Colin: McCullough's Jamboree - Erotic Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance (McCullough's Jamboree Book 1) by Kathi S. Barton Page B

while she finished her conversation. When she hung up, he knew that Boyd was going to help her. “I have to go in sometime when the office is closed. I don’t need to alert whoever is doing this to me that I’m…we’re onto them.”
    “Good idea. And Boyd is the best at what he does.” She nodded and told him she knew. “You do? And when did you find this out?”
    “I knew your brother Hawkins before he joined up. Not long before, but enough that I had him and all of you investigated. I wanted him on my team. But I also didn’t want some looney there either. So I checked him out.” He waited for her to explain, or at the very least tell him what she’d found out. “Hawkins proved himself even before the reports came back about you guys. He has been at my side since the beginning. Hawkins is one of the best soldiers I know. He’s the type of man that you know when he says that he has your back, you can damned well bet he has it.”
    “He has a great deal of respect for you as well.” Lauren said nothing as she sat here. The big desk was still in some sort of wrapping, and the chair that more than likely came with it was sitting by the couch. She was currently sitting in the wingback that he was sure was supposed to be in front of the fireplace. The place, the entire house for that matter, had an open freedom feeling to it. “You designed this place, didn’t you?”
    There was an openness that he wouldn’t have thought would work in this room and the others on this main floor. Doorways were wide, with pocket doors that slid silently into their places. The furniture was new but had a worn, comfortable look to it, and the shelves—and this room had plenty—were filled with books. No foo-foo, as his mom called it. Just books.
    “There were three rooms in the house that I spent the first years of my life in. My room, my biological parents’ room, and a central room that I’m sure was supposed to be a living room. There was no electric to the place, no phone, and while there was running water, the toilet had to be flushed by dumping a five gallon bucket of water into it and then rinsed out with the hose that also doubled as a shower for me. I never saw my parents use it. Though after some thought, I suppose they did occasionally.” She stared off into the room, completely forgetting about him, he was sure. “Neither of them worked. Only at trying to kill each other. And me when they saw me. I tried my best to stay out of their sights as much as I could. Food was a luxury for me. I’d hoard it when there was any, which was usually taken from a dumpster somewhere. Or if the school would have enough for there to be leftovers, I’d wrap it up in newspaper that was in abundance at the house and take it. That didn’t happen often, but I would save it.”
    “Is that why the pantry is so stocked and you have two deep freezers that have more food in it than most small stores do?” She said it was. “And this house. You built large because of what you didn’t have.”
    “I used my first bonus check to purchase the land that I grew up on. My intentions were to let it go, let trees take it over so that I’d never have to think of this place again. But then Mom told me that it was unhealthy, that I should make it something else. Something pretty. So with my next two checks, I used the money to put this here. It’s been a long process, but I love the results. It’s the only place I call home anymore. My parents, Peter and Mary, have always welcomed me there, of course, but this is where I can be whatever I want. Which is usually not a killer.”
    He loved the house as well and told her that. “You thought I was Pete the other day. You thanked him for watching over the place. Does he know why you did this? Any of the other Burchers?”
    “Oh yes. He knows. I have never…not many people know, but he was my little brother and I told him.” He heard the timer go off in the kitchen to let him know the potatoes