She turned her head and frowned at the garage, which I'd forgotten to close up. "Why didn't you back the truck into the garage?"
"I had problems with the reverse gear," I lied quickly. "It was…sticking."
She frowned some more. "I'd better check it out."
I followed her and opened the truck door for her then gave her the keys and watched after she rolled down the window.
She pushed the gearshift lever to the right, then pulled it toward her. "Seems fine," she remarked. "Did you remember to push it in?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
She showed me how the lever had to be pushed in while pulling it down into reverse.
"I didn't know you had to do that," I said, reasonably. "The last truck I drove didn't work that way."
That seemed to be an acceptable answer and I got out of her way while she backed the truck out, turned it and reversed it into the garage.
I was waiting for her as she stepped from the cab. "Are those your motorcycles?" I asked.
"One of them is mine," she explained as we wandered over toward the bikes. "Although I don't ride it much anymore. The other two belonged to my husband. He…died twenty-five years ago."
"I'm sorry," I said swiftly.
She shook her head and stroked her fingers along the glossy curve of the Harley's polished gas tank. Her face was melancholy but I could tell the loss was an old wound, one that didn't pain her every day. "It was an accident at work. An explosion. His body was never recovered."
I nodded without speaking.
"You'd have liked him. He wore his hair long, like you. Most of the young men wore their hair long back then," she reminisced.
"I'm sure I would have liked him," I agreed quietly.
Her expression was far away as she smiled. "He usually wore it in a braid to keep it out of his face."
I nodded. My father and uncles had normally plaited their hair to keep it out of the way while they worked. So the idea didn't seem unusual to me.
"We took the Harley's out on weekend trips to the mountains. But the old Indian was just something my husband got for a good price and decided to keep as an investment. He didn't ride it very often."
"It's sweet," I murmured as my eye slid over the sleek black metal. "How much does something like that cost?"
"The Harleys run about twenty thousand. The Indian is more because of its antique value." She checked my face as she turned toward the garage door. "You'd look pretty good on it, with that leather jacket."
I just grinned as we headed back out into the weather and I pulled the garage door down. I thought I'd look good on it too. I thought I'd look even better on it with Whitney behind me, her cheek resting against my back, her arms wrapped around my waist. It was funny. Eight hundred years ago, I'd have been happy to take my girl out on the back of a horse. Now nothing less than a motorcycle was good enough.
And twenty thousand was a lot of money but I hoped to buy a bike one day. I even thought the gold ring I'd found in the mine could be the start of my motorcycle fund. With my hands in my pockets, I blew at the snowflakes that drifted toward my face.
"Maybe you could take it out for a spin in the spring, when the weather warms up," Peggy suggested as she opened the stable door and stepped inside.
"That'd be nice," I answered as we stomped the snow from our boots. "But I've never driven a motorcycle before."
She shrugged and backed toward her office. "You could ride it around on the property for a while before you took it out on the road. I have twenty-five acres here for you to practice on."
So it was really nice of her to suggest that.
"Just you, though. No riders."
I jerked my chin up and stared at her, guiltily wondering who she thought I would want to take for a ride.
"I've see the way you and Whitney look at each other," she laughed. "And I've been around long enough to know what that look means."
That wasn't exactly good news. Whitney had said Peggy and her mom talked all the time. And if Peggy ever told Mrs. Anders anything about us, things could go badly. I squinted at her and rubbed a hand behind my neck. "Peggy…" I started awkwardly.
She waved her hand through the air like she was swatting away problems. "Don't worry. I'll keep it to myself. I noticed you guys were trying to be…discreet about the whole thing."
I let out a long breath and smiled. "Thanks, Peg." And when she stood there for a while with one eyebrow arched upward like she expected more than that, I sauntered over to her and gave her a one-armed hug. She deserved it. Peggy Davis is one awesome lady.
At two o'clock, she insisted that I get started home and offered to give me a drive. I told her someone was already on the way, which was a lie. But I didn't want her risking the long drive around the park on slick roads. And I wasn't going to make Mac come out in weather like that, either. But it wasn't a long way home as the crow flies, or as the gargoyle flies. And the weather was bad enough that nobody was outdoors, so I wouldn't be seen, not that anyone could see very far in the snow-filled skies. So, out behind the stables, I tied my jacket around my waist, stuffed my T-shirt in one of my pockets, then spread my wings and flew home.
Seriously, it was no party flying in a blizzard without any shirt or coat, and I was chilled to the bone by the time I reached our rental. The place was empty so I pulled my stuff back on and headed over to Mac's place where Dare had a fire going in the family room and Havoc put a cup of hot chocolate in my hands.
Mac was helping her mom whip up a batch of oatmeal cookies. "You should have called!" she scolded me. "We would have picked you up."
"I didn't want any of you guys on the roads in this weather," I scoffed.
"They're not that bad," MacKenzie argued. "Mim got over here and she doesn't even have four wheel drive!"
"'Course I had to park at the bottom of the driveway," Mim called from the living room. "But otherwise, I made it here okay."
Mac sent me a disapproving scowl as she dropped cookie batter onto a baking sheet. "I can't believe you walked through the park in this stuff."
"Neither can I," Valor snickered, and gave me a meaningful look. He probably knew that'd I'd flown, which was normally strictly verboten in the daytime. In other words, Victor wouldn't have approved. But nobody could call me on it with Mac's mom standing in the same room.
"It was fun," I lied, carrying my hot chocolate into the living room where most of the pack had settled to play old video games while Mim researched mining claims on her laptop. The list she had going on the yellow notepad beside her computer looked discouragingly long.
By then, she'd dreamed about the snowy valley again, twice. But it was exactly the same as what she'd seen before, so she had nothing new to add that would help us find the building with the letters on the roof.
I passed Hooligan in the entry, acting like he wanted to go out. But when Val stepped across the living room and opened the door for him, he took one look at the banked snow outside and changed his mind. Hooligan's no dummy. He settled down by the fire Dare had built in the family room.
"How was work?" Victor asked as I propped my shoulder against the wall and watched my pack sprawled across the room.
"I drove a truck today," I admitted with a grin.
Havoc looked up from his game. "Where? How far?"
"About ten miles," I drawled. "In the parking lot in front of the stables."
"Ten miles!" he laughed.
"I'm still dizzy," I joked, although I did actually felt a little off balance for some reason. "Peggy needed the lot plowed so she gave me the keys to her pickup."
"Soon everyone will be driving except me," Havoc complained, or pretended to complain. You couldn't always tell with Havoc.
I nodded, not really listening to him. The scene outside the windows was peaceful, the thick snow blanketing everything in a pristine layer of white that softened the normal neighborhood sounds of dogs barking and cars on the road below, not that there were many vehicles traveling in
this weather.
But despite the quiet scene framed by the living room window, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. And as the afternoon wore on, the worry was like a constant ache in my chest. I didn't even notice the warm cookies Mac carried into the room and set on the coffee table. And they were gone before I realized I'd missed out. I didn't know what was going on, if it was a premonition of trouble headed our way, or if maybe one of my brothers was in danger. But I'd never experienced anything like it before and I was afraid it had something to do with Whitney.
To make things worse, Hooligan surprised me when he left his warm place beside the fire and suddenly appeared in the living room. Making straight for the couch where I was sitting beside Havoc, he plunked his huge head on my knee while a deep rumbling whine vibrated in his throat. It was bizarre because Hooligan never comes to me. He's MacKenzie's dog and Havoc's dog and even Valor's dog. But he steers clear of me. So I didn't know if he was feeling the same thing that I was, or if he'd just picked up on my mood and was expressing his sympathy.
I was still trying to shrug off the troubling feeling when it was time to head back to our place to start dinner. I followed the rest of the pack to the tiled entry where our coats were hung on pegs. Pulling on my jacket, I watched as Valor helped MacKenzie into her coat. We were just heading out when the phone in the kitchen rang. Mac's mom was in the mudroom doing laundry so Mac hurried off to answer it. She wasn't gone long. But when she came back from the kitchen, she was frowning at the cell phone in her hand.
"That was Mrs. Anders on the landline. Whit was supposed to call them before she headed home from skiing but she fell off the grid. They haven't been able to reach her and wanted to know if I'd heard from her."
"What did you tell her?" Val asked.
"Whitney hasn't called." Mac flicked her thumb against the phone's small screen. "And there aren't any texts from her, but I'll send her one now."
"Something's wrong," I muttered, and slumped back against the wall as my legs almost gave out beneath me.
MacKenzie raised her head and looked at me. "What do you mean?"
I lifted my hands away from my sides, feeling confused and off balance. "I don't know. I just know something's wrong. With Whitney."
"She's probably just out of range or something," MacKenzie soothed as we headed through the door.
"No," I insisted as Havoc forged a path through the snow and Victor followed his trail. "Something's wrong. I can…feel it. Can you scry for her?"
Standing on the doorstep, MacKenzie looked immediately uncomfortable. "You know that only works when the situation's dire."
I braced one of my hands against the side of the house, fighting a strange surge of dizziness. "I have a feeling the situation's dire, Mac."
"But…"
"Just try!" I shouted, earning a dark look from Valor. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. "If nothing happens then maybe we can assume she's alright."
"'Kay," MacKenzie relented, and gave me a concerned look like she thought maybe I was losing my mind.
But it wasn't my mind that was bothering me. It was my heart.
Chapter Fifteen
I rubbed a hand over my chest to ease the ache as we made our way over to the rental. "Hurry," I rasped when we got inside and were hanging our coats in the entry closet.
"Did you get a text back from Whitney?" Valor asked as he guided Mac into the living room with a hand on her lower back.
"No," MacKenzie answered after checking her cell. Folding her legs beneath her, she dropped to the floor and slid her phone onto the low coffee table. She called up her travel app while Havoc threaded a needle in case we needed it to hang over the phone. But the app was already blinking a red target symbol in the middle of the small screen.
"Where is she?" I asked breathlessly.
MacKenzie shook her head as she peered at the phone in front of her. "That can't be right."
I looked at the screen then back at her face. "Why not?"
She pointed at the cell's screen. "It's showing a location at the top of Guanella Pass."
"Guanella Pass?" I echoed. "Where's Guanella Pass and why can't Whitney be there?"
"Because she wouldn't haven taken that narrow little pass over the mountains…in the wintertime…in a snowstorm. She'd come home on I-70."
"What if I-70 was closed due to…snow…or an avalanche?" Mim questioned.
Mac started navigating through the functions on her phone. "I-70's open," she finally reported. "But eastbound traffic's at a standstill. They had three feet of new snow in three hours. A lot more than we got here."
"And what about this pass Whitney's on?" I asked. "Is it open?"
MacKenzie's face went pale as she studied her phone. "It closed an hour ago."
"Whitney must have turned off the highway at Georgetown and headed over Guanella," Mim said in a low voice.
"Has the target symbol moved since we first looked at it?" I asked, while my stomach churned with nerves.
She checked the travel app again. "I don't think so," she said, finally starting to look as worried as I felt.
"I'm going up there," I announced, stalking into the entry and grabbing my jacket. The others tried to slow me down but I wasn't having it. So Mac pulled Valor's knife from the sheath on his hip and threw it into the middle of the coffee table. The rest of the pack swiftly added their blades.
I ground my teeth and glared at the knives on the coffee table. According to custom, I was required to attend the pack meeting when a weapon had been thrown down in my presence. I lifted my hot gaze to MacKenzie, furious that she'd pulled this stunt to stop me. But it wasn't just MacKenzie working against me. Victor crossed his arms over his chest and pinned me with a stern look. "Let's plan this rescue properly," he said.
"Alright," I snarled, knowing the delay would be pure agony. "But let's get started. Now." But I was damned if I was going to sit down with the rest of them. I was too edgy. I paced the room with my jacket fisted in one hand as the others quickly found places on the couches.
The first thing Victor suggested was that someone should go with me. Specifically, he wanted to accompany me. I shook my head. Victor's a sprinter in the air, but isn't so great at the long haul. If one of my brothers had been there, I'd have been happy to take him along. But the rest of the pack weren't distance flyers like the gargoyles in my family. "You'll just slow me down," I pointed out impatiently. "And if I'm worrying about you, I can't focus on getting to Whitney as quickly as possible."
Next, Mac insisted they should drive me to the highway and cut down my flying distance.
"I don't want you guys out on the roads in this mess," I countered. "And you'll have to drive like ten miles an hour. I can fly faster than that."
"In this weather?" she asked, looking doubtful.
"I can't sit in the car and do nothing for half an hour while you drive me to the highway!" I exploded, throwing a hand through the air as I prowled the room. "It'll drive me crazy. I'll be better off if I'm in the air and doing something."
Then they started talking about what I should wear.
"Just be quick," I growled as Mac and Valor raced over to her place to search through closets and drawers for warm clothing.
They got me outfitted before I left the house. Mac had found her brother's old snowboard pants. Over those, she made me pull a sweatshirt and a dark hoodie, after slashing slits for my wings to fit through. I looked at my leather jacket that I'd tossed at the couch at little earlier. It was too small to fit over the bulky hoodie I was wearing, even if I cut holes in it.
Havoc dragged his big red lumberman's jacket from the closet and shoved it at me along with his hat—the one with the earflaps. Yeah, I don't think Victor had to worry too much about that whole division-within-the-pack issue. I looked at the thick, warm coat and hesitated, knowing how much my cousin loved it. I couldn't bring myself to slash two holes in the back of it. But Havoc doesn't mess around. The next thing I knew, he had hi
s knife out, ready to do the job for me.
"No," I insisted, and put out a hand to stop him.
"I'll get another one," he said quietly. "I was getting tired of the red, anyhow."
"Liar," I muttered.
"The next one will be yellow," he answered.
That was a deal-breaker for me. I didn't tell Havoc I wouldn't go anywhere with him if he was wearing a black and yellow plaid coat. "I'll never get off the ground," I managed to convince him. "But I'll take the hat."
So I stood there with that lame checkered hat on my head while MacKenzie sorted through her pile of clothing a last time and made me add a thin gray coat that she called a shell.
"What good will this do?" I grumbled as I pulled it on after cutting two holes in the back. It was so thin you could almost see through it.
"It's thin but it'll keep you dry," she explained fiercely, making it pretty clear that I should be damn happy to have it.
So I shut up and zipped myself into the shell.
When I was ready to go, I probably looked like Scott of the Antarctic. MacKenzie's ski goggles covered my eyes. The pockets of the shell bulged with snacks, a water bottle and a flashlight while my hands were lost in an oversized pair of leather mittens. We checked the travel app again and zoomed in on the target symbol. It looked like Whitney had reached the top of the pass and had gotten stuck beside a small lake. I figured the wide, flat area would help guide me to her once I got up there.
Mac wrapped her phone in a plastic bag and insisted that I take it with me. But as soon as it was in my hands, the app stopped flashing the target symbol on Guanella Pass. Instead, it blinked at the location of our rental in Pine Grove. Evidently, her magic powers aren't transferable. MacKenzie was disappointed but Mim pointed out that it actually worked out better for me. Because I already knew where I was going and I could check the phone at any point along the route to make sure I was on track.
"You might want to follow the roads to the top of the pass," Mim suggested. "So you don't lose your way."
I gave Dare an impatient look.
The Greystone Bundle (Books 1-4) Page 66
