“Or over the door for good luck.” He beamed at the antler as he talked, his gorgeous face a picture of soppy adoration. It was sickeningly cute. “It tastes of the mountains. I never thought I’d find such a smashing souvenir.”
“Yeah … speaking of souvenirs, will you please take that collar off?”
“Sparky?”
Kage, who was just pulling his shirt over his head, came over to unhook the prongs and remove the collar. He dropped this in the nearly empty Malamute sack, zipped up the two pouches, and hurled the thing into Andrew’s shoulder as he still sat on the ground.
“Carry something for once, you bloody skiver.” Kage pulled his watch from his jeans pocket and put it on his wrist, frowning at it.
Definitely later than I’d been hoping to be back. We could still get to Wyoming.
“I’m sure you all are starving but I’d rather not be driving through the mountains in the dark. Let’s get out of here as quick as we can and we’ll get dinner and a motel as soon as we run out of light across the border, okay?”
“That’s fine, Cass,” Zar said, nearly falling over as he pulled on his own shoes. “Whatever we need to do.”
“Are you okay?” I walked over to Andrew.
“Sure, darling,” he murmured, pushing a hand back through greasy, disheveled hair. “Think I’ve never had anything chucked at me before?” He finished with his laces and turned onto his knees, gradually easing back.
“Not okay from people hitting you with bags. You’ve been in fur a long time.”
“Bit peckish, if you must know.” He finally looked up at me, his smile screwed up as he seemed to need to readjust his eyes to this visual experience. “But pack spirit and all. Let’s get a shower and out of here and find something dead to eat later.”
I offered my hand and he took it to stand, unsteady on his feet for a moment. I grabbed the sack also and fished out his glasses case.
“Come on then. You can always have a chew at that antler in the car if Jason will share.”
“Oh, joy.” He put on the glasses and rubbed his temples.
We trudged back to the campgrounds. It wasn’t until I was out of the shower, ready, into the driver’s seat, but exhausted, that it crossed my mind I maybe shouldn’t be driving at all.
My pack was also showered, shaved, presentable for any dinner opportunity that could come up. Jed was the first to the van—no shaving—then Isaac. They took their seats in the passenger side and behind my own without comment. The spots most considered to be privileged. Then Jason and Andrew crawled into the back with Jason’s antler. Kage joined them and Zar got the other good middle seat, all without a peep of protest for anyone else. In fact, by the time we were leaving Estes Park, I suspected all three were asleep leaned up against each other, Jason’s antler across his and Kage’s laps.
“I was thinking the scenic route, but let’s forget that and head straight up via Fort Collins to Laramie,” I told Isaac. “Can you look that up?”
He turned his phone on and we found our way down winding little US-34 to Loveland, then north, through actual traffic and cities—waking me up—to 287 North, heading for the border and Laramie.
Just as quickly as we reached civilization, we left it behind.
I thought I was doing fine, talking to Isaac about school and the sorts of food we’d relied on through college years—canned soup had been big for me, whole pizzas for him—until we left Laramie behind.
Then it crossed my mind for the first time to check the gas gauge, which made me realize I was pretty out of it since I hadn’t thought this before, and we should have counted our blessings and stayed in Laramie for the night.
“Isaac? What’s the next town showing up that looks like it has a population over fifty? We should stop.”
He came back with a place called Rawlins, 100 miles away. I could do 100 miles.
First, though, we stopped at the next service station exit.
The aroma of popcorn filled the lot along with gasoline, even to my nose, and the van emptied like magic when I pulled up to the pump.
I held up a hand in the parking lot, bathed in evening sunlight. “They’ll think you’re coming in to hold the place up.” I produced a twenty dollar bill and change and sent Isaac and Zar—the two nearest to me—in for the popcorn while others called after them about extra butter and caramels and, “See if they have ice cream.”
I ran my debit card, Jed pumped the gas, and the other three discussed what delicacies might lurk inside American petrol stations, since the nation was clearly obsessed with food. I couldn’t argue with that.
They were annoyed in their efforts to smell more, however, because of the gasoline and cigarette smoke that drifted from the weedy, vast stretch of desert scrub land off to the north and east. A few pickup trucks were parked there at the edge of the lot and several guys stood around smoking, tossing six-packs from the station into the cabs, and talking about the season soon opening. At first, I thought it was football, but I quickly changed my mind. Those guys were talking about hunting season.
A couple of truckers strolled out of the station, complaining about lottery tickets.
“Couldn’t Switch go in?” Jason asked me—sweetly.
“We’ll get dinner in just over an hour, okay? I’m sorry, Jay, but a little popcorn will tide you over. You don’t all need to go running around in there.”
“What’s dinner?” Kage asked.
Jason sighed, leaning his head on Kage’s shoulder, tapping the antler against his knee as he dreamed of sweets and popcorn.
“Something in Rawlins, Wyoming. Thank you, Jed. Get back in. They’ll be here in a minute.”
Andrew climbed in to find his phone and look up what might be eatable in Rawlins. Jason, Kage, and Jed, however, remained eagerly watching the glass doors. We could see Isaac inside at the counter now. No sign of Zar.
“Do they have Reece’s Pieces here?” Jason asked.
“I assume so. They’re at every other junk food stop in the country. Come on.”
Still they didn’t budge. Jason was making me more and more uncomfortable as they waited. Kage had his hand on Jason’s hip, Jason leaning into him.
In another minute, Isaac and Zar were returning with a plastic sack and many little paper popcorn bags.
Jason tossed his antler in under the seat the better to grab popcorn.
“Everything’s so cheap in there.” Zar beamed at me. “And there’s so much. It’s like a Co-op but mostly sweets.”
Everyone gulped popcorn and I didn’t bother about asking them back in the van since it was too much of a mess. And I didn’t care as long as they stopped hanging on each other. At the pace they ate, finishing the popcorn in the lot wasn’t going to slow us down.
Isaac gave me a bag and I nibbled, leaning against the door while they basically swallowed theirs. The bags were being tipped up and last crumbs gulped and unpopped kernels spat out while Zar was already being pressed for what was in the plastic bag. Isaac handed out the goods while Zar held it up, like trick-or-treating in reverse.
They had a box of vanilla sandwich cookies to share among Kage, Jed, and Isaac—Isaac assuring them he would count them out—a bag of Reece’s Pieces for Jason, gummy worms for Zar, and a PayDay for Andrew.
“I don’t know what that is,” Zar said skeptically as he handed over the candy bar to Andrew in the back. “But it was the only thing that smelled caramel without being chocolate.”
Andrew also looked dubious, but he gave a, “Thanks,” and sniffed the white and orange wrapper.
While this was happening, Isaac tore open the cookie package. Jason was already tipping candy into his mouth. He removed one from the box in thumb an forefinger to feed to Kage, who put his lips around Jason’s fingers to take it.
“Okay.” I flapped a hand. “Hop in. Isaac, you can divide those up in the car.” I all but clapped my hands at them, drawing startled looks.
They clambered in as I hurried around to my own doo
r, never looking toward the hunters, or truckers, or that other guy coming out of the station with the tattoos like a maze running up and down both arms. My face felt hot and I was glad, pulse quick and nervous, when the last door was shut and I was starting the engine—seatbelt on, bag of popcorn between my knees.
“Cassia?” Isaac glanced over at me.
“Sorry, Cass,” Zar said from his seat, paused in opening his gummies. “It was all really cheap. We didn’t think you’d—”
“No, I’m not upset with you, Zar. Or anyone. It’s … uh…”
Dammit, this was going to come up again. And, of course, they had to pick right now to have a newly mended, cuddly relationship.
“It’s just … it’s time to move on anyway. And … also … there are worm … situations that we should be … aware of out here.”
Silence from the crowd as I put the van in gear. I looked around to see Kage and Jason watching me from the back, blank, having paused in the candy gulping.
“You guys can’t… So … social customs … and certain parts of the world … you can’t always act like that in public.”
“Like what?” Kage asked.
“Can’t eat?” Jason asked.
“No, can’t be … affectionate.”
“Affectionate…?” Kage said.
All seemed to be waiting for me to finish the sentence.
I pulled out through the lot, glancing helplessly to Isaac, who’d been taking a look in the side mirror.
“You and Jason can’t act like you’re involved the way you are in public when we’re in this kind of setting, okay?”
Of course, that wasn’t going to cut it either.
Kage asked that dreaded question of all parents and teachers and authority figures the world over: “Why?”
Which gave me the horrifying flash of having to explain homophobia to someone who had little or no concept of it. An idea which suddenly seemed like the most appalling thing I could think of. I passionately wanted Kage, and Jason, and all wolf kind, to go on their whole lives without such a concept.
Yet I was supposed to say why. Or lie. Or just say I couldn’t explain it. And, really, wasn’t that the truth?
Why?
Because someone who doesn’t know your name is offended because you love someone who’s name they also don’t know? What kind of impossibility was that to explain to someone out of the blue?
Again, stopping to turn right and head back for the exit, I glanced at Isaac.
Isaac—who’d lived human, gone to school with humans, surely knew them better than many wolves ever would—had grasped what was happening.
When I only puffed out my cheeks like a gasping fish to Kage’s, “Why?” Isaac said, “They’ll be jealous.”
The five in the back of the van turned to look around to the now obscured guys at the trucks behind the station pumps. Hell, so did I. And to Isaac.
“Right…” I said.
“You won’t see anyone acting like that out here,” Isaac went on calmly. “They see someone else making a public display and they want a piece of the action. Trouble is, they’re only worms. We can’t start fights with people around here. We’re doing our job, staying out of the way. No rows or brawls. No jealous quibbles, no jail time. Do whatever you want on the trail, just like home. But around American humans, keep some distance between each other, don’t start trouble. Right?”
“Yeah,” Kage said slowly, “all right. Never heard that… Probably all hard up for mates out here, though, aren’t they? Worse than British wolves.”
They gazed ruminatively out the windows.
“Sorry, Cassia,” Jason said. “We didn’t know.”
“No, of course you didn’t. It’s fine. Just watch it while we’re in these small towns.”
“Sure.” They were back into the candy, Andrew and Zar opening theirs, Isaac starting his count over, setting cookies into paper napkins.
I turned onto the ramp and glanced at him, Isaac meeting my eyes for a second. “My hero,” I breathed. “Thank you.”
Isaac smiled and offered me a cookie. I bit off part and set the rest on top of the popcorn. My hands shook a little on the wheel with the near miss.
My nerves were already stretched when Andrew yelled in the back and made me jump, hitting the brakes when I should have been speeding up, my cookie and a dusting of popcorn dropping into my lap and seat.
“Moon, Sun, and stars! Flip to Moon! You’ve got to go back! Turn around! We need more of these pay bars!”
Chapter 20
My next driving/food fright came when we were turning onto the road for the Hampton Inn, still with a touch of sunlight left, and Zar shouted, “KFC!”
“What did I say about people yelling in the car?” I yelled.
We’d already been through this with my lecture to Andrew that, no, we were not going back there, and, yes, PayDay bars were widely available across the United States and no one needed to panic.
“Sorry,” Zar gasped.
There was a scramble as everyone tried to see.
“Wouldn’t you rather have something local? Something a little more … real food…?”
“KFC!” Others had seen the sign and took up the cry.
“Okay. KFC. Let’s just make sure this hotel has a couple rooms and check in and we’ll walk over there.”
“They might close. It’s late,” Kage said.
That was totally legit. They probably were getting ready to close. It was 8:30 p.m. and not a time I would generally eat fried anything.
“Give me a minute, Kage.”
We parked and everyone piled out like the bell rang for summer break.
“Isaac, will you take the card from Gabriel and get us two rooms? Kage, you and I—”
“It’s with a petrol station,” Andrew said.
“You can come with us and find another PayDay. Will the three of you please carry our bags in once Isaac has the key cards? When you’re settled and have the keys, you can all come help us carry chicken buckets.”
We split up, Andrew sniffing as he hurried ahead, as if on the trail of a PayDay.
I was once more reluctant as we walked in the hotel lot, through the station lot, and I realized the KFC was not on the other side of the Shell Station. It was part of it. Along with a Taco Bell.
“Oh, gag, Kage. Really? We can find something better than fast food/gas station combinations for dinner.”
Kage and Andrew offered me not the slightest attention, fixated on the fried chicken smell, swallowing as they hurried for the doors. They were both already inside and the door swung shut behind them before Kage remembered and ran back to hold it for me.
It’s disconcerting to think that someone could distract your bodyguards by throwing a raw steak over the fence.
The biggest problem with this combo establishment wasn’t that the quality was any worse than normal bad fast food. It was the size. When Kage told the young man behind the counter that we wanted seven family chicken buckets there was a blank pause.
“Seven?” he asked.
“Six buckets,” I said. “And only one with the sides. The other five with just the twelve pieces of chicken each—nothing else. We can wait if it takes a while, no problem.”
I could tell that was the next objection he’d been about to raise but he relented and put in the order.
Andrew was exploring the service station side of the establishment with the occasional, “Blimey,” or, “Moon…” Drawing looks from the couple people in there eating their Taco Bell dinners.
Bowled over by the bill, I paid, then Kage and I went to meet Andrew with his arms full.
He had the entire display box of PayDays, still half full of candy bars, plus a bag of hard caramels and a few pints of ice cream.
“You’re going to make yourself sick.”
“To share, darling.”
“I don’t care. Andrew, that’s enough sugar to put you in a diabetic coma.”
“They have cookies and cream,
mate.” Andrew jerked his chin at the freezer doors and Kage pulled out a couple quarts of ice cream.
I opened my mouth. I shut it. Not the mom. Not the wife. Only…
Andrew paid for the stuff with a debit card—crazy because he’d get dinged with a foreign transaction fee, but whatever. I wasn’t about to feed the habit so it was just as well he didn’t ask me.
We sat at one of the tables to wait, the ice creams and candy in two plastic bags, drawing more stares as Kage and Andrew ate. Kage opened a quart and Andrew a pint, both having trouble with the flimsy plastic spoons. Andrew also started another candy bar, which he did not offer to share.
“I thought you all didn’t eat chocolate?” I glanced to the cookies in the ice cream.
Kage pulled a face. “There’s no chocolate in that stuff.”
“It’s only a few bits of biscuit with bits of cocoa in it,” Andrew said. “No problem. Nothing concentrated.”
“I see. And how is it you’re all apparently in perfect health? Because I feel like I’m missing something every time I see you eat.”
“Haven’t eaten in three days,” Kage said.
“Yes, which is terrible. I thought you’d find more out. But you also didn’t seem much troubled and now you’re compensating by eating a bucket of sugar and fried food apiece. I don’t know…”
“Not like we eat like this at home, darling,” Andrew said. “Core feeds us. Well…” He laughed. “Not ‘us.’ Guess who else is acting core now?”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Kage said, sawing into the ice cream with a plastic knife and scooping out a wedge.
“Better you than me, mate. Anyway, I can get a job. I’m not worried about that. There’s just no point while we’re on the case. Jobs take second place to saving lives.”
“And you have cash.” Kage still sounded irritable.
“Too true. They can stuff their jobs until such time as … well … whenever.” Andrew bit a chunk off the candy bar. His eyes glazed as he chewed.
“I suppose you’ve actually been able to save with tips from the hotel?” I said.
“Not half. One of the best minted wolves in the pack,” Kage said. “They let you hoard all you make in tips. And he’s frugal. Parents earn. You think Isaac’s the earner on the surface, right? But he doesn’t keep it.”
Moonlight Journey: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 6) Page 14
