"Not the jacket. She'll swim in it, but maybe she can do something with the khakis and the shirt. Thanks."
Slacks, shirt and belt hanging from their wire hanger, River returned to their room.
Chapter 11
Curled on her side with her hand under her cheek, the girl was still sleeping when River opened the door. She slept as sound as a pup and without a thought to whether it was friend or foe that was coming through the door. River tried to picture her as an Alpha's Mate. He couldn't.
He thought of Kat, of how she pushed and cajoled and argued with Charles. She loved her Alpha, and when Charles held her in his arms, her eyes would go all soft and misty like she'd been given a gift from heaven. That didn't mean she wouldn't give him hell when the mood was on her. She didn't take his shit either, and Charles could dish it out when the mood was on him.
He couldn't picture this delicate female standing up to anyone. She looked so young and helpless.
His wolf snickered at that and River touched the tender spot on top of his head.
"Okay, maybe not helpless, but she's way too trusting. She's an innocent."
The snicker turned into a snort.
"Okay, not so innocent. She stole my truck."
He should be angry about that, angry enough to drag her from the bed and shake her until her teeth rattled. Not that he would do it, but angry enough to think about it. So, why wasn't he thinking about it now?
Maybe that bat to the head had rattled something inside. He didn't think so, though. All the blond asshole had to do was look at him to piss him off. So, why not her?
His wolf snorted again.
"Okay," he conceded. "She's hot." His dick got stiff just looking at her and it was fucking hard to snarl and think about sex at the same time.
If he couldn't be angry with her, he'd save it for the ones who were with her. They deserved it more anyway. After all, they'd stolen his truck twice.
As River sat in the chair, watching her sleep a quiet calm stole over him. It was the same feeling he got from watching the sun set behind the trees of a forest. The light would dim to darkness and a quiet stillness would settle over the woods. In that short time between daylight and darkness, when the daytime animals settled in for the night and before the nocturnals were fully awake, the woods would be at peace. It was his favorite time of day.
He dozed, rousing once when he heard a car in the lot. It was only the motel's owner leaving. Harry was probably driving off to the nearest bar to find some peace of his own. An hour later, he was roused again, this time by the sound of three motorcycles. The Leathers were probably off in search of food, leaving Quentin behind to rest and heal.
The girl hadn't changed her position, but her eyes fluttered beneath their lids and the corners of her mouth turned up in a contented looking smile. River wondered what she dreamed of to put that look on her face. Was she dreaming of sunsets, too? Or of Dennis, and what might have been.
Whatever it was, his own sense of peace was gone. He left her to it, and went to take a shower. He tore off his jeans and threw them over the room's heater on top of the tee he'd left there earlier. The jeans were still damp from the rain and probably still would be when he came back for them, but damp and warm beat damp and cold any day.
He washed his body and scrubbed his head which made him think of the Babe-in-the-bed when he rubbed the place that she'd split. That brought on the same body reaction as when he thought of her before. He wasn't about to turn the tap to cold, so he took care of it with his hand.
His wolf must've been affected by the earlier blow to the head too, because it did something it had never, ever done. It hummed the whole time River jacked off.
She sat up in bed in shocked surprise when he walked out of the bath to grab his jeans.
"Don't worry, you're safe," he told her. He'd taken care of that in the shower.
"I know," she sputtered.
She pointed at his crotch then slapped the same hand over her mouth which did nothing to hide the laughter behind it.
Wolver males weren't particularly shy when it came to naked displays, so River knew that was one place where he had no shortcomings. He sure as hell didn't have a hard on, though the tousled look and lacey bra could change that in a minute.
"What?" he asked. He spread his arms wide and looked down. "Well, shit."
"Shoot."
"If that's shoot as in shoot me. Go right ahead."
The reason for her laughter was his shorts, not what was in them, but on them. No wonder the female driver smirked and her father raised those bushy white eyebrows. It was the reason for her mother's amused smile in spite of the turmoil surrounding them.
He was wearing the pair of undershorts given to him last Christmas by Dakota and Ranger, two of the packmates he'd sheltered as pups. They were smart-assed teenagers now, and full of the devil. At the moment, he wished he'd let them drown when he had the chance.
The shorts were white cotton with two cartoon wolves drawn on the front. The wolves were females dressed in sexy but silly costumes that displayed their big butts and bigger tits. Their false eyelashed eyes sparkled, literally, with glittery stars. They were leaning in toward the shorts' fly, their lips pursed in ruby red heart shaped kisses.
River hadn't paid much attention when he packed. He'd just thrown whatever was in the drawer into his bag. He hadn't paid much attention when he dressed in them, either. They were clean at the time and he wasn't expecting to show them off.
"If I'd noticed those first, I wouldn't have hit you with that rock," she giggled. "No guy wearing those could possibly be a threat to anyone."
"Thanks," he said sourly which made her giggle some more.
"Please tell me you didn't buy them for yourself."
He was tempted to tell her he did. What business was it of hers?
"They were a gift from two cubs who should have been born squirrels."
"Oh, that would be awful," she laughed, "Wolves eat squirrels."
"Exactly," he said with a nod of his head. To change the subject, he grabbed the hanger from the hook on the door. "I borrowed some dry clothes for you." He didn't tell her whose they were or where they came from. "They're not cut to size, but they're dry. I'll finish up in here and then you can have the shower."
Twenty minutes later she came out of the bathroom wearing Dennis's clothes. Reb was laughing. She spread her arms out to her sides, but her attempted curtsy failed when Dennis's trousers slipped. She cinched the belt a little tighter.
"What do you think?" she asked.
"I think that with a red nose and a funny hat you could earn a living in that outfit. I'm pretty sure I know where you can get a car to go with it."
"I've never had a job before. How much does the circus pay?"
The pants were hiked up so high, the waist sat under her breasts. Stuffed with billowing shirt, the hips of the khakis ballooned. The shoulder seams sagged halfway down her arms. With her long, thin, neck sticking out of the wide, stiff collar, and long, skinny legs protruding from the tent-like pant legs, she looked like a pea-headed pear on stilts.
"You can't go out in that. You look ridiculous."
Hand at her fake waist, she canted her hip and struck a fashion model pose. "A gentleman would tell me I was beautiful."
She was, even in the ridiculous outfit, but he wasn't about to say so. "I think there's one of those gentleman guys in the other room. You want I should go get him?" He walked toward the door.
"Don't you dare," she squealed and then her face fell and she sat on the edge of the unused bed. "They don't need to think any less of me than they already do."
Outside the motel room window, the sun that had broken through the gloomy day while they slept and showered, lost its battle with the clouds. The room darkened and for a moment, River thought it was because of the loss of her smile. Shadows loomed and her misery filled the spaces in between.
"Nobody's jumping for joy over there, but nobody blames you." He sat beside h
er, shoulder to shoulder.
"Dennis was a good man, a good wolver. He would have become a great Alpha. The kind that lasts, you know? The kind that a pack remembers. He had plans and a vision of what those plans would look like in the future. He had a dream and the ability to make you see it, too. He made you believe."
River never had that kind of dream unless you counted the ones he used to have about getting enough food to eat, and his abilities were limited to fighting, hunting and fishing, and dragging truant cubs back to school. Alpha Charles had a vision, he supposed. Other wolvers saw it, but River never did. He didn't believe in the future. He never had. He only believed in surviving the day and being grateful when you managed to do it without dying.
He was pretty sure if he had a dream, Fate would come along and shit on it.
"My father admired him." Her laugh was sad and she dropped her voice to mimic her father's words. "He's self-educated, Margaret. That's my mother," she explained in her normal voice, and then returned to her father's. "You know how much I admire a self-made man, particularly one who came from such humble beginnings. He's highly intelligent and has gone to great lengths to seek and prove the validity of his visions."
"Does your old man really talk like that?"
She blushed, giggled, and the sun came out again, flooding the room with light. "Father doesn't talk. He intones."
River wasn't sure what intones was, but if it meant sounds like a fatheaded snob, he was on the right track.
"Please don't judge him by the way he speaks," she pleaded, still holding the smile. "He's really sweet once you get to know him, and he always tries to see the best in people."
"So what did he see in Dennis's pack?"
"Well," she hedged and winced. "He didn't really see them. When we met with the prospective Alpha's, they each brought one representative from their pack."
"And Dennis brought Ben."
"Why, yes, how did you know?" She looked surprised and then her eyes brightened with enlightenment. "Oh, I forgot you met with them. They told you, didn't they," she concluded.
"No, but I guessed." Ben was the type that cleaned up pretty well and could turn on the charm when he needed to. "Just like I'm guessing you should have waited for your father to meet the rest of them before inviting them into your pack."
"They still want to?" She nodded in satisfaction. "I knew it. They were handpicked by Dennis. His dream will live through them."
"Yeah, but how's Daddy gonna take it?"
"My father will proclaim it a social experiment," Reb stretched her neck and declared with a pompous and mocking bobble of her head, but her laugh was affectionate. "He'll write a paper on it that no one will ever read, and call it the Inherent Proclivity for Social Order Among Wolvers or something like that. He's written dozens of them." She shrugged and sighed. "On a more practical level, we need them."
"Is that your opinion or your father's?"
"Mine. Practical is the one word that's missing from my father's extensive vocabulary." This time, her head tilted to the side when she lifted her shoulders. "Father is a dreamer."
"And you're not?"
River was sorry he asked when a shadow of sadness clouded her face. She recovered quickly, but he'd seen it and so had his wolf. The creature whined in sympathy and it urged him to move closer to Reb as if she needed protection from some outside threat. River followed his wolf and put his arm around her and rested his hand on her shoulder. She fit perfectly within its circle.
His reward for this show of comfort came when she relaxed against him and laid her head on his shoulder. The scent of her hair struck him. Who knew cheap motel shampoo could smell so good?
"No, I don't have dreams," she said, though River sensed it was a lie, just as he sensed her next comment was meant to change the subject. "My mother falls somewhere in between."
"How you figure?" he asked. He didn't really want to know. He only asked so she'd keep talking and stay where she was. He rested his cheek against the softness of her hair. He was rewarded again when Reb moved a little closer and fitted herself more snugly against him. Her heat burned against his side and made a beeline to his crotch.
"Mother's dreams are all for me. She loves me and wants what's best for me, but she's caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. I think she had her doubts about the Chase, but she couldn't voice her opinion. She's a lady, born and raised to be an Alpha's Mate. My father's opinions are hers and she supports her Alpha as any good Mate should." She said it like she was repeating a schoolroom lesson. "Maybe she's right. Look what my opinions did last night. Good wolvers died because of me." She tilted her head and looked up at him. "Do you know what happened to Martin, the other Alpha? Did he die, too?
"No, he didn't die. He didn't hang around long enough." There was a burning in his gut as if someone had fanned the hot coal he always carried inside.
"That's good," she said and the burning in his gut caught fire. "My father thought he'd be a good match for me," she went on. "Martin didn't want a merger, but he had money to invest. He was young and ambitious and my father thought he'd take care of me and he seemed nice enough. I'd feel awful..."
Reb had said nothing, done nothing that would set his anger ablaze, but there it was, burning hot without reason.
"Don't you dare," he said harshly. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her to him. "Don't you dare feel bad about him. He's not worth the dirt under your feet. He and his crew took off at the first sign of trouble. He didn't care about you. He only cared about himself and you should be glad he's gone."
"But what happened wasn't right. It wasn't fair," she began, but River cut her off again.
"There's no such thing as fair. If there was, that bastard wouldn't be an Alpha in the first place. He'd be dead because he doesn't deserve the mantle. He saw what was going down, same as I did. He knew what would happen to you, same as I did, and he did jack shit to stop it. He left you, Reb, like you were a piece of meat that wasn't worth fighting over. How fair is that? An Alpha should be willing to die for his Mate. He should cherish her like the gift she is and if he can't do those things, then he shouldn't have her. Fair would be if he walked through that door this minute so I could kill him myself and not for his goddamned mantle, either."
Fair didn't make Reb a trophy to be won in a race. Fair didn't toss pups like Meadow and Dakota and Ranger into a world where they couldn't survive. Fair didn't give someone as sweet and gentle as Forest a monster for a father. Fair wouldn't let her witness that monster kill her mother. Fate did that. She rolled the dice and you were either a winner or a loser. For the lucky few, Fate would roll the dice again, as she had for the pups taken in by Wolf's Head, but for most, the die that was cast at birth stuck. For the first time in his life, River realized you didn't have to be born a rogue to be born a loser. Reb was a loser, too, and that thought enraged him.
"You can't expect fair, Babe, but someone like you should expect a helluva lot more than a coward for an Alpha."
"River," she said, her soft voice filtering through the haze of his growing anger. "Please?"
His hands were still at her shoulders and he snatched them away as if the fire of his anger might have burned her, too. How hard had he gripped that tender flesh? He groaned with the horror of what he might have done. "Oh, God, please tell me I didn't hurt you?"
It was his greatest fear; that he would lose control of it, become so blind with it he'd hurt someone who didn't deserve it, who couldn't fight back.
Instead of backing away like any female with an ounce of sense would, Reb took a step toward him. She reached out to touch him and he was the one who leaned away, snapping his head to the side and out of reach. He closed his eyes. "Fuck."
"Fudge." Her hand lay flat against his cheek, soft, tender, and not the least bit afraid. "You wouldn't hurt me, River. You couldn't. You wear funny underwear, remember?"
He looked down at her looking up at him and all the anger leaked out of him. "How could I forget when
you keep bringing it up?"
That earned him a weak smile and another step forward until her forehead touched his chest.
"That's better," she said as she relaxed against him. "I don't want you to be angry with me."
"I wasn't angry with you," he told her. He ran his hand over her back, telling himself it was a gesture of comfort and apology, but knowing there was more to it than that.
"Yes, you were," she argued, and River didn't argue back because it occurred to him that maybe she was right.
He'd known her for less than a day and he already knew she was something special. His wolf felt it, too. Why would she let them do that to her? Why would she do it to herself?
"You must think I'm a fool," she continued, speaking to his chest, "and you'd be right. Until all this began, I'd never met an Alpha outside of my father and grandfather. I thought all Alphas were like them, hopefully younger, but basically the same. Father believes that all wolvers are the same, and that was what I was taught, so why wouldn't all Alphas be the same, too? I saw what I expected to see, honorable wolvers. I didn't expect to see a coward. I didn't expect Donavan to be evil. I didn't expect to be the victim of a..." her voice trailed off.
"Con," he said, so she wouldn't have to think of rape. "It's called a con, a confidence game, and you and your parents were the marks. He studied you. He knew what to say and how to act. He knew exactly what buttons to push. They never intended to join with your pack. They wanted the money, all of it, and they wanted you, too. A Mate would make them look legit. I'll bet they've run scams like this before. You don't get that smooth without practice."
"And Dennis? What was he? Was I wrong about him, too?"
"I don't know, but I hope not," he told her, but only because she needed something to hang onto.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"For what?"
"For being kind, for not calling me stupid even though I was, for not reminding me of all the damage that was done because I was. For not saying it wasn't my fault, because it was, you know, but there's not a wolver in my pack who'd let me admit it."
Wolver's Reward Page 11