by Sky Winters
“Thanks,” she said, reaching for the shirt beside her and handing it to him. “I’m sorry to be like a kid that needs to be dressed, but my arms are really sore, and I can barely lift them over my head.”
“I’m just trying to be a gentleman.”
She smiled at him and extended her arms back over her head very gingerly. He tried to avert his eyes from her chest as he pulled the shirt down, the back of his hand brushing lightly down the side of one despite his attempt not to touch them. It was like a jolt through his system. There was something about her that seemed dangerous, but also, incredibly exciting.
“Thank you! Let’s go get that drink!”
Moose nodded and walked toward the door, opening it and waving her outside. She grabbed her key from the bedside table and shoved it into her pocket, flipping the lock before she walked out. Trust issues, he was surmising. Of course, she was in an unfamiliar place. He couldn’t really blame her for that. She seemed to trust him or at least was trying to do so.
“Moose, I need you,” Aspen said as they made their way into the front lobby.
“Be right there. Let me get Ali settled in with a drink,” he replied.
“I can do that,” Amanda chimed in, walking toward them. “All this babying has me needing one myself.”
Moose looked at Ali as if to ask if she was okay with that. She nodded and smiled, walking toward Amanda as he made his way toward the back office to join Aspen and whoever else was invited. He walked in to find it was only the two of them.
“What’s going on, Aspen?”
“We need to find out who gave up our location on that highway. Having a rat in our midst puts us all in jeopardy, especially with two babies in the house now. Someone told the Dire Wolves we were head out. They had time to put that girl on the road to stop us. What have you learned from her? Do you think she is in on it?”
“I can’t be sure just yet, but I don’t think she is. I think she is on the run from something, but I don’t think that has anything to do with her getting used as bait.”
“I hope not. Just keep an eye on her until you are sure she is no threat and limit how much she knows about what goes on around here.”
“I will. Any ideas as to where our leak might be?”
“Our numbers are pretty small and the only outsider to the group is Grant.”
“You don’t think he . . .”
“No. I don’t. He has done too much to protect this pack to be a part of tearing it down, especially now, with a new baby. So, one of our own has turned on us, or one of the humans. I think it is more likely to be one of the women. Start with the ones that aren’t attached to anyone in particular. I think we’ll find that one of them is sneaking off to meet a Dire Wolf or was sneaking off. They might well be done now if it was one of those we killed.”
“Are there even any adults left over there, other than the women? I think they are down to kids now other than that.”
“What’s to say that it’s not a woman they are tangling toes with?” Grant replied.
“Of course. I guess I didn’t consider that.”
“Well, do consider it. It could just as easily be one of the shifter women.”
“Noted.”
“Alright. Get out of here. I’ve got to get back to the baby. Amanda has put me on daddy duty tonight.”
“You breast feeding now?”
“Something like that. Backup stock from the fridge,” he replied.
Moose laughed as he shrugged his shoulders. “Some big biker dude I am, sitting in my room, bottle feeding a baby so my wife can go have a few drinks.”
“Right, but ain’t it a beautiful shame?”
“Yeah. It kinda is, man. Alright. Get outta here and keep your eyes open. We need to sort this out quickly. Every day that we have a rat on this ship, she gets closer to going down in the black waters.”
“On it.”
Moose walked back out to the front and looked around. There was no sign of Amanda or Ali anywhere. He made his way toward the pantry inside the kitchen and found them sitting inside, propped up at the large kitchen island there, knocking back shots and laughing hysterically.
“Has this turned into a woman only party?” he asked them.
“Not a chance. Come on in here, Moose,” Amanda replied, pushing out one of the large padded bar stools for him to sit down. “Ali was just telling me a story about how she managed to catch her hair on fire with a flaming baton.”
“Jesus,” Moose said, looking at her hair for any signs of the damage.
“Oh, it’s been grown out for years now,” she said. “That was almost ten years ago at a stupid beauty pageant my mother put me in. She had been a majorette in high school and decided I should learn to twirl as my talent portion. A few pageants later, she decided we needed to kick it up a notch and add some fire.”
“How bad was it?”
“It was crazy. I had a ton of hairspray on my hair and it went up like a propane tank someone dropped a match into. Luckily, my hair was teased into this big curly bun thing and one of the judges managed to yank off the cloak another girl was wearing to put me out before it got any worse.”
“Oh, God! That must have been something to witness,” Amanda gasped, trying to contain her laughter. “I know I shouldn’t find it funny.”
“It wasn’t funny at the time, but now . . . damn. I must have looked like a teenage beauty queen version of the ghost rider.”
All of them laughed even harder at the idea of that, finally settling down enough to have another drink as she finished her story.
“I had to have every bit of my hair cut off. It was all singed and broken almost to the scalp. I did have a few burns there, but they weren’t too bad. I got lucky with the judge being so quick on his feet, but I looked like Sinead O’Connor when it was all done.”
“Did you still go to pageants?”
“Are you kidding me? Hell no. Not that Mom didn’t try. It was less than a month later when she tried to stick a wig on me and enter me into the “Little Miss Dairy” contest at our county fair. I refused and she had a fit until Dad shut her down. He wasn’t home much, but happened to be there at the time.”
“You’ll fit right in around here. Most of the women in his place came from some sort of dysfunctional family. Sounds like your mom was a bit overbearing,” Amanda told her.
“That’s putting it mildly!” Ali added.
“Well, let’s have a toast!” Moose said, pouring them each a shot. “Here is to all the Mommy Dearests out there in the world. Cheers to surviving them.”
“Here. Here,” Ali laughed, clinking her shot glass to theirs.
Moose was glad to see that she seemed to be feeling better. No doubt the tequila didn’t hurt. After a while, Amanda excused herself to go check on Aspen and the baby, leaving them there to finish the bottle alone.
“I think I’ve had enough, Moose,” she told him after one last shot. “Maybe I best figure out how to get a shower now.”
“Figure it out? You’ve forgotten how?” he teased.
“I have to keep the stitches dry,” she replied.
Moose furrowed his brown, glancing down at her side. They were in an awkward place, but he’d seen plenty of injuries in this place. One advantage of being a shifter was that they healed really fast, but there had been wounds that were substantial and had taken more time to heal. They’d had to tend to them internally or end up as science experiments for doctors fascinated by the accelerated healing.
“I’ve got an idea. Stand up,” he told her.
He noted how gingerly she got up, even with the alcohol easing her pain. They must have really roughed her up in the process of wounding her enough to use as bait. Walking over to the cupboard, he fished around for a moment and then went to a nearby drawer where they kept a few tools and such.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“We’re going to seal up your wound with some plastic wrap and electrical tape.”
“Wi
ll that hold?”
“Not forever, but it should hold well enough to get you through a shower. I’m going to pull up your shirt. Okay?”
“Okay. It’s not like you haven’t already seen most of what’s underneath,” she replied.
Moose couldn’t help but notice she blushed a little when she said it. She hadn’t seemed at all demure earlier, but now she wasn’t as focused on her pain he guessed, so it was more noticeable that she was exposed to him, perhaps. He very carefully spread the plastic wrap up her side and began taping it on all sides.
“Do I even want to know what is happening in here?” Grant said.
Both Moose’s and Ali’s heads jerked up in his direction. He was always like that. So quiet and catching you by surprise. They must both look guilty of something incredibly weird at the moment.
“Sealing her scratch so she can get a shower,” Moose told him.
“Ah, of course. Those Dire Wolf scratches can get infected pretty easily. Be careful and keep it clean. I remember when Elizabeth had one. Nasty business.”
“Will do,” Moose replied, finishing up his tape job.
Grant retrieved some snacks, most likely for Elizabeth, and disappeared as quietly as he had arrived. With the wound closed up, he pulled down Ali’s shirt and stepped around in front of her.
“Okay. That should do you. Let’s get you what you need to get a shower and when you are done, I can help you clean the wound separately and put some gauze on it so it stays a bit cleaner. Grant is right about Dire Wolves. They are nasty bastards. I’m not surprised that a scratch from one of them might risk infection.”
“Thanks, Moose. You have really been great,” she replied.
She stretched up toward him on her tip toes and kissed him on the cheek, grimacing as she moved away. He smiled at her and nodded, offering her his arm to walk her back out and down the hallway. Luckily, the main bath was empty and they were able to get right in to collect what she needed. They returned to her room with his arms loaded down with supplies. She unlocked the door and he stepped inside to place the stuff on the counter in her bathroom.
“Alright. I’ll let you get to it then. I’m just down the hall. Room 3. Just knock when you are ready.”
“Thanks, Moose. Hey, you think you can do me a favor? Can you just wait out here until I’m done? I have some hang-ups about showering alone in strange places.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude.”
“You are not an intruder. Please stay?”
“Okay, I will.”
Moose sat on the bed and waited. He could hear the shower kick on and her sliding the glass doors closed. He tried not to imagine her gorgeous body beneath the steamy water, getting soaped up - her long hair sticking to her shoulders and back as she washed her hair. He tried to focus on something else, giving some thought instead to who might be giving information to the Dire Wolves. Right now, he had no clue, but he would figure it out. He had to.
The water shut off and his thoughts returned to Ali, imagining her drying off with one of the bath towels he had brought in for her. He thought about her walking out to him, dropping the towel and offering herself to him. He thought about what it might feel like to be inside her. He could feel himself getting hard and let the thought go. All he needed was to have a raging hard on when she walked back out. That would certainly instill trust.
Instead, she walked out, dressed in a pair of sweat pants and a tank top. She was still devastatingly beautiful, but at least he could resist his urges a bit more with her looking like that than if she had been still wrapped in a towel, her skin gleaming seductively.
“Ready to get this done so we can get to bed?” she asked.
Moose had a hard time keeping his thoughts clean at that statement, but he resisted. He focused on cleaning around the stitches and then put some clean gauze on to cover it, taping it up with the small roll of medical tape he had gotten from the main bath cabinet.
“Okay. That should do you,” he said.
“Thank you, Moose . . . for everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“I have a feeling you would have figured something out. You strike me as a resourceful girl.”
“I am, but it’s nice to have someone take off a bit of the burden sometimes.”
“Well, I am glad to have helped. I’ll let you get some rest, and see you in the morning. Breakfast is at seven. Do you want me to wake you for it?”
“No. Let’s see how it goes. I’d like to sleep in if I can.”
“Sounds good. Just find me when you feel like getting up. If I’m not in my room or the front lobby, just ask someone where I am. I don’t think I have to go anywhere tomorrow, but if I do, there are plenty of people here that will be happy enough to get you whatever you need.”
She nodded. Moose stood awkwardly for a moment and then turned to leave, pausing at the door to say a final goodnight.
“Goodnight, Moose,” she replied.
All he could think about on his way down the hall to his room was how wonderful it sounded to hear her say his name.
Chapter Four
“Are you sure she is still in there?” Grant asked.
It was after ten a.m. and there was still no sign of Ali. The temptation to knock on her door was killing him, but he didn’t want to bother her if she was just sleeping. It had been a rough couple of days for her and it could well be that she was just exhausted. He decided it was best to just let her be and if she wasn’t up by lunchtime, he would knock.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “She couldn’t get dressed by herself last night, so I don’t think she could climb out the window.”
“Helped her get dressed, did you?” Grant replied.
“Knock it off,” Moose said.
“Uh huh.”
Moose shook his head and walked down the hallway past her room. He slowed to see if he could hear any noise coming from inside, but there was nothing. He began to worry that she might not be okay at all. He was reconsidering whether to knock when he heard footsteps and laughter from the other end of the hall. He looked up to see a couple of the women approaching and turned back toward his room. Inside, he sat down at his desk and began making a list of women to start with in getting information. It would keep his mind off Ali for a while. He was completely absorbed in it when he heard a knock on the door.
“Come on in,” he called out, closing the notebook he had been working in.
“Hey. I thought I’d stop by and see if you were up to going into town with me? Amanda said it wasn’t safe to travel alone right now.”
“Town? Yeah, sure. What do you need to do?”
“I just need some personal things. I can’t afford much, but since I’m not confined to a backpack for all my worldly possessions, I’d like to grab some odds and ends.”
“Okay, sure. Are you ready to go now?”
“Yes. It won’t take long. We can be back in time for lunch.”
“Or I could buy you lunch while we are out.”
“No. I didn’t mean . . . I mean, I wasn’t suggesting,” she stammered.
“I know you weren’t, but you’ll be eating the food here enough. It’s pretty good, but sometimes it is nice to have something else. Variety is the spice of life.”
“That would be nice of you then.”
“Trust me. You’ll be doing me a favor. It will be nice to have lunch with such a gorgeous woman. Most of the time, I’m stuck eating with big hairy guys on trips into town.”
“You don’t have a girlfriend? A wife?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Just have been focused on other things. It’s not something I’ve been worried with. Anyway. Let’s get you to town then.”
“Changing the subject?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She looked at him, a single eyebrow raised, but she didn’t ask any more questions. He noticed she was now wearing jeans but was still in the tank top from l
ast night. It would be chilly on the back of the bike in just that.
“Do you have a jacket or a hoodie, something like that?”
“No. They cut my only jacket off me in the ambulance.”
“Hold on,” he told her, fishing around in his closet. He pulled out an old denim jacket that had belonged to him when he was a little younger and not quite as broad shouldered. It would be too big for her, but it would keep her warm. “I’ll help you into it.”
He slipped it onto her arms and stood back to look at her. She looked even tinier in the oversized jacket. Still, she was lovely. He reached down and rolled up the sleeves that were hanging far below her hands. When he was finished, he stepped back and looked at her. She was smiling at him thoughtfully.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“You’re welcome. Ready to go?”
“Yes.”
“Hopefully, it won’t be too rough on the back of the bike.”
“I’ll manage,” she told him.
Moose was as careful as he could possibly be, trying not to hit any bumps or potholes that might jar her too much. She didn’t seem any worse for wear when they reached the city. Instead, she was all smiles as they made their way through a few shops and then settled in at a local restaurant for a late lunch.
“This place is lovely, Moose. I wouldn’t have taken you for being partial to such a fancy Italian place.”
“Yeah, I guess I do look more like a burger and fries kinda guy,” he said, looking down at his plate for a moment.
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. I just meant…,” she said, struggling for words.
“It’s okay, Ali. I know I’m a bit rough around the edges. Just a big, burly biker who sometimes turns into a big hairy dog.”
“Not a dog. A wolf,” she reminded him.
“Yes, a wolf,” he said with a smile.
“I think there is a lot more to you than meets the eye. I assume they call you Moose because of your size, but you have a much softer side. You’re kind, thoughtful.”
“I can be, but don’t be fooled by it. I can also be quite brutal when I need to be.”
