Anchor

by Jorrie Spencer

  She hadn’t been able to believe the government would sanction such a place. Maybe she’d been naïve. She leaned forward on the counter and called out, “Excuse me?”

  Though she could see the waitress’s back, the older woman didn’t respond or turn around. In fact, she picked up her cell and began talking. Mala felt trapped and she didn’t think it was an accident. Perhaps she should take her losses and leave without her credit card. Except money was a bit of an issue for her.

  The door slammed open then, and she spun on her seat to face a large, broad-shouldered man who strode towards her with purpose. She wanted to pull her own fear together, shape it into a weapon and strike him down—except this wasn’t a dream. So she rose to standing and braced herself, though for what, she couldn’t imagine.

  He pulled up short and leaned down to inhale deeply. He held that breath and while he did, his eyes, a vivid blue, changed from angry to…bemused. He blinked once before he exhaled.

  “Can I help you?” she asked as coolly as possible. She didn’t like gazing up at him as he stood above her, too close, and she was not used to strange men sniffing her. She didn’t care if that was the norm in this town—along with stealing credit cards.

  “I hope so.” His mouth curved up on one side, an attractive warm expression at total odds with the determined, flat look he’d worn as he’d first entered the restaurant, and she found herself overwhelmed by his mere presence. “But first, let me welcome you to Wolf Town.”

  Chapter Four

  She stood at such attention that Angus almost expected a salute. He’d come in here a tad angry, yes. Jancis announcing that someone was after Caleb hadn’t put Angus in the most welcoming frame of mind. But this young woman was a) not a werewolf, b) frightened and c) smelled good.

  Okay, she did smell good to him in an appealing she-attracts-me way. Not that it mattered since she was human. But he meant to focus on the fact his nose told him she was on the side of good. His most famed characteristic in the world of shifters was his nose, which managed to suss out when someone was essentially a decent person. Or not.

  This dark-eyed young lady with hacked-off hair—was it the style these days?—did not deliberately do people harm.

  So perhaps she’d been coerced or manipulated into this. Or perhaps she was being followed unawares. Maybe Caleb knew her. Angus didn’t believe in coincidence.

  He realized he’d been circling her and she was trembling, her heart rate not only increasing but accelerating. Obviously his words of welcome couldn’t be taken quite at face value. And his actions were too wolf-like to be comfortable for a normal.

  He backed off to sit on a stool two over from where she’d been seated. Then he cut to the chase. “I’m Angus MacIntyre. I’d like to know why you’re visiting us here in Wolf Town.”

  Her eyes widened. Recognition of his name, he assumed, given that newspaper articles and such tended to mention him as the one in charge. Some even called him a mayor.

  She glanced behind her where, yes, everyone was staring, all five of them. Could be she expected to be attacked. While he disliked some of the assumptions normals made about wolves, he also didn’t intend to bait this woman. He wanted to know about her connection to Caleb.

  He could see what it was like for her. She wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake, if she’d stumbled into some kind of trouble she didn’t know how to get out of.

  She also didn’t know how to lie, because whatever she was trying to say didn’t come out. Finally the stiff set of her shoulders relaxed in a kind of surrender, though she remained standing.

  To the customers and Eden watching, he called out, “I’m trying to have a private conversation here.” They turned away, not that they wouldn’t hear everything anyway, but a semblance of privacy had its uses. To the strange woman, he said, “No one is going to cause you harm in this town. But you’ve shown an interest in one of my people and that interests me.”

  Her mouth dropped open and the surprise, almost shock, was real. “Caleb is here?”

  “Caleb who?”

  “Yes.” She appeared to forget she’d been frightened moments earlier, her intense interest in Caleb surpassing everything else. And it wasn’t malevolent interest, he was sure of it. Maybe she’d been sent by Caleb’s mother? Though Shanna hadn’t tried very hard to reach out to Caleb since they’d decided to separate to survive Caleb’s father. Angus disapproved of her lack of effort, though he didn’t intend to disparage Caleb’s one non-psychotic parent in front of the boy.

  “Yes,” the strange woman repeated. “There are many Calebs in the world.” A line formed between her eyes and she asked the question like so much was riding on it. “He’s not a young boy, is he? A teenager, I mean. He’s not…” her voice dropped to a whisper, as if she could barely believe she was saying the words aloud, “…a skinny black wolf?”

  He stared at her. Because of course Caleb was a skinny black wolf, and wouldn’t she be sure of that if she was searching for him? Why would she be looking for someone she didn’t know? He let the silence build, waiting to see if she’d say more. But when he didn’t answer, she seemed to come to a conclusion and covered her mouth with her fist. Her next words made even less sense.

  “Oh my God, he’s real?” she said, aghast.

  “And then she fell down,” Angus concluded.

  “Fell down?” Jancis maintained her skeptical expression.

  “She just kind of stumbled. I extended a hand to help her, and she evaded me, missed the stool she was reaching for and…fell down.” Angus felt a bit bad about that. He should have realized she wasn’t ready for him to steady her physically, but he’d been so struck by her reaction that he wasn’t thinking with all cylinders firing. At that point he considered and rejected the idea of offering her a hand up, and she’d pulled herself to standing with the help of a stool.

  “I’ve got a wild idea,” Rory put in. “Why don’t we ask Caleb if he knows this woman. You say her name is Mala?”

  Jancis rolled her eyes at her brother who grinned back.

  “We plan to,” Angus said dryly. “I’d rather talk to Caleb first, when he’s done with school for the day. Meanwhile, Mala is getting settled in one of Eden’s rooms. She was a little reluctant—”

  “Eden or Mala?” interrupted Rory.

  “Both.”

  Jancis shook her head. “I don’t know why Eden even runs a B and B if she doesn’t want people to stay in it.”

  “She wants people to stay, but only those she knows.” Angus waved a hand. “We’re getting off track here.”

  “What’s this strange woman’s last name?” asked Jancis.

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Isn’t that suspicious?”

  “We’re already suspicious.” Angus paused. He knew his kids weren’t crazy when he did this, came up with a judgment based on his nose. But it had yet to steer him wrong. “Thing is, she smells good.”

  For a moment both of them were the twins they’d always been, and their expressions became identical and close to resigned, a silent Okay, Dad, we can’t argue with that.

  They believed him, unlike some people, but Rory didn’t see why his nose wasn’t as infallible as Angus’s—though he had good gut reactions with people and Angus thought that was partly why—and Jancis preferred to remain suspicious of all outsiders. So her countenance became even more disgruntled than it had been.

  Angus shot her a look. “Better than if she smelled of bad intent, Jancis, don’t you think? For Caleb’s sake.”

  “Of course.” Jancis propped her hands on her hips. “But this means you won’t want to get rid of her, and I’d rather she wasn’t around.”

  “We’re supposed to interact with outsiders,” Angus said mildly. “We’re a town, not an island. If we never interact, people will become crazy suspicious and the government will feel they have to do something.”

  “She smells good,” Rory repeated, bringing them back to Mala. He cocked his head. “Do
you think she’s in trouble then?”

  Angus shrugged. “She’s scared.”

  “Of Caleb?” asked Jancis.

  “Maybe, or something about Caleb. Maybe Caleb’s father threatened her too.” Angus spread out his hands to indicate he didn’t know, and he realized he’d just brought his daughter on board for trying to get to know Mala better. Jancis didn’t like anyone to be threatened. She was as protective as any wolf he knew.

  Rory, in the end, was the more insightful one, at least on a personal level. There was a slight drawl as he asked, “So, Dad, what do you think of her?”

  Angus was not willing to explain to his kids that he was attracted to the falling-down stranger with wide eyes and an appealing scent. Besides, he didn’t do attraction these days, especially instant attraction. Didn’t have time for it. Furthermore, he preferred wolves, always had.

  Nevertheless, he had to answer Rory’s question.

  “I think Mala is here on some sort of quest and wants questions answered. She doesn’t lie easily. I even suspect, given her reaction, that the actual meeting with Caleb will be something of a jolt. The idea of him makes her nervous.”

  “Sounds strange,” Jancis muttered, and Angus shrugged.

  “Well, we should arrange it,” said Rory. “Since she smells good and is apparently harmless. If she was going to tell someone Caleb was here, she already would have, I’d think. Besides we’re not a secret or odd place for a werewolf to land.”

  Angus inclined his head in agreement. “We’ll arrange it, not immediately though. I want to give Caleb good warning in case he knows her or knows of her. Jancis, we’ll need you about so this young woman doesn’t end up surrounded by a bunch of strange wolf men sniffing her. That’s not the atmosphere I want today.” Or any day. The idea got Angus’s back up.

  This time it was Jancis who drawled. “You’re calling her a young woman?”

  Angus raised his eyebrow. “Is there something wrong with that description? Perhaps you would prefer I describe her as a young lady?”

  Jancis shook her head at him. “She’s older than us, Dad.”

  Angus wasn’t interested in trying to understand his daughter’s point. That Rory grinned again made Angus sigh. “You two. Remember when you were nine?”

  Rory had decided Angus and his teacher should get married. Never mind that the teacher, though liking Angus well enough, had no interest in men.

  “That was Rory, not me,” Jancis pointed out. “You use ‘young woman’ to make it sound like there’s some huge age difference between you two instead of a decade.”

  “Do I? Any other important and incisive psychological observations you’d like to make while you’re at it?”

  “Nope.” Jancis smiled a lot less often than her brother, but Angus liked to see it. “Who’s going to break it to Caleb that someone’s looking for him?”

  “Me,” said Angus. “I’ll be heading over to the school. You go make friends with Mala—”

  “Right.” Jancis’s smile faded.

  “—and I’ll call you when you should bring Mala to the house.”

  “Anything you want of me?” asked Rory.

  “You observe when we all get back,” Angus said. “Sometimes you see things we don’t.”

  “I’ll make coffee and wait then,” called Rory, as Angus and Jancis headed out the door.

  Jancis muttered, “Why does he get the easy jobs, that’s what I’d like to know. He makes coffee and I have to babysit. I don’t like talking to strange women.”

  “You’ll do great,” Angus declared, and watched his daughter set her jaw.

  “I sure as hell wasn’t looking for a pep talk, Dad. That was a complaint about division of labor in our family.”

  “You complain, I give pep talks, that’s how it goes.” He lowered his voice. “I need you for this, Jancis.”

  She huffed out a breath of exasperation, but strode off in the direction of Eden’s B and B.

  “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.” The waitress who’d stolen her credit card had been coaxed into giving it back to Mala by Angus MacIntyre. Unfortunately, that was not the end of their dealings, because the waitress had then been put in charge of lodging Mala in her B and B.

  To think her name, and that of the B and B, was Eden. The irony was rich, but Mala wasn’t comfortable enough to appreciate it.

  There apparently wasn’t much in the way of hotels around here. Mala hadn’t reserved a room before arrival because she’d imagined catching the afternoon bus back to North Bay after learning no one had ever heard of any Caleb.

  That hadn’t happened.

  The dream kept coming back to her. It wasn’t that she had a clear idea of what he looked like as a boy. When he’d been human, she’d seen through his eyes but not into his eyes.

  Whereas she’d seen him through his father’s gaze, right after she’d attacked the large wolf. Caleb’s wolf eyes were brown, his fur black.

  In her dream.

  Could it have been real?

  She rubbed her arms, the fear of being crazy taking strong hold of her. It was not the time for a panic attack. She was among strangers who regarded her with suspicion, who clearly feared she might be a threat to their Caleb.

  What a joke. She’d never been more useless in her life. Out of a job, in a small, strange town on a wild-goose chase, estranged from her family… She wasn’t in a position to threaten anyone, was she?

  Someone rapped at the door and Mala shot to standing.

  “Yes?” she said with more authority than she felt.

  Eden marched in with a glare, and clean sheets landed on the bed where Mala had been sitting.

  “Anything else?” Eden demanded.

  “Uh, no, that’s great.” Mala forced out a smile. “Thank you.” She hoped to sound dismissive without being rude. After all, Eden wasn’t happy in her company, and Mala needed time alone during this mini-meltdown.

  “You wait here.”

  Mala blinked. “For…?”

  “Jancis is coming over.”

  Then Eden slammed the door shut and Mala stared at it. Who the hell was Jancis?

  It didn’t take long for Mala’s question to be answered. About ten minutes later there came a light knock on her door. Rather gingerly, Mala opened it, expecting Eden might have returned to dump towels on her bed or something.

  There were towels, but another woman held them. She was tall, slim and serious-faced. Beautiful in a remote way. Holding out her free hand, she said, “Hello, I’m Jancis MacIntyre, Angus’s daughter.”

  Wow, he was older than he looked if his daughter was in her mid-twenties or so. Maybe werewolves didn’t really age, although that was supposed to be a myth.

  Mala took her hand. “Mala Singh.”

  With that, Jancis handed over the towels and glanced at Mala’s bed. “Hmm. Eden doesn’t like you or she would have stayed to make your bed.”

  At a loss, Mala nodded. How was she supposed to respond to such an observation? Suddenly she recognized this Jancis as the woman who’d left the café right after Mala had asked after Caleb. Jancis had summoned Angus, her father, who’d marched up to Mala in a rather intimidating fashion. Just great. Mala’s face burned at the memory of falling on her ass right at Angus’s feet.

  At least he’d had the decency not to laugh at her.

  Jancis tilted her head. “Want to go for a walk? I’ll show you the sights.”

  No, Mala did not want to go for a walk with this woman. She didn’t even want to be here. But she had to follow this through, and Jancis was her link to Caleb so she couldn’t blow her off. “I thought I was going to meet Caleb.”

  “You will.” Jancis’s tone suggested there was no doubt about this. “He needs a bit of preparation.”

  “Oh?” Mala couldn’t imagine what preparation was involved in meeting her. Sure, she was crazy but no one here knew that. Yet.

  “It’s hard to explain.” Jancis jerked her thumb towards the door. �
�Come on, we have an hour to kill before he’s out of school anyway. You don’t want to just sit in this room.”

  Yes. I do. “There’s no need for you to waste your time spending it with me.”

  Jancis’s unsmiling gaze turned assessing. “Oh, I think you’ll be more comfortable with me around so you don’t have strange men sniffing after you.”

  Mala couldn’t tell by the wry quirk of Jancis’s lips if she was being truthful or trying to unnerve her—mocking some of Mala’s fears. They wouldn’t seek her out in her room, would they?

  “And I promise I’ll take you to Caleb. If you stick with me.”

  Well, maybe Jancis’s company was the best route to go. Mala didn’t want to miss the opportunity to meet this possible boy from her dream, so she’d be amenable.

  “It’s chilly. I’d bring your winter coat.”

  Jancis was younger than her and Mala was fully aware of how cold it was outside. But she tamped down her irritation, picked up her coat and followed the Wolf Town resident outside.

  Angus went into the school, newly renovated, since the government had agreed with him that education was critical for young wolves. The masses weren’t bloodthirsty enough to try to eradicate all werewolves, not with a number of them being children, so the next best thing was to bring them into the mainstream a little more. In the past, homeschooling had been the recourse of many parents raising their children, and while that worked for some, it had been a disaster for others.

  Caleb wasn’t too badly off. His education was uneven at best, and he might be behind in a lot of things, but Angus had met illiterate teenagers who were a lot more disadvantaged.

  It helped that Caleb was bright.

  He waited until the bell rang. Caleb was still unsure enough to be rattled by Angus marching into the classroom. Only after the boy left his locker did Angus approach him in the hall.

  Caleb came to a full stop, clearly wondering if something was wrong.

  Angus smiled and kept his tone casual. “Come with me. I have something a bit strange to tell you.”

  Caleb obeyed, following him out and looking up at him. Angus had the impression that the boy had grown since he’d arrived, but it was too soon for that, even for a werewolf. However, the pinched, starved appearance had disappeared. Caleb remained a skinny teenager but he was filling out thanks to regular meals.