Page 28 of The Tiger's Secret Baby (Savage Shifters Special Ops 4)

Rose and Magnar saw me sitting and watching, so they came over to join me.

“What’s wrong, Mama? You look sad,” Rose asked.

“I’m just worried, Baby Girl. I’m worried that I made the wrong decision and that I should have taken the money that Duggers offered. It would kill me if any of you guys were hurt.”

“You did the right thing,” Magnar said. “This is our home and no one has a right to take it from us. We are happy here. Look at them.”

I looked up just as little Jean painted Jessie’s nose red, giggled, and called him Rudolph.

“I hope that’s washable paint,” I said, shaking my head.

“It’s acrylic. It’ll come off,” Magnar answered.

“Dad and the other guys won’t let anything happen to us, Mom,” Rose said.

Magnar raised his eyebrows at that statement. “Dad?”

“She figured it out,” I told him. “As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that Damian is the only person who hadn’t figured it out.”

“You need to tell him, Mom,” Rose said.

“I know. The last time I tried to tell him, someone shot at me. It seems like something always comes up.”

Magnar said, “You need to figure something out. He’s looking over here and has a puzzled expression on his face like he knows something, but doesn’t know what he knows.”

Rose laughed. “Bet you can’t say that three times really fast.”

“Come on, Sis. Let’s go paint that tiger of yours.”

Magnar stood and said, “You did the right thing by standing your ground. We all think you are very brave.” He bent over and hugged me. Rose did the same. Then, they walked off to paint the barn.

After dinner, while we were all still sitting at the table, Gage said that he thinks that he knows what Duggers plan is.

“Duggers has a bunch of hired thugs who don’t care who they hurt as long as they get paid. They are also not too bright, because they put themselves in danger, like the guy who shot at Ember. In addition, they think that Duggers is all powerful and that he can get them out of trouble no matter what kind of stupid pranks they pull.”

Lucian said, “The night before the two week deadline, he is going to have a bunch of his men cross onto the farm. He knows that some of them will get caught, but unless the guards are shoulder to shoulder, there is no way that we could get them all.”

“The men who make it onto the property will set fire to the barn and the house, and destroy the vehicles. They will wipe it all out,” Jared added.

“At that point, you’ll have no place to live, and a whole bunch of scared, if not injured children. He’ll think that you’ll have no choice but to go,” Damian said.

“Why do you think that’s how he’ll work?” I asked.

“Because that is how people like him think. We’ve seen it time and again,” Gage said. “It’s almost like they have a book of dumb plans for evil villains.”

Everyone laughed at that.

“So, what does the guide book for superheroes who want to defeat evil villains say?” I asked.

“It says that we team up with the kids and we trap the bad guys,” Lucian said.

“I’m not so sure about that,” I said. “I don’t want them hurt.”

“Here us out,” Jared said. “Each shifter will be in his or her form. Even the youngest of the shifters will be formidable to a man not expecting to see a tiger, wolf, or bear in these areas. Each kid will be with two of our own adult shifters.”

“The teams will corral the bad guys into a central location. We are going to build a pit to put them into until the cops can arrive to pick them up,” Damian said.

“Why do you want to use the kids?” I asked. “You have a well trained security staff.”

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