Sherry's Wolf (After the Crash #3.5)

by Maddy Barone

  “Hell, anything. Ask her what her favorite color is.”

  Stag folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. “How long would that take to answer? It seems to me like one word would do it.”

  “Nah.” Des shook his head. “Women can go on for an hour about it. If she likes pink, she’ll tell you what shade of pink, and how many pink shirts and dresses she used to have and then she’ll tell you which shade of pink she doesn’t like.” Des shook his head again, with fond wonder. “Women. They can hold a two hour conversation about a color. Funny thing is, they smell so good and their voices sound so nice while they’re talkin’ that you won’t even care.”

  Chapter Two

  Sherry leaned lightly on her cane and took a deep breath outside the dining room. Everybody called it “the big room”. It was the communal area that would be the Plane Women’s Restaurant sometime in the spring. In the evenings, the room was open to the visitors who came to flirt with the women in an effort to woo them into marriage. Few men dared to flirt with her. Stag’s barely leashed jealousy kept other men away. Sherry was grateful and resentful at the same time. Some of the men could be overbearing, and Sherry hated that, but a choice would have been nice too.

  Sherry let the breath out carefully. Stag was back. It was time to put on her big girl panties. Since the plane crash she had lost her hard-won self-confidence and acted more like the timid child she’d been in her Korean grandparents’ house. That was going to stop now. She would talk to Stag tonight. Show him who she really was. A grimace curled her lips. Maybe that would scare him off.

  She shifted her cane to wipe her sweaty palms on her pants, and walked into the dining room. A quick glance around the dozen tables showed about fifteen women, a few of the wolves who lived there, but no Stag. A feeling uncomfortably like disappointment went through her. Marissa, sitting beside her husband Red Wing at one of the smaller tables, waved.

  “Come sit with us, Sherry,” she called.

  Marissa had married one of the werewolves last month at Taye’s den a few miles north of town. That was the same time that Stag had tried to cajole her into marrying him. She’d refused, but he had made quiet, one-sided wedding vows to her anyway. That bossy werewolf didn’t know how to take “no” for an answer. Sherry sat across from Marissa at the six-seat table, leaning her cane against the next empty chair and said hello to her werewolf husband. Red Wing was Native American, but with his tumbled curls of golden brown and hazel green eyes he didn’t look it.

  “Stag’s back,” Marissa announced.

  “Yes, I know,” Sherry said quickly, trying to sound happy about it. Or at least not unhappy. She tapped her cane lightly against the chair next to her. “I’m saving this seat for him.”

  Red Wing gave her an approving smile. Sherry gave him a half-smile back, and glanced around. Most of the tables had people at them. There were Dixie and Jodi, who were counseling her. Renee was no doubt running the show in the kitchen. Connie, whom they all called “Lupa” now that she was married to Des, was already at the table closest to the kitchen. Sherry had mixed feelings about Connie. Last month she had told Sherry not to be so mean to Stag. As if she didn’t have a right to be upset at the way Stag hounded her to be his mate!

  Mate. Lupa. Alpha. Werewolves. Good lord. The men were offended by that label. They preferred to be called wolf warriors or just wolves. Sherry gave a tiny shake of her head. She would have to break herself of the habit of calling them “werewolves”. Before she’d decided to try to get to know Stag she hadn’t cared if they were offended. Now she had to care. Her stomach flip-flopped as she remembered Stag’s nearly naked body when he had bent to pick up her yarn this afternoon. She would never admit it, but she had missed him. For months he had been a faithful protective shadow who did little things to make her life easier. There had been times when she’d been tempted to let down her guard and allow him to court her. That was an old-fashioned word, but it was what everyone used here. The perfection of his muscular body did bad things to her libido. His bossiness did bad things to her temper.

  “I sure miss electricity,” Marissa was saying glumly. She cast a glance of loathing at the faint smoke from the oil lamp on the table. “Life was so much easier with real lights. And cars. And computers.” She sighed. “It’s only been fifty years! You’d think someone would know how to get stuff working.”

  Sherry agreed with Marissa’s gripe. Okay, without gas cars wouldn’t work, but wasn’t there oil in Texas? Or what about ethanol? She didn’t know how that sort of thing worked, but someone had to. It was a real shame that none of the crash survivors were electricians or computer geeks or anything really useful.

  She opened her mouth to say something about it, but she closed it without a word. The tenderness the wolves showed their women always surprised her. Red Wing smoothed the backs of his fingers down Marissa’s plump cheek in a gesture so sweet Sherry had to look away. Watching such tenderness made her feel like a voyeur.

  “So many died during the Terrible Times,” Red Wing said. “Not many were left who knew how to work the gadgets from the Times Before, much less make them or fix them. That’s what the Grandmother says, anyway, and she would know, since she lived through it. And everyone was so busy trying to stay alive that non-essentials took a back seat to things like food and safety.”

  The Times Before was any time before 2014. Sherry shifted in her hard wooden chair. It was weird to think that to people like Red Wing, her whole life was a science fiction story. Nuclear bombs, asteroids and plagues had changed the world completely right after her plane had taken off in 2014.

  Red Wing grabbed Marissa’s hands, fear sending a visible shudder down his naked back. “You probably would have died if you hadn’t been on that plane.” He kissed his mate’s hands fervently. “The Grandmother says that only one in ten lived through the Terrible Times and hardly any of those were women.” He kissed Marissa’s hands again. “If you hadn’t been on that plane …”

  Sherry shifted her eyes away from the horror on Red Wing’s face. A tiny pinprick of envy poked at her. No man had ever looked at her like that, not even LeRoi. She shouldn’t think ill of the dead. Her husband had been a real bastard at times, but he had been trying to turn things around. They’d been on their way to renew their marriage vows on their fourth anniversary when the plane crashed in rural Nebraska, killing or injuring nearly all the passengers. Instead of spending October 28, 2014 in a nice hotel in Vegas making love with LeRoi, she had spent it in a primitive teepee in the year 2064, mostly unconscious from the injuries she’d sustained in the crash. She’d had vivid hallucinations of big wolves that killed her by tearing her into glistening red hunks of meat. No wonder she’d thought the werewolves were unnatural. Part of her still did.

  Sherry cast a quick glance across the table. Oh, good, Marissa and Red Wing were back to behaving like adults instead of horny teenagers. They were newlyweds, and acted like it. They spent a lot time holed up in their apartment, sometimes missing meals. When they did join the other residents of the Plane Women’s House they hung all over each other. Looking at Red Wing, she could see why Marissa had a hard time keeping her hands to herself. He was almost as handsome and well built as Stag.

  Stag stepped up to the empty chair beside her. Sherry took a deep breath and was surprised that a genuine smile bloomed on her face at the sight of him. Was she happy to see him? The smile faltered into uncertainty as she grabbed her cane to move it out of his way. “Hi, I was saving this chair for you.”

  He was so handsome, especially with his muscular upper body completely bare. Wolves seemed to have a deep aversion to wearing clothes. He wore a dark blue wool breechcloth, leather leggings and moccasins, but no shirt. She had to admit she liked the view. His chest and abs were more perfect than any she’d seen on a living man in the flesh, and he smelled faintly of some wonderful cologne. Just the sight and smell of him sparked heat flaring between her thighs. She followed Dixie’s advice and told the shame that tried to fill
her to go away. Being attracted to a handsome man did not mean she was a slut. It was a natural physical reaction. She watched him settle into the chair, and suppressed a sigh. She’d been reacting naturally to Stag for quite a while now, even while she shrank from his werewolf side.

  As Stag said hello to Red Wing and Marissa, she could feel his attention on her. A cat whose tail was in the tight grip of a five year old boy couldn’t feel more trapped. He always made her feel that way. But that wasn’t fair. Last month when she told him she wanted him to leave her alone for a while to get her head together he hadn’t liked it, but he hadn’t argued. She told him she needed some time but she promised she would talk to him in a few weeks. He’d done what she asked and left. That was a month ago. He’d given her the time she’d asked for. Now it was time for her to do her part and honestly try to get to know him. Big girl panties time.

  “How was your trip, Stag?” she asked. Her attempt to sound breezy and friendly came out strained.

  He looked at her with blue eyes fringed with a thick curtain of lashes. Really, the man had beautiful eyes. The color was so unexpected in his dark Native American face that she was surprised every time she looked at them. Actually, all of him was beautiful, from his muscular chest to his tight belly to his long legs.

  “It was good. I went to visit the Clan.”

  She waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. Sherry looked around, wondering when the food would be served. She wanted something to focus on besides the wolf at her side. It was hard, but she made herself keep the conversation going.

  “Oh, good,” she said lamely. “How is everyone? Uh, your mom and dad …?”

  She trailed off because she realized she knew nothing of his family. All the wolves called each other cousin and they all seemed to be related somehow, but she didn’t know his parents or whether he had brothers or sisters.

  Stag flinched ever so slightly. “My mother was killed by men who tried to steal her about fifteen years ago, along with almost all the women in the Clan. My father died soon after.”

  Ouch. “I’m sorry.”

  He may have felt her discomfort because he smiled faintly as he shook his head. “Thank you. It was a long time ago. What about your parents? I suppose they’re gone now, but were they alive when you got on the plane?”

  The subject of her parents was a painful one she avoided at all costs. She sure didn’t want to discuss them now. “My mom died when I was six,” she said curtly. “My dad and his wife would be almost one hundred years old now, so they’re probably dead too. Do you have brothers or sisters?”

  “I had two older brothers. They’re dead too.”

  Oh, God. Sherry had never been so glad to see platters of food coming out of the kitchen. The next few minutes were busy with scooping food onto their plates and filling their cups. Sherry felt the silence weighted by Stag’s eyes stretch so thin she decided she had to keep up some sort of conversation before it snapped.

  “This roast beef sure looks good. Stag, do you like beef or do you like venison better?”

  “I like meat,” he replied, stabbing a thick bundle of the paper-thin slices with his knife.

  He must need a lot of protein to maintain his awesome physique. She ignored her body’s interest in that awesome physique and focused on her food. If he wanted conversation he would have to start it himself this time. She was done.

  Sherry had eaten her two slices of beef and was playing with her slightly too-mushy carrots before Stag spoke.

  “Is that all you’re going to eat?” He sounded disapproving. “No wonder you’re so skinny. Here, have some more potatoes.”

  Sherry gritted her teeth. “I’m not that big. I don’t need more food.”

  Red Wing sounded a little kinder. “We have plenty of food. You don’t need to skimp.”

  “I’m not skimping.” She tried to be polite instead of venting her frustration. “I’ve eaten enough. I’m not hungry anymore.”

  “The meat is good,” Stag said temptingly, as if she were a recalcitrant toddler refusing more strained peas.

  “No, thank you,” she said between clenched teeth.

  Stag subsided, but his face showed his displeasure. What was it with the men in this place? They were constantly trying to make the women eat more. Sherry had always been slender, possibly a genetic gift from her mother. She barely remembered her mother, but she had one precious photograph of her parents and in it her beefy African American father had towered over her petite Korean mother. Sherry had some of her father in her, but she was built like her mother.

  “What’s your favorite color?” Stag shot at her.

  Sherry blinked. “What? Um, yellow, I guess. Why?”

  “I was told that colors are important to women. What shade of yellow?”

  Sherry glanced at Marissa, who as an interior decorator was an expert on color. “Bright, clear yellows. Not gold or mustard.”

  “Lemon? Canary? Sunshine?” offered Marissa.

  “Yeah,” Sherry agreed.

  “How many yellow shirts and dresses did you have in the Times Before?” Stag asked.

  Sherry exchanged a mystified glance with Marissa. “I don’t know. I had an angora sweater that was buttery yellow. But yellow isn’t the best color for my skin tone.”

  The memory of the life she’d had before the plane crash depressed her. “What’s your favorite color, Stag?”

  “Don’t have one.”

  Okay, that was a conversational dead end. She couldn’t ask him what bands he liked or what movie he’d seen most recently, or which television shows he watched. She couldn’t ask him about his job or what car he drove, or get his number. Did they have anything in common? Well, they both seemed to like apple crisp. That was tonight’s dessert. Stag took an enormous helping and drowned it in cream. Sherry took a small scoop and passed on the cream, even when Stag tried to give her some.

  Sherry had decided weeks ago that she was going to honestly try to get to know Stag and see if she could love him. But it was hard to fall in love with a man who spoke little except to tell her what she should do. And she was damned sick of men trying to run her life. She ate her apple crisp in a silence that bordered on sullen.

  After supper they helped to clear the tables, fold them up and stack them in a corner. Tonight was one of the nights the townsmen were allowed to come to the Plane Women’s House to court the women who had survived the plane crash. No matter how old or even ugly a woman was, she had her pick of men. The town of Kearney Nebraska had fifteen hundred residents, and the surrounding communities, farms and ranches added another five hundred. Of those two thousand, only two hundred were women, and the majority of those were already married. The Plane Women would have been mobbed by men, but the mayor of Kearney had arranged for a fence to be erected around the apartment building and had assigned guards to be sure none of them were stolen. Since the wolves had come to live here, they had taken over security. Only twenty-five men were allowed in at a time on visitation nights. Sherry had heard that the townsmen sometimes decided amongst themselves who would come on which nights by fistfights.

  Sherry had endured dozens of visitation nights, and though she was young and pretty, only a few men had ever dared to speak to her. The reason for that was the half-naked barbarian moving her chair closer to the warmth of a stove. Sherry was the chosen mate of a wolf warrior, and who would flirt with her while he hovered over her like a growling dog guarding a bone? This last month, while he’d been away, a few men tried to be friendly, but the other wolves had chased them off. Thank you very much, Des, she thought bitterly.

  “I’m going to get my knitting,” she told Stag now. “Be right back.”

  “Sit down,” Marissa said. “Rest your legs. I’m going to go upstairs for my crochet. I’ll grab your bag for you.”

  “Thanks.” Sherry sank into the chair Stag had placed for her in front of one of the stoves. Five other chairs were arranged in a semi-circle in front of it, but for now it was only she and
Stag there, with Red Wing lounging at the room’s entrance, waiting for Marissa to come back. Stag sat and pulled his chair so close his warm, bare arm pressed against her.

  “Why do you like yellow?” he asked. “Why bright yellow, and not gold?”

  His dogged tone made her want to roll her eyes. But at least it was a topic she could discuss. “I like sunny yellow because it’s bright like sunshine. It makes me feel more cheerful even if the weather is gloomy.”

  He nodded at that, looking up as Marissa handed a canvas bag to her. She pulled out her attempt at a scarf. Knitting was new to her, but she was getting the hang of it. She pursed her mouth as she saw how wide it was in some areas than others. She didn’t know how it happened, but some rows had magically grown to 33 stitches instead of thirty stitches, and then shrunk to twenty eight stitches. Carla, who was teaching her to knit, said that it didn’t really matter, as long as it kept her neck warm.

  The wool yarn was surprisingly soft, and the color was beautiful, that bright, cheerful yellow she loved. They sat in silence, she making careful stitches and Stag staring at her longingly, while Marissa and Red Wing put their heads together to whisper to each other in the two chairs on the opposite end of the semi-circle. That left two chairs between she and Stag and Red Wing and Marissa. Sherry doubted anyone else would sit there, since Marissa and Red Wing were practically making out. Marissa was happy with her wolf husband. Renee and Hawk in Flight were older, more sedate, but Renee acted very content with him. In public they sat side by side, chastely holding hands. It was kind of cute to see them behave like that, as if they were kids instead of thirty-somethings. Connie and Des seemed sometimes to circle each other as if they were still working out who was running the show, but there was never any anger or violence in their words or actions. Des wasn’t shy about petting her in public. He frequently touched her arm or ran a hand through her blond bob as if he couldn’t keep himself from connecting with his mate every chance he got. In fact, all the wolves seemed to need to touch their mates constantly. Sherry envied that. Sort of. Sometimes she wished she had someone to pet her. She slanted a glance at Stag under her lashes, wondering what it would be like to hold his hand or have him run his fingers through her hair.