The Alpha's Daughter (16 page)

The grizzly bear eyed the table and its contents with a
jaundiced eye. He only said one word. "No."

Jazz had a word of her own "Yes."

He folded his arms across his chest.
"No."

She folded her arms across her chest. "Yes."
She noted that he didn't walk away. She smiled inwardly and
continued, "It has to be done, Griz. You frighten small
children."

"I do not frighten children."

"You do! There were six of them in the clinic
today and four were wolver. They may not be ready to go over the
moon, but the wolf is in them and its instincts are screaming,
"Run! Grizzly Bear!" She flapped her hands and ran in place in a
parody of fear and then stopped. "The human kids were just scared
shitless."

He didn't budge. "You're exaggerating. They
were not scared shitless."

"Then what was that big brown spot on the
back of Nicky Cominski's pants? And he stank to high heaven!" Jazz
put her hands on her hips. "You can look as big and growly as you
want to keep away as many adults as you want. I don't care, but I
draw the line at the little guys. They should not have nightmares
about going to the doctor's. You could damage them for life!"

She knew damn well that Nicky's mother
brought him in because of his diarrhea, but it suited her case.
Jazz tried not to laugh. It sputtered out between her lips
anyway.

"Aw, come on, Griz. Nicky Cominski aside, you
do look a little scary in an insane kind of way. It's time to mow
away the overgrowth and let the real you shine through."

"What if the real me is uglier than homemade
sin?" he asked. "What if I grew this because my face was even more
frightening to small children?"

"Nope, doesn't work. Everyone knows
everything around here and they have seen you without the fur.
Donna says you're 'not bad' which in Donna-speak probably means
drop dead gorgeous."

"Donna thinks Harvey is drop dead gorgeous."
Griz nodded his head wisely. "Think about it."

Jazz pressed her lips together. He had a
point, but she wouldn't tell him that. Harvey was a good man and he
had to be a saint to put up with Donna and he wasn't ugly, but he
was on the far side of good looking.

"Oh well, Griz, I guess we'll just have to
shave it off and find out."

He took his seat in the kitchen chair Jazz
had set out for him and looked at her array of implements. "You
don't need all this stuff to shave," he said.

Jazz pointed to each piece in turn. "Big
scissors to chop away the worst of it, little sharp ones to trim it
close, towel to soak in hot water in the kitchen for softening the
beard, The Little Market's finest shaving cream, a razor…"

"It's pink."

"I'll buy you a masculine black one. For now,
you're stuck with one from my six pack."

"No way," Doc said and he was out of the
chair and across the room to the office door. "Don't move," he
called over his shoulder.

He was always telling her not to move. Jazz
was about to follow him and drag him back, but before she took a
step, he returned of his own accord, carrying a black case, a mug
and a short, stubby brush.

"If we're going to do this, we're going to do
it right," he said and held up his offering. "It was my father's, a
gift from my mother though I should probably say it was hers. She
was the one who used it. Every Saturday night, she'd sit my father
down to be shaved. He'd grumble and groan. She'd tell him she
wouldn't have him looking like a heathen for church on Sunday. It
fascinated me and my brothers, watching her boss him around. My
father was a hard man, but with my mother, he was soft as
butter.

"She'd never let us watch the shaving. Said
we made her nervous. It was years later when I recognized the truth
of it. That Saturday night shaving was something special between
them and she didn't want to share it."

He handed the box to Jazz and she felt like
he was handing her something more than a razor.

"I've never used it," he told her as she took
out the shining straight razor with the ivory handle, "but I've
kept it clean and sharp. Think you can use it without cutting my
throat?"

"I've never done it, but I've seen it enough
times. My father got a hot towel shave once a week, too, but it was
more of a production. You know, a show of power and wealth. He, ah,
had the wolvers who worked for him all around him while an old guy
from the pack shaved him." This keeping secrets was more difficult
than she thought.

Her father held Court while he was being
shaved. On the surface it looked casual, but the message was clear
to those brought before him. "I'm a busy, important man and you
aren't worth my precious time."

"I think I like your parents way better," she
told him. "Now let's see what's under all that hair."

Jazz combed the hair back from her grizzly's
face, trimming the split ends, shortening it just a little and
tying it back. Originally, she'd thought to convince him to let her
cut it off, but she found she liked the look of the silky waves and
thought the pony tail suited him. It was the beard that had to go.
The grizzly gripped her wrist before she could make the first
cut.

"Don't get your hopes up, Hellcat. The looks
in my family went to my older brother Charlie, skipped past me and
landed on Marsh."

Was he worried about what she might think?
She really hated not being able to see the expressions on his face.
"I'm just looking for the wolver beneath the bear, Griz. If there's
a chin under there, I'll be happy."

There was a chin, a strong, square, block of
a chin that fit perfectly into an angular jaw and a straight plane
of cheeks. Now that she had him trimmed to an uneven, but
approximate two or three day growth of beard, Jazz decided she
liked this look, too, and hated to cover it with the hot
towels.

"Tell me more about your parents, your
brothers," she said when the warm towel was in place, leaving his
very nice lips exposed and just enough nose to allow him to
breath.

"Hmm, let's see," he said, moving his lips as
little as possible. The chair was high backed and his head rested
back against it while his arms were folded comfortably across his
chest.

"My mother was soft and gentle, though she
could hold her own against us boys. She laughed a lot and the pack
loved her. My father, now that's more complicated. He was hard,
like I said, and especially with us. He loved us, but he had this
vision of what he wanted us to be and he tried to mold us to it.
Charlie had the worst of it, because he was expected to follow in
the old man's footsteps.

"Unfortunately, we had too much of our mother
in us and in spite of his best efforts, none of us turned out the
way he planned. But I think he'd be proud of the way we did turn
out. It was Marshall who ended up taking over where the old man
left off with The Rabbit Creek pack and Charles founded a pack of
his own practically right next door."

Jazz peeled the towel from his face with
shaking fingers. "Your father was the Alpha?" she asked slowly,
succeeding in keeping the apprehension from her voice.

"He was and now Marshall is and Charles is,
too." His hands went to his face and Jazz slapped them away.

"Not yet," she said as she gave the cream in
the mug one last whisk. She began to lather his face and said as
casually as she could, "So your brothers are both Alphas. What
about you? Ever wish you had a pack to rule?"

"Not me," he said and laughed a little. "That
gene must be connected to the good looks because it skipped right
over me. I was the quiet one. I wasn't tough enough for my father
and my mother would lose her patience when I helped her in the
kitchen," he laughed again. "I'd spend my time dissecting the
chickens instead of getting them gutted and plucked.

"When he wasn't fighting with my father,
Charlie was the charmer. That boy could charm the skin off a snake.
He's the kind that can make women swoon and the men don't mind.
Marshall's the guy you can rely on. He commands respect without
asking for it."

"What about you?" she asked, "What were you
like as a cub?"

"Me? I was the tall, gangly, pimple faced one
that was always tripping over stumps because my head was someplace
else. I didn't fill out until my last year of college. I liked my
solitude."

"Hold still now," she said and drew the first
stroke.

There was no more talking after that. Jazz
worked carefully with slow even strokes, rinsing the blade after
each one. Griz relaxed even more under her ministrations which
surprised her. She'd expected him to be stiff and tense with a
novice such as herself who could easily cut his face to
ribbons.

After the right side of his face was finished
and she'd cleared the space above his lip without nicking him, she
felt more comfortable and confident enough to speak while she
worked.

"I was an only child and a disappointment to
my father. For a long time, I tried to be the boy that he wanted,
but anatomy won out and by the time I was fourteen I learned to get
my attention elsewhere. He didn't seem to care about that either
until I turned sixteen and fell in love or at least what I thought
was love. My old man went ballistic, said it'd be a cold day in
Hell before he tied his family to that one. He, ah, arranged to
have the guy sent away."

What he'd done was to set the boy up to look
like a thief and judged him Outcast. There was no way to fight it
when the judge and jury was your accuser. Of course, to the
outside, it didn't look like that, but she knew. She knew because
her father told her and promised to do the same if she was ever
stupid enough to fall in love again. It was her first hint of what
was to come, but she'd missed it in her grief over the loss of her
young lover.

"After that, I knew better than to fall in
love. I thought I outsmarted the old bastard by playing fast and
loose. I quit school. I played hard. I fought hard. I partied hard.
There's a barstool with my name on it back there." She wasn't
kidding. The stool was marked 'Queenie' in gold lettering and no
one sat on it but her. "I didn't outsmart him. He was just biding
his time until he found a suitable mate for me. I didn't want a
mate. I liked my life." She rinsed the razor and shrugged. "So I
took off." It was close enough to the truth.

Griz was so quiet, Jazz thought he might be
asleep, but he opened his eyes to slits when she lifted his chin
with her finger.

"This place must seem pretty dull, no night
life, no wild parties."

"Different, but definitely not dull and
partying every night's not all it's cracked up to be. I do kind of
miss the bar fights though," she joked. "Now don't go shaking your
head, Griz. It's not a smart thing to do when someone's got a
straight razor to your throat."

When the final remnants of soap had been
washed away and his face had been massaged, under protest, with
moisturizer, Jazz stood back to survey her work.

No, he wasn't classically handsome. His jaw
was too wide, his face too square, his nose a little too large and
there were faint scars from the acne he suffered from as a
teenager. It was a hard face and she wondered if he looked like his
father. His mouth was straight and would easily frown, but she knew
he could laugh and that laugh would carry up into his eyes.

It was his eyes that kept his face from being
too plain. They, too, were large and wide set and they sparkled
with the color of brown honey. It was a face that fit with his body
and hands; sturdy and reliable and warm.

He was watching her closely. "Well? Will I
still frighten small children?"

"No," she laughed, "But you might be
attracting some older ones. I, myself, have always had a thing for
Paul Bunyan." She patted him lightly on the cheek. "It's a little
pale, but a few days in the sun will fix that. I like it," she
said, nodding her approval. "It's a good face, a kissable face in
fact."

She leaned in to demonstrate, touching his
lips softly with hers. He didn't respond, but he didn't back away
and Jazz decided she wanted more.

She tasted him more deeply and his lips moved
and he groaned and suddenly his hand was behind her head, pressing
her into him, his hungry mouth devouring hers. His other hand went
to her ass where it squeezed her cheek once and then pulled her
forward.

Jazz slid over his thighs, straddling his lap
and seating her center as close to his as two layers of jeans would
allow. He groaned again. Heat exploded as his tongue touched her
lips and she eagerly opened her mouth to his explorations. She'd
wondered what it would be like to kiss him and now she knew. It was
wonderful.

Her fingers slid over his neatly combed hair
and around to the back. She grunted in frustration when the leather
thong she'd so carefully tied now refused to release. She slid it
down the short ponytail and let it fall to the floor. Hair now
free, she ran her fingers through it, reveling at the feel of it
slipping through her fingers. How could she ever have thought it
was wiry?

Her grizzly's hands weren't idle. The hand at
her butt slid up under her shirt, its rough, warm fingers sending
tiny shivers along the smooth skin of her back. He traced the band
of her bra and ran his nail along the narrow straps. The hand
behind her head now fisted the short hair it found there, forcing
her head where he wanted it to be.

This subtle show of dominance thrilled her
and the thought flitted across her mind that she should grow her
hair longer to give him more to grip. The thought was no sooner
there and gone, than the hand left her hair, went to her side and
working in tandem with the other, lifted her shirt.

Her arms rose, but she didn't want to remove
her lips from his. They were warm and soft and she wanted to stay
where she was, devoured by this bear of a man forever. He drew back
and she followed, but the shirt was in her way and she helped him
draw it over her head in an effort to get back to that wonderful
mouth.