A pause on the other end of the line. Anita had decided to ask if he’d heard her when he spoke at last. “Ah. Anita. Look, don’t worry about your shift tonight. I’ve got someone on the way to cover it.”
Nerves knotted her gut. “Um, all right. It really won’t take me that long.”
“It’s just as well. Anita… Shit. I hate like hell to do this. I know you and Lou are having some problems, and the Bullies are involved. Lou’s made some noise, and I don’t want any trouble here. So maybe it’s for the best if you steer clear of the place.”
She stopped walking, there on the side of the road. “Are you firing me, Bill? Because of Lou?”
“Not because of Lou. Because of whatever’s brewing with Lou and the Bullies. I hear things. Apparently, Lou was having a shouting match with Nicole a bit ago. Now she’s pissed, Shane’s pissed, and you’re right in the middle of it. I’m sorry, Anita. When all this blows over, we’ll talk about you coming back, okay?”
“It’s okay,” Anita said, even if it wasn’t. “Good luck, Bill.”
She killed the connection. A wave of frustrated hopelessness crashed over her and threatened to pull her under. The sunlit desert swam in front of her, warped by the tears that stung her eyes. So far, Lou had taken her pride, her truck, and now, her job. She had twenty dollars in cash. A text to the bank’s automated line told her Lou had cleared out the joint account, so she couldn’t call a cab.
But she could call Jake. The line went straight to voicemail again. “It’s Jake. Leave a message.”
“Jake! I need you. Where are you? I need you to come get me. I’m walking to your house. I don’t know of anywhere else to go. I’ll be somewhere between my place and yours. Call me, at least.” She killed the connection.
She could think of any number of reasons why he might not answer the phone. He might have turned it off so he could drive undisturbed. If shit had hit the fan, he might already be fielding other calls. But the worst reason, the one she tried not to think about, was that it had all fallen apart and he’d decided he didn’t want to speak to her again. That she’d turn up at his house, sore and tired, only to find he wanted nothing to do with her.
Don’t borrow trouble. Put one foot in front of the other. Walk now. You can sort this out when you get where you’re going. But it was a long way away, and the sun had already started its journey toward the west. She didn’t fancy walking after sundown.
5
Loyalties
Jake had just stepped out of the shower, wet and naked, when the phone went off. He ignored it while he dried himself, but it went off again the moment the first call had stopped. And again, and again, until he tossed the towel over his shoulder to go answer the damn thing before it exploded anymore.
By the display, all calls had come from Shane. As did the one that lit up the screen while Jake perused the old ones. He touched the screen to answer. “Sorry, Shane. I was in the shower.”
“You want to tell me what the fuck is going on?” the alpha asked, without preamble.
Shit. That doesn’t sound good. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“I thought we agreed to keep your night with Anita at your place a secret.”
“We did. And I haven’t told anyone. In fact, I haven’t said boo to a soul since you left.” Now, it really didn’t sound good. It sounded like a big, fat pile of shit impacting a high-speed fan. “Why? What’s happening?”
“Then she must have told someone, because it’s all the fuck over town,” Shane growled. “Lou heard about it before I could talk to him about it. I rolled up to his garage, and he tore me a new asshole for letting one of my pack fuck his wife. How I’d disrespected him as a friend, one brother to another. And how I’d disrespected him as part of our crew.”
Jake’s temper flared. “You know what a crock of shit that is, right? He cheated on his wife, she left him, and he still thinks he’s got a right to say what she does? That’s bull.”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t have to agree with him to catch it in the teeth. Lou’s decided that until the one who slept with his wife comes forward and makes things right, he’s not fixing our bikes. And he’s not giving back the ones he’s got in the shop already.”
“He’s what?”
“Travis took his bike in this morning after that prickly pear trouble. We figured he’d have it back by tonight. No chance of that now. And Nicole’s bike is still in there. Lou says all work stops, and we don’t get them back, until we clear this up.”
Jake’s jaw hurt from clenching his teeth so hard. Lou would put the whole town in danger for what he’d decided was his rightful pound of flesh. “You want me to go down there and have a word?”
“No. What I want you to do is stay out of it. You didn’t do anything wrong, but this has blown way out of proportion. When Lou hasn’t been giving me an earful, Nicole has. I pretty much fucking hate today.”
“Sorry, Shane. If you think it’d help, though, I’d go set him straight.”
“It won’t, but thanks for offering. Right now, I’m going to let Lou cool down. Remember how I said he had a temper? Not my first time at this rodeo. I’ll let him blow off some steam, then I’ll see if I can’t use our friendship to talk him out of this stupid horseshit he’s cooked up. In the meantime, we can’t stir him up more than he is. Keep your head down. And stay clear of Anita.”
Jake frowned. “Why’s she got to pay because Lou’s an asshole?”
“It’s not punishment, Jake. It’s doing her a favor.” Shane sounded tired. Jake wondered if Shane had slept yet. “People like Lou. He fixes our bikes, and he fixes cars for little old ladies. Now, they find out you and Anita were together last night, and it’s not going over well. You rile Lou up more, or you feed the damn rumor vultures in town, and life gets harder for her. Leave off for now. Until we can get this shit under control.”
As much as Jake hated to admit it, Shane had a point. None of this would go down well with the small town who loved its heroes. Because of all the history that already existed, the townspeople would by nature shift the blame to the new kid who’d come in and cheated with the respected citizen’s wife. Even if the truth had a different color to it entirely, they’d write the narrative that fit their own biases best. They loved Lou. Lou had been wronged. Everyone loves a scandal.
“All right,” Jake said at last. “I don’t like it, but all right. Not for long. Just for now.”
“Just for now,” Shane agreed. “I don’t like it any more than you do, I promise. When this is all said and done, I’ll be thinking real hard about if I want to call Lou a friend.”
Jake bit the inside of his cheek to hold back his first response. You should be doing that already. Misplaced loyalty is worse than no loyalty at all. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know you two have known each other a long time.”
“That’s the only reason I haven’t written him off already. History’s a heavy thing to shrug off. He ought to remember that, too.”
In the background, Jake could hear Nicole’s voice rise. Though he couldn’t make out the words, he could tell she’d decided to wind up for another good shout. “Sounds like I ought to let you go.”
“Fuck. Yes.” Shane sighed. “Stay clear of Anita. Go out and help Levi clean up the Feral bodies we cached last night. Didn’t have time to deal with them then, but it needs to get done before the sun goes down.”
“Right. Take care, Shane.”
“I’ll try.” The call ended.
Jake stared a moment at his phone. Sounds to me like you ought to think about more than just your connection to Lou.
Once Jake had a look at the cache of Feral bodies stashed in the mountains, he didn’t like the situation any better. No one with the usual sort of sensibilities liked corpses, especially ones that had lingered aboveground through the early part of an Arizona summer day, but this particular pile of them didn’t sit well with Jake’s instincts. Older Ferals who’d turned late in life, past their prime and no
t strengthened by the transformation. Larger ones with loose curtains of skin, stretched and deformed by the rapid loss of fat after the change.
“Where’s the rest of them?” he asked Levi, as they stared at the pile of bloated dead.
Levi shook his head. “This is all of them. I was there when we ran them down. No stragglers we missed, and none ran off.”
“This isn’t the whole pack. Not by a long shot.” Jake gestured at them with disgust. “Those there are what I’d expect to see at the fringes of a bigger pack. The ones who are lucky if they get to eat when the pack brings down prey. The weak ones.”
Levi frowned, the expression turning down the corners of his moustache and goatee. “Could be they got sick of being treated like shit, and ran off to make their own pack?”
“No way those there thought they’d leave the protection of a bigger group. Bet you didn’t have any trouble taking them down, did you.”
Jake could see the doubt written in Levi’s expression. “Nope. Most trouble we had was when Travis went after one who decided to break off from the group. Idiot drove his bike straight through a cactus.”
“So the attack cactus did more damage than the Ferals, and no one thought shit about it.”
“Oh, we thought about it. We thought, ‘Thank fuck, we might get some sleep before noon.’” Levi spread his hands. “You know how it’s been lately. We were glad we’d see our beds soon.”
“And I don’t blame you. I just think something’s wrong.” Jake tried not to think about it as he grabbed a corpse by an ankle to haul it to their chosen gravesite. “Let’s get these underground. They aren’t going to smell any better as the heat builds. We can talk to Shane about it later.”
Later. When the alpha wasn’t dealing with an asshole best friend and a shrieking girlfriend. Maybe, by the time the dead Ferals had settled in for the long sleep in the soil, Shane would have gotten the whole mess sorted out. Jake still spared a thought for Anita as he dragged the corpse across the hard-baked ground. Dunno what happened that the word got out, but I hope you ducked in time to avoid the worst of the shitstorm. Keep your head down. This’ll all blow over.
It hadn’t blown over when he and Levi drove back into town. If anything, the rumor tempest had wound up into a gale-force gossip storm with no end in sight. Jake could deal with herds of vicious Ferals, but the big city boy had no notion at all how to handle this small town trash fire.
He got his first taste of it when he and Levi pulled into a service station to gas up their bikes. The attendant, there to man the inside cash register, came out to the doorway for a chat while the Bullies pumped fuel. “You guys have got to know who did it,” the man said without preamble.
Jake glanced at Levi, then back at the attendant. “Know who did what, now?”
“Who went around behind Lou’s back to sleep with his wife.” The attendant’s grin was sly. “You guys know, right? You can tell me. I won’t say nothin’ to anyone else.”
You won’t say nothin’ in the time it takes to get your phone out of your damn pocket. After that, all bets are off. Jake frowned. “Sounds like you only know part of the story. Even if you knew all of it, though, I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
The attendant blinked. “’Lou’s a friend. He comes in here all the time.”
“And that still doesn’t make it your lookout.” Jake bit back all the irritated comments he wanted to snarl. “Could be, the best way you could be a friend to him is to let Lou and Anita sort out their business without the whole damn town butting in."
Most of the irritated comments, anyway.
“But if the Bullies are kicking someone out of the pack, that’s the town’s business.” Pointed commentary had made the attendant defensive. “That’s our protection! Our safety!”
Who’s going to protect you when I hit you in the mouth because you can’t keep it shut? “What gives you the idea someone’s getting kicked out of the pack?”
“Shane and Lou are tight. Someone rolls up on Lou and betrays him, Shane wouldn’t stand for that.” The attendant folded his arms across his chest. “The Bully Boys are loyal to Lou. That’s how loyalty works here.”
Jake could hear the implication. That’s how loyalty works here, new kid. Maybe you don’t know, but we take care of our own. He didn’t know how to decipher the complicated feelings that churned in his gut, but he did understand the anger that dominated them. Already, he could see that at least this guy had taken Lou’s side without a thought toward Anita’s point of view. How much more of the town had done the same? And how many of them did it because Lou had gotten control of the story while Anita stayed too classy to feed the gossip hounds?
Jake opened his mouth to reply, but Levi cut in. “Look, we appreciate what you’re saying. But polite folks don’t stick their nose in other people’s bedrooms, and the pack doesn’t share our business with people who aren’t part of it. All you need to know is, Shane’s got it under control. No matter what happens, Coyote Trail has us for protection. All right?”
It wasn’t all right. The attendant’s puckered lips and hard eyes communicated that with perfect clarity. But he dropped it. “Fine. Pay inside when you’re done.”
Levi frowned at the man’s retreating back. “This’ll be the first time I’ve had to pay for fuel here in a long time. I don’t mind, but…”
“But it’s a change, and I don’t care for what it implies, either,” Jake finished.
Silence descended. When it grew unbearable, Levi said, “Shane’s been quiet about this bullshit with Lou. I get the idea it has to do with you, though. So I’m just gonna ask what I’m missing, and if you tell me to butt out, I won’t ask again.”
This is how it starts. One well-meaning question. But Jake had to answer. “Lou cheated on Anita. Anita left him. She was going to stay at a hotel, but she’s been my friend since I got into town. I offered her my couch. That’s it.”
Levi’s expression closed. Thoughts turned behind his eyes as another quiet fell. As this silence stretched, Jake wondered if he’d said too much. Levi had history here. Lou had fixed Levi’s bike last month, when they’d wondered if the wear and tear had gone too far to save the old vehicle that Levi loved.
But Levi shook his head. “Don’t tell Shane I said this, but I’ve never much cared for Lou. If that man were a wolf, I’d never let him into the pack. I’d wonder when he’d steal food. Or rip the alpha’s throat out while he slept.”
A tension Jake hadn’t noticed until now eased. “I’ve kind of felt the same since I met the man. Letting him work on my bike feels like making a deal with the devil.”
“If he weren’t Shane’s friend, he’s still the best in town.” Levi hung the fuel nozzle back up on the pump. “His work’s half the reason we can protect the town as well as we do. It’s two hours to reach the next mechanic who’s as good as Lou is. And that’s when there aren’t Ferals between here and there.”
“Deal with the devil,” Jake repeated in agreement. “And I’m pretty sure I’m not done dealing with him. Lou said he won’t fix more bikes, or give back the ones he has, until I come forward about where Anita was last night.”
“What’d Shane say?”
“To stay out of it.”
“Then you’d better stay out of it.”
“I’m not sure I can, Levi. Not if everyone’s like that.” Jake nodded toward the service station’s tiny store, where the attendant watched them through the window. “Shane’s trying to keep the peace, but I don’t see it working. And I didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Anita. I won’t have them dragging her name through the mud to save Lou’s fucking pride.”
Levi glanced at him sideways. “She’s just a friend, huh? Because you sound about ready to take someone’s head of for your ‘friend’.”
Jake glanced down at his hand to see white knuckles wrapped around the fuel nozzle’s handle. He hadn’t realized how wound up he’d gotten. Or how vehement. “Just a friend. Doesn’t mean a man c
an’t want more.”
“Uh-huh. I’ve heard wolves defend their mates with less snarl than you did right then.”
Jake cleared his throat. “Sorry about that, Levi. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“You didn’t. All I’m saying is, if she’s just a friend, I’ll eat my carburetor.” Levi patted his bike’s handlebars. “Bet I don’t have to.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t go get any ketchup packets,” Jake said. His phone buzzed in his pocket. When he dug it out, he saw an unfamiliar number on the display. Instinct urged him not to answer it. Curiosity won out. “One sec. This is Jake.”
“I know it was you, you son of a bitch.”
Lou. Jake didn’t recognize the voice straight away, but the threat said it all. “Lou. I think you’ve got the wrong idea.”
“I don’t fucking think so. You think you can fuck my wife and disrespect me, and there won’t be fucking consequences?” Lou’s cold, dangerous tone might have scared a lesser man.
Jake was not a lesser man. Deep down at his most primal, he was a wolf, and wolves didn’t care for threats. “Let’s get something straight. Anita and I didn’t do anything. I gave her a safe place to stay. You ought to be grateful for that.”
“You should have sent her home.”
“She didn’t want to go home. That’s your fault, Lou. Which brings me to my next point. She’s not your wife. She left you.” Wolves really didn’t care for men who claimed their mates. She’s not your mate, he told the bestial instincts that howled every time Lou talked about Anita. Jake didn’t think they listened.
Neither did Lou. “She will always be my wife. Keep your hands off her. You do not look at her, you do not talk to her. You stay the fuck away from her. You hear me?”
“What I hear,” Jake growled, “is a whiny manchild who doesn’t know when he’s lost. You stay the fuck away from her. She doesn’t want anything to do with you.”
Dare the Wolf: A Bully Boys Novel of Paranormal Romance Page 5
