Shopping Showdown (2 page)

Diana sighed and waved her hands at
them. “Shoo. Get cleaned up. I’m not dragging a bunch of raggedy
werewolves around all day.”

That got them up. Indignation raised
Seth’s dark brown muzzle. “Adam says we’re wolven. Not werewolf
monster movie trash.”

Diana suppressed a smile. For all their
supposed distrust, the boys quoted their leader a lot. They didn’t
even know how attached to Adam they were.

“Okay. Get your wolven rears in gear.
I’ve got to go shopping. Look in the laundry room. Clean clothes
and no excess body hair.”

“Shop-ping!” Moans and groans of pain
followed them out. Maybe a day tagging around behind her in the
uncool parts of the store would make them think twice about
sabotaging the lawnmower next time. Outside her door, there was a
bump and several growls. The loud thumping of running feet. Diana
walked to the door and stuck her head out. “No dogfights in the
house. You hear me?” Diana closed her eyes against the sound of a
yelp and the bumpity-bump of someone tumbling down the
steps.

“We’re not dogs!”

“Yeah! We’re not dogs!”

Their voices warbled up the stairwell.
Thank goodness no one was hurt and even if they were, a
supernatural’s constitution was amazing. Their bodies held off
sickness and disease efficiently. Bruises and lacerations healed
nearly overnight. Broken bones mended in a week. Their blood was a
miracle-healing agent.

“Keep it up and one of you is going to
wind up with a broken neck. How long do you think that will take to
heal?” Diana called back down. She waited to hear retreating
footsteps before closing the door.

“Hi, Mom. Are you going somewhere?”
Karen poked her head into the bedroom. Her daughter’s precognition
were a little unnerving sometimes, but this time, Diana had the
feeling a little eavesdropping had been going on.

“Want to go to a baby
shower?”

Karen’s face was bright and animated.
Her brown eyes glowed. She was one hundred percent
cheerleader.

“No. Bradley is taking me to Saturday
practice. We’ll grab something to eat while we’re out.”

A flash of unease went through Diana.
“Karen.”

A frown marred Karen’s pretty clean
features. “Mom. Get a grip. Bradley and I are dating. That’s it.”
She bit her bottom lip and slipped into the room, shutting the door
behind. Her voice was low. She cut her eyes at the door as if one
of the boys were outside listening. “Mom, I know you have
reservations… about everything.” Karen shifted her feet back and
forth. Her nervous gesture transmitted to Diana.

“Hon, What are you trying to tell me?”
Her daughter hesitated, then reached underneath the back of her
shirt. She pulled out a large envelope. Her hands gripped the
grayish paper so hard her knuckles were white. Diana took the
envelope with the same delicacy as if she were handling a snake.
The words of her chosen university were typed in the top left hand
corner. She looked up at her daughter.

“It’s from a college in Houston.
There’s a program I qualify for. With that, a student loan, and a
partial scholarship from my cheerleading, I can take care of my
expenses myself.”

“I see.” Diana felt her heart squeeze.
Houston was hours away. Her last baby was making plans to leave the
nest. It seemed all her fears of not being needed anymore were
finally coming to fruition. Diana mustered a smile. “You can do
anything you set your mind to. Do you know yet what you want to
study?”

Diana had tried, unsuccessfully, before
to find out what Karen’s interests were. Mostly, her daughter was
interested in animals, sports, and music. Very general terms that
didn’t translate into any particular career goal.

Karen laughed. Her eyes filled with
tears that she wiped away with the back of her hand. Diana felt her
daughter take hold of her fear and uncertainty. An exotic animals
vet.”

“Wow. That’s big.” Diana crossed her
arms, tucking the envelope under. She raised her eyebrows high.
“Any particular reason why?”

Karen’s laugh was less strained this
time. She sobered fast. “Oh, Mom. Bradley’s going to have a fit. He
hates when I go out of the territory.”

Oh drat. This was going to turn into
one of those mother-daughter talks. Diana took her daughter’s hand
and led her to the bed. She sat, pulling Karen to sit beside her.
“Honey, I hate to point out the obvious, but I’m going to. You
aren’t married.”

A sudden horrifying thought crossed
Diana’s brain. “You and he have’t… done that mate thing have
you?”

“Oh, Mom.” Karen rolled her eyes. Diana
pushed down the irritation at the gesture.

“We haven’t done anything. For so long
we were just trying to keep the younger ones safe.” It amazed Diana
how her daughter had led such a double life so early and so
successfully. Bradley and her daughter had managed to keep the old
pack alpha away from the younger three boys. Poor Brandon,
Bradley’s twin, had gotten the brunt of Garrick’s foul attention.
Brandon’s emotional scars ran so deep, he hardly came out of wolf
form these days. He’d missed so much school with little hope of
going back anytime soon, that Adam had pulled Brandon out and told
everyone that the boy had decided to home-school.

“Okay. So you haven’t made that kind of
commitment to him. If you want to go away to college, then go.” The
words hurt, but Diana forced them out anyway. She’d learned the
hard way with her son Matt that she couldn’t hold them
here.

“But, the pack…”

“Will be fine.”

“But I’ve never been so far away on my
own.”

Diana squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I
get the idea that you are more worried about how Bradley will fare
than the others.”

Karen pulled her hand away. She turned
her head away, picked at the blue flowers on Diana’s comforter,
then smoothed over the satin finish. “What if…what if he finds
someone else while I’m gone.”

Karen turned to face her mother. Tears
pooled in her eyes. Diana leaned in and captured her daughter’s
face between her hands. “Then you will have to deal with some very
grown up heartache. You’re sixteen—“

“Seventeen.”

Diana let go and leaned back on her
hands. “Okay. Seventeen. Just don’t let your fear keep you from
achieving your dreams.”

Diana’s advice to her daughter ran
through her head while she drove to the Supercenter for a present
for Adam’s new nephew. Beside her, Brandon, in human form, stared
out the window, lost in his own world. That was a new rule. Nobody
furry went to the store with Diana.

“Keep on your own side
butt-face.”

“I’m not on your side. You’re taking up
my side. Move over.”

Diana let Mark and Seth’s arguing from
the backseat roll over her for now.

She’d overcome some of her
relationships fear by letting the pack into her life. She was
dating Adam wasn’t she? Not that she had any problems dating a
hunky guy that literally panted after her.

It was the commitment, the thought of
being trapped in another disastrous marriage that frightened the
spit out of her. And she wasn’t stupid, becoming Adam’s mate would
be the ultimate commitment. It was some kind of magical, permanent,
binding. No divorce option.

At the store, Brandon crowded close and
fell into step beside her. His shoulders slumped while he kept a
silent and vigil eye on the parking lot.

“Can we go to the video games?” Seth
bumped into Diana’s other side. His dark face turned up, excitement
bright in his eyes.

“Yeah!” Mark ran ahead and turned
around, jogging backwards in front of Diana. “Do you think Adam’s
mom and dad will come back for Christmas? They’re
awesome.”

Diana hadn’t met Cheryl and William
Weis last summer after Grady Dobbs had tried to kill her and Karen.
She’d been too busy with work and trying to get through to a
traumatized Brandon while Adam cleared the werecoyotes out of his
territory. She’d heard all about the wonderful and extraordinary
Gramma Cheryl and Grampa Will from Karen and the boys. That didn’t
make her any more eager to meet Adam’s relatives.

“Can we go to the video games? We don’t
want to look at stupid baby stuff.” Mark dodged a grocery cart with
the same agile grace that all the wolven pack possessed. Seth’s
hand found Diana’s sweater sleeve and he hung on. Diana didn’t mind
the touchie feelie nature of the pack. She felt and understood
their need to touch and be touched. At least she did now. At first
the tingles from the constant brushes and small touches weirded her
out. She finally realized that the tingles were the result of tiny
magical energy exchanges. Somehow the energy exchanges were
necessary for pack’s well-being.

“Can we get something to eat? I’m
hungry. Aren’t you hungry too, Brandon?” Brandon glanced over and
shrugged off Seth’s question, then returned to whatever thoughts
consumed his mind these days. In his human form, Diana could see
that he’d lost even more weight. His clothes already hung on him
and he could ill afford to loose more. She worried for his mental
and physical state.

Diana stopped and freed her arm enough
to look at her watch. She sighed and pulled her purse around enough
to dig for her wallet. “Okay guys, here’s some money to get
something to eat. Don’t get into trouble.” Diana suppressed the
urge to wince as she handed Brandon a twenty. Adam was sooo going
to take up the slack in her finances that feeding the constantly
hungry wolven teens took.

“All right!” Mark pumped a fist into
the air. “You rock!” The blond boy spun around and darted to the
sliding double doors.

“I’m going to page you when I’m
ready!”

With an assortment of baby supplies in
her basket, Diana took a moment to smell the flowers. Under the
shaded canopy of the garden center, Diana bent to admire the late
blooming flowers.

“Nice view.”She jerked around, grinning
at the short statured man behind her.

“Jax.” Jaxeramilix the gnome gave her a
friendly leer. His expensively cut white hair lay against the
collar of his pale blue name brand button up shirt. A white close
trimmed beard and mustache gave his pointed features respectability
and set off the odd marine quality color of his aqua colored
eyes.

“In town on business?” Diana couldn’t
imagine anything short of a financial emergency bringing the gnome
into wolven territory. Jax had told her often enough to stay far
away from the super powered supernaturals.

On the other side of the aisle of
bright purple, pink, and blue petunias, beside the display of
plastic garden gnomes, turtles, and other small critters, Xena,
warrior princess paused in her perusal of the little people. Power
unlike she’d ever experienced radiated from the woman.

Diana blinked. Xena even had a sword
buckled over her leather costume. There had been a time that Diana
would have assumed Xena in a Supercenter meant a publicity thing.
Now it meant a potentially dangerous thing that could get her hurt.
At least no one had threatened to eat her yet. Already her day was
looking up.

Jax bowed from the waist, completely at
ease. He reached only a couple of inches higher than her waist. His
gaze shifted up from her breasts to her face. The lascivious
twinkle faded from his eyes, replaced by concern. “My lady, I’ve
come to check up on my favorite girl. I’ve been hearing some
interesting things about your… ah, activities.”

Diana straightened and looked down at
her friend. She could never read Jax as correctly as humans.
Usually, he was amused at everything and lusting after every female
that crossed his eyes. Now, all she could determine was calm. A
deep well of calm that didn’t feel like Jax at all.

Diana crossed her arms. She tried not
to stare at the warrior woman. That would be rude, and the lady had
a sword. A really big, glowy, Conan the Barbarian type sword.
“Excuse me?”

“Your association with the local Canis
Pater.” A part of her felt threatened. Okay, she felt a lot
threatened. Diana took the couple of steps to her basket. Retreat
and make your stand. It always amazed her how security or the
police were never around when the freaky people started making
moves in her direction. Her tone turned cool.

“You know Jax, I don’t think that my
personal life is any of your business.”

“See? I told you that humans can be so
unreasonable.” A fluttery burst of action drew Diana’s attention.
Xena the leather clad dominatix barely glanced at the
intrusion.

Glitter shimmered around the form of a
Barbie doll sized woman. Perfect almond shaped eyes. Perfect beach
bunny boobs. And a tiny-tiny waspish waist over flared hips. Her
perfect heart shaped mouth pouted. Her iridescent wings hummed in
the air like a humming birds, creating a breeze that fluttered the
trailing edges of her orange toga style wrap around
dress.

Just once, Diana wanted to meet a
supernatural woman that didn’t look so darned perfect. She was
starting to get a complex. Fairy Barbie’s dress started orange like
her hair, graduating to bright yellow. The fairy lady’s feet were
bare.