The Alpha's Daughter (7 page)

He continued walking past her, grabbed
another shirt from the pile on the table and tossed it to her. This
one was a thermal like the one he wore.

"Get dressed," he said and looked back at the
shrinking pile. "Ellie does my laundry once a week. At this rate,
she's going to have to do it every other day. You're an expensive
guest, Hellcat."

"It wasn't my fault," she began.

"Don't want to hear it," he said as he passed
into the kitchen.

"Can I move now?" she called after him just
to be perverse. She didn't wait for an answer, but followed him
into the kitchen with the shirt dangling from her finger. "I can't
get dressed. I'm all muddy. I need a shower."

"No shower. Bathtub's on the back porch. I'll
get it down for you while you heat the water."

"Excuse me?"

He shrugged. "It's the best I can do. It's
either that or the kitchen sink."

"You expect me to bathe outside with the
pigs." Jazz hoped her look conveyed everything she thought of him
and this backwoods hole.

Her grizzly laughed, actually laughed. His
hand shot out and before she could duck, he plucked a wad of mud
from her hair and held it out to her in the palm of his hand.

"I doubt the pigs'll mind," he said. "Now, do
you want me to get the tub or make you a bed out by the sty?"

"I hate you," she spat.

"I'm not feeling real partial to you, either,
but that doesn't answer my question." He waited a moment and when
she continued to glare, but didn't answer, he nodded. "I get the
tub. You get the water. There are two big pots in the pantry, two
more down there," he pointed to the cupboard next to the sink,
"Unless you moved them when you rearranged my kitchen."

Jazz rolled her eyes. "I cleaned the shithole
you call a kitchen, you mean."

"Someday, Hellcat, someone's going to come
along and clean that filthy mouth of yours. You got no call to name
my kitchen a shithole, hellhole maybe, but not a shithole."

Jazz watched him go out the door. Did he just
make a joke? That was two in less than five minutes, though
comparing her to the pigs wasn't all that funny.

She found the pots and filled them with water
and set them to boil, then turned on the old oven for the roast
that still sat on the counter. At least the kitchen would be
warm.

"I'm holding you responsible, Goodman, you
responsible!"

"Thought you might, Roger. I brought her
here. I accept full responsibility."

"That's not enough, not enough, I say. I want
her out here. Now. She needs to pay and I'm here to see that she
does. Pack Law says…"

"That it's the Alpha's job to mete out
punishment, not ours and if Ellie chooses to go to the Alpha with
this, so be it."

"I'm here on her behalf. I'm her cousin and I
took the day off work to see that justice is done. Justice must be
done."

"Roger, half the wolvers in this town are
your cousins; first, second, third and several times removed and
it's a shame you took off work for something that's none of your
concern. If Ellie needs someone to look out for her, and she
doesn't, she's got Tom."

"Tom? Tom? That no-account? Bah! It's a
wonder his head don't echo with all that wind passing between his
ears. As a leader in this community, it's my responsibility
to…"

"To bring before the Alpha what is the
Alpha's business. Now, take your friends and go home. You've said
your piece and I've said mine. We're done."

Jazz, once again eavesdropping from the
cracked kitchen door, could hear everything that was said, but
couldn't see who the other speaker was. Unlike with the twins, the
grizzly had himself firmly planted in the doorway. He sounded
reasonable enough, but there was an edge to his voice that a wise
wolver would pay attention to. Roger was not a wise wolver.

"I've come to get the girl and I mean to take
her. I mean to take her now."

Her grizzly crossed his arms over his chest
and spread his feet a little wider in the doorway, a not-so-jolly
giant. He straightened his shoulders and seemed to expand. Only
powerful alphas could do that, make themselves seem larger than
life and she wished she could see the looks on the faces of the men
outside the door.

"How you reckon to do that, Roger? Ben?
Rookwood? Clarence? You fellas figuring to help? No?" He shook his
shaggy head. "Didn't think so. Go on home now. If the Alpha wants
to get involved, he'll do it in his own good time and not in yours
or mine." He stepped back and closed the door.

Jazz hurried to the tub, stripped off her
underwear and stepped in. Her skin sizzled with the heat of the
water, but it felt good once her body adjusted to it. She thought
she'd feel exposed out here on the porch, but Doc had placed the
long tin tub in the corner where it was sheltered from wind and
view by one wall of the house. The other side of the porch was
blocked by a growth of shrubs which were already budding out in
green. The back yard, half taken up by pigsty, was bordered by
thick woods which, she supposed, would provide cover for anyone who
chose to peep, but the screens were heavy and dark and she doubted
they'd have a very clear view.

She had just started shaving her second leg,
when she heard the back door open. She stopped, leg high in the
air, the razor's first clean stripe drawn up to her knee. He didn't
come any closer, just stood in the door, so she continued her
attentions to her leg.

"Something I can do for you?" She asked
innocently, stroking the blade up her leg in a languid caress. Her
back was to him and the high rim of the tub blocked his view of all
but the leg.

There was a moment's hesitation before he
cleared his throat. "We need to have a little conversation."

"I'm listening," she said sweetly, the razor
continuing its journey. She was enjoying his discomfort, safe in
the knowledge that he wouldn't do anything about it.

There was another moment's pause. "Can you
stop that?" His voice, if possible had grown a little deeper.

"No. There are certain things a girl has to
do and this water is getting colder by the minute." She drew
another razor stripe up her leg. "Talk now or talk when I'm
finished. Your choice."

He cleared his throat again. "I don't think
it's a good idea for you to stay here."

"I wasn't planning on moving in. I want to be
out of here as much as you want me gone and if you've got any ideas
on how to go about it, I'm more than willing to listen." She
continued to shave her leg, moving higher up her thigh.

"No, I don't have any ideas. What you need is
money and in case you haven't noticed, there isn't much of that
around here. I haven't had much time to think. Your being here
complicates things and I don't want or need any complications in my
life. I'll find another place for you to stay until we figure
things out."

"Is there anyone else who would take me
in?"

"After this morning, I doubt it. We'll see
what the Alpha has to say."

Jazz rinsed her razor and put it on the seat
of the chair she was using to hold the things she needed for her
bath. No stranger should be allowed into the pack confines without
the Alpha's approval. Spending one night while passing through was
one thing. Moving in, especially after the overheard conversation,
was another.

Her experience with pack Alphas was limited
to those who occasionally stopped by to meet with her father, but
that and her own father's judgments were enough to teach her that
she wanted as little as possible to do with the Alpha of any
pack.

"Do we have to see the Alpha?" she asked,
though even as she asked it, she knew the answer.

"Yes, after the visitors who were just at my
door, I'm pretty sure we do." There was a loud knocking at the door
and he sighed. "What now?"

Jazz quickly washed her hair while he was
gone and stepped from the tub wrapping the towel around her as she
did. She entered the kitchen just as he came back through the other
door, holding a pair of folded jeans in his hand.

"These are Matt Dawson's. His mother, Ellie,
sent them over. She thought they might fit." He held them out to
Jazz.

"Ellie Dawson? You mean the woman I…?"

"Yeah, the woman whose nose you broke."

"Oh my god, that's so sweet of her. Him,
too." Most wolvers bested in a challenge weren't so generous.

"Ellie? Yeah. Matt? I wouldn't be too sure,"
he said as he left the room. "He's probably telling all his buddies
about how you were in his pants."

Jazz sputtered a laugh. "You know, you can be
kind of funny," she called after him.

"I might have been… if I'd been joking," he
called back. "Hurry it up. I want my lunch and you've been summoned
before the Alpha this afternoon at three."

"Oh." The smile left her face. "Will you be
going with me?"

"Guess I better unless I want to spend the
rest of my evening fixing broken bones. Somebody's got to control
your mayhem."

That made her smile again as she dressed in
her undies and giant shirt and slid into the borrowed jeans.

She wouldn't admit it to anyone but herself.
As aggravating as the man could be, she wanted to stay here with
her grizzly. He made her feel safe among these strangers, but she
could understand why he would want her gone. There was undoubtedly
a woman wolver somewhere out there with her snout out of joint
because of the strange woman living in his home.

***

Jazz chose to wear her tank top under her
jacket for her meeting with the Alpha. The jeans fit pretty well;
tight across her hips and rear, loose along the leg. The clingy
tank looked much better with them than Doc's baggy shirt.

The big ol' bear tapped his foot impatiently
while she carefully applied her make-up though they weren't even
close to being late.

"Don't see why you have to put all that goop
on your face," he complained. "It's a waste of time. You'll
probably get yourself into more trouble and get it smeared all over
again."

She stuck out her tongue at him and continued
to apply the eyeliner, using the tiny compact mirror. "I'd feel
naked without it," she said and started in on the first coat of
mascara.

He threw up his hands in exasperation.
"You've been half naked since you got here. I should think you'd be
used to it by now. Can you hurry it up? I don't want to be
late."

"I could do this a lot faster if you'd stop
pestering me. How far away is it? I thought you said we had plenty
of time." She applied her lipstick and went back to applying a
third coat of mascara.

"That was when we were cleaning up the
kitchen after lunch, before I knew it would take you so long to
'put your face on'," he said snidely. "I didn't even know what that
meant."

"There," she said, taking a last look in the
tiny mirror. She turned to him. "How do I look?"

"Fine, if you were going to a Halloween
party. Come on, let's get going."

He held the door for her but once they were
on the road, he set off with a ground eating stride that made it
impossible for her to keep up. She jogged after him. The rain had
stopped but everything was soaked and if they kept up this pace,
she would be spattered with mud before she got there. She didn't
want to meet this Alpha at all, but she sure as hell didn't want to
meet him covered in mud. She ran the few steps it would take her to
capture his hand.

"Wait," she huffed as she tugged on his hand,
"this isn't a race. Slow down." He slowed. "Are you that worried
about seeing the Alpha?" He'd sworn up and down this was no big
deal.

"Not the Alpha I'm worried about. It's the
people who've gotten there before us and what they're filling his
head with. He doesn't need to be bothered with this. We could've
worked it out without him."

That made her worry. She'd seen her father
dole out some pretty harsh punishments just because he was pissed
off that someone 'bothered' him. There was no rulebook and her
father's word was law. She wasn't sure what she'd done that was so
wrong, but a pissed off Alpha was never a good thing.

She might have enjoyed the walk if she wasn't
so worried about where it would end. The trees were just beginning
to leaf out and she saw now, as she hadn't while driving, that each
tree had its own tint of yellow, pink or red among the shades of
green. Their bows hung over the narrow dirt and gravel road and she
imagined what it would be like to walk the darkened tunnel of shade
when the heat of summer reached its peak. She pointed to several
monstrously tall ones whose leaves were fully formed, crispy, brown
and dead.

"What killed those trees," she asked,
thinking it a shame to lose such majestic specimens. She'd lived
her life in the desert where trees such as this were a rarity
planted by man and those few that grew wild were stunted and
twisted by the wind.

"They're not dead. They're oaks. They're the
last to bud and they keep their old leaves until the new ones push
them off," Doc told her without looking to where she was pointing.
"They're like the people here. They don't like change. They cling
to the past even though it's dead and gone."

"But the new forces the old to fall
away."

"For the trees maybe. Not for the pack.
They'll cling to the old until they're as dry and dead as those
leaves." Doc looked off into the woods, not at the trees, but at
something only he could see.

"Why do you stay then?"

He was a doctor and that, among wolvers, made
him as rare as an oak tree in the desert. He could live anywhere
with any pack. Even her father's pack would gladly accept him and
pay him well to stay.

Doc shrugged at her question. "They need me,"
he said simply.

Jazz didn't need a tour guide to tell her
they'd arrived. There were about thirty people standing in the yard
of a little one story house that didn't look much better than the
one she was staying in. It didn't list to the side and its big
front porch looked firm, but the paint was peeling and one faded
gray shutter hung cockeyed from a single rusty hinge.