Silver Moon (A Women of Wolf's Point Novel) (31 page)

Then Erin held out her good hand. “Help me up?”

It took a while, but eventually Becca got her dressed and downstairs for breakfast. Erin was already steadier on her feet and some of the scrapes and smaller wounds were well on their way to healing. They ate the breakfast that Becca threw together quietly, occasionally watching each other sidelong and smiling. It gave Becca the weirdest, most wonderful feeling.

Which disappeared when Molly showed up with two bags of groceries, then joined them for the rest of breakfast. Couldn’t she eat with Carlos and….the other guy? The thought made Becca momentarily resentful until she realized that she was being childish. Erin wasn’t
hers
, after all.

Finally, Molly leaned back in her chair. “Okay, we all ready to face the real world now?” Becca was baffled; hadn’t they just done that? “Erin, have you told Becca yet?”

Erin clutched at her face with her good hand and groaned. “Shit. No. I forgot, what with everything else going on. Becca, first let me tell you we’ll make this right. This is my fault—I dropped the ball on the problem when the Nesters got Shelly”

“Dropped what ball? What are you talking about?” Becca looked from Molly to Erin and back again. What else could there be? Then it struck her and she got up slowly and started for the front door. Erin and Molly scrambled to follow her as she flung the door open and looked across the street.

Her house was still standing so that was one worry down. But the “For Sale” sign on the lawn was new. “What the hell are they doing to my house?”

“Your husband came by with a realtor and that lawyer cousin of his right after the Nesters took you. Look, Becca, I’ve got some savings. And the Pack still has money in the emergency fund. We’ll make this right.” Erin’s voice sounded anguished and guilty.

Becca felt numb. That house was the last of her old life. It meant security and a certain degree of comfort. It had been her refuge after Ed left. “I’m going to see what he took.”

She walked across the street, the other two trailing after her. She felt like she was having a bad dream, one that she couldn’t wake up from. What was she supposed to do now? Molly and Erin were whispering behind her, the noise adding to her irritation. When she got up to the front door, she turned around. “I think I need to do this by myself. Give me a few minutes.” She let herself in and closed them out.

It didn’t feel right, shutting them out, but she ignored that feeling, buried it deep. Instead, she walked through the house looking at her books and her photos. Her furniture. She couldn’t help but notice that it was a lot cleaner and that everything had been straightened up.

Then she began to notice that things were missing: a keepsake here, some extra throw pillows there. She ran through the house in a panic until she got to the basement. Someone had begun to carefully pack things up. Each box was labeled for a different room and had a list of the contents on the side. She tore one open to check and sure enough, everything was there.

In a way that hurt more than the rest of it. There was nothing that Ed wanted of their old life that he hadn’t taken away already. She rubbed away an angry tear before venturing back up stairs. Then she sat down at the kitchen table with the big pile of mail that had come in since she’d been gone.

Buried in with the catalogues she didn’t like and the ones she did, the bills she still needed to pay and the advertising circulars, was the official letter telling her that the house was going up for sale. There was a Post-it on it from Pamela that mentioned several attempts to contact her. It also mentioned that there was some serious interest from a buyer. There would also be some contractors stopping by to make repairs and get everything up to code.

Becca sat there and stared at the letter like it was on fire. How had this happened?
Oh yeah, crazy werewolf hunters, jackass ex-husband. It’s coming back to me.
Despite everything, the thought made her laugh a little. With all she’d survived and done in the last few months, how did this compare?

There was a noise from the porch and she got up to check it out. Erin and Molly were hanging around outside, just in case she needed them. She took one more look around, then took a deep breath and went to open the door. “Looks like there’s going to be some changes around here. How about you come in and help me decide what to pack?”

It was broad daylight the next time Becca Thornton studied her face in the mirror. She looked haggard and worn but the wolf wasn’t staring back out of her eyes. Not yet. That would come tonight, along with the scent of trees and the wind in her fur. And the company of others just like her, all of them running free through the woods. Their woods.

The “For Sale” sign was still up on the lawn but it looked like she had a few days to finish packing and think about where she wanted to live. And about what to do about Erin.

Everyone, including Pete and Shelly, thought that she should take Erin up on her invitation to move into Erin’s house. She wasn’t sure that she was ready for that yet, but then she hadn’t been sure that she could ever handle turning into a wolf on a regular basis either.

Maybe there would be a lot of new beginnings, rather than the finish she thought she was headed for. She picked up the phone and made a reservation for two on an upcoming whitewater-rafting trip.