Elder: Reckless Desires (Norseton Wolves #6) Page 2

  He hoped had. If her mate didn’t give her away, he’d be stalking after her soon enough.

  She tightened her arms around the kids who were looking up at him in that petrified way all the little ones did—the ones who didn’t understand he wasn’t the kind of wolf they needed to worry about.

  Nixon had serious doubts that she was some kind of spy or plant from Adam’s old pack. She wouldn’t have brought those kids if she had been. Folks could say what they wanted about wolf women being doormats, but they tended to be ferocious when they had to protect their kids.

  “Nixon Tucker,” he said. “Me and Adam go way back. Pulled me out of the gutter a few times.”

  “He told you to come?”

  “I was in the area. Had been working in Texas for a few months and Adam finally caught up to my new number. Invited me out, and I was on my way west at the moment.”

  “That’s convenient,” she said quietly. Her gaze faltered. At first, he mistook her expression as a flinch, but longer consideration of the moistness of her eyes and the bags beneath them suggested to him that she was trying the best she could just to stay awake. She probably hadn’t had a wolf’s regenerative sleep in ages. She’d have to shapeshift to get one, and she likely couldn’t shift when the kids needed her.

  “Yeah. Real convenient.” He crouched in front of her and showed her the phone. “Adam asked me to take your picture. Hope you don’t take that personally. He just wants to make sure you are who you claim to be.”

  She ground her palms against her eyes, that naked ring finger of hers making his inner wolf spit and hiss, and let out a ragged sigh. “Go ahead. Maybe there’s enough of the old me left in here for him to recognize.”

  She entwined her fingers atop her lap and fixed her gaze somewhere toward the parking lot, chin down.

  Reflexively, his hand darted out and angled her face toward his. He hated that shit—a woman thinking she couldn’t look at him unless she was being spoken to. She could look at him whenever she wanted to, and he was probably going to do his own fair share of looking back, because behind that curtain of exhaustion and fear—behind the hunger and the wearing-down by years of humiliation and demoralization—was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. Maybe he had a thing for dark brown eyes and nearly black hair on ladies. Or maybe it was the full lips she kept stretching tight as she ground her teeth. Or it was just the general refinement of her features. What was there between the scars he hadn’t noticed at first scan.

  Some asshole had put his hands—his claws and teeth—on her. Her neck was scratched up. He could see marks starting on her jaw and dipping down beneath the collar of her shirt.

  I’ll kill him. Whoever did that to her.

  He forced back the unbidden possessive threat from his inner wolf and tried to smile a little for her and the kids.

  He couldn’t hold the grin, though. She looked like a fucking fugitive countess or someone who needed protecting.

  What’s that make me? Bodyguard?

  He let out a quiet growl and snapped the picture.

  The picture wasn’t pretty. He was no photographer, and did well just to get an image in focus, but he was successful in capturing all the features that mattered. Her lovely face, the ringless hand rested atop the head of the little girl who leaned against her, and all those scars.

  He sent the picture to Adam and Lilith and forced himself to stand. His creaking knee gave its usual complaint.

  Don’t start that shit today. I don’t have the time.

  He leaned against the support post nearest the bench and watched the scared wolves watch him while he waited for his phone to buzz.

  Cute kids, I guess.

  Paying attention to some other wolf’s kids had always been on Nixon’s no-no list, but that man wasn’t there at the moment to give him any grief about looking.

  The little girl looked like her mother, just more scared—apparently, such a thing was possible. Nixon didn’t know who the boy looked like. Maybe no one.

  Hopefully no one. Not some other wolf.

  Nixon wasn’t even sure why he gave a damn.

  He looked down at his buzzing phone and squinted at the tiny text.

  ADAM CARBONE: Bring her on out.

  LILITH CARBONE: That’s Esther.

  “Esther.” Nixon tasted the word in his mouth, and let the name shape his lips, just because.

  She pushed a slow eyebrow up.

  “Your aunt and uncle say you are who you claim to be,” he said. “I guess they’d be able to tell.”

  NIXON TUCKER: Anything on the road between here and there? Kids look like they haven’t had a decent meal in a while.

  LILITH CARBONE: Don’t tell me any more. You’re just going to get me stressed out. And when I get stressed Adam starts growling.

  Nixon cringed.

  ADAM CARBONE: Going to be hard seeing her in person with her looking like that.

  LILTITH CARBONE: Do what you’ve got to. Take me out of the message thread, though. Just text me when you get close.

  That was typical Lil. She was a fretter.

  Adam apparently got the gist. He removed Lil from the thread and continued to text.

  ADAM CARBONE: Feed them before you leave town and make sure you fill up your gas tank. Norseton’s intentionally isolated, so you’ll be hard-pressed to find food and fuel in between Albuquerque and here. I’ll reimburse you for whatever you spend.

  Nixon looked up at the lady and the kids who were gathering up their bags and felt something in his chest seize up. His heart, maybe, but he’d convinced himself long ago that he didn’t have one.

  The little girl, clutching a stuffed wolf and standing barely higher than his knees, stared up at him with dark, bottomless eyes for a long moment, and her mother nudged her away—made her stop looking.

  Wolf shit. Fucking hate wolf culture.

  “What’s your name, honey?” he asked her.

  The girl looked to Esther, who grimaced, then nodded.

  “Darla.” Her voice was so very quiet that if Nixon hadn’t been a wolf, he wouldn’t have heard her.

  “You ain’t gotta whisper around me, honey. Do me a favor and speak up. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  “How old are you?” the boy asked.

  Esther gave his shoulder a little pluck. “Stop that.”

  Nixon snorted and scooped up Darla’s overstuffed backpack. “That’s all right. I asked a question. It’s only right if y’all get to ask some, too.” He let out an exaggerated sigh. “And I’m forty-one. The AARP’s got me on their watch list. How old are you?”

  “Seven.”

  “Oh. Okay. Seven. I’ll call you seven, then.”

  “My name’s Kevin.”

  “Well, seven rhymes with Kevin. Or at least, I think it does. I dropped out of school so long ago that I can hardly remember the basics on most days.” Nixon shrugged. “I’mma call you Seven.”

  Kevin blinked, and then the tiniest corner of his lips turned up.

  That’s right, kid. I’m a good guy.

  Nixon even had the white cowboy hat in his truck as proof.

  He picked up Kevin’s bag, too, and gestured toward the truck. “Adam said I should feed y’all before we hit the road. Not much between here and Norseton, so if your belly’s rumbling, don’t be shy about saying so.”

  Esther opened her mouth and just as quickly closed it.

  “Come on, honey. Don’t beg off saying y’all’ll be all right until you get there. When’s the last time you had hot meals?”

  She let out a ragged breath, bent her knees, and heaved up her tote bag. “A couple of days ago. We’ve either been on buses or waiting for buses.”

  Which meant she not only wanted a hot meal and a bed, but probably a shower, too.

  “We’ll grab something quick. I know you’re anxious to get settled in, and I don’t blame you for that. Living on the road is no life at all for a lady.”

  “Then maybe I deserve it,” she whispered.
>
  As startling as that response was, Nixon didn’t turn around. He kept walking, wondering what kind of trouble she’d gotten herself into, and hoping he got her to Norseton before the rain came.

  The forecast didn’t call for rain, and New Mexico certainly didn’t get much in general, but the throbbing in what remained of the bone beneath his left knee indicated that the weather was changing. He’d want to get his prosthesis off in pretty short order. The padding in it had worn down or something. He hadn’t had a chance to have his prosthetist in Texas look at it again. He’d have to find a new prosthetist when he got settled in.

  He tossed the bags into the back of the truck, along with the ones Ester carried, and ushered them on around, limping a little as he went.

  Fuck this leg.

  Adam didn’t know yet. Nixon hoped that when he found out what Nixon had let happen to himself, he wouldn’t send him away. Not too many wolf alphas had much use for three-legged lieutenants.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Esther and the kids squeezed into one side of the diner booth and Nixon sat on the other, his starkly masculine features pulling into a grimace as he settled onto the hard seat.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  The waitress dropped some menus in front of them and muttered some assurances that she’d return.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I’ve got an old injury that acts up sometimes. So,” he gave the top of his menu percussive thumps, “order what you like, and don’t feel you have to rush eating. We’re not going to get to Norseton before dark no matter how fast I drive, so you may as well get something substantial into you.”

  Before she could even start to count money in her head, he added, “My treat.”

  “That’s really not necessary. I can pay for ours.”

  “Sure you can, but I’m offering to.”

  “You’re treading in dangerous waters.”

  “Why? Have the rules changed since I got expelled from my pack?”

  Esther whipped her head around and scanned the diner patrons nearby. The closest ones were two tables away. Still close enough that they could hear—if they were wolves. But they weren’t wolves. She would have been able to smell them if they were. They were plain-old humans.

  She hadn’t been around many of those.

  “No one’s paying us any attention,” he whispered, smiling like a viper. Then he leaned back, adjusted the tilt of his cowboy hat, and raised his menu. “Last I heard, buying a lady and her kids a meal didn’t qualify as an act of war.”

  “Some wolves make up the rules as they go along. You should know that.”

  “Yeah?” He didn’t lower his menu.

  She couldn’t see his face, and was happy those startlingly amber eyes were obscured at the moment. Most werewolves looked perfectly human in their two-legged forms, but Nixon had a certain animalistic quality about him that should have made anyone recognize him as being far from mundane. She’d never seen a wolf like him before.

  “I’m not worried about some wolves right now,” he said. “There’s only one pack in this state, and we’re heading toward it. If there are any stragglers hanging around who are gonna go run and tell your old alpha you got spotted with some unfamiliar a-hole, more power to ’em.”

  “I’m—kind of between alphas at the moment.”

  “Oh yeah?” He set down his menu and raised one dark eyebrow at her. “How’s that possible?”

  Interesting-looking man. Handsome, really. She didn’t know how to behave around handsome men. Her Jersey pack hadn’t exactly been thick with them, and her late husband had been average enough. Most alphas preferred that the men in their packs were lesser in every way, looks included.

  Esther swallowed and fussed over Darla’s menu, chiding her to pick something from the kids’ column that wasn’t all bread.

  “I’ve never heard of a lady getting expelled from a pack. Women are commodities.”

  She cleared her throat. Licked her lips.

  “What happened to your husband?”

  Not answering that here.

  “He fell,” Darla said.

  Damn it. Esther squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. She’d tried so hard to shield the kids from the event, but there was only so much damage control she could do. She’d kept them close, but she was sure they’d heard some rumors—maybe even that she’d been responsible for the event.

  “What do you mean he fell, honey?”

  “He died,” Kevin said.

  So now they want to talk.

  She gave Kevin’s little thigh a discreet pinch under the table.

  “Ow!”

  She cut him the look.

  He slumped a little lower on the bench and went back to scanning his menu.

  She didn’t really understand why the kids were saying anything to Nixon at all. They’d been pretty well trained not to speak unbidden to male wolves. They’d witnessed the consequences for other children who were careless with their tongues, and the treatment their mothers got for allowing the behavior.

  “Did your alpha let you leave, or did you run?” Nixon asked. “Just trying to figure out how much over the speed limit I need to be driving on the way into Norseton. Normally a lady who loses a husband would have been automatically given to some single guy in the pack. That’s pretty universal throughout the continent.”

  “Yes, that’s usually the case.”

  “So, what are you telling me? Don’t beat around the proverbial bush. I need information so I know how vigilant I need to be.”

  He would have to wait to concern himself with vigilance, because the waitress returned with her order pad poised and looked around the table.

  “Anyone ready?” she asked.

  “Go on,” Nixon said to Esther.

  Ether had barely looked at the menu. All those words and pictures hadn’t been much more than colorful blurs on the page. She was hungry, but too agitated to eat. Her stomach was in knots, but she had to try to get some sustenance. She needed to stay awake. “Um. Soups—what are the soups today?”

  “Vegetable beef and crazy corn chowder.”

  “I’ll take the vegetable beef with a BLT on the side, I guess.”

  Darla tugged at her sleeve and then pointed to some item far down the menu. “What’s that say?”

  It said, Personal Pan Pizza, but more important, in Esther’s opinion, was that it said ten dollars.

  The waitress peered around the menu and grunted. “Oh, don’t eat that. That’s shaken out of a box and cooked from frozen.” She tapped higher up on the menu. “That’s real good for little hands. Meat and cheese and crackers. Stack ’em up and make little sandwiches.”

  Six bucks.

  Still more than Esther was used to forking over per kid during their rare meal outings, but her baby girl had had a long couple of days. If Darla had picked out a steak with gold flakes sprinkled on top, Esther probably would have given the item at least a little bit of thought before saying no.

  “Okay,” Esther said.

  “I want a cheeseburger,” Kevin piped up. “With fries and stuff.”

  “Good choice,” the waitress said. She turned to Nixon and dipped her chin to her chest in that, Come on, bub kind of way.

  Obviously, his numerous charms were lost on her. She looked fresh out of give-a-damn.

  Or maybe he’s only alluring to wolves.

  She had no idea how natural wolf attraction was supposed to work. Her marriage hadn’t been a love match. She’d been taken to her late husband when she’d turned eighteen. He’d bitten her and, though his bite, added the enzymes to her body that made her able to shapeshift. She was a born wolf—everyone in her family was, going back hundreds of years—but female wolves couldn’t shapeshift until they’d received their mates’ bites. There was some evolutionary explanation of it that had always eluded her, but she did know that because of his bite, she’d be wearing the man’s scent for the rest of her life. She was used goods.

  “I think a ch
eeseburger sounds good, too,” Nixon said, “but make mine a double. Swap out the fries for chips, would ya? And bring us a pot of coffee, and milk for the kids, please.”

  Please. He said please.

  “Yep.” The waitress sidled away, taking the menus with her.

  Esther dug in her purse looking for something—anything—that would keep the kids engaged while their meals were being prepared. She found some scraps of paper and a nearly dry blue pen for Darla, and slid her phone over to Kevin. There were a couple of games on it he could play.

  Then she stared at her placemat, trying her damnedest not to meet Nixon’s too-curious stare. She could feel his gaze boring into the top of her head. She was used to that—of looking away and always having her head down. Eye contact was a dangerous prospect.

  “Did you run?” Nixon whispered. “Or were you allowed to leave?”

  “Allowed to.”

  “You don’t think your alpha’ll change his mind?”

  “He’s been known to be fickle, but—I can’t say. I didn’t tell anyone except my mother where in particular I was heading.”

  Her mother knew everything. She knew Esther had facilitated Michael’s fall. She knew how he got violent when he was drunk, and sometimes even when he wasn’t. Esther had tried to love him—really tried, for the sake of the kids—but Michael was too much a product of his upbringing. He would have never changed. His behavior was typical of men in the pack, and was celebrated for its normalcy.

  Idly, she raised a hand to the scar runnels on her chest and ground her teeth.

  “So, you left before your alpha could change his mind and find a new household to put you in.”

  She nodded.

  “Pretty sure Adam will get you set up in your own place. No roommates, unless you want one.” Nixon chuckled, but Esther was strung too tight to laugh.

  She wished she could laugh.

  “What kind of wolf are you?” Kevin asked.

  Esther pinched the bridge of her nose again. She risked a look up and found Nixon grinning.

  “Bit of this and that. No particular kind. Not like your ma and uncle.”

  “I’ve never met Uncle Anton. Grandma misses him a whole lot, though.”