by Noir, Roxie
“Yeah, I need to shave,” he agreed.
They hadn’t meant to get a cat. For fuck’s sake, they were wolves, and wolves and cats just didn’t mix.
Pinecone hadn’t really given them an option, though. She’d wandered into their yard one day, her long fur matted and dirty, sat by the back door, and acted like she lived there.
They broke down after a day, bought cat food, and started feeding her. After she ate, she jumped into Gavin’s lap, and when he petted her, he found an entire pinecone stuck in the fur of her tail.
Three years, a haircut, and a couple vet visits later, she was there to stay. Not that the two mates thought they had a say in the matter.
As Piney licked his face, the front door opened again, and Gavin walked in.
The moment Chase saw his face, he knew it was bad. He tossed Piney onto the couch, where she bounced once, meowed in protest, and then went to greet Gavin.
“What’s wrong?” Chase said, skipping the greeting. His stomach knotted inside him.
Gavin bent to pet the cat, avoiding Chase’s gaze.
That was an even worse sign.
“You want a beer?” asked Gavin.
Chase studied his mate’s face for a moment, not quite sure what was happening.
“Am I gonna need one?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Gavin.
Chase flopped back onto the sofa, watching Piney’s fluffy black tail disappear into the kitchen.
“No cats in the fridge,” he heard Gavin say, followed by a meow of protest. Chase half-smiled. It was a conversation he had with the cat at least once a day.
As Gavin walked toward Chase, Piney galloped in front of him, jumping onto the back of the couch and sitting down, her yellow eyes staring at Chase. Gavin handed him the beer, then sat next to him.
“Well?” Chase said. “What’s so bad?”
“I found her,” said Gavin.
Chase’s heart leapt, then froze.
“Why is that bad?” he asked.
Gavin took a long drink, then scratched Piney’s head.
“You remember when the Ponderosa pack tried to form a militia and take over the state of Cascadia, right?” he asked.
“You mean when a crazy person had a lot of guns in a shed and a plan that wasn’t going to work? Yeah,” said Chase.
“You remember the daughter, Scarlet?”
Chase froze, his beer halfway to his mouth. Of course he remembered that case. No wolf had been able to talk about anything else for months, and he’d been on parole himself at the time, a couple years before they moved to Rustvale. Gavin had still been a guard at the prison, taking night classes to get his college degree, and Chase had been working at a garden center for minimum wage.
His coworkers had watched him suspiciously for months afterward, even though he’d never even met that pack before. Even though all he wanted was to make enough money to pay for food and rent, and to not go back to jail. All over the place, police had been busting down wolf doors on the flimsiest evidence possible, just because they were wolves.
Out west, closer to the coast, a human man had shot a wolf shifter in broad daylight, right in the middle of town, claiming that he felt “unsafe” with a wolf in public. There had been days that Chase hadn’t wanted to leave his apartment, wondering if today was the day that someone decided he was a threat.
“That wasn’t her,” he said.
Gavin stared forward and nodded. Chase put one hand over his eyes, trying to remember what she’d looked like four or five years ago.
“That can’t have been her,” he went on. “Wasn’t she this skinny, hateful thing? She couldn’t have been more than nineteen when she got locked up.”
“Twenty-two,” said Gavin.
“All that shit she said about bears and lions and humans during the trial,” Chase said, his voice faint with disbelief. “That was her?”
“Yep,” said Gavin. “Guess who’s my newest parolee.”
Chase felt blown over, so he took a long drink from his beer. He could remember hating that girl for the things she said, and the things that her family did. They’d made it harder for wolves everywhere. Her father had been worse, but the media had paid special attention to the young, angry woman.
“Her,” he repeated.
“Her,” Gavin confirmed.
Chase took another moment, and Piney yawned, then jumped onto the couch cushions where they sat and butted her head against Chase’s arm.
“Jesus,” Chase said. He felt like all the words had been sucked right out of his brain, leaving nothing but a vacuum. All he knew was that every time he closed his eyes, he saw the woman with the leather jacket, the dark hair, and the gray eyes.
“I know,” said Gavin.
Chase jumped off the couch, disgruntling the cat, and started pacing around the room.
“I thought she was it,” he said. “I really did.”
“Me too,” said Gavin.
“Were we wrong?” Chase asked.
“I guess,” said Gavin. “Now that I know what she’s done, I don’t think I can...”
He trailed off and shook his head.
Chase thought of her again: gray eyes, teasing smile. She was the woman who’d shouted in front of an entire courtroom that she’d shoot every last grizzly shifter if she could?
It made his stomach turn, and he sat down on the ottoman, facing Gavin, who had now assumed the duty of petting Piney.
“Okay,” he said. “We were wrong.”
Gavin nodded, looking into Chase’s eyes.
“Yeah,” he said. “We were wrong.”
Neither of us means it, Chase thought.
And neither of us knows how to fix this problem.
The days ticked by, but Chase couldn’t think about her less. He thought about her when he was in bed with Gavin. He thought about her when they went on a ten-mile hike that weekend, a hike that they went on expressly to get Scarlet off their minds. He thought about her driving home and in the shower, and every time he looked at Gavin, he knew that his mate was thinking about her too.
But then he remembered the bad things. She’d shot a guy, practically a kid, and left him to die. She’d been part of a hate group, and she’d gone to jail for treason.
Chase knew he wasn’t perfect. He’d done time himself, for fuck’s sake, but he’d done it for growing pot, not for trying to wipe out an entire class of people. He had no idea how much someone could change from that mindset, or whether they even could.
More than almost anyone, Chase and Gavin knew that change didn’t come easy. Half of Gavin’s parolees went back inside within a year, no matter how hard Gavin tried. Chase knew that most of the guys he’d gone in with were back inside, after unsuccessful stints on the outside. Old habits were just so easy.
A week went by and nothing changed, so Friday morning, Chase got out of bed and left Gavin sleeping there in the dark. Then he drove into Rustvale alone, the steel gray of sunrise barely illuminating the horizon when he parked outside the Sweet Dreams Bakery. The clock in his truck still said it was five forty-five, but he walked to the front door and stood next to it, leaning against the wall.
One by one, the street lamps went off as the sun rose, slowly. At last, he heard the click of the deadbolt being shot back and then the rattle of the sign being turned to open.
Chase took a deep breath and opened the door, just as Scarlet turned the corner and went back behind the counter. When she saw him, she stopped, then carefully brushed her hands down her apron.
His eyes dropped to her forearm, the triple moon tattoo. Chase knew exactly what it meant. He’d even been offered one, and turned it down.
“Hi,” she said, her hands still in her apron.
“Hi,” he said. “Scarlet.”
Chapter Ten
Scarlet
“I guess you found me out,” Scarlet said.
She felt like she was frozen in place, totally stuck to the floor. After Friday, she’d half-hoped that she
wouldn’t see either of them again, but now Chase was here, and despite being sleepy and surprised and pretty angry, she was also glad to see him.
At least he came to say goodbye, she thought.
“I guess I did,” Chase said. He stepped up to the counter. “What’s good today?”
Scarlet took a deep breath, then looked down at the counter, trying to remember what she and Annika, her boss, had baked that morning.
“Sweet, or savory?”
“How about one of each.”
She nodded, then frowned. It had only been a few days, and while she’d gotten the hang of the register quickly, she wasn’t as good with the names of baked goods.
“I like the blueberry scones,” she said. “They’re a little sweet, but not much. If you want really sweet, there’s the lemon bars, or the bear claws.”
Something clanged in the back of the shop, and she turned to look through the door.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” he asked.
She looked into his eyes.
He won’t ever understand, she thought.
“You mean why didn’t I tell you that I was fresh out of jail for treason as part of a hate group?” she asked. “What would you have done? What were you going to say?”
“Gavin and I met when I was in jail,” Chase said.
Scarlet blinked, and for a moment, she didn’t know what to say.
“What were you in for?” she finally asked.
“Being part of a massive marijuana growing operation,” he said, waving a hand casually. “My parents were hippies, part of a commune, farmed most of the pot that got smoked in Northern California before it even became Cascadia.”
“And they sent you away?”
“I was twenty. I knew what I was doing.”
Scarlet crossed her arms. She was tempted not to believe him, and she narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out whether he was lying.
“Gavin was your parole officer too?” she asked.
Chase shook his head, then leaned on the glass counter.
“Gavin was a guard at Cascadia State Men’s Penitentiary.”
His eyes searched hers for long moments. Scarlet felt her heart twist in her chest, like she was being wrung out on the inside.
“So you fucked in a broom closet for a while, and then you got out and decided it was meant to be?” she asked.
Chase grinned.
“Basically,” he said. “It worked pretty well.”
“Why are you here?” she asked, not meeting his eyes.
“I wanted to see you again,” Chase said.
Scarlet felt like something inside her was crumbling, some sort of structure falling down, all at once, and she didn’t know how much longer she could take it.
“Well, you saw me,” she said. “And I have a feeling that you didn’t come here at six in the morning without Gavin to ask me to dinner, so would you mind leaving?”
“I don’t think you’re the girl you were when you went to jail,” Chase said, leaning over the counter. “I know people can change.”
“Leave,” she whispered.
His eyes searched hers for a long moment, and then Chase nodded once, turned around, and left.
As soon as he was gone, Scarlet put her head on the glass counter and tried desperately not to cry. She was still at work, and the morning rush would be starting soon.
What just happened? She thought. Why did he come here?
Is that it? Is that all I get?
It was the most broken she’d felt since she’d come back home.
That was February.
One week later, she received a letter from the Cascadia Department of Corrections that she had a new parole officer. She read the letter twice, then three times, trying to sort out how she felt.
After a long time, she decided it was better if she just didn’t see them for a while. Maybe it would stop hurting eventually.
In March, the eggs on her windowsill hatched, and Scarlet spent hours watching the two adult birds feed them. They’d realized that she wasn’t a threat, so she could get as close as she wanted on the other side of the glass.
One day at work, with all the ovens on, Scarlet took off her long-sleeved shirt and wore just a tank top, forgetting about her tattoos.
When Annika, the women who owned the shop, saw them, she stopped for a minute.
“What?” asked Scarlet, pouring batter.
“I’ve never seen your tats,” Annika said, still looking.
“Shit,” Scarlet said, looking down. “I forgot, it was so hot in here. I’ll put my shirt back on.”
Annika snorted.
“You’re fine in the back, I don’t care,” she said.
“I want to get them removed, but it’s expensive,” said Scarlet. “So for now, it’s sweaters.”
“Have you thought about a coverup?” asked Annika. “You could get another tattoo over those.”
Scarlet set the mixing bowl on the counter and looked at her two tattoos. They seemed to get uglier with every passing year.
“I hadn’t,” she thought.
“I’ve heard the guy at the Midnight Gun does good work,” Annika said. “I have a friend who got this god-awful tattoo of a Chinese character when she was seventeen, and he did a great job covering it. It wasn’t cheap, though.”
“Midnight Gun, huh?” said Scarlet. She opened the oven and slid the cake in carefully, then shut it, set a time.
“Tattoo shops always have good names,” Annika said.
“Sounds like I need a raise,” Scarlet said.
Annika laughed and brushed hair out of her face, smearing flour across her forehead.
In April, the baby birds lost their down and began to grow feathers, and Scarlet knew she was going to lose them soon.
One morning, she looked out, and there were only two. She didn’t have work that day, so she sat in her bed for hours, watching each bird hop to the edge of the windowsill, its parents watching, until it finally leapt.
When the last one went, she burst into tears.
It was only a few days later that she was washing dishes after dinner and looked out into the back yard, only to see an unfamiliar wolf scampering through the back yard.
She dropped a dish and ran to the door, shoving it open, and then she stopped. The wolf was running a little funny, its legs long and its paws big, and it seemed like it hadn’t quite figured out how to make four legs work together yet.
It’s Tim, she realized. Tim shifted.
He saw her through the glass and wagged his tail, grinning his first-time wolf grin, and Scarlet felt her eyes fill with tears.
Then she grabbed Trevor’s big, long Carhart jacket and left it by the back door, for whenever Tim decided to come inside.
That night, after the kids were in bed, she found Austin, Trevor, and Sloane sitting around the living room. Austin and Trevor were drinking beers.
“I’m gonna get one too,” Scarlet said to Sloane. “You want a drink?”
“No thanks,” Sloane said.
Scarlet came back, sat on the couch, and looked around. As happy as she was for her brother and his mates, she still thought of Chase and Gavin sometimes.
More than sometimes. All the time.
“Tim’s a shifter now,” Trevor finally said, breaking the silence.
Scarlet nodded.
“He looks like David,” she said. “Exactly like David.”
“He really does,” Trevor agreed. “God, I wish he were here sometimes. Him and Papa.”
“Me too,” said Scarlet, softly. “I can’t believe they grew up so fast. Everything’s changing.”
Everything but me, she thought. I feel like I’m still that girl who went to prison years ago.
She felt a tear fall down her cheek, and wiped it away, hoping they hadn’t noticed.
When she looked up, Sloane and Austin were exchanging a glance. A significant one.
Scarlet frowned.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
&nb
sp; Did I fuck something up? She wondered, desperately cataloging everything she’d done in the past week. Are they going to kick me out?
“I’m pregnant,” Sloane said, her face glowing.
By May, Scarlet had saved almost enough to get her tattoos covered up, and when Trevor found out what she was trying to do, he donated the last fifty bucks.
Sam, the tattoo artist, was a big wolf shifter with a beard and two full-sleeve tattoos and a ring through one eyebrow. He had a sort of quiet gravity, though he was funny when he wanted to be, and his hair always seemed like he needed to get it cut a week ago.
She still thought of Chase and Gavin all the time, and as she and Sam talked about tattoos, he felt more like a brother than anything. He always seemed slightly sad, like there was something that he’d lost, though she never asked.
In return, he never asked about the tattoos she was getting covered up. He knew they were from prison, of course, and the first time she went to his shop, he told her that her former artist had put the ink too deep for removal to do much, anyway.
“That’s why it’s splotchy and uneven,” he said, pointing at the wavy lines of her triple moon.
He didn’t say that wavy lines weren’t unusual for tattoos applied in bathroom stalls with ballpoint pen ink, and Scarlet was grateful.
Toward the end of the month, she was sitting in the tattoo chair, Sam carefully inking a marigold right below her collarbone, where her ugly, snarling wolf had been. Its teeth were turning into petals, its tail into leaves. Rustvale was finally sunny most of the time after a long winter, and Scarlet was starting to feel like she might have a chance again.
“There are still going to be a couple of odd-looking spots if you look close,” he said. “Places where the lines really bled deep. Hopefully they’ll fade with time.”
He wiped at her skin very carefully with a tissue, and then sat back, examining the flower. When he looked at her, Scarlet felt like he was looking at a canvas, mostly-blank skin full of possibilities. She liked feeling that way.
“I think it’s done,” he said, nodding once.
