The Alpha's Daughter (31 page)

Griz enjoyed it so much, Jazz ended up in the
tub with him. Fortunately, it was a very big tub and Jazz began to
rethink their need for a bathroom. The midnight bath had become
another shared pleasure.

So it wasn't a surprise when Griz snarled and
cursed when the frenzied knocking began. Still dripping, he pulled
on his sweatpants and left Jazz to dry and dress in her standard
nightwear, one of his tees.

She, too, wasted no time. She'd passed the
word to Edith and Edna, knowing they would spread it throughout the
pack. If the lights were off in his office, Griz was not to be
disturbed unless it was an emergency.

Griz stopped growling when he opened the door
and Livvy Dawson tumbled into his arms. She was dirty and
breathless and sobbing uncontrollably. She was trying to tell them
something, but was almost impossible to understand. Jazz managed to
catch one all important word.

"Brad? What about Brad?"

"I think they've killed him," Livvy managed,
but the rest of what she said was swallowed by another choked
sob.

Jazz gripped the girl's shoulders and gave
her a shake, not hard enough to rattle her teeth, but enough to
startle her.

Livvy was covered in dirt and green stains.
Her knees were skinned and her palms were dirty. She'd fallen, but
Jazz wasn't worried about scrapes and bruises.

"Are you hurt," she asked. It was hard to
tell if Livvy's head shake was nerves or a negative. "Are. You.
Hurt?" Each word was accompanied by a little shake.

"No! It's Brad. It's Brad." The sobbing began
again.

"Livvy, stop it," Jazz said sharply. "If you
want to help Brad, you've got to stop your crying. Where is he? How
is he hurt?"

"I tried to help him. When he called, I went
to him. He was hurt so bad. I tried, but I couldn't hold him up and
then he said he had to hide. He told me to get help. His eyes
rolled back in his head and then he fell. I couldn't stop him. He
fell and went rolling down the ravine. I tried. I went down after
him, but I couldn't reach him. I think he's dead," she wailed and
began crying anew.

"Where? Where did he fall?" Griz asked so
fiercely, Livvy cringed.

"I don't know! Maybe about two miles back on
the road leading in," she told him, chin quivering.

"I need a landmark, Livvy, a stump, a
boulder, anything you can remember. Think. Picture it in your
head." Griz pulled on his boots and moved toward his office.

"I can't," she cried. "All I can see is Brad
falling and falling. He bounced, Doc, he bounced and then he went
over the edge. I followed him down as far as I could, but I
couldn't get to him. I called and called. It was awful."

There were dozens of ravines and drop offs
along the road to Gilead. It could take hours to search them
all.

"Brad called your cell phone, right?"

Livvy nodded.

"Maybe we can call him back and follow the
sound of the phone."

Livvy shook her head. "I tried to call for
help. No bars."

Cell phone coverage was notoriously spotty in
these parts, fading in and out depending on where you were on the
road. Jazz tried another angle.

"Where did you meet him?"

"At the sandy part of the steep curve." Livvy
hesitated and eyed the door to the office where Griz had gone to
retrieve his bag. "There's a track that goes back into the trees.
It's wide enough to pull a car in and not be seen from the road. No
one knows about it…"

"Everyone knows about it," Griz said,
returning to the room. "Lover's Lane," he said to Jazz. "It's a
place to start. Call the Alpha and Tom. Tell Tom to call Harvey and
Joey and Roger, too. We'll need his strength. They can meet me.
We'll need ropes, something to use as a stretcher." He was gone
without waiting for questions.

Livvy sat on the sofa, plowing through a box
of tissues while Jazz made the calls. The girl was frightened for
Brad and fearful of her father's reaction once he found out his
daughter had been sneaking out at night.

Jazz felt for the girl, but the consequences
would be nothing compared to losing her young lover. She left the
door open for the inevitable arrival of Ellie and Donna and sat
down next to Livvy. Arm about the girl's shoulder, she took over
the job of silently passing tissues. There was nothing she could
say that would be of any comfort.

It was only minutes before Ellie and Donna
arrived, swooping in like avenging angels, one to her daughter and
the other to the kitchen armed with a huge stoneware teapot ready
to make that panacea of all women's troubles. For once, Donna had
nothing to say.

"Oh, Mama," Livvy cried, standing and looking
both frightened and relieved. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Good mother that she was, Ellie ignored her
child's apology and enfolded Livvy in her arms, rocking her from
side to side in that motion all mothers seem to acquire with the
birth of a child.

"Shhh now, Mama's here. Daddy's gone to help
bring your boy home. If things can be made right, you know your
Daddy and Doc are the ones to do it. We'll sit here and wait and
hope for the best."

If they were surprised when Didi showed up a
few minutes later with the Mate in tow, now one showed it.

"Roger got the call and I thought it would
save time if I brought Miz Mary…" her voice trailed off, realizing
she'd just admitted where she'd been spending the night.

"Good thinking. Thanks," Jazz said, "Donna's
in the kitchen making tea. She could probably use a hand."

Miz Mary gave Didi a pat on the shoulder as
well a little push toward the kitchen. "What did I tell you," she
said to Didi and to the others, "She didn't think she'd be
welcome."

"Comfort and kindness are always welcome,"
Donna said brusquely as she pushed through the kitchen door with a
teapot in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other. "Grab those
mugs on the counter," she said to Didi. "Table or fire?"

"Table, I think," said the Mate. "Too warm
for a fire or at least that's what I keep telling these old
bones."

She led the way to the table and patted the
seat next to her for Livvy to sit. Jazz and Didi retrieved two more
chairs from the kitchen while Donna poured. When the milk and sugar
were passed, the Mate spoke to Livvy.

"You love him, don't you, Olivia Jean?"

Livvy blushed and hung her head. She nodded
once.

"How's your wolf feel about that?"

Livvy looked up at the Mate with such
desperate heartbreak in her eyes that Jazz's eyesight blurred. Didi
dabbed her eyes with her napkin.

The Mate nodded. "I thought so when I saw you
two at the frolic. I can feel it in you tonight."

"Oh, Miz Mary, she's too young," Ellie
protested.

"She is not and you damn well know it," Donna
said bluntly. "I told you no good would come from that young bunch
at the frolic," she said to Jazz.

"Hah! You're one to talk," Ellie said
heatedly, a mother in defense of her cub. She turned to the others.
"I was just a little bitty thing minding my own business watching
the dancing at the frolic. All of a sudden, this one," she pointed
to her sister, "digs her claws into my shoulder so hard I thought
her fingers were gonna meet at the bone.

"That's my mate, she says, starin' at this
raggedy boy across the room. We used to hold the dancing in the
church hall," she added as an aside to Jazz. "Scared me so bad, I
started to cry and went off running to Mama. Daddy was fit to be
tied."

All eyes turned to Donna who harrumphed at
the attention and took a sip of tea. "It wasn't that bad," she said
when she put the cup down. Her face was pink and she was clearly
flustered.

"Not that bad? Daddy threatened to tie you to
the bedpost if you didn't quit sneaking off."

"How old were you?" Livvy asked. It was
obvious she hadn't heard the story before.

Jazz glanced at Miz Mary who smiled and
winked. The cunning old she-wolf knew where her questions would
lead and had used them to take Livvy's mind off her troubles.

"I was eighteen when I mated Harvey," Donna
said curtly as if that was all that needed to be said.

Jazz thought the story was over and almost
lost her sip of tea when Ellie spoke again.

"Longest four years of my life." Ellie rolled
her eyes heavenward.

"You were fourteen?" Livvy gasped.

"It wasn't like your mother makes it sound,"
Donna said defensively.

Her sister snorted. "It was worse, much
worse."

"Why don't we let Donna tell the story," the
Mate said. She cocked her head and smiled, waiting for Donna to
begin.

"Oh, all right," Donna huffed. "Harvey's
folks weren't from around these parts. They were living with his
father's pack, but the pack was going through some troubles they
wanted no part of. Harvey's Mama came from Oregon and that's where
they were headed. They stopped over here hoping to run with us
since it was Hunter's Moon and his Mama was wanting the comfort of
women.

"I had just gone over the moon for the first
time the month before with the help of the Alpha, of course." She
nodded at the Mate who nodded back. "I was so proud to be going
over by myself. I was watching the dancing and hoping some boy, any
boy, would ask me to dance now that I was fully grown, when I
looked up and saw the prettiest man I'd ever seen. He was not
raggedy," she said with a glare at her sister.

"He was," Ellie mouthed to the rest of the
group.

"He looked up and our eyes locked and I
thought my wolf was gonna claw her way right outta my chest.
Tattletale here went crying to Mama and Daddy wasn't happy, but
Mama said I was too young and it was just puppy love brought on by
my first time going over the moon.

"Well," Donna said, warming to her tale, "It
wasn't puppy love at all. We ran that night and I was supposed to
stay with the older women who didn't run so far or fast, but I felt
his wolf callin' to mine and I ran off to find him. We ran all
night 'till the moon fell and if he'd have asked, I'd have kept on
runnin' with him to Kingdom come. Same thing happened the next
night and then the next day, he and his folks were gone."

Donna took a sip of tea and looked away for a
moment. She sniffed before she looked back. "I cried so hard at the
loss, I made myself sick. I was ready to run off and find him, I
wanted him so bad."

"Which would have been pretty tough
considering she forgot to ask his name," Ellie snickered.

"I did," Donna admitted with a laugh. "I was
that far gone."

"But he came back, didn't he?"

Livvy said it as if she didn't know the end
of the story, but then again, Jazz thought, it was hard to picture
Harvey and Donna as Romeo and Juliet.

"Yes he did and his name was Harvey." Donna
stuck out her tongue at her sister. "He was eighteen, old enough to
make up his own mind and he came back to see the Alpha and ask to
be a member of Gilead."

"I liked that boy," Miz Mary added. "I liked
him right away. He told the Alpha that he'd met his mate, but she
was too young to take away and he figured while he was waiting for
her he could get his house in order so he could offer her a decent
home when she was old enough to set up housekeeping."

"And he did," Donna concluded. "He made me
finish school and got after me if I let my grades fall."

"He didn't stop her from sneaking out at
night to meet him, though. She threatened to burn my butt if I
told. We both got our butts burned when Daddy found out, her for
sneaking out and me for not telling." Ellie sat back with her arms
crossed and a pout on her face.

It was Donna's turn to laugh. "Oh, boo-hoo.
You had it easy. You had my house to sneak off from when Tom came
sniffing around."

"Donna!" There was warning in the word and
everyone knew this was something Ellie didn't think her daughter
should hear.

"And that's brings us back around to you,
Olivia Jean," the Mate said, giving the girl a meaningful look.
"You're full grown in body, but you still got some growing to do.
If that boy's the man you think he is, he'll want the same for you
as Harvey did for Donna and your Daddy did for your Mama. Your
Daddy claims you're smart as a whip and college bound. This pack is
going to need folks with learnin' if it's gonna grow and prosper.
You keep that in mind. I want your promise that you won't go
running off and doing something foolish that both you and the
pack'll regret later on."

Livvy nodded. "I promise," she said and then
looked so stricken Jazz knew she'd forgotten about where her young
man was.

The Mate patted her hand. "Don't you worry
now. The Alpha says your fella is beaten and bloodied, but he's
alive. Doc got to him in time and they're bringing him here."

Battered and bloodied was probably a good description of how
Brad looked before he tumbled down a three hundred foot embankment.
Even after Griz had done enough work to thwart death, the man
looked like he'd been run over and dragged behind his own tow
truck.

Livvy wanted to stay, but Griz threw her out
along with everyone else saying Brad needed sleep and not a bunch
of females hovering over him. At Jazz's insistence, the girl was
allowed a few minutes alone with the young man while a foldaway bed
was set up for his use. The dining room that became a bedroom that
became a study was now a bedroom again. The sun was rising before
Jazz had a moment alone with Griz.

"Something's wrong," she said while Griz
stripped his mud caked clothes off and stepped into the now cold
tub. She'd offered to refill the bath, but Griz refused saying he
was too tired to give a damn about water temperature.

"That boy was beaten and I don't mean in a
fight," he said as he sluiced himself off. "He was methodically
beaten to within an inch of his life. At least two people held him
while he was beaten by another. They didn't use their fists either.
They were out to kill that boy."