PacksBrokenHeart (5 page)

She loathed the sight of him and would have trussed him up, dropped him in the trunk of a squad car and dumped him over the state line if she could get away with it.

When the outer door closed behind him she stood up and turned to face Cutler.

“I’m volunteering to work in Pinebridge.”

Behind her, Wally inhaled so sharply he actually hissed.

“Shut up, Pierce,” she barked over her shoulder. “And I’m not going there as any damn dispatcher either,” she told Cutler without bothering to temper her tone. “And now that we’re
on
the subject, I’m not going to work as a dispatcher here anymore either. Hire a civilian. It’s a waste of my skills and taxpayer money to pay a deputy sheriff to field 9-1-1 calls from old ladies who can’t remember where they parked at the bingo hall.”

The corner of Cutler’s mouth twitched. “As your sheriff, I don’t have a legitimate reason to refuse. As your Alpha…” The pitch of his voice dropped into that firm, confident undertone only Alphas ever really mastered. “I also have to consider the needs of my pack. You’re a healthy, young, unmated female in a pack with more males than females. I send you to Pinebridge for three months and I can damn well guarantee some stud over there is going to poach you away from us. What’s my guarantee you’ll come back?”

She set her hands on her hips and shot a leg forward. It was the closest she could safely come to challenging her Alpha without being insubordinate. “Fine. If I meet someone I’ll drag his shaggy ass back here.”

A couple of the other deputies, the older ones, chuckled. The younger ones just growled quietly.

Cutler scowled but his brow didn’t furrow…a sure sign he wasn’t completely opposed to what she’d said. “Okay. You can go. But if you bring a mate back with you he damn well better be a plumber. I’m sick to death of having to call in a human every time the sinks in the town hall back up.”

She stood up straighter and even felt her chin go up. “Thank you, Sheriff.”

“
No
,” Wally blurted. He moved to stand beside her, shot her a hard look then glared at Cutler. “Equality be damned, she’d be a woman going into an unknown pack, a female deputy going into a community with a cop killer on the loose. It’s bad enough when a male cop runs into trouble on the job. When it’s a woman…” His voice trailed off.

“When it’s a woman,” Bill Anderson, Cutler’s forty-three-year-old desk sergeant said. He stood and waded into the argument, bringing his calm demeanor and even calmer voice with him. “We feel it more. It’s not professional but men just hurt more when a woman gets hurt.” He laid his hand on Wally’s shoulder. “That doesn’t mean we should hold her back from doing the job she’s trained for. Suzanne’s one of the most dedicated, hardworking cops I’ve known. Chaining her to a desk just because we’d go ballistic if some guy punched her for trying to give him a ticket doesn’t give us the right to keep her from doing the job she was born to do.” He looked up at Cutler. “No offense intended, Sheriff, but I’m right.”

“Well if she’s going,” Wally declared, “I’m going too.”

Cutler leaned back on his heels. Suzanne looked up at him hopefully.

“Looks like you’re going to Pinebridge, Young. You too, Wally. I’ll phone their interim sheriff and tell him to expect you tomorrow.” With that Cutler turned away and walked back to his office.

“Young,” Sergeant Anderson said quietly. He gave her a brief one-armed hug then buzzed a quick kiss to her forehead. “Don’t get yourself hurt out there. Your daddy would kill me.”

The Saturday after Ed Timberman’s funeral Owen stormed into the barn, tracking the squeals.

“
Hey
.” He had to bellow to make himself heard. God almighty… Whoever thought two first graders could make such a racket? Ryan and his best friend Koby froze in place—leaning out of the hay loft overhead, just about to swing down a rope they’d looped over a rafter. “You two are a whole new definition of insane. The noise alone is going to drive every one of these animals berserk any minute now. The first thing they’ll do is trample the shit out of you just to shut you up. And you let go of that rope this minute, young man. If you
think
I’m going to let you drive that skull of yours through the floor when you fall, you have got another think coming.”

Both boys shook—Koby more than Ryan—but they let go of the rope and backed away from the railing.

“Better. Now get your skinny behinds down here and find something less suicidal to play at.” Hands on hips, he glared at them as they rushed down the ladder and ran past him, giving him a wide berth as they headed for the door.

When he turned he saw Cutler and Fina standing side by side, watching him through narrowed eyes.

“No, no, no,” Owen huffed. “You are
not
going to bust my balls for disciplining my own cousin.”

“No. We’re not,” Cutler agreed then visibly relaxed his stance.

“Good. Because as his only living relative I
am
his legal guardian, remember?”

“Yes but you’ve never talked about wanting to take him from us.” Cutler’s expression darkened. “And you won’t. He’s bonded with Fina like she’s his mother. He’s settled here, has friends and standing in this pack.”

The two males glared at each other.

“Oh will you two stop it already?” Fina interrupted with a snarl. “I’m drowning in testosterone over here.
Owen
—”

“What did I do?”

She silenced him with a look that reminded him way too much of his mother.

“We wanted to talk to you,” she said and it sounded like she was trying to rein in her anger.

Owen made an effort too.

“First,” Fina said, “thank you for stopping the boys from swinging down that rope. They know they’re not supposed to be out here without an adult.”

“You’re welcome.”

“But next time,” she added gently, “tell them the
act
is insane, not them.”

“Oh.” He thought about that for a moment then nodded in agreement. “Yeah. I suppose you’re right.”

“I need a favor,” Cutler said, stepping forward. “I need a man in Pinebridge. Somebody no one knows. Somebody with some training in covert ops who can move around outside of the official police investigation. Everybody out there knows who the cops and the pack leaders are. If whoever killed Ed is still there, if they’ve managed to keep their mouth shut this long, there’s no way they’ll let anything slip around anybody official.”

“What makes you think the killer’s still there?” Owen asked.

“The site of the murder, for one. It’s so isolated the road doesn’t show up on state maps. The time of day…it was chosen too perfectly. It was the one time a caller would be guaranteed to get Ed as the responding officer at that location.” Cutler bared his teeth. “Sheriffs don’t normally respond to low-priority 9-1-1 calls but he took it because it wasn’t too far off his route home.” Fina touched his arm and Cutler relaxed visibly. He rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re out of investigative options. It’s time to try something creative.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that. But won’t they turn me away?” Owen asked.

“Not Pinebridge,” Cutler assured him. “Their Alpha’s getting older. Almost too old now to do the job effectively. Over the past couple years he’s become more accepting of outside males. Whether consciously or unconsciously, whether the decision is his or his wolf’s, he’s opening up the field to newcomers who might be able to take his place.” Cutler shrugged. “After spending a few days there it was pretty obvious none of the younger weres have what it takes to take over as Alpha in a pack that large and spread out. Beta, maybe, but I don’t want to tell you too much. You’re more than capable of taking your own read on the situation and I don’t want to color your impressions.”

“Plus,” Owen added, “I can’t stay here much longer.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. More than you’ll know.” He looped his arm around Fina’s shoulders, pulled her small body into his and kissed the top of her head. “I wish things had turned out different.” He straightened and looked Owen in the eye. “I like you. You’re a good man. Fina and Ryan, well, their lives are more complete with you here. But even though it’s the last thing our brains want we both know that instinct and the drive to lead will pit us against each other. My pack doesn’t need that kind of stress. It’s killing my ego to admit this,” he added with a wry grin, “but we’d probably wind up crippling each other in a fight, with no clear winner. Then where would the pack be?”

“Okay.”

At Owen’s simple, single word of acceptance both Cutler’s and Fina’s shoulders went down.

“Thank you,” Cutler said. “First thing Monday I need you to move out to Pinebridge. There may be one or two weres there who recognize you but they’ll believe your cover story about moving on and looking for a home. Their Alpha will set you up with a place to live, a job… Make it look like you came to him honorably and asked about joining his pack.”

“All right.” Owen nodded. “Where do I meet him?”

“Oh he’s easy to find. He’s the pharmacist.”

That afternoon, Owen carefully labeled packages of heirloom seeds in his neat, square script and stored the packages in numbered trays inside one of the refrigerator drawers in Fina’s greenhouse. Well,
one
of her greenhouses.

“How have your online orders been so far this spring?” he asked. As a teen he’d worked part-time in her father’s nursery back in Tennessee. His mother had been the company’s sales and merchandising manager. Now that their pack was dead Fina had re-created the company’s setup out here.

“Better than I’d hoped.” Fina was keying seed dates, lots and quantities into a laptop hooked up to the refrigeration units. “When I closed down the site last summer I redirected customers. But we had a good mailing list—thanks to your mother,” she added with a nod, “and most of them have come back. I did some fairly aggressive marketing aimed at potential Western customers over the winter and we’ve recouped those dollars already. Repeating the message next winter will be almost pure profit.”

“Whew. You sure are smart for such a tiny thing,” Owen teased. He hip checked her lightly, snapped off his sterile gloves and tossed them into a trash can.

“I wanted to ask…” Fina’s voice was tentative.

Owen encouraged her with a grin and a nod. An only child, he’d never had a kid sister. He liked to think if he
had
had one they would have had the same easygoing affection he felt for Fina.

She continued, “When you came back to the States you spent your first month in Tennessee.”

“
Riiight
.” He drew out the word, just a little.

“How was it? Back there.”

Owen exhaled slowly, considering his answer before he spoke. “Well, I spent time with two neighboring packs. First with the one our families split off from when they formed their own pack.”

“The one we weren’t told about growing up.” Her expression darkened, just a little. Like him she hadn’t liked finding out she had distant relatives after the fact. Their parents’ split from their original pack had been so nasty they’d kept their children from knowing anything about the others. If those packs had been closer, if her family had been part of a bigger pack…

“Yes,” Owen continued. “Then with the other pack, the one that sent their Alpha and a couple of his men to help out when Cutler and Nath went back to wipe out the rogues.”

Fina fell silent. Like Owen, she was probably thinking about the friend who’d been kidnapped and almost killed when the rogues had tried to blackmail Fina into returning to them.

“I took your friend Helen out to dinner while I was there.” Owen changed the subject, hoping it would ease the darkness he sensed settling around Fina.

“You did? I hope you didn’t mess with her. She’s just a kid.”

“She’s two months younger than you are,” Owen blurted. “And no I didn’t try to seduce her. Although she is cute.” He laughed when Fina slapped his shoulder. “Don’t worry. She’s human. They’re too fragile for my tastes.”

“Eww. TMI.”

He laughed again. That was one of the best things about hanging out with Fina. Even as a kid she could always get him to laugh. “Anyway,” he continued, “the packs back East made me feel welcome. They gave me space and time to think.”

“But you didn’t ask to join?”

“No.” He shrugged, locked up the refrigerator drawers and reset the thermostat controls. “It was too soon to commit myself to a pack. I’m not even sure I’m that kind of wolf anymore.”

The look she gave him clearly said, “Oh yeah, tough guy?” He’d seen her flash Cutler that same look, Nath too. It might bring them to heel but the effort was wasted on him.

He grew serious. “The houses are all torn down now.” Even to his ears his voice sounded unusually deep and somber when he talked about the small community their pack had lived in. “They’ve laid the foundations for the first four geared-to-income homes. When I was there I paid for new surveys. The county adjusted the street addresses for the lots. With so much death there, I didn’t want families to live at the same addresses where people had died.”

They fell silent for a moment. Owen blinked then returned Fina’s hug when she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek on his chest. Dropping his chin onto the top of her head, he held her for a moment then released her and dried her tears with the pad of his thumb. He closed up her laptop and trailed after her when she left the greenhouse.

Just after noon on Monday Owen stepped out of a Wyoming Department of Transportation office with a shiny new set of Wyoming license plates in his hand. Cutler had said he wouldn’t stick out so much if his truck had Wyoming plates. Like
that
was going to help. He was six-two, weighed two-twenty and when he let it loose scented like a werewolf with a case of large-and-in-charge that made other weres piss themselves.

The nice lady behind the counter had also given him an application for veterans’ plates. Owen was pretty sure he wouldn’t fill the application out. Custom plates just felt too permanent. That same nice lady had reminded him he no longer qualified for a military exemption on his driver’s license renewal. She’d issued him a temporary Wyoming license; he’d given her a chunk of the cash in his wallet. Great. This favor for Cutler was feeling more like a lockdown assignment by the minute.

Grabbing his toolbox from the back of his truck, he started bolting the new plates in place. They sported a big silhouette of a guy in a Stetson, riding a bucking horse. What was this obsession with horses out here? The whole thing smelled like a state-sanctioned conspiracy. Why couldn’t Fina have gone just a little farther west before settling down? Like California. Hmm. Babes in bikinis. Now
that
he wouldn’t mind sporting on his license plate.

When he was finished he climbed back in his truck, rechecked the GPS and continued on his way to Pinebridge.

About an hour later he was driving down the main street, slow. His windows were open enough to let his scent out and let the town’s scents in. No sense in springing his presence on a nervous community without giving them a whiff first. The place was big enough to support two supermarkets, a number of shops, a large hardware store, some fast-food joints and an interesting-looking diner. The smell that rolled out from there when the front door conveniently opened as he drove past was enough to make him salivate…and he’d already eaten.

He parked a couple of blocks past the pharmacy. Walking back through town gave him an opportunity to scope out the locals up close and let them check him out as well.

And speaking of checking out… A couple of local lovelies gave him the once-over as he crossed the street. Hmm. This assignment might not be so bad after all. A few of the men watched him too. Owen knew they’d be trying to get a read on his confidence level. He kept that carefully neutral. There was nothing he could do about the confidence in his walk or the way he was able to move among an unknown pack without cowering though. If the weres watching him had any discernment, he was counting on them reading him as a strong male but without agenda or design on their position or women.

He walked into the pharmacy, held the door open for a young mother, tipped his head and wished her a good afternoon then made his way to the dispensary.

Even without the name tag he would have recognized Cory Amos. The Alpha gave off that calm, confident vibe Owen had expected. Somewhere around sixty years of age, Cory stood maybe an inch shorter than Owen. His gray hair was receding and his blue eyes were warm and intelligent as he spoke in hushed tones with the woman standing near Owen.

Although she was obviously listening, she looked up at Cory with that slightly blank, timid look lesser pack members showed higher-ranking ones.