***

The next day, Alicia’s temple was black and blue from where Mario had struck her. She was seated on the couch in Darien’s home with Jake’s arm around her. Darien, Tom, Lelandi, and Peter offered her moral support as two federal agents sat down to talk with her.

One was a pretty blond with a short bobbed haircut and a smart black suit-skirt and pretty hazel eyes. The man was dark haired and dark eyed, also wearing a black suit. Both were probably in their early thirties and both professional, yet instead of appearing as though they wanted to grill Alicia, they seemed…

She wasn’t sure. Sympathetic, maybe?

That didn’t make any sense to her because she figured they would tie her into Mario’s death and his henchman’s, too. Peter had rounded up the men who had been the diversionary force for Mario at Jake’s home and turned them over to the federal authorities because they’d been involved in killings across state lines, racketeering, money laundering, and even lucrative Medicare scams. But a couple of the men had to heal from their bullet wounds before they appeared in court, Danny being one of them.

“Miss Greiston,” the woman said, identifying herself as Agent White and the man as Agent Stone, “we want to commend you for bringing Constantino and his men down.”

Alicia looked at Jake. He smiled at her and tightened his arm around her shoulder in a warm embrace.

“Your father, Antonio Frasero, started the work.”

“He… was working for you?”

“Yes, as an informant. He was working for Constantino, but only to get the goods on him. That little black book you found in your mother’s safe-deposit box? It had all the records we needed to put the whole lot away for life.”

Again she looked at Jake.

“I gave it to Peter to give to the authorities,” Jake said. “The sheriff must have turned it over to the Feds.”

“But helping you got my father killed,” Alicia said to the woman agent.

“We gave him a deal. He was working for another crime boss when we caught up with him. We had enough on your father to give him a life sentence for his own crimes. He’d only been married to your mother for a couple of years, and you were not even two years old. They agreed he’d work for us so he’d stay out of prison.”

“But my mother was dating other men.”

“Only undercover. They were Feds whose job was to make it appear Antonio wasn’t her husband or too close to her while watching out for her. We knew Mario would go after her if he thought Antonio was selling him out.”

“Which Mario did.”

The woman took a deep breath and exhaled. “She loved your father and didn’t want to see anybody else any longer. She wanted to pretend she was Antonio’s lover when she was really his wife. We couldn’t convince them how dangerous it was. Mario must have thought she knew about Antonio’s working with us and had them both murdered. Then you came along. You wouldn’t have anything to do with Antonio, so we figured you were safe. But then when your mother was murdered, you tried to arrest Mario and…” Agent White shook her head.

“Why didn’t you protect Alicia when you must have known Mario would want her dead?” Jake asked, his voice sounding irritated.

“We couldn’t keep track of her. We put bugs on her car four times, and each time she located them and put them on other vehicles. We bugged her apartment, but she never returned home. She took off from the motel in Breckenridge and vanished. We only learned of it when you had the clerk contact the police to say she had disappeared. We assumed she had vanished on her own and figured she was safe.”

“Until?”

“She was connected to Ferdinand Massaro’s murder. We learned later that he was informing her as to Mario’s locations. He was one of our informants until something happened. All of a sudden he went rogue. We think it had something to do with Mario trying to have him killed.”

Agent White cleared her throat and said to Alicia, “In any event, we just want to say that even though your father started out on the wrong side of the law, he helped to put away several who would have continued their criminal activities by keeping all the records he did. And we have you to thank for handing over the little black book that made it all possible.”

“My mother was the innocent in all this.”

“Yes,” Agent White said sympathetically. “But she loved your father and couldn’t give up on him.”

Alicia understood some of what had gone on while she was growing up. The men who had been her mother’s boyfriends had only been Feds pretending to be something they weren’t. The ones who witnessed her weddings.

Had her father ever thought she was marrying the wrong men? Her mother hadn’t. She must have thought the guys Alicia had married were good sorts because they didn’t have anything to do with the Mob. But now Alicia understood why her father had wanted to keep his distance from her, probably to keep her safe but also to keep her from learning who he truly was—all about his checkered past. And yet, somewhere deep down, she suspected he wished he could have been the father to her that he might have been, had things been different.

She cleared her suddenly gravelly throat. “Thank you for telling me about my father and mother.”

Agent Stone stood. “Just for the record, Miss Greiston, Mario Constantino and another of his henchmen were found dead in a ravine over a hundred miles from here by a group of hikers. At least that’s what the anonymous caller told us. Wild animals had eaten most of the remains. But we had enough to positively identify them. The initial coroner’s report stated that they fell off the cliff to their deaths as they were attempting to escape prosecution. If you need anything from us,” he said, pulling a card from his suit pocket, “don’t hesitate to call.”

Alicia took the card and smelled a slight scent of wolf. She looked up at the federal agent in disbelief. He gave her a wolfish smile back. But she hadn’t smelled… The air was so still in the room, and with him being such a distance from her…

She rose and stepped closer to him to shake his hand and took a deeper breath. He was a wolf.

She looked at the woman, who gave her a conspiratorial wink. They were wolves. Both of them.

“Thank you,” Darien said, and led them out of the house as Alicia collapsed on the couch.

“It’s over,” Alicia finally said.

“For us, it’s a new beginning.” Jake took her hand in his and kissed it.

“They loved each other.” Alicia swallowed hard. “I wish… I wish they could have been here to see me get married.” Then she gave a small smile. “Actually I know they will be watching over us as we get married. They’ll always be with us.”

And with that, she tugged at Jake’s hand. “Let’s go home.” To the first real home she’d ever known, ready to start her life all over again. Her father might not have been there for her, but Jake would be here for his own children, and that’s all that mattered now. “Ready to hang some pictures?”

Jake smiled back at her. “Pictures?”

The look in his eyes said hanging pictures wasn’t at all what he had in mind.

***

That day in the forest so long ago, when Jake had wiped off Alicia’s feet with his good dress shirt before he put her tennis shoes on, had made her feel like Cinderella. And now on their wedding day—since their kind never married like this, he absolutely refused to believe he shouldn’t see her before the wedding—he was helping her into her gown because, as he told her, he wanted to know how to get her back out of it as quickly as possible once the festivities were over.

She swore he was insatiable. And she loved him for it. But now he knelt at her feet dressed in his tuxedo, looking like the most handsome prince in the world while he slipped one pearl-white shoe onto her foot and then did the same with the other. When he was done, he slid his hands under her gown, up her calves and higher to her thighs, and looked up at her.

“This will be the longest day of my life,” he said.

She smiled at him. “We’ll sneak off early.” At least she hoped they could.

The fragrance of flowers perfumed the air in the forest setting as Alicia cried at the wedding. Happy tears. She hadn’t planned to. She blamed it on being pregnant. On being a sentimental sap. On wishing her mother and father could see her truly happy. But even Lelandi joined her with teary eyes, and Darien and Jake just looked at each other sympathetically.

Silva slapped Sam on the back, his gunshot wound all healed up. “Think we might do something like this someday?” she asked sweetly.

He grunted.

Lelandi laughed. “I’d be game to put on another one of these.”

Darien shook his head.

Everyone glanced at Tom, who was tugging at his cravat. “Don’t look at me. I haven’t found a girl to date, let alone mate.”

Lelandi smiled at him, the expression on her face one of calculation. Who could she find for Tom, now that Jake had gone off and found a mate all on his own?

Everyone was so busy grazing at the tables of food that no one saw Jake take Alicia’s hand and pull her away from the festivities. Or maybe they did, but she was certain no one really minded.

“We never discussed going away on a honeymoon,” Jake said, driving Alicia back to the house.

“You’re kidding, right?”

He looked at her, his expression surprised.

“I have trouble with shape-shifting,” she reminded him.

“Ah. But you won’t be able to during the new moon.”

“Can you guarantee it?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm,” she said, running her hand over his thigh. “After all that has happened in the past several months, would you think me very boring if I said I’d just like to stay at home with you? Take walks in the woods where you can show me where you’ve taken such beautiful pictures of wildflowers. Enjoy a fire and hot chocolate with whipped cream and whatever else we have in mind to occupy ourselves.”