Queen Bitch of the Callowwood Pack (Siren Publishing Classic) (3 page)

In the two months since her birthday and her unnerving discovery of her ability to shift into a wolf when the moon shone full, Julianna had lived in fear everyone would discover her secret. It had been relatively easy for her last month in Fresno where big city anonymity had shielded her from notice. But at home in her small town where everyone knew her, she’d spent the month holing up in her parents’ house, terrified they’d notice the changes in her. She’d avoided going out as much as possible.

Despite his illness, her dad was still observant and watched her with puzzlement, though he never asked why she was so skittish. She’d tried to be the daughter they remembered, but her guilt and fear held her back. She could scent their confusion, but it only made her more aware of her new differences.

She never told them she could hear them talking quietly in their bedroom at night, even when in the kitchen, noisily washing the dishes to drown out their voices. She tried to laugh off her ability to scent when her mother was sad, or frightened, or amused, or lying. Who knew lying had a scent? She wanted to confide in her dad, tell him everything, but she didn’t want him to look at her with fear or loathing, so she’d kept silent.

Please forgive me, Dad.

The only response was the wind shifting direction, blowing the death scent away.

Julianna had moved into the “mother-in-law” apartment over her parents’ detached garage to give them space to be together in his final days. It also gave her the freedom to come and go in whatever form she chose without them knowing her secret. Nursing her father had taken an emotional toll, and she had needed the small apartment as a retreat to regroup for another grueling day. She’d been too tired to even think about looking for a job.

Now she’d have the time but lacked the motivation. And Callowwood wasn’t a booming metropolis by any stretch of the imagination.

The town was exactly the way she’d remembered it, except a Super Walmart had sprung up in Leland between Callowwood and Wipple, and the cars were a little more up-to-date. The Wolf’s Den, the bar and pool hall, had grown, and she heard they’d put in a few big screen TVs to allow the patrons to scream at sports games. She’d considered it as a good job prospect to keep her close to home and her mom. Other than those few things, the town seemed to be caught in a time warp.

Only Jeff Lightfoot’s absence changed the atmosphere of Callowwood. Though she’d sensed him in town, she hadn’t seen him at all in the month she’d been home. Initially, she’d felt relieved, and some of her tension had eased. Still, curiosity ate at her, and she wondered how he’d changed. Her heart fluttered with the thought of seeing him. He was the dream she’d forsaken, but surely he wasn’t as good as she remembered.

The wind shifted again, and a new scent reached her sensitive nose. Was it streams swollen by spring runoff? Or the earthy scent of rain in the desert? It tasted like a combination of the two.

She wanted to turn her head to chase the delicious smell, but the pastor finished his eulogy, and her mother stepped forward to drop a calla lily on the coffin’s lid. Julianna jerked back into the moment and followed her, resting one hand on the coffin as she bowed her head.
Be well, Dad. Well, as well as you can be. I love you.

She took her mother’s arm and moved aside so others could say their good-byes.

“Well, that’s over now,” her mother sighed, resignation and relief filling her voice. “All that’s left is the respects party.”

“You don’t want to talk to anyone here?”

“No, let’s just go. There will be enough people wanting to talk to us at the party.”

“Thank goodness it’s not at the house,” Julianna admitted as they nodded at a few folks on the way to her Camaro. “I don’t think I could stand to clean up after saying good-bye to Dad.”

Beth laughed softly. “Me either.”

“Are you going to be okay, Mom?”

Beth’s silence lasted for several steps, and Julianna worried for her mother.

“I think it will take me a while to get used to being alone in that house.”

“Did you want me to move into the house with you?”

“No, dear one, you don’t have to. I think I should get used to the silence. You’re right outside the door, literally, and you need your own space. You’re a grown woman and don’t need your mother hanging over you.”

Julianna snorted. “Mom, you don’t
hang
over me. I don’t mind. Really.”

Beth squeezed her arm. “Thanks, dear one. If I change my mind, I’ll let you know.” They stopped at the car,
the burgundy red 2010 Chevy Camaro she’d won from her philandering ex, and Julianna opened the passenger door. “Speaking of changing my mind, the town hall was booked for an emergency budgetary meeting this evening and we had to move the respects party at the last minute. It’s now being held at the Wolf’s Den. The Lightfoots offered, and I couldn’t say no. You don’t mind?”

“No, not at all.” Tension filled Julianna’s body as she closed the door.

Oh, God, I’ll have to see him now, for sure.

It’ll be okay. He won’t be like I remember. It’ll be okay.

Julianna took a deep breath and walked around the front of the car.
It’ll be okay.

The sunlight and light breeze continued indifferent to her anxiety, and she tried to let her worries go. She slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. Her gaze swept over the cemetery and stopped on a couple standing a little apart from the other mourners. They both looked back at her with intensity, and she felt her face freeze into impassiveness as a fine tremor shimmered through her body.

One of them was an older woman, her silver hair pulled into two long braids on either side of her head, draping over her shoulders. She had the features of the Paiute Tribe of First Peoples who had lived in Nevada long before it got the name. Though the woman barely came up to her escort’s chest as he held her arm, she stood straight and alert.

The second person was Jeff Lightfoot. He nodded to something the old woman said as his eyes bored holes into Julianna, simultaneously making her blood heat and her heart freeze.

He’s still the same
. Broad unbowed shoulders stretched his suit jacket, which hung over a flat belly. His hair showed no gray in the rich brown, and his face remained unlined around the neatly trimmed beard. Julianna felt his eyes take in every detail about her as he stared
. How can he still be the same?
He’d only gained muscle weight as far as she could tell, and her inner voice shrilled a wolf whistle. Her nipples tightened under her black dress, and the scent of her arousal filled the car.

Damn! How does he do that?

She turned her gaze away from Jeff and quickly glanced at her mother, but Beth stared out her own window, unaware of Julianna’s reaction.

As the only guy in town who’d ever made her hot and wet, Jeff had starred in all her teenage fantasies. Mostly they featured him saving her from bad guys by driving up in his black 1977 Chevy Camaro and whisking her away. As she got older, she’d fantasized about kissing him, feeling his arms wrapped around her, and his body pressed against her. By the time she’d reached eighteen, the fantasies had become much more graphic and enjoyable, giving her wet dreams and soaked panties.

Not much has changed, then.

Julianna swallowed hard and pulled the car out onto the road, looking carefully over her shoulder to make sure no one was coming, and even more carefully
not
looking back at where Jeff and the old woman stood. Despite her determined ignorance, she felt their gazes all the way out of the cemetery and along the fence that “kept in the dead,” as her father used to say. Now he rested among them.

Her tears and sorrow managed to divert her attention from the hard stares, and she focused on driving safely through town to the Wolf’s Den Bar. The bar resided in a squat building taking up most of a town block with a parking lot filling the rest. Dark windows filled with the inevitable neon signs advertised different kinds of beer, from Michelob and Coors to Fat Tire and Moose Drool. Newspaper canisters guarded the glass double doors and a smoking bin/trash can stood a few feet away for the people who were still part of the “black lung club”. The Wolf’s Den was a non-smoking bar, odd for a drinking establishment, but it’d always been that way. Still, people flocked there from several miles around, including the nearby rural towns.

Julianna parked the Camaro in the shade of a large tree daring to grow at the edge of the parking lot. Julianna appreciated it now with summer in full swing. She and her mother paused, gathering their courage to face the well-wishers.

“Ready?” Julianna asked.

Beth snorted ruefully. “Not hardly.”

“Yeah, me either.”

She pushed the door open and stood in the oven-heat of the July afternoon. Sweat poured down her back from more than just the heat.

Take a deep breath. You can do this,
Julianna thought wearily.
You’ve done this kind of thing before. You’ve smiled when you’ve wanted to snarl. You’ve laughed when you wanted to cry. You can get through anything! You’ve had a lying, cheating husband. This will be easy.

Somehow, her pep talk didn’t alleviate her worries as they walked across the parking lot. The cars from the funeral rolled slowly down Main Street, the hiss of the tires more threatening with their slow speed. She didn’t want to face anyone, didn’t want them staring, assessing, judging her. She knew there’d be questions. What are you doing these days? How was California? Didn’t you get married? Where’s your husband?

She inhaled deeply to calm herself down, sucking in the scents of hot oil on asphalt. Not only had she failed in marriage, but she’d returned to a town she’d triumphantly escaped, just to get away from a man who’d ignored her. Now she walked into his bar as if everything was fine.

But it wasn’t fine.

Her father was dead and she still had to face Jeff Lightfoot. Jeff might not have known what his rejection had done to her, but facing him still soured her stomach. Hell, none of that even covered her peculiar new problem of running four-legged for three days a month.

Telling herself sternly to relax, she pushed open the front doors of the Wolf’s Den and stepped through. Julianna gritted her teeth, preparing herself for the curious and judgmental stares she knew she’d face. The bar had never been sexy or stylish, but it had a few quirky accents that gave it flair.

The bar top was steel, covered in black lacquer with polished brass rails from Callowwood’s first fire engine. The bar stools had red vinyl cushions fraying in spots, but the brass tacks holding the fabric in place matched the rails. Yellow faux-wood panels from the 1970s constructed the stained walls, with enough holes to be reminiscent of Swiss cheese, especially around the dartboards. Old stained glass lamps hung in various places around the rooms, including over the pool tables and booths on the outside walls, while candles in their red lantern holders sat on each table in the center of the room.

The bar had changed little since she’d left, but instead of the back wall where a juke box had held court, the room opened to accommodate pool tables squatting like tortoises waiting for the days to pass them by. Today, all the tables wore black satin covers in mourning.

The place smelled like stale beer, sweat, and furniture polish, and Julianna’s heart leapt with homesickness. Everything was familiar but more pronounced, stronger. New scents of sorrow and anticipation mixed with the
eau de bar
, and she stilled her face to keep from wrinkling her nose. She shoved her shoulders back and held her head up as she walked with her mother to the bar, praying no one could hear her heart pounding.

Richard and Tawny Lightfoot worked behind the bar, preparing for the wake. Jeff’s father looked like a taller, older, more refined version of his son. He had deep brown eyes, and chestnut hair showing gray at the temples, but other than that, he hadn’t aged much in the eighteen years Julianna had been gone.

Tawny, however, had grown into a beautiful and sultry woman. Jeff’s younger sister was a couple years older than Julianna, but she looked like one of those mysterious women described in spy novels or seen in lines for nightclubs. Almost as tall as her father, her sandy blond hair and flashing green, almond-shaped eyes glittered in the bar’s lights. Sharply arching brows and a beaked nose gave her a piercing intensity, but her full lips always curled upward at the corners, making her look like she smiled even when serious. Julianna and Tawny had been acquaintances when they were younger, but the fragile relationship had ended when Julianna left.

Tawny met her eyes and jerked slightly, as if she’d seen something startling. Her delicate nostrils flared a moment as she took a deep breath in then she respectfully nodded to Julianna, as if unsure of her reception. Julianna’s step faltered a little.

Tawny’s from the richest family in Callowwood. Why is she acting as if I’m someone special?

Julianna nodded back and tried to smile. Again, surprise bloomed on the older woman’s face, but a real smile peeked out this time, and Julianna’s tension eased a little.

Other people greeted her and her mother, expressing their sorrow and sympathies as they moved toward the bar. The Cutters, who had converted the sawmill into a “fancy” restaurant, gave her mother a quick embrace but looked at Julianna warily. She felt their chill stares and tried to shrug them off, but anger curled inside her.
I can judge myself just fine, thank you!