They reached Theresa’s house, and he turned into the driveway. As the vehicle slowed, Theresa tensed up and uttered a soft groan followed by a barely audible curse. He followed her gaze and saw Avery Paunch, her landlord, standing on the front porch. The man watched them approach, arms crossed over his chest, body language shouting anger and hostility.
“It’s the first of the month. Rent is due today,” Theresa said in a low voice. She cast a worried glance over her shoulder at Isabel in the backseat.
“Does he always come ‘round to collect in person?” Zach asked.
“Yes,” Theresa said, spitting out the terse word.
Zach took her hand, holding her fingers against his palm. “You’re still short?”
Eyes bright, she nodded. “With everything that happened, I never got a chance to talk to Tony.”
She seemed overwhelmed and his heart ached for her. Thanks to her stubborn pride, she could not even bring herself to ask him for help now. He stopped the car, put it into park, and shut off the engine.
Isabel squirmed about in the backseat, bouncing about with her youthful energy. “Mama, I want to get out.”
“Be patient, honey.” Theresa removed her hand from his grasp and reached for her purse.
Zach caught her elbow. “Theresa, let me take care of this for you.”
She glanced up at him with tormented eyes, white teeth sunk into her lower lip. He read her anguish in those chocolate depths, the conflict between pride and trust. He stilled and waited for her decision.
At last, she nodded and smiled with gratitude. “Yes, please. Thank you, Zach.”
“You’re welcome, love.”
Pleasure suffused his chest, spreading outward to warm every part of his being. Covering her rent for a month was not a big thing, but he knew it to be a huge gesture of trust on her part. It made him happy to be able to do something for her. He dropped a quick kiss onto her forehead and extracted his checkbook from the glove compartment.
He climbed from the vehicle and moved to intercept the landlord while Theresa helped Isabel from the backseat. He mounted the three steps to the front porch and approached Paunch. The landlord shuffled his feet, demonstrating uncertainty, but held his ground.
Paunch was a human who liked to intimidate those weaker and more timid. Zach had always disliked him for being a bully and a coward, but he had kept his distance from the man at Theresa’s request. That had finally changed.
Zach allowed his wolf to rise. Power touched his eyes and voice. He regarded the man with the same disgust one might bestow upon road kill. “Mr. Paunch.”
Confronted, Paunch cowed and fell back, retreating until his back hit the front door. His hands shook, as did his voice, and the scent of fear surrounded him. “Mr. Hunter,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“A word with you if I might.” Zach indicated the side yard with the tilt of his head. “In private.”
The man swallowed so his Adam’s apple bobbed, but he moved to obey the command. They passed Theresa and Isabel on the stairs. Paunch greeted Theresa in a subdued tone. “Ms. Sanchez.”
She paused for a second and regarded the landlord with open dislike. “Mr. Paunch.”
As the women went inside, Zach caught Isabel’s lilting voice. “Mama, where is Zach going?”
“He’s taking care of us, sweetie,” Theresa said before the front door clicked shut.
An extraordinary sense of pride filled Zach, convincing him further of the rightness of his choices. Theresa and Isabel were his to keep, to protect. His girls. He vowed to do anything necessary to protect them from danger, including killing or dying, if necessary.
****
As much as Theresa wanted to hear what Zach had to say to her landlord, she did not want Isabel exposed to such unpleasantness, so she closed the front door behind them. It was difficult for her to trust him to make a decision on her behalf, but she also acknowledged that it was an issue she needed to work on if she wanted their relationship to succeed.
She glanced down at her daughter and found Isabel gazing at her with dark, thoughtful eyes. “Did you and Zach change your minds about dating, Mama?”
She watched Isabel’s reaction with sharp interest. “Would it be okay if we were dating?”
Isabel stared a moment longer and then looked away. She started toward the kitchen. “Sure, I like Zach. Can I have a snack?”
Theresa blinked and then followed her daughter. Was it really that easy? “What do you want?”
Isabel set down her pink backpack on the kitchen table and made a beeline for the pantry. “Cookies?”
“How about crackers and cheese?” Theresa said, moving to the fridge.
“Okay, but can I have a cookie, too?”
“Just one. I want you to drink a glass of milk also.”
“Okay.”
Theresa placed the snack down in front of her daughter and then cleaned up while the child ate. “Do you have homework?”
“Not much.” Isabel perched on a kitchen chair and watched her mother move about the kitchen. “Math and spelling. And I’m supposed to read for twenty minutes.”
Theresa brought a glass to Isabel and schooled her expression to sternness. “Thirty.”
Isabel’s dark eyes lit up with laughter. “Twenty-five.”
“Done,” Theresa said, nodding her agreement. “It’s a deal.”
“Is everything a negotiation?” Zach asked with wry humor as he entered the kitchen through the front hallway. He walked with one hand behind his back in conspicuous fashion.
“Of course, we’re a family of master hagglers.” Theresa turned to greet him with a smile.
“Do you have my present?” Isabel jumped to her feet.
Her daughter’s bad manners made Theresa frown. “Isabel!”
Zach grinned and fluffed the girl’s hair. “Did I say that I brought you a present?” he asked, feigning confusion. “Funny, I don’t recall—”
“Zach! You’re mean!” Isabel darted to the right and attempted to race around him to see what he had behind his back.
With his superior speed, Zach evaded the girl, turning to face her so that his hand remained concealed. Theresa caught a glimpse of a stuffed animal.
Isabel tried to gain the upper hand for a couple minutes before she gave up. Panting, the girl crossed her arms over her chest and adopted an adorable pout. “Please, Zach, I’ve been good.”
“I very much doubt that,” Zach said in cheeky reply, but he brought his hand from behind his back and surrendered a stuffed pony to the girl.
With a squeal of delight, Isabel took the toy from him, giving him a quick hug in the process. She held the pony up for closer examination. “Aww, she’s so cute!”
Theresa moved closer to get a better look at the gift and Zach reached out in an automatic gesture and wrapped his arm about her waist. “I’m guessing that it meets with your approval then, chiquita?”
“She’s perfect! Thank you so much!” Isabel rose on tippy-toe, reaching for him.
Zach bent to offer his cheek, accepting Isabel’s kiss of thanks.
Theresa smiled. “Isabel, take your new toy upstairs and put it in your room until Nana arrives. You can show her off to Grandma then.”
Isabel started to obey and then stopped in her tracks. “Tonight is the full moon,” she said, staring at her mother with complete understanding in her dark eyes. “You’re going out.”
“I have to, sweetie. Tonight is the one night of the month when grownups must turn into wolves.”
“I don’t like it when you go out at night, Mama,” Isabel said, clutching her stuffed pony. “I have bad dreams. Last night, you had to work late. Can’t you stay home tonight?”
Theresa sighed. Guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders. More than anything, she wanted to make her daughter happy, but being a single mother put her under enormous pressure and conflicting demands. “I’ll be home tomorrow night, Isabel,” she said at last. “I promise. We’ll do something spec
ial—maybe dinner out and a movie?”
Isabel’s frown softened and the peace offering appeared to satisfy her. “Can Zach come?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said. “Now run upstairs. I need to speak with your mum alone for a minute.”
The child flew up the stairs. Theresa waited until her daughter had gone before she cast the man beside her a sly glance. The question at the top of her mind burst from her lips. “What happened with the landlord?”
With his arm still hooked about her waist, Zach dropped into a kitchen chair and tugged her into his lap, all in one smooth motion. His mouth wound up pressed right next to her ear, and his smoky chuckle sent shivers along her spine.
“A repairman will be coming over on Monday to address all of your maintenance issues. He was going to send someone over sooner, but I wanted you to have enough time to assemble a list of everything that’s not working.”
Her eyes widened with comical astonishment. Her small hands pressed against his chest, rubbing the broad wall of muscle through his shirt. “Oh my, but you are my hero,” she said in a breathy voice. “Did you intimidate him into submission?”
“All I had to do was flash my teeth,” Zach said with false modesty while he made a production out of preening under her ardent admiration.
“Goodness.” Theresa fanned her face.
“There’s more,” he said, rumbling deep his throat.
Theresa gasped. “More? Do tell!”
“He’s crediting you two weeks of rent for the inconveniences you’ve endured.”
“Oh, wow, Mr. Paunch must have been beside himself. I would have loved to have seen his face.”
“It was rather amusing.”
“Did you enjoy yourself, Zach?”
He flashed a wolfish grin. “Oh yes, immensely.”
Laughing so hard it hurt, she pressed her face to his throat. His chuckling created a pleasant vibration throughout his chest, and his vitality, his sheer liveliness, soothed her ragged nerves. As silly and ridiculous as it was, his joking was exactly what she needed to relieve the immense tension she was under.
“Oh,” she said, gasping for breath and wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. Reluctantly, she rose from Zach’s lap. “My mom is due over in a half hour so we can go to this meeting.”
He tipped his head forward to acknowledge her words but remained quiet. Their silence was mutual and comfortable, the result of longtime familiarity and easy intimacy. Without being asked, Theresa set a cup of black loose leaf tea that she’d prepared in front of him.
He wrapped his fingers around the mug and leaned forward to inhale the steam and the aromatic scent. Theresa took the seat next to him, close enough that their elbows touched.
“Zach, what are we going to do about Adam?”
The anxiety in her dark eyes ate at him. He knew Theresa looked to him for more than just answers. She regarded him as both her protector and her champion. His lengthy form remained relaxed, but a muscle flickered near the corner of his eye and a slight tightening of his jaws betrayed his tension.
He took her fingers in his hand. “No matter what happens tonight, pet, I want you to know that I have your back. I won’t allow anything bad to happen to you.”
She mustered a brave smile and squeezed his hand in return. “I know you do.”
“I’ve discussed it with Robert, and we want to avoid fighting one another.”
“Thank God,” she said, exhaling slowly.
“But it might be unavoidable,” Zach said, destroying her short-lived relief.
“Do you have an agreement?” Theresa asked.
“Yeah,” he said with such heaviness that she rocked back in her chair, balancing on two legs. Then he sighed and her chair thumped. “No, not really.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and licked her dry lips. “That’s hardly reassuring, Zach.”
“Sorry, love,” he said, and gazed at her with an apologetic grimace. “I’m unable to challenge Adam directly without fighting Robert first. Robert doesn’t want to challenge Adam because he’d have to kill him. He wants to claim leadership of the pack without violence.”
“That’s admirable,” Theresa said, crossing her arms tight over her breasts. “Can’t Robert just concede rank to you? Once Adam is out of the way and you’re Alpha, you could swap again. Or something like that…”
A swift grin tugged at his lips. “You know it doesn’t work like that, love. Maybe if one of us were old or infirm…”
She released a long sigh. “If not killed in combat, an ousted Alpha must leave the pack,” she said, quoting from canon law that governed their kind.
“Right,” he said.
She stared at Zach, waiting for him to say something more but he volunteered nothing else. “Zach, please don’t take this the wrong way, but do you even want to be Alpha? Really? You’re pretty much a loner other than for the time you spend with me and Isabel, and less frequently with Robert when you go golfing. Being Alpha would quadruple your responsibilities to the pack. It would certainly take away from your writing.”
Zach’s expression grew increasingly dour with each passing second. She felt bad about making such an issue out of it but…
“Robert would make a better Alpha,” Zach said. A casual shrug of both shoulders accompanied the admission, and his calm demeanor told her that his ego was not bruised or threatened.
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings by saying it,” Theresa said.
A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth and he looked at her. “I’m not five, love.”
She sighed. “We really have a problem then, don’t we?”
“Absolutely.” Zach’s dark humor vanished and he grew dead serious. “Because the only way for Robert to become Alpha is for him to claim you as his mate. And I will kill him before I’ll give you up.”
Chapter Fourteen
Before the sun set on the evening of the full moon, the Iron Stone pack gathered in the pasture north of Foxtail Creek, located within a mile of Adam Teller’s home. They arrived in twos and threes, but crowded together at the center of the clearing. The twilight sky contained enough light to see by, and the moon was three hours from rising. The pack’s voices filled the air, creating a moderate rumble that competed with the din of running water.
Theresa stood beside Zach, her arm linked with his at the elbow, waiting with tense anticipation for the meeting to be called to order. Robert and Charlaine watched from the other side of the clearing. The cousins projected a blended aura—solidarity, a team. It was no wonder that people often mistook them for a mated pair.
Although outwardly calm, Theresa’s wolf roiled with pent up aggression. She wanted to break free from the pack, to shed her human form and shift to a wolf, to run with the sky overhead and the forest at her feet.
“Easy, love,” Zach said, running a soothing hand across her shoulders. He remained rock steady at her side, her oasis in the storm, and his cool energy caressed her skin and calmed her jittery nerves.
She acknowledged him with a quick smile, but made no reply. They had already discussed what might occur at the meeting. She knew that Zach had her back, no matter what happened. His solid support gave her the courage to stand her ground before the Alpha.
Her fragile bravado served as the foundation for the rest of the pack to unite about her. The others congregated around her and Zach, auras pulling together and blending to a continuous whole, permitting all to experience the remarkable connectivity. They flowed through and about her—Heart of the Wolf.
“Attention, everyone. Quiet down.” Adam separated from the crowd, arms in the air, and moved to stand on the meadow’s high ground about fifty feet north of the creek bank. His personal guard flanked him, occupying four evenly spaced points to either side.
The voices of the crowd rose in volume and then silence fell. Adam lowered his hands and gestured toward the side of the clearing. “Bring him.”
On cue, Sheriff Mahoney escorted C
arl to stand before Adam and the rest of the pack. Silver chains bound the prisoner. Theresa glimpsed fresh blood on the restraints and winced, feeling pity for the man who had assaulted her. The sheriff shoved Carl down, so he knelt in the dirt before Adam.
Adam regarded Carl, gazing upon him with a killing look in his eyes. At great length, he bared his teeth in a silent snarl. His disgust for the other man was plain. “Carl Reynolds,” he growled, voice booming to carry to the assembled pack. “You stand accused of attacking a lower-ranked female without provocation. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
Carl kept his gaze lowered in the timeless gesture of submission. “No, Alpha. I speak only to beg for mercy as I was led astray by a manipulative bitch.”
Theresa scowled, and Zach’s hand on her back tensed. He grew alert, ready to fight, and a collective murmur of displeasure passed through the rest of the pack. At the very periphery of the crowd, Donna Turnkill skulked, reduced to pariah status.
“Donna’s part in this has been noted and she’ll be sanctioned.” Adam cast a dangerous glare toward Donna who flinched in response. “However, that does not excuse or mitigate your crimes. The penalty for attacking a childbearing female is death.”
Carl cringed, shoulders hunching and his arms contracting against his chest, and his hollow terror traveled through the pack’s ambient aura, engendering pangs of pity from some and ripples of anger in others.
“I beg for mercy,” he groveled.
Marshaling her courage, Theresa took a deep breath. She held her head high and unlinked her arm from Zach’s to step forward. She stopped before Adam, standing over Carl, and took care to keep her gaze averted so as not to challenge to the Alpha’s authority. Her action caused a stir within the pack, curiosity being the predominant emotion.
“Alpha,” she said, keeping her head bowed to show respect. “May I speak?”
“This should be interesting,” Adam said with sarcastic bite in his voice. She felt his gaze boring into her. “Very well, you have a right to confront your attacker. What do you have to say, Theresa?”
The Mating Game Page 21