The Alpha's Daughter (33 page)

Griz wore the same pair of work boots day
after day. The shoes in the box were polished and classy; wingtips
and loafers, hard leather and suede. Some were that soft Italian
leather, the kind rich men wore without socks. Wherever Griz had
lived before Gilead, he sure as hell wasn't a K-Mart shopper. There
were no Blue Light Specials in those boxes.

She would have liked to investigate further,
but she had work to do and a limited time to do it in. She stacked
the boxes in the corner of their bedroom. Griz could sort them out
later.

There were also more books, tons of books
that needed to be carried downstairs. Those, she piled out in the
hall, telling herself she would carry one down each day until they
were sorted and shelved on the new bookcases below.

Jazz left Opal washing windows and headed
downstairs for a bucket of water. She glanced over at Livvy and
smiled to see the girl bent in half, her head resting on the bed.
Brad's fingers were wound in her hair. Her grizzly bear had given
them that.

There was a soft tapping at the front door.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap tap. Twin tapping by the butterball twins,
just stopping by, not wanting to disturb, looking for news to share
with Gilead. Jazz smiled as she opened the door and slipped out to
the porch. At least she was fully dressed.

"We talked to Ellie Dawson this morning and
she said you'd all had quite a time of it," Edna began in a
whisper.

"And we knew you didn't have bed space for
all those, um, guests," Edith continued.

"Unless you're all cozied up in the big bed
upstairs," Edna giggled hopefully.

"Donna Morrissey loaned us a rollaway and the
young mother and her cubs shared our bed," Jazz started to explain.
She had to pause and press her lips together at the sparkle of
anticipation in the twins' eyes. "Griz slept on the couch in case
Brad needed him."

"Ahh." Two heads nodded.

"But where did you sleep, dear?"

"On the floor."

Edna clapped her hands in silent applause. "I
told you, Sister, they need our help."

"So you did. We stopped by the McIntyres and
Bobby, bless his heart, offered to help. We brought you a
present."

Edith pointed to the pickup truck parked on
the road. In the bed sat a mattress and box spring wrapped in
plastic.

"It's a few years old," Edith went on, "We
bought it for Dear Ernest, but he passed over before it was
delivered. It's been sitting in his room all this time, waiting for
someone to need it."

"Thanks ladies, but don't…" Jazz's finger
waved uncertainly between them, "…you sleep in that bed." One of
them was Dear Ernest's mate.

"Oh no, dear. We've always shared a
room."

"Since we were newborn pups."

And the mystery continued! Jazz laughed and
threw her arms around the twins. "You ladies are lifesavers. I'll
return it as soon…"

"No, dear. It's yours to keep. We think Dear
Ernest would be happy to know his bed was keeping you and Doctor
together. Shared time in the bedroom is so important to a
relationship, don't you think?"

She wasn't going there with the butterballs.
No, sir, not for a winning lottery ticket. Who knew what they'd
make of any answer she gave?

The delivery of the mattress set was the
solution to Jazz's biggest problem; a bedroom with no bed. Problem
solved, she attacked the second, smaller bedroom with renewed
energy.

That bedroom contained a hodgepodge of
equipment, furniture and personal belongings of the previous owner
which she quickly sorted into four groups; keep, trash, put out in
the yard free for the taking, and too heavy to move.

Neatly stacked in one corner was another
stack of brown boxes and upon lifting the first box off the stack,
Jazz decided they contained more of Griz's books. She carried it to
the hall.

The second box was just as heavy. They were
going to need more shelves. She hoisted the box, turned, and took
two steps before the bottom fell out. The presence of two tiny sets
of ears in the room next door prevented her expressing herself
fully with loud curses that would turn the air blue. She had to be
satisfied with mumbling them under her breath.

Papers scattered everywhere, slipping and
sliding over each other onto the dust covered floor, but it wasn't
the papers that brought on the curses. It was the sharp corner of a
smaller wooden box stabbing into the top of her foot that had her
yelping in pain and falling to the floor and cursing Griz and all
his ancestors for not finding homes for this shit in the two years
he'd been there.

Opal came running followed by the two pups,
the larger of whom began to cry at the sight of the blood seeping
from the triangular wound.

"Boo-boo, Mama," the younger one informed his
mother while inspecting the damage. "Kiss it. Make it better."

"Don't even think about it!" Jazz hissed at
Opal as the woman stooped down to take a look.

That brought the first smile she'd seen on
the young mother's face. "I'll go get a paper towel to wipe up the
blood," she said. "It doesn't look that bad."

"It isn't. I just hurts like a sonofa…
horsefly," Jazz concluded, remembering her young audience.

While the three went off in search of paper
towels, Jazz picked up the offending box. It was a chest, smaller
than the cardboard carton it fell from, but it wasn't small. It was
large enough to hold a ream of paper and when Jazz shook it, that's
what it sounded like it contained; more damned papers. She cursed
Griz again for his wanton destruction of trees.

In spite of its weight and the thickness of
the wood, this chest was meant for a woman. Stained a deep cherry
red and polished to a high gloss, the box was a work of art. Hand
carved roses decorated the center of the lid in bas relief and
intricate vines trailed their way along its edges. A small brass
clasp held it closed and secured with a little heart shaped
padlock. Jazz ran her hand thoughtfully over the artist's work. She
had never been sentimental about roses and frills, but this chest
spoke to her and she envied its owner and she wondered who it
was.

Its owner. Suddenly, Jazz didn't want to know
who the owner was. She set the box aside and began gathering the
scattered papers.

"What should I do with this?" Opal asked of
the box when the blood was dabbed away and the papers restored to
their cardboard carton.

"Put it downstairs in Doc's office, would
you? Livvy can show you where."

Griz had no time for Jazz when he came home from the clinic.
He barely had time to check on Brad, who was awake and recovering
nicely, though still fuzzy about the events leading up to his
beating.

"That's not unexpected," Griz assured him,
"Your memory may come back. It may not. You're lucky your skull is
as thick as it is or you'd be remembering nothing at all."

"I think he's lying," Jazz said. "I think he
knows damn well who beat him. His brother was in on it."

"You don't know that, Jazz," Griz said
patiently.

"The hell I don't. Opal's mate is one of
Cho's crew. I'd bet on it." She was thinking of the older man who
was with Cho at the bar. "And I'd bet I could pick him out of a
crowd too."

Livvy had her supper at the patient's bedside
upstairs after Griz gave the okay to her father and uncle to move
both patient and bed. Her father, ignoring the thundercloud that
gathered around her, insisted he would pick her up at ten. He also
warned that the bedroom door would remain open.

"Daddy!" Poor Livvy was mortified at the
implication. "He almost died."

"But he's not dead and any young wolver who
isn't dead is a threat to my peace of mind. The door stays
open."

Because there was no danger of pregnancy and
they were immune to STDs, most wolvers were more relaxed about
unmated sex than their human cousins, but apparently good fathers
of both species had a lot in common. Livvy didn't know how lucky
she was.

Jazz couldn't resist a little dig when Livvy
was out of earshot. "It's a little different being on this side of
the bedroom window, isn't it, Daddy? I bet you didn't feel that way
when it was Ellie sneaking through it."

"Her father was a fool," Tom told her.

"Ah," Jazz nodded wisely, "So it was his
fault."

Tom gave her a wink. "Damn right. I was too
young to know better."

Olivia and the cubs ate at the table with
Jazz, but Griz's plate went cold. His time was taken up with the
constant flow of packmates on the front porch. Jazz finally warmed
his supper yet again, but this time brought it out to the porch
with a glare for the tide of wolvers who wouldn't give their doctor
five minute's peace in order to eat.

Opal and her cubs were settled in their bed
by nine, the grumbling Livvy taken home by force at ten. Brad was
sleeping peacefully soon after. The stream of visitors to the front
porch dwindled to a trickle and Griz retreated to his office to
work.

Jazz flopped down in her chair at the table
and rested her head in her hands. Something was hovering between
her and Griz. Her wolf felt it, too. The bitch had been whining and
sniveling since he walked in the door. Things had been so hectic,
Jazz hadn't had a moment to think.

Now the house was quiet and for the first
time that day, she was alone and yet she wasn't. A wolver was never
alone. The rhythm of the pack throbbed in her veins, always with
her, always calling, always making itself known. The call was
different here in Gilead than what she'd felt in her father's pack.
The call was stronger, more vibrant, which seemed strange since
Griz claimed the pack was dying out. This feeling of belonging made
it easier to follow the wolver's First Law; Pack comes first. She
would do anything for this pack that had taken her in and given her
a home.

Maybe this was how it was supposed to be,
this feeling of being part of something larger than yourself.
Sometimes she thought she could almost feel individual packmates
flitting across her mind. No, not her mind, her soul. She knew she
got it right, because her wolf agreed.

That was another reason a wolver was never
alone. Their body was shared by another being, a completely
independent creature; their wolf. It wasn't always easy to, as Griz
put it, get them rowing in the same direction. Some wolvers never
got it right and like the Smalls, it drove them bat shit crazy. If
they couldn't or wouldn't follow the Second Law; The Wolf must
never rule the Human, then it was up to the Alpha to bind them
permanently to their wolf and release them into the wild where a
few would survive, but most wouldn't.

For most, it was a constant struggle between
instinct and rational thought and where to draw the line between
the two, but when the issue was settled and both parts were in
harmony, it was heaven.

Jazz's wolf was not feeling particularly
angelic at the moment. She was uneasy and when Jazz finally put a
stop to her rational thought and listened, her wolf told her
why.

Wolves were tactile creatures and if you
watched closely, you could see it in every wolver community.
Shoulders, arms, hands, heads; they touched. Even at a funeral,
wolvers needed to touch the dead to say goodbye. It wasn't
something they thought about. They just did it.

Griz had not touched her since coming home
from the clinic. He had not laid his hand on her shoulder, run his
fingers across her back, ruffled her hair or caressed her with his
eyes and each time she reached for him, he had imperceptibly moved
out of the way.

This lack of touch was frustrating to her
wolf and the bitch wanted Jazz to do something about it. For once,
Jazz fully agreed. She, too, needed to feel his touch, feel his
arms around her, feel his heat and the warmth of his breath against
her skin.

Jazz put her ear to the
wood, heard no murmur of voices, knocked and opened the office
door. Griz was hunched over a spiral notebook when she entered. He
was looking at a photograph. Jazz had a brief glimpse of a yellow
dress before he turned it over and slipped it into the wooden chest
Opal had left on his desk.

She wanted to ask him what
was in the chest, but it was obvious he didn't want to
share.

"What do they need now?" he asked without
looking at her. His voice was a little hoarse.

"They don't need anything, but you do," she
said, reverting to her original purpose. "All work and no play
makes Papa a very grumpy bear." She put her foot on the edge of his
chair displaying the fact that she wore nothing underneath.

He glanced down at the leg. "For God's sake,
put some clothes on. There are people in the house," he hissed.

Jazz looked down at the
flannel shirt she wore. Belted at the waist, it came to mid-thigh.
The curve of the tails showed a little more leg at the sides. The
sleeves were rolled to her wrists. Perfectly acceptable - as long
as she didn't bend over or lift her leg.

"I have dresses that cover less than this and
those people are upstairs, tucked quietly in their beds." Her smile
was a suggestion which Griz ignored.

He shook his head and turned back to his
notebook. "What's-his-name brought you more clothes. You don't need
mine."

Why was he being so difficult?

"But I like wearing yours."

She really did. She liked the
washed-to-softness feel of them against her skin and the smell of
them. Fresh from the laundry, they still smelled faintly of Griz.
The added bonus was that it bothered him, gave him impure thoughts
about what his shirt now covered. Jazz smiled and rubbed her cheek
against the fabric at her shoulder.

"Besides, you have more than you could ever
wear. There's a ton in the boxes I found upstairs."