Terry Spear’s Wolf Bundle (81 page)

She nodded, her look angry, but then it softened a hair with a hint of a smile. “Can’t afford to. You’ll change half the population of Oregon if I leave you alone again.”

He grunted and moved her toward the house. “You’re staying with me until I take care of the gray.”

She growled, and he knew the fight had only just begun.

“Family feud,” Cara said, motioning to Hunter and Meara outside, then turned her attention to Ashton. “Went hunting, I see. I like duck, too.”

Rourke rolled his eyes. “I’m getting a shower before supper.” He looked at the clean kitchen. “You
are
fixing it soon, aren’t you?”

“We just ate a little over three hours ago!” Tessa declared.

“That’s long enough. I’m starving. So is Ashton.” Rourke waved at the dead duck.

“Hunter, too, after all the exercise we had.” He stalked down the hall.

“I didn’t have a chance to have lunch,” Cara said.

Well, Tessa
wasn’t
hungry. She glanced out the kitchen window. “Looks like we’re going to get snowed in. You might want to leave before that happens,” she said to Cara. Tessa had no idea why she would want to save Ashton’s butt. Although he cast her a grateful look.

“I’ll hang around. I haven’t been with…a lot of people…on a more social basis for a number of years. This is the most fun I’ve had in eons,” Cara said.

Tessa couldn’t understand what the woman was talking about. No one seemed enthusiastic about seeing her even. Why would she think anyone wanted to be around her?

“Did you lose your bandages, Ashton?” Cara asked, her voice sultry and sexy as she took hold of his injured hand. “Tessa, do you have some new ones? I’ll fix him right up.”

“Sure, I’ll get them and the antibiotics.” Tessa glanced at Ashton’s hand, but Cara was holding it so that she couldn’t see the bite wound.

When Tessa returned to the kitchen, Hunter and Meara had come back inside. For being reunited after losing her brother, and considering the ordeal he had been through, they scowled at each other and didn’t appear grateful in the least. But worse, gone was Hunter’s lustful interest
in Tessa. At once she felt
she
was the center of the controversy and wasn’t good enough for the family.

Well, he
had
said he couldn’t promise her anything. Just that he would help her find Bethany’s murderer and set her brother free. Tessa should have known when his memory came back, she would be history. But no matter how she tried to reconcile herself with the notion, she couldn’t squash the dismal feeling he would soon abandon her.

“Here, Cara.” Tessa handed her the bandages. “I guess everyone’s staying for dinner?” She cast Hunter a questioning glance. She halfway expected him to say he was leaving with his sister for good now.

His brows still furrowed, his lips grim, he nodded. He gave Meara a hard look. She folded her arms and looked doubly cross at Tessa. So much for a lovely dinner when she wasn’t even hungry. Cara was the only one who seemed to be pleased to be here, and the one Tessa really wanted to see leave.

Tessa pulled out a package of hot links. “Can everyone manage spaghetti with hot sausage, bell peppers, and onions?”

“Hmm, sounds good to me,” Cara said, licking her lips while she bandaged Ashton’s hand with tender loving care. He tried to jerk his hand away, but she held on tight and
tsk
ed.

“Anything you fix is fine with us.” Hunter’s tone of voice was terse.

Meara didn’t have a choice?

Wearing a towel, Rourke came out of the bathroom and hollered from the hallway, “Fine with me.”

How had he heard what she’d asked? She stared after him as he slipped into Michael’s room to grab some
clothes. What had gotten into him? She’d never thought he’d dress so scantily in front of a bunch of women.

“The snow’s bound to make the road impassable again. Is anyone leaving soon?” She directed the question at Cara and Meara. “The food won’t take long to fix so we can eat and let you get on your way.”

“No work for me tonight,” Cara said cheerfully.

Hunter grunted. “Meara’s staying here with me for as long as I need to be here.”

For as long as he needed to be here.
Well, that said it all. Once he was done helping her, Hunter was out of here.

Fine with Tessa. “I guess you’ll want to sleep with your sister then, and—”

Cara laughed. “A macho male like Hunter sleeping with his sister? That would be the day.”

Tessa
sure wasn’t sleeping with Hunter under the current circumstances. “Okay, well, you and Meara can sleep together and—”

“I’ll stay with Ashton,” Cara announced, her eyes flashing with humor. “He might need medical attention during the night. Look at how pale the poor man is.”

He had been, but now his face flushed crimson. Tessa had never seen him blush. She expected some objection from Lord Hunter, but he didn’t say anything. She was really surprised Ashton wouldn’t have nixed Cara’s suggestion himself.

Tessa threw the fajita bell pepper and onion mix into the saucepan, added the sausage links, and then the tomato sauce. “Okay, then Hunter and Rourke can take the spare bedroom and Meara and I—”

“I sleep alone,” Meara said, fire burning in her eyes.

Wearing a clean pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, Rourke walked into the room. More casual than she had ever seen him. In fact, the sweatshirt belonged to her brother.

“I don’t mind sleeping by the fire. I can watch the rest of the house that way in the event anyone plans to break in,” he said.

Tessa considered Hunter’s expression, but it was still dark as ever. About the sleeping arrangements? Or something else?

She coyly smiled. “Hunter, you can sleep with Rourke by the fire and keep him company.”

Meara laughed, a catty, annoyed kind of laugh. She stalked into the kitchen and began opening drawers. When she found the silverware, she set it on the table.

Guess she could be a little bit of help. Maybe Meara was mad at Hunter and not at her. Still, Tessa had every intention of cooling her relationship with Hunter because when he left, she didn’t want to be upset over it for days, weeks, months afterward. Best to end this insane infatuation now.

Life had been so simple for Hunter after Tessa had found him on the beach: discover his identity, learn what had happened to him, deal with Tessa’s stalker, and find Bethany’s murderer so Michael could be released from prison.

Now he had to deal with two freshly turned
lupus garous
. And Meara. Unfortunately, she had been right concerning everything they had fought about.. All that mattered was the
lupus garous’
safety and secrecy. He knew that. As pack leader, he sure as hell didn’t want
his sister reminding him of the fact. He should have taken Meara, Rourke, and Ashton back to his cabin resort up north once he learned that’s where he lived and pretended Tessa and her problems didn’t exist.

Any other alpha leader would not have allow himself to be dragged into human affairs.

But he couldn’t and wouldn’t abandon her.
Not yet.
Tessa had taken him in and cared for him when she didn’t have a clue as to who he was. If he left her alone, the stalker would change her against her will. Hunter wouldn’t let him. Another alpha leader, given the same scenario, would take the gray to task also, if he had been in his territory, but beyond that, she would be on her own. For now, Tessa’s property was in Hunter’s territory—newly franchised.

He couldn’t let her brother stay in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. No other wolf would feel obligated to help out in a case like this—except in the event one of their kind did the killing. Dealing with the
lupus garou
would be the end of it though. No
lupus garou
would try to release an innocent human. In fact, he would serve to keep the
lupus garous
out of the limelight. But Hunter couldn’t allow it, although how he was going to get Michael out of his incarceration eluded him. First of course, he had to prove the grays had committed the crime.

To complicate matters, Hunter had to force Meara to stay with him and keep her out of trouble. Her first wolf heat was making her crotchety and difficult to handle. Thank heavens he didn’t have any more sisters and that none of the three wolves she had taken off with had forced a mating. She needed an alpha to spar with and keep her in line.

Tessa placed the spaghetti in the pan of boiling water, her back rigid. He took a ragged breath. His shoulder was killing him after running in the woods for so many miles as a wolf today, and all he could think about was making love to the woman who heated his blood as hot as the raging fires they’d left behind in California.

Sleep with his sister? That would be the day. And have Rourke sleep with Meara? She would bite him for sure and
not
in a playful way. Hunter was glad Cara was targeting Ashton as her love interest. He needed to remind him, though, if he mated her, it was a onetime deal. No fooling around a few nights, and then parting ways, although if she did mate him, that might be the solution to one of his problems. She would teach Ashton the ways of being a
lupus garou
and take him off Hunter’s hands.

If Tessa thought Hunter was sleeping with Rourke in the living room, she could think again. For one, he didn’t trust that the gray might not attempt to break her window and get in while she was alone. All he would do was bite her, and then come back to claim her later once she was a
lupus garou
. Hunter assumed the gray had intended to kill Ashton, and then bite Tessa, but when she brought out the rifle and started shooting, he gave that notion up in a hurry.

“Hunter,” Meara said. “Gathering wool? We’re all sitting down to eat.”

Tessa had moved her plate to the foot of the table and had seated Meara next to him in her place. He smiled at Tessa’s tenacity. Still, he was angry with himself for feeling more than he should toward Tessa and that Meara had to remind him of his duty to their pack, but most of
all to their kind. Yet, he couldn’t help but admire the spunky human female.

“They’re getting married in the spring,” Cara said, as the tension escalated in the dining room as thick as the snow was getting outside. “Won’t they make a cute couple?”

Meara choked on her water. Tessa avoided looking at Hunter and cut up her sausage.

“She just said that so she could get in to see Hunter at the hospital.” Rourke glowered at Cara. “Why are you here anyway?”

“To bring the hospital release forms for Hunter. So what do we do after dinner? Do you have any board games? Cards? Anyone want to play strip poker?”

“After we finish here, I need a word with Ashton, and then we’re all going to bed. We’ve had quite a day of it. And we’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow,” Hunter said.

“Can I be in on this little adventure?” Cara asked.

“You can keep Tessa company. Both you and Meara. Rourke and I have some hunting to do.”

“Can I go, too?” Ashton asked, looking chagrined.

Cara patted his arm. “We need you to protect us.”

“Are you going to Bethany’s place? They’ve removed the police locks, and I have a key if you need one,” Tessa said.

“Yeah, we’ll need a key.”

Tessa’s eyes filled with tears and Hunter couldn’t tell if she was happy he was still looking into this situation for her brother, or was worried they wouldn’t discover who really murdered Bethany.

Meara cleared her throat and patted Hunter’s hand. “And if you see those three guys I was with while you’re
at it, don’t kill them, okay, Hunter? We were just having some fun. Nothing more.”

Hunter gave her a dark look. He wanted to bang those guys’ heads together for stealing an alpha leader’s sister right out from under his nose. They had to be some of the dumbest betas around. He thought his sister would have had better sense. He was surprised neither Ashton nor Rourke showed any interest in her. But maybe they were afraid of how Hunter might react—and for good reason.

After dinner, Cara and Meara helped Tessa with the dishes. Rourke and Ashton went with Hunter to get another load of firewood in case the electricity went out again. The wind was gusting higher and the waves were growing more violent. If the weather got much worse, the increasing storm would flood the beach, and they wouldn’t be able to forage for firewood.

“Remember how I told the two of you that mating is for life? That’s something that can’t be broken except by death. It might be a hard concept for you to understand since you’ve always been human, but it’s the wolf way and the
lupus garou
way.”

Rourke grabbed an armload of wood. “What about Tessa?”

“She’s different.” Hunter didn’t want to have to defend his actions to a subordinate wolf and wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been that Rourke was Tessa’s friend and was sincerely concerned about her well-being.

“You mean, she’s human so her feelings don’t count.” Rourke headed back up the hill.

“Damn it, Rourke, of course her feelings matter. We’re both adults. We had consensual sex and that’s all there is to it. As a
lupus garou
we can’t have sex with
another
lupus garou
unless we accept the female as a permanent mate. Humans don’t live by the same rules, as well you know. And I’ve already explained to her our relationship can’t be permanent.”

“So if we want to party with a woman, she has to be a human.” Ashton trudged up the slope with an armload of timber behind Hunter.

“Yeah, so that means you can sleep with Cara, but no sex. If you go all the way with her, you’re mated—for life.”

Rourke chuckled. “What if she forces herself on him?”

“In the case of a forced mating, the punishment for the perpetrator is death. Unless the victim chooses to accept the perpetrator as his or her mate. We don’t tolerate the abuse of our
lupus garous
or laws.”

Wide-eyed, both Rourke and Ashton stared at him.

“Hell, I knew it would be a lot of trouble teaching the two of you all the rules.” Hunter gave Ashton a sympathetic look. “If you don’t want Cara for a mate, just say no.
Firmly!
Don’t waffle.”

Rourke laughed out loud. “She doesn’t look like she readily accepts taking no for an answer. Thank god she latched onto Ashton and not me.”