Chapter 2
Chapter Two
The mockingbird singing outside teased Samara out of her dream.
Or perhaps it was the woodpecker pounding away at a tree trunk nearby.
It didn't matter. Judging by the way the sheets had tangled around her and the sheen of sweat covering her skin, the dream must have had her bouncing around the small bed like a gymnast. At least her brain possessed enough sense to forget the dream.
After her escape from the Riverstone Pack, she had expected nightmares, but there were none, which was nothing short of a blessing.
There was nothing about being a wolf shifter that was worth remembering.
That didn't mean she could forget. There was no way to erase her memory. The pack would hunt her until they captured her. If only she knew why they wanted her in the first place, but the alpha had kept her caged and ignorant.
Since it sounded as if neither the mockingbird nor the woodpecker would let her sleep another second, there was no good excuse to resist a second shower.
With sleepy eyes, she dragged herself out from under the covers and toward the bathroom.
This time she would keep her hair piled up on her head so she wouldn't have to dry it.
A bonus was the natural wave that would reveal itself after she removed the ponytail elastic.
Not that the wave was important. She'd already attracted the attention of her new boss.
There was no need to push her luck with fancy hair styles.
Besides, if the pack found her, she would have no choice but to run. Creating any ties to Winterbourne, no matter how casual or inconsequential wouldn't be fair to either her or the innocent man who had done nothing but try to help her.
Too soon the water started to cool and with regret, she turned off the spigot and stepped from the tub.
Pushing the door open a crack to let the steam escape, Samara found a clean hand towel underneath the sink.
She tried to wipe the mirror to see if she looked presentable now that she didn't have a layer of grime all over her.
Big mistake. The first thing she noticed was her bluish fingertips.
Disappointment rather than anger overcame her, and she let her head fall forward and clunk against the wet mirror.
If her fingers were still blue, that meant her lips were as well, but the mirror still had too much condensation for her to check.
Escaping the pack had meant she'd run with the clothes on her back and whatever cash she could steal. The gas station restrooms she had used had the worst lighting, and all she wanted to do was take care of business and get out before anyone recognized her.
Once she had started freight hopping, she laser-focused on her surroundings, not her body.
Now she studied her fingers. To be fair the tips weren't as bad as they had been a few days ago.
Taking another swipe at the mirror allowed her to examine her lips, which also showed more pink than she had expected.
Admitting to her new boss that she'd been a wolf shifter would at the very least get her a reputation as a weirdo.
Telling him that she'd swallowed a whole bottle of colloidal silver to kill the wolf shadow that had taken over her body would get her committed. Her only comfort was that the colloidal silver had worked. The wolf shadow inside her was dead and she was free of the beast, if not the pack from which it had spawned. Eventually, the side effect of blue skin would disappear, she hoped. As for Kellen...well, he had still offered her a job and gave her food despite her blue fingers and lips. If he needed waitstaff bad enough he would continue to overlook her strangeness. Or he’d decided to keep her around as a curiosity.
Drying herself as fast as she could, she prayed that Kellen had kept his promise of new clothes. The only way to find out if he'd followed through was to unlock the bedroom door while she was wrapped in nothing but a towel.
Oh, what the hell. What is the worst that could happen?
Stupid question. She knew what the worst was, but oddly enough no one in the pack seemed interested in using her that way.
Still, she didn’t know if Kellen would be as merciful.
Only a fool would unlock a perfectly good door and risk giving her new boss a full-frontal view if he was waiting for her in the hallway.
That was a paranoid thought she crushed with pure logic. He acted completely opposite of the pack, but then he wasn't a wolf shifter. He was just a rare breed of man who had a good-guy streak.
Granted, he was also a scorchingly hot man who could easily make her feel more than just safe, but that was irrelevant. She had no future, so she suppressed her loneliness and locked it away along with her unremembered dreams.
Checking the clock, she realized that she had slept sixteen hours but still had plenty of time for breakfast. The hot shower had washed away any sluggish sleep from her eyes. But she wasn’t overly worried. Naked or not, she had her knife lying next to the bed.
Tucking the towel tight around her body, she grabbed her knife off the nightstand and headed toward the hallway door.
She pressed her ear to try and hear if anyone was waiting for her on the other side, but she heard nothing except some faint banging coming from the kitchen.
Slow as a slug, she unlocked the dead bolt, keeping the click as quiet as possible.
Cracking the door open, she didn't see anyone in the short hallway.
On the floor lay a stack of clothing and a tray of food.
No one had ever called her a coward, and she wouldn't give them a reason today.
She opened the door just wide enough to reach through, grabbing the clothes first, and tossed them onto the bed.
Then she crouched down and carefully lifted the tray.
With her left foot, she slammed the door closed—too loud—but there wasn't anything she could do about that now.
She placed the tray on the nightstand with her knife right next to it, quickly returning to the door and twisting the dead bolt until it clicked.
Her heart pounded and she cursed herself three times for letting her fear get the best of her. Her grandfather had taught her better than that. Kellan had done it though. He’d kept his promise to give her food and clothes.
She chose to get dressed first, rather than eat while still naked.
Flipping through the clothes, she found two of everything: black jeans, black polo shirts, socks along with a pack of underwear and sports bras.
Well, at least the man was thorough and there was no point in getting embarrassed just because she was a woman.
She needed the basic items to live, and Kellen provided. What about shoes?
Muttering punishing thoughts about her haste, she dressed as fast as she could, making sure the sheath with her knife was clipped securely, then checked outside the door again.
Oh, there they are, on the other side of the hinges so the door is blocking them from her sight.
While she shoved her feet into the sneakers, she entertained a brief fantasy of him fulfilling her physical needs. It might have been tremendous fun under other circumstances, but these past few weeks have made such things impossible. Besides, screwing the boss never ended well.
Imagining she was screwing the boss...well, there was nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. If she ever remembered any of her dreams, she halfway hoped they would be with her and Kellen tangled together under the sheets. Or in the shower. Or on his desk...
Okay, time to put a stop to those thoughts and eat. She hadn't seen so much food in one course in years. One plate was filled with fluffy scrambled eggs, another had a half stack of pancakes dripping in butter, along with a large bowl of hot cereal.
Her inner eight-year-old would have gobbled down every bite with gusto.
Her mother might have scolded her, but her father would have given her a sly wink.
It was time to let herself stop thinking about her past and concentrate on what was in front of her.
While she scooped up the cereal with one hand wrapped around a spoon, she clicked on the TV with the other.
The morning news droned into the room. She watched, but not with the eyes of someone who cared about local events or national scandals. At least she hadn't cared until the image of a train railcar exploding covered the screen.
"This was the scene last night on a freight train at the Culbertson train depot.
As you can see, a railcar carrying ammonium nitrate, a key ingredient for fertilizer, exploded.
According to the latest report there were two bodies found in the railcar itself.
Freight companies warn people of the dangers of traveling. .."
For a moment, Samara thought she might lose her breakfast.
The reporter doesn't know what caused it.
It might have been an accident. Ammonium nitrate wasn't just used for agriculture.
Terrorists used it for explosives. Dad had to put out more than one agricultural fire.
You don't know for sure if that was one of the railcars you rode.
Even if it was, the explosion would have destroyed your scent.
But why would the pack blow it up in the first place?
She continued to watch, hoping that the reporter would move away from the camera enough so she could see the remnants of the railcar surrounded by firefighters.
Instead, her heart squeezed when she saw their uniforms, so much like the one her dad had worn.
Finally, the reporter cut away to show security camera footage.
With her face close enough to the screen, Samara could see the railcar identification numbers a second before the car exploded.