Page 98 of Meant for Her

“You’re dad’s right,” Malia said. “Bullet wounds do disappear. Ryan look at your wrist. Or Luke, your wounds were almost gone not long after David removed the bullets.”

Werewolf healing was impressive. “Okay, I get why you had to bury him, but didn’t you think others would come after you?”

“Exactly. It was why I had to leave.”

“Dad, why not tell us?” Ryan said. “We would have kept quiet.”

“I know that now, but I kind of panicked. I wasn’t in the good frame of mind back then. I didn’t want you two to be involved in any way.”

“You got Pete to help you bury the body then? Now he’s involved.”

“My arm wasn’t functioning very well at the time. He helped me carry the body to where you found him. It was my favorite spot. It was where Pete would have buried me.”

“Whose idea was it to put your clothes on the man?” Luke asked.

“Pete’s. That was smart of him.”

“Did you know that Pete has been arrested for your murder?”

His father’s mouth opened. He looked genuinely upset. “No.”

“You have to turn yourself in,” Luke said.

“I can’t.”

“Oh, so it’s okay for Pete to rot in jail for the rest of his life, but not you?”

In reality, the DNA would prove that the man in the grave wasn’t Emory Lattimore, but still. Luke wanted his father to pay for his sins. Pete admitted that he helped cover up a crime and then falsified the death certificate. That alone would result in him doing time, unless he’d made a deal with the sheriff.

“Fine. The guilt eats at me every day. To help Pete, take a picture with me and you three and put that date stamp thing on your camera. That will show I’m alive.”

The meta data would show it too. “I can do that.”

Luke could send the picture to the sheriff near here—the one who was a werewolf. That sheriff could call Sheriff Hanson and say he’d have the father tried in Bozeman. Luke kind of doubted that would work, but maybe it would. His knowledge of the law was not good. In reality, his father needed to go to the shifter prison.

Luke stood and motioned the others to stand next to him. He put the time stamp on his camera and did a group selfie. Hopefully, the sheriff could tell the photo hadn’t been doctored.

“It really looks like you’ve turned your life around,” Luke said.

“I have, son. I’d ask how your ranch is doing, but I took a trip down last year to check it out. You two have done better than I could have hoped.”

And yet he didn’t care to stop in and say hi. To be honest, seeing a dead man would have been a shock, but they would have gotten over it quickly enough.

“How did you come by this ranch?” Luke asked.

“I was doing real good at this one table. I could tell my luck was about to change. And I was right. I won a big poker hand. That’s when I swore I’d stop. For the most part, I have. I even set aside money for Pete and expanded the number of horses. But I felt bad that I left you boys with that big bank debt.”

“We’re still paying it off.” Luke tried not to sound bitter, but he failed.

“I’m going to help you with that.” Their father lifted his chin.

“Is that so? Are you going to gamble again?” Luke shouldn’t have said that. Maybe his dad was trying to make things right.

“No. Like I said, I’m done with that for good. It’s why I took my cows back.”

“You what?”

His father held out his hand. “Take it easy, son. I had twenty-five cows when I left. I only took back twelve, but I swear it was to have enough money to pay the bank back. That’s all.”