The Alpha's Choice (39 page)

Chapter 38

There was one secret, however, Kat failed to
share with Charles and the longer she waited, the harder she found
it to tell.

River was still running off at night and
returning in the wee hours of the morning.

Two weeks had passed since their mating, two
weeks of confinement to the house and yard, two weeks of antsy
children who needed a run in the woods, two weeks of snarling
wolvers who were overtired from working all day and patrolling all
night and still the harassment continued.

"Ryker's going to be bald the way he's
pulling his hair out over this," Jo told Kat one afternoon while
she took a break by the pool. Ranger deliberately splashed water up
onto her bare feet. "Get out of here you little beast, before I ask
Mrs. Martin to cook you for supper." She grinned maliciously. "I
like little boys, especially when they're served with carrots and
onions."

"Mrs. Martin wouldn't listen," Ranger shouted
back, "She likes me."

"Don't be too sure. She wasn't real happy
when she found that snake in your bed the other day," Jo laughed.
They'd all come running when the housekeeper screamed.

"That wasn't my fault! He got out of my
pocket and got lost." Ranger had a habit of pocketing anything that
jumped or wiggled.

"You'd probably taste like old shoe leather
anyway." Jo banished him with a wave of her hand.

"Come play with us, Auntie Jo."

"I, unlike some people I know, have to work
for a living. I'm taking a break and then it's back to the
grindstone," she told him and turned to Kat with a wrinkled nose
and curled lip. "Auntie Jo?"

Kat laughed. "And Uncle Ryker. They decided
that if they were going to be brothers and sisters, they needed
aunts and uncles."

"Poor Uncle Ryker. I think he'd like to spend
more time with the kids. I think he'd like one of his own." She
frowned.

"You don't?" Kat found that hard to believe.
Jo tormented the children mercilessly, called them names and was
sometimes as crude as they were. They loved her for it and
regularly asked her to join in their fun. In spite of her loud
protests to the contrary, Jo loved them, too.

"I don't know. I like them best when I know I
can hand them off to someone else and babies are so, so tiny. I
wouldn't know what to do with one. I'm not very maternal."

Kat thought otherwise, but it wasn't her
decision to make, so she kept her mouth shut. "So what's this about
Ryker going bald?"

"Pack security is Ryker's baby and he feels
like a failure as a father. He knows the men are tired. Hell, he
even lets some of us women ride shotgun on patrol." She laughed
without amusement. "He's willing to let us risk our nails dialing
our cell phones for help. Like the damned things work up here." She
shrugged. "He makes new schedules. He changes the routes and the
times, but it doesn't matter. The vandals show up where we aren't.
He can't track them, either. There's too much water, too many
streams and ponds. They lose the scent. The damage they do isn't
major, but it's annoying and time consuming to repair and as Alex
so frequently points out, it's costly. He's going nuts over
it."

Kat nodded. "So is Stephanie. All she does is
complain about the 'drain on our resources," she mimicked in a
snooty voice and then relented. "I shouldn't mock. She has a right
to be concerned and she's gone out of her way to be nice to me. In
a sticky sweet kind of way."

Stephanie felt pleased. It was the only way
Kat could describe it. Since her mating, Kat felt more attuned to
the feelings of others and she understood what Stephanie felt but
not why. Why should she feel so pleased when she was still off the
Council and nothing with the pack was going as she'd planned?

She'd moved her things into Alex's room and
Kat had regaled Charles with her visions of Stephanie poured into
black leather complete with whips and chains and Alex splayed on a
cross taking his punishment.

"Damn. I guess this means I'll have to return
those packages that were delivered in plain brown wrappers," he'd
said.

"Not until I check out what's in them," she'd
giggled.

"Just don't trust her," Jo was telling her
now.

Kat most certainly didn't.

* * *

She was reminded of her conversation with Jo
three days later when River once again disappeared.

Charles had gone to the city and had a late
dinner planned with clients. He'd done this before and, as in the
past, he promised to drive home that night even though Kat had
urged him to stay in the city. The fool man didn't understand that
she worried more about him driving back in the middle of the night
than she did spending the night alone.

Kat couldn't sleep. She never did until
Charles was safely home.

"Of course," Jo laughed when Kat told her,
"Makes perfect sense, because everyone knows that ghosting around
the house in the middle of the night is the mystical answer to
keeping drunks off the road."

The words were said in jest, but when two
o'clock came and went, they haunted Kat.

Drunks? She hadn't thought of drunks. She'd
been thinking more along the lines of falling asleep at the wheel.
Oh, God, never mind drunks on the road. What if he never made it
out of the parking lot?"

Kat knew she was borrowing trouble, but she
couldn't help it. Restless, she began what Jo called ghosting
around the house, wandering listlessly from room to room without
purpose or direction.

When she found herself at the far end of the
second floor hallway where the children slept, she quietly opened
the door to the girl's room. They were fine, sleeping peacefully;
Forest curled up in a tight fetal ball and Meadow sprawled across
the bed amidst the pile of stuffed animal her Auntie Jo had
purchased.

The boy's room held no surprises either.
Ranger and Dakota were sound asleep and River was gone. Kat was
already overtired and anxious and River's absence put the
proverbial icing on her distressed cake. She became angry, so angry
that she failed to notice Dakota and Ranger were now sleeping in
separate beds.

River had crossed the line. She would no
longer keep his secret or turn a blind eye to his wanderings. She
plopped into the overstuffed chair in which he usually slept,
crossed her arms over her chest and settled in to wait. She would
wait there until he returned and confront him and tell him in no
uncertain terms that he was to stop his midnight meanderings.

It was all perfectly planned except the
culprit never came home.

* * *

Kat awoke with a start to find an upside down
face staring into hers.

"It's okay. She's awake," Dakota croaked as
he stepped back and righted his head.

"What time is it?" Kat asked groggily. She
rubbed her hands over her face and combed through her curls with
her fingers.

"I dunno," Ranger shrugged, "Whatever time it
is we get up."

"Shi…sha…shoot! Charles!" What did he think
when he found an empty bed? "Where's River?" she asked
impatiently.

"I dunno." This time it was Dakota. "He gets
up before us sometimes."

"I'll just bet he does." She'd also bet he
came home, found her asleep in the room and made himself scarce.
"You boys be good and get dressed. Then go to the kitchen for
breakfast. I'll be down shortly."

Kat ran to the Master bedroom. The bed was as
she'd left it, neatly made with three throw pillows arranged at the
head. Kat turned and flew down the stairs to the kitchen, stumbling
over her untied robe as she went.

Half the people in the house were already
there, filling their breakfast plates to carry to the dining
room.

"Has anyone heard from Charles?" she asked
and heard the panic in her voice.

"Isn't he home?" someone asked and Kat was
saved from saying something she would regret when the phone
rang.

She pushed Hyatt, in the process of answering
it, aside.

"Hello?" It had to be the police or the
hospital. It had to be something bad.

"Hey kitten. I was expecting Mrs. Martin to
answer."

It was Charles, sounding disgustingly chipper
and obviously unharmed. The tension she'd been carrying
exploded.

"Don't you kitten me you idiotic, fool of a
furry asshole," Kat shouted into the phone and then looked around
shame-faced at the kitchen full of people staring back at her. "I
didn't mean that," she told them.

Jo snorted a laugh. "Oh, we've called him
that lots of times, but the part about getting our throats ripped
out keeps us from saying it aloud. Hyatt's called him much
worse."

"I have not!"

Jo waved him off. "Keep going, girl. Whip his
furry ass."

"I know you didn't, kitten," Charles was
saying on the other end.

"The apology was for them, not for you. For
you, I meant every word. Where the hell are you? I've been worried
sick." And not just about you, she thought, but didn't say.

"I'm still in the city. We finished up so
late last night I decided to spend the night. I didn't want to wake
you."

"Oh yes, because it's so much better to wake
up in an empty bed." She wasn't going to tell him that she'd never
gone to bed. "You didn't answer your cell," she accused.

"I forgot it. It's on the charger in my
office."

"I had you splattered on the road somewhere
by some drunk driver, shot in some parking lot for your snakeskin
boots, flattened by an eighteen wheeler while you bent to change a
tire. That was a terrible, terrible thing to do to me, beasty boy,
and I've been half out of my mind."

"Guess you love me, huh?" Charles
chuckled.

"Yes, but I'm thinking of changing my mind.
When are you coming home?" She was pouting. She knew it. She didn't
care.

"Before midnight," he told her and before she
could say a word, he continued, "That's the best I can do, kitten.
There are some contacts that need finalization and the client wants
to meet for another working dinner. I shouldn't be too late. As a
matter of fact, I promise I won't be too late. If I'm not home by
midnight, you'll have reason to worry."

"No. If you're not home by midnight, you'll
have reason to worry." She wasn't ready to let go of the anger.

"Kitten?"

"What?" she asked impatiently.

"If I died, you'd feel it in your heart, a
gut wrenching pain," he told her gently.

"Oh." Most of the anger drained out of her.
"I didn't know."

"I love you, Katarina."

"I love you, too, but you still should have
called. You could have been stuck in a ditch or semi-flattened by
that truck."

"You're right."

"Damn right."

"All right, damn right," he laughed, "Now
that that's settled, will you find Hyatt for me."

"He's right here." She handed the phone to
Hyatt.

"What a way to start the day, huh?" Jo
crowed, "Hearing the boss get beat up by a hootchie cootchie
dancer."

The others laughed and Kat looked down. Her
robe was wide open and framing the bright pink nightie that barely
covered what it needed to. She dragged the robe shut and belted it
as she stomped out of the kitchen waving her hand over her
head.

"You can all go to hell for all I care, every
damn one of you. Wolvers, bah!"

The crowd behind her laughed harder.

* * *

Her worry over Charles alleviated, Kat turned
her concern to River. She questioned the children repeatedly until
she was sure they were telling the truth. They didn't know where he
was. They didn't know where he went. But she was also sure they
knew something, because they all acquired the same closed look they
had when they arrived.

Kat called it their us-against-them look and
it said, "Keep your mouth shut. Don't cooperate. Protect each other
at all costs." They were a mini-pack unto themselves and River was
their leader. Kat wondered if they would ever be able to transfer
that loyalty to the larger Wolf's Head Pack or if River would
always be first in their minds and hearts.

She was still half convinced that he'd come
home during the night and found her sleeping in his chair, knew
he'd been found out and was either making himself scarce or had run
off again to avoid questions and consequences. If that was the
case, Kat was confident he would return sooner or later. He was as
attached to the children as they were to him.

Sooner passed and later arrived and there was
still no sign of River. By the time the school day was over, Kat's
concern had turned to full-fledged worry. She was still, however,
reluctant to voice her fears to anyone else. They would feel
obligated to tell Charles and she didn't want to see the wounds
between them reopened over something so simple as teenaged
stupidity.

She began to ask, surreptitiously, if anyone
had seen him. No one had, but everyone assumed he was with someone
else, even Mrs. Martin who always had her finger on the pulse of
the house.

"He's been working with the road crew and
taking his meals with them."

She even told Kat where the crew could be
found, but River wasn't with them.

Jo didn't bat an eye. "I haven't seen him all
day, but then again, I haven't seen Ryker either. You want to find
River, find Ryker. They've become joined at the hip."

Ryker was alone. "Haven't seen him. Check
with Mrs. Martin. She was talking about fencing in her vegetable
garden to keep the rabbits out. Buddy can't do that alone."

Buddy was the only one that showed some
concern. "He was supposed to help me, but I guess he forgot. I
ain't mad at him, though. He's got a lot on his mind."

"Has he said something?"

"Nah, he don't talk much, but that's okay
because he says I can do the talking for the both of us. It's how
he looks, Miz Kitty Kat. That's how I can tell. He looks off into
them trees and his face gets all hard and ugly like Mama's does
when she's had it up to here." Buddy slashed his fingers across his
throat. "I don't ask no questions when Mama's had it up to here."
He gestured again. "And I figured I'd be wise not to ask River no
questions neither."