppard loved drive thru shopping, and got himself a big burger and a milk shake to go. Getting on the road, he thought about Harrison. He’d have to figure out how to tell her that he’d moved on, and remembered that she’d given him her number. Just in case. The thing went to voice mail when it connected.

  “Going to live with my pretty daughter-in-law and them grandboys of mine. Isn’t far from where I was staying, but you can find me. The name of the farm is Marshall’s Shadow. You come out for a visit sometime, and I’ll have my Jill Ann make you a fine meal for visiting me.” The thing beeped that he was done before he could think of anything else to say, so he pulled back onto the road, from the side where he’d stopped to make the call, and drove the few miles to the farmhouse. He was looking forward to staying there with the boys and Jill Ann. Yes, he thought, that was what he’d needed. A good talking to by someone that was strong enough to do it.

  Pulling up in front of the big farmhouse, he could see that someone was doing some work on the place. There were roofing supplies there on the ground, some other things in boxes that he’d have to check out, as well as a ladder leaning against the house by the upper floor.

  Getting out, two men came around the side of the house, and Sheppard was embarrassed to say that it took him too long to recognize that it was his grandboys. If he didn’t miss his bet, it was Shep and Heath. Both of them hugged him up like he’d been gone forever.

  “Grandda, you still have that old caddy, I see.” He hugged Shep again when he commented on his car. “You staying? I’ve only just got the kitchen fixed up, and it’ll be nice having some company.”

  “Where is that momma of yours? Her cherry pie is all I could think about all the way here. We should make some homemade ice cream too.” When they didn’t laugh with him, Sheppard just knew that she’d gone and left him. “No. Please tell me that she’s not gone too. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “You didn’t seem to be in a place that made us feel like you’d take it well.” That was true enough, he thought, but they still should have said something. “She didn’t want much, Grandda. Just a little service and no one there but family. We didn’t even put it in the paper for fear of Dad coming along and making a scene.”

  He was taken into the house. Sheppard wasn’t sure if he’d been carried or he’d walked on his own, but there he was sitting in the parlor with a blanket over his legs. He’d forgotten how chilly this room could be.

  “She go fast, or did she have herself some trouble with it? I didn’t even know she was sick, to tell you the truth.” Heath said that she’d had a car accident, and that she’d died on the scene. “That woman never could drive. I loved her, you know. More than your daddy.”

  “She knew that too, Grandda. Ma talked to us about you daily. Even when you moved out there to that home, she thought of you daily.” He nodded at Heath, telling him that was nice of him to say. “When we were cleaning out the freezer, we found some of her pies. If you’re staying here tonight, we can thaw one out and have it with some steaks. Shep is living here for now. Maybe forever. He’s not decided.”

  “You home for good, boy?” Shep nodded. “Good. A man should be where his roots are. I never cottoned to you being so far away, but I do know that you needed to stretch your wings a bit. Being out there on the water all the time, I’m betting you had to get your earth legs back under you.”

  “I did.” They all three laughed and Heath said that he had to go into town for a bit, but he’d bring back some steaks. Shep looked at him when he asked him if he was all right. “I’m not sure, Grandda. I’ve missed so much here. Not just the family, but everything. When I left here all those years ago, I had it in my head that it would only be for a little while. Then before I could think about it, nearly all my life was gone.”

  “Don’t say that, Shep. You got a long life ahead of you.” He nodded. “Something else is bothering you. You tell me what it is, and I’ll tell you it isn’t worth a hill of beans to be worrying over.”

  “I couldn’t give Ma what she wanted.” Sheppard didn’t know what to say to that, so waited for his grandson to explain. “All she talked about was having a daughter-in-law to go shopping and such with. She said she needed to have a balance in some way. And a grandbaby. I didn’t do any of those things.”

  “You think that is all she wanted out of you boys? To make you into breeding machines? Darn it, boy, she was as happy as a lark having you six around her all the time. I know for a fact that you protected her from that son of mine on more than one occasion. And it wasn’t you having a wife and a child that would have made her happy; it was having you happy to have a family of your own.” Shep said that they had all loved her. “Well, of course you did. She was a woman that you’d be hard pressed not to love. Jill Ann, she might have said she wanted those things from you, but you can be sure as rain making mud in the dirt that she was just as happy with you six being here with her and loving her.”

  “I did. We all did.” Sheppard stood up and asked where he would be staying. “You’re here for good? You’re not going to be cramping my love life, are you, Grandda?”

  “Just so long as you won’t be cramping mine, you whippersnapper.”

  Shep helped him bring his things into the house. He started to put him in the master bedroom, but Sheppard didn’t want it. He didn’t think it would be right for some reason. But he was just down the hall, and that suited him just fine and dandy.

  Chapter 2

  Harris moved into the house, keeping an eye out for someone that might want her dead. She supposed that there were a great many people that wanted her dead at the moment, but she didn’t really care. She had a job to do, and she was going to do it.

  Moving as silently as a mouse through the living room, she saw that the man that lived here was going to be a fat fuck. There were pizza boxes and fast food bags everywhere. There were times, like right now, that she’d like to just sit down and wait for the fucker to come back to his steaming pizza and kill him then. But there were rules, and she had to follow them. Most of the time anyway.

  “We have heat in the room just to your left.” The voice in her earphone spoke quietly too. “I think he’s in the shower. The heat goes hot to hotter every few seconds.”

  Harris wouldn’t answer him. Her voice would carry no matter what the circumstances were around her. Instead, she moved to her left and found that the voice had been right. The shower was running.

  “Boss said to tell you to break his neck. I believe he thinks you’re super woman or something.” She nearly laughed, but caught herself. The kid, Tommy, whom she’d never met, was going to pay for that if anyone was listening in on the other end of their conversation. “Sorry. I’m a tad stressed right now.”

  Harris knew that he was. Everyone was. With the changes that were coming in her department, she wasn’t sure if she’d have a job in a few weeks or not. It didn’t matter to her one way or another. With her skills, she thought that she could get a job just about anywhere she wanted. Harris wondered if she could flip burgers for a while.

  The water turned off and she slipped into the steam filled bathroom. He was a fat fuck, just as she’d known he’d be. And h
e couldn’t carry a tune, either. His singing was so off key that she wanted to kill him just for fucking up the song she’d heard recently.

  This man was on her list of people that had fucked up so badly that he needed to be taken out. It was her job to make sure that they didn’t do the bad thing that they’d been doing any more. Harris laughed a little. That made it sound as if they’d stolen a candy bar, when in reality they’d been screwing the government in some heinous way.

  He saw her just as she lifted her gun up. He glanced at the gun that was on the sink, too far away for him to get to easily, so Harris made a quick decision. Kill him like she’d been told.

  There wasn’t any way that she was going to get to break his neck by grabbing him, so she kicked his feet out from under him with her foot and watched him tumble into the tub and hit his head. That was it, he was dead.

  Moving through the house, she was careful not to disturb anything else. Going to the basement in the house, she heard the voice in her head. He sounded slightly more stressed than before.

  “I don’t see a heat signature anywhere in the house but you. All the cameras have been turned off since you entered, so you have no worries on that part. There must be a short there or something. Also, along the streets surrounding the house for five miles.” She didn’t say anything as she went down to the lower levels with her gun still at her side. “I know you can’t answer me, but I’d like to tell you that wherever you go after this, if we’re shut down, I’ll work with you. You’re the best there is.”

  The cinder block cell had only a small opening. She supposed that it was for feeding the man she’d been sent to find. Taking the key off the ring next to the cell, she opened the huge steel door. The man there cried, and begged her not to hurt him again. Harris pulled out her badge and showed it to him. Nodding, he just stared at her for several minutes.

  She was dressed in a body suit that made sure that only her eyes were showing. No DNA would be left behind when she left. Harris would not leave any prints because of the gloves she wore. And since she’d not had to use her gun, there would be no way that anyone would think that anyone had ever been in the house.

  When he opened his mouth to speak, she put her finger up to her lips to tell him to be silent. He was more than cooperative, but too weak to move on his own. Helping him to stand, she put him over her shoulder and made her way out of the house and to the car on the next street over.

  Harris ran and lifted weights daily just for this reason. It wasn’t the first time that she’d had to carry out a person that she was to rescue. She thought of Mr. Sheppard as she put the man in the back seat and covered him up. The old man was going to live a good deal longer simply because she’d been having a shitty morning. Smiling, she realized that every day was a shitty one in her life.

  After calling in that the cake was baked, the stupidest way she’d ever heard of telling them that the job was finished, she got the coordinates to meet the helicopter at the pad to transfer. Harris could cook, so long as it had microwave instructions on the box and it wasn’t popcorn. Never in her life had she been able to make a thing of popcorn in the sucker without burning it to a nasty crisp. She had no idea why that popped into her head. It had nothing at all to do with calling in to get the body removed.

  The transfer went smoothly, and she turned in the gun that they always gave her. Harris never only had one gun. If she had all these years, she’d have been dead a while back. Getting onto her bike, she pedaled her ass to her car to drive to the hotel. It had been a long week.

  The television was off, and she was sitting at the table making notes when the hotel phone rang. She didn’t even bother getting up to answer it, but did unplug it from the wall. It mattered little to her who knew she was here. Yesterday she’d taken a tour of the chapels here, and today she was going to go and look at the old cemeteries that had been on her list of things to do. Anyone would think she was a single woman going on a nice vacation.

  The knock at her door, like the phone, went unanswered. She’d not ordered anything, and the sign on the door, Do Not Disturb, should have kept the staff away. Pulling her gun from its holster, she held it in her hand when the second knock came.

  “Miss Smith? This is the desk clerk. There is an urgent phone call for you.” She didn’t speak, but did get up to look through the peephole. Of course, it was blacked out somehow. “It’s a man by the name of Reynolds.”

  Unlocking the door, she stepped back and into the closet that was there. Just as soon as the door was opened, two shots shattered the window by her bed, as well as the lamp. Firing once, she killed the man that entered.

  Harris didn’t see anyone else, but that didn’t mean shit. Sliding to the desk, she picked up her notebook as well as the pen she’d brought. The rest of the stuff in the room was window dressing. Nothing of concern, and no fingerprints in the room. She didn’t have any to leave.

  Snaking her way out into the hall, she saw that the man had been alone. The idiot hadn’t even bothered to steal a uniform to hide who he was pretending to be. Pulling him into the room and locking the door behind her, she tried to think what to do now. Putting several towels under his head to catch the blood, she used one of the pillows to absorb more if he bled out.

  Obviously she couldn’t call her boss. Whoever sent this guy not only knew she was here, but that he’d have to be slick about getting in. And the only person who would have known that was her boss. Another clue to that was that he knew the name of the person that they used. Reynolds was a code name for her to know that they were from the company.

  Harris thought about the three cameras she’d found in the room, as well as the two mikes. She should have been forewarned when she found them. Unbeknownst to anyone, Harris had a special knack of finding all sorts of things like cameras and recording devices. It had saved her from having her face plastered all over the world.

  Pulling out her cell, she saw that she had another message from Mr. Marshall, but didn’t have time for it at the moment. Instead, she called Carol. Carol was the person that she had befriended who did amazing clean up jobs.

  “Carol’s Dry Cleaning. How may I help you?” Harris told her the number, then the name that she used with her. The number was one that they had established for her to work for her. “Where might I pick up your cleaning, miss?”

  After giving her the name of the hotel, she heard the elevator ding. It might not bode well for her to stick around here. Harris was glad now that no one had this number but Carol and Mr. Marshall.

  “I won’t be here. Bill me.” Carol said that she could do that, and asked what she was getting for her. “One. Head wound. I’ve done the best I could.”

  “All right.” She gave her a time when she’d be there and said that she would get it done. “Thank you, miss. I look forward to working with you again.”

  After hanging up, Harris grabbed her large bag, put all her personals in it, the notebook, gun, and extra clips, and was out the door. Her big hat was perfect for covering her face, and the sunglasses were huge on her small face. Christ, this was a nightmare.

  There was no one in the hallway when she stepped toward the elevator. Smiling at the two big beefy men that were in the elevator, she asked if it was raining yet. When neither answered, she rode down when they got off. Might be a bigger mess than she’d thought.

  Harris had taken care that the company knew very little about her. They thought that her name was Cora Banks. If they were to pull up the file on her, they’d find nothing but blank paperwork. The picture would be of someone that she’d found in a new wallet. And there was no known address for her. Basically, like her, everything in her life was a front to them. Harris was little more than a ghost to anyone—with the exception of Mr. Marshall.

  Pulling out her cell, she pretended to shop and talked to him on her phone. He told her where he was living and what he’d been doing since staying there. Then he said that his girl, Jill Ann, had been killed. Her heart broke for the elderly man
. He really had loved her very much.

  Snaking her way in and out of shops, she didn’t think she was being followed. Taking off the sweater that she had on and pulling on a hoodie, she put her things into her bag. The hat came off with her wig, and she moved to a few more places. Things were getting out of hand, and she was afraid for the first time in a very long time.

  Harris needed a place to hide. The only person in the world that came to mind was Mr. Marshall. But she didn’t want to bring trouble down on his grandchildren’s heads, so she had to think of something else.

  Just as she moved into one of the many stalls that were along the alley where she was, a pain in her left side alerted her to trouble. Whoever was out for her wanted her dead. Moving to the next stall where Tamara, a contact and a good friend of hers, worked, Harris slipped under the counter where Tamara hid her, and tried to collect her thoughts. As she laid there thinking, a first aid kit was tossed at her and she tried to move around to take care of it.

  “They have gone by. What have you gotten yourself into today?” Harris only smiled at Tamara. “No telling, huh? You’re not bleeding badly, so turn and I will fix it for you.” Tamara had taught her French, and in turn, Harris had taught her how to speak English. Neither of them were good at it yet, but their friendship had grown a great deal. “Gone through, so you should be fine if I stitch you up.”

  “I need to get out of here. They might be able to figure out where I am, and I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

  Tamara just huffed at her as she sprayed something on her skin to freeze the wound. As soon as she felt the needle enter her flesh, she tried to think of anything but what had just happened to her.

  ~*~

  Shep was just falling asleep when the phone rang. He’d forgotten that he had it turned on, and when it rang a second time, he was sure that someone was going to pay dearly for making him get up to answer it. Barking out his name, he waited for the person on the other end to either speak or hang up. He was hoping for the other. Then a woman speaking French started talking quickly.