Wolf Tracker (16 page)

“You’ve finally found me,” he growled, loosening the bandana around his neck. “I’ve been waitin’ for you. Get off that horse, woman, and lose the clothes.”

That command should have terrified her. Somehow it didn’t. In the strange way of dreams, she went from being in the saddle one moment to naked on a bed the next with no steps in between. Tracker, still fully clothed right down to the hat and gunbelt, used his bandana to tie her hands together and fasten them to the headboard. In real life that wouldn’t have made her body flush with desire, but dream Tami was clenching her inner muscles in anticipation of what was to come.

“Open your legs,” he ordered. “I wanna see you.”

Tami opened her thighs eagerly for Tracker’s eyes.

“Pretty,” he said, skimming a finger through her wet pubic hair. “Mine. No one else is ever gonna touch you. Only my hands and my lips will know your secret places.”

Her secret places, like the one between her legs, throbbed with need. His fingers were magical as he played her body. He made love to her breasts with his fingers and his mouth before he moved lower, to the place she was dying for him to touch. When his long finger invaded her, she cried out her pleasure. In only a minute, her body trembled on the edge of orgasm.

What a rotten time to wake up. Even the frigid temperature in her bedroom couldn’t erase the ghostly feeling of scarred fingers stroking between her legs and pinching her nipples. It both embarrassed her and gratified her. If she could still feel sexual desire, then she must be recovering, right? At her next session with Dixie and Jodi, she mentioned the dream, without saying who the man was.

“That’s normal,” Dixie assured her.

“So, is this like getting bucked off a horse? Should I have gotten back on right away?”

Dixie smiled. “Do you mean, should you have had sex again right away to get over the fear? It’s different for every woman. For some women, making love with someone they love and trust can help them deal with the trauma. Some women take the unhealthier approach of having sex with every partner they can. The important thing is to build up your self-esteem. Our society and the perpetrators themselves have convinced many rape victims they are somehow at fault for the attack. That is simply not true.”

The best thing about talking to Jodi and Dixie was how non-judgmental they were. In fact, all the women at the Plane Women’s House were non-judgmental and supportive. Tami wasn’t sure how much they knew about what had happened to her, but she suspected very little. A lot of the women were seeing the counselors. If Jodi and Dixie had been charging for their services they would have been raking in the money. Instead, they had been excused from the household chores. Nearly all the crash survivors were dealing with grief and loss. Maybe that’s what they thought she was being counseled for. Tami knew she had a long way to go before she would be completely over what had happened to her in Greasy Butte, but Tami was pleased Dixie and Jodi had helped her through the fear.

Tami hated being afraid. She was never afraid of anything. No, that wasn’t true. She had a healthy fear of things that deserved fear, like angry mother bears, drunk drivers, and forest fires. But until the rapes in Greasy Butte, fear had never controlled her. She owed Dixie and Jodi a huge debt of gratitude. She had given them a pair of the rugs she had braided, but that was a small thing compared to what they had done for her.

Not long after the morning Tami had woken with her body on fire for Tracker, Taye came into Kearney with a dozen of his Pack to escort Tami back to the den. He waited downstairs, talking to Faron Paulson and Stag, while she quickly packed her few belongings and said good-bye to the friends she’d made among the women.

Taye’s smile was accompanied by dimples when he said, “Ready, cousin? Wrap your scarf around your face; the wind has picked up and we’ll be walking right into it.”

As she walked through the snow that the men in front of her trampled into a bumpy path, Tami wondered why Taye called her cousin. He called the other women at the den cousin, but they were all married to his cousins. Her shoulders shrugged inside the sheepskin-lined coat Tracker had taken from the body of a man he’d killed to protect her. Taye was welcome to call her cousin if he wanted. There were worse things to be called. Like Mrs. Dickinson. She was glad to be getting away from Dick. She was pretty sure Dick wouldn’t be able to get into the den to visit her. Snake, walking close beside her in his wolf form, knew how she felt about Dick.

Carla seemed genuinely delighted to see her when she came into the den. Right by the front door, in a room which had probably been the motel lobby fifty years ago, was a rack with winter coats hanging from it. Rose hurried to help Tami take off her coat and shake the snow off it. “Ew!” the teenager said. “Is that blood on the collar?”

Snake in wolf form shook the snow from his coat and changed to a naked man. He grabbed Tami’s arms to look her over carefully. “You’re not hurt,” he decided with relief.

Tami felt relief, too, that being held immobile by a naked man didn’t scare her. “No, the blood’s old. It’s not mine.”

“You need a new coat,” Carla decided.

Snake perked up. “There’s the coat we made for Glory that was too small,” he suggested eagerly.

“Good idea,” said Carla. “Go get dressed, Snake. Come sit by the fire, Tami. Renee and Marissa have been experimenting with baking for Christmas. You’ll have to give them your opinion.”

From the small lobby they passed into a hallway that had doors opening off of it. On the right was the cafeteria with long tables, and on the other side was a large room with a big fireplace. She remembered those rooms from her first visit to the den.

Tami was given Glory’s old room next to the Grandmother and Rose. She was glad for a little privacy while she changed her socks to warm dry ones and unpacked her few changes of clothing and rope-making supplies. The room was homey, but Tami didn’t feel a sense of home at the den. Well, she hadn’t felt like the Plane Women’s House was home, either. She didn’t know where she belonged. But she was here now, made welcome as the guest of a werewolf pack. What was daily life in a werewolf pack like?

After a few days, she decided it was a cross between a frat house and a military base. Most of the wolves were young. Taye was probably in his mid-twenties, and a lot of the Pack were his age or younger. They horsed around like kids in the snow until they turned on a dime into deadly predators at the faintest whiff of a stranger.

Tami found she didn’t flinch when she passed one of Taye’s Pack walking about mostly naked. Even seeing a whole troop of them come toward her like a living wall of brown-skinned muscle didn’t cause even a twinge of panic. But the day after she came to live with them, they all began wearing shirts when inside the den. Snake had told her the wolves didn’t feel the cold the way humans did, but maybe even they were cold now the temperature dropped to single digits at night. Yet they stripped to go outside. Strange.

Christmas was only a few days away, but the holiday was very different here from what it had been in 2014. At first Tami thought it was because werewolves didn’t celebrate Christmas. Did the Lakota celebrate Christmas? Taye explained the Grandmother and the other women of the Clan had started the custom years ago. There was no gift giving, at least not on the scale there had been in the Times Before. Small homemade gifts were exchanged. Tami had traded two of the ropes she had made to get a few things for herself and the women at the den, but saved another two for further trading. She decided to give Tracker one of them. Would Tracker be stopping by anytime soon?

She asked that question at supper one night. She and all the women sat at the long table at the head of the dining hall with Taye. Taye shrugged. “I think he’ll be coming for Christmas. He usually doesn’t.” The Alpha of the Pack looked like he was trying to hide a smile. “But this year, I’m sure he’ll be here.”

There was a fragrant pine tree in the rec room, decorated with only popcorn strings and a few painted wooden ornaments, and plans for a big dinner, but no piles of presents under the branches. Carla spent the evenings teaching the wolves Christmas carols, which made Tami want to laugh. Something about werewolves who could cheerfully shred any man who threatened the women under their protection singing “Santa Baby” tickled her. But when Rose challenged her, Tami joined her alto to the enthusiastic voices. Taye firmly vetoed Carla’s suggestion that they go into Kearney to carol the people who lived there. Carla accepted that philosophically.

Christmas Eve came with leaden skies that promised more snow. Renee, her face almost entirely healed, spent most of her time in the shed attached to the kitchen, plucking and preparing the geese the wolves had brought in for Christmas dinner. Marissa, Rose, and the Grandmother baked sugar cookies, and apple and pumpkin pies. Cinnamon and nutmeg, so expensive and hard to obtain in this world without grocery stores and world-wide trade goods shipped by cargo plane, were used sparingly in the pies, but the kitchen smelled heavenly just the same. The small bag of dried figs that Taye had traded a large bundle of furs for, just because Carla had mentioned in passing that figgy pudding was her favorite Christmas food, were waiting in the cupboard. The wolves were fascinated by all the baking. Every one of them seemed to have a sweet tooth, and Rose had to chase them out of the kitchen brandishing a spoon like a weapon to keep them from devouring the cookies ahead of time. Jelly said tearfully he hadn’t had cookies since he was a baby. Rose didn’t soften. Jelly called her mean. Rose whacked him on the shoulder with her spoon, driving him out. Tami sat on a stool in the kitchen, peeling bushels of apples, and tried not to laugh at the kids’ play. It really felt like Christmas.

Renee was like a general, marshalling her troops for battle. She made a schedule of what would be cooked when. The Pack had invited quite a few guests for Christmas dinner, and Renee wanted everything to be ready to be served at the proper time. From what Carla said, the Pack didn’t often invite outsiders to meals. It was one of the first times they would have non-Pack guests, although all of the guests were somehow connected to the Pack. Marissa’s son Faron Paulson had been invited, as had Taye’s cousin Ellie, her fiancé, her fiancé’s brother, and her cousin Doug. Ellie’s grandfather had sent his regrets, saying a long walk in the cold was too much for him. Eddie and Lisa Madison had been invited but also sent their regrets. Taye said they might have a few members of the Clan come, too. Going by the avid interest of the wolves in the sweet things, Tami decided they would need more pies, so she peeled and sliced more apples.

In the afternoon, Tami escaped the kitchen to walk through the falling snow in the yard. This must be what Christmas had been like before commercial greed had gotten hold of it: just families spending time together, baking and singing and planning special treats for dinner. Jelly and a couple of the other young wolves raced around on four paws in the snow, chased by men on two legs, all of them yipping, shouting, and laughing. Tami smiled while watching them. Werewolves really weren’t so scary.

At least, that’s what she thought before she became aware of a commotion around the corner of the den, near the gate in the fence. Curious, she walked around to the front of the motel to see what was going on. The men and wolves who had been playing in the snow crowded around her, laughter replaced by ferocious growls.

There were three of Taye’s men on the inside of the fence, facing about a dozen on the outside. Most of the men outside were mounted on horses, and standing on foot at the gate was Richard Dickinson. Tami’s feet slowed as her heart sank. What did Dick-Dick want?

He saw her and raised his voice. “Miss Casper! I’ve come to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

Tami had an urge to turn around and go back inside. But that would be rude after he rode fifteen miles to see her. She made herself walk toward the gate with a polite smile. One of the wolves walked with his furry shoulder pressed so close to her she almost stumbled. She glanced down at him, trying to decide if she could figure out which of the gray wolves this gray wolf was. Snake. She was sure it was Snake. On her other side one of the two-legged wolves walked, stark naked. She was pleased that aside from a jolt of surprise, his nakedness didn’t bother her. The snarl on his face did bother her. She tried to wave at the wolves to back off, but they ignored her, walking right up to the fence and making their aggression known. Taye and Des were out, but Taye’s other second-in-command, Jay, was there, looking with cold suspicion at the men outside the gate.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Dickinson,” she said formally. “Merry Christmas.”

“Tami,” he said with pleasure. “It’s nice to see you. I’ve come to invite you to join myself, my mother, and my brother for Christmas dinner tomorrow. It would be wonderful for you to meet them.”

“No,” said Jay flatly.

Tami stared at him. She didn’t want to go, but wasn’t that her decision to make? “Thanks for the invitation, but we have plans here,” she said, still trying to be polite.

“I’d be honored to join you for dinner here,” Dick offered.

An entire chorus of growls rose and Snake lunged for the fence. Jay spoke in a voice that dripped ice. “You’re not welcome. Go home.”

How did Dick manage to ignore that? “Tami, I’d like to speak to you privately for a minute,” he said with cool assurance.

“No,” said Jay again, voice edging toward a growl.

Dick was probably going to propose again. Tami thought the only thing keeping Dick from being torn apart by sharp wolf teeth was the fence. If the gate were opened, there would be nothing to protect him from the wolves. “Jay, could you and the others step back just a couple of feet so I can have a few words with Mr. Dickinson?”

Jay thought about it, looking at the locked gate separating them, his expression suggesting he’d like to refuse. But he waved at the others, took three precise steps back, folded his arms over his bare chest and waited.

Tami pretended she didn’t have a feral audience who could probably hear every word she said. “Dick, I’ve tried to be polite, but now I’m going to be very, very plain. I am not going to marry you. I don’t like you that way. I don’t like the way you keep touching me whenever you get a chance. It makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like the way you treat your horses, either.” Tami paused to draw a breath, pleased with her calm, steady tone. “And if you keep asking me to marry you, I am going to be as rude as I need to be to get you to stop.”