by Maddy Barone
“Me?” Carla gasped. She turned her head to look at Taye. “For me?”
“Of course, for you.” The growl was gone from his voice, replaced by tenderness. “You miss your music.” His broad shoulders rippled in an almost shrug. “I thought you would like it.”
Carla hated crying in public. She tightened her arm around his waist. “I love it. Thank you.”
His smile said that he heard all the grateful joy she’d tried to suppress. He nudged her forward. “Go ahead, try them out.”
As she came forward the Grays stepped back. Carla took over twenty minutes to play each of the guitars, tightening strings and plucking them to tune the instruments and then playing a song or two. She didn’t see the pride brimming in Taye, or the fascination of the other wolves, or the faint look of nostalgia in the elder Mr. Gray.
When she finally selected the guitar she wanted, old Mr. Gray smiled. “That’s a good choice. That guitar belonged to my wife.”
“Oh,” Carla drew back. “I can’t take that one.”
“I wish you would. None of my grandchildren have any interest in playing. That guitar should be played by someone who loves music. It came from Omaha with my wife. She loved your music. She would be glad to know you had it.”
Carla’s stomach fell to her feet. “Your wife … You were alive then. In the Times Before, I mean.”
“Yes. I was twenty-two years old when the world ended. I hiked west from Illinois and when I got to Omaha I met my Kylie. I worked for her father about a year. We married, and we came out here with our stuff loaded in a wheelbarrow. We took turns carrying that guitar for two hundred miles. She played it every night of that journey, singing love songs. I never was a country music fan until she started playing for me.”
Carla held the guitar out. “I can’t take this.”
“It would have thrilled her to know you survived and that you had her guitar.”
Carla stroked the frets. “Where is she?”
“Dead. She died over twenty years ago.”
“I’m so sorry.” Carla swallowed. “I would be honored to play her guitar.”
Taye reached to catch the tear that slipped down her face with a callused forefinger. “What is your price?”
“I’d like to say it’s a gift,” the old man said, “but you wouldn’t accept that, I suppose.”
“Yes,” said Carla firmly. “We will accept it as a gift. You can’t put a price on precious memories. But we will give you a gift too. Tell me your wife’s favorite songs, and I’ll play them for you.”
Taye opened his mouth, and Carla gave him a hard stare. Taye met it for a moment before bowing his head. “That is a good trade,” he said almost meekly.
“I would like that very much,” Mr. Gray said, with obvious gratitude. “My whole family would enjoy that. Could you come to us? With an escort, of course,” he added to Taye. “The library is neutral territory, and we could fit the whole family there.”
Taye thought about it. Carla gave him a look that was equal parts pleading and demanding. He nodded. “Next Sunday afternoon, after the midday meal.”
“Done!” said the old man with delight. “Now, anything you want to play would be just fine. Kylie was especially fond of the songs on your CD. She liked the old stuff too, like Dolly Parton and Emmy Lou Harris, and new stuff like Lady Antebellum and Miranda Lambert. Well, it was new in 2014. It will be a real lift to hear that music on that guitar again.”
Carla nodded and hugged the guitar to keep from hugging him. Taye had gone wild over a handshake. A hug would probably make him homicidal. She had a gig! “I’ll be looking forward to it.”
Mr. Gray looked over at Taye. “With your permission, I’ll invite Eddie and Lisa Madison to come too. I think Lisa would enjoy it.”
Carla nodded enthusiastically. “Do you know Lisa? Have you met her? How is she?”
“I have. I met her yesterday at the library, and dropped by the Madison House this morning to see how she and Eddie were. They seem to be doing … well. When she heard I was coming here she asked me to say hello to you.” He looked again at Taye for his consent.
Taye inclined his head. “The Madison family can come.”
“That sounds real good. Mrs. Wolfe, there are a few extra strings here in this pocket. You might want to put the word out so the next trader to come through can have some for you.”
Right. Carla doubted there were any music stores in this new world and no online stores to order from. “Thanks, I’ll do that. Will you join us for lunch?”
The wolves went still, and Doug Gray dropped back another step. Carla knew she had done something wrong again. What? Invite a couple guys to stay for lunch? Was that worse than offering to shake hands with an old man?
“No, thank you,” Mr. Gray said easily. “Me and Doug are headed out to Dane Overdahl’s settlement. His brother Neal is taken with my granddaughter Ellie. She’s my youngest daughter’s only child. We’re going to see if we can make a match for them.”
“How nice,” Carla said blankly. Matchmaking? Arranged marriages? What a screwed-up world. The remark had seemed to be pointed in Taye’s direction, but why? Taye was already married.
Taye had stiffened slightly. “Ellie’s father is Mart Burnett.”
“That’s right,” said Mr. Gray, still pleasant. “Mart died three weeks ago. Ellie’s moved into my place now, and she’s my responsibility. She’ll be glad to meet you on Sunday.”
Carla was startled by Taye’s hand on her waist squeezing tight and the bitterness in his voice. “Will she?”
It was Doug Gray who answered. “Ellie’s not like her father. She pestered us to bring her today so she could meet you. Heck, she even thought about coming here to live after her father died, but … That was before Mrs. Wolfe came. A seventeen-year-old human girl with an all-male wolf pack … I don’t think it would have been proper.”
Taye’s hand relaxed. “Probably not. I would have liked for you to bring her today.”
Old Mr. Gray shook his head gently. “I would have liked to, but traveling with a young woman would have required a larger escort than just two men, especially when one is an old man like me. We couldn’t take a crowd to Dane’s, and besides, it’s not appropriate to bring the bride-to-be to the marriage negotiations.”
“Next time you could send me word, and I’ll send some of the pack to guard her. She could stay here and visit my mate while you go on to Dane’s.” Carla thought Taye’s voice was strange. Deep and rough and a bit uneven.
“Sounds like a plan,” Mr. Gray agreed. “We’ll do that next time.”
“Good. You’re welcome to stay for lunch.”
“That’s an honor. We appreciate the invitation, but we’re hoping to make it to Dane’s before supper. Maybe when we bring Ellie up this way we could join you?”
Taye nodded. “Anytime. It’s an open invitation.”
Carla watched and listened with a hundred thoughts and questions whirling through her mind. Taye walked the visitors out to the yard. The Grays nodded to her on the way out without offering to shake hands. She held her new guitar while the pack drifted around her, stripping off their pants and shorts and leaving them on the floor. She roused herself from her confusing thoughts to point accusingly.
“Are you just going to leave your clothes on the floor?” she demanded. “How will you tell whose is whose?”
They looked at her and shrugged. It was the teenager, Sky, who said, “Who cares? What fits one of us will fit the others just as well. We just share them.”
Well, yes, Carla realized, they all had the same lean, muscular build. Still. “Well, don’t leave them out here. Go put them away.”
“Yes, Lupa.”
Amazing. Werewolves obeyed her.
Taye came in and wrapped his arms gently around her. “Sweetheart,” he said into her hair. His voice was shaky.
“You okay?”
“Yes.” He lifted his head and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Just … hap
py. I have a beautiful mate who is pleased with my gift. And I have a cousin who wants to know me.”
“That’s great. I love the guitar. Thank you so much for thinking of it.” Carla peeked around and saw some of the other wolves watching them and decided against kissing Taye. She put her arms around his waist and squeezed gently instead. “I guess you haven’t met Ellie? Don’t you have other cousins?”
“Many, with the Clan on the plains. My father had three brothers and they all had sons. No daughters. But it’s different with my mother’s kin. Let’s go to our room, and I’ll tell you of my mother and father.”
He sounded serious and sad. Carla put the guitar in its case and left it on the table. Taye sounded like this would be a serious conversation. She walked with him down the hall with one arm around his waist. In their room Carla sat on the couch and Taye sprawled on the cushions with his head in her lap. He held her hand and rubbed it against his cheek.
“My mother was the daughter of a human. Her name was Naomi Burnett. She grew up in Odessa, the same farming settlement you found just southwest of town. My father was hunting with friends when they came to Odessa. My mother was working in the fields and as soon as he saw her, his wolf chose her to be his mate. He went to talk to her, but she was scared when he turned from wolf to human in front of her. She tried to run away. It’s not good to run away from a wolf, especially a young one without enough experience to have learned self control. Carla, never run away from a wolf. Promise me.”
A feeling of dread trickled over her. “Okay. So what happened? Did your dad hurt her?”
Taye was rubbing the back of her hand back and forth over his lips. “He chased her. Wolves run fast even when they’re human. When he caught her he threw her down and marked her. He bit her here.” His fingers brushed over the place where her neck joined her shoulder. “Hard enough to draw blood. Wolves sometimes do that when they are agitated and unsure of their mate’s acceptance. He had been hunting in his fur, and when he changed to human to talk to her he was naked. My mother was terrified. She thought he would hurt her.” He fell silent, a troubled frown on his face. “No wolf would intentionally hurt his mate, but my father was young, only sixteen—”
“Sixteen?” gasped Carla.
“—and my mother was fighting.”
“Oh, God, he raped her?”
“No. He might have, but when he saw that she was crying and smelled her fear, he let her go. She ran back to her settlement and he didn’t stop her. Instead, he thought he would try to court her the human way. Do you understand about wolves choosing a mate? Human men can marry where they like or where their families decide, but wolves don’t have that choice. Our wolves choose a mate for us. Some men give up on waiting for their wolves to choose a mate. They just marry a woman the human way. But a wife’s not fully accepted by the Pack the way mate is. Once a mate has been chosen, we can never have another woman.”
“Your wolf chose me. I remember you saying that. But how did you know?”
His shoulders moved in a shrug. “I just did. My father knew the same way. It’s like the wolf whispers in our hearts, ‘That’s the one I want.’ He went back a few days later, wearing his best clothes, with a string of horses to give her family for her bride price. Her brother, Mart Burnett, tried to kill him before he was even inside the gates. So my father ran away. He came back later with friends and watched the settlement for days for his chance to take his mate. My mother and some other girls and men came out to work in the fields again, and my father’s friends attacked them. He stole my mother and took her to the Clan.”
“Your poor mother,” Carla said. The Bride Fight didn’t seem quite so scary compared to that. Since Taye had been born his parents had obviously been intimate. Had it been rape? Had his mother submitted passively to his father out of fear? Or had she fallen in love with her kidnapper? “How old was she?”
“A little older. About nineteen, I think. She had been promised to a neighbor, and she had loved him until he rejected her for being pawed by a ‘filthy wolf.’” Taye smiled a crooked smile. “My father spent three years courting her while she lived with the Clan’s grandmother. He was successful. I remember how much they loved each other. But she missed her human family. About a year after I was born they went to her family to try to reconcile. Her family wouldn’t even see them. It broke my mother’s heart, and anything that hurt her hurt my father.”
Carla combed her fingers through his soft short hair. “Where are your parents now?”
“They’re both dead. My father died when I was fourteen. My mother wanted to be with humans so she brought me here. Some of the clan came with us, because they didn’t want us to be alone. She worked hard to make this place a good home. The rugs and the quilts are some of the things she made for me. She went to Odessa every year on her birthday to beg her brother to accept us back into her family, but he was cruel. I think he liked hurting her. She died three years ago, and she made me promise to never harm her family.” His voice sank to a growl. “Otherwise he would have died sooner.”
“Oh, how awful for your mother. How could her brother have done that? What an evil man.”
“He said I was vermin.”
“What?” said Carla, outraged.
“Because I’m a wolf. Some humans feel that way about us. I’m glad you don’t.”
Carla didn’t know exactly how she felt about it. The whole wolf thing seemed unbelievable, but every time she saw him change she was reminded that it was real. “Tell me about the Clan.”
“When the world ended, some of the ancestors who lived on the reservation decided to leave and live on the prairie in the old way. They were members of the Wolf Clan and their friends. My grandfather and his brothers were among them. Our Pack is actually part of the Clan, but we live separate from them. I’ll take you to the Clan soon, and you can hear my uncle tell our history.”
“Should you do that? I’m not a wolf.”
“You’re a member of the Pack. And you didn’t reject me or my wolf. I worried about it the whole time we were walking home from the Bride Fight,” Taye confessed. “I didn’t know if you would scream when you saw my wolf or try to run away … I didn’t expect you to pet me. But I’m glad you did. Feel free to pet me anytime.”
So Carla did, stroking his hair and letting her hand sweep lightly over his arm.
“Just don’t bite me,” she warned.
“Maybe just a little nip?” he teased.
“Hmmm,” she said dubiously.
Taye kissed the back of her hand. “I knew I had a girl cousin but I never saw her. When my mother and I went to Odessa all the settlement’s women were hidden away. I have about twenty cousins in the Clan, but they are all boys. Girls are rare, and I always wanted to have a sister to protect and spoil, but I thought Ellie felt the same way as her father.”
“Well, she doesn’t. And you’ll get to meet her in a few days. It’ll be nice for you. Do you know Neal? The guy she might be marrying?”
“I’ve met him, but I don’t know him.” He frowned. “I should get to know him. Just to be sure he treats her right. If he hurts her in any way I’ll kill him.”
Carla believed him. Another man might say that and he’d be blowing off steam or exaggerating. Taye was calmly serious. She poked him in the shoulder with a disapproving finger. “Taye, we have to work on your aggression. You can’t go around killing people. Or growling at them, either.”
“I can if they threaten me or someone I care about.”
“Mr. Gray? How was he threatening you?”
“You were going to touch him.”
“That’s what people do when they meet. They shake hands.”
“Never touch any man who’s not Pack or Clan. My wolf won’t allow it.”
Carla rolled her eyes. “Paranoid, much?”
Taye lifted his head off her lap and half sat up. “Carla, this is important. You get too friendly with a strange man, and I’ll likely kill him. My wolf is very possessive of y
ou.”
“Honestly! Could you be a little more bossy? Don’t you think killing someone for shaking hands is a teeny little bit much? It’s called overkill, Taye.”
“I’m an Alpha. Mostly, I can control myself, but you bring my wolf out. In this one thing you have to follow the rules.”
“Taye, I don’t understand about you and your wolf. You talk like … Are you separate from your wolf? Or are you one person? When you turn into the wolf are you still Taye? And when you’re human—” She broke off when her stomach growled and Taye leapt to his feet.
“We’re missing lunch! You missed lunch yesterday, too, and you’re already too skinny. Come on. I’ll tell you all about wolves while we eat.”
The dining room was almost empty when they got there. Lunch was steak with fried potatoes. Carla took her steak into the kitchen and put it back on the grill to finish cooking. She decided she would have to do something about the menu around here. It would be something to do. Although, now that she had a guitar, maybe she could do concerts. She carried her steak back to the table and waited for Taye to illuminate her about the secret lives of werewolves.
The first thing she learned was that they weren’t born as puppies, so she would have regular human babies. Carla hadn’t even thought that she would give birth at all, much less to a wolf pup. Even if she and Taye had sex—and looking across the table at him, she had no doubt that they would—it would be a year before she could become pregnant thanks to her contraceptive shot. The children of the Pack were born human and sometime soon after puberty the wolf would force a change. If a boy got to be fifteen without making the change, then he was a full member of the Pack, but not wolf-born. He was still faster and stronger than a human, and healed more quickly, and could have sons who would be wolves. Carla asked about girls, and Taye told her that no girl was ever a wolf.
“That sucks!” Carla protested. “Why not?”
“They’re girls,” Taye said dismissively, as if that explained it.
