“I don’t know what he said to you, hon. But people often say things they don’t mean in the heat of a high-stress situation. He’ll come around.”
Ronni shook her head because as Bodie flew away she’d felt the violent separation of their essences.
“You and Alex can’t be here when the deputies arrive.” Arm around her shoulders, Sheriff Locke helped Ronni to her feet. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
“The last place I want to be is home.” With her family torn apart, Ronni doubted the house would ever feel like home again.
* * *
Nearly two days’ worth of Willow’s torrential tears drove Bodie outside for the umpteenth time.
Following the fatal fight with Jeb and a visit to the emergency clinic for stitches, Bodie had picked up his mother and daughter, gathered their clothes and personal items from Ronni’s house, and returned to the camper.
Willow had not yet forgiven him.
Bodie considered the real possibility that she might never get the collapse of her new family.
Truth be told, neither would he.
Sitting in one of the three lawn chairs in the small square patch of grass outside the camper, he desperately tried to remember how to breathe. An invisible band had clamped around his chest, squeezing every bit of air from his lungs and squashing what was left of his heart.
“Bodie.” His mother hobbled out of the door.
“Be careful.” He jumped up, ignoring the pain in his legs, and limped over to help her down the steps.
“You be careful,” she responded. “Reopen those stitches and you’ll be back in the ER.”
Unless dying, he had no desire to return there. Twice in a matter of weeks was more than enough for him.
Not long after they had returned to the camper, Tristan had stopped by to officially give him the news.
Several people had died in the explosion, more were injured. Jeb’s dead body had been found and the sentinels had located his driver stuck up the tree where Bodie had left him.
The man had filled them in on Jeb’s involvement with the poachers and the explosion. His intention had been to make the Woelfesenat believe that Ronni and Alex would be safer with him in Pine Ridge.
When that didn’t work, Jeb had worked out a plan to force them to return with him.
It had nearly worked.
Probably would’ve worked if Bodie hadn’t...
Bodie couldn’t allow his thoughts to dwell in that dark place. It was too dangerous.
“I know coming back here is a serious inconvenience,” he said, helping his mother into one of the lawn chairs. “I’ll find a real home as soon as I can.” He’d have the time, now that his new injuries had put him back on medical leave.
“According to Willow, we have a home and I’m inclined to agree.”
“Moving in with Ronni and Alex was a mistake.” Thankfully, they weren’t home when Bodie and his family stopped by to collect their things.
“When your tempers cool, you’ll both see things differently.”
“No, I won’t.” Bodie sat in the chair opposite his mother. “I killed a man. How could Ronni be so cavalier about it?”
“You tried to catch him.”
“I’m still responsible for a man’s death.”
“A bad man,” his mother scolded. “Think of the people killed and injured in the explosion. Willow could’ve been among them.”
The truth didn’t ease the turmoil within.
“Ronni knew it would come to this.”
“Oh, she’s a seer, is she?”
Bodie rubbed his temples. Why didn’t the damn pain meds obliterate his pulsating headache or the crushing pain in his heart?
“I saw her leave the tent with him. She was afraid, but strong.”
“Mom—”
“You need to hear this.” She wagged her finger at him. “I went to the ladies’ room to shift.”
“You could’ve got hurt.”
“I have a broken foot, not a broken wing. Now let me finish.” She frowned. “Ronni fought with him after the explosion. I can only imagine that he laid the blame on her. Maybe he threatened more violence because she simply gave up and went with him. She’s a mother and a she-wolf. It’s her nature to do whatever it takes to protect her family.”
“Apparently, it’s my nature, too. And right now, I’m protecting my family by cutting Ronni out of our lives.” Bodie limped to his truck.
“Bodaway, you’re making a mistake.”
“No, you were right all along. My mistake was getting involved with a she-wolf in the first place.”
* * *
The squeak of the porch swing was not the solace it once was. Now Ronni rather detested it. She made a mental note to pick up a can of WD-40 from the hardware store when it opened tomorrow morning after the Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe she’d get a saw, too, and cut down the empty tree branch where Bodie, in his raven form, used to sit and keep her company.
For the last three nights, she waited and watched for him to return to his perch, only to go to bed disappointed and even more heartbroken. Tonight would be no different.
“The house is too empty.” Alex let the door bang behind him. He plopped next to her. “I don’t like it.”
Bodie’s family had only been with them a short time but their absence had left a giant void in Alex’s and Ronni’s hearts.
“I don’t get why they had to leave.” Alex’s frustration caused a growl to rumble in his throat. “Jeb’s dead. Everything should be all right, but it isn’t.”
“Life doesn’t always go the way we think it should.”
Alex laid his head against her shoulder, something he hadn’t done in a long time. “You love Bodie, don’t you?”
“I do, but sometimes things happen that hurt our hearts and we can’t get past them.”
“But he came for us.”
“He did, but Bodie is a man of peace. He wasn’t prepared to kill Jeb.” And he’d laid all the blame on her for involving him in a situation that turned deadly. Even though he’d been the one to jump into the thicket without looking.
“The whole thing sucks, Mom. I like Bodie, and Willow is my friend.”
“Just because Bodie and I aren’t seeing each other doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with Willow, and you don’t have to stop liking Bodie either. He’s still a good man.”
Alex got up from the swing. “A good man doesn’t abandon his family.”
The kitchen door shut a little harder than usual as Alex went inside. Ronni continued to swing in silence.
She still believed Bodie was a good man. He simply valued his lofty ideals more than her. And that was something she didn’t know how to combat, or if she should even try.
Chapter 32
Excited chatter filled the air as students finishing their first week back to school after the Thanksgiving break poured out of the buildings, filtered across the campus and made their way toward the cars and buses lined up to take them home.
Movement in the rearview mirror caught Bodie’s attention. He watched a car ease into the parallel parking spot behind him and stop. The driver wasn’t Ronni and the little flutter in his heart returned to the dull, endless ache.
He missed her tremendously but he couldn’t get past that he’d killed a man, something that was deeply ingrained in him to never do. Or how much it hurt when she flippantly disregarded how conflicted he was over what he’d done.
And the scariest thing about his actions was that he knew unequivocally that he would do it again without a second thought, if she were in danger. That was the truth he simply couldn’t bear. Despite the ages of evolution, he was just as dangerous as his ancestors.
Better to keep the truth hidden than to risk unleashing a monster again. Next time, he might not have the strength to resi
st the craving to kill without mercy.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Startled by the unexpected noise, Bodie squinted at the tall, young man standing outside the truck door. The ache in his heart tripled.
He rolled down the window.
“You’re an ass!” Though Alex’s voice was angry, hurt shimmered in his eyes. “You have no idea what Jeb said he’d do to you, to Mary. To Willow! If Mom hadn’t agreed to go with him, there would be a lot more people dead.”
“Alex—”
“My dad was a good man. Mom says you’re a good man, too, but you aren’t.” His body trembled with emotion and restraint. “You did what Jeb tried to do. You broke up our family. That doesn’t make you a good man. It makes you just like him.”
“Alex, wait!” His heart breaking, Bodie jumped out of the truck, but Alex had darted through the traffic and down the block.
“Dammit!” Bodie kicked the loose gravel, climbed back into the truck and slammed the door.
“Dad?” Willow stood at the open passenger door. Her eyes were large and round and she wore an expression of awkward surprise.
Bodie swallowed his frustration and his guilt.
“Is everything okay?” She slid into the passenger seat and quietly closed the door.
“Of course it is, chickadee.”
“I saw you talking to Alex.” She buckled her seat belt and Bodie did the same.
“Well, he did all the talking. He’s quite upset with me.”
“Yeah, I know.” As she stared out the window, her reflection showed the sad resignation he’d seen so often on her face before moving to Maico.
“Alex hasn’t been harassing you, has he?”
She swung her head toward Bodie. Her eyes, so much like his own, narrowed. “He’s mad at you, not me.”
Bodie turned on the engine and eased out of the pickup lane. “I found a nice apartment today. I think you’ll like it. You’ll have your own room and bathroom. And the complex has a swimming pool.”
Willow’s excitement was nonexistent. Had he really expected her to be happy with the news when he himself wasn’t?
Ten minutes of stops and starts and they were finally clear of the school traffic. He turned down Main Street. Every damn day this week, he got stuck at the red light at the Sorghum Avenue intersection. The first day, they’d been close enough to see Ronni’s store a few blocks down and Willow had burst into tears. The next couple of days, she’d heaved soul-wrenching sighs that stabbed his hurting heart over and over again until Bodie thought he might die from it.
Tense, he watched the green light turn yellow while they were several blocks away. Even if he stomped on the accelerator, he wouldn’t make it to the line before the light turned red. He eased off the gas.
Willow sat a little straighter, knowing the intersection was ahead. He slowed to a stop, preparing himself for his daughter’s daily emotional release.
“I miss Ronni.” Willow’s soft statement affected him as much as her tears and sighs.
“So do I.” The words scraped his throat.
“Why don’t you fix it?”
“I don’t know if this is something that should be fixed, sweetheart.” He didn’t want to give the monster inside a foothold. The only way he could ensure it didn’t take hold was to stay away from the one woman he would do anything to protect.
The light changed and Bodie continued through town, turning at the last intersection and heading to the KOA campground. “Hey, you haven’t told me what you want for your birthday or Christmas yet.”
Bodie hoped the thought of presents would lighten her mood.
“I want us all back together, Dad.” She stared out her window. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”
* * *
“Ronni? Are you here?” Nel called out from the front of the store.
“I’m in the sewing room!” Ronni stuck a straight pin through the black fabric. After two weeks of rushing to the front every time the bells jingled, hoping to see Bodie, she began forcing herself to count to fifty before walking out to greet customers.
Nel’s footsteps fell silent at the doorway. “Oh, wow! What is that?”
Ronni stepped back from her latest creation. “It’s a cloak for Willow to wear on her birthday when she shifts for the first time. I know I promised to finish your projects, but I needed to get this done.” It was her way of saying goodbye to Willow and sending her love.
“It’s lovely.” Nel stepped closer to see the garment from the back. She gasped. “You’ve sewn the panels so that they look like feathers.”
“I tried to replicate the one Willow’s mother wore for her first shift.”
“It’s a shame she’ll only wear it once.”
“I’m hoping it will last so she can give it to her daughter one day.”
“Tristan said shift energy disintegrates anything that it touches during transformations.”
“Anything but silver.” Ronni opened one of the storage cabinets and pulled out the material she would use to line the interior of the cloak. “This is silver fabric.”
“As in real silver?” Nel rubbed a corner of material between her fingers.
“Yep. The cloth is actually cotton but it has been immersed in a silver solution and put through a curing process so that it sticks.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Silver textiles have actually been around for a while. Pretty cool, though.” Ronni returned the fabric to the cabinet.
“This is amazing, Ronni. Willow means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”
“I know it’s crazy.” Tears stung Ronni’s eyes. “Bodie and I weren’t together long and they were only at the house for a short time, but I feel like a huge part of me is missing.”
“I felt the same way when Tristan and I were separated.” Nel hugged her. “That big hole in your heart and soul means Bodie is your true mate. You have to keep feeding the mate-bond if you want him to come back.
“After I returned to Atlanta without Tristan, every night before I went to sleep, every morning I woke up, and at random moments throughout the day, I would think of him and send him all the love I had. I didn’t even know it was working until he showed up at the art gallery the night of my first showing.”
“It was different for you. Tristan loves you.”
“Do you honestly think that Bodie doesn’t love you?”
Yes, she actually did believe that. Bodie had never professed his love, and his abrupt abandonment was proof that Ronni had been mistaken about the connection she thought they had shared.
“Well, maybe this will change your mind.” Nel handed Ronni a large package wrapped in brown. “Open it up. It’s yours.”
Ronni carefully unwrapped the present. Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes roamed the painted canvas depicting Ronni in a red, flowing gown and Bodie dressed all in black, his long inky hair tied back with a red ribbon, dancing in a clearing within a moonlit forest. In the background was Ronni’s wolf lying against a lightly mossed log where Bodie’s raven was perched, and he was leaning down to give her a peck on the cheek.
“Oh, Nel.” Tears spilled from Ronni’s eyes. “It’s beautiful, but I can’t accept this. Bodie and I aren’t together anymore.”
“Tristan said I shouldn’t give it to you. I told him I had to.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe.” Nel squeezed Ronni’s shoulder. “When I saw you and Bodie dancing at Taylor’s on the night we all had dinner, I knew you belonged together.
“Cassie told me once that I needed to have faith,” she continued. “Now I’m telling you to believe in Bodie and yourself. Faith feeds the mate-bond. Feel it. Nurture it, but sure as hell don’t ignore it. Bodie will come back to you. You’ll see.”
Chapter 33
Bodie flew into the op
en window of the camper and alighted on the kitchen counter. Sitting at the table, his mother peered at him over the rim of her coffee cup with the same disapproving look that she’d given him for the last three weeks.
Not up for argumentative conversation, he darted into the bathroom, shifted and quietly closed the door for a few minutes alone as if he hadn’t spent most of the night by himself. He turned on the hot water, took a washcloth from beneath the sink, dampened it and slapped it to his face without looking at his reflection in the mirror.
Tonight he had expected Ronni to go to the wolf sanctuary. After all, he’d learned that Wahyas needed sex when the moon was full because it was a natural way to suppress the dormant wolfan hormones responsible for the emergence of the werewolf creature that Jeb had become.
Misery loved company, so Bodie had waited to see who Ronni would choose as her next lover, in hopes of tearing him to pieces.
No!
He pulled the tepid cloth from his face, dunked it in the hot water and buried his face in it again. The sting wasn’t deep enough to cleanse the feral thoughts from his mind.
“Bodie?” His mother knocked at the door.
“I’ll be out in a minute.” He shut off the water and squeezed out the cloth.
All evening he’d watched and waited but Ronni never left her house to go to the sanctuary and no suitor came to her door. Neither had she stepped onto the porch for her nightly swing.
Worried something was wrong, he’d gone to her bedroom window. She’d sat curled in the reading chair, softly crying. He’d nearly come undone, wanting to punch whoever had reduced her to tears.
And then he heard her voice whisper through his mind, “I love you.” Not knowing what to do, he’d flown straight to the camper.
Lifting his gaze, he stared into his own reflection, searching for signs of the monster who wanted to pummel the man who’d hurt Ronni. Wasn’t it twisted that the man was him?
Bodie lifted his pajama pants from the hook on the back of the door and pulled them on. He was barely out of the bathroom when his mother spoke. “Does she know you still watch over her every night?”
Captivated by the She-Wolf Page 26