by Holley Trent
“You know who you’re here with?” he asked.
“Hmm?” Growing frustrated with the will-he, won’t-he choreography, she gave his waistband a forceful tug.
He hardly budged.
“Do you know who you’re here with, Lily?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“I just want to make sure you know who’s heating your blood right now. I’m wondering if you know who’s making those pretty little chirps come out of your mouth. Or whose boxer shorts you’re trying to dig into.”
“Of course I know who I’m standing in front of.”
“Yeah? You sure? Just a couple of months ago, you wouldn’t voluntarily come within a foot of me without Señora Mescal’s unholy influence.”
“Same goes for you. You can hardly look at me without your upper lip curling.”
“I’ve never curled my lip at you.”
“It twitches. That’s close enough.”
“That’s my way of smiling.”
“Bullshit, Lance.”
With his grip loosening on her hair and mouth skimming over her parted lips, he laughed. “Oh? You an expert on what my smiles look like?”
“I don’t think you’ve ever really smiled a day in your life. If you have, it was while beating someone up.”
“Yeah, I do tend to smile a lot then.”
“You’re deranged.”
“Yeah. Sometimes, I am. That’s how the coyote part of me gets shit done.”
His inner beast must have been pulling his puppet strings for sure. Lance scooped her up, set her ass on the counter, and had just wrapped her legs around his waist when the trailer shuddered from someone’s heavy knock on the door.
“Shh.”
Sighing, she pinched the bridge of her nose. Just as well. Maybe he was right that she’d lost her head for a moment. Well, she could resist the irresistible. She’d done it before and needed to keep doing that for her own sanity. “You should get that.”
Another knock, and heavier.
“They’ll go away,” he murmured against her neck, pressing against that spot.
She let out another of those pitiful chirps.
“Gods, the noises you make. How am I supposed to ignore those?”
Whoever was outside knocked hard enough to make the windows rattle.
Coming out of her daze of anticipation, Lily swatted Lance’s hands away and scrambled down from the counter’s edge. “Whoever it is, they’re not going to go away. They obviously know we’re in here.”
She headed to the door, but Lance got around her, blocking the exit with his big body.
“Are you nuts?” he asked.
“Last time I checked, no,” she said through clenched teeth. When they weren’t touching, they were so good at reminding each other why they shouldn’t be in the same room.
“I’ll get it.”
“What do you think is going to happen if I answer it? I’m not the one who ended up tied to a van seat a couple of days ago. That was you.”
“I could have gotten free,” he said evenly with his hand on the door lever.
“But not without chaos. I’m the antidote to the shifter chaos, right? I’m human and I know what you should be hiding. Never forget that I’m competent. Now get the hell out of my way.”
One of his pale eyebrows darted up.
“Move,” she demanded.
He moved, but while snarling.
Months ago, she might have been afraid of that noise, but she’d learned that the only thing different about Lance from any other man was that he owned up to the fact he was an animal. That actually made him pretty predictable.
She opened the door.
Guadalupe guided French Fry up the step by the collar and slid Martha’s diaper bag behind him. Blanca thrust Martha up to Lily as soon as Guadalupe got out of the way.
“Come a las once,” Blanca instructed. “Duerme a las doce. Volveremos a las…” She looked to Guadalupe behind her. “Eh?”
Guadalupe was busy scraping what looked to be clay residue off her shirt. “¿Qué?”
“Ugh, mierda, oye, ¿a qué hora regresamos?”
Guadalupe shrugged. “Seguramente tarde.”
Blanca turned back to Lily. “Tarde.”
“What are they saying?” Lance barked.
“Bye.” Blanca blew Lily a kiss and waved over her shoulder as she and Guadalupe walked toward the Jaguars’ idling van. Estela was behind the wheel.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Lily called after them.
“El mercado. Chao, guapa.” Then Blanca added in English, “Estela say sell it all. Ka-ching. Rock bottom.”
“But why? You price too low as it is.”
Yawning, Blanca shrugged and then jogged to catch up to Guadalupe. “No ask why. She know, eh? We trust.”
“I don’t trust her,” Lance said. “Not one little bit. And they can’t just keep—”
“Shh.” Lily closed the door before Lance could get the words out and hurried to the window.
She watched Blanca help Nayeli into the van after the younger woman missed the step and nearly face-planted. All of the Jaguars were moving a bit slower than usual, but Nayeli looked especially wiped out: even worse off than the last time Lily had seen her.
“Let them go,” Lily whispered to Lance, sounding a bit washed out, herself.
Just before Guadalupe pulled the van door closed, Lily could see Nayeli’s head lolling onto the back of the seat and someone waving a paper fan near her.
What’s wrong with her?
“You know something I don’t?” Lance joined her at the window.
“No. I think we just need to see what plays out. Something’s up with them.”
“That’s obvious, but what?”
“I don’t know.” She shifted Martha to her hip and stepped away from the window, pondering.
She had no idea what the Jaguars were up to. She’d be lying if she said she had a good feeling about any of it, but she remembered Aunt Glenda’s very important lesson for people like her and Lily: to not poke at the shifters. They wouldn’t poke back.
They’d bite.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I’m pretty sure they got along just fine carrying Martha to craft fairs with them before now, so why the ditch and run?” Lance followed Lily down the aisle of the superstore in T or C, scratching his chin to help himself think. He just couldn’t wrap his head around those Jaguars’ actions.
“Can you get that?” Lily pointed to a twenty-pound bag of dog kibble on the low shelf. Premium, no fillers. Luxury price for a dog that wasn’t even theirs.
He growled and picked it up anyway. At the rate they were going, French Fry was going to get better meals than Lance was.
They’d been on the move all day. After limited discussion, they’d decided to try to track down the craft fair the Jaguars had likely gone to. They’d found it, but the event had turned out to be over capacity and the fire marshal had turned them away. They saw the van in the lot. At least they knew the ladies hadn’t gone too far.
Lance didn’t like feeling like they were cutting things so close, though. Per Kenny’s last text, Regina and the boys were probably an hour outside of T or C, and Lance reeled at the possibility of her having a Cat encounter. If things got messy again, he didn’t know if he’d be able to keep his human form. The last thing he wanted to do was complete a full shapeshift in front of two Coyote kids who hadn’t been acclimated to the pack energy yet. They didn’t know him from Joe, and pack leadership was going to have a hell of a time earning their trust if the first thing the boys saw was Lance going full berserker.
He dropped the bag into the cart. “I bet you they’re using that baby as bait. Trying to get your guard down so they can abduct you.”
“Oh, please. Stop trying to make sense of them,” Lily said.
“Okay, how about this, then? What if they abandon that baby with you?”
“They wouldn’t do that.” She redirected Martha
from her efforts at gnawing on the cart handle and steered toward the grocery aisles.
“But what if they do? They left the dog with you, too. They didn’t do that before. He was just roaming free all over the park.”
“Maybe they’re afraid he’s going to get run over or something. Maybe they forgot last time.”
“I don’t buy that, and I don’t think you do, either. What if they vanish and you have to take Martha back to Maria?”
“Oh well. I’ll deal with it.”
“Deal with it? Lily, I don’t know if you realize this, but shifter babies are a lot of work.”
“Yes, you told me that the day we agreed to get married.”
Gods.
He raked his fingers through his uncombed hair and held his tongue.
Don’t dwell on it.
If they got sad, they were going to get snarly, and he didn’t want to get snarly with her. He hated thinking that he’d ever hurt her feelings. He just wasn’t used to having to deliver his honesty with such carefulness.
He wasn’t used to wanting to.
“Ooh.” Lily grabbed a box of frosted cereal off the shelf. “The little grocery store in Maria doesn’t carry these.”
“So get more than one,” Lance suggested.
Lily doubled back, grabbed three more boxes, and then stared at the shelf for a while. Looking somewhat bashful, she cleared the shelf. She dropped the boxes into the cart and resumed rolling. He couldn’t help but notice there was a little added pep in her step after that cart addition, though. That meant he knew exactly two things that made her happy: dance and Frostee Nugs.
“Sweet tooth?” he asked, swallowing a chuckle.
“Yeah, but mostly it’s about texture. I carry cereal around in my pockets to snack on when I’m outside at the ranch. Keeps me satiated until I can get back to the house.”
“How the hell did you end up working there, anyway?”
“If you’re asking if when I was a little girl, I decided I wanted to be a cowgirl when I grew up—no.” She pivoted around an end cap, grabbing a tube of sanitizing wipes as she went. “Ooh, that’s the good brand,” she murmured and called over her shoulder, “They’re quilted. Don’t have those in Maria, either.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’ve got a lady to do my cleaning for me. Not that I’m ever at home to enjoy it.”
“I think I’d prefer to do my own cleaning. My house is small enough that it’s not that big of a chore if I do a little every day.” She continued her slow amble down the aisle, scanning both sides methodically as she went. She pushed one-handed because Martha had claimed her left fingers and was staring at them like she was on some kind of infant psychedelic trip. “Anyway, I ended up there because Belle moved back when her mom was wanting to scale back her duties. We used to be roommates when we lived in town.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Me, Belle, and Alex. If it weren’t for them, my father probably would have insisted I move back home.”
“You’re a grown woman.”
“You noticed?” She winked and flicked a can of coffee into the cart. Not his kind. It was a kind he’d never heard of, but she’d gone right for it.
He scooped the can out of the cart and read the label. Roasted by a company in Colorado. She’d probably drunk it in college. He wondered what she was like in college, not that it was all that many years ago for her. He should have been able to clearly imagine Lily of six or seven years ago, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine her living in a world where there weren’t Foyes and Cougars and…far too much bullshit.
He didn’t want to, either, because that meant she wouldn’t have known him.
“My father is…” Lily clucked her tongue and slowed her gait. She sighed and paused to deliver a kiss to the top of Martha’s head. The clucking sound had made the baby look up curiously. “Well, my father isn’t like your father.”
“You’ve never met my father.”
“No, but I’ve heard about him. You should know by now that it’s hard to keep your business your own in Maria. When I was at the coffee shop a few weeks ago, your mom was in there picking up coffee grounds for composting, I guess,” Lily said. “She was talking in hushed tones to Frances.”
Frances was the Coyote who’d recently been promoted to manager at the coffee shop.
“I try not to eavesdrop, but when I hear names I recognize…” Lily made a well, you know gesture.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he thought he already did. “They were talking about me?”
“Tangentially. Your mom was telling Frances about the mess in Sparks and how Coyotes were still trying to transfer out of there. She said your father was taking sort of a wait-and-see approach, and it was driving her nuts.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Mom. She’s more of a doer.”
“Right. Well, my father isn’t the wait-and-see sort. He’s the micromanaging sort. Sometimes, I wonder if it registers in his brain that I’m his daughter and not a project for him to organize.”
“He’s doing what he does because he loves you.”
“You think so?”
“You doubt it?”
Lily’s cheek twitched. Once again, she crossed the wide aisle from the grocery side of the store to the department store side. She was moving with purpose again, though to where he couldn’t guess.
“You don’t think your father loves you? Also, where are we going?”
“Since we’re here, I need to get leggings. Avert your eyes if walking past women’s intimate apparel upsets you.”
He rolled his eyes and followed her toward the racks of soft goods.
“It’s always weird to think about love and my father in the same sentence because he always weaponizes his love,” she said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he says things like, ‘I do this because I love you’ and ‘No one else is going to look after you like I do.’”
Lance let out a thunderous guffaw that actually managed to distract Martha from her studious examination of Lily’s knuckle.
What Lily had said was straight-up bullshit. Lily was a strong, competent woman who looked after herself fine, as far as Lance was concerned. And she had plenty of people watching her back, him being one of them. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her, even if that meant treating her to random surprise visits every eight or twelve hours or so when they got back to Maria. He wasn’t entirely certain when he’d decided that, but it was a decision that seemed to have coalesced in his mind long before he’d realized it.
Huh.
“I don’t like to think it, but he’s a little bit manipulative.” Lily paused in front of a rack of sweaters. Fondled the cuff of a soft pink one. Checked the tag. Kept moving.
Lance checked the tag and whistled low. Big box store clothing apparently sold for a premium. He found the sweater in shortcake size and hurried to catch up to her. He didn’t like her putting so much distance between the two of them. With her being barely taller than the racks, she was hard to find, and that uncertainty made him curiously anxious. His palms were sweating.
That never happened to him.
“You gotta look behind you and see if I’m still there,” he said on approach.
She wasn’t listening.
She’d stopped moving in front of the women’s fitting room and was staring into the entryway.
“What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer. She was too preoccupied with staring at the woman emerging from the fitting room. He’d never known Lily to be the kind of woman who stared rudely at people, so he immediately suspected something wasn’t right. He eased in close enough to her to put a hand on her back.
“Lola,” Lily said hoarsely.
Oh.
It was her. The goddess could change her appearance as she pleased, but being that close Lance could recognize her by her energy and smell that particular blend of smoke and flowers that made up the undercurrent of her scent. Lily probably would have
known most of the goddess’s multitude of forms. The lady took many of her meals at the ranch and Lily sometimes babysat her granddaughter.
Lola clasped the hangers of the clothing items she held onto the put-back rack and approached, hands knitted together in front of her belly, gaze on Martha.
“No cameras in the fitting room,” she murmured.
“That’s how you got in here without being seen,” Lily said.
“Mmm.” Lola unclipped the safety belt at Martha’s waist and lifted the child from the seat. She held the baby out at arm’s length, brow furrowed, black eyes narrowed.
If Martha knew she was being assessed by the fount of her line’s magic, she didn’t show any indication of her awareness. She was gnawing with renewed enthusiasm on her fist and drooling copiously all the while.
Lola grunted softly and set Martha on her hip. A natural, like Lily.
Lance scratched the chest over his heart. His heart rate had suddenly kicked up for some reason.
“How did you find us?” Lily asked.
“There is a mark on your neck. Perhaps you have noticed.”
“Yeah, and I’m not the only one who has.”
Lola turned her hands over in a gesture of confession. “Simple magic. Easily identified. My apologies for not telling you.”
“I’ve got so many questions, but right now, you should know we’ve been having some problems,” Lily said. “Maybe you’ve heard.”
“I am aware.”
“I’m assuming you have a good reason for not popping in sooner.”
Another soft grunt from Lola.
“Want to tell us what you know?”
“Not here.” Lola glanced at her watch, grimaced, and set Martha back into the cart. She buckled the baby in and took a large, but graceful, step backward. “Where is your campsite?” Her tone was clipped and rushed.
“Number 17 at Elephant Butte.”
“I will meet you there in an hour.” Lola retreated to the fitting room, where Lance suspected she’d vanish.