Overwhelmingly Precious [Werewolves of Hanson Mall 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (11 page)

* * * *

Quintana’s emotions were a total mess. She was so conflicted she couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than three seconds straight. This was so different from her usual self where she’d find her entire body numb because she’d sat in front of her computer for too long without moving.

She wanted Keelan and Wynn. They aroused and excited her as no man—or wolf—had ever done in the past. And heaven knows she’d been surrounded by males, growing up as the only female in her generation on Simon pack lands.

A farm had been a wonderful place for a young child to run around and play. There’d been a rat plague just before her parents had left the farm. Even though it was horrible in many ways, and the rats had eaten the crops and vegetation and even the seeds for the following year’s crops, in other ways it had been quite exciting for a young girl learning to shoot the pests with all her cousins. In later years she’d wondered if the loss of that year’s crops and the future year’s seeds had contributed to the economic struggles of the pack, tipping them over the line from just succeeding to failing.

But she’d never forgotten that she was a despised second-rate female human. That hurt. Then watching her father fail at his own business endeavor had built in her harder and stronger than ever the will to succeed. To never again be poor and reliant on other people. To never again be penniless and homeless, dependent on the charity of friends and having to couch surf for months until her father’s business was wound up and she could concentrate on her own work and studies.

She’d sworn a solemn oath to herself that she would succeed. She would have money. She would be totally independent. And now she was considering placing herself in the hands of two wolves. Opening herself to their good will and depending on their kindness of heart. She must be crazy.

She had to be strong. She simply couldn’t just hand over her life and her heart to two men.

But maybe they didn’t want that anyway.

Wynn had a task of his own to complete. To find out why there were so few werewolf females. Maybe once he’d interviewed the Simon pack he and Keelan would lose interest in her. After all, the potential extinction of an entire species was far more important than her emotions or her desire for security.

Maybe she was tying herself in knots for nothing. They were delicious. Fucking them was awesome. Then they’d all part with no regrets.

Yeah. Right.

* * * *

Wynn heaved a huge sigh of relief when he got a phone call from the Alpha of the Simon pack. Even the amazing rooftop sex of the previous night hadn’t been able make him forget more than briefly that he needed some new leads for the genealogy project and he was sure that pack would be able to help him if they agreed to do so.

Last night. Hell yes, how awesome, it had been. There was something extra special about fucking in the open air. His brain had told him Lewis would never let anyone come up on the roof without letting them know first, but his adrenaline had still pumped fast and hard at the thought of fucking out in the open.

And as for Quintana, she had a mouth made for kissing, and also made for sucking his dick. She’d timed her strokes perfectly and had sucked exactly right, not too hard but hard enough to bring him off like a firecracker.

Quickly he put the previous night out of his mind and focused on his phone call.

“Thank you for contacting me, sir.”

“I called the Supreme and had a long talk to him. He’s a good man.”

Wynn had no idea what he should say to that comment but agreeing with the Alpha seemed safest. “Yes, sir.”

“Your people will have to come out to the farm. I haven’t got the money to send a passel of people into the city what with the cost of gas, and then they would likely want to go shopping, and buy luxuries we don’t need.”

For the second time in a minute Wynn didn’t know what to say. Should he offer to bring food with them? The Alpha had already suggested he should be paid. Wynn didn’t have much of a discretionary budget but it would run to paying for some food he supposed.

Fortunately the Alpha answered for him. “The Supreme said you often bought dinner for people who answered your surveys. We have six alert older people so with myself that will be seven. Plus your own people, of course.”

“If I bring the ingredients we’ll also need to allow for the women who cook the meal. It wouldn’t be fair to expect them not to eat what they have to cook. What day suits you?”

Once again the Alpha had evidently planned what to say. In no time at all Wynn was sitting staring at his cell phone having arranged the meeting for the following Sunday afternoon. “That means I can bring Keelan and Quintana as well as Georgia. I hope one of them knows how to estimate the amount of food needed to feed a crowd. Make that food needed to feed a crowd with leftovers for those not actually invited to eat with us.”

* * * *

Wynn and Georgia had a lot of planning to do before Sunday. In the end Wynn had asked Sam from the Steakhouse for advice about feeding everyone. Sam gave Wynn a shopping list of ingredients and quantities for pork ribs with chilies, oven-fried potato wedges, and steamed broccoli for twenty people. He’d cheated with the dessert, buying two cheesecakes and a couple of gallons of ice cream instead.

Quintana had stared at the ice cream. “Two gallons? As well as two cheesecakes? Likely that’s enough for the entire pack to have a scoop each.”

Wynn shrugged. “I was thinking of the kids. I’m pretty sure they won’t care if they don’t get broccoli, but I’d have liked someone to give me ice cream when I was a kid.”

“That’s true.”

What Wynn was careful not to say, was that he’d eaten a huge lunch so he wouldn’t be hungry—well, not very hungry—that evening. If the pack was doing it tough, the more food left for them the better.

The journey seemed to go faster this time, possibly because he knew exactly where they were going, and sooner than he expected they were at the farmhouse, unloading the food which was in two large coolers borrowed from Sam.

Quintana led the way into the kitchen. It seemed rather dingy to Wynn, but he supposed there was no money to waste on fresh whitewash for the walls or a new refrigerator. Other things were much more important.

He lifted his cooler up onto a huge old wooden table and Keelan placed the second cooler beside it. Two younger women were waiting there and since Quintana didn’t introduce them, he supposed she didn’t know their names. He pulled the recipe sheets out of his laptop bag and said, “You don’t need to follow the recipe if you don’t want to. It was just so I’d know how much of the various things to buy.”

“How many of you are there?” asked one woman in a soft voice.

“There’s four of us, and we were told seven people were being interviewed, plus however many of you are doing the cooking. There should be enough food for twenty, so if you need a few more helpers to get everything done in time, that should be okay.”

The woman smiled at him. “Elsie’s pregnant. I’ll get her. She should eat better. And Jenna. Those teenagers of hers eat so much I’m sure she doesn’t have enough herself.”

Wynn was relieved. He’d hoped they wouldn’t be offended and think he was trying to demean them at all. But truly, he wanted to help, not take their resources away from them. It seemed he’d guessed right so that was a good start. Now, if only the meeting went as well and he could gather some useful information to add to their database.

Quintana led them to the front room, where they’d gone the first time. The Alpha was there, sitting in the same big armchair, with six older people, including Quintana’s mother. Wynn was glad. He’d hoped she’d be one of the people here. None of them looked really ancient, so hopefully they’d all have all their faculties yet have lived long enough to remember back several generations.

This time the Alpha did introduce people and Wynn hastily scribbled their names down on his notepad so he’d know who said what. He took out his iPad. “I’ll be taking some notes, but they will mostly be for myself, to remind me of things I need to check or people I ought to talk to. The interview will be taped but at any time you can ask me to switch off the tape. At no time will your name be used in any of our paperwork. All the information goes into a central database and from there our researchers look for links to other people and to try to see if there has always been human input into the werewolf packs every few generations. Do you have any questions?”

He settled back into his chair eager to begin. He had great hopes that this time the link to the solution to the gender imbalance problem would become obvious.

* * * *

Quintana relaxed as Wynn and Georgia got the people talking. She was interested to hear what they said and wondered if she’d remember things she’d forgotten to tell Wynn at her own interview. Just as he’d done with her, he mostly left the people to talk themselves, following their own direction wherever the conversation led them. Sometimes he or Georgia asked them questions to explain something or to draw them out. Once Georgia had to nudge a couple of the seniors back onto the right track after the conversation had gotten a bit lost. But mostly the seniors talked among themselves, remembering the generations past and people she’d never known but had heard her parents speak about when she was a child.

Quintana worked hard to keep her face bland when it became obvious that two of the old men were fairly sure a woman in their grandparents’ generation had been human. She was sure her father hadn’t known about that. The only person inside the pack she’d ever heard her parents acknowledge as human was her father’s mother, until her father himself had been born, and then married her mother. And of course her human self.

That was interesting. Quintana had wondered since she’d met Wynn and Georgia, if her grandmother had actually been part wolf and part human. Quintana thought it very strange, and quite the opposite of what the family history project was showing, that her grandmother had given birth to five sons—no daughters—and only one of them human. Statistically speaking she should have delivered two or even three girls and two or three of the children should have been human.

Quintana knew that the statistics were only averages after all, but still, she couldn’t help wondering if the woman was half-wolf or even one quarter, and the wolf gene had predominated. And now it seemed there’d been a human woman in a preceding generation as well. Likely that was what had kept the pack alive as long as it had been. That and some of the men leaving to find their mate elsewhere. She longed to know why the Alpha hadn’t ordered the men to go get jobs in town or elsewhere to help support the pack better. It was clear they were barely scraping by.

A little after seven one of the young women from the kitchen, who she didn’t recognize, came hesitantly into the room and looked at the Alpha. He stood up and the conversation instantly stopped. “The food is ready. We will eat now.”

The woman disappeared silently back into the kitchen and the Alpha led the rest of them there, too.

The women had worked hard to make the table inviting. There was an old lace cloth over it, with little bowls of fresh flowers in the center of the table and heirloom silver candlesticks at each end. The cutlery was silver, too, and gleamed from being polished. Quintana ran her fingers over the old pieces. They were beautiful. Solid and full of the pack’s history.

At first there was very little conversation as everyone concentrated on the food, which was absolutely delicious. But then, one of the old men, Samson, who’d always sneered at her and belittled her when she was a child, said, “Quintana, you’re dressed mighty fine to be visiting a farm. Don’t you have any jeans to wear?”

“I own a clothing store and it’s open on Sundays. These are my work clothes. I came here straight from work.”

One of the other men stared at her. “Stores are open on Sundays? On the Sabbath?”

“Yes, sir. Most stores open every day and some open twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.”

That took the pressure off her as they talked about that for a while, until there was a break in the conversation and Samson spoke to her again. “You’re getting old, girl. What are you? Thirty? It’s time you settled down and raised a couple of cubs. Why are you still single? You aren’t too bad looking. Someone would likely take you on.”

Quintana heard Keelan’s gasp and saw several of the pack women blushing furiously. She kept her voice low and pleasant but was starting to remember why she’d left the pack. “Yes, I’m thirty. Women can have babies well into their forties so I don’t need to rush into pregnancy just yet. My aim was to make a success of my business and have some financial security. I’ve achieved that. Both my stores are doing well. In time I expect I will agree to a relationship and possibly even a child.”

One of the young women asked her, “How did you come to own a store? Did someone give it to you?”

“Not at all. Everything I’ve achieved has been done by myself.” For a moment Quintana felt bad saying this. It implied her parents hadn’t cared for her. She’d never doubted their love for her but her achievements were her own hard work, not good luck, or gifts from anyone.

“It was very hard work at first. I studied business management in community college and most of you know I worked in my father’s small engine repair store. I taught myself how to keep the books, and maintain the stock, and ordering, and all that sort of thing while helping my parents. I got a bank loan to buy my first store, just as people get a loan for a car or a house. I paid the loan off with the profits from the store, and bought the second store. It takes a lot of effort, but it’s quite achievable for anyone interested in running a business.”

The women jumped up and set the two cheesecakes on the table, along with the ice cream. One of them handed a large knife to the Alpha to cut the first cake. He held the knife in one hand and stared fiercely around the table at his people. Quintana saw then the power he’d always had but that mostly seemed to be hidden.