The Cougar's Pawn (16 page)

“Maybe she’ll stay gone this time.”

“Belle.” There was a scold in his voice the way big brothers seemed so good at delivering. She certainly had heard Claude use it enough on his siblings.

Belle shrugged. “What? It’d make things easier, wouldn’t it?”

“In some ways.”

Belle turned to Ellery. “Talked to Mom this morning. She says you got caught up in the boys’ little demon problem last night.”

Mason grunted. “With a steak knife, no less.”

At that, Ellery unwrapped her utensils and cut Nick’s egg into pinch-able chunks.

“Fight many demons?” Belle asked.

“Quite a few, but I usually have people with me who are better at subduing them. I’m still in the learning curve.”

“Learning curve or no, it’s a damned good skill to have. Cougars can’t make them go away for good. We can just push them back through the hole. They don’t stay put there for long. It seems like every time I drive out there, one pops up.”

“Feel free not to go home anytime soon, just in case you’re what’s triggering it,” Mason said.

Belle stuck her tongue out at him. “I won’t. Let me go see if your food is up.” She made a gagging sound and held her hand up to block the conspiratorial eye roll she gave to Ellery as she passed.

Ellery let herself laugh. It was hard to be uptight and stressed around the Foyes when they were playing off each other. It reminded her in a lot of ways of how Claude and his brothers behaved in each other’s company. Even in the most stressful times, they managed to make each other smile just by telling a joke or … or sitting in silence. Sometimes, just being there was enough. She’d always wished her family was more like that—willing to go with the flow instead of prescribing and overscheduling every fucking thing.

She groaned inwardly. It was out of her control now. She needed to stop fretting about things she couldn’t change.

“Don’t mind her,” Mason said. “My brothers and I gave her a hard time growing up, and she likes to think she’s paying us back for it.”

“She’s fine, don’t worry. So, you’re the oldest … ”

He grunted and swirled the ice in his water cup. “Belle’s the youngest. Number two was Hank, followed by Sean.”

“You and your brothers seem to be pretty close in age. Belle doesn’t look much older than eighteen.”

“Nineteen. Yeah, we always joke that she was an afterthought, but she was planned. One last try for a girl. My brothers and I were pretty much back-to-back. Thirty-three, thirty-two, and almost thirty-one.”

“Your poor mother.”

He chuckled. “No kidding. She claims we messed her up so bad she can’t laugh now without peeing a little.”

Ellery let out a bark of laughter and covered her mouth to suppress the embarrassing bleating sound.

The corners of his eyes crinkled as he grinned even broader.

So he
was
capable of big expression.

“Hey, it’s true. She’ll tell you. Somehow, it always seems to come up in conversation, even though no one asks.”

Ellery dried her eyes and looked down at the cheeseburger Belle slipped in front of her. There seemed to be an overabundance of fries on the side.

Mason reached across the table and nabbed a few.

“I knew he’d do that,” Belle said as she moved away.

Watching Belle’s departing back, Ellery had a thought. “Do female Cougars nab mates? I could see where there’d be some logistical problems with that.” The idea of slight Belle throwing a guy over her shoulder and making off with him was downright comical.

“Nah. Our goddess,
La Bella Dama
, doesn’t compel female Cougars to seek mates. Our females have her favor, whereas we jackasses of the male persuasion have to endure whatever punishment she metes out. More often than not, the females marry outside the group.”

“Are their children shifters?”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Just depends on which parent contributed that bit of X-chromosome that makes us shifters and not plain-old humans. There’s genetic testing for it, but it’s expensive, and you have to send off for it. It’s not the kind of personal business you want your local lab knowing about.”

“Has Belle taken it?”

“Yeah. She’ll probably have shifter kids. Dad conveyed the genetic marker to her. That’s why she has to be careful with who she dates. She’ll have to settle down with someone who’s already tied into our world or who she’ll think will be open-minded enough to accept it.”

Open-minded
.

Ellery wondered at what point the witches in her neck of the woods had stopped being so open-minded—when they’d tried so hard to be mainstream and integrated that they’d culled out anything about them that made them unique and distinguishable.

She’d recently asked Grandma Della if that was the
goal
of modern witchcraft—for the old magic to fade away altogether—and she’d feared the woman would slap her for asking, just based on the look she gave Ellery.

“He’s going to eat his shirt if you don’t give him a little more,” Mason said softly.

“Hmm?” She looked up.

Mason tipped his head toward Nick who’d eaten the few items on his plate.

Ellery put a few more cubes of food onto it.

“I’m glad he’s eating,” Nick said. He cut his ham into large chunks and speared one with his fork. “Every time I thought about taking him to the doctor about the cold, Jill showed up and took him back. I wasn’t sure if it was anything urgent care could tend to.”

“Probably not.” She picked up her knife and cut her sandwich in half. It would have been too hard to hold otherwise.

“I had no idea how …
inconveniencing
kids could be until I had one. It’d be easy if they came out able to walk and hold their own forks, but that’s not the way we evolved.”

“Kids are
not
inconvenient. If you don’t want him, I’m sure someone else does. I’ll take him.” The words came out a little sharper than she wanted, but she wouldn’t apologize for it. She sighed and took a bite of her burger.

Mason narrowed his eyes at her. “I never said I didn’t want him.”

“You think he’s inconvenient.”

“I don’t think he’s inconvenient. I crave the upheaval he causes in my life, and it happens far too infrequently, in my opinion. I’m lucky to have him a week out of the month, and I never know what week it’s going to be or if it’ll even be a whole week. Yeah, I have to shuffle my routines to make him fit, but I signed up for that the day his mother told me he existed. It’s not
me
he inconveniences, Ellery, but the people around me.”

“Your family?”

He shook his head. “No. My so-called friends. Other Cougars who think I’ve lost my edge and want to challenge me over it. Potential lovers. They see him as baggage.” He’d lowered his voice to a whisper. “Something they have to either put their blinders on about and ignore, or something they’d have me sweep away.”

“Maybe you’ve been trying to sleep with the wrong people.”

“Have I? I’m pretty sure I tried to sleep with you, though I can’t be sure. The cougar was in my brain’s driver’s seat this morning.”

Huh.
That explained his sudden increase in likeability. “You did. And the reason I didn’t had nothing to do with Nick. In fact, he may be one of your few redeeming qualities.”

Mason leaned back in his seat, agape.

She took another bite of burger and stared out the window at the slow-moving traffic.

“Is that what you Southerners call a backhanded compliment? I’m so confused. I don’t know how to feel.”

“Yes, that would be one.”

“Kinda hurts. I’m glad you like my kid, but I’d like you to like me a little, too.”

“Maybe I’d like you a lot if circumstances had been different.”
Shut your stupid mouth
. Sometimes when it started running, she couldn’t believe what fell out of the damned thing. The worst part was that she still hadn’t told a lie.

“What would ideal circumstances be? Tell me. Maybe I can fix it.”

“No way, buddy-roe. I’m not making this easy for you. And besides, I don’t think you can.” She hoped he couldn’t. That way, she wouldn’t have to try so hard to find reasons to say no to him.

Mason didn’t spend a whole lot of time shopping for groceries. Mostly, he called in a regular order and the store had it waiting when he went to town to pick up supplies. Very rarely did he deviate from that order except to add in an extra case of Tecate when he was in a certain kind of mood.

Ellery, however, moved around the store like a bumblebee with no path that was apparent to him and that seemed inefficient. Aimless. They’d been in the damned place for half an hour already and hadn’t even hit the frozen food section yet. He would have filled up the cart with frozen pizzas five minutes in.

Then he noticed she talked to herself as she pushed the cart. Brainstorming and list-making aloud. She’d pick one thing only to put it back five minutes later and pick up two other things as if she was editing a menu as she went along.

He hated to interrupt her mental meanderings—watching her was the most fascinating thing he’d seen since that last
Ancient Aliens
show he’d watched—but they’d passed the same stock clerk three times and he was starting to stare. Mason didn’t think it was just because she was pretty, although he didn’t particularly relish the idea of her being stared at for that reason, either. He may not have picked her himself, but he damn sure wouldn’t have done any better if he had. The goddess could be so cruel. He could hear the taunting now: “Look what you’re going to lose,
pendejo
. Look what I gave you and that you couldn’t hold onto.”

Fuck.
He had to do better. He was trying to, but he was way out of his element. Could she stand him or not? That seemed to be the bare minimum he needed to strive for at the moment.

“Ell,” he said when she stopped in front of whole-wheat crackers.

She turned two boxes over and looked from one ingredient list to the other, still muttering.

“Ellery?”

“Yeah?” She dropped the box with the
Low Sodium!
banner across the front into the cart.

“You need some help?”

“Normally, I’d say yes, but I’m shopping on the fly. I don’t usually do that, and I’m having to guess what Nick might eat.”

“Oh.” He should have known what Nick ate. Seemed best to keep his mouth shut before she called him out on it.

“Still need formula. The container you have at home is only going to last for a few days. And diapers.”

“I’ll go get them.”

He backed away, and stopped, turning back to her. “Uh … what size? I think I’ve been buying them too big.”

“Probably a two. Go with weight, not activity level. I don’t think he’s anywhere near twenty pounds.”

“Right.” Had anyone else had said it, he might have taken it as a judgment. Hell, his old records said he’d been twenty-two pounds at the same age, but more and more with each passing day he was finding it pointless to compare Nick to him. Ellery was so matter-of-fact about anything having to do with Nick, it was hard for Mason to feel bruised about it.

He walked past the stock clerk again and this time hissed, “What?” when Ralphie looked up. He’d been hoping to avoid a conversation with the kid, but now it seemed unavoidable.

“That your mate, Alpha?”

Mason’s immediate thought was
none of your business, you little twerp
, but suspected a harsh rebuttal would only rouse the kid’s suspicions more. “Maybe she’s just a nanny.”

“A nanny? Where’s she from? Surprised you didn’t hire someone local.”

“Maybe I did. You can’t possibly know everyone, Ralphie.”

Ralphie guffawed and scratched the scraggly hairs under his chin. “I know most folks, at least by face. This is the only grocery store in town, and my dad works all the ranches so I know folks on the outskirts, too. Come on, you can tell me. I won’t say a word.”

Yeah, right
. Ralphie Sheehan may have seemed innocuous with his freckles and residual baby fat, but he had a single other brother who was as conniving as he was lazy. If Edgar thought there was an eligible female in the area, he just might come out the woodwork to convince her of just how charming he was. And he could be, when he wanted to. Usually didn’t last long.

As one of the many thorns in Mason’s side, Edgar and the rest of the Sheehans received far more of Mason’s mental energy than the rest of the glaring combined. Hank had suggested Mason clean house and cut ties to any Cougars they didn’t implicitly trust, but Mason had wanted to take a conservative approach … at least for the time being. If part of the group splintered off, it might leave the folks who remained weaker for attack by outsiders. There was strength in numbers, even if some of the Cougars comprising the numbers were of questionable usefulness.

There went that nagging voice in his head again.
Alpha up.

Ugh.
He shook off the thought. “Why’s it matter, Ralphie?”

Ralphie shrugged. “Doesn't. You don’t let just anyone around Nick, is all.”

“That’s true. I don’t.”

“So … has Jill met her?”

“Now that’s
really
none of your business.” Mason walked away with Ralphie calling behind him, “See ya later, Alpha.”

Eventually, Mason would have to claim Ellery publicly, assuming she didn’t ditch him. He hadn’t wanted a mate, but the idea was starting to grow on him. Yeah, he wanted to be around for Nick, but Nick also needed a competent mother. Ellery could slide right into that role. Perhaps if she got attached enough to Nick, she wouldn’t be so eager to leave. Mason wasn’t above using his kid as an incentive. After all, everything he did was for his kid in some way. Certainly, Nick wouldn’t mind being used as a pawn for his better good.

Mason knelt in front of the size two diapers comparing features and motifs. The ones with trucks had stretchy tabs. The ones with pictures of balls had snug-fit legs.

Ellery scooted the cart close to him, stood on tiptoes, and grabbed the unbleached, no-frills, natural cotton diapers. “Taking you forever.”

“I got held up by a young Cougar.” He whistled at the price tag on the bundle she picked up.