Ranger Knox (Shifter Nation: Werebears Of Acadia Book 1)

by Meg Ripley

  “This couch is pretty fucking comfy,” I pointed out. “I may not even get off of it for the next hour.”

  “Well you’re going to have to get up eventually. You need to get in touch with your band mates, your label, and whoever else needs to know you’re out of rehab,” Mary said, setting her glass down and looking at me with that level, matter-of-fact expression on her face that I both loved and hated.

  “Why do you always look like that?” I licked the lingering sweetness of the coffee off of my lips.

  “Like what?” Mary raised an eyebrow.

  “Like you know what I look like underneath my skin.”

  Mary’s dark eyes flashed with amusement. “I think you’re interpreting more in my face than I’m putting out,” she told me.

  “You just look like you know the fucking thoughts in my head.”

  “I watch people,” she said, looking into her glass for a moment, watching the ice shift as it melted. “I don’t know. It’s not…” I watched the color rising into her cheeks again. “I’m not purposely trying to make you feel uncomfortable.” Mary sighed, “I should probably get my laptop and start filing for unemployment.” Her lips twisted into a grimace of distaste.

  “Don’t let me get in your way,” I said, taking another big gulp of coffee and fumbling in my pocket for my phone. Mary was right; I needed to get in touch with people, let them know what was going on, where I was. It occurred to me that probably Dr. Farber had already notified my manager or the label—whoever he was reporting to—about the fact that I’d been kicked out of rehab. “I’m never going to hear the fucking end of this.” I sighed as I turned my phone on. “Go do your thing.” Mary gave me another one of those looks—as if she was peering into my brain—and then stood, taking her coffee with her into the hall. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath; whoever I talked to was almost certain to be completely and totally pissed at me for getting myself kicked out. Nick first. He’s the most likely to think that if I got kicked out for fucking my counselor, it’s not a complete waste. I opened my eyes and unlocked my phone to get to my contacts list.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Seriously, dude? Fuck, that blows.” I had made my way through the list of people I needed to call; Nick had asked if I wanted him to pick me up, if I was safe where I was. When I told him I was at Mary’s, he asked if he should bring me condoms.

  “Yeah. Who won the betting pool?” I was—finally—able to see the humor in the situation by the time I called Mark.

  “Officially, there’s no betting pool,” Mark said, and I could hear him grinning. “Unofficially, Dan totally has booze money for the entire fucking weekend.”

  I laughed. “Who’d I outlast?”

  Mark chuckled. “Nick, Jules, and Ron.” I rolled my eyes; of course Ron, our manager, had joined in the pool. “I wagered you’d last at least a full three weeks, Dan thought you’d finish the program.” I smiled to myself; Dan was the optimist of the band, as far as anyone could really be. He believed that people were mostly good, he believed intentions counted. He’d been through a lot of shit that I would not have been able to deal with, and come out on the other side of it with some of his innocence intact; how, I don’t think I would ever understand.

  “So, we need to come up with a plan,” I said finally, changing the subject. “Obviously, it’s going to be hard to get me into any kind of rehab place, and Big J is—last time I checked—still looking to fuck my shit up. What do you think?”

  “I dunno, man. What does Jules say?”

  Jules and I shared the position of “brains” of the band in a certain respect. Whenever there was a need for a plan, whenever we needed direction, it was either Jules or me who came up with the ideas. Nick was a smartass, but he was better at picking apart ideas than in coming up with them. Dan and Mark were good at refining a basic concept, but they didn’t put themselves forward much.

  “Jules said stay put and get in touch with Ron, see what the label says.”

  I sighed. “There’s the problem of me getting Mary fired over this, too.”

  “That’s some bullshit,” Mark said; I heard him sigh. “Can we come over? I mean—obviously, none of us is going to bring you drugs or anything like that. But this is probably the kind of thing we all need to be present for.”

  “Hold on,” I said. I took the phone away from my ear. “Mary!” I heard one of the doors in the hall open.

  “Yeah?” I wondered if she had just been waiting for me to get her attention.

  “Can the band come over? They promise they won’t bring me any goodies.” I heard the creak of the floorboards as Mary strode through the hallway to the living room. She gave me a skeptical look.

  “As long as they understand that if I tell them to leave, they’ve got ten minutes to get the hell out,” Mary said finally.

  “Got that, Mark?” I heard him laughing.

  “Yeah, I’ve got it. No worries there.”

  I grinned at Mary. “How’s unemployment filing going?”

  Mary’s face twisted into a disgruntled frown. “It’s going,” she said bleakly. “I’ll be glad when I’m finished with it and just have to wait and see if Recovery Now challenges it.”

  “Dude, you should have Ron hire her as your personal addiction counselor. Problem solved!” I stared at my phone as if it were Mark himself.

  “Yeah, no, bad idea,” I said.

  “What’s a bad idea?” Mary asked me. I waved a hand to tell her I wasn’t going to mention it. “Fuck, I need to go to the store if people are coming over.”

  I stared at Mary in confusion. “Why?”

  “Because I am not having people in my house with nothing to serve them,” Mary said tartly. “I don’t even care if it’s not formal or whatever. My mom might be a fucking drunk, but she raised me with standards.”

  I shook my head, torn between amusement and amazement. “I told you she’s a head case,” I told Mark as Mary went back down the hall. “She’s going to the store to buy refreshments for you and the guys.”

  “Hey, sounds like a classy woman to me,” Mark said agreeably. “Give me the address and I’ll get everyone together and over there.”

  Mary came back out of the hallway, her makeup touched up, shoes on her feet, and her purse in hand; I got her address and gave it to Mark. “Can I come with you?”

  Mary considered it for a moment. “Probably better for you not to,” she said finally, looking at me levelly. “I’ll get in and out of the store faster on my own. Just relax for a bit, I’m just going around the block.” I’d seen a Publix, and assumed that was probably where she was planning to go.

  “Okay,” I said. I knew better than to try and argue with her right at that moment. She had a look on her face that I recognized with a little inner twinge; the look my mom got when she was determined to get her way on something. “Mind if I play with your guitar?”

  Mary’s face softened, and she smiled. “You do realize that sounds incredibly dirty in a certain way,” she said, shifting her weight onto one leg.

  I laughed. “Well, now that we’ve been kicked out of that place for fucking, no reason not to keep doing it now, is there?” Mary held my gaze for a long moment, and I wondered—briefly—if she was reconsidering inviting me, or allowing me to invite my band mates over.

  “We’ll see,” Mary said, and turned to leave. “You can play the guitar if you want.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “They’re a band, not a football team,” I said, eyeing the lavish spread that Mary had laid out on her kitchen table. I tried to picture her in Publix, rushing through the aisles, grabbing up this, that, and the other thing.

  “You say that like I’ve never met a musician before,” Mary said blandly. “You’re all always starving, and you’re all always thirsty.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not.” Mary laughed. She had certainly managed to get together enough food to feed everyone—and with enough variety to make sure tha
t no one could possibly say that there was nothing they wanted to eat. Chicken tenders—the food of the gods, Publix’s deli specialty—were piled on a tray; next to them were a few containers of different salads: potato salad with mustard, macaroni salad, and some fluffy green pistachio-and-fruit concoction. She’d also grabbed a tray of cheese and crackers, and a container of mixed fruit from the produce section. There was a gallon of iced tea (sweet), a half-gallon of unsweetened iced tea, and a half-gallon of lemonade.

  “I would’ve picked up a case of beer, but you’re supposed to be sober right now.” Mary looked at me archly.

  “I’m not a fucking child, Mary,” I protested. “I don’t have to drink beer just because it’s around.”

  “You’ve been sober for what—two and a half weeks maybe? I’m not going to throw temptation at you.” Mary crossed her arms over her chest, and I felt a rush of heat—it was only too easy to remember what her breasts looked like underneath her clothes, how they’d looked when she’d ridden me the week before. “And if they bring beer, it’s staying in their car and you’re not going near it. Understood?”

  I groaned. “What is this, a halfway house?”

  Mary set her jaw. “As far as you’re concerned, yes,” she told me firmly. “I’m not fucking up your sobriety just because my bad choices helped you get kicked out of rehab.”

  “Right, because I was so committed to my recovery as it was; and it was entirely your fault that we fucked. I had no choice in the matter and totally didn’t encourage you in the least.”

  Mary’s cheeks turned a bright, dusky pink. “That’s not the point, and you know it,” she said, her voice tight. “The point is that you’re on the run from your dealer, and frankly, you’re not really in a position to argue with me about the conditions of staying in my house, are you?” One of her dark, finely arched eyebrows rose. I clenched my teeth and exhaled slowly.

  “No, I’m not,” I said finally. “I’m grateful that you’re letting me stay here and even letting me have friends over. I’m not going to drink under your roof. I’m not going to use. Now stop worrying about it, would you?”

  I was saved from Mary’s response—whatever it would have been—by a knock at the door.

  “Later,” Mary said, her dark eyes fastening on me with promise.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes. I strode to the door and opened it just as Nick was in the midst of his second knock. He grinned when he saw me.

  “Not bad for a guy who got kicked out of rehab this morning,” Nick said, reaching out to slap my shoulder.

  “Come on in before I change my mind,” I said, opening the door wider. Nick, Jules, Mark, and Dan stepped through, looking around them.

  “Hi,” Mary said, still standing by the kitchen table. I grinned to myself; it was weird—and weirdly satisfying—to see her looking so shy.

  “There are definitely way worse reasons to get kicked out of rehab,” Nick said.

  “Shut up, man,” Dan muttered. “It’s good of you to take Alex in,” he added, stepping away from the rest of the band to approach Mary. “I’m Dan.”

  “I’m Jules.”

  I kept my amusement to myself as my band mates each introduced themselves to Mary, shaking her hand.

  “You were serious about having refreshments on hand,” Mark commented, gesturing to the table. Nick looked as though he was only waiting for the cue to pounce on the bounty of food.

  “Oh, help yourselves,” Mary said, her smile still a little tense. “If you guys need to smoke, there are ash trays outside.” She hesitated for a moment, then: “I guess I’ll let you have your powwow.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nick intercepted Mary, grabbing her wrist lightly. I felt a flicker of something like jealousy—but that would be crazy; I’d only had sex with her once. Even if I was more than pleased to repeat that performance, it wasn’t like I’d formed any kind of attachment to Mary. “You’re part of this now, for better or worse.”

  Jules nodded, scooping some of the creamy green salad onto his paper plate. “He’s right. We came up with a kind of plan, but it needs work.”

  “Oh fuck.” I grabbed a couple of chicken tenders and threw myself onto the couch. Dan finished filling his plate and sat down on the floor a few feet away. “Why does this fill me with dread?”

  Jules smirked. “Because you’re going to be the cold Charley,” he said, grabbing a few crackers for the cheese he’d already spread on his plate.

  “Mary is not involved in this,” I said quickly, glancing at her. Her dark eyes had widened at the mention of a ‘cold Charley.’

  “He’s not going to come after you directly with a civilian at your side,” Nick pointed out. “Too much collateral damage.”

  “The hell he won’t!” I clenched the chicken tenders in my hand so hard the crispy, fried breading shattered and crumbled onto my lap. “You know good and damned well that J doesn’t give a fuck who he kills in the process of getting back at me.”

  “Well,” Mark said, looking from Mary to me cautiously. “Ron had sort of a…contingency. You know, like a backup plan?”

  “What’s that? Some fucking poison tooth?” The idea of going into the den of Big J’s drug empire didn’t bother me for my own sake; but the idea of Mary going into it with me—of her getting taken out just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong guy—was infuriating.

  “Ron’s been in touch with the DA,” Dan said, taking a bite of potato salad. “She’s practically shitting herself to get Big J off the street. So, if we can lure him out,” Dan shrugged, “she can nab him with attempted murder, probably round up some of the other people in his org, maybe even catch his stash. Put him away for long enough that it won’t matter when he gets out.”

  “It won’t work,” I said, eating one of the chicken tenders in a few fast bites. They were just as good as ever, even at room temperature: faintly spicy, satisfying, crunchy on the outside and juicy on the inside. “Big J isn’t going to do a hit himself; come on.”

  “He might show up though,” Mary pointed out.

  “You need to shut the fuck up about things that aren’t your business,” I told her sharply.

  “You’re planning this shit in my house, and by the way, it’s not like Big J isn’t going to eventually be able to figure out you were here. Even if he takes you out, do you think he’s going to leave me alone at this point?” Everyone in the room went silent and I knew I wasn’t the only one staring at Mary. I honestly hadn’t considered that particular aspect of what was going on; I’d been too busy ruminating on my own doom to even consider the fact that Big J could—probably pretty easily—figure out that Mary had been harboring me after I was kicked out of Recovery Now.

  “Speaking of rats,” I said, picking at another chicken tender, “I’ve been thinking; isn’t it more than a little weird that Dr. Farber went all zero fucking tolerance on us for having a little sex? I know for a damned fact that we weren’t the first people to fuck on that couch. Probably not the first counselor and patient, either.” Mary blushed a deep red and I saw a flash of embarrassed anger in her eyes before she regained some form of control over herself.

  “No secrets in a well-functioning band,” she muttered to herself.

  “Damn straight,” Nick confirmed. “I’d tell you my cock is longer than Alex’s, but he does have the girth to make up for it.” Mary held up a hand as her blush deepened and I laughed.

  “Anyway,” she said, and I watched the stretch of her tee shirt as her chest rose and fell in a deep breath. “The point is that I think you’re right. Someone bought Farber off.”

  “Big J?” Mark asked doubtfully.

  Mary shrugged. “Why not? Maybe he couldn’t find someone willing to go clean for long enough to get to Alex, or maybe he just wanted to avoid sending someone into rehab for whatever reason. Maybe his dealers can’t get in. It doesn’t matter.” Mary shrugged again. “I know Farber told me—after you left, Alex—that us having sex wa
sn’t going to be the official grounds for my dismissal, which tells me he was just looking for an excuse.”

  “So then J might already know where you’re at. I mean, where else would you go?” Nick took a big gulp of lemonade, gesturing to Mary. I saw Mary’s blush leave her face, and the pale, uncertain look came over her again—for just an instant.

  “So, yeah,” she said, making her voice chipper and cheerful. “I might as well go into the lion’s den with you. I’m no safer here than anywhere, until Big J is off the streets.”

  “Definitely worth getting kicked out of rehab for, man,” Nick said, grinning at me.

  “Also, Ron said she can stay on as your personal counselor, she’ll be on the payroll. At least, assuming we aren’t all dead in a week,” Jules added.

  “Okay,” I said, looking at each of my band mates and then at Mary. “How exactly is this supposed to work?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “You’ve been to Vagabond before, right?” I was pacing the length of Mary’s room, watching her get ready. The guys had left a few hours before, after we’d all decided on a course of action that was—we hoped—least likely to get us all killed. Mary and I would go to the club where a lot of Big J’s dealers hung out. The hope was that our presence would, of course, be noticed and then passed along to the man himself. If we were really lucky, Big J would make an appearance; if not him, then someone higher up in the rankings than the dealers who just hung out at the club.

  The cops would be waiting to pounce, at least ideally. Nick and Jules were going to another club that hosted some of Big J’s dealers, and Dan and Mark were going to be at a third. The hope was that with the buddy system in place—and with police backup waiting discreetly for each pair of cold Charleys—that we’d manage to not get ourselves killed. I had to wonder just how safe any of us actually was with such a spur-of-the-moment plan.