Homecoming (8 page)

“What's got you down, anyway? Have a fight with your sister?”

Lisbeth had taken to introducing Sula as her sister just a few months after they hit the road together, and it went a long way to smoothing things over in smaller towns they stopped at for a time. She figured it was not time to start changing that habit too. “She's found herself some new beau.”

Fred laughed. “I can tell you're not from these parts, Sula. I think last time I heard the word 'beau' was when my grandmother was still alive.” He shook his head. “I'm guessin' you don't approve of him.”

Sula shoved some shelving into place and started piling the tack back on the shelves before answering.

“He's a stranger, and we don't know him. He's here with some friends, just passing through, but she's taken a shine to him.”

“As girls will do, trust me on that.” Fred had three girls, two of them in their teens. Sula felt sympathy for him on that point, remembering her own flighty teenage crushes.

“Well sure, I guess. We're not nuns, Fred.”

Fred stopped and looked at her. “I know what it means to be disapproving over a 'beau', and she's your sister so you want to look out for her. But she's a grown woman, Sula, and gets to make her own choices. Anyway, you two been wanderers for a while, haven't you? Maybe time to settle down?” Fred smiled kindly. Sula nodded, willing to accept his compassion, even knowing how it would quickly turn to fear and hate if he knew what she really was. She focused on refolding blankets as the entry bell chimed over the door. Fred moved off to take care of the rare customer.

“Sula!” He called out a second later. She turned to find him standing with Daniel, who wore a friendly grin that looked totally at home in the store. Sula suddenly envisioned him as some Alaskan nature boy, raised around sled dogs and…moose. Or whatever lived in Alaska.

“Glad I caught you! I would like to invite you to lunch.”

Fred grinned encouragingly, subtly motioning Sula to come to where they were standing as if he were a proud uncle setting her up with the local football star. She trundled over.

“What is it with you guys and always trying to get me to eat with you?”

“Now Sula, the young man is just being friendly. Why don't you two take off? We're slow and nothing can't wait until you get back.” Fred began waving them toward the door. Daniel grinned even more, and Sula glared at them both but she was outmaneuvered and she knew it.

Daniel was driving the sedan, which Sula had secretly taken to thinking of as the “portable den” as it was clearly the only home Tony's pack had. She expected it to be messy, even if she could not say why outside of some small bias against wolves. It smelled as clean as it looked, though.

“Where to?” Daniel asked as she buckled in.

Sula directed him to her favorite diner but did not talk about anything else. Daniel accepted her silence with grace, driving carefully and only making one or two pointless comments about the cold weather. When they were settled in a booth, Sula looked over at him.

“So what's this about?”

He looked up from the menu, a friendly denial obviously half out of his mouth, but then he leaned back and regrouped. “Cal's a bit rash, and you're something we've never met before.Tony thinks we all just got off on the wrong foot.”

Sula nodded, because nothing in that statement was untrue.

“Tony has Cal doing some things around our cabin, asked me to come into town for supplies. I decided to try to take chance and get to know you better.” He swept his arm out to take in both of them and the diner.

“Tony know?” She tapped the table top, more suspicious than ever. She thought she had warned them off good, but they
kept coming back
. It was unnerving.

Daniel inclined his head. “Yes, he does. He and Lisbeth feel it would be good for the pack to introduce ourselves slowly to you.”

“So Tony's roped Lisbeth into pack politics already, huh?” Sula signed, looking out the window.

“It is the natural order of things, you know.” He sounded like a teacher giving a lecture.

“Not with us. This is new.” Sula tried to stress the word, to make him understand. He nodded thoughtfully.

“To be honest, it's new for us to.”

The waitress came over and after they ordered, Sula pinned Daniel with a stare. “Cal says you all don't even have a territory. You're from far away from here, so I'm thinking you guys have spent a few years traveling around.”

Daniel nodded agreeably.

“So why the rush to settle all of a sudden?”

“You'd have to ask Tony and Lisbeth that. I've never seen him zero in on a female the way he did on her. He's our Alpha and what he wants, we want him to have. Your hostility is surprising to us. It's not how wolves usually are in these situations.”

“I'm not a wolf.”

Daniel nodded a little frantically. “Yes, we got that.” He stopped and drank the coffee the waitress put down, unsuccessfully hiding his nervousness. “But we didn't know it at first. We thought, 'two female werewolves, available in an empty territory.' Not an Alpha on earth would turn that down, and Tony took to Lisbeth pretty hard before you even showed up at the club.”

“I'm not part of the deal.”

Daniel sighed. “Yes, we figured that out to. Although, I have to tell you, Lisbeth is
making
you part of the deal. And I'm not being disloyal to say that it's thrown Tony for a loop. You're…you're a bear.”

Sula rolled her eyes. “I know that.”

“So presumably you know what that means to us.” He spoke primly again. Sula decided that yes, at some point, he had been a teacher or something close to it.

“I know better than you do. Lisbeth and I have talked about it; I love her to death, but for an Alpha–female she's damn naïve sometimes.”

Daniel laughed, and for some reason it was the first time Sula really got just how handsome he was. While Cal had a wiry, tough–as–nails charisma to him, Daniel was just flat out gorgeous in an old–fashioned, 1950s movie star way. He caught her expression and stared back at her without intent, openly and honestly. Sula blinked and turned away.

Daniel was quiet as their food was served, but did not start eating once the waitress was gone. “Sula.”

She looked up from her meatloaf.

“Cal and I weren't trying for you just because of Lisbeth or Tony or pack politics. You're very beautiful, very unique and special. Our invitation was, perhaps, ill–timed and badly handled but it was genuine.”

Sula had no answer so just kept looking at him.

He blushed a little. “Last night, er, when you showed yourself, it was amazing. So beautiful, so powerful. How could two seconds like us not be attracted to that kind of energy?”

“Because I'm a bear and will rip you to shreds?”

He grimaced. “Yes, that was a little terrifying.”

Sula felt her eyebrows go up. “Just a little? I'm losing my touch.”

“No no no, it was very terrifying, I assure you.
Terrifying
.”

Sula laughed at how hard he was trying to reassure her. “You're a little bit crazy, aren't you?”

He smiled. “So I've been told.”

They ate in silence for a little while. “Did Tony order you to take me to lunch?”

Daniel looked surprised. “No.”

“So you just decided on your own to go entertain the bear?”

“No, I decided on my own to try to have lunch with a beautiful woman. Tony simply allowed me to follow through with the idea.”

Sula laughed. “Beautiful? I'm many things, friend, but that isn't one of them. That's Lisbeth's job.”

“I don't understand. Why can't you be beautiful too?”

“Beautiful and scary, I suppose.”

“Yes, that's true.” Daniel leaned over the table from where he sat, lowering his voice. “I'm a werewolf, Sula. We tend to think those attributes go hand in hand.”

Sula wanted to say something smart to that, but could not think of anything other than “huh.” It was an obvious statement, something so plain and true that there was nothing to answer it with. She shrugged instead and worked on her lunch.

“We've moved up the mountain, to that cabin Mr. McBride had empty.”

“So I heard. For the best.”

Daniel frowned, his expression going dark and sour for the first time since she had met him. “Can't you even give us a chance?”

Sula sighed and put down her silverware. “A chance for what? Lisbeth and I work well together, but that's unusual for me. I keep trying to get this point across, and you all don't seem to listen: I'm not pack. Not now, not ever. The only thing we got to offer each other is some meaningless sex, and honestly I don't want to get into that with anyone who might end up as part of Lisbeth's pack. I'm not part of the deal, no matter what Lisbeth might be telling Tony. You do your thing, I do mine.”

Daniel kept frowning but did not reply, turning to finish up his own plate. As they paid and left, walking back to the car, he finally answered her.

“Cal and I have each other, and Tony has both of us. Lisbeth has Tony, and by extension she has Cal and me too. But you don't have anyone, and that's just not normal to us. It's wrong. It feels wrong to think about you being outside the pack, alone, while we have each other. It looks wrong, and it
is
wrong.” He waved a hand at her to keep quiet. “Cal and I, we took to you from the time we saw you dancing in the club. It's not forced, it's not political, it just is. We want you, and the way the pack is coming together, it doesn't feel right without you.” He stopped for a second, thinking. She was not sure what to make of his speech, but he was truly sincere about it, she picked up on that much.

“You keep pushing us away. It might feel natural to you, but it's not to us. You are powerful and beautiful and we cannot understand why you don't…why you don't want us too.” He shrugged, self–conscious.

Sula shook her head in frustration. “You don't get it: what I want doesn't factor here.” She pulled up the sleeve on her jacket to show him Bracelet. “I can't even control myself, not really. It's safer for me to stay on my own.”

He reached out and ran his fingers lightly over the beads, which pulsed angrily on her arm.

“My God, Sula! Cal was right, that is pure evil.” He sucked in his breath and gave her a heartbreaking look.

“No, it's pure necessity. What you think you want would be bad for all of us, terrible awful bad, and I can't do what I want.” She lowered her sleeve and started walking, trying not to let her own heart break too much at the words. “Now drive me back to work, please.”

L
isbeth showed up later around noon and did not say a damn thing about the crappy little cabin.
Cal respected her for that, because it was obvious to everyone that Tony was embarrassed about the lack of an appropriate pack den. Lisbeth was a class act, which made Cal happy because he only wanted the best for his Alpha, and it would suck to hate her.

She spent some time in the larger bedroom, which was hers and Tony's, moving things around and cleaning the windows and otherwise turning it into a proper den for herself.

Daniel came home close to two, hauling in more supplies, along with a few surprises like brand new sheet sets and a large, family–sized slow cooker for Cal.

“Three settings!” Cal petted the cooker as he rinsed out the crockery and set up the timer clock. “I need a roast…or maybe chili? You guys want chili? Thai chili! Lisbeth, you ever had Thai chili?”

Lisbeth smiled benevolently at him from the doorway of her den. “No.”

Cal blushed under her gaze, the feeling of belonging and love swamping him. “It's, uh, good. Really good.” He wiped down the counter self–consciously.

Daniel chuckled. “I'm afraid it's been a while since he's been around an Alpha female.”

Tony walked up behind Lisbeth, wrapping his arms around her. “Well, he's not the only one.”

Lisbeth laughed. “Me either, guys. Jeeze. I left home years ago.”

Daniel looked over at her. “Your pack couldn't mate you?”

It was not as rude a question as it sounded, Cal figured, because it was surprising to him as well. Lisbeth, at least, did not sound offended, but when she answered, she was not happy.

“They tried. It wasn't my idea of a good match. And they were pushy. My father is the Alpha, and he's very political. Overbearing, really. I don't think he was expecting me to run.”

Cal realized with a dark, ominous chill down his back that they did not really know Lisbeth at all. Tony must have felt the same, because he let go of Lisbeth and turned to face her. “This something I need to worry about?”

All three men froze as Lisbeth pointedly did not answer.

“Lisbeth, I need to know this,” Tony pressed.

“I can't answer that because I don't know, not for sure. I'm not trying to be difficult, but the truth is I haven't tried to contact my family or the pack since I left. As far as I can tell, they haven't been looking for me. So…maybe? I don't know.”

Cal did not like it at all. His cop brain kicked in, pointing out all his mistakes: he did not know her full name, where she was from, how old she was, who might want her back.

“What's your name?” He snapped. Daniel shot him a critical look, but did not counter.