Omega Moon Rising (Toke Lobo & The Pack) (15 page)

“That doesn’t excuse me. I told you I’d do something, and I didn’t follow through.” His voice rumbled against her cheek. “That was three more months you had to put up with him, when five years was already too much time. Ancient Ones, I wish I’d been the one to kill him.”

Abby felt his lips on the top of her head.

“I hate to ask you this, but do you have any idea who might have killed him?”

She shook her head.

“Who were his friends? Co-workers? Anything?”

“He played poker every Wednesday night. Pete MacDougal, Jesse Stetson, Digger Sendall. A couple of others. That’s all I know. He worked with Pete. We weren’t exactly the poster children of family dinner table conversations. Mostly I tried to keep Libby out of his way.”

“You and Libby could be in danger.” His huge hand spanned her slightly rounded belly. “Every single individual in Loup Garou will protect you with his or her life. But that doesn’t mean you can take chances. Tokarz has increased the guards at Mom and Dad’s place, as well as Gramps and Granny’s.”

Abby pulled away so she could read his expression

His eyes glittered like distant stars in the night. “Tokarz and this guy, Mitchell Jasper, who’s our government contact, are working on getting you named Libby’s legal guardian. Unless your mother or father had a will naming someone else?”

“I’m Libby’s guardian. Mama said so in her will.”

“Great. I was afraid she didn’t have a will.”

Abby hesitated. She needed to trust someone. “Mama knew she was dying for a long time. She took care of everything, because Daddy hadn’t done anything and it was a mess for a long time after he died. I have all of her important papers. Including her will. And her will says I’m Libby’s legal guardian.”

“That is fantastic news.” He was grinning. “We need to give it to Jasper, so he can—”

“What makes you think I’m going to turn over anything to a stranger?”

Luke didn’t say anything for several moments. The only sound was that of the water lapping against the shore and a lonely bird complaining about something. “Would you rather have Tokarz deal with it?”

“Why would Tokarz get involved?” She had a difficult time remembering Toke Lobo’s real name was Tokarz de Lobo Garnier. Macy had told her all about the band.

“Because—” Luke hesitated. “He’s like the mayor of Loup Garou. Only more powerful than a mayor. He’s our leader.”

Something didn’t ring quite true, maybe because his words made no sense to her.

“Don’t worry about it. Let the guys in charge handle all the crap. I don’t want to have any secrets from you.”

Maybe that meant he was through lying to her.

“You need to know what’s going on here. The feds want to talk to Libby, and they want her to have an exam.” The half-moon hung low in the sky, splashing yellow onto the surface of the lake. Luke squirmed until he sat next to her again, and draped his arm over her shoulders. Pulled her close.

She snuggled. He was as warm as a bonfire in the chill autumn night. Despite all the stuff he’d talked about, there was something peaceful about sitting beside the water and watching the moon drift across the sky. Something safe and secure, two feelings she’d lost when her father died and her mother remarried. She rested her head on Luke’s chest. The steady thump of his heart beneath her ear was reassuring.

“So, do you want a boy or girl?” Luke asked.

“I still haven’t thought about it,” Abby said. “Everything has happened so fast.”

“I’d like a girl. One who looks like you.”

She and Luke both had blond hair and blue eyes. Their child would, too.

“How many children do you want?” Abby asked.

“Huh? Only one.”

“Oh.” She used to dream of having a big, jolly family.

“I mean, it’s not as if we’re staying together after the baby is born.”

If he’d slapped her, she couldn’t be more surprised. She pulled away from him. Clambered to her feet. “I’m ready to go back.”

“Wait a minute,” Luke said. “You didn’t think this was going to be a real—that this was anything other than—”

She walked away from him, willing her tears to stay put, forcing her sobs to stay swallowed, ignoring the twisting pain in her heart. He’d been kind because he pitied her. Because he wanted something from her. Cooperation. Like the rest of his family, the entirety of his community, all he cared about was the baby. She was merely the incubator.

“Abby, wait up.” Luke’s boots crunched on the stones. He caught her arm. “Hey. I’m waiting for my . . . soul mate. And you should want to meet yours, too. You deserve unconditional love.”

Like her parents. Funny. She’d hoped she’d find that with Luke. Guess not. At least she knew where she stood.

“Come on, Abby. Talk to me.”

“I wanted to get out of Gary’s house. You helped me accomplish that. I’m grateful. So, thanks.” She hoped Luke didn’t hear the tremor in her voice. “I’m tired. My back hurts again.” She opened the truck door, and Luke grabbed her around her waist and lifted her into the cab.

“Again?” he asked. “What happened, anyway, to get Granny’s panties in a wad?”

“I started bleeding the morning you left. Your grandmother thinks you were a little too enthusiastic about being married.” Well, that wasn’t going to be a problem in the future.

“How bad was it?” He touched her knee.

She stared out the windshield. “Enough to scare your mom and dad when they came to take me to your grandmother’s house. Which is where I’d like to go now.”

Luke sighed. “Abby, please don’t do this. Don’t be mad, and don’t be hurt. You don’t love me, but that doesn’t mean you need to be so cold to me. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

Too late.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She sealed off the outer world. She was so good at doing that, it was second nature now. She went to the secret place, where Gary and his camera couldn’t reach her soul. Now she had a door marked for Luke, too.

“I want us to be a married couple while we’re still married to each other.”

“I chose you to be my first lover because you’re in an almost famous band, and I wanted to lose my virginity on my terms, not Gary’s. Gary’s terms included an exchange of money from some pervert he contracted with on line. You were a better choice. That’s all. And now it’s done. You made your decision, and I’ve made mine. You’d better get your grandmother’s blanket. She might not like it if you leave it here.”

Luke uttered an unintelligible curse, then stalked back to the beach.

She watched him in the side mirror, anger bristling from him in almost visible waves. He stood at the edge of the lake a moment, a dark, lonely silhouette. He stooped, and she thought he was retrieving the blanket, but instead, he picked up a stone and sent it skipping across the surface of the water, shattering the reflection of the moon.

Chapter 14

Luke dropped Abby at Granny’s house, then drove to his cabin. Work was moving along fairly quickly on the addition. Moonlight peered through the studs of the new rooms and cast weird, elongated shadows. He couldn’t imagine how his home would change with the extra space, the extra people. Maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to the housing council’s proposal. Abby—and her sister—were temporary. The baby could live with his folks—his lifestyle wasn’t conducive to raising a kid, what with being on tour with the band and all.

Oh, who was he trying to fool? He wanted this baby and for the time being he wanted its mother. He couldn’t reconcile forced wife with life mate. But every time he got near Abby, he got hard. His human side was reacting to having experienced sex with her. All of his will power had been focused on not nuzzling her neck while they sat on the lakeshore. Not cupping her breast in his palm and using his thumb on her nipple.

He reminded himself his reaction was because the only way he knew how to relate to women was sexually. All those honky-tonk angels and backseats in the parking lots of country roadhouses and taverns in this part of the country had him as well trained as one of Pavlov’s dogs.

He kicked a stone in his driveway. Tried to envision living with Abby, her sister, and a baby. The equation didn’t add up for him. Abby would be safest at his grandmother’s house, but when he moved back to his cabin, he wanted her with him. He was going to be spending some long nights tangled in the web, thanks to his new government gig.

Abby lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. It was a nice ceiling, of tongue-and-grove wood the color of honey. And there wasn’t a speck of dust or a cobweb to be seen. Granny kept her house spotless.

Abby swallowed. Hard. Maybe she was crazy, but she missed Luke. She’d been missing him since the night of the picnic, but tonight, after he laid everything out for her, she missed him even more.

And it was okay. She knew his truth now. She knew he would be kind to her, mostly out of pity, but he would never physically hurt her or the baby. After the baby was born, she would take it and Libby back to the little house on Silver Moon Terrace. She would purge the familiar rooms of Gary’s miasma and the lingering bad juju of her mother’s illness and death. She’d make a home for her sister and her child. Luke would always be welcome—anyone from his family would always be welcome. They’d been kind to her and Libby when they didn’t have to be.

And Luke would pay child support. He was responsible. He might be a jerk at times, but he was responsible. So she’d have some money coming in. And the house was paid for. But there were things like taxes, insurance, electricity, and food. Hopefully the supermarket would hire her soon.

But then what would she do with the baby all day?

Oh well, she didn’t have to figure out the rest of her life—again—tonight. She still had a few months.

“Granny, she was out of bed for a while two nights ago, and she’s fine.” Luke leaned against the kitchen counter and scowled at his grandmother. “We need Abby to be at her stepfather’s funeral.”

Granny scowled back. “I’m the midwife here.”

“So you know she’s been fine. Maybe I was too sorry to be leaving her before.” He was even sorrier his grandmother wanted to banish him from Abby’s bed. He liked sleeping curled around her. Liked waking up and smelling her warm and safe in his arms. “Why don’t you come to the funeral with us?”

The FBI figured whoever killed Gary would show up at the funeral and had flown in several agents. The entire event, from calling hours until the last shovelful of dirt tossed onto the coffin would be recorded. Luke and his family were to play bodyguards to Abby and Libby. Abby could use as many friendly faces as Luke could gather.

Gary had no one else. His employment records listed Tina Grant Porter—who had died only days before his murder—as his next of kin. That left Abby and Libby.

“Did he have any family?” Luke had asked, as per his instructions from the FBI.

“I don’t know,” Abby said.

“Who’s this Uncle Dougie Libby keeps mentioning?”

“We don’t have an Uncle Dougie,” Abby said. “Mama and I figured he was an imaginary relative, because we were so family poor. And since Gary stopped Libby’s medications, she has had more issues than usual.”

“Medications?”

“She was diagnosed with ADHD. Among other things. And she was doing well with medication mixed with behavior tactics. After a year, Gary decided she didn’t need the pills.”

Another reason to be glad Gary was dead.

“What if Uncle Dougie isn’t an imaginary friend?” Luke asked, and tension reshaped Abby’s features.

“Are you saying he could be a friend of Gary’s? A cohort? That Gary got to Libby despite everything I did?”

Luke crushed Abby to his chest. “It isn’t your fault. You’re a survivor, and you did what you had to do to survive.” He’d been coached by the feds on what to say to Abby. To stop calling her a victim. To remind her she had survived. 

Abby pushed him away. “Stop treating me as if I don’t have a brain in my head,” she snapped. “What you’re saying is we don’t know if Gary did exploit Libby. And the only way to find out is to talk to Libby.”

“Maybe you should talk to the counselor,” Luke suggested. “They say there are signs—”

“And I might have missed them because I was caught in my own hell, and Mama was too sick to know the difference.” A knot in Abby’s jaw twitched. “I only know what I want to know, and that is Libby escaped.”

Luke nodded.

Tears filled Abby’s eyes, and he thought the liquid had been wrung straight from his heart. She was so brave, his Abby. So strong. A survivor.

“After Gary’s burial. Do we have to have a big deal about a funeral?”

Luke nodded again. “The Feds want to tape everything. It’s standard operating procedure.”

So Abby put on her dark clothes—only because she didn’t own any sparkly party clothes she informed Luke—and had Libby do the same.

Luke’s family gathered around the Grant sisters, as if they were Omega now. Ethan and Restin also accompanied the group to Oak Moon.

Deja vu all over again
, Luke thought as they stood in line at the funeral home, D. Sendall, Director, serving the families of Oak Moon for four generations. Only Gary had changed places.

There were almost as many callers for Gary as there had been for Tina. Some of the same people who’d been at the first funeral filed by. Gary’s co-workers at the brewery turned out in force. Abby claimed she didn’t know those men. While Luke’s hand rested on the small of her back, he kept his gaze on Libby, to gauge her reaction to the mourners.

As far as Luke could tell, Libby’s problem—ADHD meant nothing to him—rendered her immune to the people around her. She showed no shyness, no hesitation, and accepted sympathy as her due. The girl had no filters. She also jiggled, and fidgeted, and tried to wander away. “Doesn’t Gary look good for someone whose brains were blown out?” Luke heard her ask someone.

Abby introduced him for a second time to her second grade teacher, her Girl Scout leader, her Sunday School teacher, and her mother’s former co-workers at the grocery store. Gary’s poker cronies were out in full force. “Digger did a good job. I heard Gary was a mess,” Jesse Stetson said to Pete MacDougal, who’d brought his highly aromatic mother. Charmaine MacDougal spent several minutes fawning over Libby, who enjoyed the attention.

Luke opened his senses to these strangers and was rewarded with static in his head and a stuffed nose from the perfumes battling the floral arrangements. He wished Stoker with his miracle nose or Hank with his super and sub sonic hearing skills had accompanied them.

Creepy as he was, handling dead bodies and all, at least Digger Sendall had made sure everyone had water available at this session.

Abby sat stiff and aloof on the drive to the cemetery. She’d been cordial but distant since their talk at the lake. He wanted the old Abby back, the one who had treated him like the best stud the Ancient Ones put on the face of the earth.

And he wanted her again. Maybe he was a selfish jerk, but if they were married, he didn’t see why she wouldn’t get naked with him. He didn’t want anything to happen to the baby either, but he could be careful.

His first thought went to photos he’d seen on the Internet, but immediately skittered from there. Ever since discovering his wife in her provocative innocence, he’d lost his taste for his favorite websites. Or maybe marriage to Abby changed his perspective. He squirmed in his seat, trying to ease the sudden tightness in his pants.

Granny scowled at him—the limo was huge, so the entire family rode to the cemetery together. He wondered how Granny knew what he was thinking.
Eww.
He didn’t want to think about his grandparents like
that
.

But there must have been
that
; otherwise, the family wouldn’t have been busted to Omega for seven generations.

And thinking about his grandparents in the throes of passion wiped the idea of a quickie with Abby straight from his brain. He needed to focus on his anger about what had been done to his family now that interspecies mating was no longer considered a crime against the pack.

Luke had been plotting since Tokarz, whose grandfather revoked Luke’s grandfather’s status, had mated with Delilah. A human. Mighty Alpha double standard. If Tokarz could get away with a human mate—and Stoker, and Hank—without losing status, then Luke’s family deserved their status back. If only he could
do
something to prove the worth of the people beyond their namelessness—he could force Tokarz to reconsider the elder Garnier’s decision. Granny had proved worthy of status with her midwifery. She was a valuable asset to the pack. And an outcast all the same.

It was wrong. Plain wrong.

Luke helped Abby from the car, then cupped her elbow and helped her pick her way to the solitary gravesite. Her mother had been buried next to her father, in another part of the cemetery, next to two small graves Abby said were her stillborn sisters. Gary was nowhere near the Grants.

“He should have been cremated,” Abby muttered, as a cool wind sliced down the mountain. “He deserves to burn, but Digger insisted. It’s not as if he wouldn’t make money. He owns a crematorium near Fort Collins. But no. Digger and Gary played poker together, so Digger wanted to pull out all the stops for him.”

As far as Luke was concerned, doing right by Gary Porter would be tossing him off the side of the mountain for nature’s scavengers to deal with.

After the graveside service, Luke took Abby home. To his house, not his grandmother’s. The carpenters had been working almost non-stop to get the addition done. Winter was already whispering on the wind.

“What do you think?” Luke asked.

The restructuring had changed the entire character of his dwelling. The cabin had been what a
homo sapien
would call a man cave. It had been Luke’s den. Sole. Lonely. An omega not allowed to mate.

Which was nonsense on his part. Of course he was allowed to mate. Hadn’t his father? Luke was still young. Tokarz and Stoker were in their thirties before they’d found their mates.

And besides, Luke had a wife. He liked having a wife.

“What do you think?” he asked again, when Abby didn’t answer.

“What I think doesn’t matter,” she replied. Her words were so soft they might have disappeared on the breeze had Luke not been paying attention.

“Sure it does. You’re going to live here, too.” Then he winced. Right. He’d pretty much told her that after the baby was born, she wouldn’t be living with them.

“Well, for the baby,” he amended. “We need to pick paint colors and stuff.” He knew he was babbling, like an anxious teenage girl.

“The baby won’t be here often enough for it to matter. Pick something you like.”

“What do you mean?” Luke asked. “She’s going to be living here.” When she wasn’t with his parents.

Abby shot Luke a look filled with a bunch of emotions he didn’t know how to label. All he knew was they were on the nasty side.

“I don’t know what ridiculous notions are in your head this week, but taking my baby away from me had better not be one of them.”

“Your baby away from you? She’s my baby, too.”
And she’s going to be able to do things you’re not going to understand.

Or would she?

Ancient Ones, no one had thought about that. His father and Aunt Macy could turn only on the full moon. Shifting wasn’t an option for them. Luke, being three quarters lycan, was as good as a full blood when it came to morphing to and from wolf form—but it was more difficult for him. Like his senses weren’t nearly as keen as full-bloods, although he knew they were better than the average human’s. His and Abby’s child would be somewhere between half and three quarters. He did the math—sixty-two point five percent human. Who knew which genes would dominate?

“And why do you think it’s a girl?” Abby asked.

Luke grinned. “Because I would love a little girl who looks like you. All rosy and golden. Like sunrise. Hey! We can name her Rosie Dawn.” He really liked that. Rosie Dawn Omega. No. Scratch that. Rosie Dawn Thibodaux. The surname he so desperately wanted to reclaim.

Abby looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “That’s a terrible name.”

“It’s a wonderful name. Let’s write a song for her.”

“What if it’s a boy?”

“I can live with that.” A son he could teach to play the drums. Teach how to be part human in a lycan world.

Then he got depressed. Rosie Dawn would have a difficult time, like his Aunt Macy. Who had never mated. Who had taught Luke his love of technology. He never stopped to wonder if Macy was lonely. She was always around.