Shifter's Magic (The Wolvers Book 8)

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  Pulling the last string from the third bin, Olivia finally got the nerve to bring the been-there-done-that subject up. "Didi, can I ask you a personal question?"

  "No law against it. No law says I have to answer, neither."

  "Fair enough. Why'd you come back to Gilead after you, um, left?"

  "Ran away, you mean." Didi let her hands fall, though she didn't let go of the snarled ball of wire. She didn't look at Olivia, but out at the road beyond. "Truth is I didn't have any place else to go. I'd been gone a while, but I knew they'd take me back. In Gilead, once you're pack, you're pack."

  Olivia nodded, but before she could formulate a polite way to ask why she ran off in the first place, Didi answered it.

  "Bet you wanna know what happened, doncha? It's pretty simple really. I loved Roger Wilson and he loved me, but things got in the way and he wouldn't mate. He had his reasons, and I guess they were good ones, but no girl wants to hear 'em when she's in love and itchin' to settle down. I told myself I didn't need that ole Roger Wilson. I could do better. Who needs this squatty little town anyway, right? I started cattin' around over at the Tooth and Fang lookin' for a way out and half hopin' Roger would draw me back in. He didn't, figuring it was best for both of us to let me go, the damn fool.

  "Sure enough, this good looking wolver shows up wearing a fancy hat and a belt with one of them big silver buckles – real silver, too, and not that fake stuff. He was driving a big shiny car. He thought I was pretty shiny, too. He called me Deirdra Darling like I was something special. He was passing through on his way to Las Vegas and asked me if I wanted to go. I figured what the hell, there wasn't anything keeping me here, right? There had to be something more out there than this little podunk town. You ever been to Vegas?"

  "Can't say that I have." Olivia, too, had stopped her untangling to listen.

  "It's just like they show on TV, all flash and gold and glitter, and you wouldn't believe the stores. He was a professional gambler. Don't that beat all? Pretty good at it, too. We stayed in a fancy hotel for a while, then travelled around for a bit, then back to Vegas, same room, same hotel, but it never was home, and after a while, the shiny wore off." She shrugged and started working on the string of lights again.

  "I don't know what happened. Maybe the shiny wore off me, too. One day I came back to the room and he was gone. He wasn't a good man, but he wasn't a bad one either. He left me a little case filled with money, and a note saying he'd had a good time and the room was paid up for another week. The week went by, and I packed up, and came back to Gilead." Didi looked up at the sky and smiled.

  Olivia thought she knew why. "Where you hooked up with Roger again, and lived happily ever after, right?"

  Didi looked down at Olivia and laughed. "Oh, hell no. I tried six ways from Sunday to get that man to see the light, but he's a stubborn old fool." As if by magic, the tangled ball fell apart and Didi unwound the strand. She laughed again. "Then just like that, his reasons untangled and all the other things that were holding us back just disappeared, and here we are."

  "And I'll tell you something else, Livvy Dawson, to save you the askin'. I know what some folks say about me and Roger and they'd be wrong. My wolf cried out for him long before I'd looked at him twice. He wasn't my type, you know? I was lookin' for a fella with a little more flash, a little more pizazz, I guess. And Roger, well, he was looking for a girl with a little less, if you know what I mean." Didi laughed softly.

  "We were both stupid, and our wolves knew it. They knew what they needed. They didn't care what we looked like walkin' down the road together." She was quiet for a moment as if searching for the words she needed. "Roger Wilson is my heart's home and he calls me his shining star, and fifty years from now, that home'll still be solid and secure, and I'll be old, saggy, and wrinkled, and he'll still see his shining star." She laughed again. "Sounds funny when you say it out loud."

  "No, it doesn't, Didi. It sounds beautiful." Olivia looked away from the woman to hide the sudden burning in her eyes. "What if those reasons never untangled? What if one of you never saw the light?" she asked bleakly.

  She concentrated on the copse of trees across the road and wondered if they already held the answer to her question. Stripped of their summer finery, the patch of wood looked cold, grey, and barren.

  "It never got to that point, so I don't really know, now do I? Oh, I thought about it some, but that's kind of like thinking about what you'd do if someone yelled fire. You don't really know until it's real. I know I'd have slept on a soggy pillow for a time, but I wouldn't have been hanging that pillow out to dry where folks could see. I've got too much pride for that." Didi shrugged.

  "Maybe I'd have run off again lookin' for another wolver with a silver belt buckle and a shiny car, but I'd like to think I'd have set my sights in another direction." Didi looked over at her children and smiled. "Most wolvers don't ever find their wolf's true mate, but that don't mean they can't be happy. For all my faults, I never was one for moping around feeling sorry for myself. One way or another, I'd have found another dream."

  No longer bouncing, the largest of the Wilson litter waddled across the yard to her mother. She only fell and rolled twice. Didi helped her up the second time and leaned down to listen.

  "Okay, go get your brothers. I'm on my way." The pup waddled off. "Gotta go. Potty time."

  "I can watch the other two if you'd like," Olivia offered.

  Didi waved the offer away. "Wouldn't do any good. It's like their bladders are connected or something. One goes, they all have to go. It was real nice talking to you. Sorry I wasn't more help." She started to walk away.

  "Sorry?" Olivia called after her. "You saved me a ton of time and it was nice talking to you, too. Thanks." She hesitated, but only for a second and then called out what was in her mind. "Didi? I'm sorry that I was one of those people who thought wrong."

  "That's okay. I think I might have been wrong about you, too. See you later, Livvy. Maybe we can talk again some time."

  She was Livvy again. She would always be Livvy in Gilead, but she was beginning to think that wasn't so bad.

  In a much better mood than when she began, she checked the lights one string at a time and replaced the bulbs from the packs the Mate had supplied. She started planning her mini Christmas light extravaganza, eyeing the trees across the road and wondering if she had enough strings to scatter them through the branches.

  She wasn't alone for long. Tony showed up, showered and clean shaven, and driving a classic Camaro convertible that looked like it came directly from the showroom. He looked surprised to see her alone.

  "I figured someone would have shown up by now."

  He barely got the words out before a couple of boys showed up followed by a couple more, followed by Livvy's younger brothers. They gathered around the car. He popped the hood and opened the doors for them to have a look. Within minutes, three girls appeared.

  "Like bees to honey, boys to cars, girls to boys," he laughed.

  With the exception of her brothers, they all looked to be between ten and twelve. He let them look their fill, then closed the car up.

  "Miss Livvy needs some help hanging decorations." He raised his hand. "Any volunteers?" When every hand went up, he waved to the neatly rolled coils. "Have at it."

  The youngsters dove for the boxes.

  "No! Wait," Livvy cried, clapping her hands for attention. "I think we need a few instructions before we begin." She wasn't about to turn down an hour or so of help, but she wasn't going to let it turn into a free-for-all, either.

  Chapter 12

  They needed not only instruction, but organization as more and more youngsters showed up. There were more little ones than big ones, the majority six years and below. Their ages and numbers coincided with the new Alpha taking over.

  "Yes, ma'am. Yes ma'am," they called in reply to her directions and beamed at her praise. One little girl even asked if she was to be their new teacher.

  "No, but I wish I was,"
Livvy admitted wistfully.

  They made her remember why she'd wanted to teach. She began to imagine their faces in a classroom of her own. She thought about the possibility of applying as a local substitute teacher and liked the idea more than leaving Gilead for another pack. Her parents wouldn't mind another body in the house. She could afford it if she didn't have to pay rent, and the experience might give her an intro to a position when one became available.

  One hour turned into two and then three.

  Parents began showing up in search of their litters who hadn't shown up for their suppers. Instead of taking them away, mothers went home and returned bearing those suppers and anything else they had to add to the mix. Men carried ladders, additional lights, and gallons of hot chocolate. Roger Wilson dragged a metal barrel into the middle of the street and recruited two cubs to fill it with wood. A fire was lit to warm the hands of the growing number of helpers.

  Livvy stood in the middle of it all directing traffic. With each decorative addition, her simple plan grew and expanded. She only allowed the adults to interfere where safety was a concern. They were allowed to hold the ladders, but the older cubs did the climbing. Others supervised little hands and feet as the pups carried their assigned strings to their destinations.

  True to his promise, Tony helped. He laughed and flirted, innocently and in good fun, with a half dozen young female admirers who giggled uncontrollably at everything he said, and immediately obeyed his every command.

  He laughed and spread his arms wide to show off his not unremarkable physique when he caught her, hands on hips, shaking her head at his outrageous behavior. "Hey, if you've got it, you should share the joy. Right?"

  Her parents showed up, too, with her aunt and uncle in tow. Harvey immediately set to work lifting little ones high in the air to hang tinsel snowflakes from tree branches. Each successfully positioned snowflake earned the pup a squeal inducing toss in the air followed by a death defying landing. Within minutes, he had a waiting line of shouting pups.

  "Me! Me! I want to hang one, too!"

  Donna tried to hide her smile with an exasperated shake of her head. "Will you look at that old goat? He'll be moaning about his sore back tomorrow."

  "He wants a grandpup of his own, Donna," Ellie laughed.

  "Well I'm not the one stopping him, am I?"

  "Are you sure about that?"

  The argument was averted by the arrival of Edna and Edith, each with a basket on their arm. They handed each adult they met a brown beer bottle with the label scrubbed off.

  "Good for what ails you," Edith chirped.

  "And if nothing ails you, it's good for that, too," Edna added. "Would you like one, dear?" she asked Livvy. "It cures all ills. It relaxes the body and stimulates the senses."

  The sisters giggled at Edna's description.

  It probably did, at least temporarily. The elixir was their secret family recipe. Rumor had it that Dear Earnest made a fortune selling the stuff door to door back in the day. Not only did he sell it to humans as a cure all, but travelled to wolver packs throughout the southwest where Mama's Elixir was in great demand. It was the only known substance that could do to wolvers what alcohol could do to everyone else.

  Livvy had been warned against it since she was a little girl. "Thanks, Miz Edna, but not right now."

  The decorating was going so well, Livvy was ready to take a break and ask her mother what she thought of the substitute teaching plan, but thoughts of Brad held her back. Living in Gilead, she wouldn't be able to avoid him. Could she withstand the pain of seeing him regularly, knowing what she'd done and how she felt? And what if he mated? Her concern was for this phantom mate, of course. It would be awkward at best.

  "What do you want us to do with this?" Tony stood beside her holding up the three foot wooden star.

  "Flagpole," she told him. "I've been saving that for last as the grand finale. Do you have a hot date or something? You keep looking over your shoulder as if you're looking for someone." He'd been doing it on and off since he got there. "You can leave if you need to. I have plenty of help now and you've done more than enough for me. I don't know if I said thank you, but I do. You were a friend when I needed one."

  He craned his neck to look over the crowd and then turned to her. "Thank me later. Let's get this star up. What do I need to do?"

  "Attach it to the rope and hoist it up."

  She arranged the younger pups around the flagpole, each pair holding a string of lights like ribbons around a maypole. The ribbons would rise with the star. At her nod, Tony began raising the star. About three-quarters of the way up the rope stuck. The star twisted, turned, and finally wedged between the rope and pole.

  They lowered it and tried again with plenty of advice from the crowd. Again, they failed. On the fourth try, Tony gave up.

  "It's no use. Whatever's catching up there won't budge."

  Many of the adults nodded in agreement. They'd spent years facing challenges that wouldn't budge, and this one was minor. The younger pups looked to Livvy with hope in their eyes. Since she was the adult in charge, she would naturally fix the problem. They pouted when she offered no immediate solution, dropped their ribbons, and sought their mamas. At their age, disappointment was fleeting and easily cured with hot chocolate and cookies. It was the faces of the cubs, those between ten and sixteen, that pierced Livvy's heart.

  The animation she'd seen in those faces earlier retreated into sullenness or blank acceptance. A few turned their backs and started to walk away. Not one insisted they try again. Livvy could almost read their minds. Why bother trying when the odds of success were slim to none? How long would it be before those younger, more hopeful pups began to feel the same way?

  This was Gilead, where joblessness and poverty were a way of life for many, where the future held little more than the present, where change happened so slowly it was difficult to see if you were living in the midst of it, and where resignation or rebellion looked like the only options. There was no in between.

  Livvy understood this because it was exactly what she'd felt at that age. For her, the choice was to accept the life she knew or escape from it. So many of her wolver classmates had dropped out of school. They'd chosen to accept what life had programmed them to accept. They'd reduced their childhood dreams to just that. Dreams.

  Livvy had chosen rebellion. Fortunately, she'd chosen education as her means, and her mother had found a way to fund her revolt.

  Having little knowledge of the futures of those who left the pack before her, she'd assumed that they found money and happiness and therefore never returned. She understood now that many of those who left probably hadn't met with much success. Had they been like her, too proud to return? She thought that in leaving Gilead she'd changed, but seeing those cubs, she knew she hadn't. She still saw success in terms of escape. She still saw defeat in her return. Why, when the proof in front of her said otherwise?

  Gilead was changing, but her attitude toward it had not. Being away for so long had opened her eyes. It was her heart that refused to see what was right in front of her. She saw the difference that new and steady employment brought to members of the pack. There were fewer homes like the Tilson's and more like her parents', not fancy, but warm and cozy places to live. And in returning, she also saw those things she'd missed; the good things about Gilead that were so commonplace she hadn't appreciated them when she was there.

  Gilead was a good place to live. It had a lot going for it. The pack was a tightly knit community, protective and accepting of each other, and loyal to the Alpha and Mate. Like members of a giant family, they might squabble among themselves, but when the chips were down they banded together, held out a hand to support each other, and if necessary, fought together side by side. Once you were pack, you were pack, and pack took care of its own.

  The only thing wrong with Gilead was that so many couldn't see what was right beneath their noses.

  Hanging that star suddenly became very important, no
t to Olivia Dawson, but to Livvy Dawson. These cubs needed to see that walking away wasn't an answer. They needed to see that giving up wasn't an option. They needed to see that dreams, no matter how small, could come true right here in Gilead. For her, that star became more than the light atop a flagpole.

  "Wait!" she called out to them. "We're not done yet."

  "You have another idea?" Tony asked.

  "Yes, and all you have to do is give me a boost up and catch me if I fall."

  Tony tilted his head all the way back to see the top of the thirty foot pole. "Are you sure?"

  "I've done it before," she said with more confidence than she felt.

  It was crazy. She wasn't a thirteen-year-old cub anymore, taking a dare. She wasn't sixteen and proving to her boyfriend that she not only did it, but could do it again. She was a mature adult, but just like at thirteen and sixteen, she had something to prove. Not to her brother and his friends, or Brad, but to herself. After so many failures as Olivia, she needed to prove that Livvy Dawson could still succeed once she set her mind to it.

  Livvy kicked off her boots and peeled away her socks. The ground was cold and that thirty foot pole would be colder, but she'd tested it and it wasn't frozen to the point where her bare flesh would stick. Most of the adults shouted their caution and urged her to stop, but the younger ones cheered her on.

  She was halfway up when she realized the climb was a lot more difficult than she anticipated. Climbing the pole in May was not the same as climbing it in December.

  It was covered with a thin layer of ice, not enough for her hands to stick, but enough for their warmth to melt it. The heat of her body pressed against the metal added to the problem. The pole became slick with water from the melting ice and her feet began to slip. She was beginning to think she should abandon her plan when she caught sight of Brad standing at the edge of the crowd, arms folded across his chest, and slowly shaking his head from side to side. His scowl expressed his opinion.

  He thought she couldn't do it. He thought, like everything else she'd tried, this would be another failure. He would no doubt throw it in her face as he had the car, the trailer, and the underpants. Well he'd had his revenge, and she'd had enough of it. She'd failed, but that didn't mean she was a failure, and she was tired of feeling like one.