He had a sudden urge to fling his body over the basket and growl, to warn her away from his food. Instead, he narrowed his eyes.
“What’s wrong with it?”
Diana realized she’d been rude again. Why was she always sticking her foot in her mouth around him? Or her knee in other inappropriate parts?
“I’m sorry.” She tried a smile and veered to more common ground to smooth things over. “I forgot that you have teenagers to feed, too. Sometimes they can be so picky, can’t they?”
Her meaning went over his head, but he seemed to take it in stride. Obviously, the junk in his basket was intended for his stomach, as well.
No man had ever worn that kind of diet so well. So much for the body builder, protein drink, and steroid theory she’d begun to formulate about him. But then, he was more than just a man, she reminded herself.
Those cool blue eyes watched her as if she would grab his basket and run. She could tell he wanted to leave. So much for her grand finesse.
He nodded warily and she could see the bristling man slowly calm down. He surprised her by speaking instead of simply brushing her off and pushing his cart away.
“Yeah. Five teens eat a lot. I’m always running out of stuff.”
Diana laughed. “I imagine so. Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”
He nodded again, watching her go to her basket. His gaze bored into her back.
Diana wondered that she didn’t spontaneously combust. She waved once more as she wheeled out of the aisle and toward the cashier.
While stacking groceries in the trunk of her car, Diana replayed her reunion with Adam Weis and tried to regain control of her wayward female hormones. She tingled all over.
Good grief. She wasn’t some teenybopper. She was thirty-eight. She needed to get a hold of herself.
It wasn’t like the man had asked her on a date of anything. As if he would after she’d kneed him in the nuts the first time they’d met. This time around, she’d acted desperate, as if she couldn’t bear to let him out of her sight.
Pathetic.
Diana shook her head, disgusted with herself. She slammed the trunk closed.
She slid behind the wheel and flipped down the visor. She looked okay for her age. In the mirror, her plain brown eyes stared back at her, fringed and long due to a fifteen dollar tube of mascara. Only tiny lines were starting to form around her eyes. Her lips weren’t full enough, a vanity she hid by adding a hair more lipstick under her bottom lip line. Except for a strand or two, her short hair hadn’t started going gray yet. Thank God for small blessings.
As if a man like that was going to take a second look at her.
Perhaps she should go out with Bob Benedict? He was more her speed.
Diana imagined kissing steady, dependable Bob. He was a little older that her. His salt and pepper hair might be thinning on top, but he wasn’t fat. He wasn’t built like a Greek god either. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, the slightly myopic accountant didn’t focus sharply on her with arctic blue eyes.
She’d call Bob and arrange to have dinner with him. She’d wear her best dress and heels. She pulled out of the parking lot and told herself firmly that she liked steady and dependable.
Really, she did.
Chapter Five
Adam strode through the door and tossed his keys in the direction of the TV. A hand shot up to catch them. Video game monsters growled and screamed their last breaths, subdued by artificial machine gun sounds. The mingled scents of popcorn, soda, and his laughing, sweaty pack permeated the house, a scene similar to his own teenage afternoons piled up with his half-brothers Dominick and Gavin. Here was pack unity, and he was the outsider.
“Unload the truck. Put up the groceries. I’ll start dinner in an hour.”
Adam didn’t notice five pairs of eyes shift to glance at one another, or the sudden stillness of the room. He continued on to his room, oblivious to the fact that not one of the boys uttered a word of argument in the distribution of the chore. They simply filed out.
In his room, Adam dropped his clothes on the floor and stepped into the shower, closing the stall door behind. He turned the cold tap on all the way, letting the icy spray sluice down his body, shocking his libido into submission. When the ice finally infiltrated his veins, he shut off the water. He gave a full body shake and stepped out, grabbing one of the thick towels out of the cabinet.
Great.
Now he was cold on top of being in a bad mood. Since he was already in the right frame of mind, Adam decided he’d take care of the bills. He didn’t feel like cleaning up, so he left his old clothes and the damp towel on the floor. The messy room fed his irritation in a dark and satisfying way.
He pulled a clean pair of jeans over his hips, buttoned up, and padded barefoot to his office. He grabbed the mail from the angled box fixed to the wall by the door before going in.
No one entered his domain here. The boys came and went pretty much everywhere in the house, but this room and his bedroom were off limits except by invitation. Or summoning. Their choice, not his.
Adam dropped the mail on his desk, then slouched into the leather chair behind his desk and glared at the dark computer.
He gave a canine snort. He could have almost any woman he wanted for sex.
He’d had both wolven and human females. At least with his own kind, he didn’t have to hold back. Humans were fragile creatures, their females more so.
He didn’t need to get involved with a human female. He barely understood wolven females. Why would he want to try to understand a human?
To hell with it. What male, of any species, understood women?
Adam opened an email message. The formal Canis to Canis greeting made him stop. Fourteen months after Paul had exiled him here with those words, he still wasn’t used to the title. A small thrill of pride warred with his sense of desertion.
Hail, Sire Adam,
Greetings, from Canis Tarrant.
Emotion engulfed Adam as he scanned the letter for news. Damn, he was about to become an uncle. His brother, Dominick, was going to be a father, a rare and happy occasion, since so few wolven females conceived or carried their babies to term. As a matter of superstition, wolven parents made no mention of the pregnancy until the last month. For their sakes, Adam hoped that Dominick and Valerie’s child survived.
What other changes had happened in the Tarrant County pack in the year he’d been gone?
He missed his old pack. He missed the hunts with his half-brothers, Dominick and Gavin, working as a unit to bring down a deer. Playing hide and seek in the woods at midnight. The comfort of a warm pile of bodies, not for sex. A wolven pack needed the touch and reassurance of its members as much as they needed to hunt. Even strays preferred to travel in pairs for protection and someone to touch.
Adam was aware that he was in a raw sulk. It was a self-indulgence that neither of his fathers would approve.
Adam missed his wolven father and former pack leader. Paul had been there for him since after his first Change, guiding him, teaching him things that his human father could not.
Perversely, Adam was of two minds. He missed Paul and his guidance, but he didn’t want Paul telling him what to do. He didn’t want Paul’s opinion anymore, though he was curious how the old wolf would handle the boys.
The boys were not Paul Sheppard’s business. Adam didn’t have to answer to him anymore.
Adam realized that he’d unconsciously bared teeth at the monitor. He gave a little shake and ran a hand over the back of his neck to smooth his hackles, then sat back to absorb his rioting thoughts and feelings.
He’d been so upset about what he’d lost, about having to start fresh here, that hadn’t realized how he’d changed. He’d gone from pack Beta and warden chafing at his Canis’ rules, to handing out rules in his own pack.
Maybe the boys hadn’t fully accepted him because they sensed that he hadn’t wanted to accept them. If Paul offered a place for them now, Adam would fight
to keep all five of them right here in his house.
He propped his feet on the desk and crossed his arms over his chest, then tested a new truth.
The boys were not Paul Sheppard’s business.
Adam frowned. True, but that didn’t sound quite right. He rubbed his nose and recrossed his arms. He tried again.
Sire Adam Weis of Canis Anderson.
Better.
To be Sire was to be the Alpha, the Pack Protector, Family Father.
The turmoil that had plagued Adam since last February melted, revealing the hard core that had been hidden from his sight, but not Paul’s. Adam smiled and composed a short note to the other Canis.
Hail, Sire Paul,
Greetings, from Canis Anderson.
Send Dom my congratulations, Grampa.
Good Hunting,
Sire Adam.
After responding to his other messages, Adam grabbed the paper mail and flipped through the envelopes. A feeling of rightness settled into his gut. He tossed the junk mail.
He set his bills aside. That left five small manila envelopes that had been tucked unobtrusively behind the mail. Bold black letters proclaimed the local middle and high school’s addresses stamped on the appropriate envelopes. The boys’ names and homeroom teachers’ names were typed underneath.
Was it report card time again?
One by one, he pulled out each printout, read the expected news, and signed the bottom. Adam had been to enough parent/teacher conferences in the past months to know that Rick was only barely passing. Seth and Mark were failing. Seth didn’t care one way or the other and Rick and Mark were driving the teachers nuts with their antics.
Mark especially. The kid was more than wired. Teachers called him at least once a week for one stunt or another. Complaints of Mark’s daydreaming and failure to complete his work were written on progress reports. He had no idea how to keep the boy’s attention focused or calm his behavior. Adam had grounded him, but had little hope of making an impression on the kid.
He’d heard enough lectures on helping the boys’ reach their potential to make him want a beer, several beers in fact, with a chaser of school counselor’s blood.
It wasn’t that he did not respect the teachers. He did. God, they dealt with his kids every day, and some worse, and still managed to stay sane. Adam was simply at a loss of how to deal with the boys’ needs, or how to get them on track academically.
He wasn’t the boys’ foster parent. His guardianship, obtained with the best wolven lawyers, was ironclad. He didn’t worry that the boys would be taken from him, but he was concerned about their future.
Adam slid the printouts back into the envelopes and moved them aside to concentrate on the bills, most of which he paid electronically.
The report cards drew his attention once more. He stared at the neat manila squares on the edge of his desk.
Frowning, Adam pulled out the failing printouts again and scanned the contents.
He tried to pin down exactly what bothered him. He set those aside and pulled out Bradley and Brandon’s grades. Both were passing.
Bradley consistently brought in high A’s. His little beta wolf should be in advanced classes. Nothing ever dropped below a ninety-five. Brandon was a steady middle of the road B. He carried an eighty-five in every class, every six weeks.
Adam glanced at the other report cards. Fluctuating C’s and F’s marked the other three. Mark might even have to go to summer school to make the next grade.
Adam picked up the twin’s grades again, studied the averages. He set one down and stared at the other as an idea took hold.
He reached for his desk drawer that served as a filing cabinet, where he put the boys’ school records and his guardianship papers. As a lawyer, his brother was nothing if not thorough. Dom had made sure that Adam had the boys’ medical and school background, as well as documentation of his legal guardianship.
Adam flipped through folders until he came to the right set of grade printouts. He pulled them out and unclipped them, scanning the boy’s averages over the years. All of the boys were smart and if they could be motivated would be college material. This particular one was brilliant. It was a near perfect plan.
Third grade, second six weeks, was when a nine-year-old child figured out how to stay unnoticed by becoming completely average. In Garrick’s pack, a reward for your achievements wasn’t a good thing. Failing grades would have been a bad idea because a call from the school would have irritated the boys’ guardians.
Hell, his three underachievers had been barely passing when Adam took over.
Maybe that was weird sign of trust in itself. That they trusted him not to hurt them if they messed up. You never knew with kids.
He felt like he’d discovered a key to the puzzle that was his pack. Adam laughed.
Damn he was proud of that kid.
Potential. It was all about potential.
Adam ran a hand through his drying hair.
What kind of idiots missed the obvious? With these kind of fixed grades, he’d bet his tail that boy was the smartest of the litter. That kid would be hell in Vegas.
He put away all of the report cards but the one with the most potential. He still had to talk to the others about failing grades, assign punishments, and all that.
Excitement and pride thrummed through his veins. He nearly picked up the phone to call and brag, but he didn’t know Diana Ridley’s phone number. Mack would probably listen, but he didn’t know if the man would understand. Adam put the phone down and decided he’d call his parents, his human parents, later.
But damn! An eighty-five in every subject since the third grade? What kind of planning did that take? The boy would have to have known how to take everyday work, homework, and final exams into account, and average them out accordingly. He’d have to plan out each paper ever turned in for the appropriate grade. Adam shook his head, amazed. Then walking to the door, Adam stuck his head out into the hall and bellowed.
“Brandon!”
The raw scent of fear reached the office before the boy. From behind his desk, Adam watched the door open, slowly, like a scene in a horror movie where the victim is brutally attacked. Brandon stood in the door, eyes down, waiting.
Geez. The boy was about to piss his pants. Adam wanted to kill that bastard Garrick again. This time he’d castrate him before strangling him with his own entrails.
Death had been too easy for Garrick Moser.
Adam gestured at one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“Shut the door and sit down.”
He leaned back, trying for casual. He hoped that his actions and mood would transmit to the boy and put him at ease.
It didn’t.
Brandon sat, a silent ghost in the room. If the boy could control his fear scent, he’d be nearly invisible.
“Look at me, son.”
In two jerky motions, the boy brought his eyes to Adam’s chest.
“Good enough.” He grunted. Better than the floor.
Adam leaned forward to put his arms on the desk. He hated the way the kid tensed. Adam sighed and ran a hand through his hair instead.
“Look kid, we can’t keep going on this way. One of us is going to get an ulcer.”
With no response forthcoming, Adam leaned forward. He didn’t know how to get through.
“Dammit! Look at me. I’m not Garrick!”
Brandon paled. He looked as though he might be sick. He stared at Adam with wide eyes.
Not wolf eyes. No, the sick bastard had given the boy goddamn Bambi eyes.
That infuriated Adam.
He stalked around the desk, a red haze forming as the boy shrank away. Adam leaned over the chair, the sick scent of fear egging him on. The wolf wanted blood and pain for penance. Not this blood, though. This one was innocent.
The beast slipped under his skin. Sharp canines, upper and lower filled Adam’s mouth. He gripped the armrests tight with hands that were more claw than human, caging the boy. He
pressed his face close, his nose inches from Brandon’s, so that all the boy would see, smell, and hear, was him, Adam Weis, no matter how he cringed or hid with his eyes shut.
“Who am I, Brandon?” He demanded. “Tell me.”
“Alpha.” The boy answered in a strangled whisper.
“Tell me.”
Brandon whimpered. A knock on the door jerked Adam’s attention from his prey.
He snarled. A wise wolf would leave the door shut.
The door opened and Bradley slipped inside. He shut the door behind him and stood there.
Adam growled at the intrusion. Moving with preternatural speed, he pinned Bradley against the door. If they wouldn’t see, he’d make them see. The boy’s bared neck, barely mollified the wolf. Adam waited a second before accepting the offering, then dragged his tongue slowly over the heavy vein in Bradley’s neck.
Adam released him and stepped back. He pointed at the door with one claw. His voice was harsher than he intended with the partial Change.
“You want to talk. We’ll do it later.”
He watched Bradley struggle inside himself, the need to protect his brother at odds with the desire to obey his alpha. Adam made the choice for him. He grabbed the pup by the scruff of the neck with one hand, careful of the sharp digits so close to tender skin. Pushing Bradley outside, he shut the door, locking it against another intrusion.
Adam turned around to size up his prey. Brandon sat huddled in the chair, literally quivering in fear of his leader. The only pack member the boy trusted was his blood brother. The wolf understood and reminded him. The pack was brotherhood. Blood bound them all. The blood of birth, blood shed in a hunt, it was all the same, shared blood between them.
“C’mere.”
Adam watched Brandon slide out of the chair and begin to crawl toward him. He closed the distance and reached down, pulling the boy up against him.
“You’re not a dog, son. Stand.”
Adam cupped the boy’s chin carefully between his clawed fingers and tilted his head up to meet his eyes.
“Look at me.” He nodded when the boy finally complied.
“What do you see, boy?”
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