The only person who Troy sensed would have answers was Grandmother Sasha. Maybe he should pay her another visit. Tomorrow. If she imparted more cryptic wisdom, well, it’d be better than nothing, he figured. She would definitely know why the amethyst had stoked up, hotter than hell, when he’d ducked into the library. That’d be something, at least.
He also debated calling Kaleb, but his intuition on why that might be helpful was fuzzy at best. When they’d sat around the table in the back of Libations, all five Quinn brothers, Troy had noticed how Whitney Abernathy, the sheriff’s daughter, had caught Shane’s eye. In the same subtle way, Lucy Cooper had caught Kaleb’s eye, here and there. Of course, Kaleb was one hell of a playboy and there wasn’t a single skirt in town who hadn’t caught his eye, if not strong enough interest on his end for him to make a seductive move, but Troy felt like he was on to something.
If the interest flowed both ways, Kaleb might be able to talk with Lucy. Shane might be able to talk to Whitney. And Quinn Security might get an inside, firsthand glimpse at what had happened to those two girls in the darkened, wooded trail in Yellowstone that night.
It was worth a shot.
And it wouldn’t require two full-blown phone conversations.
He sent each of them a carefully worded text message, proposing that tomorrow they talk to their assigned female—Kaleb with Lucy, and Shane with Whitney—and see if any details come to light that might help them identify who this werewolf was.
By the time each of his brothers had responded with a few questions and eventually confirmed that they would make their mini-assignment a top priority tomorrow—Kaleb agreed to get into Lucy’s section of the diner first thing, and Shane would drive on out to the corral stables in Yellowstone where Whitney spent her days tending to the horses—Reece stepped out of the steamy bathroom in a pair of tight grey yoga pants and a loose-fitting tee-shirt that would’ve left more to the imagination had she been wearing a bra underneath it.
She smelled fresh and clean, like a dewy meadow at dawn, and he set his cell phone on the coffee table.
“Hungry?” she asked as she rounded into the kitchen.
As she opened the cabinets above the sink to take inventory of the dinner options, Troy joined her at the half-wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, leaned his elbows on the counter, and said, “I could eat anything.”
“Except vegetables,” she corrected him, teasingly.
“Mind like a steal trap.”
“It was one detail I’m sure I’ll never forget.”
As she pulled some spices from the spice rack, setting each on the kitchen counter, and slapped a packet of lean chicken breast on the counter as well, having pulled it from the fridge, he rounded into the kitchen and turned the burner on, anticipating that she’d broil the chicken on the stovetop.
He didn’t care much for chicken either. He’d have to be starving and desperate to eat chicken and there was little point when it came already dead, sliced, and wrapped in cellophane, but he played along. More than anything, he just wanted to be near her, standing as close to Reece as possible, so he maneuvered around the kitchen with that interest in mind.
But when he neared her as she tended to the sizzling chicken breast in the pan on the stove, she shifted her weight to reclaim a breath of space between them.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
She angled her pretty green eyes up at him after setting the spatula on the counter. “How many of you guys are there in town?”
He was slightly taken-aback but couldn’t say he was surprised. The fact that she hadn’t bombarded him with a million questions the other night had been more surprising than anything.
“A lot,” he told her, but she wasn’t satisfied with that.
“Is anyone in law enforcement… you know… one of you?” she asked smartly.
“No,” he said. He and his pack were at a disadvantage because of it. “Not a single officer.”
“Anyone at the diner?”
She was going to go through the entire town, shop by shop, business by business, he realized. It crossed his mind to mention Angel Mercer, who was definitely a werewolf now, but he still wasn’t ready to go there with Reece and reveal to her that the rogue werewolf had just changed the entire game in this town. Anyone could turn werewolf by unnatural means if he got his hands on them.
But he told her, “No.”
“What about the bar?”
“Do you want me to stand here and tell you the names of every single member of my pack?” he asked good-naturedly. He’d meant to deter her, but Reece was far too curious.
“So, no one at Libations is a werewolf?”
He sighed. He wasn’t going to get away with avoiding answering her, and he could feel in his chest that lying to her pointblank wouldn’t sit right in his heart, so he said, “Jack is, and a few of his bar-backs, one of his bartenders. The rest are mortals.”
Reece’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline, but not for the reason Troy initially thought.
“Mortals?” she questioned immediately. “Does that make you guys…?”
“Immortal?”
“Does it?”
“In a manner of speaking it does,” he allowed. “But at the end of the day, we can be killed. We can die of natural causes just like anyone else.”
“I don’t understand.”
He waited for her to flip the sliced chicken breasts in the pan and shake on seasonings before he addressed her question.
“We can live a very, very long time. But as you might know, my father, Xavier, died a few years ago. Of natural causes. In his sleep.”
“From old age?”
“Yes, from simple, straightforward old age.”
She thought about that, doing some degree of math in her head to connect the two dots of information he’d provided, then smartly asked him, “How old was he really?”
Troy let out a little laugh and felt the impulse to pull her close against his chest in an affectionate hug, but he held himself back and told her, “Very old.”
“Can’t you be honest with me?” she asked in a serious, almost hurt tone.
“I could, but I doubt you’d believe me.”
“I watched you transform into a wolf the other night,” she reminded him. “A giant wolf. I have no reason not to take your word.”
“He was a little over five hundred years old.”
Reece just stared at him. She looked suddenly frozen with incomprehension.
A few tendrils of smoke wafted out of the pan so he lowered the burner, flipped the chicken in the pan, and pulled a few plates from the cabinet, taking over her cooking, as she attempted to wrap her head around the detail.
“That is practically immortal,” she finally agreed.
Then she began staring at him. Studying him. Scrutinizing his facial features and posture. He knew exactly what she wanted to ask, so he cut her off at the pass. “I’ve got a number of years on me, as well. I’m too old for you,” he teased.
“How old?”
“A little over a century. Is that okay with you?”
She looked crestfallen.
“What?” he asked.
“This is worse than Peter Pan and Wendy Darling,” she said. “You and I.”
He knew what she was referring to. Peter Pan, who was determined to stay in Neverland, wasn’t capable of aging. When he pulled Wendy Darling into his world, she stopped aging, but Wendy didn’t want to be a kid forever. Ultimately, and some might say sadly, she chose to return to the real world where she could grow old and have all of the life experiences that would come with it. Peter often visited her, but he never grew up.
If Reece stayed mortal, then yes, their dynamic might unfold a lot like Peter and Wendy’s. But Troy had much higher hopes for them.
“Don’t worry about it,” he told her as he gave her shoulder a little squeeze.
The chicken was ready. Perfectly golden brown with crispiness. Troy plated the slices, dividin
g them evenly, and carried them out through the living room to the dining table in front of the curtained windows at the back of the cottage.
It took Reece a moment to snap out of her sudden funk, select utensils out of the drawer, grab a few napkins, and join him at the table.
She looked as though she’d lost her appetite.
Then she laughed at herself. “I really got ahead of myself there.”
“How so?”
But she didn’t want to answer him.
Instead, she picked up her fork and knife and began eating in dour silence.
As they ate, Troy wanted to assure her that their story wouldn’t end like Peter and Wendy’s. But he couldn’t. He wanted to, but how could he? He didn’t know for sure what they were destined for. He knew how he felt for her. He could feel the ever-growing warmth in his heart that was starting to feel like a golden cord of energy twining out from his chest, reaching for her. But he couldn’t see if the same eternal cord was twirling its way from her own heart and reaching out to connect with him.
When their plates were cleared, she collected them along with the utensils and asked, “Who else in town?”
“Literally everyone at Damned Repair,” he offered up. “And in terms of the residential areas, we’re peppered in all over.”
“That doesn’t surprise me one bit,” she said, referring to the automotive repair shop.
She’d brought the plates to the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet, but Troy had other ideas in mind about how he’d like to spend the rest of the evening, and doing the dishes wasn’t part of it.
When she reached for the dish soap, he caught her forearm in his large hand and turned her towards him. She didn’t seem to object, only got very quiet. He stared down into her lowered gaze until she lifted it and met his eyes. Bringing his hand to her soft cheek, the other to the nape of her neck, he stepped in, searching her eyes, and began gliding in for a kiss.
She sipped in a tight, thrilled inhale just as their lips were about to touch, and when they did, the moan that seeped out of her was enough to arouse him even more than their close proximity had all evening.
But after letting go and melting into his arms, which had traveled the length of her slender body until he was holding her very close, one arm cradling her lower back and the other holding her across her shoulder blades, she pressed her warm palms against the firm wall of his chest and urged him back.
“I don’t know if it makes sense for me to get involved with you,” she breathed.
“Because of Peter Pan and Wendy?” he asked.
“It’s a reasonable fear,” she maintained.
“It is,” he agreed. “But again, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“I will worry about that,” she asserted. “How could I not?”
Again, Troy was tempted to suggest that they could be destined for one another, she could be his one true mate, that if she was and he turned her werewolf, she would live just as long as he would. But he couldn’t do it. It would be worse than a teenager telling a girl he loved her just to get her into bed. It would work, but it would be somewhere between the truth and a lie, because until he knew for sure that she was meant to be his, he couldn’t really say that he knew anything.
“I want to be with you,” he pushed, growling out the words as he brought his mouth to the side of her neck.
She didn’t protest or push him off and when she moved it was only to turn off the faucet.
“I can barely fathom this,” she told him. “When I was a little girl, you were… a seventy-year old adult trapped inside a twenty-year-old’s body?”
“Something like that.”
Another aspect occurred to her and she asked, “How did no one in town notice this? How did a large group of you guys go undetected for so long?”
“We’ve always kept to ourselves,” he explained, guiding her out of the kitchen and into the living room, but sitting on the couch wasn’t exactly where he wanted to be with her. “We don’t run businesses and we don’t interface with the mortals that much.”
“You do, though,” she pointed out. “Jack owns the bar and he’s there every night, and you and your brothers opened Quinn Security.”
She had him there. There was no doubt about it, but in the grand scheme of things, there were recent endeavors. Jack might have been running the bar for twenty years, but that was still within a window of time where people wouldn’t be inclined to raise questions.
“It works out, trust me,” he told her from where they were standing in the living room. “I’m not going to pressure you,” he assured her, taking a step back to give her space.
“I’m torn,” she admitted.
“You wouldn’t be torn if you didn’t want this.”
The look on her face told him that he was right. She wouldn’t be concerned with getting hurt if she felt nothing for him. Then again, Reece was the type of woman who, if she really felt nothing, wouldn’t have even kissed him in the first place, never mind welcoming him to climb on top of her on the couch to make out like teenagers. It felt very far away, that moment they’d shared on her couch. He’d like to get back there, have her under him again, but he didn’t know how.
“All I want right now,” she said, fortifying herself from further temptation. She pinched her eyes shut as though it would help her spit out her point. “Is for the wolf who attacked and killed Holly to be found.”
***
Just as Reece took one step then the next, closing the gap between her and Troy, on the other side of Devil’s Fist Sheriff Rick Abernathy frowned down the length of the bar, wondering just where in the hell his good friend Jack was.
He gave the bar-top a little pound with his fist as he traveled down it, Rachel Clancy in her dress-blues at his heels.
The kid behind the bar, some tow-head blond thing who looked like he just graduated college yesterday, neared him from the opposite side of the counter.
Jack always poured him beers on the house and he didn’t feel like explaining to this one what he was accustomed to.
“Sheriff,” said the kid before he gave Officer Clancy a friendly, acknowledging nod. “What’ll it be?”
“Where’s Jack?” he asked as he pulled out a barstool.
Rachel followed suit, taking up in the stool to his left before glancing around the quiet bar, as the bartender said, “I don’t think the man has taken a day off in all the years I’ve known him.”
Rick wasn’t especially impressed. Judging the kid’s age, he probably hadn’t known Jack very long since he was practically in diapers, but Rick had to agree. Jack didn’t take nights off. Ever.
“So he’s taking some time now,” the kid went on.
To be with Angel Mercer, thought Rick. Well, he hoped his old friend got lucky, got the woman out of his sexed-up system, and then got his ass back behind the bar where he belonged.
“I’ll take a whiskey,” said Rick. “And I’ll have a lager to chase it, on the house, of course.”
The kid looked momentarily perturbed then dropped it. Who was going to argue with the sheriff?
Rachel voiced, “I’ll have a pinot grigio—”
But Rick wasn’t having it. “You don’t need to get sauced. We’ve got matters to discuss.”
She drew in a deep, frustrated breath, but kept a lid on complaining outwardly. Technically, she was off duty, but she was also, technically, a little, light-weight lady, who ought not to be drinking while uniformed in her dress blues.
“I live above the bar,” she reminded him, “so it’s not like I’ll be driving anywhere.”
Changing the subject as the bartender set his shot of whiskey and pint of lager on the counter in front of him, Rick leaned in and began at a confidential volume, “What do you know about Lucy Cooper?”
“The waitress?” she responded. “Not too much. She works at Angel’s Food—”
“Obviously,” he grumbled with a little exasperated eyeroll as he brought the whiskey to his mouth.
Instead of shooting it back, he savored a modest sip then chased it with a gulp of beer. “She’s close with my daughter.”
“Then why are you asking me about her?”
Rick cut his glaring eyes to his officer. Had she just used a confrontational tone with him?
“I’m asking you,” he stated firmly as he returned his beer to the counter and squared his massive shoulders at her, “because what I know about Lucy has been heavily filtered through my daughter. She’s not into drugs, is she?”
“She’s a grown woman,” said Rachel, but it didn’t satisfy him. “No, she’s not into drugs. Devil’s Fist hasn’t seen a lick of narcotics since you cleaned the town up,” she complimented.
That was more like it.
Rick relaxed a touch, turning back towards the bar, and began thinking out loud. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors.”
“That Lucy’s on drugs,” Rachel supplied, proving she had in fact heard the talk around town. “That whatever she thought she saw out on Eagle’s Pass was a figment of her own drug-scrambled imagination.”
“That’s right and at this point those rumors are in our favor.”
He wished he had anyone else to confide in at this moment, anyone else but Rachel, but as much as it annoyed him, Rachel Clancy seemed to be the only officer in his entire precinct who’d never hesitated to jump at the chance to work extra hours. Anything to get ahead. He had smarter deputies, that was for damn sure, but they’d all prioritized their wives and children over these kinds of afterhours meetings. For all intents and purposes, he was stuck with her, and being a man of action that he was, he was determined to make the most of it.
He leaned in a little closer in a secretive hunch and spoke very low. “There’s some talk of… werewolves.”
Rachel screwed her face up something fierce as though the sheriff had lost his damn mind.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” he allowed. “I had the same reaction when Lucy introduced the idea. That’s why I thought she was on drugs. But she said some things to me… things I can’t ignore. And my Whitney believes her wholeheartedly. I trust my girl. She’s smart and has a good head on her shoulders and hasn’t touched a recreational drug in her entire life.”
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