Wolver's Rescue (20 page)

“
That Bull is a natural
leader. He’s strong, brave, cunning, and has a mighty fine ass.”
She took a break from her sewing to admire that fine ass since Bull
was bent double with the weight of the five pups piling on his
shoulders.

“
Is a fine ass a priority
for leadership?” Tommie sputtered. She found a button that would do
and held it in place with thumb and forefinger.

“
No, but having something
pretty to look at don’t hurt none, and that man is as pretty as
they come.”

Tommie wasn’t sure Bull would take being
called pretty as a compliment. Personally, she couldn’t see it
either. He was big, but not bulky, muscular in a
you-don-t-want-to-mess-with-me sort of way, and he had hands that
could work magic if the night before was a sample of his talents.
His face was a wide oval, his jaw square, his nose straight. He was
a good looking man, but certainly not pretty. It was his eyes that
kept his face from being ordinary. Dark lashed, they were neither
wide nor close set, not large nor small. There was nothing
extraordinary about them until they looked into your eyes and then
you felt as if he could see your soul.

“
What’s he told you about
that pack of his?”

Cora’s question startled her and she jabbed
her finger with her needle. “I heard it this morning same as you,”
she said around the finger in her mouth.

Since she’d awakened after Bull, she’d only
heard the story second hand, but his explanation offered to the
others at the communal breakfast that morning, of his pack and its
purpose seemed a little vague.

“
It would be a crying shame
if he was one of those fellers with a preference for other males,
but at least I could understand it,” the older woman went on. “He
ain’t though.” She dug her elbow into Tommie’s side and winked.
“You ought to know that first hand.”

“
I don’t...”

Cora didn’t miss a stitch. “Honey, you
crawled out of that tent this morning looking like you’d spent the
night in heaven.”

“
I did not.”

“
Did too,” Cora laughed.
“The way you were looking at him, I thought he’d sprout wings and a
halo any minute.” She patted Tommie’s knee. “Nothing wrong with
that now, and you aren’t the only wolver who was smiling this
morning. The full moon got to us all.” She sobered. “Except for
poor Molly and ol’ Boris.”

“
Yeah, what’s up with
him?”

Boris was the camp cook. She’d met the
one-eyed man the night before after Samuel sent her, along with the
other two women, back to camp while he waited for Bull. One side of
the young man’s face was badly scarred. The tight, discolored skin
of previous burns distorted the shape of his eye, nose and mouth.
The other side of his face showed the handsome young man he should
have been. At the time, he seemed happy enough to see her. He’d
just returned from going over the moon and was more than willing to
swap recipes with her once he learned she liked to cook.

“
This morning, when I held
out my plate for the ham and eggs he was dishing up, he snarled at
me and I don’t know what I did.”

“
You came out of Bull’s tent
looking like you died and went to heaven, that’s what you did.
Hearing about that all male pack gave the man hope and you coming
out of that tent so obviously satisfied took it away again. He had
a fella back in the old pack, but when push came to shove, Trevor
didn’t want to leave. He was moving up in the world and swore he’d
take Boris with him. Trevor, poor dumb cluck, thought it could
happen. Boris knew it couldn’t.”

“
Why not?”

“
A one eyed wolf isn’t going
anywhere but washing dishes in the kitchen or begging on the
streets. Not to mention, our Alpha was a sonofabitch about that
kind of thing. He’s a sonofabitch about a lot of
things.”

“
Is that why you left?”
Tommie asked, happy to turn the subject away from Bull.

“
Not really. We’ve had worse
and sooner or later he’d be Challenged and replaced. They always
are.”

“
Then why leave? Why not
wait it out?” She already knew from their talk in the truck that
walking away from your Alpha and your pack and going rogue was a
step few wolvers wanted to take.

“
We were afraid it’d be
later, not sooner, and too late for Macey.”

Macey was Cora’s granddaughter. “Didn’t I
hear someone say she just turned fifteen?”

“
Indeed you did. She hadn’t
had her first shift yet, but the Alpha, he was already sniffing
around her and laying the groundwork for when she did. He was
always flirting with her and bringing her small gifts. Flattery
goes a long way when you’re that age and she thought she was
something fine.

“
He was preparing for the
day of her first going over. He’d take her over and then take her
and no one, not even her daddy, could say no. The day you run as a
wolf is the day you become an adult. You make your own decisions
when it comes to things like that. We don’t encourage it, but we
don’t frown on it either. Most times it’s the young playing with
the young. They don’t carry disease and they can’t carry pups
without a mating. Sometimes, though, you get males like him. He
should have been born a rat instead of a wolver.

“
Molly tried to talk to the
girl, pointed out there had been others before her. It didn’t
matter. Macey was special. She was the one. It didn’t matter that
she could never be an Alpha’s Mate. He was never going to mate if
he couldn’t mate Macey. That’s what he told her, and that’s what
she believed.”

“
So you ran. Does that mean
she never ran as a wolf, that she never went over the
moon?”

“
Yep, and now she can’t
unless we find a pack leader, an Alpha, who’s willing to take her
over that first time and show her how to come home.”

“
Poor Macey. I think I know
what she’s going through. I remember those days,” Tommie told her
with regret. “My father would get so angry. My mother cried. I ran
wild. They didn’t understand. They were old and stupid.”

“
They ever get
smarter?”

Tommie laughed. “Yes, they did.” She lifted
one shoulder. “Or I did.”

“
I’ll bet they’re proud of
you.”

“
They were still worried
about me. I went from wild child to hermit. If it wasn’t for work,
I never left the house. But yes, they were proud.”

“
Were?”

Tommie took a deep breath and nodded. “They
were killed in a car accident almost a year ago.”

“
I’m sorry for your
troubles,” Cora said, “But you’re not alone anymore. You have
family. You have pack or as close as we can come to giving you one.
Once you’ve got pack, it doesn’t matter where you are, you always
have a place to come home.”

“
And where will you come
home to, Cora? Do you want to find another pack?”

The old woman shook her head. “Wanting and
getting are two different things. Take a good look at us, Tommie.”
She poked her chin out at the group moving about the campsite. “You
don’t know much about wolvers, but you know people. Who in hell’s
gonna take in the likes of us. Who’s going to want half of nothing?
We’ve got no talents ‘cept thieving, living off the land, and
making do with next to nothing. This is what we’ve got. Each
other.”

Tommie set aside her second shirt and stopped
the older woman’s hand from its insistent and increasingly forceful
stitching. “You’re not half of nothing to me,” she said, giving
Cora’s hand a squeeze. “You’re the wolvers who took me in when I
had nowhere to go. You’re the ones who are going to teach me about
what I am and what I need to know. I only hope I can learn and it’s
not too late.”

“
Don’t you worry about it
being too late. You hear us talk about an Alpha’s Mate? Well here’s
your first lesson. Most Mates are human. They don’t know anything
about us when they come, but they all learn. If they can, you can.
Don’t know if we’re the best choice to teach you that, but we’ll do
our best. You were the only one who listened when I tried to get
help for Samuel. You paid a price for that and still went back and
got him out. I don’t know what I’d do without that old man. I owe
you.”

The wolver Cora couldn’t live without stopped
on his way by. “What are you two gossiping about over here?”

“
Never you mind, you old
busybody? Ain’t you got nothing better to do than to horn in on
other people’s tête-à-têtes?”

“
Hmph. Don’t know what a
tête-à-tête is, you old harpy, but if you’re in on it, you can bet
it ain’t good. Bull and Boris are going into town to pick up some
supplies. You need anything?”

“
Yes!” Tommie folded the
shirt and handed it to Cora. “I’ll go with them.”

“
No.” Bull walked up behind
them. “You’ll make a list and don’t make it too big.”

“
I don’t need a list,” she
argued. “Everything I need is at home.”

“
We’ve been over this,
Tommie. I said no.”

“
We got in and out of the
Gantnor Clinic. Surely we can get in and out of a little tiny house
without being seen.”

“
I said no and I mean it. I
don’t want you anywhere near that place until I see what’s going
on. You’re staying here.”

“
You can’t tell me what to
do, Bull Bulworth,” she snapped. “I’m not a prisoner.” Or was she?
“Or am I?” she asked, daring him to say it.

“
Let’s call it protective
custody. Keep an eye on her, Cora.”

“
I think I’m beginning to
hate you, Bull.”

“
You’ll get over
it.”

Made just the way she liked it with plenty of
beef and fewer vegetables, Tommie should have enjoyed the tasty
stew Boris left them for lunch. She didn’t enjoy it. She hardly
tasted it, but that didn’t stop her from filling her bowl a second
time.

She was angry with Bull for leaving her
behind and for saying she was essentially a prisoner. She was angry
with herself for missing him. It was only a few hours, but it felt
like days.

“
Good riddance,” she said to
the trees beyond the school bus. “He can go to hell for all I care.
I’ve never needed a man before and I don’t need one
now.”

Her wolf made a sound that was clearly a
canine laugh.

“
You have your nerve
laughing at me, you stupid wolf. You’re just as much a prisoner as
I am.”

But her wolf didn’t see it that way. Just a
few moments before, the animal was pacing back and forth inside her
mind, restless and whining, and pawing at some invisible barrier.
It was the same sensation Tommie’d felt so often as a teenager. At
least now she knew what it was. Her wolf wanted out. Only this
time, it wasn’t freedom the she-wolf wanted, it was Bull.

Now that she recognized the animal for what
it was, Tommie felt as if a curtain had been parted and she could
finally see what was happening on stage. The disturbances in her
mind were the movements of her wolf pacing, prancing, and leaping,
or yawning with boredom as it was doing now. Wolves didn’t have the
capacity for introspection. The she-wolf needed no explanations for
what she wanted. All she cared about was sleeping, running, eating,
and Bull.

It had to stop. Tommie was not some lovesick
teenager writing her boyfriend’s name in balloon letters on the
cover of her notebook. She was a grown and fully independent woman
who was not going to stand around and pine over his absence. He was
a man of his word and he was coming back. And when he got back, she
was going to give him a piece of her mind. This nonsense had to
stop.

Her bowl was empty again and she
absent-mindedly refilled it. Samuel’s voice interrupted the
movement of her spoon to her mouth.

“
You always eat like
that?”

Tommie gave a guilty shrug and winced.
“Pretty much. My father always said I was cheaper to house and
clothe than to feed. Sorry.”

“
Nothing to be sorry for,”
the older man laughed, “and it’s good to see you ain’t shy about
it. Knew a wolver once who was built just like you. He could out
eat the lot of us. She remind you of anyone, Mama?” he asked his
mate.

“
I’ve thought it more than
once. He had the same coloring as you,” she said to Tommie, “but
his hair was darker, black as sin.” She winked and shimmied her
shoulders. “The good kind of sin, if you get my drift.”

“
Woman, you’re too old to be
havin’ such thoughts.”

Cora laughed at the thunderous look on
Samuel’s face. “You’re never too old to have such thoughts, just
too old to act on some of ‘em,” she said and laughed harder when
the stormy look grew. “And you can just put that look back in your
pocket where it belongs, old man. My eyes might stray, but I’ve
always known where my heart calls home and you know it. I didn’t
hear you complaining about my thoughts last night, did I?” she
muttered as an afterthought.

“
The Mate used to say our
Alpha had a hollow leg,” she went on without missing a beat, “It
took that much to fill him up.”

“
That was the Alpha we had a
long time ago,” Samuel explained. “Tall, rangy fella, looked like
he was built with them cables they hang bridges from.” He laughed
and patted his pot belly. “Now me, I wear suspenders because my
belly pushes my trousers down. The Alpha, Emanuel was his name, he
wore ‘em because he had no butt or hips to hold his up. I think
about him a lot. He was young, but he had a good head on his
shoulders. He had plans to take us places.”