River snarled. They weren't the only ones who could be labeled stupid. That she was all of a hundred and twenty willowy pounds made him feel twice the fool.
He rolled up the cords they tied him with and stuck them in his pocket. Next, he rifled through the glove box and console. Among the wads of napkins, candy wrappers, packages of beef jerky, and two bottles of water, he found the vehicle registration. The address was two states and four hundred miles away. He stuffed that in his pocket, too.
More interesting than the address, was a map which he had thrown aside during his initial search. It was a road map, stained with coffee, crumpled with use, and folded oddly. River sat back into the driver's seat and shifted his body to more comfortably accommodate the bulge in his back pocket. His wallet was still chained to his belt.
He pulled it out and checked the contents. Everything was there including a couple of hundred in cash and a credit card. The card wasn't his, though his name was on it. It belonged to Wolf's Head and he only used it when he was sent for supplies the pack would need. He wondered if anyone had thought to take his name off the account. He'd soon find out. Let them foot the bill for whatever he needed. It was their fault he was here in the first place.
He was going to get his bike back and his truck, even if he had to rent a car and return to the address on the registration to do it. He'd wait for their return and when they did, he was going to make them pay. He was going to show them what a real rogue looked like. He was born one. It wasn't that long ago that Wolf's Head pack had taken him from that life and showed him something different. Fate had turned that to shit, too. He'd consider this journey a return to his roots.
Tearing the top from a package of jerky and chewing on the contents, he opened the map and spread it across the steering wheel. No route was marked, but someone had made small checks along the way with a pen as if marking their progress. The marks ended at a town he'd seen on an exit sign before he left the Interstate. The only other mark was an area circled in red, a national wildlife preserve. That was it. That was where they were headed. It had to be.
Using the scale on the map, River figured it to be about a hundred and fifty miles. They had a head start and it would only take them a few hours to make the trip. It would take him longer, but once there, he would find them and he would make them pay.
He used a few of the napkins to clean his hands and face. The others he used to dry his head after using bottled water to rinse the blood from his hair. The two cuts where his scalp was split by the bat were already closed and beginning to heal. The two tender lumps beneath them would take a little more time.
Ryker always said River was a hardheaded sonofabitch and River guessed his old boss was right. She could have killed him with that bat. He loped along the road, the pounding in his head matching that of his booted feet, until he saw the sign for an on-ramp to the Interstate where he'd be more likely to catch a ride. He stuck out his thumb each time a car passed, but traffic was light and there was no one willing to risk picking up a dark haired stranger dressed in black.
"It's the cute ones in shorts and orange sneakers you need to watch out for. Not me," he muttered as yet another driver passed, studiously avoiding eye contact.
River started to run, only slowing at the sound of an approaching vehicle. He'd run every mile if he had to. If it took every last ounce of strength he had, he was going to find that pretty little bitch and get his motorcycle back. And then he'd make her pay.
Chapter 4
River slid his back down the trunk to the base of the big maple. He sat, one leg cocked at the knee, the other stretched straight. He pulled out his last bottle of water and chugged it down. He was tired, but he didn't have much time to rest. He'd give himself five minutes, no more. The trip had taken him longer than expected. He'd only managed to hitch three rides, but they were good ones.
A trucker carried him almost fifty miles. He was a good guy who didn't say much more than, "I can take you as far as Carlisle."
A carload of teenaged girls carried him another thirty. They would have taken him further, but he asked them to let him off at Exit 62. It wasn't the exit he needed, but their squealing giggles at everything he said gave him a headache that came damn near close to the one he got from the baseball bat. Waving his hand over his head, he walked away from the car, but only until he was sure they were on their way back onto the highway. He then made his way back to the entrance and began the hitch hiking process all over again; run, turn at the sound of an approaching car and, walking backward, hold his arm out, fingers clenched, thumb extended.
It was another hour before his next ride came along. A forty year old Cadillac Fleetwood pulled off onto the shoulder ahead of him. The car was in mint condition; no rust, no dents, and chrome that shone like mirrors. It was perfect except for the black and foul smelling smoke that poured from the exhaust.
"Get in and be quick about it. You're letting in the stink," was all the woman behind the wheel said when he reached the passenger door.
River didn't hesitate. He was in and had the door closed before she could change her mind. His first thought was that this would be an easy theft. He could take her car and her money. His second was that with the chugging engine and billowing smoke, the car would be easily noticed. His third was that it didn't feel right to steal money from old ladies and if she was driving this beater, she probably didn't have money to spare.
The driver was ancient and the makeup she wore couldn't hide it. Her face was covered in powdery stuff that settled into the creases and made them hard to ignore. Bright spots of pink formed perfect circles on her cheeks. Thin arcs of brown over surprisingly bright blue eyes created eyebrows where there was no evidence of natural ones and her lips were carefully lined with red.
The inside of the car showed a little more wear, but not much. The seats sagged with long use and the color had worn away on the steering wheel where the same hands had gripped it for years. She looked like a nice old lady and he suddenly had the urge to warn her against picking up hitch hikers, but it wasn't his problem.
"Thanks for stopping, ma'am."
"I usually don't, but I was thinking of somebody else and there you were looking like he looked, tall and lanky with a head of dark auburn hair that always looked in need of a trim. Call it a senior moment. You won't make me sorry for it, will you?"
"No, ma'am. I'm harmless."
She snorted a laugh at that. "Would you tell me if you weren't?"
Unlike the trucker who asked no questions, or the girls who asked too many stupid ones, the old woman eyed him up and down and asked where he was headed.
He told her and she laughed.
"Why in hell would you want to go there? And don't tell me you plan on camping. I'm old, and in spite of that senior moment, not generally stupid. You've got no gear and you aren't dressed for it. Those aren't hiking boots you're wearing."
They weren't running shoes, either, and he had the blisters to prove it, he thought angrily, and he supposed it was the anger that made him answer honestly.
"A girl stole my shit. That's where she's going and I'm going to get it back."
"I was right," she said with a satisfied smile. "The way you were moving, you looked like a man on a mission. Girlfriend?"
"No. I never saw her before." And if he had a choice, he'd never see her again, the little bitch, and maybe he wouldn't have to. His spare keys were in the wallet, too.
The wrinkled skin around her mouth stretched into taut smoothness as she held her lips together over her open mouth. She was either holding back her words or another laugh.
Turned out she was doing both. "Pretty was she?"
"That has nothing to do with it," he answered bitterly, because it had everything to do with it. He'd been so busy thinking of her looks, he'd forgotten to be cautious.
"Ha! Sounds like it has everything to do with it." She fished a pack of gum out of her purse, offered him a stick, and then took one for herself. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Oh, come on." She held out her hand for his wrapper and stuck it back in the purse. "Surely the ride is worth the story. At my age, the only adventures I have left belong to other people."
"Nothing to tell," he said stubbornly. "The bitch stole my shit and I'm going to get it back."
"Young or old?" she asked. "The bitch, as you call her, was she young or old?"
"Young," he said sadly, and when he realized that his voice was tinged with the remembrance of Forest, he hardened it. "But don't let that fool you. She was the ringleader."
"Ringleader?" The woman's painted on eyebrows rose to points at their centers. "So she wasn't alone?"
"Of course she wasn't alone," he said, offended that she thought the skinny little thing had taken him down alone.
The old woman nodded. "Of course. Big, strong fellow like you. What was I thinking?" Her smile turned sly. "So, how many did it take to give you those two big lumps on the back of your head."
River's hand went to spots. Yep, they were still there, tender, but not throbbing. He smiled sheepishly. "Okay, she did, but only after four others jumped me."
"Ah." She nodded sagely. "My mistake. I figured she showed you a good time and when you were all tuckered out..." She left the sentence hanging, but implied the finish with a shrug. "That's usually what happened to Harry, my first husband. He had a thing for fast women and cheap motels. He got himself rolled more than once, though I'm pretty sure it was always by a woman alone."
River was going to tell her she was wrong. It wasn't about sex. Okay, the thought of those long legs and how they would feel wrapped around him was distracting, so maybe it was, but not the kind she was talking about. He'd never paid for sex in his life. The old woman's next sentence had him snapping his mouth shut on his denial.
"I'd go get him and end up taking the beating he couldn't take out on the girl," she said as casually as if she'd said she was taking in the mail.
"Why'd you stay with him?"
The question just popped out. He'd always wondered why the females of his old pack stayed with the men who used and abused them. Some of the women were as bad as the men, but he'd seen others that just curled up and faded away without a fight. He'd never seen it in Wolf's Head, but then again, his Alpha made it pretty clear that beating on females was punishable by death. Still, he had no right to ask the question. It was none of his business.
"Sorry."
She shrugged. "Don't be. I was seventeen. Back then, you made your bed, you slept in it. Men like Harry were all I knew and I figured he was a step up from most. He, at least, was happy when he'd had too much to drink and he was generous when he won at cards or dice. My father wasn't either of those things and I was just another mouth to feed at home. Harry yelled a lot and called me names, but he didn't hit me much. He only got physical when someone made him look stupid and that wasn't too often. I figured he was the best a girl like me was going to get." She was quiet for a few minutes and River could tell she was thinking of the past.
"Thank God for World War II," she said when she spoke again, and then she laughed. "Bet you don't hear that very often, do you?"
Other than the name, River hadn't heard much about World War II, period, so he shrugged. "Not really."
"Best thing that ever happened to me. Harry got called up and with the shortage of men, I got a good job. I found out I was smarter than I looked. Lucky for me, my boss thought so too. My father managed to get himself run over, by a beer truck of all things, one night on the way home from the bar. I moved back in with my mother and sisters, got a promotion and then another, and moved us out of the old neighborhood. We left our old life behind right along with the shabby curtains. My sisters stayed in school and went to things like football games and dances. My mother started to smile again. Then Harry got himself killed in Italy."
She sighed. "Don't get me wrong, I felt bad. He wasn't a good guy, but he wasn't a bad one, either, and he was my husband. I kept my vows and I sure didn't want him to die, but I knew by then that things had changed. I'd changed, and I knew I wasn't going back to the way I lived before. I was only waiting for Harry to come home before I told him. The women I met at work and in the new neighborhood showed me how things could be. Not for me, maybe, but for my sisters. I used his death benefit to put them through school. Margie became a nurse and Betty was a teacher," she said proudly. "They married good men after the war was over. I stayed with my mother until she died a few years later."
"So what did you get out of it?" he asked since it didn't sound like she got much.
"Oh, son, I got the best of it. I met Paul. That's who I was thinking of when I stopped for you. I picked him up just like I did you only he'd just been discharged from the Army. Things were different back then, but I didn't make a habit of picking up hitchhikers. There was just something about that man.
"I wasn't looking for another husband, but he was a persistent son of a gun. I fell in love with him, but I wouldn't marry him. He was a drinker, not a bad one, but he liked to party now and then, and poker was his favorite game. I'd learned my lessons the hard way and I swore I'd never take a chance on learning another of those lessons. I never saw Paul so angry as when I told him about why I wouldn't marry him. He wasn't mad at my father and Harry. Oh no, he was mad at me for not telling him sooner."
"Much as I thought I knew it all, I learned another lesson. This one was about love. Paul stopped his wild ways and never drank another drop. Two years later, I married him. On our wedding night, he put a big jar by our bedside. It was half filled with money already and he put what he called his poker and drinking money in it every week. He filled that jar over and over and said he was saving it for a big, blowout binge one day. It became a joke. That jar got filled and emptied for thirty years and then one day he drives up in this car. He said he'd give me the world if he could, but it seemed his drinking money didn't go as far as he thought. All he could manage was this Cadillac and he put it in my name.
"I tried to tell him that he'd already given me the world when he loved me enough to give up the beer in the first place, but he had some silly notion that I deserved this big, fancy car. When he passed away, it was already old. Our kids wanted me to sell it. Buy something new and better." She laughed as if that was some kind of joke. "As if there could be something better." Her laughter fled as quickly as it came. "I'm on my way home from the shop where I took it to see if it could be fixed. They said the car's on its last legs. It probably is, but I can't give it up." She glanced over at him and smiled. "You're probably like my grandson and think I'm an old fool, too."
"No, ma'am. I get it. Totally. I feel like that about my motorcycle," River told her. And then, because she was a stranger and he would never see her again so it didn't really matter, he told her a bit about his past.
As nice as she was, she was still human, so he couldn't tell her about being a wolver or about pack, but he told her about his early 'family' and the abuse he saw there and how they earned their living. He didn't tell her everything, but he told her enough for her to get the picture.
"I never heard about earning an honest dollar until I came to live with the family that adopted the younger cu... kids. I earned every honest dollar that paid for that bike. I get that for you, it's about love. I understand that, but it's not for me. Pride now, that's different. I get pride, and that bike is it. That's what that girl stole from me, my pride, and I want it back. I need it back. It's all I have left."
With the way she looked at him, River thought the old woman was going to give him a lecture, but she swallowed whatever she'd been going to say. Her hand left the wheel and reached for his. "You be careful now, son. I want your promise on that. You've learned hard lessons the same as I did, but you're still young, just like I was when I met Paul. You've still got lessons to learn. Your pride is worth a lot, but not as much as your life. Or your heart," she added. "I have about a hundred dollars in my wallet. You can have it if you need it."
H
e'd thought about stealing her money and here she was offering it to him. He felt guilty as hell.
"Thanks, but I'm good. And ma'am? You need to find another mechanic. If he says this engine can't be fixed, you tell him you want a rebuilt one. He might argue, but you stand firm. It won't be cheap, but it'll last as long as you need it to." He gave her hand a squeeze. "I'll promise to be careful if you promise not to pick up hitch hikers anymore."
She would have driven him all the way to the preserve, but he wouldn't let her. The sun would be setting soon and he didn't want her driving on unfamiliar roads in the dark.
He'd run another six or eight miles before he sat down to rest.
~*~
The six wolvers were crowded into the pickup truck's cab. Arnold was driving again and Reb shared the front passenger seat with Celia. The other three, none of them small, were crowded into the back.
"We should have brought him with us," Celia said.
Arnold gave her a questioning frown. "Why?"
"Why?" she asked back, her voice rising and falling on the word. "Did you not see him?"
"He was pretty hot."
"Hot? What kind of word is that?" Arnold caught his partner's eye in the rearview mirror. "What, exactly, do you mean by that?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean." Lawrence was enjoying Arnold's reaction. "No need to get your knickers in a twist, dear heart. It was only an objective opinion."
"Subjective. Opinions are not objective."
"Well then, I suppose you're right," Lawrence agreed. He sank his hook of jealousy a little deeper. "In my subjective opinion, the wolver was hot. Ladies? Am I wrong or right?"
Darla didn't hesitate. "Darn right he's hot. Makes me wish I was twenty years younger. Did you feel his abs? Hard as a rock."
Wolver's Reward Page 4