by Holley Trent
“Who’s your friend?” Bill called.
“I’ll never tell.”
“Coy Foye, as always.”
“Yep,” he added in a mumble, apparently for Ellery’s benefit, “I wouldn’t have to be so fucking coy if more of these dingbats did what they promised. He’s a Cougar. Was the first to toss his name into the hat for Alpha after my father died.”
“You fought him?”
“Didn’t have to. He chickened out. Must have thought I wouldn’t show up and that he’d win by default.”
“And yet you’re so friendly.”
“Selectively. Keeps them all guessing.”
“Huh.”
The light turned green and Mason traveled another two blocks before turning right into the tiny gravel parking lot of an old-fashioned tin can diner.
Ellery could see the grill and its cooks plus the dining counter through the front windows. A few booths against the front wall bore customers, but as Mason had mentioned before, the place looked empty.
He shut off the engine and unfastened Nick’s restraint. “Diner tends to get busy at around three-thirty after school lets out and is packed though closing. Most folks here take lunch early. We’re technically late.”
Mason waved at the waitress as they entered and dragged a high chair to a table at the far end, away from the foot traffic near the counter and entrance. Plopping Nick into the seat, he said, “The burgers are great, but I won’t criticize you if you want to be contrary and order a salad.”
She rolled her eyes and slid into the seat in view of the door. She didn’t want her back to an entire restaurant in a strange town. It wasn’t that she was paranoid, but curious. She wanted to know who these people were and whether they knew what Mason was. She couldn’t imagine there’d be an entire town of shifters in the Southwest, but perhaps one where the residents knew what was amidst them and fostered it?
“I like a good salad,” she said, “but I can stand a burger every now and then in moderation.”
“Not a chronic dieter, huh?”
“No. I have to eat more on average for a woman of my height and weight because I’m always on my feet. A salad wouldn’t do much for me, to be honest.”
“Maybe you could consider this a little vacation from all that standing up, then. Sit down for a while. Watch a little television.”
Sounded heavenly. “Lull me into complacency so I’ll forget why I’m here, huh?”
“I’m just making conversation, Ellery.”
“So you can keep me guessing, too?”
His cheek twitched. She hadn’t yet figured out if that tic was his version of a grimace or the precursor to a grin.
“Just sayin’.” She dumped the sugar packets onto the table and handed their holder and a few tiny tubs of jelly to Nick to play with. “And do you even have a television? I don’t remember seeing one.”
“It’s in the armoire in the bedroom. Satellite channels.”
“Good to know.” She picked up her utensil roll and fidgeted with the paper tape band around the middle. She couldn’t even remember the last time she was in a restaurant in the middle of the day. Sometimes Agatha took her and Gail out for Sunday brunch before they hit the mall, but it had to have been months since that had last happened. Gail was busy all the time having started a new business with Claude, and they had a nest to feather. Every now and then, Hannah or Miles would be off at the same time as Ellery, but on those days, they tended to sleep in and maybe meet at the movies later if they felt like changing into something other than sweatpants. At some point, her life had become all work.
“You’re making a really serious face,” Mason said. “What are you thinking about?”
She couldn’t remember the last time a man had asked her what she was thinking about, other than Claude, but he had a witch’s intuition. Most men didn’t care or even pretend to.
She must have been taking too long to answer because he raised those dark red eyebrows at her, and her gaze tracked down his handsome features to his lips.
No scowl. No smarmy smirk.
“You really want to know?” she asked, surprised at the tone of wonderment in her voice.
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“All part of your act, I’m sure. You probably have half the people in town believing you’re a gold-star human being.”
“Would you be so surprised if I actually was?”
“Yes.”
“No hesitation, huh? Just yes.”
“Lying isn’t one of my talents. Tact is—I’m a Southern woman of certain age, after all—but I see no reason to use it right now. I’m a long way from home.” She picked up her menu and her gaze darted immediately to the hamburger column. “And I’m not giving you more than you deserve.”
“This is payback for that last diaper change, isn’t it?”
She looked at him over the top of her menu. He wore his usual staid, expressionless mask, and his voice had lent no clues as to his mood. Was that a joke?
He bobbed his eyebrows.
“You’re joking.”
“I thought it was a pretty good diversion.”
She groaned. “Flawless timing and impeccable delivery, but you’re the sidekick straight man of a comedy duo. Leave the joke-telling to someone else.”
“Fine. I would like to know what you were thinking about, though. The last time Mom made that face was just before she told us she wasn’t helping us at Woodworks anymore. She was really upset about cutting us off, I guess.”
“I’m surprised she even had to toil over the decision given the company and lack of benefits.”
He leaned back against his bench and crossed his arms. “Come on, be nice.”
“I am. I have tiers of niceness.”
“Are you sure you don’t have me on the bottom rung?”
“You’d deserve to be there, if you were.”
He rolled his eyes.
“See. Just for that, you just fell down a rung.”
“Where am I now? The Rung of Evilness?”
“Nah, but if you’d like me to bump you back down there, I can certainly accommodate you. Some men even like being there.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“Oh?” She picked up the ketchup bottle and spun it on its side. “I think your imagination is a little better than that. I could be a little more descriptive for you, though, but not in front of innocent ears.” She tipped her head toward Nick. “I could draw you a picture if you just can’t wait, though my stick figure depictions of bedroom scenes leave something to be desired.”
Mason gave his head a slow shake. “Gods, the mouth on you.”
She pulled her lips into a big ol’ grin. “Yep.”
He put his elbows onto the tabletop and leaned in. He whispered, “You talk a big game, but I bet you’re like Bill. You’ll challenge me then never show up.”
“Keep thinking that.”
Was that what she was doing? Challenging him? Sounded like her M.O., but she had to be careful because sometimes the line between shit-talking and flirting was very thin.
“Hiya, Mason,” the waitress said. “What are you in the mood for today?”
“Eggs and ham steak.”
“And for Nick?”
Mason tapped the back of Ellery’s menu, drawing her attention to him.
“What?”
“I’d figured since you’ve been micromanaging my parenting all morning, you’d like to do some of your own.”
“Whatever. It wasn’t micromanaging, it was coaching. You seemed to need it. Your mother may hold her tongue, but I have nothing to lose in telling you what your parenting deficits are.” She shrugged. “Outsider’s perspective, of course.”
The waitress snickered.
Mason’s cheek twitched.
Nope. Still can’t tell if that’s a grimace. She knew she should stop poking at him, but he made it so damned easy, and she was starting to enjoy herself. He might have even had potential to get himself bumped u
p to Nice Level Three soon, especially if he kept dragging his tongue across his lips the way he was. His lips looked soft.
The waitress gave Ellery’s shoulder a little tap, and Ellery snapped to attention and pulled up the menu to conceal her view of That Cougar.
“Oh. Sorry. Um … maybe a hardboiled egg, whole wheat toast with lots of butter, and a banana, if you’ve got it.”
“I’ve got it. And for you?”
“What’s good?”
“Bacon’s nice today. Applewood smoked.”
“Bacon cheeseburger, then. Thank you.”
“Good choice.”
The waitress scooped up the menus and walked away whistling.
“You spend a lot of time at the hospital paying attention to what little kids eat, or do you just have a knack for guessing?” he asked.
“Both, I guess. I was a picky eater as a kid because my mother is and was an awful cook. At the hospital, sometimes there’ll be lulls in patients coming in, and I get a chance to talk to folks. You learn a little bit about everything that way. There are also lots of little kids where my sister lives. I always seem to end up babysitting every time I go out there. Worst kind of trial by fire. They’ll just drop a kid on my lap and tell me they’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“They trust you.” It was a statement, not a question, but she couldn’t tell whether or not the idea surprised him.
She shrugged. “I guess I just have that look about me.”
“Probably. Nick likes you.”
There was definitely surprise in his voice.
“Nick seems like the kind of trusting baby who’d like whoever was holding him at the moment.”
“That’s easy enough to disprove. Remember, he may not be a shifter, but he has two shifter parents. His instincts are probably a little more aggressive than the typical kid’s.”
Ellery looked at Nick. He had his head laid to the side and was blowing spit bubbles.
“How dare you be so cute?”
“He is my son,” Mason said. No cheek twitch this time, but an actual smirk. It was lazy and one-sided, but genuine … and sexy as hell.
Ellery didn’t have a menu to hide her flushed cheeks behind, but she did have a window to pretend to look out of, so she did. Anywhere but at Mason.
He chuckled. Whether it was at her or at Nick, she didn’t turn to see. She wasn’t going to fall for that trap. If she kept looking at him, she might have to bump him up to Nice Level Four by the end of the day. That wouldn’t be good. Level Four usually came with some degree of disheveled partial nakedness, and teasing aside, she had no plans on having sex with the guy. She didn’t want to lead him on.
“What would you be doing right now if you weren’t on a camping trip?”
Righting herself, she turned her wrist over and looked at her watch. Eleven-thirty. “I’d probably be on I-40 swearing loudly at construction traffic as I headed to work. I usually work noon to ten eight days in a row, and take the next six days off. This is one of those off weeks. The hospital gets away with granting us less vacation time that way. There’s an illusion that we’re getting an overabundance of it. On my off weeks, I’m usually studying for recertification or talking myself out of going back to school while painting rooms in my 1980s condo.”
“Back to school for what?”
She wanted to kiss him for asking, and then she realized how pathetic that was. It was just that no one ever asked. They smiled, nodded, and went on to tell them all about themselves in as many words as possible. “To become a nurse practitioner. I’m thinking about moving into midwifery.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Right on the lips. Sloppy French kiss with extra tongue. She covered her face with her hands and groaned into them. Ugh. “Malaise. My life has been far too interesting lately.”
“I guess I count as interesting?” She peeked between her fingers and saw that now his half grin was bashful. He worried one of his fingernails between his teeth as he looked at her. How could anyone think he was dangerous? Maybe he had the size and the attitude—that whole alpha vibe, but beneath all that, there was just playful cat. Sometimes the cat looked like he wanted to bat her around like a ball of yarn until she squealed for mercy. Sometimes, he looked like he wanted to lick her clean.
Oh, God. She gulped and knocked away some torn napkin bits. “Interesting is an understatement as far as you’re concerned, Mason.”
The waitress returned with Nick’s toast. Two thick slices she’d cut into rectangles. She set them on the table just out of his reach. “Jelly?”
“Let’s see if he’ll eat it without it.”
The waitress nodded and padded away, her energy crackling around her as she went. Ellery hadn’t noticed it before and thought maybe it was a fluke.
She handed a toast spear over to Nick, and he immediately started gumming it. He waved it at her, and she shook her head. “No thanks. All yours, Nicky.”
“I think you’re one of the few people around him who doesn’t talk gibberish to him.”
“I don’t have the energy to learn a new language. Plus, I think kids learn more about language from your cadence and expression than they do from that god-awful baby talk pitch.”
The waitress returned yet again, this time with the egg and fruit. She pointed to the egg and looked at Ellery. “I didn’t cut it. Didn’t know how you wanted it.”
That energy crackled around Ellery again. It was earthy and primal. Warm, like Mason. Not the cold, breathtaking aura of the witches she knew.
Ellery put her elbows on the table and squinted at the woman.
She put her hands in her apron and blinked pale brown eyes.
“I think the gig’s up, Belle,” Mason said with a chuckle.
“She’s a Cougar?” Ellery asked.
“She’s my sister. The baby Foye. Got away from us as soon as she could, but she didn’t go far. Silly. Should have left the state, that way she wouldn’t be tempted to go back.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going back.” Belle leaned down and tickled Nick’s cheeks. “Whomp whomp whomp. Who’s my little peanut?”
He squealed, as he was so prone to. Happy kid. Thriving in spite of everything. Maybe Mason did the best he could. She’d been so quick to judge, too.
“How long do you have him this time?” Belle asked.
“No idea.” Mason leaned back in the booth seat and clasped his hands at the back of his head. “Could be a week or two. Jill said something about riding up to Sturgis.”
“Maybe she’ll stay gone this time.”
“Belle.” There was a scold in his voice the way big brothers seemed so good at delivering. She certainly had heard Claude use it enough on his siblings.
Belle shrugged. “What? It’d make things easier, wouldn’t it?”
“In some ways.”
Belle turned to Ellery. “Talked to Mom this morning. She says you got caught up in the boys’ little demon problem last night.”
Mason grunted. “With a steak knife, no less.”
At that, Ellery unwrapped her utensils and cut Nick’s egg into pinch-able chunks.
“Fight many demons?” Belle asked.
“Quite a few, but I usually have people with me who are better at subduing them. I’m still in the learning curve.”
“Learning curve or no, it’s a damned good skill to have. Cougars can’t make them go away for good. We can just push them back through the hole. They don’t stay put there for long. It seems like every time I drive out there, one pops up.”
“Feel free not to go home anytime soon, just in case you’re what’s triggering it,” Mason said.
Belle stuck her tongue out at him. “I won’t. Let me go see if your food is up.” She made a gagging sound and held her hand up to block the conspiratorial eye roll she gave to Ellery as she passed.
Ellery let herself laugh. It was hard to be uptight and stressed around the Foyes when they were playing off each other. It reminded her in a lot of way
s of how Claude and his brothers behaved in each other’s company. Even in the most stressful times, they managed to make each other smile just by telling a joke or … or sitting in silence. Sometimes, just being there was enough. She’d always wished her family was more like that—willing to go with the flow instead of prescribing and overscheduling every fucking thing.
She groaned inwardly. It was out of her control now. She needed to stop fretting about things she couldn’t change.
“Don’t mind her,” Mason said. “My brothers and I gave her a hard time growing up, and she likes to think she’s paying us back for it.”
“She’s fine, don’t worry. So, you’re the oldest … ”
He grunted and swirled the ice in his water cup. “Belle’s the youngest. Number two was Hank, followed by Sean.”
“You and your brothers seem to be pretty close in age. Belle doesn’t look much older than eighteen.”
“Nineteen. Yeah, we always joke that she was an afterthought, but she was planned. One last try for a girl. My brothers and I were pretty much back-to-back. Thirty-three, thirty-two, and almost thirty-one.”
“Your poor mother.”
He chuckled. “No kidding. She claims we messed her up so bad she can’t laugh now without peeing a little.”
Ellery let out a bark of laughter and covered her mouth to suppress the embarrassing bleating sound.
The corners of his eyes crinkled as he grinned even broader.
So he was capable of big expression.
“Hey, it’s true. She’ll tell you. Somehow, it always seems to come up in conversation, even though no one asks.”
Ellery dried her eyes and looked down at the cheeseburger Belle slipped in front of her. There seemed to be an overabundance of fries on the side.
Mason reached across the table and nabbed a few.
“I knew he’d do that,” Belle said as she moved away.
Watching Belle’s departing back, Ellery had a thought. “Do female Cougars nab mates? I could see where there’d be some logistical problems with that.” The idea of slight Belle throwing a guy over her shoulder and making off with him was downright comical.
“Nah. Our goddess, La Bella Dama, doesn’t compel female Cougars to seek mates. Our females have her favor, whereas we jackasses of the male persuasion have to endure whatever punishment she metes out. More often than not, the females marry outside the group.”
