Southern Shifters: Lone Wolf Wanted (Kindle Worlds Novella) (4 page)

Chapter Seven

One month later …

Pulling into the parking lot of a little shifter-friendly diner Ezrah, parked his motorcycle under the hot August sun.

After leaving North Carolina, he had taken the slow, scenic route down the coast to Florida, hit the beach for one day in Miami, and then headed north then west toward Louisiana. He didn’t have a particular destination in mind; he was just traveling the roads, trying to find some semblance of inner peace again.

Ezrah hadn’t quite felt like his normal self since he had snuck out of Kink’s cabin, which bothered him.

Why was he still thinking of the cat a month later?

It wasn’t as if she was a passing thought. No, she was the main one. If he passed a nice view, his mind automatically wondered what Kinks would think of it. When he saw a sexy pair of women’s leather pants that laced up the side, he envisioned them on her hot, curvy body. It seemed wherever he went, the feisty brunette wasn’t far from his mind.

Walking into the diner, he decided to sit at the bar instead of waiting for a table. The place might be a little mom and pop operation, but it was jam-packed with customers. He would get faster service if he sat at the counter and ordered his food there.

While he was looking over the menu, a small child’s voice off to the right caught his attention.

“Daddy, Sonya told me on the playground today that cats rule and dogs drool. Is that true?”

An unexpected laugh popped out of his mouth. He didn’t know who was surprised more: him or the waitress who had just stopped in front of him on the other side of the counter.

Wiping the smile off his face, Ezrah ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a large vanilla milkshake.

Once the waitress took his order down and walked away, he turned his head to look for the child who had made him laugh.

Over in a booth behind him and to the right was a couple sitting with their daughter. Taking a deep breath, Ezrah could scent that they were shifters of the wolf variety, and the scent of utter contentment poured off all three of them.

The little girl was drawing on her piece of paper with a red crayon while her mother laughed silently at the father’s perplexed expression.

Speaking so quietly a human wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation, the father asked the little girl, “Is Sonya a feline shifter, pumpkin?”

The little girl with pigtails nodded. “Yep. I don’t understand why she said dogs drool, Daddy. You don’t drool when you’re a dog.”

This time, the man’s wife didn’t bother to hold in her laughter as the man tried to hush the little girl’s loud words. She let it ring loudly, and the man ran his hand over his face in bewilderment.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ezrah watched the scene a little longer, interested in how the man was going to reprimand his young daughter on speaking about shifters in public. He doubted the father would be too severe since she was so young.

Leaning forward, the father grabbed his little girl’s hand to get her attention. “Remember what I said about keeping secrets, pumpkin? How you can’t talk about Mommy and Daddy or you being a wolf out in public?”

The little girl’s eyes went wide. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

Her father chucked her under the chin. “No worries. Just remember it next time, okay?”

A plate clanked down on the counter in front of him, and Ezrah turned his attention to the waitress again. Mumbling a thank you he stared at the burger, but couldn’t bring himself to eat the tasty looking beef. His mind was on a different woman back in North Carolina, wondering what she would have said to a child of her own if asked the same question out in public.

A vision of her smug grin as she laughed came back to haunt him. Something told him Kinks would have told the girl that Sonya was right.

A cell phone vibrating in his pocket broke his train of thought. Ezrah pulled the phone out and immediately answered because there was only one person who had his number.

“Boy, what
have
you done?”

The caller ID on his screen said it was his great-grandmother Pearl calling him. The voice through the line sort of sounded like Satan.

“Pearl? Is that you?”

“No, it’s the gosh darn Easter Bunny!” the croaky voice snapped back.

There was no doubt now for Ezrah. This was certainly his grumpy great-grandmother.

“What’s wrong with your voice, Pearl? Are you sick?”

The idea of the last relative he had left possibly dying on him twisted his stomach into knots. She might not be the sweetest little old lady in the world, but she was Ezrah’s family, and he would do anything for her.

“Don’t you go sassing me with all your questions, boy! If you want to see what’s wrong with me, then you bring your butt back to Oklahoma to find out. It’s all your fault, anyway.”

Click.

He stared at the cell phone in confusion. How was it his fault that Pearl sounded like she had been smoking three packs of cigarettes every day for the past one hundred years?

Appetite suddenly lost, Ezrah dropped more than enough money on the counter, including a healthy tip, then stood up, grabbing the milkshake. Before he walked out the door, he headed to the wolf family’s table and put the vanilla milkshake on the edge closest to the little girl. He felt her father tense up, as if ready to protect his family, but Ezrah wasn’t there to cause problems.

Giving the little girl a wink, he whispered conspiratorially toward her, “Tell Sonya dogs rule because cats cough up hairballs.”

With the little girl’s giggles ringing in his ears, Ezrah walked out of the diner, climbed back on his motorcycle, and roared out of the parking lot. It was Oklahoma or bust, because he needed to find out why Pearl was blaming him for whatever was wrong with her.

Chapter Eight

“Who shit in your kitty litter, Kinks?”

Chrissy lifted her eyes from the polished bar top to give Bhric the stink eye. “Your mother.”

The male sighed as he braced his hands on the bar and leaned a little closer to her. “Do I need to call your sisters to come cheer your cranky-ass up?”

This time, she hissed at him. “Call those crazy hussies, and I will ruin your pretty, refinished bar top with claw marks all the way down it.”

Bhric stared at her with a look only an alpha could give. It was a look that told her, if she so much as whipped one tiny claw out, he would not only boot her ass from his bar, but remind her why he was the leader of the neutral zone.

Damn the man for being sexy and scary at the same time!

Unable to hold the glare, Chrissy dropped her gaze in submission, feeling a twinge of guilt for acting like such an ass. Bhric was a good leader. He treated all of the neutral zone inhabitants fairly, and he didn’t deserve to have her lash out at him just because she was in a bad mood. That didn’t mean she wanted to talk about her problems, either. Not with him, not with anyone.

Chrissy kept her eyes glued to the wooden surface as Bhric spoke in a low voice. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Kinks. To be honest, I’m not sure I want to know. That being said, whatever it is that’s got you down, brush it off, have a beer, wash it away, and move on. You’re a fun girl, and I hate to see you like this.”

His words were weirdly both a balm and a sting to her pride. On one hand, it was nice to hear him say he thought she was a fun girl. On the other, her cat curled up to cry because obviously she hadn’t been fun enough to keep her mate around. A month after the wolf had left her, she was still in a funk. She hated it. Hated the damn wolf, too.

Bhric had a point, though. It wouldn’t do Chrissy any good to sit there and wallow. A cat had to have her pride, didn’t she? She couldn’t let a dog run her down like this. Therefore, she looked up at the man in front of her with a new resolve.

“Thanks, Bhric. You’re right; I’ll take that beer.”

He gave her a lopsided grin before turning around to grab her a bottle. After popping the top, he placed it in front of her on a coaster. “Enjoy.”

Wrapping her hand around the ice cold bottle, Chrissy heard the door to the main entrance open and close as someone walked in. She didn’t bother to turn around to see who it was. It wasn’t like she was expecting anybody to join her. Nor did she care who came into the bar, because she wasn’t looking for company. That meant whoever it was should give her a wide berth.

Lifting the bottle to her lips, she was ready to guzzle that sucker down and wash her problems away when a someone plucked the beer right out of her hand and set it down on the bar top.

Surprised, Chrissy looked over to see a woman she knew as Kitty. She was an outcast from the cougar clan Gunn, and Alpha Rafe Comyn of the Comyn clan wolf pack’s mate. Just the sight of the woman made Chrissy jealous. The woman had a wolf shifter mate who adored her, while Chrissy’s had run away. Add the fact that Kitty had also taken her beer right out of her hand, now she just wanted to slice and dice the bitch in a good cat fight.

Chrissy glared at the woman, who equally glared back at her.

“You can’t drink that in your condition, Kinks.”

Condition?
What the hell was she talking about?

The perplexed look on her face must have tipped Kitty off, because she gave a heavy sigh.

“What is it with you women around here getting knocked up and not telling anybody?”

Knocked up?

What the fuck!

Kitty must be on crack. Or catnip. There was no way Chrissy was knocked up … right?

Chrissy’s mind whirled with possibilities. Could it be possible she had conceived a baby from her short time with her missing wolf mate?

Black spots danced in front of her eyes, her head swam, and the world started to spin. Someone was talking, perhaps to her, but she couldn’t understand a word. The world seemed to tip to the left … Then everything went black.

The next thing Chrissy knew, she was lying on her back on the hard-wood floor of the bar with a small group of people hovering over her. It took her a second to get her thoughts in order, but eventually she started putting names to faces: Bhric; Dean, who was Bhric’s brother; Dean’s mate, Nikki, who held their young cub; and finally, Kitty.

Upon seeing Kitty’s face, panic hit Chrissy in thundering waves. Her gaze bounced back and forth between Dean and Nikki’s cub and the cougar shifter who had taken the beer out of her hand.

She was having a hard time getting her mind to work straight, but she was able to croak out one word to Kitty. “Condition?”

Chrissy watched as Nikki glanced over at Kitty then rolled her eyes. “You’ve done it again, haven’t you?”

Kitty glowered back. “Why do you have to say it like that?”

Nikki stood up. “Dean, please help Kinks off the floor. I’m guessing Kitty strolled in here, being nosy as usual, by telling people they’re pregnant again.”

Kitty jumped to her feet and pointed a finger at the other woman. “I was not being nosy!”

Shaking her head, Nikki scolded her, “You can’t just walk around, telling people they’re pregnant. It’s weird, okay?”

Chrissy watched mutely as Dean reached down to help her up while the other two women argued.

Throwing her hands in the air, Kitty growled, “How is that weird? She’s pregnant. It’s part of life. Not to mention, she was about to make a bad choice by drinking! That’s not good for the baby. I totally stopped her in time. See? I was being helpful.”

Chrissy might be on her feet now, but apparently, she was not stable yet, because at the word ‘baby,’ her knees buckled. Thank goodness Bhric was close enough to catch her before she hit the floor again.

Nikki, being the overly observant person she was, noticed Chrissy’s stumble, even though she still had her eyes on Kitty. Nodding her head in Chrissy’s direction, she said, “You’re only being helpful if they know they’re pregnant, genius. I would say, by her reaction, she had no idea.”

Kitty’s head snapped in Chrissy’s direction, and her eyes went wide. “Did you not know you were pregnant, hon?”

Chrissy opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out, so she simply shook her head.

Kitty’s face turned bright red, as if she were embarrassed, muttering a “whoops.” Shrugging, she then gave Chrissy a tremulous smile. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag, then?”

Black spots swirled in Chrissy’s eyesight once again as reality crashed over her. The cat wasn’t necessarily out of the bag, so to speak, but there was a wolf-cat hybrid growing inside the lady-bag her body called a uterus.

It took everything she had to stand up on her own two feet again, pushing out of Bhric’s grasp. Chrissy realized she probably looked like a zombie just standing there, not saying anything to the four people surrounding her, but she didn’t know what to say. All she could do was shake her head no as they offered to help her sit down, help her get home, or in Kitty’s case, help her talk by grabbing her bottom jaw and making Chrissy’s mouth open and close like a fish gasping for breath out of water. That was about the time Chrissy finally snapped out of her shock and slapped the female cougar’s hand away from her.

“Stop that!”

Kitty shrugged remorsefully. “I was only trying to help.”

Help? Help! Kitty had just respectively blown Chrissy’s world to hell in a handbasket and she was trying to help?

Anger washed over Chrissy as she snarled back at the woman, “You want to help? Then stop dropping pregnant bombs on poor, unsuspecting women, find the jackass who knocked me up since he’s disappeared, and then get me a goddamn pickle!”

Kitty went slack-jawed at Chrissy’s outburst, but Nikki threw her head back in laughter, thinking it was funny as hell.

“I don’t even know who knocked you up, Kinks. How the hell am I supposed to find him?” Kitty sputtered.

Running her hands through her hair, Chrissy started to cry. As in, actual tears ran down her face, which was something she
never
did. That made Chrissy get even more upset, making her cry harder.

“I don’t know how anyone is going to find him when I don’t even know his name!” she wailed. “Just like I don’t know why I asked for a pickle when I can’t stand them. But-but I suddenly want one really, really bad.”

Nikki grabbed her gently by the arm and led her back behind the bar to the Dark Moon’s kitchen. “Come on, girl. Let’s sit down, get you a jar of pickles, and then figure out what you’re going to do.”