“How about that beer? Leave your truck. I’ll drive.” He settled Mack into the passenger side. The foreman stretched out as much as possible and leaned his head back against the rest. His skin looked gray. He grabbed Adam’s arm before he could move away.
“Give me a little while to sort it all out. If it has anything to do with Barry, maybe I can come up with something useful.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Adam laid his own hand, for comfort, on the restraining hand. He moved it away before making the human uncomfortable with the contact. “You told me once that your visions aren’t always about us, that the Fates mess around in your head sometimes.”
Adam rolled the window half way down to help combat Mack’s after-vision shakes. He shut the door with a slam.
“I’ll get your belt and toss it in the tool box on your truck. Then we’ll grab that beer and order some pizza at the house.” His house, where he could keep an eye on Mack’s recovery.
He paused and unclipped the cell phone from his waist, handing it through the window. Adam had learned from dealing with the boys’ phobias that normalcy, whatever that was, was best for combating unnerving situations.
“Go ahead and call the order in. Six pepperoni and a couple of meat-lover specials for us.”
“Do you think that’s enough?”
Mack chuckled when Adam paused to think over the sarcasm. Teenagers were hard to fill up. Wolven teens were more like, well, a pack of starving wolves.
“Yeah, probably. If it’s not, the boys can finish filling up on sandwiches.”
Adam went back inside the house under construction, picking up with half a mind on the task.
He hadn’t blown off the she-wolf poisoning incident as much as he’d portrayed to Mack. He’d looked into the matter.
God bless technology. On the Canis website a pack had access to nearly every Wolven community with a computer. There were chatrooms on topics varying from recipes to the best way to take down an elk. There were links to personalized sites for different packs. He could easily find out who’d been declared rogue. That is, if anyone felt inclined to answer the new guy’s queries.
As a new alpha, Adam was starting over. His reputation as Tarrant Beta was good. Better than good. But no one knew if they wanted to take a chance on the new Pater Canis over Anderson County, Texas.
He’d lucked out. Her name had been Lynn Garner. Lynn had been declared rogue a year ago by her pack alpha in conservative Maine and formally cast out from her pack.
There was no reason given and no one would ask. Wolven were medieval that way.
When an alpha declared a wolf rogue, it was law. Blacklisted. Other alphas respected that. No one wanted someone else’s trash corrupting the pack’s balance. Hell, applying for pack membership was like applying for an exclusive job. You needed references. Preferably, of the well connected variety.
The process of finding a mate went much the same way. Usually Canis decided it was time to pair up before instinct kicked in, demanding a mate. The alpha contacted his contacts. Contracts and treaties were drawn up. Nothing so important as a life-pairing was given away freely. And voila! A match was made with the final consent of both packs’ alpha females. Moving and marriage were political. Without the proper references, forget it.
Could Lynn Garner have heard about the inquiries he’d made for new pack applicants? Or the insanity that had him post his interest for an alpha pairing? A brief lived insanity. He’d taken the posting down less than a month after putting it up.
Amanda was dead. Adam desperately needed a power base. Five teenagers did not cut it in the muscle department. An alpha female would have contacts to draw other females. Which would draw unsettled males looking for mates in another pack. All in all it seemed a simple solution to his problem.
Until he ran up against the issue of Garrick’s reputation. No female wanted to be the first anything in the bastard’s old pack. Adam hoped that Lynn hadn’t wanted to join his group. He would’ve hated to have to turn her away.
What was worse was the knowledge that only a human would have killed her in that manner. A wolven would have ripped her to shreds.
Why put the murdered wolven female in Adam’s trash pile? That had the feeling of a wolven challenge. A warning?
The sabotaged equipment and electrical box could be a warning that someone wanted more than to hurt Adam financially. Perhaps it was his position, like a stray wolven looking to settle down. No one on the council would say anything if Adam lost his pack, or his life, in a Challenge. His pack was too small, their reputation less than nothing, for anyone to care, except maybe the Tarrant Pack.
Mack’s vision took on a more immediate concern. The psychic had seen a death coming. Well, it wasn’t his death. Not this time. He had Mack to thank for that.
Adam’s lip curled, showing teeth as a growl escaped from deep in his chest.
Bring it on.
He’d be damned if he let some piece of shit rogue out of a B rated werewolf movie invade his territory.
Chapter Eight
Diana let herself into the house with a sigh. She leaned against the door and closed her eyes, feeling alone and weary. Her traitorous thoughts drifted to Adam Weis.
Any woman the focus of attention that primal shouldn’t be lonely. The fantasy alone was enough to get her hormones humming.
No. She did not need a man that powerful trying to control her. An overbearing human Richard had been hard enough to get out from under. Better to be lonely. She wouldn’t survive a creature like Adam.
The sound of low volume arguing roused Diana to action.
Guests. Oh, joy. Karen’s new study group. Or more aptly put, Karen’s excuse to bring Bradley and the other boys back into her immediate circle.
Diana shook her head. No. She’d had a hard day was all. She wasn’t lonely. She needed a break, to get out. She didn’t need a man to make her happy.
She was happy, drat it!
She would take her happy self to the kitchen, where she’d make a healthy dinner.
Then, she’d make that call to just plain vanilla human Bob Benedict for a dinner date tomorrow night. She’d have her break and some conversation that didn’t involve pep rallies, college SATs, or werewolves.
Diana Ridley, that was her, happy, happy, happy. She squared her shoulders, pasted on a smile, and marched to the kitchen to meet her troops.
“Hi Mom!”
She stopped at the floral outside edge of the dining room carpet. Her smile faltered a second before Karen’s pointed stare and bright don’t embarrass me in front of my friends smile helped her to recover. Diana tried to digest the strangeness sitting at her dining table.
Surrounding her buoyant cheerleader daughter were all five fidgety and feral Weis boys and two geeky overachievers. Both poor kids watched the other inhabitants of the dining room warily.
“Hello everyone.”
The Weis bunch was full of ma’ams. Diana had to admit the werewolves were polite.
Karen gestured to the two geeks.
“Mom, this is Marilyn and Doug” “Douglas.” The boy corrected. He checked the time on his watch. The thing might have been smuggled out of a NASA lab.
Marilyn nodded politely and pushed up her glasses.
To his credit, Bradley shifted slightly away from Karen when Diana’s eyebrows rose. A slight flush stained his cheeks at her regard. Mark grinned like a loon and dropped his pencil under the table.
Interesting. Apparently, teen werewolf hormones were as active as a regular human teenager’s. Probably more. Yes, she was definitely having a talk with the young, brooding, and hunky Bradley Starr.
Her gaze shifted to the other Weis boys. They looked both nervous and earnest for approval, except for Mark who’d disappeared. Marilyn squealed. Under the table came a bump and a small yelp.
“Ahem.” The little egghead, Douglas, gave Diana a pointed look while addressing the rest of the group at the table. “We are on a timetable here people.�
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Whatever she’d been about to say was lost when a low rumbling came from Bradley’s end of the table. Diana wondered if she was about to have a repeat of her introduction of Werewolf 101.
“Did you just growl at me?”
Bradley’s white smile grew wider and hungrier as the boy’s arrogance faded, replaced by white-faced unease.
Catching her daughter’s panicked help me look, Diana interrupted, thinking to diffuse the situation. “Anyone up for a snack before dinner?” Instead of snacking on Douglas.
The hearty, yes, turned into the shuffling of papers and books. Mark got cuffed on the head and pulled out a few crumpled sheets from the middle of a book.
———
The office phone trilled. Adam set aside the contract bid he was hurrying to finish working on to reach for the portable. He didn’t want to be ate for the dinner date to interview a pack applicant.
“Hello?”
“You the head werewolf?”
The voice on the other end was gravelly and coughed a couple of dry smoker’s coughs.
Adam went still, his hunter’s instincts surfacing. Adam kept his voice light and very polite.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” The man sneered. “You’re either the alpha fuzzy or not. Which is it?”
A red haze filmed over Adam’s eyes. Fury rolled under his skin. No one disrespected the alpha. He snarled into the phone and hung up. He set the phone down before he flung it across the room.
A few minutes later the phone trilled again. He waited five rings before he picked up.
“What do you want?” There was real menace in his voice.
“Hey, don’t get your tail in a knot. I want to trade information.”
It was Adam’s turn to sneer.
“What makes you think I want anything from you, two-foot.”
The man on the other end laughed, a raspy sound that ended in another smoker’s cough.
“Two-foot, eh? I haven’t heard that one. Meet me at The Blue Dolphin for a beer. You’ll want this bone.”
“I don’t think so.”
He started to hang up.
“Don’t hang up.” The desperation in the rough voice made Adam pause. “Please. Just don’t hang up, man. You got some bad-asses talking shit about you. That’s your bone. Okay?”
Adam rubbed the bridge of his nose with one finger.
“I don’t care what people say about me.”
“You’ll care about this. My name is Grady. Grady Dobbs. Please.”
The last please got to him. And Grady Dobbs earnest waiting. The problem with befriending too many humans was that eventually you went soft on them. You let yourself be dragged into their problems.
“Look, I don’t have time to meet with you. Tel me what you want. Maybe we can deal.”
Maybe.
Grady coughed. Adam could hear the flick of a lighter and the sound of the man inhaling on his cigarette.
“All right. There’s this girl I’m looking for.”
This wasn’t starting out good. “I don’t think ....”
“Wait a minute. Okay?” Grady took another drag from his cigarette. “This girl. My woman. She went missing a few weeks back.”
Adam’s hackles rose.
“Why don’t you call the police? I’m not going to track your runaway girlfriend.”
“Lynn didn’t run away from me. She’s different.”
Please, God, don’t let it be her. He tunneled his fingers through his hair. He really, really did not want to be involved in this.
“I’ll be honest. We’re just a couple of strays passing through. I’m not even your kind. But Lynn is. She said, if we ever got separated, she’d leave a message with the local Canis where to find her.”
Adam had a message all right. Not the one Grady Dobbs wanted to hear. He sighed.
“Is your girlfriend’s name Lynn Garner?”
“Yeah. She left me a message?” Excitement lit the man’s ravaged voice. “Where is she?”
“I’m sorry. Lynn Garner is dead.”
The phone fell silent. It dragged out long enough that Adam thought the connection had been lost.
“Grady?”
A coughing fit answered. A breath shuddered as the man inhaled air. The line clicked dead.
———
By the time Adam arrived at the restaurant, he had a raging headache. His nose flared at the mingling scents of food, exhaust, and people. A petite blond female, smelling of wolf, bounced excitedly in front of the door. She looked away, exposing her neck for his greeting when he came near.
He drew back, surprised when the female cuddled close, rubbing her nose over his chest.
“Tamara Linden?”
The scent of her nervous excitement made him smile. “Relax, I’m not going to bite. Everyone calls me Adam.”
“Okay, Adam.”
Tamara rushed the words together. Her big china blue eyes made him think, young. Another noncombatant to protect. Opening the door with one hand, he urged her inside with the other.
“They grill a good steak here. Let’s order before we get down to business.”
———
Once she placed the chicken in the oven, Diana gathered her courage and picked up the phone. Jittery fingers smoothed the front of her dress as she dialed the number in the phonebook. The phone rang once. Twice. A third time. The receiver picked up and a masculine voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Bob. This is Diana.”
“So, what can I do for you?”
Diana’s stomach clenched. There was nothing to be nervous about. She was only asking a friend out to dinner. That was all.
“Ah, um, actually, Bob, I wanted to know if you were busy for dinner tomorrow night?”
The other end of the line lapsed into silence.
“Bob?”
He chuckled.
“I was listening for the ice crackling.”
Confused, she wrinkled her brow.
“What?”
“The sound of Hell freezing over?”
“Oh. I didn’t mean ….”
Bob’s warm laugh filled her ear.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Of course I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow, pretty lady. I never believed you’d actually go out with me.”
For an accountant named Bob, he sounded wonderfully gallant over the phone.
Diana forced her suspicious nature to be quiet.
“Okay. Tomorrow night then. What do you like?”
How did a girl go about this?
He chuckled again in her ear.
“I like you.”
Oh. What a nice thing to say, she thought.
“I, ah, like you too.” I think.
“Why don’t you wear something nice and I’ll surprise you. I’ll make reservations and pick up at about seven.”
“Okay.” She was certainly surprised all right. Surprised that she had actually followed through with this crazy plan.
Reservations? What was she going to wear?
“I’ll meet you at seven then. Bye.” Diana hung up and fanned herself.
She opened the refrigerator door and stuck her head inside to cool. While she was there she decided on the merits of a salad. She’d bet money that only Karen and the geek twins would eat anything green and leafy.
Shake-and-bake chicken, salad, and rolls. What a gourmet accomplishment. A sense of defeat hovered around her. She rubbed her forehead.
Who was she kidding? Forget healthy. These kids weren’t going to eat this.
“If you serve it, they will eat.”
Diana hadn’t realized she’d spoke out loud. She turned to face the teasing voice.
Brandon stood in the middle of the kitchen with his hands shoved in his back pockets, offering a shy smile.
“They will, will they?”
He nodded. The smile grew mischievous. “Oh, yeah. Shake it. Bake it. Burn it. Smother it in ketchup.”
&
nbsp; She laughed. “The salad, too?”
He drifted closer to look over her shoulder into the refrigerator. Diana could feel the warmth radiating from the boy soaking into her back. She’d bet werewolves made nice electric blankets in the winter.
“Well,” he drew the word out as if thinking over the merits of ketchup on salad.
“I’d bet that with enough ketchup, the most discriminating teenager will swallow veggies.”
He reached around her to grab a bottle out of the door shelf. He flipped the bottle into the air and caught it.
“But me, I like Ranch.”
“Shouldn’t you be studying?” Finals were in a few weeks.
Brandon shook his head. “Nah. I already know that stuff. I came with Bradley.”
He swiftly refolded napkins into perfect triangles, placing the correct silverware beside each plate.
“So your brother is the one in need of tutoring?” She was shamelessly fishing for information and both of them knew it.
Brandon grinned and brushed by her, opening upper cabinet doors until he found her good glassware. The warmth of the boy’s passing seemed to reach out and absorb into her skin with a tingle. The contact felt nice. Comfortable.
It was her natural empathic gifts, amplified. The difference was between black and white TV with tinny speakers and 3D with stereo surround sound. She pushed the disconcerting feeling into the background.
“Nah. Bradley’s really good in school. He’s making sure the others don’t get mad and tear the twerp’s arms and legs off before their grades come up.”
Diana surveyed the table. Perfect. Formal dining, only with paper plates and napkins.
“I’m missing something here,” she muttered. “Something important.”
“Missing?” Brandon looked over her shoulder at the table. She imagined that could feel the concern radiating with the warmth from his body. “What did I forget?”
“Yo. Some-ting sure smells good.”
Rick sauntered in swinging his arms. “What’s wrong bro?”
Diana noticed that Rick didn’t take his gaze from the table and still picked up on the undercurrents in the kitchen.
“I forgot something for the table.”
Brandon’s dejection cut her to the quick. Diana began to speak when Rick beat her to the punch.
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