8. Mack
8
MACK
I dragged out breakfast with Aerin for far longer than I should have. Eventually, I left the house with the memory of Aerin’s soft lips still fresh in my mind.
We’d made love before I’d gone downstairs to make breakfast for the both of us, and I’d called Bennett to find out when he was ready to check out the hotel.
I’d also called Helena and asked her to come over to the house to stay with Aerin while I was gone. What happened last night was probably nothing, but until I’ve confirmed that it truly is nothing, I don’t intend to leave Aerin alone.
We’d had a lazy breakfast in bed until it was time to leave.
Leaving her hadn’t been easy. No. It had been downright painful. As I’d left the house, she was having tea with Helena.
I told her that I wouldn’t be gone longer than an hour. That I’d see if there were any suspicious new tourists, confirm that there wasn’t, and come right back home.
“You seem distracted,” Bennett says.
He’s driving. It made sense to go in his car since he drove to my house with Helena, dropped her off and picked me up.
“Just hoping this trip to the hotel is just a waste of our time,” I say.
None of us wants to find trouble.
Nodding, he pulls away from the house. “It should be. Colton and Warren didn’t find anything suspicious or noteworthy at the cabins, so I doubt we will at the hotel.”
I hadn’t thought Colton and Warren would head to the remote cabins so early, and they must have. As Bennett drives us into town to pick up Chris, he fills me in on his call with them this morning. Apparently, the cabins were fully booked, but Colton and Warren shifted and sniffed around the area. They hadn’t found the same scent near the cabins, so whoever wandered into our forest last night wasn’t a tourist staying in the cabins.
We pick up Chris on the way to the Winter Lake Hotel, the only place to stay in town. It’s situated close to the shops on Main Street, so the tourists who arrive on the one bus that comes through town once a week don’t have to wander far to see everything Winter Lake has to offer.
Other than a few cabins located in the forest that people can rent out for the weekend, there’s nowhere else for tourists to stay. It’s a quiet retirement town first, and the locals intend to keep it that way.
Fortunately for us, the hotel is small and any out of towners usually stick out. The cameras slung around their necks and their hiking boots usually give them away. The benefit of living in such a small, tight-nit community is that you can always spot trouble coming from a mile away.
We approach the two floor pale peach building that looks like more of a house than a hotel. Bennett parks in the parking lot just outside it, empty save for two cars that must belong to the hotel’s guests.
“You want me to take a look in the back while you guys go in the front?” Chris offers, unsnapping his seat belt.
I meet his gaze in the rearview mirror as I consider it. “Just walk around. If you find anything suspicious, don’t track yet. It might be a trap.”
Bennett nods. “Agreed. If there was nothing at the hiking cabins, means there’s more chance whoever it is must be staying here.”
We get out of the car and slam the doors shut. Chris wanders around the back of the building as Bennett and I enter through the front, a small silver bell jingling as we step into the entryway. It’s an older building, one of the oldest in town, with glossy parquet floors and black balustrades leading up to the rooms.
It’s been a while since I came in here, and that was a long time ago, back when I first arrived in Winter Lake. I remember it had five or six bedrooms.
There was a library with a bookcase I’d spent an evening examining, armchairs in front of a lit fireplace, and board games with small tables for guests to enjoy. As we pass the room, I stick my head in to discover not much has changed. There are a few more books in the bookcase, and newer board games, but it’s just as I remembered.
“You getting anything?” I quietly whisper to Bennett as I sniff out the room’s previous occupants. None of the scents are familiar and all are human.
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Let’s check out the dining room.”
We follow the inaudible murmur of conversation and the savory, sweet scents of breakfast through the entryway and to a set of glass double doors that lead to the dining room.
Our arrival attracts glances from the few guests who have either returned from an early morning of sightseeing or are getting ready to head out for a hike or shopping this afternoon.
Other than the few round tables and a big glass chandelier, the room is free of suspicious guests who might have come to Winter Lake to cause trouble, and I don’t pick up the scent of the person who wandered onto my property last night.
We linger in the entryway, giving the dining room another sweep as footsteps approach from behind. “Mack, is everything all right?”
On the drive here, we briefly discussed a story should anyone ask what we were doing in the hotel, and I’m glad we did.
Backing out of the dining room, I smile at Sara Meacham, the petite, red-headed and brown-eyed owner of the hotel. “Just stopping by to find out if you had any rooms available next week. I have some relatives thinking of coming to town.”
The last time I stayed, her mother was the manager, and since she was older back then, probably in her late fifties or sixties, she must have retired and handed over the running of the place to her daughter.
Aerin’s aunt and my dad couldn’t make it to Aerin’s baby shower. When they eventually manage to deal with whatever issues they’re having in Virginia, they’re going to need somewhere to stay. Why not the hotel?
A long time ago, my dad was the Alpha of the Raleigh Pack. When he suddenly decided he didn’t want the responsibility anymore, he walked away. The pack imploded without him there to impose order. Not six months after he left, and there was no Raleigh Pack anymore, but the memory of what happened in Michigan lives on in shifter history.
I’m not sure he’s getting ready to run out on Ivy the way he did to me and the Raleighs, but I’m not sure why he’s being so cagey that he can’t just tell me what’s going on.
Ivy, Aerin’s aunt, and the woman I believe he has fallen in love with, is an omega who healed all the festering wounds in his soul with a single touch. Whatever is going on with them and the lack of answers has me worried. But if it’s nothing serious, then they’ll need somewhere to stay when they come up from Virginia.
Bennett bumps his shoulder with mine, the action returning me to the present.
While I’d been lost in my thoughts, he’s been standing, arms crossed, chatting to Sara about the weather and a charity event that someone is holding to raise money for the community center.
“It’s funny that you should stop by today,” Sara says, lowering her voice. “I had the strangest thing happen the other day.”
I perk up. So does Bennett.
“Strange how?” I ask.
“Strange as in someone rummaging around in the trash. At first I thought it was a fox. Seemed something an animal would do,” Sara explains. “Especially since we’re closer to Main Street than most other homes.”
“Until they did something an animal wouldn’t?” Bennett suggests.
Sara nods. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
We glance at each other, and I hope Chris was listening when I warned him not to follow any suspicious tracks he might have found.
I give the entryway another subtle sniff, since it’s a space where everyone has to pass to get to the rooms upstairs. It was the first thing I did when we arrived, but I want to be sure before we leave that we haven’t missed anything. Then I follow Sara out through the entryway and to a covered patio at the back of the hotel, where there are more seats for guests to eat outside if they want to.
Sara stops at the top of the patio and points down the backyard to the forest that backs up to most homes and businesses. Even from this distance, what she’s pointing at is unmistakable. “See those claws?”
I do see the light scratches marring the dark wood.
“What do you think caused it?” I ask instead.
Sara shrugs and an alarm goes off inside, from the kitchen, I think. Her attention bounces between us and the open doorway. “Not sure. I need to?—”
“Go,” Bennett interrupts. “I wouldn’t mind checking out this mystery animal.”
We wait until Sara’s footsteps have disappeared back inside and it’s just us.
“What do you think?” I ask, my voice low.
“Only one way to find out.”
We walk down the slope to the marked tree.
When Chris steps out from behind it, I raise my eyebrow. “Anything?”
He shakes his head. “Just the clawed tree. Definitely a wolf. A shifter.”
The scent has faded since the shifter left. It’s faint enough whoever it was must have come late last night or very early this morning. I don’t know this shifter and neither does my wolf.
We stand in front of the tree, studying the claws for several seconds. I’d hoped that this was nothing. That we’d turn up at the hotel, wander around for a bit, and when we found nothing, I’d be back at home to spend mid-morning gardening with Aerin.
That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen now.
I slide my phone out of my pocket and send Helena a quick text, letting her know that I’m going to be longer than I thought, and to let Aerin know so she doesn’t worry.
Helena responds instantly.
Helena: Will do. Stay safe.
Nodding, I return my phone to my pocket. Aerin has a phone… somewhere. I bought one for her months ago, but she puts it down, forgets where and never remembers to charge it.
Other than Moses, Ivy, or very rarely, her father, she tells me she doesn’t need a phone to speak to them. They call the home phone when they want to speak to her.
“What are you thinking?” Bennett asks.
“Probably the same thing you’re thinking,” I say.
It was obvious what the clawed marks were from the patio. I’d wanted to get closer and smell the wolf who is trying to claim my territory as his. And it is a he.
This property belongs to the hotel, but Winter Lake is mine. Nowhere in this town is available for claiming.
I don’t recognize the scent, and it wasn’t in the hotel, so whoever did this left soon after.
“Let’s go,” I say, stepping into the forest. “I’m not comfortable about any shifter being in Winter Lake right now, especially one quietly trying to claim it.”
I pull up outside the house, frustrated, exhausted, and starving, hours later than I’d intended, and with nothing to show for it.
An unknown shifter had hung around the back of the hotel, marked a tree, and slipped back into the forest. We followed his tracks, discovering they led to the main road. We’d stuck to the forest as much as we could and those tracks had led out of Winter Lake.
We’d returned to the hotel before we came home, asking Sara if she’d had any other guests who’d recently left. She said that she had three guests turn up in the last week. One man stayed for a couple of nights, wanting to enjoy the hotel’s quiet surroundings after the hustle and bustle of New York. He was a sixty-year-old retired banker. Not exactly the young shifter we imagined was trying to claim my territory as his own.
Two more guests were eating lunch. A middle-aged couple from Nebraska. We’d briefly checked them out, but nothing about them seemed the least bit suspicious. They looked like the same tourists we’d see around Winter Lake all the time.
I refuse to believe a shifter would come all this way, mark a tree, and just leave. They’d wanted us to think they had left, but there’s no reason to believe they won’t come back later today, tonight, or tomorrow.
I’m unbuckling my seatbelt when the front door swings open and Helena steps out. We dropped Chris off at home on the way, and he’d refused the offer of picking up Zoe and coming to the house for a late lunch, though, at now nearly 4, it’s probably closer to dinner than it is lunch.
“We’ll figure it out,” Bennett says, briefly smiling at Helena as she approaches the car.
“Before or after this shifter decides to make another appearance and tries to claim my backyard as his?” I ask, opening my car door.
“That won’t happen. He’ll be dead before.”
“Who’ll be dead?” Helena asks, frowning as she comes to a stop beside the passenger door.
I get out of the car. “Bennett can explain. How’s Aerin?”
“Umm…” Her hazel eyes are evasive as she tucks a strand of honey-blond hair behind her ear.
Shit.
Not good, in other words.
I scrub a hand over my face. “Was she really upset?”
“Just worried,” Helena says. “Honestly, I’m dreading when I’m more pregnant. She said she felt helpless and I think I’m going to feel the same way, wanting to help, but knowing there are going to be times I have to sit out the fight.”
“Would flowers have helped?” We passed right by the grocery store and I should have thought to go in and pick up flowers or something for Aerin to apologize for being gone most of the day.
Helena gives me a reassuring smile. “Aerin doesn’t want flowers, Mack. She just wants to know you’re safe. That’s all.”
I return her smile and step aside so she can get into the seat I just vacated.
I wave them off before I walk up to the house, hoping I can find the right words to soothe Aerin.
When I don’t find Aerin downstairs, I head upstairs.