Tangle Tails Read online

  

  Lions of Lonesome, Texas 7

  Tangle Tails

  Joy Ridder’s brother, John, is missing after coming to the small Texas town of Lonesome. He came to visit the Mesa brothers and then never texted his sister again.

  Werelion brothers, Charlie, Win, and Mars Mesa are trapped inside a huge cage with their friend, John, a newly transformed werelion. Their captor is someone they never would’ve suspected, someone they trusted, and even liked. But she’s not the woman they thought she was. Instead, she’s out to make them pay for every man who has ever wronged her.

  When Joy is captured and thrown into the cage with them, they soon realize she’s the one for them. But their captor has other plans for the beautiful Joy, especially after she realizes that they’ve chosen Joy as their mate. Before their captor can kill Joy, the men have to help Joy escape—even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice.

  Genres: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Romantic Suspense, Shape-shifters

  Length: 37,697

  Tangle Tails

  Lions of Lonesome, Texas 7

  Jane Jamison

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  Tangle Tails

  Copyright © 2018 by Jane Jamison

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-291-6

  First Publication: June 2018

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2018 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for your continued support. I couldn’t do what I love without you.

  Although Tangle Tails can be read on its own, readers will gain more knowledge into the characters and their backstories, especially the character of Kit Blair, by reading the two previous books in the series, Lion Heart and Her Lusty Lions.

  Thank you,

  Jane Jamison

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  From an early age, Jane Jamison was fascinated with stories about werewolves, vampires, aliens, and whatever else might be hiding in her bedroom closet. To this day, she still swears she can hear growls and moans whenever the lights are out.

  Born under the sign of Scorpio meant Jane was destined to be very sensual. Some would say she’s downright sexual. Then one day she put her two favorite things together and found her life’s true ambition: to be a romance author.

  Jane spends each day locked in her office surrounded by her two furry bundles of joy and the heroes and heroines she loves. Her plans include taking care of her loving husband, traveling, and writing until her fingers fall off.

  Jane also writes as Beverly Rae.

  For all titles by Jane Jamison, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/jane-jamison

  For titles by Jane Jamison writing as

  Beverly Rae, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/beverly-rae

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Tangle Tails

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Epilogue

  Tangle Tails

  Lions of Lonesome, Texas 7

  JANE JAMISON

  Copyright © 2018

  Prologue

  Kit Blair stared at her reflection in the mirror at Miss Kitty’s B&B. She still looked the same, yet something was different. Her blonde hair flowed over her shoulders just as it always had. Her eyes, the color of the ocean, were just as blue as they’d always been. But nonetheless, she knew she’d changed.

  He doesn’t love me.

  Mason.

  My sweet Mason.

  From the moment he’d fought for her in the bar where she used to work, she’d known he was the one. Her certainty increased even more when he took her back to his ranch in Lonesome, Texas, and introduced her to his brothers.

  And to her. To Liz.

  Strangely, she didn’t blame Liz. What woman wouldn’t want three amazingly hot men like the Hartley men? Even she’d fantasized about having all three of them. Or at least two of them. She wouldn’t have taken Carl Hartley from Mira.

  She glanced at Mira Ashby, her friend, who had come with her to Miss Kitty’s after both of them had been kicked to the curb by the men they loved. Mira appeared to be handling Carl’s rejection well. Then again, she was handling Mason’s rejection well, too, if someone were looking only at her face and not at her heart.

  Mason lied to me.

  I can never trust men again. Not any men.

  “We’re going to be all right.” Mira put her hand on Kit’s shoulder as she stood behind her. “You know that, right?”

  She forced a smile. Somehow, she even made her eyes sparkle. “Of course I do.” She brightened the smile. “We’re lucky in a way. If Liz hadn’t gotten the men to tell us the truth, we might’ve ended up married to men who don’t love us.”

  Mira frowned then held her shoulders back, pride showing. “Exactly. I mean, sure, it hurt, and it will probably hurt for a while to come, but I can already see a light at the end of the tunnel. I think I always knew Carl wasn’t in love with me. Still, it’s tough to give up that dream.”

  Kit patted Mira’s hand. “Yeah. It is. But we’ll get through this together.”

  Mira pecked a sisterly kiss on her cheek. “You bet we will. And, you know what? I’ll bet we’ll be dating a couple of really great men very soon. You just wait and see.”

  “You bet.” Kit nodded, giving her friend what she needed. She hid the darkness growing inside her.

  When Mira turned away, Kit sought her reflection in the mirror yet again. The sparkle in her eyes had changed along with the growing darkness.

  Someone’s going to pay.

  Chapter One

  Kit tossed another large steak, raw and bloody, through the cage bars. “Here you go, guys.”

  The men stared at her, their anger, their rage barely contained. Yet if they shifted, if they tried to attack her, they’d pay. And they knew it. Oh, how they knew it.

  She smiled and threw another piece of meat into the cage. “Don’t be shy, guys. Eat up. I know you’re hungry.”

  As werelions, they had ravenous appetites. The cost of feeding them was eating into her savings. But it was well worth it.

  Not long after Mira and she had ended up like lost puppies at Miss Kitty’s, Kit had learned the truth. At first, she’d been shocked as she’d watched a couple of drunken men behind the Whiskers and Whiskey Saloon transform, ripping their clothes to shreds before dropping onto all fours. But as she’d watched, she’d grown fascinated. Fascinated enough to begin paying closer attention to the citizens of Lonesome, Texas. What she saw and learned wa
s incredible, the stuff of movies and tall tales.

  The town was filled with shifters. Amber eyes. Pointed teeth. Powerful men. Groans that sounded more like an animal’s growls. How had she not noticed them before? Then again, who would’ve ever imagined that shifters really existed?

  But she’d never let on. Not even after she began working at the Eat You Up Diner with a werewolf as her boss. Instead, she’d started dating men, preferably more than one at a time. The more she’d dated, the more she’d learned.

  Until, at last, she’d seen enough.

  Someone had to pay. Caging the Hartley brothers, however, was too obvious. Liz and the others would soon link her to their disappearance. But it didn’t matter. The Hartley men might have been the ones who had made her see the light about all men, especially shifters, but they didn’t have to be the ones she would break. In fact, knowing Mason Hartley, once he found out what she’d done to the Mesa brothers and their friend, John Ridder, he’d wish she’d taken him instead. His guilt would kill him slower than she ever could.

  She shot the four men a contemptuous look. They’d played the same game before, but in the end, it would all be the same. “Guys, come on. Let’s not do this shit again. You know you’re going to eat sooner or later. Otherwise, the meat I gave you this morning would still be lying on the ground. You’re going to eat as soon as I go back into the house.” She grinned and tossed a third piece of meat. “Look, guys. It’s a juicy Porterhouse steak. Yum, yum.”

  Charlie Mesa tucked his chin, a snarl pulling his human lips back. His black eyes blazed with fury. “Fuck off, Kit.”

  “Now, now. Is that any way to talk to the person literally hand-feeding you?” She threw another steak into the cage then lifted the bucket of water. Keeping her eye on them, she poured the fresh water into the bucket inside the cage. Werelions could be very fast. She’d learned that lesson the first time they’d lunged at her and had almost grabbed her arm.

  Marston “Mars” Mesa slumped against the far side of the cage. “Where are the Higrams, anyway? I can’t believe they’d allow you to do this.” He narrowed his eyes, bits of amber glowing. “Did you hurt them? Are you holding them captives, too?”

  She liked Mars more than the other three men. He’d always left her a big tip. “Don’t be so dramatic, Mars. Why would I want to hurt them? They’re a nice old couple.” She was proud of the idea she’d come up with to get Merle and Helen Higram out of the way, all while gaining use of their ranch house and barn. “Right now, they’re having the time of their lives in Italy. Thanks to that magazine contest Helen thinks she won. It cost me a lot of cash, but it’s well worth it.”

  “And what about when they get back? What then?” asked Winston “Win” Mesa, the oldest of the three brothers. “What will they say about all this? How do you think they’re going to feel when they know you used them?”

  “Don’t you worry about it. After all, you won’t be around to find out.” That was one part of her plan she didn’t like. But there was nothing she could do about it. The two sweet seniors would simply have to get over the fact that Kit had used their barn to wipe out a few shifters. She hoped that since they were humans they would appreciate her efforts. “Besides, it’s not like I’m not taking good care of the place. I’m even watching after their damn dog.”

  She’d never been particularly fond of dogs, but Daisy, the Higrams’ bulldog, was worse than most dogs. Daisy shit wherever she wanted, barfed up her food, and howled at the moon during the night. Against Helen’s wishes, Kit had tied Daisy up on the porch instead of allowing her to sleep on the bed.

  “Someone’s going to miss us.” John Ridder, friend of the Mesa brothers, grabbed hold of the bars and sneered at her. “Sooner or later, someone’s going to come looking. Either for them or for me.”

  She hadn’t counted on John being with the Mesa men the night she’d invited them to dinner. Had, in fact, almost called off her plan. But when she’d seen amber flecks in John’s eyes, she’d known they’d changed their friend from Dallas. Then, when they’d started to give her the old “It’s not you, it’s us” speech, she’d put an extra dose of knock-out drugs into their stew.

  “I can’t believe we ever dated you.” Mars stared at one of the pieces of meat.

  Irritation flared to life again. “Oh, really? You were really into me at the time. Weren’t you, Mars? All of you were.”

  She’d dated several men in Lonesome. Most of them had come to her with one or two brothers or friends. That was the way of Lonesome, after all. One woman to two or more men was commonplace. And yet, before she’d figured out what they were, she’d thought it was simply a quirk of the town that worked in the favor of most women.

  “How’d you get us here?” asked Charlie. “A little thing like you couldn’t have carried us into this cage. Not by yourself. Who helped you, Kit?”

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” She wasn’t about to tell them that she’d had to go all the way to Dallas to find some scum-of-the-earth men to help her. She’d paid them well, sending them packing with enough money in their pockets to keep them in booze and drugs for a year. If they started talking, who would believe a couple of homeless bums, anyway?

  Still, she couldn’t help but brag about how she’d managed to get the job done all by her little lonesome. The truth of it was that she was proud of all she’d accomplished. “Stop your bitching. Do you know how much money I had to spend to get this damn cage here? What I had to do to earn that kind of money?” She’d become a “weekend warrior” escort, dashing off to Dallas to “see friends”, then ending up in high dollar hotel rooms with married men. Men who would pay a pretty penny to keep their wives from finding out about how they liked to play on their business trips. She shoved the memory away. “A girl can’t pick up a cage at Walmart, you know. But I got it here, and no one in Lonesome knows.”

  She’d had to pay several questionable men big wads of cash under the table to get the twenty-two by twenty foot cage transported and installed inside the barn in the middle of the night. She glanced up at the top of the cage fifteen feet above them. Not all big cat cages had a top on them, but she wasn’t dealing with ordinary cats. A barred top had been absolutely necessary. Pride swelled inside her. A custom-made cage was harder than shit to get, but the cage was magnificent, a physical testament to her tenacity to get things done.

  “Why are you doing this to us? We never did anything to hurt you.” Win stepped toward her. His expression, full of pity and confusion, irritated her. She’d rather he snarl at her. Too many men had pitied her already. Never mind that she’d traded on their pity to get what she’d wanted from them. She’d had to plead with Mason Hartley to get him to bring her to Lonesome.

  I’m through pleading with men. And fucking them. And I’m through playing the victim, too.

  “Because I can.” She laughed. “Because you shithole men strut around and pick a woman. You act like you’re gods and all you have to do is crook your finger and a woman will fall at your feet.” She dragged in a breath and tried to maintain control. “Well, not any more. This time you men are going to hurt. I’m done with being Miss Nice Guy. This time, I’m going to win.”

  “You’ll win at what?” asked John. “I get that you’ve been hurt, but we don’t deserve to be locked up and caged like—” He suddenly shut his mouth and looked away.

  “Like what, John? Go on,” she urged. “Say it.” She slammed her hand against a bar.

  She saw the flash of fur a second before she realized that Win had shifted. A huge lion, he lunged toward her, throwing his massive body against the cage. The bars rattled as she stumbled backward and landed on her butt.

  Fear swiftly gave way to anger as she scrambled to her feet, grabbed the empty water bucket, then hit the cage as hard as she could. “Knock it the fuck off! Back off, Win. Back off right now or I’ll swear I’ll shoot you.” She threw the bucket aside then snatched up the shotgun leaning against a bale of hay. Pointing it at Win, sh
e sucked in a hard breath and forced herself to act calmer than she felt. Letting them get to her wouldn’t do. She relaxed her facial expression. She was, after years of doing so, very good at hiding her emotions.

  Calmly, she shifted the rifle to Charlie. “Shift back, Win, or your brother takes a bullet to the head.”

  Win shifted, his clothes in shreds. He snarled, his human snarl sounding almost as vicious as his lion’s.

  She laughed and lowered the gun. “Good, boy. Now stay human. If you do that again, one of you dies.” She shook her head, putting on a disappointed look. “I’m disappointed in you guys. Don’t you get it? I know what you are, and I know how strong you are. But this cage? It’s even stronger than a regular one.” She slid her palm along a bar. “You might say that this one is werelion proof.”

  “Don’t do this, Kit.” Charlie grabbed hold of the bars. “Let us go and we’ll forget what you’ve done. We’ll help you get the help you need. I swear we will.”

  “The help I need?” She snorted derisively. “Look around you. You’re the one who needs help. Not me.”

  “What about Mira?” asked Mars. “Or Liz?”

  Why were they talking about her friends? “What about them?”

  “What would they say if they knew what you’re doing?”

  She’d had the same thought but had shoved it aside. “They’re too busy with their new lives and their mates. They don’t have time for me.”

  “That’s not true,” argued Win. “Give them a call. Tell them everything. I know without a doubt that they’d drop everything to come and help you.”