by Cara Adams
By the time Maelor had stumbled his way to the end of the speech Dylan was glad it hadn’t been him answering the question. Maelor had done an excellent job of giving a completely honest answer without using any terms that might cause the customers sitting at the tables around them to prick up their ears. Better than he’d done when he mentioned the adult shop in fact. Not that people attacked adult stores the way they sometimes attacked shape-shifter communities. But then again, most people didn’t think werewolves were real, and he was fine with that assessment. If they didn’t believe he existed, they wouldn’t be trying to kill him.
Hawthorne reached out across the table and patted Maelor’s hand. “I understand. Thank you for sharing.”
Dylan wanted to ask, “So, will you give us a chance?” but wasn’t brave enough right now. Instead he asked, “Hawthorne, what are your plans for the next few days? Now you can go wherever you want to once more.”
“I often used to go for a walk in the evenings after work. I might start doing that again and gradually get to know the neighborhood here. But in the meantime I was thinking of joining the gym here at the mall. I’d planned to go there next and see what kind of equipment they have.”
“A lot more men than women are members, but I know Dakota goes regularly. Do you remember Dakota?” asked Maelor.
“Of course. I met her the day I arrived. She was really helpful. I haven’t really talked to her since that day so it’ll be good to catch up with her again. Are you both finished eating? Can we go to the gym now?”
Dylan ought to go straight back to work. Maelor was off shift right now, but Dylan was supposed to work from eight to six each day. Taking a lunch break was reasonable as long as there were no crises to deal with. Wandering around the fitness center, well, likely he shouldn’t do it. But he did make his rounds visiting the stores sometimes, so too bad. He’d go as far as the door with her at least.
Hawthorne grabbed their trash, dropped it in the trash can, and then they walked to the glass elevator and took it to the fourth level. The Hanson Mall Fitness Center was at the opposite end of the building from the entry to the professional suites, tucked on the sidewall between the cinema and Sam’s Steakhouse.
Dylan couldn’t wait to see what Hawthorne would think of the gym. It had been primarily established so the werewolves would have somewhere suitable to use up their excess energy. Cadfael knew that with too many single young males around, trouble would inevitably occur unless they were able to distract themselves in fun and useful ways. There was plenty of work available at the mall. The gym was to add some fun. It was one of the areas Cadfael had greatly expanded when he became managing director of the mall and Alpha of the pack.
The back wall of the gym had been moved out, enlarging the fitness center to more than twice its original size. A boxing ring, lots more weight and exercise machines, and a lap swimming pool had been added, along with a steam room and an aerobics room. Originally most of the men had sneered at the concept of aerobics classes, until a sexy little wolf had started taking the lessons, and then suddenly they’d become extremely popular.
Maelor swiped open the door to the gym for them and let Hawthorne enter first. Dylan deliberately stood to the side so he could watch her look around.
Andreas, the manager of the fitness center, was on the reception desk as he so often was. He liked to know exactly who was in his gym at all times.
“Hi, Maelor, hi, Dylan, and I’m guessing you’ll be Willow’s sister. You have the same hair and eyes.”
“That’s right. I’m Hawthorne. I don’t have any money right now, but as soon as the house is sold I plan to become a member. Can I please just look around? And maybe take some brochures about the programs and costs?”
“Of course. But since you work here you can start coming as soon as you wish, and we’ll backdate your membership when you actually join up. As a worker at Hanson Mall you get the discount rate. I’m Andreas, the manager. Ask me any questions you want.”
“Thank you.”
Dylan felt jealous of the lovely smile she gave Andreas, and had to prevent himself from snarling and snatching her to himself. Instead, he stayed beside her as she walked through the complex, looking at everything.
“Wow!”
“Wow what?” asked Maelor.
“You’ve got mirrored walls and a sprung floor and everything. That’s awesome. I hope there’s a Zumba class I can join.”
“Zumba?” Maelor looked at Dylan and he shrugged. She might as well have been speaking a foreign language to him. He boxed, used the weights and rowing machines, and occasionally swam. That was the limit of his knowledge about the place.
All he knew was that the more he saw of Hawthorne Cunliffe, the more he wanted to get to know her better. Preferably naked and in his bed. Or in Maelor’s bed. Either would work as long as the three of them were together.
Chapter Two
After Maelor and Dylan had walked Hawthorne back to her apartment, Maelor turned to Dylan. “If we want to make her ours we need to talk, and plan, and get our act together. Did you see the look Andreas gave her?”
“Yes, I did. But he’s way too smart to push in on our territory. However, if Hawthorne doesn’t want us, all bets are off. I expect he’ll be after her himself in a heartbeat.”
“Damn straight he will be. That’s why I said we need to—”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. But I’m way overdue to return from my lunch break. I have to get back to my office. What shift are you on today? Have you finished for the day or what?”
“I’m on early shift this week. Midnight to 8:00 a.m.”
“Well, damn. That’s not going to work. By the time I get off tonight you’ll be asleep getting ready for your shift, and I should be at work at eight when you get off shift.”
“I don’t want to wait a whole week before we talk. I usually get some quiet time to think on this shift. It’s mostly just walking around making sure the cleaning crew is doing its thing and checking that no one is vandalizing the parking lot, or painting graffiti on the building. I’ll drop into your office when I come off shift and maybe we can talk for a few minutes to work out where we go from here. We need to take her out on a genuine date.”
“Maybe we could join her in the Zumba class. If they have one on the weekend that is,” joked Dylan.
At least, Maelor hoped he was joking. For a start, both of them often worked on weekends, and secondly he had no intention of prancing around in some girly dance class. Likely they’d expect him to wear one of those skintight, see-through dance costumes where everyone could see his cock and balls. He wouldn’t even wear one of those for a game in the bedroom, never mind in public.
Maelor was partnered on again with Dakota tonight. Even though he was the head of security, he never interfered with the rosters. They were organized by a computer program that treated everyone equally. He believed in doing the shit shifts as well as the good ones, and partnering with the other guards in rotation helped him get to know them all, their weaknesses, their failings, their strengths, and their personalities. Dakota was a good partner. She was smart and fit, so much so he had trouble remembering that she was both human and female. But she didn’t cause his cock to rise. His admiration, yes. But not his cock.
The shift turned out to be one of those nights where they were constantly on the move. First there were teenagers in the parking lot, using the supermarket trolleys to ride down the ramps like toboggans. Some people might call it harmless fun but the ramps were steep, the teenagers intrepid, and the likelihood someone would fall over the side of the parking lot onto the concrete many feet below too high.
By the time those kids were sent on their way back home, another group was trying to climb the back wall of the complex to abseil down from the dome. He called the police this time. These kids were older and came equipped with ropes and crampons and other gear.
No sooner had the police taken them away than some stupid kids were throwing pumpkins from the
top deck of the parking lot at passing cars.
“Jeez, Louise, is it end of semester break or something? Hasn’t anyone taken their medication tonight?” Dakota complained as they ran up six flights of stairs.
He called a cleaning crew and stood over the kids as they scrubbed the mess off the roadway. He wasn’t sure if he could legally do that. The mall didn’t own the roadway, but none of the kids was prepared to bitch to him, so he hoped they’d learn their lesson and be glad not to have to call their parents to bail them out of the police station.
By the time his shift was over all he wanted to do was sleep. He’d think of a date to take Hawthorne on tomorrow. He might even ask Dakota what she thought Hawthorne might enjoy. Hawthorne, so sweet and beautiful, yet sharp. He’d been surprised by what she said and what she wanted to do a few times yesterday and he liked that. He rather thought a woman who was totally predictable might become boring after a while. No way could he ever imagine Hawthorne being boring.
It’d been amazing when she’d asked to go to the adult shop. His dick had almost driven its way out of his pants as he walked through the store with her. Which reminded him, he needed to buy some chocolate condoms. And a few other things she’d looked at as well. Those fluffy handcuffs. Oh yes. And maybe that really short little nurse’s uniform. He could imagine a nice game of doctors and nurse with himself, Dylan, and Hawthorne. Hell, yes.
* * * *
Hawthorne was excited to see there was a Zumba class at the fitness center, and she’d even met the woman who was the trainer for it and the aerobics classes. She was tiny, and Hawthorne was sure she was a wolf. But all Marbella had said was, “Honey, when you’re as short as I am, you need to be fit enough to run away from trouble. Ain’t no way you’ll ever be strong enough to fight it off.”
That seemed like good advice to Hawthorne. After all, running away had worked for her. The problem was, when she’d run away she’d filled her backpack with clean underwear, a pair of boots, a couple pairs of jeans, and a sweater or two. No running clothes, sweat pants, or even shorts. Oh sure she could buy whatever she wanted. She was effectively living in a mall. And since her sister was mated to the managing director of the mall, getting credit was a done deal as well.
But it just seemed wasteful, somehow, to buy an entire wardrobe of new clothes when she had a closet full of perfectly good clothing at home.
Apartment 7C had been one of the werewolf pack’s guest apartments for when visitors needed a place to stay. When she and Willow had arrived they’d been placed there with the mall’s nurse to help them and watch over them. But once they’d both settled in Nurse Eilidh had returned to her own apartment and the smaller bedroom that she’d been using had been turned into an office. The walls were covered with pinup boards of family trees. Both Willow and Hawthorne were trained in genetics and they were assembling all the data other teams had collected on werewolf family histories. When shape-shifters married other shape-shifters, after several generations, girls become scarcer, with most babies born being male. But when a shape-shifter mated a human, the birthrate returned to half boys and half girls.
Hawthorne and Willow were collating data from the family histories to try to determine if this was a new phenomenon, or whether it had always been the case. Hawthorne was still sleeping in the larger bedroom that she’d originally shared with her sister, but now Willow was living with Rhion and Cadfael in Cadfael’s top-floor apartment.
When Willow arrived to start work the next day, Hawthorne was sitting, thinking, at the small table in the living area.
“Is something wrong?” Willow asked.
“No, but we do need to talk.”
“What’s up?”
Willow sat beside her and took her hand. Hawthorne smiled. That was so characteristic of her sister. She was always caring for Hawthorne and putting her first.
“I’m fine, truly. I was just thinking that now that Bailey’s in jail we really ought to take a road trip back home and clean out the house, collect all our possessions, and put the house up for sale. I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to hate every T-shirt I’ve brought with me.”
“I know how you feel. This is no longer my favorite sweater.” Willow pulled at a loose thread on the cuff of her sweater and Hawthorne laughed.
“So when can we go? Can we borrow a car? I mean, does the mall even have vehicles? Does Cadfael have a truck or something we could borrow?”
“I don’t know. It’s not something we’ve ever talked about. But it’s definitely time for you and me to be moving on. I don’t think we need to keep any of the furniture. It might be better to sell the house furnished. It’s not like there are any antiques or things handed down for generations. There’s not even anything I particularly want. What about you?”
“I’ve been sitting here thinking and nothing there has special meaning for me. I expect we’ll keep the photograph albums, but Dad was such a terrible photographer we’ll likely end up throwing away most of the pictures anyway.”
“God, yes. There was either two-thirds of the picture showing the sky with you and me cut off at the eyebrows—”
“Or a hell of a lot of grass and us cut off at the knees. He never ever figured out how to frame a shot properly.” Hawthorne laughed.
Willow went into their office and came out holding a notepad. “Okay let’s do this properly. If we buy a whole lot of trash bags they’ll do for throwing away the things we don’t want and for holding our clothes and things that won’t fit in the suitcases. There’s what, five, six suitcases at home?”
“Six. One each for the four of us and the two new ones Mum and Dad bought before they went to Florida that time. I think that the clothes I want to keep will fit in three cases, but trash bags are a good idea. Multipurpose storage, as it were.”
Together they thought through the contents of each room, listing the few things they would want to keep. Some gadgets from the kitchen, some pictures, some books, some DVDs, a few childhood mementoes. “That should fit in a regular car with just the two of us. Now when do you want to go?” asked Willow.
Hawthorne shrugged her shoulders. “It really doesn’t matter. Any day is pretty much like any other day. But the two of us can easily deal with this ourselves. I’ll Google the realtors and as soon as we’ve tidied the house and removed our things they can put it on the market. We can sign the paperwork while we’re there.”
“Oh, we need to bring with us a small gift for the neighbors who’ve been watching the house for us.”
“Good point.” Hawthorne giggled, wondering if they’d appreciate something from the adult shop. She really liked those fluffy handcuffs.
They went through the lists again, both mentally picturing each room as they “walked” through the house, then Hawthorne went back into the office to check on realtors, while Willow ran upstairs to ask Cadfael about borrowing a truck.
Hawthorne was startled when Willow returned with Cadfael, Rhion, and Dylan. She looked from one to other and stared at Willow, who raised her hands and shoulders in a helpless gesture.
“You women are not going alone,” said Cadfael.
“Don’t you understand that Jackson Hamilton is still out there?” That was Rhion.
“So what? He doesn’t care about me. About either of us.”
“You don’t know that. Just because he wasn’t as stupid as his brother doesn’t mean you’re completely safe. Especially if you’re heading right back into his territory. At the moment likely he doesn’t know where you are, but once you start cleaning out the house and putting it up for sale he’s bound to find out,” said Dylan.
“Just tell us what you want to keep and I’ll get a team to clean the place for you,” said Rhion.
“Thank you, but I’ll choose my clothes myself.” Willow crossed her arms and glared at Cadfael and Rhion.
Hawthorne leaned back in her chair as her sister and her two men fought a verbal skirmish. It was becoming increasingly obvious that no one was going to w
in, so Hawthorne waved her hands at them. “Willow and I are both going. If you don’t like that, why don’t you send a couple of burly men with us? They can protect us and carry the heavy stuff as well. At least that way they’ll be vaguely useful.”
“We can’t both leave the mall,” Cadfael said to Rhion.
“No, but if you both stay, Maelor and I can go instead. There are plenty of other security people who can cover for Maelor, and Rhion can do my job for a few days.”
“As well as my own? Thanks.” But Rhion wasn’t really arguing with Dylan. Hawthorne could tell he was going to agree because he trusted Maelor and Dylan to look after Willow and her. Actually Maelor was so big likely he could protect them all by himself. However, she wasn’t going to argue either.
“Good. Now that we’ve gotten that settled, when can we leave? I suppose tomorrow is too soon for everyone to get organized?” asked Hawthorne.
“Tomorrow? Fucking hell, woman, what have you been drinking?” Dylan stared at her.
“If I contact the realtor today, and if we leave first thing tomorrow, we should only need to stay two nights. Three at the most. You do know how to scrub and sweep, I hope?” That last line was just to tease them, but she did expect them to help, at least a bit.
“Yes, I know how to clean a house. And move furniture. Wait until I text Maelor and tell him instead of a nice cushy early morning security guard shift he’s scheduled to be your personal slave for the next couple of days.”
“What time do you plan to leave tomorrow?” Rhion asked Willow.
