Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2 (2 page)

Enough was enough. Feeling protective of Lorelei was acceptable, but having an interest in her—the kind that would require worrying about whether or not she was in love with her former alpha—would get his ass kicked. Colin played dumb. “Something you’re trying to tell me?”

“A reminder,” Shane said mildly. “For both of us.”

Both of them. Mae ran around the farm wrapped in Shane’s sweatshirts like they were her own personal armor, but Colin had assumed it was about safety, nothing more. Shane had a knack for understanding what a wolf needed, even if he’d never had much charisma with people.

Maybe Colin wasn’t the only one having trouble with the line between protecting and caring. “Doesn’t matter. It
can’t
. They’re safe, but that’s a long way from healed.”

That furrowed his friend’s brow. “I’m pretty sure we don’t get to decide what matters. There’s what does and what doesn’t, and denying it is useless.”

Christ. “Fine, it matters. It just isn’t relevant to anything I plan on doing. I’m here to be Jay’s backup. To fight when I have to, and to keep people safe when I don’t. That’s it.”

“Of course that’s it,” Shane said innocently. “Want another beer?”

“Fuck you.” He leaned over and snatched up another beer anyway. “I don’t poke you about the fact that you’re running out of sweatshirts, asshole.”

“It’s what Mae needs from me.” Butter wouldn’t have melted in Shane’s mouth. “What does Lorelei need from you?”

Good damn question. And more importantly, how the hell had
Shane
figured out the answer to that question before Colin had?

Probably because Shane was good with wolves, if not people. Colin, on the other hand, wasn’t good with anyone. “I don’t know.”

“But you think she needs
something
.”

It would be too easy to believe, if only because he wanted to be the one to fulfill her needs. “I don’t know. I really don’t. Maybe she needs guys like me to stay away.”

Shane shrugged. “So what’s wrong with asking her?”

Colin couldn’t help but eye him curiously. “Is that what you did with Mae?”

“I didn’t have to. But I would have—if her signals hadn’t been so clear.”

The only signals Colin had ever picked up from Mae were terror, submission and the painful kind of hope that was so fragile, he was afraid of getting anywhere near her. Hope that delicate could be crushed with a harsh word. “Do you think Lorelei’s signals are clear too?”

Instead of answering, Shane rose. “You want the rest of the beer?”

Of course it couldn’t be that easy. “No, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” He snagged the pack and headed up the stairs.

Colin had known Shane for too many years to be offended. The man understood computers and wolves, but trying to convince him that it was rude to walk out of a conversation with another human was a useless fucking task.

Sighing, Colin rose with his own half-empty beer, turned—and came face to face with Kaley.

Shit. How long had the third remaining member of Zack’s little pack been listening? “Hey, Kaley.”

She reached out and took his beer. “A word of friendly advice?”

Shit shit
shit
. “Yeah?”

“Lorelei’s broken,” she said. “We all are, even you. Being broken doesn’t make you helpless, and it doesn’t mean you don’t know what you want.”

If she’d been Mae or Lorelei, he might have been able to accept the words without comment. But Kaley, the youngest of the refugees from the original pack, was also the strongest. An alpha in the making, a woman who would mature into a serious threat to any man.

She was enough of a threat now to have his wolf bristling. “I’m not broken.”

“Okay.” She drained the beer and handed him the empty bottle.

Feeling stupid
and
guilty, he forced himself past the discomfort of exposing a weakness and tried to concentrate on Kaley’s words. On what she was trying to say, not how it affected him. “Fine, I might be a little broken. And it
does
make me confused about what I want. But the thing is, what I want doesn’t matter right now. That’s the deal I made when I came here.”

She nodded. “All right.” She turned for the stairs but stopped at the bottom. “Zack’s hurting. Don’t call him a fixer-upper.”

The only right answer wasn’t the truth, so Colin settled for the middle ground. “All men are fixer-uppers, honey. We spend our lives looking for a woman who likes us well enough to put up with our shit.”

Kaley smiled at that. “I can’t tell if you’re the most charming man alive, or just as muddled and lost as the rest of us.”

There was the girl he was used to, the one who made him want to ruffle her hair and call her
kiddo
and give her a safe place to come into her strength. “Must be the lost-and-muddled thing, because Fletcher’s the most charming man alive. He’ll tell you so if you stay still more’n five minutes.”

“I’ll watch out for that. Keep light on my feet.”

“Duck and roll, kiddo.” This time, he did reach out to muss her hair. “Don’t mind me and Shane, all right? We’re just not used to being domesticated. Staying in one place takes practice after a lifetime of running.”

“Bad habits are hard to break,” she teased.

“Yeah, they are.” Relieved that she’d forgiven him enough to smile, he grinned at her in return. “You can whack me on the nose with a newspaper if you want.”

“Not my job,” she murmured with a small shake of her head. “You’re not
my
fixer-upper.”

“Brat.” He swatted at her. “I’ll see you in the morning, Kaley. Let me know if you and Mae need any help getting stuff packed up for the fair.”

“It’s under control.” She took the stairs two at a time, and only spoke again once she’d reached the top. “Maybe you could help us out with the booth, though.”

“Whatever you need.”
Whatever any of you need.

At least Kaley would tell him. With Lorelei… Maybe he’d have to man up, take Shane’s advice and
ask
.

Wouldn’t that be fun?

Chapter Two

Clover was almost too adorable for words.

Lorelei knew better than to trust the booths draped with twinkling lights, the makeshift dance floor set up in the town square, or the smiling, pleasant faces. The pack was an unknown quantity, something none of the townspeople understood. Even if every member had been human, their living situation most closely resembled something the good people of Clover would consider deviant. Wrong.

She smiled because she had to, though more than anything she wanted to bare her teeth—at the men sizing her up as a good time, at the women wondering if she was competition.

She could be both, but not
to
or
for
them. Here, she was neither.

Next to her, Eden looked even more uncomfortable, though perhaps not to the casual eye. She smiled when people approached them and made small talk with anyone who stopped in front of their booth.

No, it took a finer understanding of body language than most humans possessed to see the stiff set of her neck, the tension in her shoulders, the way her smile looked more like a snarl. If Eden were in wolf form, she’d be bristling with aggression and challenge.

A teenage girl skipped away with a newly purchased jar of lotion, and Eden tucked the bills into the cash box, every movement carefully precise. “This night is never going to end, is it?”

“Not a chance,” Lorelei murmured through a smile as a couple wandered by, eying them curiously. “You should find Jay, do a little dancing. I can handle it here.”

“Jay’s doing Chief of Police things,” Eden replied with a sigh. “One of us has to stay in the town’s good graces.”

“And it can’t be you?”

“I’m a Green,” she replied dryly. “A recently unemployed Green, and unemployed Greens are Clover’s least favorite type. My family’s always been infamous.”

And Eden had gained some of that notoriety. Lorelei had noticed the supposedly well-meaning old ladies trying to set Jay up with a more appropriate woman. “Hard to believe they used to respect you, and all it took to shatter that was a little alternative lifestyle.”

Eden made a rude noise. “If only they knew
how
alternative. I’d rather they think we’re a commune full of sexually perverted hippies than figure out we howl at the moon.”

“I heard that.” Kaley dropped to a folding chair behind them. “Who wants a break?”

“Lorelei needs one,” Eden said at once. “She’s been working all afternoon on one thing or another.”

“A generous exaggeration.” She patted Eden on the shoulder and rose anyway. “But hey, I’ll take it.”

“Make sure you buy yourself some of Mrs. Richardson’s peach cobbler. I think some of the pa—” Eden choked back the word with a rueful smile. “Some of the
group
set up camp over in the food court near her table. Her cobbler’s the best.”

“I’ll check it out.” The path took her past a small clearing near the dance floor, where an inflatable bouncy castle was currently under attack by a group of shrieking children.

Lorelei turned away out of habit, just in time for a small blond head to ram into her midsection. She caught the boy gently by the shoulders as he rebounded, a smile as automatic as her words curving her lips. “Whoa, watch the wobble, Ro—”

She caught herself just in time, biting the inside of her cheek until it bled to stop the name from escaping. The tiny face that turned up to hers belonged to a stranger, and in only moments an apologetic woman hurried in to sweep him away.

Not Robbie, of course. Never again.

Shane waved to her from a picnic table near the food booths. “Want a funnel cake? I got two extras.”

Normally, the absurdity of it would have amused her. “What, they were out of deep-fried Snickers?”

Mae laughed, low and husky, a sound Lorelei hadn’t heard in months. “This is my first fall festival with an awesome metabolism. I’m eating deep-fried
everything
.”

Plenty of time for plenty of firsts. Lorelei rubbed Mae’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you to it. I was just passing through, anyway.”

Passing through on her way to blessed, peaceful quiet.

But that wasn’t what she got. As she rounded the drugstore, intent on cutting through the alley on her way to Olsen’s Diner, she drew up short. Her legs stopped instinctively, her muscles freezing, before she realized what sound had drifted to her ears.

Fight.
Fists on flesh, boots and curses. No, too still. Fights were dynamic, they moved and careened off every surface.

Beatings, on the other hand, stayed in one place.

Lorelei stomped around the dumpster obscuring most of the alley and stumbled to a halt again.

Zack stood at the center of a knot of drunks, enduring their frequent blows with a stone-faced stoicism that only seemed to be enraging his attackers. One, a bulky man in faded red flannel, snarled and buried his balled fist in Zack’s unprotected side. “You’re a fucking freak, Green.”

He was standing there, taking every hit. He didn’t have to fight—with his strength, that would be so, so dangerous—but all he had to do was walk away. They couldn’t chase him into the middle of the street.

But he just stood there.

Lorelei pushed down her rage, dug her phone out of her pocket and stepped forward. “Can one of you assholes tell me whether it’d be faster to call the cops or run down to the station?”

Protective anger flared in Zack’s eyes, and his hands curled into fists as one of the drunks whirled on her. The man’s bleary gaze raked over her, an obvious cataloging of her body that curled his lips into a mean, hungry smile. “You must be one of Green’s bitches. Ever had a real man between your—”

The sentence cut off in a shriek as the hick’s face smashed against the wall. Zack moved so fast none of the humans had a chance, and Lorelei was caught off guard by the sheer speed of the attack. But Zack did nothing else, only crushed the man’s cheek into the brick and drawled one too-calm word. “Apologize.”

“Let him go, Zack.” Lorelei didn’t utter the words as a suggestion, or even a gentle command. Permission. “He can’t hurt me, not with words or anything else.”

One of the drunk’s friends took a swing at Zack’s unprotected back. Zack let the blow land without so much as a wince and kept the struggling man pinned to the wall. “Pete here thinks he’s a big man because he was a football star so long ago no one remembers or gives a shit. We were just catching up on old times—weren’t we, Pete?”

“
Zack.
” Time to play dirty. “Kaley needs you.”

His entire body tensed.

Pete’s friends milled uncertainly, drunk enough to be belligerent but too sober—or cowardly—to jump to their friend’s aid. One puffed out his chest, a gesture full of bluster and bluff. “Take your groupie and beat it,” he told Zack.

It’d serve the bastard right if Zack pounded him into the dirt, but fighting was a luxury they couldn’t afford. Hell, they couldn’t even stand their ground, not if it meant risking exposure. Lorelei held out her hand. “Let’s go.”

“Lucky bastard,” Zack grated out. He jerked away, and Pete staggered toward his friends. Zack wiped his hand on his shirt, as if touching Pete had made it dirty, and reached carefully for Lorelei’s outstretched fingers.