A Pack of Vows and Tears

by Olivia Wildenstein

  He frowned. “What do you mean, what am I doing?”

  I looked at his parked car, then at him. “You can go home.”

  “If I go home, how will you get to your new apartment? And then to Frank’s?” A gust of cool wind stole the sandalwood scent off his skin and batted it toward me.

  How could he smell so good after running through the woods? I didn’t dare sniff myself. I bet I reeked of dried perspiration and dank mud.

  “I can cab it,” I finally said.

  A crooked smile turned up one corner of his mouth. “Surprisingly, I have no other engagements this evening.”

  “Aww. You canceled all your hot dates?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, now would it?”

  I grinned. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  I knew exactly what he was talking about, though. When I was still living in Boulder, I’d beg him to take me to a movie or bowling or build a campfire to grill s’mores without enquiring if he had other plans.

  I hadn’t wanted to share August with his girlfriends or friends.

  I’d wanted him all to myself.

  The awareness of how greedy I’d been dimmed my smile. “I’m sorry.”

  His eyebrows bent. “For what?”

  “For having been such a demanding and selfish kid.”

  “You weren’t.”

  “I took advantage of you. Of your kindness.”

  “Dimples—”

  “Same way I’m doing right now.” The heat of his half-naked body wrapped so thickly around me that I stepped away from him and then pushed through the revolving doors.

  Emmy, who was manning the bell desk, clapped her chest. “Holy mother of God, you just gave me a heart attack.”

  I knew I looked awful, but that awful?

  “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

  She didn’t seem to hear my apology, too fixated on the body behind mine. Her face lit up with a smirk that was almost as bright as the row of silver hoops lining the shell of her ear.

  “What have you two been up to? Mud-wrestling?”

  “Um. I was helping him fix a leak at the warehouse.” The lie came out way too easily. To drive it home, I brandished my wet clothes. “I wasn’t much help.”

  “Must’ve been a real bad leak.” Her smile told me that not only did she not buy my stupid story, but that she’d also added a ton of dirty extrapolations to it.

  “Her plumbing skills need some improvement,” August added.

  Emmy shot him a pointed look. “Never belittle a woman’s plumbing skills.”

  Although I appreciated her coming to my defense, this was getting weird. “I need to shower and grab some stuff. Is everything okay here?”

  “Yes. Well, except—” She flicked her gaze up to the first-floor landing. “Your uncle finally came out of his room this afternoon. He was in a strange mood. A tad manic. He must’ve looked through every ledger and dossier in the back office. It was like a bomb detonated in there. We tidied up with Isobel, but we weren’t sure where things were supposed to be put away, so we just made a big pile.”

  I glanced at the staircase. “Lucy and him are . . . ” I hesitated a second before adding, “divorcing.” It was an easier explanation than the truth. “He and I are actually moving out.”

  Her mouth gaped.

  “Please don’t tell anyone yet. I mean you can tell Skylar, but no one else. I don’t want the staff to worry how the divorce will affect the inn.”

  She shook her head. “I won’t blab, but wow. I’m in shock. Poor Everest.”

  I clasped my phone tighter, desperate to listen to his voicemail. “I’ll just head down and stick these in the wash and grab a shower. I won’t be long.”

  August nodded even though he didn’t seem too excited to be left behind with Emmy, especially when she said, “Wait. I just connected the dots. You’re Isobel’s boy, aren’t you? She showed me a picture of you.”

  As she roped him into a conversation, I bounded down the stairs to the laundry room, unearthed a clean towel, tossed my clothes and August’s shirt into one of the industrial machines, wrapped the towel snugly around myself, and set the washing machine to the quickest cycle. After I rinsed the rubber soles of my white sneakers, I headed to the locker rooms that connected the indoor pool to the gym.

  Only then did I listen to Everest’s message.

  “Hey, Ness. I’m on my way back to Boulder. Thank you for having my back. I didn’t deserve your help. Not after what I did. Everything’s such a fucking mess. Such a fucking mess,” he repeated slower, lower. I could imagine him pulling at his dark-red hair like he used to do when things didn’t go his way as a kid. “In case anything happens to me, I left”—the word he uttered was garbled, as though he’d passed through a tunnel—“in your room”—static filled the receiver again—“under the fl—Fuck!” Air whooshed through the phone followed by a muffled thud, as though the phone had clattered out of his hand and onto the floormat. From far away, I heard him hiss, “Son-of-a-bitch found me.”

  The screech of metal had me yanking the phone away from my ear, and then . . . nothing.

  Nothing.

  With stiff fingers, I jabbed my screen to call him back. The dial tone sounded and sounded. And then I was prompted to leave a message.

  I hung up.

  I shivered but then whispered to myself, “He must’ve run out of battery.” I prayed that was why the line had gone dead. Unless the son-of-a-bitch had caught up with him.

  No, I couldn’t go there.

  Everest was all right. He was on his way back. I checked the timestamp of the voicemail. He’d phoned about an hour ago. He was probably already in Boulder.

  I typed: I’m at the inn. Where are you?

  My thumb hovered over the send icon as I read the incriminating text above the still unsent one. I searched the wording, trying to find something about it that would prove my innocence. But it sounded like me, which meant the hacker was familiar with my speech. My pulse skittered wildly at that realization.

  Or maybe the hacker had perused my phone’s contents. That was a possibility, right?

  For a long moment, I hesitated to send Everest the message I’d just composed, afraid it would make me the traitor my Alpha already believed me to be. Screw it. I’d already tried phoning Everest anyway. Besides, he and I needed to talk. I deserved answers. I didn’t care what that made me. I hit send, then stepped into the shower stall and turned the water on scalding to ward away the frostiness enveloping my bones.

  I spent a long time lathering away the dirt from my body; I spent an even longer time trying to untangle my hair. When I accomplished both tasks, I turned off the spray and towel-dried myself, but not before checking my phone. I was hoping Everest had messaged me back.

  He hadn’t.

  As I plucked a disposable comb from a tray of amenities and dragged the teeth through my wet hair, I wondered where he would go in Boulder. There were too many cameras here. He was probably hiding in a motel.

  I listened to his message again. “In your room. Under the fl . . . ” What had he left in my room? And under what? Which word started with an fl-sound and could be found in a bedroom?

  Fl . . .

  Flowers?

  Did he mean his mother’s desiccated flower-filled mason jar?

  As I made my way back to the laundry room, I ran everything there was in my bedroom through my head, but nothing else started with a fl. The washing cycle had finished, so I tossed the clothes in the dryer and sat on the countertop to wait, toying with the soft terry towel as I dwelled some more on Everest’s enigmatic message.

  My mind kept looping back to the flower jar, but I’d gotten rid of it sometime ago because the smell of Lucy’s dried roses had felt toxic.

  I dialed Everest’s number again. The phone rang and rang inside my ear. I was about to play back his voicemail when a dusky figure darkened the doorway. The phone slid out of my fingers and clattered against the white tiles.

 
20

  August crouched to retrieve my phone. “Didn’t mean to startle you. You just left me up there a long time.” As he rose, he tendered the small apparatus, his eyes roving over the screen.

  I blanched, afraid he’d see Everest’s name, afraid he’d think me a traitor, afraid—

  “It’s not cracked,” he said.

  Pulse battering my neck, I tightened the towel around myself and reached an unsteady hand to retrieve my phone.

  August hitched up an eyebrow. “Dimples, you’re worrying me.”

  “I’m fine now. Just tired.”

  His eyes lowered to my swinging bare legs, or maybe he was looking at the machine tumbling our clothes.

  There was no way they’d be dry yet, but hopefully they wouldn’t be too wet. I hopped down, and he backed up, and then I leaned over and opened the front hatch.

  As I stuck my hand inside the drum, he cleared his throat. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

  I pulled out his shirt first. “My entire wardrobe’s in the new apartment.”

  For some reason, he flicked his gaze toward the entrance of the laundry room so fast I checked to make sure my cousin hadn’t materialized there.

  Empty.

  “It’s not completely dry yet,” I said, wiggling my fingers to get his attention.

  His sharp Adam’s apple bobbed as he took the shirt.

  I gathered up my clothes. “Give me one more second.”

  Back in the changing rooms, I yanked my humid jeans up my legs—horrible sensation—then clipped on my bra that was so damp my nipples pebbled. I plugged in the hairdryer and ran it for a full minute over my chest, hoping the hot air would warm me up.

  It helped some.

  When I returned to the laundry room, August had put on his shirt. I stuck my feet into my shoes, omitting the socks. I set them out to dry on the rack, then slung my handbag over my shoulder. I hesitated to fill a basket with sheets and towels, but since I was dressed and heading to Frank’s for the night, gathering supplies could wait until morning.

  “I need to stop by my bedroom before I go. If you need to—”

  “I told you. There’s nowhere I need to be.”

  “Okay.” As we climbed the steps, I said, “You can wait for me in the car, if you prefer.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  What did I want?

  I didn’t even know what I was looking for . . . a flash drive, money, the stolen Sillin? Oh my God. What if it was the Sillin? What if Everest had planted it in my room to make me look guilty again? What if he’d popped each pill from the foil packets and hid them among the dried rose petals? My stomach began to cramp with a sudden upsurge of nerves. I was going to be sick. I reached for the banister to steady my swaying gait.

  “What’s going on?” August stared at my face, then at my abdomen.

  Had I paled, or had he felt my jarring stress through the tether? I didn’t want to carry the burden of Everest’s voicemail alone, however unfair it was to push it upon someone else. I swallowed, my throat feeling as dry as Lucy’s potpourri.

  “Dimples?”

  I closed my eyes, then opened them. “Everest left me a message.”

  He didn’t say anything for so long that I began to tremble.

  I gulped my saliva, trying to wet my throat. “He left me a message thanking me, and then he said some other things, and—”

  “Why don’t you play me his message?” August’s eyes gleamed in the semi-obscurity of the staircase.

  I nodded and dug out my phone. With shaky fingers, I located the message and pressed play. I watched August’s features shift and realign, first in a frown, then in suspicion, then in shock.

  “I swear I didn’t warn him the pack was coming,” I murmured after it ended.

  His gaze hadn’t moved off my phone. “What could he have left you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know what fl- could be. I was thinking flowers. Lucy leaves these jars filled with potpourri in the bedrooms, but I got rid of the one I had.”

  He dipped his chin into his neck.

  “Please tell me you believe me.”

  He sighed.

  “August, I swear—”

  He finally raised his eyes back to mine. “I believe you.”

  Relief gushed through me.

  In silence, we went to retrieve my key from the back office. I told Emmy I needed to grab something from my bedroom even though she hadn’t asked for an explanation. Concern made her kind eyes crinkle.

  As we made our way down the deathly quiet hallway, I asked August, “Do you have any other ideas?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  The tether that linked us was as taut as a bowstring. I tried not to wonder why that was.

  I pushed open the door and flicked on the lights, then walked down the short vestibule. I scanned my room for flowers—any flowers—but there wasn’t even a jar. August knelt down and peered under the bed before lifting the mattress and checking under it. While I clanged open every drawer in my room and dismantled the flannel-covered armchair, he caught the edge of the area rug and tugged it free from the bedframe, spraying the air with flickering dust motes.

  “Nothing here,” he said.

  I checked my closet next while he went into the bathroom and banged open the cupboards. I heard the distinct clang of porcelain—probably the toilet tank.

  “Did you find any—” My skull throbbed so suddenly with a voice that I lost my balance, and my head bumped into something cold and hard, but the rest of my body landed on something warm and soft.

  “Ness!” My name vibrated inside my ears.

  I rolled my head back. August was gaping worriedly down at me, my limp body clutched in his arms.

  Had I imagined the word Boulders screamed into my head? “Did you hear someone—”

  “It’s Liam.”

  The voice boomed again, and I clutched my forehead. Rodrigo and his team just located Everest’s car in a ditch off Beek Ridge. I’m on my way there.

  August’s rounded green eyes came in and out of focus.

  “Oh my God,” I murmured.

  August’s face swam back into focus. He unwound one arm from around me. Suddenly, his phone was pressed against his ear, and he was speaking into it.

  “Fuck,” he rumbled. “Fuck.”

  Two pennies for Isobel’s jar, I thought.

  Such a silly thought.

  I stared at the small buzzing spotlight above my head. Or maybe my head was buzzing.

  Everest’s car was in a ditch.

  Was Everest in the car?

  I must’ve asked this out loud, because August said, “He was.”

  Tears curved around my cheeks, disappeared into my still-wet hair.

  “Is he—” I couldn’t push the last word out.

  “He didn’t make it.” August brushed his thumbs over my cheeks, but the tears fell faster than he could wipe.

  “T-Take me to . . . to him.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Please,” I wheezed. “Please, August.”

  “Ness—”

  I touched his cheek, beseeching him with my wet eyes.

  He sighed and finally relented.

  21

  As we drove to the scene of the accident, neither of us spoke. August had turned the heater up, but that didn’t stop me from trembling.

  “Dimples, come closer.” He patted the seat between us.

  I was too numb to move, so he clicked off my seatbelt, dragged me toward him, then draped his arm around my shoulders, rubbing my pebbled skin, trying to deliver warmth into it. Tears still streamed down my cheeks and around my trembling lips, seeping into his flannel sleeve. I closed my eyes and let the scent of laundry detergent and sandalwood lull me.

  Every part of my body felt anesthetized. Except my arm.

  I felt my arm . . . felt the gentle strokes of August’s fingers.

  “We’re here,” he whispered after what felt like an hour. He
eased the pickup to a stop dangerously close to the lip of the mountainside and clicked on his hazard lights, streaking the row of other vehicles with orange flashes.

  A fire truck topped with a huge beam and two other SUVs were parked behind us. I pressed away from August, scraped the heels of my hands over my cheeks, then took a fortifying breath and got out slowly. When the balls of my feet met the ground, I teetered. I flung out my palm, catching myself on the car door. My head spun like a top. I breathed in and out slowly, each breath raking up my chest like claws.

  A hand curved around my waist and another around my elbow. “Are you sure you want to go down there?”

  “Yes.” I inhaled again. “My bag. You have my bag?”

  “It’s in the car.”

  Everest’s last message was on my phone.

  My phone was in my bag.

  “Can you give it to me?”

  August grabbed it, then hooked the long strap over my shoulder. After closing the door, he gripped my elbow again and guided me toward the illuminated ditch. The first thing I saw was the overturned vehicle.

  Everest’s Jeep.

  The second thing I saw was Liam’s deep glare.

  “What the fuck were you thinking bringing her here, Watt?” he barked.

  The firefighter beside Liam peered up. The truck’s beam made a small hoop gleam in his ear. In spite of his helmet, I recognized Rodrigo, the dark shifter who’d spent most of the meeting scowling at me.

  “I made him bring me,” I said.

  Car doors slammed, and two more people approached: Frank and Eric. Frank did a double take when he spotted me. Obviously no one had expected me to come.

  Eric grabbed onto the bent guardrail and hopped down the vertiginous shoulder. He slipped but didn’t fall. Putting his weight in his heels, he took careful steps toward the remains of my cousin’s car.

  Of my cousin.

  Frank exchanged a loaded look with August. The elder was probably trying to get August to keep me from going closer. Before he could heed the unspoken instruction, I shrugged him off and made my way to the ripped metal railing, brushing past it. I eased myself down the side of the rocky knoll.

  Liam stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the car.