“Holy shit!” Zane wrenched his arm away from the woman. He grabbed the paper out of Landry’s hands and began skimming the story for himself. “She wouldn’t. She couldn’t! Why would she do that? What purpose could it possibly serve?”
Landry was staring around the grocery store. She realized that they had been well and truly spotted. There was a lot of pointing, waving, and eventually after only a moment or two there were people beginning to move in their direction as though they were totally determined to meet Zane and at least let him know that they were interested.
“Zane, we have to get out of here. Just walk away from the basket and get back to the truck. That should be our goal right now.” Landry was actually beginning to feel panic. That was weird. She had never felt actual panic inside a public place like a grocery store before, but that was absolutely what she was experiencing right now.
“But we need groceries,” Zane protested. He was gesturing to the produce. “We can just grab some stuff and run, right?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Landry was already dragging him out. “I’ll come back later by myself. We’d have to wait in line to pay and I’m honestly a bit afraid that we would get mobbed. I was not aware that the Dallas Star was such a popular paper.”
“Dallas Star,” Zane mused. He seemed to be thinking about something in particular. “I need to talk to my brother Jason’s wife, Skye.”
“Why?”
“She used to work for that paper.” Zane was standing in the middle of the store contemplating this fact. He needed to be moving.
“Zane?” Landry grabbed his arm and started tugging. “Come on, Zane. Think and walk. You can do it. Your truck. We have to get to your truck. Come on. Back the way we came.”
He suddenly seemed to realize what was happening. There was now officially a huge ring of people gathering in the produce section of the store. They were whispering to each other as they stood beside their grocery baskets. Phones were out. People were taking photos and videos and texting their friends. It was going to get worse as more and more of them gathered with some kind of erroneous expectation.
“I feel like a moose or something about to be taken down,” Zane whispered to Landry.
She was already dragging him toward the doors. At the last second she threw one last thought over her shoulder. “He’s mine, ladies. Sorry! You’ll have to find your own.”
A low rumble of irritation followed Zane and Landry out the front door of the grocery store and into the parking lot. Landry did not waste a single moment. She went right to Zane’s truck and started snapping her fingers at him to get him to unlock the thing.
“Get in,” she ordered. “Do not give them a chance to drag you from the vehicle.”
As soon as they were both inside Zane turned and gave her a look filled with skepticism. “I can’t help but think that you’re totally overreacting. It’s not like they’re going to rip me apart or something.”
“I would agree that this seems extreme.” Landry pulled on her seatbelt. Then she spread her hands apologetically. “Maybe I’m totally overreacting. But I don’t think you know women enough to realize what can happen when they get an idea in their head about how to get a totally hot guy who has tons of money to boot.”
He was frowning when he put his key in the ignition. Then he started the huge truck and the engine rumbled to life. The parking lot was just beginning to get dark. It was November after all. The days were getting shorter and shorter. It was odd, but Landry had not even really taken any note of the fall decorations inside the store. Usually she would be thinking fondly of all the cinnamon-scented pinecones, the greenery twined about every pole, and the fall leaves littering every available surface whether they were fake or real.
Just as Zane turned back toward her to no doubt tell her that she needed to calm down, there was a knock at his window. He swung his head back toward his own side of the truck and looked with surprise at the young woman who was now standing right outside his door.
“I’m warning you,” Landry muttered. “This is not going to end well.”
But Zane was already pushing the button to roll down the window. “Can I help you, miss?” Zane—ever polite—asked the young woman his question with a very warm and welcoming tone of voice.
Landry was already cringing before the woman stated her business. “Mr. King, I just really wanted to invite you back to my place for dinner tonight.”
“Excuse me?” Zane actually drew back from the window as though he’d finally realized there was something truly profound going on. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Oh no. Not yet. I just can’t help but think that if you would only get to know me, you and I would just be perfect for each other. I have a really nice apartment not far from here. I’m a really excellent cook and I love cats.”
“Cats.” Zane’s voice did not suggest that he was excited about that prospect. In fact, he seemed really, really amused and that was kind of alarming. He needed to understand that they were playing with fire here. “Honey, cats don’t like me. At all. They would be really angry if you brought me home for dinner. I promise. And I have to say that I already have a date.”
“Yes, but she’ll never make you as happy as I can,” the woman insisted. “I’m so willing.” Her hand appeared on the ledge of Zane’s truck door. “You know what I mean, Mr. King. I’m willing. I can be extremely flexible too. I used to be a gymnast.”
Landry felt her temper rising. It was heading right into the danger zone without any more prompting than that. What kind of woman stood at the open window of some stranger’s truck and offered to do anything? That was a horrible notion! What kind of woman didn’t care about herself any more than that? Was money so very important then?
Perhaps that was the moment Landry realized that money was not that important. And maybe that’s why she was broke. She was working hard and sacrificing as much as she could, but she still had her limits. And money would never make her happy. She knew that for a fact. Her parents had money while she was young. They’d been just as happy without it. At least until the shame of how they’d lost the money became too much to bear.
“Honey, I’m just not interested,” Zane told the young woman. “But I’m sure you’ll find the right man soon enough if you’re just so eager to be in a relationship.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Landry could have told him that, but Zane did not ask her opinion. And when the young woman actually started trying to open the truck door, Zane drew back in horror.
“Hey!” Zane protested. “What are you doing?”
“Just come out here and come to dinner!” the woman insisted. “You’ll have such a good time!”
“He wants to go to dinner with me!” someone else shouted.
“Zane.” Landry poked his arm. “We have to get out of here. Just drive.”
“They’re in front of the truck.”
“So drive anyway. They’ll move!” Landry was horrified to see women pouring from the front of the grocery store. All of them paused in the entrance and then headed in Zane and Landry’s direction. “You’ve got to do this, Zane. Now.”
She wasn’t sure what finally did it. Maybe it was the desperate whining of the young woman hanging on his window and jumping as though she were actually trying to get inside the truck. That was insane. But there was someone else pushing on the hood of the vehicle and another woman trying to use her basket to block them in.
“Hang on,” Zane said grimly.
Landry did just that as the truck finally began to inch forward bit by bit. They crept toward the exit. A grocery basket bounced crazily aside as the front bumper nudged it out of the way. Someone screamed. Someone else shouted. There were angry words exchanged, but when Landry looked into the side mirror to see what was happening behind them she was glad to note that the women appeared to be arguing with each other now. That was good. They needed to refocus on something else.
“That was absolutely insane,�
�� Zane whispered. “Home. Right? Do you think someone will be there?”
“I sure as hell hope not.” Landry considered this. “It would depend on whether or not your mother has gotten her broken nose taken care of and managed to post some kind of online message about where you’re staying for the moment.”
“No.” He was already shaking his head. “She’s not going to do that. She wouldn’t.”
“Okay. Whatever you think. Let’s head for my place and see what happens.” But deep down Landry was beginning to wonder if the poor guy’s life would ever settle down.
Chapter Fourteen
The night was deep and dark. Zane carefully closed the back door of Landry’s snug little house behind him. It was after one o’clock in the morning. He was reasonably certain that she was asleep. The two of them had sat in her living room chatting amicably about not only their agreement to not piss each other off as roommates but what it could mean for the whole deal if his mother’s newspaper ad didn’t somehow magically go away.
Zane growled deep in his throat. The porch light was off. He’d left it off on purpose. The cover of night was much better for his nocturnal activities, and right now Zane needed to get out and run. He needed to feel the breeze through his fur and smell the intricate scents of the city on the night.
The fall weather was good. Soon enough Dallas would be blanketed by not snow but rain. It would be wet and cold in a way that seeped into the bones and lodged there until spring. But now it was better. Halloween was over. November was marching toward Thanksgiving and then soon enough it would be Christmas. What a thought. Christmas with its whirlwind of social events here in Dallas. Zane was tired of that life. He was tired of the social scene and his mother’s maneuvering and his brothers’ pandering. He just wanted to be free.
Shifting into his wolf form, Zane shook his dark gray fur and felt it settle along his back as his joints completed their change from human to canine. It was a startling feeling the first few times, but now it was like slipping into a pair of old shoes. He loved the way it felt to have his human weakness slide away and morph into the strength and graceful agility of the wolf.
Slinking off into the inky shadows at the side of Landry’s yard, Zane bounded over the huge gate and landed with a soft thump on the other side. The alleyway between Landry’s place and that of her neighbor wasn’t just dark, it was like a slice of the void. But Zane’s preternatural senses could navigate just fine.
He picked out the scent of the spaghetti sauce that the neighbors had eaten for dinner mingled with the crusts of the garlic bread they’d thrown away in their garbage cans. He caught a hint of the stray cats that were poking through the alley looking for leftovers. They were more bored than hungry since they were evidently of a mind to ignore the mice that had started nibbling around the edges of a garbage bag discarded carelessly beside one of the galvanized cans.
The whole scene was so blessedly normal that it soothed Zane’s frayed nerves. He had never experienced anything like the profoundly embarrassing scene at the grocery store. It had been a wake-up call that he hoped he would never have to hear again. He had to find a way to get rid of that notoriety.
Thank you, Mother.
Zane loped down the alley to the edge of a pool of orange light created by a streetlamp. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been in this neighborhood before. He would just keep to the shadows as he’d done before. The sky was overcast as it had been for the last few weeks. It was like the sun had just quit working altogether in the Dallas sky.
The scent of rain was distant on the breeze. Zane knew that the stream was running full at his family’s ranch property outside Dallas. No doubt the rivers and lakes around the city were also getting full. Soon enough they would be discussing flood-tage problems once again as it seemed that they had to do most years. But for now Zane found that he just wanted an open place to run full out until his muscles were exhausted and heaving with the effort.
An old cemetery lay just a mile or so ahead around the corner from Landry’s home. This was where Zane headed when he left the house and his troubles behind for at least the span of time that it would take for the daylight to begin creeping over the world. His feet made nothing but the quietest shuffling noise as he sprinted down the street.
Boldly heading down the center of the empty road, Zane did not bother himself with the few dogs he heard kicking up a fuss from the safety of their yards. They called out to him, but he ignored them. His goal was set and he didn’t care to deviate from this chance to stretch his legs.
The cemetery came up fast. Zane bounded over the low stone wall and then began dodging through the old headstones. Some were so ancient that they seemed to be tumbling halfway to the ground. Zane gracefully darted around the wreckage of each pile of old stone and moved into a newer part of the cemetery. The lanes were wide and clear. The walkways were winding and invited him to play.
Before long Zane had put everything else behind him. The scent of rain receded. The clouds overhead began to thin. A sliver of the blue moon peeked out and the stars twinkled dully overhead. The light pollution in Dallas was far too much to allow the stars to shine as brilliantly as they did at the ranch, but that really wasn’t what attracted Zane anyway.
He stopped in the middle of the lane with the shadowy outline of creepy mausoleums behind him and stared at the city lights all around him. The bright blue, white, red, and gold lights were almost like a constant fireworks display. He loved the way that they blinked in the sky as though they were trying to get his attention. He thought of the desire to climb those buildings and knew that his wolf body wasn’t suited to such a thing.
Zane was perhaps the only member of the King family, maybe the only shifter at all, that often contemplated what it might be like to shift into some other animal. What if he could become a crow? What about an eagle? What would it be like to be a big cat and climb trees as though they were nothing but scratching posts in some suburban living room?
The noise of breaking glass caused Zane to spin around. He swiveled his ears and sought the source of the noise. His nose picked up the scent of liquor. He wondered if it was a bum dropping an empty bottle of gin or tequila, but the energy coming from the general vicinity of the smell and sound was very different than that of the homeless people that typically populated Dallas’s streets.
Trotting over to investigate, it did not take Zane long to pick up the additional smells of marijuana and a few hints of something approaching unwashed bodies. Hair product. And then the drifting scent of woodsmoke. How odd. And perhaps the smell of cheap perfume too. Maybe he had stumbled upon a bevy of working girls trying to get off the street for the night.
“Hey! That’s mine. Give it back, you ass!”
The voice rang through the night and all of a sudden Zane knew that he had stumbled upon a group of young people. He kept his body hidden behind the line of mausoleums with their ornate stonework and huge angels perched atop the corners. Peeking around the corner, he sank to his belly and watched with no small amount of interest as the group of about five young people in their late teens or early twenties hunched over a fire they had built between some headstones. It was a horrible place for a fire. The human portion of Zane’s brain contemplated the level of disrespect it took to build a fire atop the grave of some pour soul who had died years and years prior. His wolf mind told him that it really didn’t matter. But the human constraints of emotional ties and respect for the dead was rather hard to shake.
“Did you see that guy’s face when I walked off with the beer?” A young woman jabbed her companion. “I bet he’s still wondering what happened.”
“Who leaves beer on their back porch?”
“It was even cold!”
Zane listened to them laughing and joking amongst themselves about their recent exploits. He thought about what Landry had told him. How young people had been breaking into her yard in order to hang out there. The level of disrespect it took to steal items right out of someone’s
backyard and then laugh about it while you sat around a fire burning atop the final resting place of some other pour soul left Zane feeling angry. Lifting his muzzle, he howled at the sky.
The sound echoed through the night. Not the yip of a coyote, but the full throated call of a grown wolf. The reaction was immediate. Two of the young people shot to their feet. Someone fell over backwards. They grabbed burning sticks and held them aloft as though they intended to fight off an attack.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know!” The tallest one waved a flaming piece of firewood about the size of an arm around at the shadows. “There aren’t wolves in Dallas! It’s a freaking city!”
“I heard that! It’s a wolf,” someone else decided.
They were still scrambling about bumping into each other and arguing when Zane emerged from the shadows growling low in the back of his throat. He let his head swing low, moving back and forth as he edged closer and closer to the trespassers.
A young woman in black Goth-style clothing gasped. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“Bad dog!”
“That’s not a dog!”
Zane had no doubt that he looked like a hell hound. Gray fur and firelight in his eyes could do that. But right now he was. There was no difference between himself and a denizen of the pit. He advanced on the young people snapping at their feet and growling. He pushed their beer into the fire. The flames leaped into the air. The cans seemed to swell and explode. The hiss of the fizzy alcoholic drinks seemed to freak the kids out even more.
Someone screamed. Her shriek rose above the sound of the exploding cans and scared the crap out of her friends. She bolted from the scene. At the last second she tried to snatch up her bag. It caught on the edge of a headstone and ripped. The contents spilled into the fire and within seconds Zane knew she’d been carrying a whole lot of marijuana.
Smoke billowed up into the night sky. It was thick and pungent and there was no doubt in Zane’s mind that it was now time for him to go. The kids were yelling and shouting and soon enough the night watchman probably half asleep in his guard shack would come running.
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