Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers) (20 page)

The schoolmaster looked surprised. “I never thought that would happen.”

“Well, it did and it didn’t. I saw Billy over at the saloon earlier and he told me his son never got the summons and he wasn’t happy about it.”

“He wanted his son to appear in Court?”
Rachel asked, confused.

The schoolmaster, however, understood completely. “A little embarrassment now can save a lot later.”

“Exactly. Plus, he’d told the cub it would happen and it didn’t, which makes Dad look stupid. So I asked him to bring the cub to Court anyway so he could at least hear his name called. I called Randall’s name, too, and accused them of petty theft.” He snorted. “The Alpha turned purple and I thought Holt was going to hit me. I kind of wished he would have.”

“That would have gotten the town talking.”

“You bet your ass it would.” He glanced at Rachel, expecting a protest, but when she didn’t give him the satisfaction of one, he went on. “I think they’re going to be talking anyway. When Holt tried to say there was no proof the candy was stolen, Achilles Marbank from over at the livery stood up and shouted that he saw them do it. With the size of that chest and those arms, he’d be a good man to have at your side in a fight,” he said to John, and then, “I was hoping Mrs. Hornmeyer’s son would bear witness, too, but he didn’t.”

“I don’t think he can afford to,” John said and then explained to Rachel. “That’s why I wanted Liddy to talk to him. He was under the impression the shop was free and clear of debt, but when his father passed, he found himself up to his neck in it and there was no record of the money his father always claimed was in the bank. They’re barely squeaking by and he’s hurt and angry. His wife took it out on Liddy.”

“Liddy said her mate put money aside every week for their old age. Slocum told her it went to her son,” Rachel added. “He stole it, didn’t he? Poor Liddy is so ashamed of living on the pack’s Pittance and there was no reason for it. Why would he do it?” she asked, her eyes going from one man to the other. “He lives in a fine house. His mate and cubs wear fine clothes. You’ve got to arrest him,” she told McCall.

“For what?” he asked. “If he has the paperwork, we can’t prove it.”

“Anything else we should know about?” John asked.

“Not from Court, but afterward Morris Fillmore took me aside and strongly suggested I issue more citations to help pay my fines.” He capped the bottle and put his glass in the sink. “Yep, yours truly gets a kickback for every fine he brings in. Fillmore called it a win-win.”

“What’s a kickback?” Rachel asked and McCall laughed.

“Looks like you need a copybook, too.” He explained kickback and win-win. “Good set
up. Everybody wins.”

“Except the members paying the fines,” Rachel huffed.

“Party pooper.” He laughed again when she didn’t know that one either and harder still when she stuck out her tongue.

“Since I spend my days with childish behavior, I think I’ll say goodnight,”
John said as he left them, “And Rachel? Try to think of him as a cub in my schoolroom, the one with the pointy hat sitting in the corner. He, too, will someday grow up to be a responsible member of the pack. We just have to have faith.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” McCall yelled at the closing door.

“You’re a dunce,” Rachel answered for the absent schoolmaster. The she-wolf was on her back, kicking her legs in the air, though Rachel couldn’t see what was so funny. “Mr. Washington was being kind. I was thinking of another term.”

“Lay it on me, baby,
” McCall laughed, spreading his arms in welcome of her attack.

“
Asshat. You, Mr. McCall, are an asshat,” she whispered.

He sat back in his chair, mock offended. “Well that wasn’t very nice.
I should wash your mouth out with soap.”

“I
t wasn’t meant to be nice. You can’t come into my kitchen huffing and puffing about every man you find in it. Who’s next? Eustace?”

“
I’m a big, bad wolf. Huffing and puffing is what I do, and if he plies you with liquor and wraps his arms around you, then yeah, Eustace just got his own page in the copybook.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“No it’s not.” McCall’s said vehemently and then shrugged, giving her that silly, boyish grin. “Okay, you win on that one. No page for Eustace.”

“And none for Mr. Washington, either.”

The grin was gone. “What were you two talking about earlier?”

Rachel knew he was going back to the reason for her tears and decided to head him off.

“I asked him about Challenges and Alphas,” she called over her shoulder. “I wanted to understand why a wolver would risk his life to take over a pack.”

McCall
was suddenly at her side and watching her closely. “And he said…?” he prompted.

“We didn’t get that far,” she told him. Standing so close to him, she almost forgot what she wanted to say. She licked her lips. “Maybe you could tell me.”

Rachel looked up into those soft, gray eyes, hoping he would give her a reason good enough to make her broken heart bearable.

“If he’s honorable, he does it because he believes it’s for the greater good of the pack and he’s willing to sacrifice everything,
everything,” he repeated, “for them to have something better.”

His hand went to her cheek, cradling it in his palm and Rachel closed her eyes to savor the feel of it. His thumb passed over her moistened lips and they opened slightly under his touch. Hi
s voice became the sound of dry autumn leaves being blown across the ground, a soft rustle barely heard over the beating of her heart.

“I like you, Red. I like you a lot
, more than a lot and I want you. My wolf is clawing my insides out, trying to get at you. He wants you too, in a way he’s never wanted anything before and probably won’t again. If it was up to him, we’d take you down right now, right through that door and into that pretty new bedroom of yours.”

Rachel’s wolf was dancing with joy at the prospect.

“But I’m a wolver, not a wolf, and you are not prey. That’s the difference between me and those other guys. I can’t use you. I can’t treat you like prey. I can’t run you down and then walk away once I’ve had my fill, because I’d never have my fill of you. But I will walk away. I have to.”

“I know,”
Rachel told him, feeling no better now that she knew her feelings were returned. “I already figured that out and I understand.”

He kissed her then, not passionately as he’d done in the hall, but softly, gently, as if
the taste of her was something to be cherished and treasured. And she knew what he was trying to say without words. This was his goodbye to what might have grown between them.

Chapter 19

Rachel’s wolf was practically leaping from her chest at the prospect of going over the moon.

“
Run, run, run
!”

Rachel was excited, too. Her experience the other night
, though short and traumatic, had emboldened her to bring it up at Book Club. Jane Eyre had provided the perfect opportunity. During the discussion, when John asked for opinions, Rachel had spoken her thoughts.

“Jane is like us,” she said.

“You think she’s a wolver?” Cassie asked and laughed. The others laughed with her and so did Rachel.

“No, like us, not one of us.
Like us, Jane has two beings inside of her. One is the person society expects her to be, the one she was taught to be. Even as a child, she knew it was wrong, but she trained herself to do what was expected of her.”

“Because she was punished when she didn’t,” someone else chimed in and significant looks were passed among several others.

“It’s like she can’t win,” said another. “Rochester loves her the way she is, but if she stays with him as his mistress, she won’t be able to do the things she should because society won’t let her.

“
Then why not choose Rivers?” John asked. “He gives her the opportunity to use her money as she sees fit and to use her talents.”

“As long as she doesn’t show her wolf.”

“It’s all about finding the balance, isn’t it?”

“In order to be happy, she has to be both woman and wolf.”

“I don’t feel like I have a wolf anymore. It’s been so long since I’ve felt her.”

Rachel wasn’t sure who said it
. There were at least two dozen women there, but when John excused himself for a moment, the woman’s comment spurred others to admit what Rachel had discovered in herself.

Torn between what was expected of them as women and the demands of their wolf, they’d suppressed the wolf and none of them were any happier for it.

“Stan and I,” one young woman hesitantly admitted with a furious blush, “Well… we used to have fun… well, you know.”

And while no one added to the young woman’s comment, the wistful sighs told
Rachel they understood what she meant.

“Do you remember what it felt like the first time you went over the moon?”

“I haven’t run in years and I’d almost forgotten.”

“I have forgotten and I think my wolf is dead.”

“Oh, no, it’s not! I thought mine was, too, and I thought part of me died with her,” Rachel confessed, “but she was only sleeping. She’s awake now and she wants to run. I want to run. Like Jane Eyre, I don’t want to choose between one or the other. I want to be whole.”

“We all should run.
Together.”

Among the women of the book club, there was only one hesitant holdout.

“I-I don’t know if my mate will let me.”

It was Liddy, no longer meek and mild, who answered her. “It isn’t for him to say yea or nay. It’s our moon, the Hunter’s Moon, and whether or not we go over it, is our choice.
You tell that mate of yours, if he tries to stop you, he’ll be one sorry wolver, because the rest of us will eat him alive.”

John Washington returned to a crowd of women cheering Jane Eyre’s name.

“I had no idea
Jane Eyre
would be so well received,” he laughed and looked to Rachel. “What shall we read when we finish it?”

The woman behind him answered.

“How To Start a Revolution.”

All talking stopped, as the women stared
at the Alpha’s Mate. All except John, that is, who kept talking as if the Mate’s presence was nothing out of the ordinary.

“You said it would happen, but I’m surprised it happened so soon.”

“I also said it would only take one to start it.” The Mate beamed at Rachel and then took her place by John’s desk at the front of the room.

“After you go home and have some time to think about what happened here, some of you will question when it all began. What happened to us? When did we begin to forget who we are? When di
d we begin to lose control of our lives? Some of you will remember the way things were, the way they were supposed to be. Some of you are too young to know that things were once different.

“Gold Gulch was supposed to be a place where we could be ourselves while pretending to be something we weren't. Somewhere along the way we stopped pretending and denied what we really are. We traded freedom for security and we allowed the few to dictate what the many should be.

"I don’t know when it began, but I do know I made it much worse. I was too young. I didn’t understand the power I was given as Mate. I didn’t think for myself, but let others think for me. I listened to them and not my wolf. I didn’t stand for you and it wasn’t until I needed you most that I realized I couldn’t ask you to stand for me.”

“We would have.”

“We loved you.”

“You made us happy.”

“I betrayed you.” Lenora looked around the room. “In the outside world, the human world, there are drugs made to ease pain, much as I, as Mate, can ease pain. These drugs can help people through the bad patches, but some people use them to keep away the pain and sadness and heartache that’s a natural part of life. They even refer to them as happy pills and they become addicted, and tell themselves that happiness is simply the lack of pain.

“This is what I did to you.
With the encouragement of some of the leaders of this pack, I used my power to cover your discomfort. I thought I was helping, but I wasn’t.” She reached into the schoolmaster’s desk and held up a tack. She held it up for all to see. “What happens if I put this on Mr. Washington’s chair and he sits on it?”

“You’ll feel the sting of a ruler for sure,” someone laughed.

“Yes, but who’ll be stung first and what will he do?”

“Jump up!”

“Yes! But if he never feels the pain of it, he’ll never move away from the thing that’s causing him harm. He would never remove the tack and worse, he would never question how it got there, or be angry with the person who put it there. That’s what I did to you. I never let you feel the pain of what was causing you harm. It wasn’t until Edmund died and there was no one to question it, that I saw what I’d done to you.”

“You’re not asking us to leave our mates, are you?”

“No! I only wanted you to feel the reality of your lives, so you can question and make choices for yourselves.”

“There aren’t many choices we’re allowed to make,” another woman called out.

“Then let’s start with making the ones we can,” Rachel told them, “Beginning with the Hunter’s Moon.”

The touch of the Alpha’s Mate washed over them, not the smothering cover of illusion, but an uplifting sensation of their Mate’s love and pride.
On their way out, Lenora Hoffman slipped her arm through Rachel’s.

“
Edmund brought me much joy. Beyond the pain of his death, I remembered that happiness and learned something from it. You must grab joy while you can and hold it tight for as long as you can, because you’ll cherish the memory of it and call on those memories when times are hard. I had our Edmund for so short a time, and I wouldn’t offer a minute of the joy he brought me to trade away my pain.”

Rachel
remembered those words as she walked along Schoolhouse Lane toward the Hotel’s rear yard and she wondered if Lenora recognized that joy when it was in her hand or only once it was taken away.

Like a magnet to iron, her wolf caught sight of the figure
sauntering across the street along Main. Rachel couldn’t help herself. There were more addictions than drugs and Challenger McCall was hers. Her heart raced as she scurried past the hotel’s gate, wishing to get a glimpse of the man she loved and couldn’t have. And then she wished she hadn’t.

Sheriff
McCall, with a bounce in his stride, took the long row of steps two at a time, right up to the front door of the big yellow Victorian house. He would be spending his evening among the flowers of Daisy’s Bouquet. The joy of him would never be hers. She would have no memories to cherish.

Rachel turned away when the door to the bordello opened. She retraced her steps
back to the hotel and went immediately to her pretty new room where she curled into a ball on her beautiful grownup bed and cried herself to exhaustion.

According to Eustace and Bertie, there would be more than the women of the book club going over the moon. Word had spread and the little schoolhouse would be overflowing with wolver women willing to take a chance on changing their lives. For modesty’s sake, they agreed to meet there to strip down to their cotton undergarments before the moon rose. Even some of the older women said they would come and trot around the schoolyard, if only for an hour, in memory of their younger days.

Gold Gulch was closed to tourists only four days a year, so the day of the Hunter’s Moon was
like any other, but with the excitement of the coming run, time flew by. There was a lightness among the women, as if a heavy burden had been lifted, and the customer’s noticed. Eustace was full of news.

“Got a crowd down to the Emporium.
Those two sisters are picking up their skirts over the tops of their shoes, dancing and singing
Sweet Betsy From Pike,
enjoying it, too, by the looks of it. Achilles Marbank ain’t likin’ it much, though,” the omega cackled. “The crowd’s blocking the window. It’s tough not being able to stand all google eyed and droolin’, watchin’ that pretty girl at the counter.”

“Cassie and Achilles?”
Rachel asked without even realizing she’d used first names. “Cassie told me she’d decided not to mate.”

“
That don’t keep a man from dreamin’. Know what he’s doing instead? Hammering out a rose, petal by petal, at the forge.” Eustace shook his head. “Hurt me like the dickens when they gave him my livery, not because he got it, mind. It was the way they done it, turning him against me. I’d been asking to bring him in as partner for a long time. The man knows his way around a forge. I only used it to fit horseshoes and make a repair here and there. That Achilles is an artist.”

“Quit your yammering and wash up. Last couple of days you been doing twice the talking and half the work,” Bertie grumbled. “Those dishes need to be set out for Tea and the napkins need folding. We got a lot of work to do around here if we expect to close on time and since I expect your attentions will be elsewhere, you can do your part now.
By the time you’re done, the pot pies will be, too. You can take one down to Maudie. No sense in her worrying about supper, too. She’s got enough on her plate atwixt her fines and you watchin’ those cubs while she runs. What you and those cubs’ll get up to while she’s gone is enough to make her hair curl.”

“Crotchety old hen,” Eustace muttered. “Don’t know how poor Victor puts up with you.”

“Cubs?”

Since her revelation of the washerwoman’s circumstances, Bertie had been more open about and more generous with the food she sent from Rachel’
s kitchen and accounted for the slight rise in food costs, but Rachel couldn’t find it in her heart to tell the cook to stop.

Bertie gave her a toothy grin. “He’s got an eye for the widow and her litter, ever since you found her sitting in the mud. Eustace can’t go over the moon because of his
legs and Maudie didn’t want to leave her cubs. Sometimes those older ones need more watchin’ than the young. He convinced her to run while he keeps an eye on things. I ain’t telling him, but she could do worse than Eustace Lode even if it means sinking down to omega right along with him.”

*****

It felt odd, at first, to be standing in her chemise and drawers in front of dozens of other women just as scantily clad, but the feeling passed as the call of the moon took over. In the name of modesty, the windows had been covered to keep the women from view. With the constant peeking to watch the night sky, most of the sheets had fallen from their moorings and no one bothered to replace them. Rachel wasn’t watching for moonrise. She was watching the spot where the men had gathered. She was looking for Challenger McCall.

Subjecting herself to this self-inflicted pain was
useless and bordered on idiocy, but it was necessary. Seeing him, knowing he was near, was the only way she could keep her wolf from taking over and seeking him out to lay herself, like Arthur, at his feet. Poor, pitiful, Arthur.

Daisy
, clad in soft silk and luxurious lace, stood at her shoulder, looking out into the night. She and her girls were the only women in town who went over the moon regularly with the men. No one ever asked why, but one woman had rudely asked why they were here in the schoolhouse tonight and Daisy had rudely answered.

“Because we’re women first and
whores second. Any more questions?”

There were no more questions and once they were all down to the barest minimum of clothing, the women began to forget who was high and who was low and who was a whore. Without the
trappings of clothing, they were pack and they were all waiting for the same moon to call them over.