Wolf Tracker (10 page)

As they walked, Tami’s eyes were taking in everything. If she’d needed any more proof those assholes in Greasy Butte had been telling the truth about the apocalypse she found it here. The roads outside the city and at the edges were in poor repair. Actually, they were in no repair at all. Huge cracks broke the asphalt into chunks, and grass and shrubs were taking over. There were no cars on the road, no traffic lights, no women. The roads gradually became better, but the only vehicle she saw was a wagon drawn by a horse. The driver nearly broke his neck snapping his head around to stare at her. She clenched her hands on her small bundle of clothes and toiletries and ignored him. They passed a fast-food restaurant that hadn’t been open in decades, to go by the look of the place. Its once-colorful sign lay tilted crazily, almost completely drained of color. Marissa looked at it mournfully as they passed.

The place she would be staying was an old three-story red-brick apartment building with a shiny new chain-link fence around it. Two men were there to open the gate for them to enter. They were fully dressed, even wearing coats and knit stocking caps. Des gave quiet directions to the guys under his command and a few of them came inside the gate with the women while the rest stayed outside. Tami wondered about that. Carla had said only two men lived here. Maybe other men weren’t allowed in?

No, that was apparently not the case. There were about a half-dozen men inside, carpenters or other workmen, maybe, working on the house. Their hammers and saws paused when she, Des with a couple of the dogs, and the other women came in. They all stared avidly at her until the dogs growled at them. They hurried back to work then, and a tall woman with pale blond hair came toward them, leaning on a cane and limping heavily. Tami recognized her. She was the co-pilot from the plane. Her ankle had been badly broken in the crash, but she seemed to have recovered enough to be able to walk with the cane.

“Hi,” she said, reaching to shake Tami’s hand. “You might not remember me. I’m Connie Mondale. Taye sent a man in to let us know you were coming to stay. We’re glad to have you.”

“Thanks. Tami Casper.” Did she know what had happened to her in Greasy Butte? Tami didn’t see any pity or embarrassment on her face, so maybe not. She looked around the large area they were in, impressed by the old woodwork and tile floor. “This is a pretty nice place.”

“We’re going to open a restaurant.” Connie looked proudly around. “Kathy owned a restaurant in St. Paul at home, and Renee is a chef. She’s teaching us how to cook in the ghastly old-fashioned kitchen in the back. The big room behind us will be the dining room.” She smiled at Tami’s unasked question. “We have to do something to make a living. There’s not much for a former pilot to do here. It’s either a restaurant or marriage.”

Tami shuddered. “Restaurant, definitely.”

“For me, yes.” She glanced at Des. “Marriage is not my thing. But Melinda Parry is marrying Steve Herrick.” Connie nodded at one of the men using a plane to shave down a plank. He had a long blond ponytail going silver and beefy arms whose summer tan hadn’t completed faded. “I’m not marrying anybody, but to each her own. Follow me and I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

Des folded his arms over his chest and shifted half a step to block her. “Taye wants someone with Tami at all times.” His voice was mild, but somehow challenging for all that.

Connie frowned slightly, her pale brows pulling together. Then she shrugged. “Fine, but he has to stay in the hall, not the bedrooms or the bathrooms.”

“Fine,” Des echoed. “Snake.” He jerked his head at one of the big dogs Tami thought might be half wolf. Thank God. For a minute Tami thought she’d be assigned a male guard, and that would have reminded her too much of her time at Greasy Butte. The mixed breed trotted over to Tami. The dog was sort of cute in a feral way.

Connie hadn’t waited to hear what Des would say before moving around him to go up the stairs. Renee had already headed toward the back, and Marissa was still there. The younger woman walked with Tami, following Connie.

A rough voice from one of the workers stopped Connie with a growled, “Wait, woman.”

Tami jumped, and Connie jerked around with a glare. “I’m busy,” she barked at the man who’d spoken.

While Tami was trying to control her pounding heart, she made herself look at him. He was tall with curly brown hair cut short and a well-trimmed mustache. He was handsome, in the brawny, outdoorsy way she used to find attractive. Tami wondered if she’d ever find a man attractive again. She’d seen a dozen very handsome men at the motel, but that wasn’t the same as attractive. Attractive was when just seeing a man smile could make her need to fan herself.

But if circumstances had been different, she might have fanned herself over Tracker. Without being precisely handsome, he was certainly fan-worthy. He had saved her life by finding her, killing those men, and bringing her to a place of safety. She wished he were around. Somehow, she felt so very safe with him.

While she’d been lost in her thoughts, the man and Connie had still been speaking. Actually, he was speaking, loudly and aggressively, while Connie appeared to be struggling to keep her temper.

“Thank you for the offer,” Connie was saying through gritted teeth. “But the answer is no.”

“You don’t want to turn me down. I’m the richest man in three hundred miles,” the man boasted. “My wife will have everything she wants.”

Connie seemed to be losing the battle with her temper. “Won’t that be nice for her,” she snapped.

“I’m in charge of a lot of people. My wife will need to know how to run my house and keep the cowboys in line. I’ve seen the way you’ve taken charge of these women; you’re the perfect wife for an important man like me.”

Connie leaned over the stair rail to glare right into his face. “The answer, Dick, is …
No
. Just as it has been the other ten times you asked.”

Dick lifted on his toes to put his face closer to Connie’s. “But I think—”

He didn’t get a chance to say what he thought. Tami didn’t see Des move, but he was suddenly there, pulling the man back with a hand on his throat.

“The lady said no,” he growled, sounding dangerously pissed off. “You better leave now.”

Des gave Dick a shove that sent the self-important man staggering back, and jerked his head at a couple of the men who had walked in with them. They strode over to Dick with the lethal grace of predators stalking dinner. Dick straightened his coat with a steady stare at Connie and left.

Connie snorted and jabbed her cane against the floor with a sharp thud. She turned to go up the stairs, but paused and turned back. “Thanks, Des,” she said briefly.

“No problem,” said Taye’s second-in-command softly. “Anytime.”

Tami thought as she followed Connie up the stairs that Des might be the strong silent type, but his brown eyes spoke volumes about his contempt for Dick. And maybe warmer feelings for Connie? Tami wasn’t sure.

“So, is that guy going to follow us up here?” she asked the co-pilot.

Connie climbed the last step and started down the hallway, limping more noticeably. She snorted. “Dick? No men are allowed up here without permission. Not even Faron Paulson, who is the deputy sheriff in charge of our safety. Even Stag doesn’t come up to visit Sherry unless one of the other girls brings him up.”

Tami took that in without really understanding it. “Stag? Is he engaged to Sherry?”

Connie stopped in front of a door and paused for a minute to shift weight off her bad ankle. “Not exactly.” There was a hint of dark humor in her voice. “Stag is one of the wolves. He says Sherry is his mate. Sherry isn’t ready for that, so he stays in the basement and hangs around to guard us.”

Tami was still unenlightened when Marissa, whom she had almost forgotten was beside her, snorted. “Now that Krissy and Alyssa are in a different room, maybe she’ll come around. At least Stag isn’t as annoying as Dick-Dick.”

“Dick-Dick?” said Tami blankly.

Marissa laughed. “Dick the Dick. His mom named him Richard Dickinson. Everyone calls him by his nickname, Dick. With a last name like Dickinson, well, the guy didn’t have a chance, especially since he acts like a dick most of the time. If you ever see him heading up these stairs, just yell. One of the wolves will run over here like a bat out of hell and toss him out. And enjoy doing it.”

Everyone kept talking about wolves. Tami didn’t get it. “Okay.”

Marissa winked and went past them down the hall. “I’m going to talk to Becca, and then find Faron. See ya.”

Tami nodded.

Connie rapped once on the door and led the way into a sparsely furnished apartment. Two women were there, a slender brunette and a soft-bodied, pretty blonde. “Dixie, Jodi, this is Tami Casper.”

The blonde woman wearing a too-big skirt and crew-necked sweater smiled warmly and shook Tami’s hand. “I’m Dixie Bush. I’m so glad you could come.”

The brunette’s long legs showed quite a bit of ankle below her too-short jeans. Since most of their luggage had been lost in the crash, all of them were wearing whatever they could find. It didn’t seem to bother Dixie or Jodi their clothes weren’t designer perfect. Jodi took Dixie’s place and shook hands. “I’m Jodi Lane, and I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“Thanks.” Tami tried to look more comfortable than she felt. Knowing she needed help in healing her emotional scars didn’t make it easy. But both these women seemed professional in spite of their mismatched clothing. Everyone who survived the crash had emotional scars of their own and knowing that made Tami feel a little bit better. “I know you didn’t have much warning about me coming. When should we get started?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” said Jodi promptly.

Tami said, “Tomorrow?”

“Great.” Dixie smiled brightly. “That will give you a chance to settle in and get to know everyone. If you’d like to go and visit the library or stores this afternoon, the wolves can take you.”

“I’ll show you to your room,” Connie said, “and introduce you around.”

Tami said good-bye to Jodi and Dixie and followed Connie to an apartment at the far end of the hall. The dog, Snake—what a name for a dog! Better than Fluffy, though—plopped down right outside the door, his tail beating a happy rhythm against the wall. Maybe he and the other dogs she’d seen at Taye’s place were what people meant when they talked about the wolves? He certainly looked like a wolf. But no wolf would be domesticated like this. She paused to gingerly scratch his ears and his furry face took on a look of intense canine adoration. Connie gave her a disbelieving look, eyebrow raised, and opened the door.

Tami stepped through the door right behind Connie. It was a nice big apartment, with its beautiful hardwood floor and high ceilings with fancy molding. The tall windows were boarded up to shut out the wind but even so it was cold inside. The furniture consisted of a trunk with a cushion on it and a rough table and four chairs set in the middle of what must have been a living room. The kitchen was completely empty, reminding Tami of the deserted ranch house she had stayed at until Tracker came along, but it was spotlessly clean. Two doors stayed shut, but Connie opened the third and showed her a small room with a narrow bed heaped with blankets, and table with a big antique washbowl on top of it and a small wood stove near it.

“This is your room. You have two roommates: Jasminka Keric and Randie Halvorson. They share a room, but we’re giving you a room to yourself. Jas and Randie are both out right now. I think they’re doing laundry. There is no running water, so water has to be pumped. There’s no showers or regular bathrooms. We have an outhouse behind the house that men from town clean for us twice a week. You can wash your face in this washbowl.” Connie indicated the bowl and pitcher, and fiddled with her thumbnail. “I know this isn’t what we’re used to, but it’s what we have now.”

Tami smiled. “I teach people how to live in the wilderness. This will be fine.”

Connie lifted her head and stared at her. “Oh. Good. Then at least I won’t have to hear you complain. We do have some rules around here everybody has to follow.”

That made sense. Any house with two dozen women in it needed a set of rules in place to prevent mass murder. “Okay.”

“One,” Connie lifted a finger. “Everyone takes turns cleaning, cooking, and doing laundry. We’ll add you to the roster.”

Tami nodded. “Fine.”

“Two. No men are allowed upstairs except for Faron, Stag, and occasionally one of Taye’s men, and then only with permission, and only after calling a warning to let the girls know a man is coming up.”

“Sure. I can do that.”

Connie nodded her pale blond head with approval. “Three. No one is allowed out of the fence without an escort. That is for safety. You know why.”

Yeah, thought Tami grimly, she knew why.

“Four. You can receive male visitors only on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday in the evenings, and on Sunday afternoon, and only in the big room downstairs. When I say male visitors I mean boyfriends.” Connie rolled her eyes. “I feel like a high-school chaperone from the 1930s saying that. But we have to set times or the men would be swarming this place morning, noon, and night.”

“No problem. But I won’t be having any male visitors of that sort.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Connie muttered darkly. “The men around here are dying to get married, and they are persistent. Did seeing Dick the Dick tell you anything about the way the men are around here?”

“They’re all like that?” Tami swallowed sickly.

“No, he’s probably the worst. Most of them are a lot more polite, at least. If any guy gives you a hard time, just yell for Faron or Stag or one of the wolves.” Connie glanced toward the door. “Snake will probably stick to you like glue, so he can take care of any guys who get out of line.”

So, Des had given her a guard dog. Snake, with his big sharp teeth, looked like he was able to take care of a lot of trouble. “I’ll just stay in here during the visiting times.”

“You can try.” Connie sounded gloomy. “It’s cold here, and the big room has a fireplace and some wood stoves. It’s the warmest room in the House except for the kitchen. Besides, eventually you’ll get sick of your own company and come out just for the novelty of it.”