PackRescue

by Gwen Campbell

  Where the hell had that thought come from?

  Cutler was pretty sure the flailing banshee in his hands wasn’t the kid’s mother. She probably wasn’t even related to him. But their scents told him they were from the same pack and he could see from the way she’d reacted to Dorothea stepping between her and the child that she cared for him as if he were her own pup.

  “No one in my pack would ever harm a child.” Cutler spoke quietly and clearly. The woman stopped slamming her fists into his chest. She hung between his hands, the fire and rage draining out of her blue eyes. She looked at him warily. She was young, although her eyes looked older than her face, and she couldn’t have been more than twenty. He breathed in her scent again, wanting a full picture of her health, strength and status. The information he picked up was all contradictory. She was strong yet she wasn’t. She smelled of youth yet there was a smell to her that was either age, pain or fear. She was unmated yet there was no innocence left in her. But by then, Cutler was sporting a raging hard-on and decided the prudent thing to do would be to put her down before the wolf inside him took over and dragged her out back for a quick fuck, then another—and probably one more after that.

  Cutler noticed Dorothea Pike adjusting her waitressing uniform. She cleared her throat quietly.

  “The washrooms are back here,” Dorothea said. “I’ll give you a hand with some washcloths if you’d like.” She made the offer politely despite her obviously jangled nerves.

  Cutler saw Dorothea’s hand flex and figured she was resisting the urge to rub the middle of her chest where the much younger, much stronger woman had straight-armed her after she’d made the mistake of stepping between a mother and her frightened pup. If their positions were reversed and Dorothea had found herself in the middle of a strange pack, she’d probably have done the same thing. Sheriff Powell gave the spitfire his best friendly guy smile. She and the boy were werewolves. Natural born too from the smell of them, probably from somewhere back east. His instincts told him the minute he let her walk out the door she’d simply drive off and never come back. He just couldn’t let something that smelled like forever get away. Even if her scent did confuse the hell out of him.

  “Do you have a change of clothes for him?” Dorothea asked quietly, easing the tension between the younger weres.

  Despite Ryan’s instinctive terror and her own blind maternal rage, Fina believed the big policeman. Maybe it was the uniform? When he stepped back and set her on her feet Ryan rushed forward, wrapped his slight body around her leg and trembled. As hard as the cop’s eyes were at the moment, they were also a brilliant, shimmering aqua—startlingly beautiful and completely at odds with his blatantly male, chiseled features. His eyes were framed by ridiculously long, dark lashes that matched the shiny, short chestnut-brown hair on his head.

  Fina looked at the pudgy gray-haired waitress with the gentle blue eyes. She’d never felt so guilty in her life but she also knew she didn’t dare apologize. In werewolf packs the strong ruled so she held back the ingrained and heartfelt apology sitting on her tongue. It was far better to appear arrogant than weak…especially when she and Ryan were alone and defenseless.

  “Yes,” Fina replied evenly. She fished her keys out of her pocket with one hand and reached for Ryan’s hand with the other. “I’ll go get them.”

  The huge cop had tugged the keys out of her hand even before she realized he was pulling on them. “Allow me, Miss…?”

  “Whitesage,” Fina replied without thinking. She was in for it now. But they were in Wyoming. News of a murder-suicide in a tiny community in Eastfield, Tennessee and the ensuing emotional distress that had sent seven local families off on extended vacations hadn’t made it farther west than the Central Plains. At least the police officer didn’t react when he heard her name. His smile just widened and he touched the brim of his big straw hat.

  “Miss Whitesage,” he murmured politely and turned back to the door.

  “It’s the—”

  “One with the out-of-state plates? Just a hunch,” he added with a grin when her brow furrowed. “If it isn’t an intrusion, I’d be honored to buy you and your young man lunch.”

  It was phrased as a request but Fina knew it wasn’t. She and Ryan would be joining him for lunch whether she wanted to or not. Nodding resignedly, Fina picked up Ryan and followed the waitress into the café.

  “So what brings a beautiful woman from Tennessee all the way out here?” Cutler asked conversationally. He speared a forkful of fried chicken into his mouth. It hadn’t escaped his notice that the woman—Fina Whitesage—was pushing her food around her plate but not actually eating much of it. The boy on the other hand seemed to have a good appetite.

  “Fina’s my sister,” Ryan said and Cutler could tell right away from the cadence of the kid’s speech the story was memorized and rehearsed. “We’re going west for our cousin’s wedding. I’m the r-ring bearer.”

  “Is that so.” Cutler nodded slowly. He took a sip of his iced tea and watched the two of them. A quick search of the woman’s vehicle hadn’t told him much. There were two new suitcases inside. One was black, plain and clearly belonged to an adult. The other was a garish blue, smaller and turned out to be the kid’s. A map, a laptop case and a cooler with juice, water and some fruit were the only other things he’d found. On the surface nothing seemed amiss but he didn’t get to be sheriff—or get to be his pack’s Alpha—by accepting everything at face value.

  By then Ryan had cleaned off his plate, drunk his milk and pulled out an electronic toy from his backpack. Cutler caught the eye of one of his pack members seated nearby, one who had a child about Ryan’s age. At his parents’ prompting, the boy left his table, walked up to theirs and stood beside Ryan’s chair.

  “Um, hi,” the new boy said, watching Ryan’s game with rapt interest. “I’m Koby. You wanna play?” He jerked his head toward a play area at the back of the café.

  Ryan looked up at Fina. She brushed his hair back from his eyes. The place made entertaining children a priority. There was an indoor play area as well as an outside one. The indoor one wasn’t as big—just a slide, some hanging ropes and a ball pit—but it was colorful and clean.

  “Go play if you want,” she said and her smile looked like it was for the pup’s benefit. “Stay where I can see you.”

  “Sure,” Ryan replied absently. He tucked his game into his backpack and trotted off with the other boy.

  It struck Cutler the woman couldn’t help reminding the boy, even though it seemed an unnecessary effort. Ryan never let her get out of his line of sight.

  “So what level can you get up to?” Koby asked as they headed off together. “I’ve got the connector for that. We can play against each other…”

  As their voices trailed away, Fina looked across the checkered tablecloth and Cutler saw himself through her eyes. Bigger than most and the most powerful were in the place, he’d never been able to pull off the aw-shucks, Ma’am, good old boy routine. By now her sense of smell had told her everyone else in the café was a wolf and they’d been stealing glances at her and Ryan as they ate—discreetly of course. She put down her fork, giving up her pretense of eating.

  “Thank you, Sheriff. It was very nice of you to buy us lunch. We have to get going.” Fina was halfway out of her chair when his hand slid around her forearm.

  “There’s no cousin getting married, is there?”

  His eyes were on hers and she looked like she was pinned under a microscope. She sat back down. His thumb moved over her forearm, his touch lazy and sensuous in a way he’d never been aware of before. Trembling, Fina pulled back from the contact.

  Cutler Powell leaned back in his chair thoughtfully, not letting go, wondering why the woman’s fear had jumped when he’d touched her. He wanted her…and he wanted answers.

  “I’m guessing something happened to your pack. You could be rogue but you don’t scent like it,” he said with slow deliberation. Her blue eyes widened with a fear she wasn’t
even trying to hide anymore. She looked so damn small and vulnerable sitting there. “Who are you? Who are you really? And where are you from?”

  He saw her hand tighten on her bag. Training and the tension in her body told him her every instinct and rational thought was telling her to grab Ryan, run the hell out and just keep on running. Every instinct, that was, except the wolf inside her. He imagined it leaning out toward him and breathing in more of his smell. He gave himself a moment to fantasize it licking his face and nuzzling his jaw.

  The woman growled subtly and the sound was more subharmonic than substance. It was obvious it was the wolf inside Fina who answered, “My name is Fina Whitesage. That’s Ryan Upton. He’s the son of my father’s Beta…or was before his father was…was killed.” Fina swallowed hard.

  She looked like a big part of her wanted to hold the words back and her throat convulsed like it was stretched and achy with the effort. But her wolf couldn’t run forever. They had to find a pack willing to take them in. The small and the young didn’t survive on their own. There were too many rogues out there just waiting to pick them off.

  “We’re from Eastfield, Tennessee.”

  Cutler’s head snapped back. “Eastfield?” he blurted out, loud enough for everyone in the café to hear. The place fell silent. Shock, even horror crossed the face of every adult. They looked to Cutler and when he didn’t respond to them, their expressions dimmed and they looked away nervously. They glanced at Fina then back at Ryan, still playing and unaware of the change in the mood of the place. Looked at them with pity and disbelief then looked away again.

  “What do you know?” Fina asked Cutler in a small voice.

  He exhaled slowly. “Only word of mouth. An entire pack in Eastfield, Tennessee was wiped out by rogue wolves. Their pack lands taken over. They didn’t leave anyone alive, not even the breeding females,” he added with disgust then touched Fina’s arm again. His wolf voiced its approval of the contact. “I’m guessing word of mouth got some of the details wrong.”

  Fina smiled wryly and the humor shaping her mouth surprised Cutler.

  “I was away that day. I’m going back to college in the fall,” she stated calmly even though she had to understand the impossibility of going back to the life she’d planned. “Housing is tight so if you want an apartment, you’ve got to pick the rent up in the spring when the previous students move out. That’s where I was…getting the paperwork and…and measuring for curtains,” she added with a dull laugh.

  Cutler shifted uneasily in his chair and let go of her arm when she leaned away from him. He hated the pain in this woman’s voice…hated any pain she might feel and the ferocity of his sense of possession. His protectiveness for a wandering stranger startled him.

  Fina threw her napkin on the table and laid her forehead in her palms. “I was so stupid, preoccupied with a dozen stupid things that didn’t mean a damn thing.” She sighed, trembled and stared up at the ceiling. “It was nighttime when I got home. I just walked in like I didn’t have a care in the world and they were there.”

  “Who?”

  “The rogues.” Fina trembled again. “I could smell the blood…” Her voice trailed off and when Cutler laid his hand back on her forearm, this time, her trembling stopped.

  “Excuse me, miss, but my husband and I were wondering…”

  Trudy, a member of Cutler’s pack and the mother of the boy playing with Ryan, stood beside their table. She glanced back at her husband.

  “We’d be real pleased if you’d consider staying with us. Maybe for a little while,” she added with that warm, open smile Cutler had almost fallen in love with back when they were in grade school together. They’d played with each other so much as kids it felt like they were brother and sister and Trudy had never held back on speaking her mind around her Alpha because of it. “Motels are fun for a while but there’s nothing like a home. We’ve got three little ones of our own,” added the tall, harried-looking woman, glancing back at her mate with open affection. “Room might be a little tight but we’d be thrilled to have you stay…for as long as you like,” she added, lifting a dark brow in Cutler’s direction and heading back to her table.

  Cutler hadn’t offered the stray wolves sanctuary—not yet anyway. Trudy obviously had an opinion on the matter. Cutler shot her a look then turned his attention back to Fina. He ran his thumb over her forearm, enthralled by the smoothness of her skin and the delicacy of the muscles beneath.

  “What happened then?”

  She stiffened beneath his hand. The scent of numbing fear rolled out of her pores and coated the insides of his nostrils like oil.

  “I walked out early the next morning. They must have thought I’d…that I’d bond with them because they’d killed everyone else. Bonded females stay put,” she added unnecessarily.

  Cutler smelled the missing pieces in her story. Some pretty nasty scenarios came to him but he decided to respect her silence on the matter. For now.

  “I just got in my car and drove. I spotted Ryan sitting in front of his school. He says his father hid him up in a tree house. Ryan spent the night there then when nobody came to get him he just headed to school on his own when the sun came up.” Fina laughed hollowly and brushed tears out of her eyes. “Brave kid, huh?”

  “He’s not the only one.”

  Cutler leaned back from her and let his fingers slip away from her arm when Dorothea Pike stepped up to the table. She poured coffee in their cups without asking.

  “It’s Fina, right?” Dorothea asked with a brightness that almost masked the concern in her eyes. “My husband and I have a house not far from here. Just a small spread with a couple head of cattle. Does your little one like to ride horses? Reason I’m asking is we’ve got space now that our own kids have grown up. I know he’d be tickled to have a young’un back around the place. Maybe teach him how to feed chickens… Ours loved helping out when they were little,” Dorothea added with an infectious grin. “If you’d consider staying, we’d be thrilled to have you. Sheriff,” she added with a touch of frostiness, slapping the check down on the table in front of him before she stepped away to see to her other customers.

  Cutler rubbed his temples. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do.” Cutler Powell was used to giving orders and having his pack obey them, not the other way around. This wasn’t a democracy. Their willful and not-so-subtle hints that he take in these strays, not giving him a chance to do it on his own when he’d had every intention of doing that about two seconds after he’d smelled Fina, smacked of dissention. He glared at every eye in the place that dared meet his and kept glaring until they looked away. “You and Ryan will stay at my place. I’ve got more than enough room.”

  “We can’t—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you think you can do, woman,” he snarled. “Your pack’s gone and I wish to god I could change that for you but I can’t. You’re a female and he’s a child. You need a pack to take you in. I’m offering mine.” He picked up his hat, the check and Ryan’s backpack. “Stay for a week or stay forever, your choice.” Cutler stood, looked at the check and slapped a few bills on the table. “If we’re not a good fit, move on. I can tell you where to find two other packs less than a day’s drive from here. Until then, you’re one of us,” he added loudly enough for everyone in the café to hear. He touched Fina’s elbow and held it with remarkable gentleness, considering, until she stood up.

  Cutler ignored the looks of approval he got from the members of his pack when he and Fina went back to the play area to collect Ryan. What he couldn’t ignore was his wolf’s demanding certainty that this woman was his.

  Despite his offer to direct her to another pack, Fina Whitesage wouldn’t be going anywhere. Not while he was alive to say anything about it.

  Chapter Three

  “What do you think, Ryan?” Fina asked as they followed the sheriff’s marked Expedition down a long, unpaved driveway dotted with trees.

  “About?” Ryan replied wit
h a shrug. His fingers were moving over his game with their usual intensity.

  “About Sheriff Powell.” The driveway opened up in front of a low, rambling ranch house clad in cedar. A stand of pine trees stood on the north side and the lawn in front was tidy and separated from the drive by a neat picket fence. There was a large red barn maybe a thousand feet behind the house. A herd of black cows grazed in a fenced paddock to the south.

  “He’s scary,” Ryan answered evenly then his fingers paused on the controls. “Maybe not that scary,” he added thoughtfully and looked around. When he spotted the cattle he stared at them raptly.

  Fina hadn’t known Ryan liked animals.

  “He’s bossy,” Fina added.

  “So was your dad.”

  Ryan’s words struck Fina hard. He’d referred to her father in the past tense. He’d never asked and she’d never said but it was obvious that despite their denial and running, Ryan knew his Alpha and his pack were dead.

  Fina pulled up behind Cutler’s marked SUV and turned off her ignition. As soon as she did, Ryan jumped out and ran over to the fence separating the yard from the cattle. Fina stared after him in astonishment. It was the first time either of them had spoken about their pack in two weeks. She realized they’d been living like they’d been dropped out of the sky—with no past or future and no ties to anyone or anything. Ryan had never asked where his parents were or where Fina was taking him. The two of them had shut themselves into their private and perverse little worlds—him with his electronic games and her with her online banking transactions.

  She barely reacted when her door opened.

  “You okay?” Cutler looked down at the beautiful little woman he was going to make his mate. The sure realization of that fact staggered him but he held himself upright by hanging onto the roof of her sporty little SUV and forcing a smile.