Mr. Dawson’s cheeks were slowly turning red. She had obviously made him angry. That much was pretty obvious. He exhaled in a rush and his eyelids fluttered open and closed behind those thick eyeglasses. “You need to make the payment. Now. If you don’t, I’m going to recommend to the bank that we start foreclosure procedures.”
“You can’t do that. You can’t possibly!” Landry protested. “I’ve been late like twice!”
He laid his hand flat on his desktop and did the over-the-glasses thing again. The ass. “You’ve been late twenty-two times over the last two years.”
“That’s totally unfair.” Landry muttered the words because she knew exactly what he was talking about. “You can’t call it late if you’re paying within the grace period. That’s bullshit.”
“Pay it now.” He narrowed his gaze even more and at that point he was a dead ringer for her dead grandmother.
“Fine!” Landry pulled out her purse and extracted her checkbook. “I’ll pay it!”
“No. You need to do a transfer.” His lips twisted at the corner as though he found this to be highly amusing somehow. He was a cruel little boy with a magnifying glass and she was the ant he had found to torture. His hands were hovering over his keyboard. “I’ll just take the money directly from your bank account.”
“Fine.” She tucked her checkbook back into her bag. “Go ahead.”
Clack. Clack. Clack. The sound of his fingers hitting the keyboard was annoying as hell. But not nearly as annoying as the snide smile he gave her—over the top of those stupid glasses. “Just so you know,” he began in a nasally voice filled to the brim with self-righteousness. “There is a remaining balance of twenty-four dollars and sixty-five cents in your account after this transaction.”
“Yeah. I can do math too.” Landry pursed her lips and tried to stop herself from the next thing she wanted to say. Unfortunately there seemed to be no way to get her mouth to stop moving. “In fact, I’m a math teacher. Middle school. I can do interest calculations pretty easily and that’s why I know that the amount of money that your bank makes off of me and every other one of its customers is absolutely ridiculous. I cannot imagine any other business where you can so absolutely fleece your customers right underneath their noses and get away from it. You charge me to use my money. You charge me when I don’t. You charge me when you use my money. You use my money to make money and then still charge me because it’s there. I’m sorry, but do you see anything about that situation that seems fair?”
Mr. Dawson was sputtering. He didn’t seem to have an answer and that was probably just as well. Landry stood up, slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder, and turned her back on the snooty little man. Leaving the bank felt good. Probably too good. Or rather it felt good because it wasn’t like she had any money there anyway. She didn’t have money at all.
As soon as she stepped outside the door of the bank she was drenched. Not just because of the sheet of water falling from the sky either. The air was so thick with humidity that she could have swam home through the muck. With a sigh she headed for the bus stop. It would probably be a pretty long wait, but at least there was a shelter that would help to keep her dry while she stood there and tapped her foot until the stupid bus came by.
Landry had a car. She just could not afford to drive it. Cars took gas. Busses took change. Jogging down the sidewalk, Landry reached the bus stop at the end of the block along with half a dozen other people. They all crammed together beneath the glass overhang. It was stuffy inside the bus shelter and smelled of old cheese.
This was what Landry’s life had become. It was hard to believe that she had grown up in a house smack dab in the middle of the most expensive neighborhood in Dallas. She had gone to a pricey prep school and had graduated at the top of her class. Then the banking disaster had happened and Landry’s family had been knocked off their wealthy Dallas society pedestal and had fallen about as far as a family could go.
Someone jostled Landry from behind. She turned and threw a glare over her shoulder. It was a man no doubt trying to rub up against her butt. Landry hated the bus. A woman a few feet away was yakking on her phone so loudly that it was echoing off the plasti-glass walls of the bus shelter and making the whole thing sound like an echoing canyon. At some point Landry was going to get sick of this situation and lose it. Then she would become a sensational news story on some news anchor’s desk.
The bus rumbled down the block. It stopped right in front of the shelter and opened the doors. People shoved each other in their eagerness to get out of the rain and into the dry—hypothetically anyway—interior of the bus. Since Landry was basically a twig with arms and legs and a stick figure head, she got immediately shoved to the back and nearly trampled. This caused her to become the last one on the bus.
Grinding her teeth in irritation Landry climbed the steps and found that she was going to have to stand. Then she fished in her pocket for change to pay the bus fare and came up empty. Shit. Her eyes fluttered and without even bothering to ask the driver for a helping hand, Landry turned around and walked back off the bus.
She ducked back into the bus shelter, which was blessedly empty and at least dry even if it was hotter than hell. Sinking slowly to the single bench in the center of the shelter, Landry inhaled and exhaled in long slow breaths. She needed to calm down. This was not a tragedy. Not yet. She had no money and not much food in her house. But she did have a roof over her head. She had a job. It didn’t make much money because she was just a middle school teacher on contract and was barely scraping by. But at least she was actually employed. That was more than most people could say.
Time seemed to spool by unchecked. At one point she happened to glance down and spot a quarter on the ground. She stooped over to pick it up. Beside that was a penny. She grabbed that too. Then she realized that farther underneath the bench was a dime. That went into her pocket as well. Landry struggled to decide what was better or worse. Walking home or sitting here until she could find enough change to just take the bus. The bus fare would not be much. She only needed to get home. During the regular work week she rode the school bus as a bus aide so that she got not only free transportation but also a bump in pay for the hours she spent policing kids on the bus route.
Of course, that meant she had to be home so that she would be there to board the bus like usual when Phyllis stopped by tomorrow morning at six o’clock to pick her up for the usual route. Great. Landry didn’t even have time to be poor.
The rain was beginning to taper off. With a sigh of total resignation Landry stood up and looked around for more change. There wasn’t any. But she could not help but think about the bus stops she would pass between here and her house. Perhaps it was worth stopping by them all and looking for loose change. That way the next time she got into this predicament she might have a prayer of getting a ride back to her own neighborhood.
The walk was long and as she trudged along Landry could not stop wondering if things would ever change. Cars sped by on her left and she paid them little attention other than trying to keep her path on the far right of the sidewalk to avoid getting splashed. Her brain sank right into autopilot and she continued to put one foot in front of the other until she felt as though she were nothing more than a robot.
At some point, Landry realized that there was a vehicle keeping pace beside her. With a frown on her face, she turned to glare at the obnoxious motorist. The truck was new, expensive, and seemed to be driven by a man. Then Landry took a closer look and nearly tripped over her own two feet.
“Hey, Landry, can I offer you a ride somewhere?”
Landry blinked. The rain had stopped. When had that happened? Her eyelashes were still soaked and for a second she thought she might be imagining the sight of Zane King sitting in the driver’s seat of that truck.
Zane. It had been years. Maybe not. Landry could not have said because her life had come so far from the time when she had known Zane that it almost felt as though she had entered a paralle
l universe. Zane King was part of the life that Landry had in prep school when there had been money and her parents had still been alive. Now though? It was all different.
“Landry, don’t you remember me? Come on,” Zane chided with gentle good humor. “You remember me!”
“It isn’t that I don’t remember you, Zane King.” Landry tried to keep herself from staring at him. It was kind of hard to do because he was very stare worthy.
Zane was tall, muscular and handsome. The guy looked as though he could have sold underwear on a billboard on the side of the highway in Dallas. The chiseled planes of his face were still probably the most intelligent and best looking that Landry had ever seen. He had shoulders that were broad and packed with muscle. His abs gave life to the word washboard.
At least that was what Landry remembered about him. Right now she was trying very hard not to think about it. She needed to keep her mind on things that mattered. Like real life.
“Landry, just let me give you a ride.” He sounded exasperated.
She didn’t even look at him. She just kept trudging down the sidewalk. It was only a few more miles. “I’m fine, thank you. Have a good day, Mr. King.”
“Mr. King?” The truck tires squealed to a stop on the wet road as he flung the vehicle into park. The other cars on the street honked and swerved to avoid him. “When do you ever call me Mr. King?”
Keep walking. Keep walking. Oh my God, he got out of the truck!
Not only had Zane gotten out of the truck he was stomping around the front of the vehicle and heading toward her as though he intended to plant himself right in front of her like some kind of human roadblock. A totally hot one.
“Landry, look at me.”
She stopped walking. With a heavy sigh she glanced up at him and tried to stop the thunder of her heartbeat. This was just an old acquaintance and nothing more. He would never be more. And really that was a good thing because the guy was an unbelievable playboy. She should be thanking her lucky stars that she didn’t have any other relationship with him.
“Don’t you have women to womanize?” Landry painted her words with sarcasm. “It was really good to see you, Mr. King. But I think you should probably just get back in your truck and keep moving. I’m on my way home and I don’t need a ride or anything else from you.”
“Landry, don’t be that way.” Zane shoved his fingers through his hair. Why did he have to be so yummy? It was a damn crime! “How about we have dinner? Not tonight. You’re obviously busy. But how about tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow night?” Landry gnawed her lip. It was food. Could she really afford to turn down the opportunity of food? Free food no less because Zane King would never let a woman pay for a meal. Swallowing back her pride and feeling as though she were probably making a colossal mistake in service of her stomach, Landry finally bobbed her head. “Fine. Tomorrow night. You can pick me up at this address.”
“What address?”
Landry dug in her bag for a pen. Then she grabbed his hand and scribbled her address on the palm of his hand. She tried to tell herself that it was no big deal to touch his hand. It wasn’t incredibly strong and masculine. She did not notice how tanned and muscular it was. And she was not feeling a distinct pang in her midsection because of the contact.
“There.” Landry bobbed her head. “Seven o’clock. If you’re a minute late I’m not going to answer the door.”
“Seven.” He winked at her and then in only a few moments he was gone and Landry was left to walk the rest of the way home in wet, sodden, silence with nothing but her thoughts to keep her occupied.
Chapter Two
The wind ruffled Zane’s hair. It tickled a path through the thick charcoal gray ruff around his neck and continued down his back until he felt the urge to shake and whip his bushy tail from side to side. The sleek wolf shifter lifted his muzzle to the wind and inhaled the huge variety of scents around him. Dallas. Late November. That meant the air was damp and Zane could smell everything from car exhaust and gasoline to the tang of wood smoke hanging in the air from the hundreds of fireplaces going full blast against the cool fall air.
The sky was overcast and the moon hid behind the clouds. The street was dark. This was mostly because some unknown individual—ahem—had been out here earlier with a pellet gun shooting the lights to make sure that there would be full cover of darkness for Zane’s midnight run. When the night was black as pitch nobody could make out the enormous wolf trotting down the sidewalk. If that meant Zane had to break a few laws and vandalize some street lights he figured that was a fair trade.
Pausing on the corner not far from his family home, Zane wondered if his mother had come home yet. The fall season was a whirlwind of parties and social events in Dallas and Tisha Olivares-King was the self-proclaimed queen of the social circuit. Lately she had been even more obsessed with her social calendar. It had become her refuge from reality. At least that was what it seemed like to Zane.
He loped away from the King house in University Park and eventually had to duck into the backyards of the general populace. This set the dogs barking, but they didn’t bother Zane. He pounded on silent paws through gardens and bounded over fences. The exercise did him good. It cleared his head and stretched his muscles and made him feel alive. His brothers preferred to run out at the family’s ranch, but Zane liked the excitement and variety of city free running.
Under an enormous trampoline and over a covered hot tub he went. Zane barely paused to slide his body just a few inches to the right in order to avoid a pool of yellow light created by a backyard floodlamp. A dog a few yards away barked as though it intended to rip Zane’s leg off.
If Zane could have smiled in his wolf form, he would have. The dog was shouting at its owners, telling them exactly what was in the yard and what Zane was and the humans didn’t know enough to listen to their pets.
“Shut up!” came the cry from inside the house. “Bad dog!”
Zane gave a short yip and the dog went silent. There was no need for the poor creature to get in trouble on Zane’s account. He was only perusing the enormous backyards of the houses in University Park because they were available and so large that he could run forever without ever having to let his feet touch pavement in the street.
A huge privacy fence loomed ahead. Zane laid his ears flat against his skull and bounded for the top. He hooked his front paws over the top of the six foot brick monstrosity and splayed his legs to lever his body over. The rush of accomplishment lasted just long enough for him to hit the ground and tumble headfirst into an inground swimming pool.
Dammit!
His legs pumped against the water as he smoothly swam for the shallow end of the pool. At least he had a human brain in this wolf body and wasn’t stuck trying to crawl out of the deep end. He knew well enough to head for the stairs at the shallow end of the pool. He felt his paws hit the cement of the pool bottom and plowed his way out of the water. Shaking off, he headed for the nearest fence.
That was about the time he spotted the young couple making out on the deck chair a few yards away. Zane could not resist. His coat was still dripping with water. The couple hadn’t noticed him yet. Apparently the sloppy sounds of their teenage make-out session had drowned out the noise of his progress through the pool.
Zane got as close as he dared and shook hard. Water flew from his thick coat. It covered the deck chair, the couple, and most of the cement pool deck around them. Twin shrieks of outrage filled the night. Zane could not laugh and that was too bad because the sight was funny as hell.
The girl had been half supported on the young man’s knees. When he shot to a standing position and tried to back away from the water spray he inadvertently dumped his little girlfriend right off his knees. She tumbled off the chair and her bottom hit the cement deck hard. The air whooshed out of her lungs and interrupted her scream with an audible sound. It was a bit like a hiccup in her furious high-pitched shout.
“It’s a dog! There is a dog in ou
r pool!” the girl shouted. “Dad! Dad, there’s a dog in our pool! Someone’s dog is in our pool!”
Damn. Talk about a repetitious whiner. It was definitely time to go. Zane spun and bolted. He leaped out of the yard with the same ease that he had used to enter it. At least this time there was no pool waiting on the other side. Just grass.
Zane sprinted through that grass and headed for his original destination. Or at least it was his unofficial destination. A smaller house right where the zip codes changed and the houses got a bit smaller and older and more modest yet continued to be very charming. This was where Zane had been heading.
It took almost no time at all for his senses to focus in on the yard he wanted. It belonged to the address that Landry Fisher had scribbled on his palm earlier that day. There was no porch light on. It was late. It had to be after midnight by now. The sky was dark and overcast and it was not a night to be outside enjoying much of anything even though the owner of this yard obviously did come outside and enjoy spending time out here often enough to have a selection of Adirondack chairs and a firepit on the brick patio.
Zane cleared the back fence in one bound and then settled down to wait in the corner of the yard. The grass was still soft even though fall had advanced far enough to affect the quality of the green color. Zane was still damp from his unintentional swim. At least it meant he didn’t notice that the ground was damp as well.
There was one light on in the house. Zane knew it was in the bedroom. The tiny two-bedroom affair was a comfortable brick A-frame. It looked like any one of a dozen others on the street and was perhaps less than a thousand square feet. It was a far cry from the over five-thousand square feet homes just a few miles away. But then that was what Zane liked about the owner of this house. Landry worked hard for what she had and never expected anyone to give her a handout.
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 49
