by Holley Trent
But to what?
And why did he even care, anyway? A person he was in the process of legally detaching himself from didn’t need to make sense.
He scratched his chin through his beard, pondering if they could sort out the divorce paperwork without getting lawyers involved. Between the two of them, they were smart enough to follow the instructions.
He hoped.
“Any news?” Her gaze was locked on the phone he’d forgotten he was holding.
“Hold on.” He hit the callback button on his phone in response to Blue’s text.
“You know, this mystery frustrated me so much that I had to recruit Artemis for assistance,” Blue said without prompting.
“Putting you on speaker,” Lance warned.
“Yep.”
“So, did she find out anything?”
“Not a whole hell of a lot, but the supernatural creatures of Central America aren’t really her purview. She did catch up with Lola, though.”
Lily sat up straighter and stared his way, no longer pretending to be disinterested.
“So, she asked Lola about the women outright, I take it?”
“Yes. With them being of approximately equal power, probably, I suspect that Artemis doesn’t have to worry about beating around the bush when it comes to getting people to speak.”
“What did Lola tell her?” Lily asked.
“You know how Lola is. Even when she’s talking, her statements are so sterile that you can’t actually glean anything from them.”
“But what did she say?”
“She said ‘interesting.’”
Lily scrunched her face. “What?”
“Right? I didn’t think to ask Artemis what expression she was wearing.”
“Yeah,” Lance said. “Her body language probably would have said more than her words, but she’s pretty good at masking that, too.”
“As old as she is, I imagine she’s had to learn to keep some secrets. She did say one other thing, though, after Artemis pressed her a bit. She asked Lola if you’re in any imminent danger. Lola said ‘depends.’”
Lance waited for the rest of the statement, but Blue seemed to be out of words.
“Seriously?”
“We’re talking about Lola Perez,” Lily said with a sigh. “She doesn’t open up to people. The only person who can get inside her head even the slightest bit is my cousin-in-law Miles, and even her position in the Cougar group has been phased out since Lola outed herself to them.”
“What do you mean?” Lance asked. “What position? I thought Miles was plain-old human with no freakish tricks.”
“Oh, she is, but she…” She stopped talking then and looked at Lance as though she’d just noticed he was there. Pressing her lips tightly together, she pulled her stare from him and studiously examined the contents of Martha’s bottle. Almost empty.
“But she what?” Blue asked.
“Nothing,” Lily said.
Lance growled.
“Don’t you dare growl at me.”
“You’re withholding information.”
“Not everything is your business.”
“You brought it up!” Lance threw up his hands. Surely, she understood the ridiculousness of having thrown out the bait like that only to snatch it before he could latch on.
“I shouldn’t have. Let people have their secrets.”
“Why does it have to be a secret?”
“It’s Cougar business.”
“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re not a Cougar.”
“I could be,” she murmured.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She raised one shoulder and then let it fall.
Blue cleared his throat.
Shit.
There they were, bickering like a married couple—which they technically were—and Blue was probably wondering why Lily had even wanted to suffer through tagging along with Lance.
He dragged a hand down his face and then put his elbows on the counter.
Lily was looking anywhere but at him.
“Give us a call when the Jaguars show up,” Blue said. “I’ll keep researching and trying to squeeze some more words out of Lola.”
“Yeah. I’ll do that.”
“Just be safe. Don’t pick any fights. Avoid those women if you have to when they return. We don’t really know what we’re dealing with here, and this isn’t a situation where you could cut and run. Hold your ground, but be smart about it.”
“I wouldn’t cut and run, anyway. Not until I know if this kid is going to be all right.”
He caught Lily’s head popping up in his periphery.
“Catch you later.” Blue disconnected.
Head pounding, Lance closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as he ground his teeth. He never got headaches.
Lily was murmuring to Martha in Spanish and making little clucking noises that made the baby coo.
“What’d you mean by what you said?” he asked. “Huh?”
“About what?”
“You said ‘I could be.’ What were you talking about?”
“Take it to mean whatever you want.”
“No, you see, that’s how Coyotes get themselves in unnecessary trouble. They don’t investigate things thoroughly and use good judgment.” He straightened up and opened his eyes.
She was staring at the top of Martha’s head.
He was starting to suspect that she was using the baby as a miniature living shield and a means of occupying herself rather than actually having to engage him.
That wasn’t going to work. They still had issues to work out. A divorce to file.
“When you tell me to find my own meaning,” he said, “I can only assume that there’s been some discussion about you going Cougar.”
She shrugged again.
“Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m not revealing anything to you that could be categorized as Cougar business.”
In his opinion, that was as good as a confession, and he didn’t know why, but he didn’t like that idea. Perhaps it was that he couldn’t imagine her being turned into one of those things her cousins were. They were already fighting like cats and dogs. Their relationship would be so much more toxic if they were cat and dog in truth.
Doesn’t matter.
They weren’t supposed to be anywhere near each other, anyway. He scavenged through the cabinets in search of the first aid kit, hoping there were painkillers in it. They were probably expired, but he needed to take the edge off. Anything would do.
He checked everywhere. Kitchen. Bathroom. Even in the gun safe.
Not a single damn aspirin or anything close to that to be found.
“Fuck it.” He heeled off his boots, yanked off his shirt, and kicked his pants off.
“What are you doing?” Lily asked, eyes bulging.
Even if he’d wanted to answer, he couldn’t have. He was halfway shifted before he got to the door. He swatted the handle with a paw and took off like a bolt.
He’d let his coyote body do the work of fixing the ache in his brain.
Maybe if he was lucky, being in that form would do something about the knot in his belly, too.
Lily as one of those scheming Cougars? He couldn’t picture it.
Not her. No fucking way was she theirs.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lily managed to fashion a sling for Martha out of a long stretch of hand-woven fabric she found in the van and decided they needed fresh air. She couldn’t stay cooped up in the trailer forever, wondering if reckless Lance was going to get spotted by clueless humans in his four-legged form or if the Jaguars would return as mysteriously as they left. She had a life to live, even if it was confined to within the perimeter of a state park for the time being.
“I’ve bet you’ve been on the road for almost as long as you’ve been alive,” Lily said to Martha. “That’s crazy to me. I can’t imagine not having a place to roost. I mean, where I live isn’t exact
ly a palace, but I’ve made it cozy, you know? Gets kind of lonely out there on that ranch trail, but at least I’m not scared of all the spooky noises anymore. Helps knowing there are always Cougars around doing patrols and stuff. Plus, I can walk to my cousins’ houses in ten minutes if I really hustle.”
Martha bounced a bit in her makeshift harness and waved her arms.
“Yeah, I know. Sounds dull, but I kinda like it. You’ve got a bunch of ladies around looking out for you. I didn’t have that. It was just me and my dad from the time I was a toddler, and if it were up to him, he would have ensconced me in bubble wrap and locked me into a high tower so no one could get to me.” She snorted. “Not sure how he thought that would turn out.”
She’d always suspected that if she’d gone home after being turned into a Cougar, her father would have dropped dead on the spot. Contrary to what she’d inadvertently led Lance to believe, up until that day, she’d never given any serious consideration to being turned. Her cousins had never brought the matter up, and neither had she. There’d always been a clear delineation in her mind that her cousins were shifters and she wasn’t. It’d been no different from all of them having red hair and her having blond.
But she wondered if it should matter more that she wasn’t like them. She never felt excluded, exactly, though occasionally, she could tell they were coddling her. She didn’t have their strength or speed, and certainly none of their psychic sensitivities.
She was just Lily—the odd girl out, just like Marilyn in The Munsters.
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to fit in a little more?
She paused at the overlook to the dam and propped her phone on top of Martha’s head to stabilize the camera’s focus. “I can’t believe I’ve never been here,” she told the baby and took the shot. “My cousins used to go camping all the time with their dad. Pretty sure this was one of their spots.”
“You’re a grown woman,” Lance said, startling her. “You can go where you want.”
As soon as her heart had settled back into its proper place in her chest, Lily closed her eyes and let out a breath. “Do you enjoy sneaking up on people and eavesdropping on their personal conversations?”
“I’ve been following you for a whole minute.”
And he wasn’t alone. She heard his feet padding behind her and also a suspicious panting sound.
French Fry.
Suddenly, the dog was sitting at her feet, tongue lolling, looking up at her with expectation.
“Probably wants to be fed,” Lance said.
“As do I.”
“If you’re hungry, we can go get something.”
“From where?”
“There’s a fusion place in Truth or Consequences we could try. One of the Coyotes from the pack was talking about it on Twitter a couple of weeks ago.”
Lily raised an eyebrow and squatted to scratch French Fry behind the ears. “You use Twitter?”
Lance grunted. “Not exactly. Do I have a handle? Yeah. Mostly, other people use Twitter and I scroll and watch the online train wrecks. I only signed up because it’s a way to keep track of other Coyote groups. We try to be discreet about our online lurking, so I don’t have a huge social media footprint. Diana does, though.”
“Really?”
Lily turned in time to see him nod. He was dressed, fortunately. The very last thing she needed was to think of him in the alternate state. They’d ended up on the floor of a walk-in closet the first time she’d pondered what was under his clothes.
“What does Diana do online?” she asked.
“Mostly, she posts organization tips. That was what she did for a living before we moved to Maria.”
“Posting things on the internet?”
“No, no.” He laughed, wild and carefree for a change, so what Lily had said must have been patently asinine. She wasn’t sure if she should be annoyed. Laughter was good medicine, though she would have preferred for the humor to not be at her expense. “Organizing. She had dozens of clients. She was like the Coyote Martha Stewart, minus the cooking.”
“Man, I feel like I really missed out on the Martha wave.” She gave the baby a playful bounce. “I had no idea. What does Diana do now?”
“Right now, she’s trying to build the business back up. Hard, I guess, when she’s running around being Blue’s emissary. She doesn’t quibble about the responsibilities, though. Willa can’t do the pack stuff, and Diana is equipped to. Fortunately, they get along.”
“Well, of course, they do. Willa’s a sweetheart.”
“Yeah, but Diana’s a Coyote.”
He said that as though Lily was supposed to grasp some deeper meaning. She didn’t want to delve further—not if it meant disparaging Diana in any way. She happened to like Diana. Actually, she got along fine with most of the Coyotes since they’d gotten on the straight-and-narrow bandwagon, truth be told. Her problem was a certain lieutenant who gave her heartburn. None of the others looked at her like they wanted to swallow her whole…and she hated that she didn’t mind so much that he wanted to. In some ways, Lance was the first man she’d really picked for herself. All the others had just been acts of rebellion against her father. There’d been no spark with them. With Lance, all they had were sparks.
Swallowing, she turned back to the lake and the watercolor sky, focusing her phone’s camera once again.
“So, you want to give it a go? That restaurant?”
“And leave here?”
“Yeah. I mean, if they come back and we’re gone, they can’t really say shit seeing as how they left, too. I doubt Martha will mind.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Lily was going to refuse. To sit in a restaurant with Lance and have to make small talk with him? To have to look at him for an hour and hold her tongue on the heavy stuff? That sounded like misery.
But then her stomach growled, and with his excellent sense of hearing, there was no shot in hell of her playing it off.
He hooked his arm around hers and got her moving toward the campsite. “We can feed French Fry before we go, otherwise he’ll probably try to follow us all the way down to T or C.”
A reflexive laugh fell out of Lily’s mouth in spite of her best efforts to squelch it. “Wouldn’t that be a sight?”
*
“I’m pretty sure she’ll be fine if you want to plop her into that high chair.” Lance hooked his thumb toward the wooden seat the waitress had dragged over.
Lily eyed the contraption warily and tightened her arm around Martha’s waist. “Um. I’ll be fine until the food comes out.” She was going to need two hands to cut her steak then. Normally, she wouldn’t have splurged, but since Lance was paying, she didn’t see the harm of making him suffer a little. In her head, she was calling it “marital reparations.”
Cupping his water glass in his right hand, he put his back against the wall and took in the space around them. Kitschy didn’t even come close to describing it. Every wall was painted a different color—hot pink, turquoise, electric yellow, midnight black—and the floor was a mosaic of linoleum the likes of which Lily had never seen. The tin can chandeliers were funky, but cool, as was some of the art on the walls. It was all local and all for sale. If she had a wad of cash laying around, she would have taken some of it home. Her little bungalow could use a little pizzazz.
“What did your Coyote friend get when he was here?” Lily asked.
“It’d probably be easier to answer what he didn’t get.” Lance nodded a thanks to the waitress who set down their appetizers. Lance’s appetizer was a rack of shrimp tacos that probably could have sustained Lily as an entire meal. Lily had chosen dumplings. She was a fan of all dumplings, no matter their country of origin.
“Hmm.” She chewed thoughtfully on one and tried to itemize the flavors. Pork and onion and some kind of sweet sauce. She hadn’t been paying much attention to the menu when she should have been reading it because the waitress had been talking Lance’s ear off, explaining the whole freaking history of not on
ly the food offerings, but the owners, the town, and had probably been about to launch into a spiel about The Gadsen Purchase and New Mexican statehood, but Lily had cut her off with a tart, “So, what should I have?”
And then Lily had just nodded as the young woman rattled off this thing and that thing, saying, “Fine,” at the end when she’d suggested the steak. Everything that came before that was a blur. She didn’t understand why Lance hadn’t told that Chatty Cathy to go away. He was a professional misanthrope. There was no reason for him to suddenly flip the script unless he was trying to annoy her.
She rolled her eyes.
Of course he is.
“What do you think?” he asked through a mouth full of taco.
“It’s good,” she said in a flat tone. “I think my mother would like them. She’s got an adventurous palate, but doesn’t get out much.”
“Doesn’t travel?”
Lily shook her head and sliced through the second dumpling with her fork. There were only three. Unlike what was on Lance’s plate, her appetizer was really more of a tease than actual sustenance.
“I think she’s afraid to leave the country,” Lily said.
“Why?”
“Because the last time she was out of the country, she got deported.”
He stopped chewing.
“Yeah.” She sighed. “It was bound to happen. You can’t really travel across the southern part of the state without hitting border control every so often. I think she and my father got too comfortable. She was supposed to have returned to Mexico after she finished her master’s degree, and…you know.”
“She got pregnant.”
“Bingo.” It dawned on Lily that the proclivity toward reckless rendezvous must have been genetic. “She got pregnant with me and her choices were to overstay her welcome or go home to Mexico City where there was a chance my father would miss my birth.”
“So, you were born, and…”
“So, I was born, and for a couple of years, they carried on as though everything was normal. Nobody in Maria talks about what happened. They’re too polite, usually. Sometimes, some geezer will slip up and wag his tongue, and to them what happened was strictly my mother’s fault. It’s her fault for not marrying him, even if they were never in love enough to get married.” She paused there to scoff. Marriage had only complicated her situation with Lance. “It’s her fault for not getting her paperwork handled, as though that were such an easy thing. It’s her fault for getting caught.” She made an and so on gesture. “I think most people just didn’t like her.”