Chapter 5 #2
I’m getting sappy. I almost dressed fully and left the house.
I fought the impulse to go out running again, alone, to regain my solitude.
Maybe running would help me find that cold place in my head where I didn’t care about anyone but myself.
Instead, I pulled on my underwear, got into bed, and put my pillow over my head.
Two short nights and a nice long run made it possible for me to fall asleep. Eventually.
Wade and I spent the next day helping out around the farm. Since the product depended on apple trees and berry bushes, there was no spring planting to be done, but that didn’t mean there was no work. Mid-afternoon, I found myself next to Wade, scrubbing out empty apple bins in the storage shed.
“I kept waking up last night,” Wade said, “thinking I’d only imagined Shawn was here.
A dream, like it’d been for the last seven years.
Each time, I’d hear him through the wall, smell his presence in the house, but the nightmares kept coming back.
It’s good to dig in and do some work. Makes things real. ”
“What do you think?’ I asked. “Could you do this work all day long?”
“For today, to help Shawn? Sure. Forever?” He hefted a bucket of dirty water. “Not if I can help it.”
“Figures, since you’re an artist.”
“Hardly. A craftsman, maybe.” He dumped the water down the drain and refilled the bucket, then picked up the sponge and eyed his fingers as if expecting to see something else there. “I know I’m lucky. Not many people make a living doing what they love.”
“You could probably do your work around here,” I said, probing. “Carving’s portable.”
“The markets aren’t, though. I put in a lot of miles driving to craft fairs and delivering to gift shops. This is the middle of nowhere. No one’s buying.”
“So you wouldn’t want to move here to the farm?”
“I wouldn’t want to freeload on my brother.”
“They hire extra help at harvest season, and could probably use some all year round.”
Wade frowned. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
I didn’t know I had you. I hid a smile at the way he’d said that. “No. Especially since it would mean getting you Canadian ID, and that was a bitch and a half for Shawn. Even though he was a minor, which is easier.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to do that for me.”
“Sure, you would. It’s literally my job. Fixer.”
“Not anymore,” he pointed out.
For some reason, that truth caught me off balance, as if in my head, one pack run had settled me back in that role. “Right. You’re right.”
He set down his sponge. “I never thanked you.”
“For what?”
“Saving Shawn’s life.”
“I busted his leg and two ribs and gave him blood loss and internal injuries that almost killed him.”
“You saved him. You know that’s true. If Alpha had found out what you did, you’d have been dead yourself. I’m more grateful than I can say.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I’d have tried my best for any queer wolf.” Although a tiny piece of added urgency, the willingness to take any risk at all to save Shawn, had been because he was Wade’s brother. Wade didn’t need to know that, though.
He turned to me, his blue eyes intent. “You’re a good man. I wish I’d trusted you.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Huh?”
I raised an eyebrow. The sun glancing in the dusty window lightened his hair and carved the angle of his jaw in shadows.
He was even better looking than the twenty-two-year-old I’d very secretly watched, but a lot less open.
“You weren’t great at keeping secrets back then.
If you’d trusted me with Shawn, Alpha wouldn’t have. ”
He acted hurt. “I kept Shawn’s secret.”
“True.” Shawn being spotted with a boy from his school had nothing to do with Wade. “Did Alpha ever ask you if you’d already known?”
“No.” The muscles in Wade’s jaw clenched. He knew that lying to Alpha would’ve been nearly impossible.
I suggested, “Probably he didn’t want the answer.
” Wade wouldn’t have been the first or last wolf shielding a family member from consequences.
Alphas had to weigh when to come down hard and when to turn a blind eye.
Once Shawn was gone, there was no point in going after Wade, as long as he obeyed pack law.
“What about you? Didn’t he ask you if the job was done, Alpha to Sixth?”
“Yes. In just about those terms. I told him, yes, ‘the job was done’, and Shawn Peters would never be seen again. Both things the truth, which I could put conviction behind. The job of extracting Shawn was done. Whatever ID I’d end up getting him later, I knew it wouldn’t be Peters.”
Wade snorted. “You got that technicality past Alpha?”
“My father taught me to be a very good liar. One powerful way to lie is to tell the truth, and let their interpretation be the lie.”
“Huh.”
“With wolves, especially with your own Alpha, there’s an added layer, of course.
Emotions, the scent of them and the feel over your bonds.
Dad said the best way to hide one emotion, like fear at being questioned, was in another, like anger.
If I seemed furious with Shawn for being gay— or for getting caught, which would feel the same— that’s what Alpha would notice. ”
“Your father taught you to lie to your Alpha?”
“Technically, he taught me to lie for my Alpha, but it worked out well the other way.” I shrugged, although talking about Dad made me miss him with a fierce ache. “On purpose, I suspect, so yeah, he taught me both. I’m pretty sure Dad knew about me before I did.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t try to get you away from the pack.”
“He kind of did. He urged me to go off to college.” Most wolves didn’t, because distance thinned the pack bonds.
Or at least, they went in pairs, to still have packmates.
There’d been no other boys my age in our pack.
“But that was when Mom started getting sick, and by the time she passed, I was twenty-five and settled, and no one had suspected.”
“The couple you sent Shawn to live with. Were they a place your father planned for you?”
I shook my head. Say it? Don’t say it? I decided to take the leap. “That was my doing. They were actually… a place I’d found years earlier, for you.”
“For me?” Wade stared at me.
“Yeah. When you landed with us, with your mom asking for a new pack’s protection, you rang that might-be-gay bell for me.”
“I was fifteen.”
“So was Shawn. I knew long before I was fifteen.”
Our eyes met. His were wide and dark, but I couldn’t read what he was feeling. I tried to be as calm and open as I could. Would he deny it? Or let me in?
“You know,” Wade said, stepping back, “I should really call Mrs. French. Make sure all’s well with the building. I’ll give Shawn some cash for the call—”
“Wait,” I said as he turned to go. “If you’re really going to call her, I’ll drive you to a payphone a couple of towns over.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t work my ass off hiding Shawn to take any chances with him.
Odds are, no one will ever find you, and if they do, they won’t suspect Shawn’s still alive.
Your last name’s McKinley now, his is Banks, you have no connections.
But I still don’t want his new number in the phone record of someone you’re close to. Or their number in his.”
Wade turned in the doorway, the light behind making him appear bigger than he was. “Wow. That’s a level of paranoia I didn’t expect.”
“Really? When my job has been to bribe, blackmail, lie, cheat, drug, and murder wolves out of trouble? When every pack has a wolf like me, doing the same? It’s not paranoia.” I heard the bitterness in my tone and stopped.
“I suppose.” He looked down. “After all, you managed to find me.”
Trying to lighten the moment, I said, “Of course, I am the best.”
That got him to lift his gaze. “Yeah, I guess so. You seriously tracked me down by my carvings? Most people didn’t even know I liked to whittle, let alone be able to recognize my style.”
“I wasn’t most people.” Something flashed between us, an awareness I couldn’t define. I set my wash bucket aside too. “Come on, I’ll drive you to Timberfalls, and we’ll find a payphone.”
Wade remained silent on the twenty-minute drive.
I didn’t push for anything. He didn’t seem angry or upset, just thinking.
The gas station had a payphone outside, and a much shorter line at the pumps than I was used to south of the border, though the price made me wince.
“Go make your call,” I told Wade. “Do you have Canadian change for the phone?”
“Uh, no.” He palmed his forehead.
“The station will cash out American bills for you. One for one, probably, but you’ll get your coins. Most places here take US bills.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
I watched as he disappeared inside the cashier’s hut, then came out and went into the phone booth.
The car ahead of me drove away, and I inched forward.
Watching through the glass of the booth, I saw a moment when Wade straightened, his shoulders tense and his chin rising like he was scenting danger.
I was so distracted watching him that the attendant rapping on my window made me jump.
I rolled the glass down. “Regular. Fill ’er up. Thanks.”
The car was fueled, windshield washed, and I’d pulled away from the pump before Wade came striding over.
“Problem?” I asked as he got in.
“Yeah. Crap. Lousy timing. Mrs. French says the scumbag owner is doing some sleazy business. She’s in a panic, wasn’t able to explain what, but he might sell the building out from under us.”
“Meaning what? More rent? Tearing it down for a parking lot?”
“She wasn’t clear. Apparently, Jack Turner on the first floor is calling an emergency tenant meeting tomorrow night at seven. She said I didn’t need to be there, but…”
“You need to be there.”
“Yeah. Old Mr. Turner’s a hot-head and he may be fired up for nothing, but he’s going to alarm the rest, and Mrs. French doesn’t panic for nothing.” Wade fidgeted, his foot tapping the floor.
I glanced at my watch. “Twenty-seven hours from now, and an eleven-hour drive. No sweat.”
“The timing’s crap. We just got here.”
“Could’ve been worse. Might’ve been before we even left and you’d have felt really torn.”
“I suppose. I can come back, I guess. You don’t need to hang out here longer? For farm business or anything?”
“Nah. We’ll call and write. There’s payphones in the city, and I have a PO box. Shawn and Zay know a lot more about the farm by now than I do. That old couple who sold the place, the wife was really smitten with Zay. He calls her for advice and she gives lots. They barely need me.”
“Except to buy the place. How did you swing that?”
“My dad was a smart man. He made sure to stash away a fair bit of money. That came to me when he died. Like all his other gifts, it saved my ass when I needed it most.” My voice thickened at the words.
“I remember him.” Wade laid a hand on my knee. “I only knew him a year, but he seemed like a good man.”
“The best.” I drove on, savoring the warmth of Wade’s palm on my leg and his impulse to comfort me, until he realized what he was doing and sat back, folding his arms.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s say goodbye to your brother and get you back to Illinois.”