Waking Hearts

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “Yes, you damn well should have sat there!” he yelled again. “What if they’d seen the van? What if there’d been more of them?”

  “I have a nose, Ollie. I’m perfectly capable of using it. There were two. They were in my house. And Kevin was with the younger kids.”

  The adrenaline crash was coming, and she could see Mark’s and Chris’s little faces pressed up to the glass at the back of the van, watching with eyes the size of saucers as the irate, naked man yelled at their mother.

  “They had weapons, Allie! Did you smell that?”

  “Stop yelling at me and put some clothes on.”

  “I don’t have any clothes.” He was still yelling. “I ran from my house.”

  “And you can go right back to it if you’re going to keep roaring.”

  Allie spotted lights in the distance, and she was hoping it was Caleb. Maybe the chief of police could calm Ollie down.

  “Mom?” It was Kevin, calling from the car. “That’s probably Caleb coming up the road. He texted a few minutes ago.”

  “Are your brothers and sister okay?”

  “They’re tired and whiny. And wondering why Ollie is so mad.”

  She glared at him. “Get it together,” she hissed.

  Ollie put his hands on his hips and his nostrils flared, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “Mom?” It was Mark.

  “Yeah?” She turned around so she didn’t have to watch Ollie standing there naked. She might have been angry with him, but the shift always roused her. Made her hungry. For food and… other things.

  “Who were those guys?”

  “I don’t know, buddy.”

  Ollie growled behind her, “You’re not staying in that house tonight.”

  She spun. “Says who? You?”

  “Says Caleb, I’m guessing. Someone broke into your house. It’s a crime scene. He’s going to have to look at it.”

  She put a hand over her eyes. The exhaustion was starting to hit. “I’ll call my dad.”

  “You and the kids are staying with me.”

  Amazingly, she still had energy to be mad at him. “You just decided that, did you?”

  “Stop arguing!”

  “Then stop dictating!”

  Why was he still so hot? The madder he got, the more she wanted to jump him. Allie decided a visit to a psychologist might be a good idea.

  Caleb pulled up in a cloud of dust and immediately got out of the car.

  “Hey. Looks like someone pissed off the bear.” He opened the back door of his truck and grabbed a blanket out of the back seat. “Try not to scare the kids, Campbell.”

  Ollie caught it and wrapped it around his waist.

  Great. Now he looked like he was wearing a kilt. Because that wasn’t hot at all.

  Not the time, Allie!

  “Two guys in my house,” she said, ignoring Ollie. “They didn’t talk much. I scared them away.”

  “With your creepy horror-movie bark?” Caleb asked.

  “It works,” she said. “They were walking back to their car when Grumpy the Bear here scared them off. I wasn’t able to get their license plate.”

  Caleb grunted and looked at Ollie. “You?”

  “No.” He flexed his shoulders, probably still feeling sore from his shift. “I wasn’t thinking. They just needed to get away from the kids.”

  It was his voice that softened her. Ollie had yelled because he was worried. Bears weren’t the most rational about their young. Females in the bear clan often kept their children home or with close family for a full year, not because they were being antisocial but because they knew they could easily attack with other predators in the vicinity. It was one of the reasons the Campbell clan was so insular.

  His protectiveness made Allie’s stomach flip. Ollie considered her children his own; otherwise, he’d be behaving more rationally. The thought was both nerve-racking and comforting.

  But he’d also questioned her judgment, which still ticked her off.

  “Allie and the kids are staying with me for a while,” Ollie said to Caleb.

  “Ollie—”

  “Don’t. Argue.” He glared at her. “Let me go through the house with Caleb. You get the kids settled. They’re probably tired and freaked out.”

  Caleb’s eyes pleaded with her to be reasonable. She saw Loralie yawning from the corner of her eye.

  “Fine.” She marched back to the driver’s door and opened it.

  “Mama,” Loralie whined. “What’s wrong with our house?”

  Mark asked, “Why is Ollie mad at us?”

  “He’s not mad at us. He’s worried because someone was in our house who shouldn’t have been.”

  “Who?” Loralie’s eyes were wide in the interior lights. “Was it Daddy?”

  “No,” Mark said. “Dad’s not coming back, remember? He’s dead.”

  It was a punch to the gut. Every single time. Were all children so blunt, or was it just Mark?

  Loralie stuck her thumb in her mouth and leaned on Mark’s arm, curling into her big brother, who picked up her hand and held it.

  “When I get big,” Chris said, “I don’t want to shift to a coyote, because then someone might hit me with a truck. I want to be a fox, because they’re little and fast. Or maybe a bear.”

  Mark sneered. “You can’t be a bear, stupid.”

  “Everyone needs to be quiet and think about sleep!” Allie said, taking a deep breath as Ollie rounded the car, still wearing that stupid blanket around his waist. He bent down and she cracked open the window.

  “What?”

  “You got clothes?” he asked, his voice pitched carefully low.

  “Of course we do. We were at my sister’s.”

  “I’m going to look around the house with Caleb. You drive over to my place. I already called your dad and told him you were staying with me.”

  “Yay!” Chris yelled from the back. “We’re sleeping at Ollie’s house!”

  Allie’s eyes were blazing. “That is not your decision.”

  “You can’t go back to your place tonight, and I have more room than your dad. Don’t argue.”

  She felt her kids’ eyes on her back. Someone yawned, and Loralie started to whine again.

  “Mom—”

  “Fine,” she said. “We’ll go to Ollie’s and get you guys in bed.”

  Allie put the car in reverse and was about to back out when he rapped on her window.

  She stopped and rolled the window down more. “What?”

  He stuck a hand in her face. “Here’s a spare key. Caleb had one for the back door. I’ll get you a full set when I get home.”

  She grabbed the key and tried to roll the window up, but he put his hand on the door and leaned down to her.

  “What now?”

  “I know you’re pissed at me, but don’t drive mad.” His voice had lost the authoritarian bark.

  “We’ll see you at your house.”

  Ollie frowned. That was fine. He could frown all he wanted, but she was still angry.

  “There’s plenty of bedrooms. Let the kids pick the one they want. They can sleep wherever, but you might have to change the sheets in some of the rooms. Elijah is already headed over there to help you out. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Ollie, you don’t have to go to a bunch of trouble. We’re just crashing one night.”

  “We’ll see.” He patted the top of the car as he straightened and said, “I’ll be as quick as I can. See you at home.”

  Allie pulled away and wondered just what he meant by “We’ll see.”

  Chapter Ten

  OH YEAH. OLLIE WATCHED THE taillights disappear into the desert. Allie was pissed.

  He was more pissed.

  Two strange humans in her home. Violating her territory. Violating his territory.

  Because yes, he considered the small house and the children living there his to protect.

  He wished he’d crushed more of the car.

  Ollie cros
sed his arms, glaring at the mess of Allie’s living room with Caleb at his side.

  “They were looking for something.” The former detective and chief of police walked to the kitchen and crouched by the door. He touched the crumbled soil in the footprints the intruders had left, then brought his fingers up to his nose and sniffed. “New asphalt.”

  “They ran like city boys.”

  “Okay.”

  If there was one thing Ollie liked about the chief, it was that he rarely said anything he didn’t have to. He had made the Springs his home and had a reasonably good understanding of shifters. He also understood body language.

  “Allie mad at you?”

  “Yep.”

  Caleb stood. “She’ll get over it when she realizes they were in the kids’ bedrooms.”

  “Those mattresses salvageable?”

  Caleb shook his head.

  “Shit,” he growled. “They’re gonna need all new stuff.”

  “They’re going to need a place to stay first.”

  “They’re staying with me.”

  Caleb raised an eyebrow. “You sure she’s going to be okay with that?”

  “I’ll make her okay with it.” He shrugged. “The kids like my house anyway. I’ll convince them.”

  “Making the kids your allies, huh?” Caleb smiled a little. “Tricky. But effective when it works.”

  Turning his attention back to the mess they were standing in, Ollie asked, “What’s your best guess on what they were looking for?”

  “I don’t know.” Caleb paused. “Not yet. Probably gonna have to call the sheriff’s office. There’s no way this isn’t related to Joe’s murder. Might get me more access to the investigation though. You said your boys have been covering the place?”

  “I let ’em go home when she went to her sister’s. My mistake.”

  “She was only there two nights.” Caleb tapped his fingers against his leg. “They either knew she was gone or they were taking a chance. I’m betting they knew she was gone.”

  “Someone in town tell them?”

  Caleb shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Probably.”

  “Don’t go breaking heads until we know which ones to break,” Caleb said. “There’s not much we can do tonight. Why don’t you head back to your place and see to Allie and the kids?”

  “I will.”

  Jim was waiting in the driveway with a change of clothes, ready to take Ollie home since he ran over in fur. Ollie dressed and filled his cousin in on what had happened, but before he left, Ollie walked back to Allie’s room.

  Her pretty sage-green room, so carefully decorated just the way she liked, was trashed. Clothes pulled out of the closets and jewelry spilled on the ground. He saw a necklace he knew was real gold because she told him once it had belonged to her mom. The intruders didn’t seem to have taken any of her stuff, just combed through, looking for something. The backs of the toilets were even tossed off and there were holes in a couple of the walls.

  Bastards.

  Then he noticed a whole pile of her pretty lingerie dumped on the floor, pawed through and stepped on.

  Oh yeah. He definitely should have crushed the car.

  He pushed a few of her drawers back in place and tried to put some of her things in order; then he grabbed the small jewelry box with her mom’s necklace and headed home.

  THE house was mostly dark, but Ollie saw her sitting on the porch as Jim pulled away. Elijah was on his phone, sitting in the bed of his pickup truck, and Ollie could see Paul walking around from the back.

  Elijah lifted his chin at him, then whistled for Paul, and the two clambered into the truck to head home. It was a school night after all, and once Ollie was home, there wasn’t a predator alive who could get into his house without being torn limb from limb.

  Allie had a jelly jar filled with what looked like his good bourbon and a weary look on her face.

  She lifted the jar. “Seemed like a decent tradition to keep up.”

  “Allie-girl, I’m sorry I—”

  “It’s fine.” She waved a hand. “I mean, it’s not. Someone broke into my house. But I know why you were ordering me around. Just don’t act like I’m being irresponsible with my kids. I’m not stupid.”

  “I know you’re not.”

  “But I also know bears aren’t the most rational when children are involved.”

  That was a severe understatement, but he didn’t feel like explaining more. Ollie sat down on the other end of the top step and handed over the small jewelry box.

  “I found this in your room.”

  The last bit of hardness flew from her face. “Oh. They didn’t take it.”

  “It didn’t look like they took anything, but you’ll have to check to be sure.”

  She clipped the necklace around her neck. “It’s just a little thing. Probably not all that valuable. My dad got it for my mom when I was born. It has my birthstone.”

  “I remember.”

  “You’re good at that.”

  “What?” He leaned back onto his elbows. “Remembering stuff?”

  “Yes. No. That’s not what I mean. Knowing what’s important to a person. You notice things.”

  He shrugged.

  “It’s a good trait,” she said quietly. She held out the glass. “Drink?”

  He took it, just to be able to put his lips were hers had been.

  Yeah, he was kind of pathetic at this point.

  “You and the kids should stay here until this is all over.”

  She looked uncomfortable at the thought.

  “I know it’s not ideal,” he said. “I realize the kids would be better off in their own house with all their own stuff. Especially right now. But this place is big, and it’s secure. Think of it like… a vacation.”

  “A vacation?” She looked over her shoulder at the giant house. “I can clean my house in a little under three hours if I’m in a hurry. How many bathrooms does this place have?”

  “Five if you count the barn. And you’re not cleaning a single one.”

  Her back went up. “If I’m staying here, I’m gonna pick up after my kids.”

  “The kids can pick up after themselves, and I have a cleaning lady to do the bathrooms.”

  “I can do the cleaning while I’m here, Ollie.”

  “And put Vicky out of work so you can prove a point and run yourself ragged?” He raised an eyebrow. “I’ll let you cook, but that’s it and only because I’m crap at it.”

  She snorted. “You’ll let me, will you?”

  “Know what?” He banged the jelly jar down between them. “Someone needs to make sure you take care of yourself.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re exhausted. In fact—” He stood and held out a hand. “Come on. Bedtime.”

  Allie scowled. “You’re not my father.”

  “Thank God for that.” When she didn’t move, he leaned down and put his shoulder under her belly, lifting her in one quick sweep.

  “Ollie!” she hissed as he walked into the house. “Put me down.”

  “It’s been a hell of a week. We’re all going to bed. You. Me. The kids. The dog. Everyone.”

  As if on cue, Murtry followed them into the house and slumped by the fireplace in the front room with a low groan.

  Allie clearly didn’t share the dog’s need to relax.

  “Oliver Campbell, I do not need you to tell me—”

  “Which bedroom did you pick?”

  She stubbornly refused to answer him. “I’m not going to wiggle around and make a fool out of myself,” she said. “Just put me down.”

  “I’m guessing…” He walked up the stairs and down the right hallway, pushing open a door at the end. “Yep. Yellow bedroom with the four-poster bed. Yaya’s favorite.”

  “Put me down!” she said again just as quietly. Just as angrily.

  “Okay.” He walked over and dumped her on the mattress, careful not to bang her head on the old posts. “Good night. You
know where the bathroom is, right?”

  “If you think being a caveman is charming, you’re very mistaken.”

  She sounded like a pissed-off kitten. He laughed.

  “I don’t care about being charming,” Ollie said. “I care about you having a little less stress in your life and getting more sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He walked out and shut the door before he did something really stupid like try to crawl in bed with her. She’d most likely hurt him if he tried. He walked down the hall and saw the bathroom door crack open.

  Kevin was standing at the sink, brushing his teeth. Without a word, he held his hand out for a fist bump. Ollie silently met the boy’s knuckles, then went downstairs to lock up the house.

  He wasn’t going to lie. It felt good to order her around. But only because he finally had an excuse to take care of her. Allie was used to doing everything on her own, and she was damn good at it. But it was about time she learned that other people could and would help her out when she was at the end of her rope.

  And if that made him a caveman, he could live with that.

  HIS alarm went off at six a.m. Ollie rubbed his hand over his face and was tempted to go back to sleep. But there were four children in the house, and all of them needed to get dressed, fed, and onto the bus before he could go back to sleep. He rolled out of bed and pulled on some pants and a shirt that was mostly clean.

  He tapped on the doors and cracked them open when no one answered. He’d guessed right on which room Kevin had picked, which was his old one from high school, which he’d decorated in car posters. The boy was sitting on the edge of the bed, scrubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

  “Hey,” Ollie said. “Think you and me can get all the little ones off to school without waking your mom up?”

  Kevin didn’t say anything, but he gave Ollie a thumbs-up.

  “Cool. You hop in the shower, and I’ll go make breakfast.”

  “Okay,” he said with a yawn. “I’ll go wake up Thing One and Thing Two.”

  “Be nice.”

  Ollie stepped into the hall only to almost trip over a fuzzy-haired princess rubbing her eyes. Loralie held up her arms, and Ollie picked her up and brought her downstairs. He let Murtry out to do his business, then walked to the massive kitchen and opened the fridge, glad that Vicky had just gone shopping. He’d have to send her on another trip that afternoon, because he’d seen how those boys ate.