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

she’d told her parents. She didn’t want to think about what had been done to her, nor what was still happening to her poor beaten body.
    “You won’t be able to go back on active duty, at least not what you’ve been doing up until this happened, Lauren. You have three pieces of metal in you that could move and kill you at any moment. Recruiting will be better suited to you now if you want to stay in for your retirement, but knowing how badly you were hurt and what you did, I’m sure there can be special jobs someone like you can do now.” She asked him what kind of special job he was talking about. “No more people firing at you. One where you don’t have to wear a great deal of weight to move around. Your vision is off too. You won’t be as expert at firing a weapon as you had been. And then there is the metal I was talking about. The one in your back is close to your spine. A wrong move and you’ll be in a wheel chair with someone cleaning your feeding tube for the rest of your life. And the one in your leg could shift as well and you’d lose your leg. I’m not sure why the doctors didn’t take it out in the first place, but I intend to find out.”
    Lauren had a feeling that whatever the reason had been for it, it wasn’t really going to help her all that much. She was grounded. And she was pretty sure that she wasn’t going to last long in the civilian world. Getting up, she started out on her walk again, trying not to think about how much pain she was in.
    Her legs had cramped up again, so she had to limp for a while before she could get moving. Her left leg was stiff most of the time, and failed to do what she wanted it to do most of the other times. Her fingers were too sore some mornings to even zip up her pants, and tying her boots was too much effort as well.
    By the time she got back to her house, not only was Colin there and dressed, but two of the men she had walking the perimeter for her were on the porch talking to him.
    “Major.” Nodding at the man to her right, she stared at Colin while he explained what they’d found. “The northern part of the property had a break in the fence. We’re seeing to that now. And those people you had us looking into, they’re still where you said they’d be. Not much of a mover, are they?”
    “No. So long as they can order what they want, they won’t do anything else. They have two days left to get out. If they’re there after that, I want you to get them out any way you see fit.” The second man laughed a little and she turned to him. “You think something is funny?”
    “No ma’am. Yes ma’am. What I mean is, those people, I was thinking that they’re the most complaining people I ever saw. Even when they got it in the lap of luxury, like my grand mammie used to say, they still find fault with their arrangements.” She told them again what she wanted, then looked back at Colin, asking why he was allowed to be there. “He told us he was your mate.”
    The couple that were staying at the other end of her property needed to be moved soon. She’d found them there almost as soon as she’d gotten back to this house. And twice now she’d talked to them, and both times they’d had some reason why they weren’t able to move on. Squatters were hard to evict once they set up a base point. And from what she could tell, they’d been there for some time.
    “He thinks he is, but I’m not mate to anyone.”
    Neither man said anything as she told them she had it now. Moving by the three of them, she entered her home just as one of the workers came out of the dining room. He looked…well, guilty came to mind. Before she could find out what he’d been up to, Colin came in the house behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
    Heat didn’t just touch her but seemed to consume her. The man, the worker, stared at her and Colin like he was going to have a quiz later and they were his cheat sheets. As Colin’s hand moved up her waist to just