Elder: Reckless Desires (Norseton Wolves #6) (5 page)

Esther clutched Nixon’s arm briefly before releasing him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. What’s got you spooked?” He stopped the truck at the curb, barely out of the paths of the twin driveways near the only vacant spot.

“Who’s that?” She barely lifted her left hand, so she wasn’t pointing at anything he could make out, but her gaze was out her window at the wolves descending on the truck.

“You’d recognize your aunt and uncle, wouldn’t you? I don’t imagine they’ve changed all that much since you were a kid.”

She let out another of those breaths and gripped the armrest tightly. “Not them. The man with the eye patch. He’s—he’s not Anton, is he?”

Shit
.

Nixon rubbed a hand through his hair and then unfastened his seatbelt. He’d seen Anton enough since he’d started wearing the patch—going on two years—but he hadn’t considered that he’d had full vision in both eyes the last time Esther had seen him.

“That’s your big brother, honey. Same old Anton, I bet.”

Fuck. Why didn’t I warn her?

He wondered what else he should have warned her about. There were probably so many things.

He opened his door and cautiously put down his bum leg. When he was certain blood was flowing well enough to his thigh and knee, he put some weight on his prosthesis and reached inside the truck to grab the keys. “Hold tight. Don’t get out yet. I’ll keep ’em from swarming ya.”

They were damned close—standing on the walkway peering into the truck, but hadn’t gone so far as to open her door yet.

She hadn’t tried to open it, either. Her hands were on her lap, her stare cast downward.

Her heart beat loudly enough for him to hear.

Poor thing. Scared as a rabbit.

By the time he made the walk around the front of the truck, he had his gait more or less natural-looking and had gotten the grimace of pain off his face. He hoped the damned rain would move in and then get right out of the way so the throbbing would stop.

“Kids are out cold,” he said to Lil, who was craning her neck to see into the backseat. “Colt probably called and told you. I don’t get a phone signal out here.”

She pressed her hands to the back passenger window and pulled in an indulgent draw of air. “
Babies
,” she whispered. “Might as well be babies.”

Adam stepped between Anton and Nixon and the truck, and turned his back to the vehicle, effectively blocking Esther from Nixon’s sight.

He suppressed the powerful compulsion to take a step back to pin her in his gaze again. He didn’t like her being out of his sight, but he didn’t have to keep an eye on her anymore. Her family was right there, and they’d see to her.

Not my job.

“She all right?” Anton asked in a low murmur. “Aunt Lil thought we should send out a welcoming party with just the girls, but I thought she was overreacting a little.”

Nixon grunted. “Not overreacting. Wouldn’t have been a bad idea. She’s been through something, but I didn’t ask her too many questions. Maybe she’ll tell you what’s happening.”

“Not for a while,” Adam said in a near whisper. “Female wolves tend to learn to hold their tongues. They never say what’s bugging them because they’ve been taught to keep their troubles to themselves.”

Lil had one hand on the door handle and was giving Esther a little wave with her free one.

Esther’s eyes were round and wary. Wet brown pools.

Come on, honey. Don’t cry.

“Hey.” He reached over and gave Lil’s shoulder a squeeze. When she turned, he bent and whispered, “She’s tired. You got a place for her to crash?”

Lil furrowed her brow, but slowly moved away from the door. “Oh. Well, the girls are still trying to get the place straightened up. I think the beds are made, though.”

“Let her sleep. You can have the reunion when she gets up. She’s too sensitive right now, ’kay?”

Lil leaned back and pinned a narrowed, suspicious stare on him.

“Hold on, now. I promise, I didn’t do a thing to her.” He shrugged. “I feel bad for her. I hate seeing a wolf so low.”

More than that.

He didn’t know how to articulate exactly what was bothering him so much. He wasn’t even sure why he cared so much.

Lil gave him a hard poke to the shoulder. “If she wakes up and tells me you were nasty to her—”

“I
wasn’t
. I swear, I wasn’t.”

She narrowed her eyes even more.

“Come on. I’ll prove it to you.”

He nudged Lil out of the way and opened Esther’s door.

She gripped her seatbelt buckle tightly, and her breathing suddenly started to race.

“Aw, don’t be like that. Come on down so you can get the kids into some pajamas and into bed. They’ve got a place made up for you.”

“Your own house,” Lil said. “I hope it’s okay. We didn’t have a lot of time to pull things together, but we’ll finish up after you’ve rested.”

She extended a hand slowly and rested her fingertips on Esther’s cheek.

Esther flinched, but didn’t move away.

“You’re tired, aren’t you? A wolf’s gotta sleep, girl. You’ll be all right now.”

She pressed her hand atop her aunt’s, but still, she didn’t move.

She looked to Nixon—for what, he didn’t know—but he nodded anyway, just in case she needed the encouragement.

“Can hardly think,” she said quietly. “Instincts aren’t—aren’t so good.”

“You need to
sleep
,” Lil said. “Come on. Ignore Anton, staring and gawking at you like he doesn’t know you.”

Anton sighed, but respectfully kept his distance.

“I’ll get Seven,” Nixon offered. “You can get Miss Darla. She doesn’t look like she weighs more than a sack of flour. I reckon you can manage that.”

“I have been since she was born.” Esther gulped and swiped a hand across her eyes. She drew in a deep breath, unfastened her seatbelt, and let Lil help her down.

That was Nixon’s sign to get moving.

He prayed to the goddess that his leg would behave its damn self and motioned Anton around to the other side of the truck. As he pulled open the back door, he said, “Their bags are the ones closest to the gate. Rest of the crap back there’s mine. It’ll be all right in there until tomorrow, probably.”

“I think it’s going to rain.”

Nixon grimaced. “Trust me, I know. That tarp back there has saved my bacon more time times than I can count. If the stuff gets left in there overnight, I assure you, the bags’ll be just fine come morning.”

“We’ll round up the boys and get everything out, anyway. Are you going to have to shift tonight?”

“Probably.” Nixon released Kevin’s seatbelt and lifted him out of the seat.

He was like a ragdoll. Dead to the world.

“I can wait a little while, though. I need to run, but not urgently.”

“We’ll get you unloaded before then.” Anton shut the door and continued around to the back of the truck, where he let down the gate and lifted the edge of the tarp.

“Those four right there are theirs. That’s all they brought.”

“They’ll have more shit than they’ll know what to do with when the time the ladies are done with them.” Anton put one bag on his back and carried the other three in his hands.

Nixon followed, slowly and carefully placing his steps, mindful of the precious cargo sleeping in his arms. He wouldn’t have been so cautious if he weren’t carrying Kevin and if hadn’t had an audience. The last thing he needed was for anyone to ask him if he was all right. Wolves didn’t stumble unless they’d gone out and gotten themselves shitfaced. They’d know something was wrong if he tripped.

“Never really noticed,” he said to Anton’s back. He took a long pull of breath and itemized the notes. Kevin smelled like cheeseburger. That was about it. “The kids—they don’t really carry much of a scent, do they?”

Anton grunted, nearly catching up to Esther and the others on the path. “Kevin will have his own after puberty.”

“Yeah, but, I dunno. I guess I’d forgotten about that. I’ve been out of a pack for so long. I haven’t been around kids. I guess I remembered wrong that they were supposed to smell like their father.”

That same annoying-ass scent Esther carried. The one that marked her as her husband’s, even after death.

“Nah,” Anton said. “Kevin won’t have one for a few years, and his likely won’t smell like his father’s.”

“’Cause he’s a mutt.”

Anton stopped moving, and Nixon damn near plowed into him.

“Is that what you’re calling them?”

Nixon would have been stupid not to use restraint in his response. Anton, like most of the wolves in Norseton, was exceedingly laid back most of the time, but there was no mistaking why Adam had chosen him as the pack’s next alpha. Anton wasn’t a man to be crossed, and especially not concerning his family.

“I didn’t call him that,” Nixon said quietly.

Up ahead, the Carbones and Esther crossed the threshold into a house in the center of the cluster.

“She said that was what their father called them.”

“Who was he? What was her mate’s name?”

“I didn’t ask that shit, Anton. I told you—I didn’t ask too many questions. She wasn’t in a good place to be answering them.”

“I’d fuck him up if he weren’t already dead.”

“Yeah, well, being a mutt myself, the thought had crossed my mind. One of the few things I’m sensitive about, I guess.”

Anton stared down at his nephew, whose head dangled over Nixon’s arm and mouth hung open in a snore. “At least he won’t get sent away like we were.”

“I guess that’s one good thing to come out of this mess.” Nixon shifted his weight and adjusted Kevin in his arms. “I’m surprised she let me pick him up, to be honest.”

“Me, too. You don’t know what that Jersey pack’s like. It’s fucked up. I mean, all of the packs are, but the women there, they try really hard not to let unrelated men around their kids.”

“Yep. Like that in every pack, except this one.”

“Come on.” Anton canted his head toward the house, and Nixon moved around him, happy to take the lead if walking meant an end to the conversation. With very much more talking, Anton would start asking questions Nixon didn’t have answers for—and questions that
needed
to be asked.

Anton would have known just as well as Nixon that Esther shouldn’t have let Nixon pick up Kevin, and she wasn’t likely to be the kind of woman who’d slack on her vigilance.

Her letting him touch her kids meant she thought he was safe…or at least, safe
enough
.

Very few unattached wolves ever got that designation, but for once, Nixon didn’t mind so much having someone think he was harmless.

He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t hurt
any
woman, but his inner wolf took a special interest in Esther. In spite of her nauseating scent of attachment, the wolf was ready to pounce.

Before someone else does
, the wolf thought.
Better hurry.

“You all right, man?” Anton asked.

Nixon had paused in front of the doorway, ready to argue with his inner wolf about propriety.

But the wolf didn’t give a shit about propriety. He saw an opportunity. A beautiful, unattached woman with a scent problem, and two kids who didn’t seem to think Nixon was too corny. He could have a family.

Finally
.

“Nah, I’m all right,” he said.

He carried Kevin over the threshold and toward the sound of voices in the rear of the house.

Could, but you won’t.

There was no way she’d want to keep a limping wolf—not even one who should have been his pack’s alpha.

As always when she woke, Esther sat up quickly to assess her whereabouts and personal safety.

And to ensure Michael wasn’t nearby.

She didn’t see Michael. She didn’t see anything she recognized. That bed with the luxurious mattress and soft sheets wasn’t hers. Her bedroom windows were supposed to have raggedy blinds, not tastefully striped linen curtains. Her apartment didn’t smell like lilacs and blueberries, and there usually weren’t people talking in her living room when she woke.

She didn’t know what sort of haze she was in, but she knew Michael didn’t like noise.

“The
kids
.”

She threw back the covers and scrambled out of the bed, the sheets winding around her legs and tripping her up as she moved in search of some garment to cover herself.

There was a robe hooked behind the door. Pale green, made of soft terrycloth, and exactly her size.

She shrugged into the robe, yanked the door handle—her heart beating faster than engine pistons pumped—and then she ran.

“Darla?”

She’d heard Darla talking. Michael hated hearing Darla talk so early.

What time is it?

Esther had to pause in the hall. She didn’t know the place. Her apartment in New Jersey didn’t have a hall. The bedrooms were accessible from the living room.

“Darla?”

Esther started moving again, dragging her hand along the chair rail that wasn’t hers and heading toward the sound of pots and pans being rattled and so many soft voices.

Not soft enough. I can hear. Michael can—

Michael couldn’t hear anything.

Michael was dead because Esther had pushed him off a balcony when he’d gotten too drunk to listen to the words “No,” and “Stop.”

She paused at the end of the hall, gripping the corner and letting her gaze settle on the scene she didn’t understand. The woman in the kitchen making the noise with the pots and the pans.

Darla sitting on the counter with her hair sticking up every which way, wearing pajamas Esther hadn’t bought, and holding what looked like a muffin.

A couple of women leaning against the counter from the opposite side, coffee cups in front of them, infants crawling at their feet.

Ashley was one. Esther didn’t know the other.

And Kevin was standing in the open door looking out. Esther could just barely make out a man’s foot to the left of the doorway.

Esther hurried over. She didn’t want Kevin to try the man’s patience, whoever he was.

“Momma’s awake!” Darla called out as Esther hurried through the unfamiliar great room.

“I’m awake, baby. One minute, okay?” She belted her robe tightly and then grabbed Kevin by the wrist.

Nixon smiled when she poked her head out. “I guess Colt won that pool, too.”

“Excuse me?”

Nixon was seated on a bench to the left of the door with Anton beside him and Vic leaning near the front window.

Vic.

Grown up, but she’d recognize him anywhere. He had his father’s face, but the soft smile of his mother.

“Hey, cousin.”

Safe wolf. Safe.

He wouldn’t hurt her. He and Anton used to protect her when she was little…before they left.

“H-how long have you been sitting out here?”

Anton grunted. “Aunt Lil hasn’t left since you got in. She wanted to make sure someone was in the house in case the kids got up before you did, which they did. Kevin got up three days ago. Darla woke four days ago. Little fount of energy, that one.”

“I slept for four days?”

Nixon gave his head a slow shake. “No, honey.
Six
. Four as a wolf, two as a lady. We figured you’d be up within a couple of days once you shifted back on your own. You should get something to eat.”

“Six days!” She needed a little more than a meal. She needed a shower and to get a freakin’ grip.

She knelt beside Kevin and started squeezing him in all the places he should have been fleshy. She pinched his cheeks and stared at his face looking for dark shadows and hollows.

Vic chuckled. “Come on, cuz. We’ve been feeding him. Ma has been, rather.”

“Why are you all sitting outside like this?” She pulled herself upright, still gripping Kevin close, and scanned the courtyard. The best she could tell by the sun’s bright, but not punishing, light, it wasn’t noon yet. No one else was out, but she imagined most of the wolves had jobs to go to.

Maybe one day I’ll have a job, too.

“Are you going to invite us in?” Anton adjusted the string of his eye patch, and although Esther tried not to stare, she couldn’t help herself.

“I still have the eye,” he said quietly. “Got scratched up pretty bad in a fight with some shifters we were tracking for a client a couple of years ago. I see out of it when I’m in my wolf form, but when I’m on two legs, the eye doesn’t work.”

“I keep telling him he doesn’t have to cover it.” The newcomer’s voice was a slow, lazy drawl. Sweet and lilting. Feminine.

Esther turned slowly in the doorway to find the tiny stranger woman there holding the chubby little girl who must have been Anton’s. Instinctively, Esther reached for the baby, and her mother relinquished her without a fuss.

“We named her after my grandmother,” the woman said in a tone that seemed almost apologetic. “Long-suffering Cecily.” She chuckled. “She had a hard go of things, but I guess everyone back at home does.”

“Where’s home?”

“Appalachia. Used to be, anyway. This is home now.” She passed her hand over Cecily’s wisps of hair and smiled at the baby. “I’m Christina. Anton didn’t know what to tell me about you. I reckon he didn’t think he’d ever see you again.”

“That’s usually the way it goes.”

Esther started to step into the house to get the baby out of the sun, but remembered the men milling about outside. She’d never known wolves to loiter like that.

“You can come in if you want,” she said. “Unless you’ve got someplace else to be.”

The three men shared a look.

“Am I missing something? Did I say something stupid? Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I say stupid things all the time.”

Nixon twined and then untwined his fingers over his belly. “You inviting all of us in?”

“I mean, it’ll be cramped, but—” She looked to Christina. “I missed something, didn’t I? Are they not allowed inside the houses?”

Christina’s laugh was a bell-like titter as she retreated indoors. “We let them in more than we should, maybe, tromping all that mud inside like they all do.”

“So much damn rain,” Nixon muttered.

Esther looked down at his cowboy boots. Didn’t seem so muddy to her.

Her stomach gave an insistent growl, and all three men fixed pointed looks on her.

She pulled her head into the house before they could see the red that was almost certainly creeping into her cheeks.

Aunt Lil took Cecily from her as she approached the counter. “Kids have already eaten.”

Esther glanced at the microwave clock and let out a quiet breath of relief. Barely nine.

Didn’t sleep another whole day away.

“Need to call down to the school to see if we can go get Kevin enrolled,” Aunt Lil said. “I already warned them we wouldn’t be transferring his old records.”

“Not that there would have been very many,” Esther muttered.

She took the plate Ashley handed to her and could almost meet her gaze.

Not quite.

She wasn’t certain what their dynamic would be. Ashley was her old pack alpha’s daughter and, apparently, her cousin through marriage. That little boy crawling around the kitchen island connected them.

“Nixon’s been trying to entertain him the best he could from the doorway while you were asleep,” Ashley said, “but I think Kevin is itching to get outside and run around.”

“Nixon has been—” Esther furrowed her brow and met Ashley’s smug gaze. “I’m sorry, what?”

“From the doorway. Didn’t want to come in unless you said he could, and obviously you were in no position to.”

Esther dropped a couple of pieces of bread into the toast slots and somehow suppressed the compulsion to cover her face with her hands at the ghastly sight of herself in the toaster’s mirrored side.

She did turn her back to the room, though, to rub her eyes and pat down her hair.

Jeez. I came out here looking like that?

Ashley chuckled quietly and moved around the counter beside Esther. Leaning in, she whispered, “He’s been sitting out there for the better part of two days.”

“Who?”

“Nixon.”

“Why?”

“You tell
me
.”

“I don’t know anything. I just got here.”

Just escaped to here.

Esther dropped a couple of strips of bacon onto her plate and moved out of the way of the hot skillet Aunt Lil was tipping an egg off of.

“You still like over easy, don’t you?” Aunt Lil asked.

“You remembered that?”

Aunt Lil snorted. “You were the only one who ate them that way.” She looked pointedly to Ashley. “Used to drive my sister nuts. The runny yolk makes her shudder.”

“Ma. I need to—” Esther set down her plate in a hurry and scanned the room. Her purse had to be nearby. “I need to call my—”

Ashley gave her arms a squeeze. “Hey. I know you want to tell her you’re all right, but I don’t advise getting in touch with anyone there. Not yet, anyway. My father knows approximately where I am and so far he hasn’t sent any of his goons out this way, but I don’t want to give them any reason to come exploring, all right?”

“He said I could go.”

“And sometimes, he doesn’t keep his word. Vic and me, we can take care of ourselves, but you need some time to get settled in before you have to start strategizing about outside threats, okay? Those are the ones you need to worry about here. No one in this pack is going to hurt you. Worry about the folks outside of Norseton.”

“How do people live like this?” Esther whispered. “Why do we keep pretending that what we do is normal and that having our families constantly torn apart and uprooted is acceptable? We’re not animals.”

Ashley smiled. “Most of the time, we’re not, anyway.”

“What we do is
wrong
.”

“We know. Trust me. We hash out those sorts of issues at every pack meeting, but there are so many problems to tackle, and so few of us. We can’t fix everything. The best thing we can do for the time being is to make sure we don’t let those issues pervade
our
pack.”

“That’s not enough. I don’t think wanting my mother nearby is unreasonable. They wouldn’t let her come with me.”

Ashley pressed her lips into a flat line leaned heavily onto the counter in front of her. “No. I suppose losing one pack member whose husband paid all the dues is one thing, but losing one who pays her own is another. I imagine your mother’s employed, and you weren’t?”

“Yes.”

“There you have it. Listen.” She gave Esther’s shoulder a squeeze as Vic sidled into the kitchen and lifted the paper towel covering what was left of the bacon. “Talk about what’s got you upset at the next pack meeting. We may not be able to figure out an immediate plan, but at least we can start brainstorming.”

“We’re welcome at pack meetings?”

Vic snorted and sauntered off with one slice of bacon and a muffin. “We wouldn’t ever get anything done, otherwise. You ladies are far less scatterbrained. Why
wouldn’t
you be there?”

“Mommy, can I have more juice?”

Darla, standing at Esther’s right leg, thrust her cup up to her mother. Being so distracted, Esther had no way of knowing how long the child had been standing there, or what she’d heard.

Who cares if she heard? I didn’t do anything wrong.

Esther took the cup from her and started for the refrigerator.

Aunt Lil was standing beside it with the pitcher at the ready.

“I’ve got today off,” her aunt said. “Gotta go back to work tomorrow, but we’ll use today to get you settled in. We’ll go to the grocery store, and get the kids clothes for school and stuff.”

With what money?

Esther let her pour the juice, but kept her lips zipped on the money topic for the time being. “You’ve been off work since I got here?”

“Yeah, but don’t fret about that. I had the vacation time to burn.”

“Where do you work?”

“At the executive mansion. I’m the cook there. Feeding Vikings isn’t much different than feeding wolves, to be honest, except the Vikings like vegetables on occasion.”

“Hey!” Vic griped from the sofa.

Lil waved a dismissive hand at him, and then notched her fists onto her hips. “So. Eat up. You’re going to need to graze throughout the day to recover from that long sleep of yours. You don’t wanna get sick by eating too much too quickly.”

Esther concentrated on buttering her toast and giggled when baby fingers tickled her exposed ankle.

Little Adam had found his way into the kitchen, evidently wanting to be where the action was.

“Colt won a hundred bucks per kid,” Nixon said. He was leaning on the counter from the other side and looking back at Vic and Anton. “How much for Esther?”

Anton grunted. “I think the final tally was five hundred dollars. So, seven hundred in total.”

“For guessing how long we’d sleep?” Esther stuffed toast into her mouth and furrowed her brow.

“Yep,” Nixon said. “Lucky jerk.”

“Don’t hate him too much,” Ashley said, bumping Esther’s hip. “He donated all the cash to the March Preservation Fund. He makes out like the idea was Lisa’s, but I’m pretty sure he came up with that on his own. Gods forbid that anyone see him as sweet, right?”

“
March
.” The name left a sour taste in Esther’s mouth. The good food she’d had on her tongue may as well have been sawdust.

Aunt Lil pressed a hand to Esther’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “
Mm
, Christina, could you please go see if Graciella left for work? Might need her for a few minutes before she leaves.”

Christina’s nod came on a suspiciously slow delay, and she kept her gaze on Esther as she backed away from the kitchen. “I’ll be right back.”

Aunt Lil kept squeezing Esther’s shoulder, and Esther could tell that for whatever reason, she was trying extra hard to put on a happy face. Aunt Lil’s sunniness couldn’t completely balance the hostility emanating from elsewhere in the room. Anton was at the counter with Vic, and both wore scowls.