For two years, Eva-Jo and Krista had lived side-by-side in the Reed cabin. Krista used to do Eva-Jo’s homework for her after she did her own. Out of the three Reed kids, Eva-Jo was the only one who’d bothered to finish high school; Percy and Gummi had stopped going to school when they turned twelve.
“Not sayin’ that at all.” Eva-Jo folded her arms over her skinny chest. “Just that family is family. And pack is pack.” Weird. Clan loyalty was important around here, that was true, but Krista hadn’t realized Eva-Jo had any time for anyone other than her ma and maybe her two dipshit brothers—when she wasn’t threatening them with shotguns, that was.
Eva-Jo cocked her head to one side. “That’s why you come back, right?” she said. “Family reunion. Catch up with the folks back home. Raise a few jars of moonshine, eat some of that potato salad Hattie makes by the gallon, maybe parade your handsome new beau around in front of a few of them girls from the pep squad?”
Krista nodded, and Eva-Jo relaxed a little, but not all the way.“That’s good, Kris,” she said quietly. “That’s what you should do. And then you should go home. You been out way too long to be playin’ in the kind o’ dirt we roll in now.” She stepped back, finally glancing at Blake. “’Sides, you’re finally clear of this place. Don’t get sucked back in. See your momma, show your face at the shindig, then get out and don’t come back.”
Krista wished she could. “Everything okay around here?” she asked. Hinting, but not coming out and saying it.
Eva-Jo arched an eyebrow. “Everything’s just fine, Krista. Why wouldn’t it be?”
Well, there was her answer. The Reeds either didn’t know anything or weren’t going to say anything. This would have been Eva-Jo’s chance to talk if she wanted to.
“No reason at all. Good to see you again,” she said. She slid her arm around Blake’s waist and they turned and walked back down the trail.
They’d only gotten a few hundred yards when they heard the crack of a gun, making them start. The bullet whizzed past them, burying itself in a tree.
“Percy, you ree-tard!” Eva-Jo screamed, and Krista knew that was mostly for her benefit, to tell Krista that it hadn’t been her doing, and then she heard horrendous growls and snarls.
Blake swung around as if he were going to charge right up the hill. Krista put her hand on his arm to stop him.
“They’ve shifted, they’re going to fight til they bleed, and we do not want to get in the middle of that,” she said in low, urgent tones. “Percy’s a crack shot. If he wanted to hit either one of us, he would. Let’s go. Blake, I mean it. Let’s go.”
Chapter Seven
They were both hungry, and it was too late to go knocking on anybody else’s doors without being greeted with either a face full of lead or a mouthful of fangs, so Krista directed him to Floyd’s Diner. There was always the hope that someone there might talk to Krista if she had a chance to get a minute alone with them.
Floyd, as Krista recalled, was sweet on Hattie. Maybe that would help. Floyd was a widower, and Hattie was a determined spinster, but when Krista had been living in Flowering Dogwood, Floyd kept hoping he could change Hattie’s mind.
Floyd’s was a classic 1950s diner right off the main road that cut through Flowering Dogwood. It was shaped like a silver train car, and the “y” in the neon sign was broken and had been for as long as Krista could remember. As in, the last couple of decades. Krista actually felt a fierce burn of nostalgia flare up inside her as they pulled in to the parking lot. She and her high school friends, saving up their quarters to buy a greasy burger and fries… that was the highlight of their week. Not all of her memories of Flowering Dogwood were bad.
As they climbed out of the car, tension twisted in her stomach. Their visit to the Reeds’ cabin had given them questions rather than answers.
Eva-Jo had all but openly told Krista not to sniff around—but was that because she knew something about Ethan or just a general warning not to mess with Reed family business?
The Reeds must know about Ethan’s disappearance—they could hardly have missed a frantic bunch of lions searching for a cub right next to property where they owned a cabin. Eva-Jo hadn’t mentioned it, but that could be because if it didn’t affect the Reeds, the Reeds didn’t give a hoot.
Her dark thoughts were interrupted when she caught sight of Linda-Fae Dyer, bathed in the yellowish light of the diner’s parking lot and up to her furry little neck in trouble, as she so often was. She was a raccoon shifter. As such, she was a little too huggy—which was partly sincere sweetness and partly raccoon tricksiness—and had “nimble fingers”.
Most people were pretty good-natured about her compulsively light fingers—she was perky and giggly, and the second she was caught, she always passed it off as if it were some kind of hilarious practical joke she’d just played. The problem was that this time she’d lifted Bo Durian’s wallet. And he was looming over Linda-Fae now, lips peeled back in a snarl and ears gone pointy and furry.
Bo Durian was the biggest wolf shifter in the holler. He was sort of friends with Percy, which spoke volumes. He’d bullied Krista in high school in a bored, casual way, like she was hardly worth tormenting, but he’d do it out of a sense of obligation. Then again, he’d given the same treatment to anyone weaker than him.
The little raccoon shifter giggled nervously, holding out Bo’s wallet. “Here. I didn’t mean anything by it. Just take it back.”
The wolf reached out one massive, heavy hand and let it drop on Linda-Fae’s shoulder, just a little too close to her breast for comfort. She squirmed and flinched, trying to take a step back, but Bo followed her. “Well now,” he growled. “I reckon you owe me a little something for my time and trouble…”
But before he could do anything, Blake was there, his wolf propelling him with the corner of his mouth lifted in a snarl. He grabbed Bo’s hand before he could do any damage to Linda Fae and growled, “You probably don’t want to do that.”
Lord save us from good, brave, chivalrous, dumb-as rocks men. A bloody fight in a parking lot, with everyone watching avidly through the windows of the diner, was the last thing they needed right now. What part of “follow my lead” was Blake having a hard time with? All of it, apparently.
Before the guys could wolf out and start tearing chunks off each other, she needed to defuse the situation. So she waved at Bo and smiled. It would be best to deflect his attention. “Hey, Bo. Long time.”
He narrowed his yellow wolf eyes at her for a long moment, then recognition replaced his anger.
“Why, if it isn’t Krista Ellis.” He snatched his wallet from Linda Fae’s hand. Then a mean smile twisted his lips, and he moved in towards Krista to try to give her a hug.
Krista knew the hug wasn’t for her. It was for Blake. Bo wasn’t a huggy kind of person, and the only time he’d paid attention to her in high school was when he was leading the jocks in chants of “fatty fatty two by four” whenever Krista walked by. He’d picked on her because of the extra pounds she carried and because he liked nothing better than pushing people’s buttons. And that was what he was doing now—trying to get a rise out of Blake by hitting on what he assumed was his girl.
She skipped back quickly.“No hugs,” she said quickly. “Bo’s my mate.” She didn’t need to explain further.
He shrugged, stepping back and looking her up and down in that creepy way he had. His gaze was like a shower of filth splashing over her; she suppressed a shudder. “Whew-ee, girl! Just look at you. All cityfied and ree-fined.” He emphasized the words—which were meant as an insult—with a flare of his hands.
Linda-Fae took the opportunity to scurry as fast as her little feet could carry her, giggling hysterically out of nervousness, running towards the diner.
Krista smiled tightly. She wasn’t going to rise to the bait. “Still working the mine?”
She knew that wasn’t the case because the mine had closed; she was just making idle chit-chat while she studied his face and body language
to see if he gave anything away.
The mine had been closed down for the past three years because of a cave-in. Half a dozen miners had been injured. Dawnie had declared it was too dangerous to work, and the government had found the experienced local miners reluctant to go against her say-so.
Of course, it was a classic Dawnie maneuver. She came across as the Matriarch of the Mountain yet again, all fierce protectiveness and only looking out for her people, but she’d also shut down the biggest employer in the area—which meant that the local shifters were that much more dependent on her.
Those were the mines that Michael Coffman had been planning to open back up again. They still had rich seams which hadn’t been worked yet.
“Nah, girl. They gone bust.” He turned and assessed Blake while chewing on what had to be a toothpick.
She hadn’t even realized people still chewed toothpicks. But of course, Bo would. He never went anywhere without them. There’d be a stash of them in the left front pocket of his shirt.
He dragged his harsh gaze back to her. “Been working with Dawnie. She’s really stepped up for the holler since the mine’s shut down.”
“Good to hear.” She purposefully kept her expression pleasantly blank, even though Bo’s presence and his unwashed reek brought back a million bad memories.
“So, what brings you back here?”
“Hattie wore me down with her yammering. I’m back for the family gathering.”
Bo wasn’t bright, but like a lot of bullies, he had a low animal cunning. He narrowed his eyes, then glanced at Blake, raising one dark eyebrow in suspicion.
“Now, after all this time? You missed plenty of family gatherings before. What you really here for?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest.
Krista could still feel waves of alpha-male energy emanating from Blake, like static electricity in the air. If she’d been in vixen form, it would have made her fur crackle.
“I’m here for the family gathering,” she repeated. “Ask me a hundred times, you’ll get the same answer.”
His mean, narrow gaze slid over to Blake.“And why’s he here?”
“I just told you.” She let exasperation seep into her voice. “He’s my fated mate.”
Bo coughed, raising a fist to his mouth. He took a step back, then pointed between the two of them. “So you said.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not that hard to figure.”
“Is that so? Must be pretty new. You don’t smell bonded.” He flashed her a challenging look.
More dumb holler superstitions. “It is very new. Thanks for your concern.”
“Well.” He flashed a sarcastic smirk at her. “Krista Ellis finally found a man. Whoever would have thought.”
That shouldn’t have hurt, considering the source, but it did. It dragged her right back to high school. Krista Ellis, chubby nerd, daughter of the town tramp. She’d had her little circle of friends, but she’d basically been seen as a sexless bookworm; she hadn’t even gone on a date until years after she fled town.
It was almost like Blake could sense her feelings. “Say that again,” Blake said, his eyes blazing with rage. Bo’s eyes flashed with defiance—for a few moments. Then he looked Blake up and down and apparently realized that he’d crossed a line. Shifters have an instinctive sense of each other’s strength and dominance. If Bo had been drunk he might have over-ridden his own survival instincts and challenged Blake, which would have been a fatal mistake. But at the moment he was clear-headed enough to see that he was staring death in the face. He dropped his gaze to the ground in submission.
“Sorry,” he muttered to Blake.
“No, you say sorry to her.” Blake was so tense with the effort of holding himself back that he was practically vibrating.
Bo’s face twisted into an ugly knot. “Sorry, Krista,” he muttered.
“It’s nothing,” Krista said coolly. I wouldn’t have expected any better from you. She drew on all of her reserves of willpower not to say those last words out loud. She’d just gotten here; she couldn’t be starting fights left and right if she wanted to have any hope of helping to find Ethan.
Bo hurried over to his truck and scrambled in. He waited until he got the engine running before he yelled out the window, “Hope you live long enough to get that mate-bond going. Not looking good, though.” And then he peeled out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust.
She barely heard the threat over the sound of the alarm clanging inside her head. She’d told Bo that Blake was her fated mate, and he hadn’t read the lie on her face. That meant she was in big, big trouble.
Chapter Eight
Blake
The sky was pitch black now, sprinkled with thousands of cold white stars. Blake clenched the wheel of the SUV so tightly that the plastic cracked in his grip. Krista stared out the window, making a big show of ignoring him.
And they were still hungry. Krista nibbled on a protein bar that Blake had brought, but that wasn’t going to be very filling.
When they’d tried to put in a to-go order, Floyd had hustled over and elbowed the waitress out of the way and said, “You say hey to Dawnie yet?”
And when Krista had told him that Dawnie wasn’t home when she’d stopped by, he’d frowned and said, “Maybe you should come back later then.”
Krista had flashed him an annoyed look and snapped, “I’ll pass that along to Hattie.”
So, they’d left, stomachs growling, feeling the curious and not so friendly gazes of a dozen customers burning into their backs as they walked across the parking lot.
Krista was frustrated, Blake knew. She didn’t worry. As they drove, they’d debated what Bo’s behavior meant. Was he threatening them just because he was a bully and an asshole and he felt humiliated at being out-wolfed by Blake? Or did he have something to hide—like, say, a kidnapping?
Earlier, Stef had directed Blake and Krista to meet her and the rest of the team in a house an hour’s drive from Flowering Dogwood. The U.S. Marshals had confiscated the house during a drug bust, and Stef had called in favors to get them to let her team use it during the search. The Marshals were as eager as Shifters, Inc. to see Ethan Coffman found; an all-out shifter war would be a disaster for both humans and shifters in the region.
A dark anger still burned inside Blake at the way Bo had spoken to Krista, but he knew that going wolf and ripping Bo’s face off would have tanked their mission before it started. He should never have lost it like that.
The way Krista had dealt with him, calm and fearless, filled him with admiration. There wasn’t a thing he didn’t like about her. He just wished there’d been another way to get her help on this case. She was completely icing him out now, which wasn’t surprising, but it stung.
He wished he knew what had happened to make her so reluctant to come back. Surely there had to be more to it than choosing a path other than the family “business”. He wondered what memories were haunting her now. He knew a lot about dark thoughts creeping in uninvited.
And he didn’t like the frown creasing her forehead or the tense set of her jaw. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, sure, I live for close encounters with brain-rotted peckerwoods who bullied me all through high school.” She turned her blazing eyes to meet his. “That’s just a tiny part of the kind of thing I thought I’d left behind me forever. I never planned on stepping foot here again. But I have no choice. You took my choices away from me. That feels pretty familiar too, actually. When I was growing up here, Dawnie Reed had my path planned out for me, and I barely escaped by the skin of my teeth.”
His stomach twisted inside him. “I didn’t want to have to drag you here like this.”
“But you did it anyway.” She didn’t bother to look at him as she said it.
He felt a snap of impatience. His wolf didn’t like it when she was angry with him. “Yep. I did what I had to do, Krista. I regret that it was necessary.”
“Oh, bite me.” She flung open the door and slid out.
&nb
sp; “Where?” he called after her in an attempt to lighten the mood, and also because he’d love to nibble on any part of her body that was offered up to him, but she was already stalking off.
She paused as a large, dark minivan pulled in to the driveway. He strolled over to her. “That’s my boss Stef,” he said. “You’ll like her.”
She didn’t answer, just stared off into the distance.
“Krista. You do understand the importance of all this, don’t you? Can you imagine what Michael Coffman is going through?”
She twisted around to look at him, her eyes burning with an intense fire. “Blake, I would march into a den full of rabid wolverines if I thought it would help find that cub.” He believed her; he could see the hot, angry truth in her gaze. She was in a healing profession, and she’d chosen to work in a clinic in the poorest neighborhood in Crystal Bay. She wasn’t about money or prestige or shiny objects. Her purpose in life was to help. She really believed that there was nothing she could do to help him.
“I know,” he said quietly.
She ran her fingers through her hair, her face twisting in frustration. “What you saw tonight is exactly what I told you we’d get. Stonewalling, threats, and a warning shot. And mentions of Dawnie, as a reminder that their loyalty lies with her, and I’m on her bad side. I’m sincerely afraid that me being here is going to make things worse for you and make it harder to find Ethan.”
“What did you do to Dawnie Reed that’s got everyone so riled up?”
Her gaze slid away.“Well, for one thing, I left town when I was 16 after I’d lived with her for two years. You reject Dawnie’s hospitality, it’s kind of like spitting in Dawnie’s face.”
“And for another thing?” he prodded.
“That’s plenty.” And that wasn’t an answer.
But Stef was walking towards them now, and Krista was looking away again, avoiding the subject. Blake introduced Krista—not that Stef hadn’t seen plenty of surveillance photos and read every briefing they’d put together on her. She probably knew what size Krista took in panties.
Blackmailed By The Wolf (Shifters, Inc. Book 6) Page 6
