by Scarlett Ray
As I started to go back to my packing, the doorbell rang again. Did Nicky get sidetracked or something? Confused, I went downstairs and found the door still locked, Will on the other side looking upset.
“Hey,” I said, pulling the door open and standing on my toes to kiss his cheek. “Come on in. I sent Nicky down here to get the door, but—”
“Yeah, I saw him,” Will laughed dryly. “And he saw me too. I think that’s why he left me out there.”
“Ugh. I’m sorry. I really don’t know what’s going on with him.”
“Don’t worry about it. Are you ready to head out?”
“We have to wait until Maggie gets here,” Nodding toward the stairs, I turned to lead him in that direction. “And I need to finish packing anyway.”
“Of course you do,” he chuckled. He went upstairs with me and went over our schedule again, the little bits of setup that were left to do and the events of the party itself. We’d been over it so many times already, but I still wanted every reminder I could get so I didn’t screw anything up.
The doorbell rang again as I was struggling to get my suitcase zipped. Will told me he would take care of it, so I went downstairs to let Maggie in. “I’m sorry I’m late, sugar,” she said, pulling me into a quick hug, her arms full of grocery bags.
“Hell, Maggie, are you planning on feeding half the town?” I laughed as she waddled into the kitchen to put the bags down. “You know Will and I are leaving, right?”
“Yes, smart mouth. Maybe I was planning on leaving some leftovers for you, but with that attitude, we’ll just see.”
“Oh, we’ll see all right. I bet Nicky could eat all that if pressed.” We put away a huge bag of Yukon gold potatoes as well as a couple pounds of steak; she certainly knew how my boy liked to eat. As Will came down the stairs with my suitcase in hand, he caught my eye and glanced toward the door. It was time, I figured, no matter how much I was dreading it. Since I didn’t know where my son was, I called out into the house, “Nicky? Will you come give me a hug before I leave?”
After a minute or so, he appeared at the bottom of the stairs and came over to the door to hug me, not giving Will a second glance. “I love you,” I told him, hugging him tight and kissing his head again. “Be good for Aunt Maggie, okay? I’ll be home in the morning.”
“I love you too. I’ll miss you,” he muttered into my ear, clenching against me even tighter.
“Don’t worry, little guy. I’m going to take care of her,” Will told him. When we separated, Will reached down to pat Nicky’s head—but to my surprise, Nicky jerked away and snapped at his hand. Literally tried to bite him! If Will hadn’t jerked his hand back in time, he might’ve gotten his fingers bitten clean off.
“Nicky!” I hissed, but he turned tail and ran from the room, scampering back up the stairs. His bedroom door slammed, and I winced. “What on earth is the matter with him?”
“I’ll talk to him, honey,” Maggie assured me. “Y’all need to get going. He’ll be alright.”
“We really should go,” Will agreed.
“All right. I’ll see you in the morning. Thank you again for watching him,” I hugged Maggie tightly and turned to leave with Will. Glancing up at him, I added, “You know he doesn’t like it when you do that.”
“I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t expect him to react like that, though.”
“Yeah. Neither would I…”
Chapter Sixteen: Noah
When Will Hawthorne came back into town, I wasn’t the only one who wanted to pay him back for what he’d done to Miguel. Half my family was clamoring for his blood—but Jared and Mel insisted that going after him would be a mistake.
“Do y’all know who that boy is? Who his daddy is?” Jared demanded, bellowing over the voices of fifty furious young Wrights as we were all gathered in his barn. “You think if he goes missing, they aren’t gonna come right after us for revenge?”
“He attacked us first!”
“Our pack’s bigger than theirs; we could take ‘em.”
“We can’t just let him come into our territory and do whatever the hell he wants!”
“Enough!” Luke barked, forcing the group to quiet down. He was easily the biggest man there, even dwarfing his own old man. But he was still enforcing Jared’s ruling. “Why any of y’all think you know better than our alpha, I just can’t imagine. Believe me, I’m just as angry as every one of you. No, it’s not fair, not even a little, but this is the way things are. And if anyone goes after that Hawthorne boy, he’s selfish and a traitor. Understand?”
He looked directly at me with that last word, knowing I hated Will more than anyone else in the entire state. Despite the growl curling my upper lip, I agreed along with all the others. As always, there was no arguing with the alpha or his second in command. Not on any matter.
* * *
I knew he was there to see Dani, to finish whatever he’d started with her before, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Camilla reported them going to Rosie’s together with Nicky. Miguel went by Dani’s office at one point to talk to her about his job, and Will was there, acting totally innocent and friendly. I couldn’t even warn Dani away from him, because she was back to not speaking to me. She had apparently decided I wasn’t worth her time anymore.
So I didn’t know about the gala until Maggie called to tell me. I was just getting off the clock on a Saturday afternoon, sometime late in September, when I got the call, “Hey, Maggie. What’s up?”
“Hi, hon. I was just wondering if you’ve got plans tonight?” Her usual cheerful tone sounded a little forced at the moment.
“Well, I didn’t realize you were into younger men,” I teased on my way back to my truck.
“Oh, hush; I’m old enough to be your mama,” she laughed. “Answer the question, young man.”
“No, I don’t have anything going on. You need help with something?”
“Only if you don’t mind. I’m watching Nicky for the night, and he asked if you could come over.”
I was silent for a second. Nicky asked for me? We had gotten along great at the rodeo, but it must have meant more to him than I realized. Too bad his mom hated my guts. “I’d like to. But I think Dani probably doesn’t want me there,” I muttered. I reached my truck but didn’t get in, pacing, restless.
“Well, Dani ain’t here at the moment,” again, Maggie’s voice was tight, brimming with false sweetness. “She’s off in Phoenix for the fundraising gala with that Hawthorne boy. She won’t be back until tomorrow.”
It took me a second, but I remembered that big party her parents threw every year to raise money for the preserve. I also remembered her telling me how miserable she was when she went and how she never wanted to go to one again. Maybe Will had convinced her.
“I don’t know, Maggie. I might not be very kid-friendly right now.” Me and half the rest of the town. Jared had deemed it too dangerous for anyone to go out into the preserve’s off-limits section anymore. That meant we had nowhere to safely work out the tension our beasts were constantly building up inside us, no natural outlet for our wild sides; every Wright in the city was tense and on edge. The last thing I wanted was to accidentally snap at Nicky.
“I’m sure you’ll be better company for him than I am. Come on, now, he got so excited when I said I’d call you. You don’t wanna break his little heart, do you?”
She didn’t pull her punches, that was for sure. “All right, all right. Let me get home and shower, then I’ll head over.”
I didn’t even have the words to express how much I hated the idea of Dani spending the night with Will. In Phoenix, in Palo Verde, anywhere, any time. Maybe focusing on Nicky would keep me distracted from those violently jealous thoughts.
* * *
It was about seven when I pulled up to Dani’s place. Her truck was still there, and Maggie’s late-model silver station wagon was parked next to it. I went to the door and knocked, and after a minute, Nicky opened it, beaming,
“Hi, Noah!”
“Hey, bud,” I said, ruffling his hair as I came in. “You have the house all to yourself tonight?”
“No,” he laughed, leading me toward the kitchen. The smell of chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes already had my mouth watering. “Aunt Maggie’s watching me. She’s making dinner. Mama’s at a party but she said I couldn’t go.”
“Yeah, I don’t think you’d have much fun at that party anyway. It’s a boring grown-up thing. For boring grown-ups.”
“Like Will,” he agreed, wrinkling his nose.
“Ha! Yeah, just like him.”
Maggie heard us talking and turned away from the stove to greet me, “I was wondering when you’d get here, mister.” She looked just as at-home in the house as I felt. I could remember having dinner with Dani, her parents, and Maggie a thousand times over the years before I left. Maggie was always shooing me out of the kitchen while they were cooking, saying it was a sacred place for women to share their secrets so no boys allowed. That was probably why Nicky wasn’t helping her cook.
“Sorry. I got a little sidetracked at home,” I folded my arms on the counter and watched Nicky scramble up onto one of the barstools to copy my posture. “Actually, Nicky, I found something I thought you might like.” I pulled a loop of thin leather cord out of my pocket to show it to him. Both ends of the string were capped with silver, and a round silver pin engraved with a howling wolf connected the two sides to form a loop.
“It’s a bolo tie,” he said immediately, reaching out. “Can I see it?”
“You see with your eyes, not your hands,” I told him with a smirk, just like I’d been told the same thing a hundred times at his age. Somehow, being the adult in the exchange was oddly satisfying. No wonder grown-ups liked saying it so much. He pouted for a second.
“Can I hold it?” Making sure to be as polite as possible, he added, “Please?”
“Well, I brought it for you,” I said as I handed it over. “I used to wear it for rodeoing. It was good luck.”
“Oh, you and that silly old tie,” Maggie clucked, shaking her head. “You remember how mad you got that time Dani took it?”
“Course I do.” I remembered that afternoon very clearly: a playful, 19-year-old Dani stealing the tie right off my neck, forcing me to chase her across the yard and into the stables to get it back; her squealing and laughing while I tried to wrestle it out of her hands; finally pinning her on her back on the hay-strewn floor and snatching it away. I remembered her grin while she was trying to catch her breath, her brown eyes as warm as I’d ever seen them, and I remembered, for the first time, almost kissing her despite my better judgment. “She was such a brat when she was younger.”
“Mm-hm, and that’s why y’all two never got along,” Maggie said, shooting me a knowing glance, one I avoided. If there was anyone outside my family who knew how I felt about Dani, how I had always felt about her, it was Maggie.
“How can you tell it’s lucky?” Nicky asked, waving the tie at me. “Was it made special?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed like I rode better when I was wearing it. And since I don’t use it anymore, I thought you might want it.”
“You mean…to keep?” he asked. His eyes—his mama’s eyes—got wide as saucers.
“Yes, sir. No sense letting the good luck go to waste,” I said with a wink, and he grinned bigger than ever.
“Thank you! Can I wear it now? Should I save it?” he held it like it was precious and breakable.
“You don’t need to wear a tie for dinner, baby,” Maggie laughed. “Why don’t you put it up in your room? It’ll be time to eat pretty soon.” He nodded and hopped down from his stool, then scampered up the stairs. “That was awful sweet of you.”
“Well, it was just sitting in my closet. And he got so excited when he found out I was a bronc rider, so I figured he’d appreciate it.” Kids always appreciated little things like that way more than adults did. It was a good feeling, seeing that big smile and knowing you were the cause of it.
“He’s pretty taken with you, huh?” she went on casually, nudging one of the steaks in her pan. “Never seen him get like that before. He’s friendly with everyone, of course, but he seems real attached to you already.” That was a flattering thought.
“Yeah, maybe he’ll convince his mama to feel the same way.” That came out a little more bitter than I meant it to, and Maggie let out a sympathetic sigh.
“You know she doesn’t hate you, honey. It’s just tough for her to accept things she can’t change.” We had that in common. “I don’t understand her lately, though. Running off with that Yankee boy and just flat ignoring you. It doesn’t make any sense. Especially when—” She stopped herself as Nicky came back into the room, and I wondered what she had to say that she didn’t want him hearing.
“Do you think the good luck only works for rodeoing?” he sounded genuinely concerned. “Mama says I’m not old enough for that.”
“You will be later on,” I assured him. “And I bet it’s good luck for other things too. You can just wear it when you feel like you need a little help.” He nodded sagely, like this was all important information he’d be filing away.
“All right, you two, come and get it,” Maggie said, turning off the stove and starting to make plates. As we got settled in the dining room and Maggie said a quick grace for us, Nicky was being unusually quiet.
“Something wrong, bud?” I asked while he was poking at the bits of steak Maggie had cut up for him. His mouth tugged down into a frown, the sort of frown a kid gets when they’re trying not to cry.
“I miss my mama,” he said quietly.
“She’ll be back in the morning, sugar,” Maggie said gently, but he shook his head.
“She was busy all week. We don’t make dinner together anymore. She just sits around talking to dumb ol’ Will all the time.” To my surprise, Nicky’s nose wrinkled, his face twisting up into what could almost be called a snarl.
“You really don’t like him, huh?”
“No,” he grumbled, stabbing a piece of steak with his fork. “He’s boring and all he talks about is work and he smells funny.” I almost laughed at that last comment.
“He smells funny?” I repeated, and he nodded firmly. I definitely agreed, but it was odd that Nicky would think so. “What do you mean? Like he needs a bath?”
“No. He smells like soap too. But there’s another smell and it’s bad. I don’t know what it is, but it makes me angry.”
As much as I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, that sounded like all the same notes I made when I first met Will. It was possible Nicky just had an especially good nose, but I was leaning toward something else.
“Does that happen with anybody else?”
“Nope. Just him. He’s the only one who’s bad. I like how some other people smell—but Mama says not to talk about it because it’s weird.”
I swallowed hard, “Some people like who?” Maggie looked utterly bewildered by this conversation but didn’t try to interrupt.
“Like Miguel. And the nice waitress lady at Rosie’s,” he paused, stole a look at me, then quickly looked back down at his plate. “And you. Especially you.”
I took a deep breath and tried not to let my feelings show on my face. No. Dani would’ve told me. She would’ve said something. And I can’t smell shifter blood on him—but if he’s half-human, maybe that’s why? He does look like me. He’s exactly the right age. He has to be…
“Um, I’m sorry,” Nicky mumbled, and I realized my intense thinking must have shown on my face. “I shouldn’t have said anything…”
“No, no, bud, it’s okay!” I told him quickly, hoping my smile looked genuine despite the million different thoughts and feelings running through my head. “You feel happy around those people, right? And safe?” Like you belong around them. Like they’re your family. His eyes widened in surprise, maybe surprise that someone finally understood what he was talking about, and he nodded quickly. “The
n that’s good. And it’s not weird,” I reassured him.
“Okay…” he said with a relieved smile, finally starting to eat his dinner. And he ate like you wouldn’t believe for his size, just like he did at the rodeo—like we both did. Maggie called him a piglet, but she was wrong. He was something else entirely.
“All right, it’s time for little boys to take their bath,” she said, shooing him toward the stairs.
“Can I come back down after?” he whined.
“It’s a Saturday,” I reminded her, eager to spend more time with him myself. “He can stay up a little late.” Like that was my call to make.
“Fine, fine,” she agreed, “once you’re cleaned up, you can come down and visit a while longer. For right now, you march that pouty little face upstairs.” She went along with him, leaving me alone to think.
I was almost positive that boy was my son. That, or Dani had just happened to sleep with some other shifter right when I left for college. He was a shifter, no doubt about that. He disliked Will for reasons he didn’t understand, got angry and hostile around him. But with me and mine—Miguel, Camilla, both southwest pack like me—he felt secure and at-home. No two ways about it. He had to be mine.
“Good God,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand over my face and trying to let this information sink in. Did anyone else know? Did Maggie? And if they did, how had no one told me? How did Dani herself not tell me? I tried to temper the red-hot anger that welled up, but it felt justified. Did she think I wasn’t good enough to be his father? Was she that opposed to being with me? I couldn’t understand it.
But this was a good thing. In some ways. Judging by the conversation we’d just had, Nicky’s wolf traits were showing, and because Dani didn’t understand them, she was making him feel like they were wrong or bad somehow. He needed someone in his life who understood why his instincts and impulses were so strong, why he was always hungry and often restless. He needed to be around other little boys, like Matt and Todd, who were also still figuring out how to control their inner beast. There was so much I could teach him! And, I was realizing, it was exciting. I wanted to do that for him. I wanted to be the father he was missing.
