by Moira Rogers
“Stella…” Colin narrowed his eyes. “She’s the one apprenticed to Keith Winston’s witch, isn’t she? Up in Red Rock?”
“That’s her. She was mentioning just the other day that it’s time for her to do some work on her own.”
“Then we’ll be glad to have her.” Jay arched an eyebrow. “Fletcher will even pay her, since he’s hot to start writing checks.”
Fletcher grinned. “My signing fingers are tingling already. I’ve always wanted to buy a witch.”
“Hire a witch,” Shane corrected. “You talk like that around Stella and she’ll bite your signing fingers off.”
“Good. She’ll fit right in with Jay’s snarly blonde.” Fletcher met Jay’s eyes, and there was a hint of challenge there. A lazy demand that Jay step up to the line. “She is yours, right?”
Eden was exactly the sort of woman Fletcher couldn’t resist. Jay suppressed a growl. “Yeah, she’s mine.”
“Well, then. Best to avoid temptation altogether. All the ladies are off limits.” Fletcher punched Colin on the shoulder lightly. “You hear that?”
Colin growled. “You touch me one more time, you’re going to lose that hand.”
“Jesus, Colin. I hope you’re more charming with the ladies.”
“I don’t need to be charming with the ladies. My face isn’t half as busted as yours.”
Jay pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ll go to Memphis tomorrow. Shane can stay here and look out for the place. In the meantime…try not to kill each other?”
Colin stood and jerked his head toward Shane. “You need help unpacking your gear?”
“I brought my bike, so there’s not much.” Shane swept up his computer as he rose from the table. “Have to get my wireless signal booster set up, though, if you’re looking for something to do.”
“Sounds like a party.”
Fletcher lingered as the two men stomped down the porch steps. “You’ve got your hands full, all right.”
“Yeah.” He squinted at his oldest friend. “What was that? That look you gave me about Colin?”
Sighing, Fletcher rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s getting to him. He ignored me when I told him to take it slow with the vigilante work. That shit’ll eat you up if you let it, and he’s been hip deep in it for a few years now without stopping to breathe.”
And Jay was dragging him to Memphis, possibly for more bloodshed. “If we can get past the immediate danger, maybe he’ll agree to stick around for a while. Take it easy.”
“I think he needs to.” The look in Fletcher’s eyes was deadly serious. “He’s been calling me more than he used to, and lately it hasn’t just been as a friend. He needs an alpha. Ask him to stay, and I’m pretty sure he will. Maybe for a long time.”
Colin wasn’t like Fletcher. With a good enough reason—for a good enough leader—Colin would sublimate his own alpha tendencies and content himself with helping to run a pack. Fletcher, on the other hand, would push and push, driven to challenge because his instincts would accept nothing less.
No, Colin wasn’t like Fletcher, who’d never stay. Who would wander until he formed or took on a pack of his own.
“He might stay,” Jay agreed. “I know you won’t. I get that too.”
“I’ll stay until everything’s settled,” Fletcher promised. “I want to help you, because I can believe in this. But once we’re out of enemies to fight together, you know what’ll happen.”
The squabbling would start—not petty, silly shit, but actual arguments arising from the fundamental differences in the way they approached problems. “I can take it. Can you?”
“Of course we can take it.” He glanced at the door. “It’s unfair to the rest of them, though. There can only be one leader. I’ll follow as long as I can and leave when I can’t.”
“Who knows? You might find something worth sticking around for.”
“Because that worked out well for me last time around.”
Rebecca. To say that Fletcher’s last serious entanglement had ended in disaster was an unqualified understatement. “Shit. I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to bring that up.”
“It’s forgotten.” Fletcher rose with his coffee cup in hand. “Do you want me to get right on the babysitting, or do you mind if I borrow your girl for a couple hours and write my first check?” He nodded toward the empty fridge on the other side of the kitchen. “We need a whole lot of food if we’re setting up camp. Might as well stock everyone’s pantries.”
Jay’s first instinct was to deny him the time alone with Eden. His second was to smile. “You’ll have to ask her.”
“Smart man.”
By the time she started her third batch of biscuits, Eden was starting to feel almost accomplished. The slight singe around the edges of the first batch hadn’t stopped hungry werewolves from devouring them in minutes.
She used her grandmother’s measuring cups to dump enough flour for a double batch into the large ceramic bowl and smiled ruefully at Lorelei. “You weren’t joking. A house full of werewolves can eat a lot.”
The other woman smiled a little. “No, I wasn’t joking.”
Such a tiny smile, but Eden was learning to count each one as a step forward. “Well, my father’s finally going to get his wish. I’m learning the family business.”
“Does he want you to take over the diner someday?”
“I don’t think he cares about the diner as much as just being able to leave me something.” Eden twirled her hand, her gesture taking in the farmhouse. “This was his legacy, before everything went wrong. The diner belonged to my mother’s family.”
Lorelei dusted flour over the butcher’s block. “Zack never mentioned this place. I didn’t know it existed until he started talking about bringing everyone here.”
“I’m not surprised. Growing up was tough, and Zack’s father…” Eden glanced at Lorelei, unsure how much Zack had shared and unwilling to tread on what little privacy her cousin had left. “No one was really happy here.”
“It’s a shame.” Lorelei wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, her expression sympathetic but also somehow matter-of-fact. “Is that dough ready?”
“Just about.” Eden turned toward the fridge to retrieve the buttermilk and froze when a glance out the front window showed Mrs. Wilson lugging an oversized basket up the driveway. “Oh, hell. We’re about to have company.”
Lorelei froze. “It’s not—” Her voice cracked, and she shook her head. “Who?”
“No,” Eden said quickly, cursing her verbal clumsiness. “No, it’s just the neighbor from the farm down the road. She’s harmless, but she’s nosy. She’s the one who called Jay when you guys first showed up.”
“What could she possibly want?”
Eden wiped off her hands with a wry smile. “You’re not from a small town, are you?”
Lorelei groaned. “A bunch of women living here with your hoodlum cousin. That’s what this is about.”
Judging by the size of the basket, Mrs. Wilson had been counting the number of people who came in and out of the farm. “We were always going to have to deal with this eventually. How good are you at charming old ladies?”
“Honestly? I suck at charming anyone who isn’t trying to get in my pants.”
“Oh boy.” Eden eyed Lorelei for a moment and couldn’t help her grin. “I guess I could always pass you off as my cousin. You look more like me than Zack does.”
Lorelei nodded. “Let’s go with it.”
“Dad’s side of the family,” Eden decided, throwing the towel over her shoulder as Mrs. Wilson’s footsteps creaked up the porch steps. “We’ll just say family’s reclaiming the farm and leave it at that for now.”
“Got it.”
Mrs. Wilson knocked, and Eden counted silently to five before crossing to the door to pull it open with a smile. “Mrs. Wilson, how nice to see you.”
“Pleasure’s mine, Eden.” She held up the basket, her gaze already sliding past Eden and over the interior of the
house. “Is this a bad time?”
If she didn’t let the woman in, Mrs. Wilson would only be more convinced that something deviant and illicit was happening behind the closed doors of the farm. Lifting the basket from the old woman’s hands, Eden stepped back and nodded toward the open archway to the kitchen. “My cousin and I were just making biscuits, but if you’d like to come in and have some tea, you can meet her.”
Her eyes lit on Lorelei. “Your cousin?”
Lorelei smiled and held out her hand. “How do you do?”
“Mrs. Wilson, this is Lorelei. She’s my second cousin once removed, maybe? Or third cousin.” Eden faked a lighthearted laugh as Lorelei shook hands. “I can never remember how those work. Anyway, she’s come to help us turn the farm around. I’m sorry I forgot to call and warn you that they were on their way in. Chief Ancheta told me you were keeping an eye on the place, and I appreciate it so much.”
“Of course,” the old woman murmured. “They?”
“Yes, a few of the cousins and some of their friends.” Eden pulled out a chair with a bright smile. “Sit, sit. Lorelei, could you get some of the sweet tea from the fridge?”
Lorelei flashed her a look behind Mrs. Wilson’s back. “I’d love to.”
Eden bit the inside of her cheek until she was sure she wasn’t going to smile in response. She would not laugh. She would not laugh. “How have you been, Mrs. Wilson? Well, I hope? Any visits from your grandchildren lately?”
“Oh no, dear. Not since last month. They’re back in school now, you know.”
“Of course, how silly of me.” She held the kitchen chair until the old woman had lowered herself into it, then took the seat next to her. “I hope we haven’t been too loud for you, with the renovations.” There. An opening for the woman to voice her complaints. The quicker she got around to it, the quicker Eden could hustle her on back out the door.
“Mostly the coyotes, dear. They’ve been terribly noisy, but that situation should rectify itself once deer season starts.”
Mrs. Wilson had to be mistaking the wolf howls for coyotes. Lord, would the hunters make the same mistake? Surely Jay must know enough to be careful, if he’d been running around Clover all this time without getting shot.
Presumably. Hell, maybe he had been shot, and she just didn’t know. It was one more worry to add to the list. “Of course,” she said faintly. “Well, we should be finished fixing up both houses soon, in any case.”
“Both?” The woman raised an eyebrow. “How many of your cousins have come to stay here?”
Eden ground her teeth together through a smile. “Just a few, but there will be workers too. Putting the farm to rights will take a lot of hard work.”
Lorelei delivered the glasses of tea, and Mrs. Wilson smiled at her. “Are y’all going to grow soybeans like everyone else? I swear, no one does any of the specialty crops anymore. No place to sell them.”
“We’re still debating some of the particulars,” Eden hedged when Lorelei said nothing. “Concentrating on the barn and fixing the place up. We’re going to get a few animals, and one of the girls has a very nice business. Lorelei, why don’t you go and see if Mae has a gift box we could give to Mrs. Wilson?”
“Okay.” Lorelei shot out of the kitchen, leaving Eden alone with the puzzled-looking Mrs. Wilson.
The woman sipped her tea before speaking. “I thought you meant they were helping you get your farm going, Eden, but it sounds as though everyone’s staying.”
Eden met the implied question with a bland smile. “Not everyone, but it’s not just my farm, you know. And I still have a job in town, so I can’t be here to manage things.” Odd, that those words already made her feel vaguely hollow. There would be a time when she couldn’t be here every day to help, and it felt…wrong.
“Oh.” Mrs. Wilson toyed with the lemon wedge on the rim of her glass. “I thought the farm was just yours. I assumed, you know, when Albus died and Zachary didn’t come home for the funeral.”
On paper, it did belong to her. Albus’s last defiant gesture, leaving everything he owned to Eden. As much as she’d wanted her father to reconcile with his brother for his own peace of mind, Eden was fervently glad Zack hadn’t returned for his father’s final, bitter days. Albus’s body might have failed, but his mind and his vicious hatred had stayed as sharp as ever.
“We’re family,” she told Mrs. Wilson, just like she’d told her father. Just like she’d tell Zack. “I may own the farm, but it belongs to all of the Greens. That’s how it should be, don’t you think?”
“But will Zachary ever come back to it?”
The old biddy hadn’t seen him yet. Eden considered lying, but Zack’s presence would come out eventually, and everything she’d ever said on the topic would be scrutinized by Mrs. Wilson and everyone she knew. “He’s already here. Working hard on the barn right now, I think.”
The woman straightened, obviously taken aback. “I didn’t know that.”
Lorelei hadn’t returned. Eden was starting to envy her. “Yes, he’s been here for a few days. He came with Lorelei and the others.”
“I see.”
Silence stretched out, expanding and growing until it was a tangible presence every bit as real as Mrs. Wilson, who stared at her in awkward discomfort, clearly at a loss for words.
Well, words she’d say to Zack’s cousin, in any case.
Eden cleared her throat and gestured to the barely touched glass. “Can I get you some more sweet tea?”
A good deal of the older woman’s indulgent courtesy had chilled. “Actually, I should be going. You will keep the construction noise down, won’t you, Eden?”
You hadn’t even heard it until you found out Zack was here. This was how it would be from now on. Zack didn’t have to do anything to be guilty. If the town couldn’t find a crime he’d committed, they’d make one up.
They always had.
It was hard to smile when she wanted to bare her teeth in a snarl, but Eden managed. She smiled until her jaw ached. “Of course, Mrs. Wilson. Thanks so much for the basket.”
“You’re welcome, honey.” The woman rose and returned Eden’s smile. “And tell your daddy I asked after him, all right?”
“Absolutely. Let me walk you out.”
She kept her smile fixed in place like it’d been stapled there until the door was shut with her adversary on the other side. The wolf stirring inside her wouldn’t view the old woman as anything else, not when Mrs. Wilson invaded their territory and stank up the room with disapproval and chilly disdain.
Too bad for Mrs. Wilson, and too bad for every nosy gossip in Clover. Eden wasn’t a helpless kid this time around, and no one was going to drive Zack away from his home.
Lorelei peeked around the open archway into the living room. “I hid. I’m not proud of that fact, but there it is.”
Eden laughed hoarsely and closed her eyes. “That just makes you smart.”
“I heard bits and pieces. She thinks we’re starting a filthy hippie commune and that Zack’s the Antichrist.”
“They’ve always thought that, ever since he was a teenager.” Eden pushed away from the door and headed back for the kitchen island. “It’s not going to get better once they see him. The tattoos are a bit much for Clover.”
Lorelei lingered, staring at the front door with a troubled expression. “We’ll have to be careful, won’t we?”
It had always been the truth, but maybe the wolves who were used to the city hadn’t understood. “People around here think they have a right to know everything about everyone. And when we start selling soap and lotion and handspun fabric…”
Hippie commune, indeed.
Chapter Six
Jay felt Zack’s approach in the jagged, discordant power that flowed ahead of him, but Eden’s cousin didn’t say a word until he’d dropped a cardboard package of beer down hard enough to rattle the glass bottles within. “Thought you might be thirsty.”
Jay finished hammering in the nail he’d pl
aced to secure the barn window casement. “Thanks. I could use one.”
Zack claimed one bottle and sat in one of the folding chairs situated among the building supplies. “Fair warning. It’s a bribe.”
Interesting. Jay eyed him as he dropped to the other chair. “What do you need?”
“That wolf who’s following me around.”
Fletcher couldn’t have already made an ass of himself, but maybe Zack was looking for confirmation more than anything else. “I asked him to keep an eye on you,” Jay confessed.
Zack stared at empty air and took a slow sip of his beer. “So he doesn’t want to be my new best friend.”
“You sound relieved.”
“Don’t really want a new best friend.” Another sip. “Mine hasn’t been dead all that long.”
Lorelei had explained—in hushed, sad tones—about Zack’s roommate, Noah, and his attempts to hold the pack together after Zack’s abduction and supposed death. “I’m sorry.”
Zack shrugged, his gaze still fixed on that empty bit of space, but not like he was staring forward, unseeing. He could have been looking at something—or someone. “I lost a lot more than just Noah. I’d be watching me like a hawk too.”
Chilling words, nearly the last ones Jay wanted to hear. “You seem to be doing okay, all things considered.”
“All things considered. Maybe I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. Never thought I’d end up back here.”
“Can’t say as I blame you.” The farm was beautiful, but it wasn’t peaceful. It wasn’t settled. “You’ll get past it. You’ve got a lot of good things going.”
“I do, do I?”
“Sure. Everyone’s relatively safe here, and you’ve got Eden and Austin looking out for you.”
Zack’s mouth twitched toward a smile. “Eden looking out for me. God, that makes me feel old.”
“Not the kid you remember, huh?” Jay sobered. “I would have talked to you about Fletcher first, but I wasn’t sure how you’d take it. Alpha to alpha, I mean.”
