by Lori Drake
“Hey, boss,” he said, sitting up. “Who’ve you got— Joey?”
Joey blinked, barely recognizing the man out of context. “Max?”
Grinning, he picked himself up off the floor and spread his arms open, wrench still in hand. “In the flesh.”
Laughing, Joey walked over and hugged him, dirty coveralls or no.
“I guess no introductions are needed,” Lewis said dryly.
Joey released Max and shook her head, chuckling. “Max and I go way back. Sort of. Our mothers tried to fix us up a few years ago.”
Max tossed the wrench into a nearby toolbox and grabbed a dirty rag from his pocket, which he wiped his hands with. Not that it did a ton of good. “Yeah, I finally got tired of her matchmaking bullshit—among other things—and decided to go it alone for a while. What are you doing here?”
“Diplomatic envoy,” Joey said. “Long story. A lot’s happened since we last spoke.”
“We’ll have to catch up before you leave.”
“Absolutely. You’ll be at dinner, right?”
“Yeah, I was just about to wash up. Who’s your friend?” He motioned at Maria with his rag.
“Oh! Right, sorry. Max, this is Maria. Maria… this is Max.”
Maria waved a hand politely, but remained at a distance.
Max cocked his head to one side, studying her for a moment before smiling and shaking his head as if to clear it. “Nice to meet you, Maria. I’m going to get washed up. See you all at dinner.”
“You betcha.” Joey rejoined Lewis and Maria, feeling lighter somehow. It was good to see a familiar face, to know she had an ally here. His reaction to Maria was curious, but she had no qualms about asking him about it directly and made a mental note to pull him aside after dinner.
As they walked back toward the house, their circuit took them past a large shed. The door was closed, but wood and old furniture was stacked against the wall outside. Old doors, wooden pallets, a warped bookcase, various lengths of plywood… It tickled the back of Joey’s mind.
“What’s in there?” she asked.
“Oh, that’s Kyle’s workshop,” Lewis said. “He’s a carpenter. Makes some really great stuff. In fact, he made our dining table. I’ll show you when we get inside.”
Joey exchanged a glance with Maria, who lifted a brow. Joey suspected they were wondering the same thing. Could Kyle be the mysterious furniture vendor from the festival?
Her suspicions followed her into the house, where Lewis led them right into the dining room, though there wasn’t anyone else there yet. A long table stretched nearly the length of the room, with enough seating for five on each side plus one at each end. What was visible of the table’s surface beneath the prodigious spread that Heidi and her minions had put out seemed to confirm her suspicions. The mismatched wood, pieced together expertly into a cohesive whole and polished to a gleaming shine, bore a striking similarity to what she’d seen of the vendor’s wares.
Leaning over, she whispered to Maria, “Look familiar to you?” She nodded, and Joey added, “Be sure you sit with your back to the door.”
When Lewis invited them to sit, Maria did as instructed, while Joey parked herself on the other side of the table, where she could see the door. Then she folded her hands in her lap and waited.
By the evening, Chris still had no idea what to do about the reservation problem, but at least Kate’s belongings were out of the house. They’d gotten rid of Brandon’s stuff and what was left of Eric’s while they were at it, just to be safe. Most of the stuff was donated to charity, but any documents they’d deemed too important for shredding were stashed in Sam’s safe for now.
He was in the middle of helping clean up after dinner when his phone rang. Expecting it to be Joey, he was surprised to see Justin’s name on the caller ID instead. He passed the now-empty pan, the contents of which he’d been scraping into a plastic container, to Lucy, then answered.
“Hey, Justin, what’s up?”
“I think I hit pay dirt. There’s a passage in here about, quote, ‘a walk with the spirits.’”
Chris’s interest was immediately piqued. “Hang on a second.” He covered the microphone with a finger. “I need to take this. You got this?”
Colt nodded, and Lucy shooed him out with a damp kitchen towel. Chris chuckled as he departed, uncovering the mic again. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Well, I’m not done with the translation yet, but she talks about encountering another spirit walker. Does the name Jeanette Lawson mean anything to you?”
Chris puzzled over it as he walked in the direction of his office. “No, can’t say that it does. But that’s more than we had to start with. Maybe we can find one of her descendants.” And the odds were good that they’d speak English. Lawson was much less exotic than Trubnikova, after all.
“Maybe. Anyway, I’m sure you’re eager to get your hands on this. I’ll keep working on it and send it over tonight.”
“Great, thanks. I really appreciate all the time you’ve put into this. I’m going to have to find a way to make it up to you.”
Justin chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. You know I love this shit. You can repay me by bringing all the old journals you happen to find.”
“You’ve got it. I’ll talk to you later.”
By the time they hung up, Chris had reached his office. He checked to make sure he hadn’t missed any calls or messages from Joey, anxious to hear how her dinner with the Wenatchee pack had gone. But at this hour, it might not even have happened yet. She hadn’t mentioned exactly what time it was, and he never thought to ask. They were going to have a lot to talk about—again—when she checked in tonight.
As he wandered over to his desk, he noticed the mail sitting in the inbox on Joey’s desk. Everyone knew better than to leave it on his desk. It’d be largely indistinguishable from the rest of the papers there, and likely overlooked. He picked up the mail and sorted through it idly.
Bill, bill… Hamilton County Public Health Records?
It took him a moment to figure out what that might be. Maria’s birth certificate. But why had it been left for them, rather than given to Maria? Oh, right. Maria was out of town and didn’t have an inbox per se.
Chris dropped the rest of the mail in the inbox and stood there tapping Maria’s envelope against his hand. It was addressed to her. He shouldn’t open it without her permission. Wasn’t it a federal crime or something?
I’m already an accessory to murder… In for a penny, in for a pound.
Chris tore open the envelope and unfolded the pages within. The confirmation of the order and receipt were on the first page, which he quickly discarded in favor of the certificate itself.
After making a mental note of her birth date for future reference, he moved on to her parents’ names. Paul Evans and Meghan Rochester.
Chris’s brows shot up. Maria was a Rochester? The Rochesters were a big name in the lycanthrope community, one of the old bloodlines. Much like Grant, in that regard. If her mother had been a Rochester… how was it that Maria had fallen off the radar?
He was mulling this over, eyes drifting over the page, when something else clicked in his head. Something about a maiden name. Blinking, he abandoned the document on Joey’s desk and ran to the closet, throwing open the door and hastily unlocking the safe inside.
He fumbled the manual combination twice in his haste, but once he got the door open, he grabbed the folio of important documents and riffled through it for his own birth certificate. There it was.
Father: Henry Martin
Mother: Jeanette Martin
Mother’s Maiden Name: Lawson
Jeanette Lawson. His mother. Could it be a coincidence that his mother had the same name as the woman Nadezhda Trubnikova had encountered on the astral plane? That another woman by that name just happened to bear a son who possessed the ability as well? No, it was too much.
Chris drifted over to a chair and collapsed into it with his birth certificate still in han
d. His mother had been an astral walker and passed her gift on to her son. He lifted his eyes to the bookcase containing row upon row of his father’s journals. He’d been reading them mostly in chronological order. He hadn’t even gotten to the point in his father’s life when he’d met his wife-to-be. Had he known about her ability? For that matter, had Chris’s adopted mother? Adelaide and Jeanette had been close. Close enough that Jeanette had named Adelaide Chris’s godmother, entrusting her with raising him if something were to happen to her. If Adelaide had known, why hadn’t she told him? Was it like everything else—or so it seemed at times—that she’d wanted him to discover on his own?
Questions spun around and around in his mind. He didn’t even notice the room getting darker. Adam found him there an hour and a half later, sitting in the dark, holding his birth certificate.
The beta’s gentle rap on the door drew Chris out of his thoughts. Blinking, he looked in that direction. “Yeah?”
“Everything okay in here?” Adam asked.
Chris straightened in his seat. “Yeah. You need something?”
“Your friend’s here.”
“Friend?” Chris was still a little slow on the uptake. Most of the people he knew in Seattle lived with him.
“Short, cute, and witchy?”
“Oh, right. E—Dawn. I’ll be right out.” Chris stood and returned his birth certificate to the folder, then walked it back to the safe.
Adam lingered in the doorway. “So, is she…”
“Sticking around? I dunno. Maybe.”
“Single?”
Chris leaned out of the closet to peer at Adam. “Last I heard, but…” He wasn’t sure what—or how much—he should say. She’s recently widowed? She’s not into guys these days?
“But what?”
Chris shook his head, deciding that what Dawn did or didn’t want to share about her past was more her business than his. “Nothing.”
He backtracked to his desk for Maria’s birth certificate and tucked it away in the safe with the rest, then locked it up and headed out to see why Dawn had turned up unannounced this time. He couldn’t imagine it was for any good reason.
12
Joey had to admit that Lewis hadn’t been talking up Heidi and Caroline’s efforts for nothing. The food more than met her expectations, even if she believed Sara could cook circles around the both of them. There was a succulent ham with a sweet glaze and roasted pineapple, a bowl of mashed potatoes easily as big as the ham, roasted carrots—from the garden, Heidi said—and dinner rolls that were so fresh from the oven Joey nearly burned her fingers plucking one from the basket.
The only disappointment was that the enigmatic Kyle hadn’t turned up. No one made any comment about him being absent, leaving Joey to assume that it was either a normal state of affairs or at least not unexpected that night. She did meet Amanda, though. Amanda had been the third woman bustling about the kitchen with Heidi when Joey’s group passed through. It seemed the division of labor in the house was fairly traditional, which would’ve mystified Joey if she hadn’t picked up on the submissive nature of all three women.
“So, this is the whole pack, then?” she asked while they ate.
“Mostly,” Max said. He’d claimed the seat beside her, giving her a close view of his hands. She was rather impressed with how clean they were, and nearly asked him what kind of soap he used to get all that grease off. There wasn’t even a trace of it under his fingernails. “Kyle and Owen aren’t here yet.”
“Kyle will be home later.” Amanda flashed Joey an apologetic smile. “He was working the festival today, and the vendors don’t usually tear down until sunset.”
A door opened and shut somewhere in the house, and Joey looked to the doorway expectantly. “Maybe that’s him…”
But the man that stepped into the doorway wasn’t the man from the festival. He was on the short side, but broad across the shoulders and well proportioned. His short, slicked-back auburn hair matched the neatly trimmed beard he wore.
The new arrival paused, noting all eyes on him, and cleared his throat. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Come make yourself a plate while it’s still hot,” Lewis said. “Owen, this is Joey Grant and Maria Evans from the Granite Falls pack. Ladies, this is my second, Owen Clark.”
Owen settled a couple chairs down from Maria, giving Joey a clear view of him as he began to fill his plate. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Joey said, but he glanced up only briefly in between ladling scoops of mashed potatoes on his plate.
Maria grinned. “Lewis and Clark? Funny.”
There was a collective chuckle around the table, but Owen didn’t join in. Rather, he went still in the process of spearing a thick slice of ham from the platter passed his way. It was the barest flicker of… something. Joey wasn’t sure what. He completed the motion after a fraction of a second’s pause.
“You probably get that a lot,” Joey said, still watching Owen.
It was Lewis that answered. “Not as much as you’d think. Maybe if it were his first name.”
“I tried to get him to change it,” Max commented, gesturing at Owen with his fork. “Unfortunately, Owen doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
The man in question smirked. “Watch it, rich boy.”
Joey lifted her brows, but there was no heat in the comment.
Max snickered. “My trust fund’s not so big I can’t kick your ass, old man.”
Lewis cleared his throat, putting an end to their banter, which had the cadence of a long-running inside joke.
A foot nudged Joey’s leg under the table, and she glanced up to find Maria’s eyes seeking hers.
Trust fund? Maria mouthed.
Later, Joey mouthed back.
While Lewis steered the conversation momentarily toward some business to do with cattle that’d held Owen up, Joey looked around the table. Aside from Lewis, Owen, and Max, there was one other male wolf present. He was visibly older, with gray peppering his dark hair. Caroline had introduced him as her husband, Gerald Wilson.
When a lull in the conversation came around again, Joey decided to start with the probing questions. “So, how’d you all meet? I hope you don’t mind my asking. Mixed packs like yours fascinate me, since I grew up in a nuclear one.”
“Lewis and I met in Cincinnati,” Heidi said, surprising Joey. She’d expected Lewis, Owen, or Max—one of the alphas, in other words—to answer first. “What was it, dear? About ten years ago?”
Joey smiled to herself at Heidi’s claim-staking. Bold, for a beta. But it was an impulse Joey could both appreciate and respect. If two pretty young wolves showed up at Joey’s house, she’d probably want to make her claim on Chris clear too.
Lewis nodded, showing no sign of picking up on the subtleties of Heidi’s reply. “About that, yeah. Owen, Gerald, and Caroline were part of the Cincinnati pack when I took over too. Oh, and Kyle, of course.”
“I got to Cincinnati right when they were getting ready to pull up stakes,” Max said. “I decided to tag along for the laughs.”
“Seems like it’s a laugh a minute around here,” Joey muttered softly, earning her a nudge and a chuckle from Max. “What about you, Amanda?”
“She rode into town with a pack of biker babes,” Max said.
Amanda blushed to the roots of her pale blonde hair.
Joey tilted her head. “Gray River pack?”
“Yeah, you know of them?” Max said. “It’s too bad they won’t allow men. I’d love to ride with them. But there are some sacrifices I’m not willing to make, and cutting off my—”
Lewis cleared his throat again.
Max snickered. “Right. Anyway, they rode through town last year, and Amanda found us all so charming that she couldn’t bear to leave.”
“Is that so?” Joey asked, smiling as she looked down the table at Amanda again. The girl reminded her a little of Sara, with her quiet demeanor and pale hair.
“Okay,” Max said. “Techn
ically, she found Kyle so charming that she couldn’t bear to leave.”
“Jealous much?” Owen asked, and sent a piece of a roll sailing across the table at Max.
Joey expected more throat-clearing from the Alpha, but he just sat there looking amused while he chewed his food.
Max ducked the breadly projectile and laughed. “Not particularly. I mean, no offense, Mandy, you’re a nice gal. But you’d never be able to keep up with me.”
Now Lewis cleared his throat. Or choked on his food. It was difficult to tell. “Max—”
“What?” Max shot his Alpha an all-too-innocent look. “I meant in general. Jeez, get your mind out of the gutter.”
Joey and Maria burst out laughing, which seemed to settle Lewis’s concerns about Max offending his guests. Once the fit of laughter subsided, Joey decided to make Gerald her next target. As the oldest-looking wolf at the table, he seemed the most likely to have been around Cincinnati when Maria was born. Also, he’d hardly said a word since sitting down.
“How long were you in Cincinnati, Gerald?”
Gerald looked up from his nearly empty plate with a generally disinterested look on his face. “Thirty-two years.”
Bingo.
Joey leaned forward. “Really? I bet it changed a lot while you were there.”
He shrugged and turned his attention back to his food.
Joey opted not to press the issue for now but made a note to try to corner him later, and shifted her attention to Owen. “What about you, Owen?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions,” Owen said, eyeing her while he tore his dinner roll into small pieces like the one he’d chucked at Max. Joey only then noticed that his plate was littered with them.