Wolf Tracker (25 page)

Carla settled with Rose and the Grandmother in front of the fire in the rec room. She beckoned Tami to join them. Rose was frowning at a lopsided mitten she was trying to knit out of green yarn while Carla strummed her guitar softly and the old lady dozed.

Tami found herself dozing, too. The fire was warm and she found herself nodding off from time to time. Since no one was saying anything, Tami let her mind wander back to Tracker. She thought they could have a good relationship. They didn’t really know one another yet, but what she knew, she liked. At least, she liked the way he had treated her last night. No one who could be so tender with a frightened woman could be all bad. Compared to the men in Greasy Butte, he was a prince. Really, a prince. She knew he could be lethal. He told her he’d killed Dwight and Steve, and she had seen him kill four others herself when he had finally caught up with her. So she knew he was a killer. But he had been so careful with her, so gentle. And he really seemed to care for her feelings. Maybe it wasn’t love. But, like she’d told him, it was a good start.

Carla lifted her head from her guitar to smile at her. “Are you doing okay? You’re quiet.”

“Just thinking.”

“About?” asked Carla leadingly.

Tami shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Just life. Being married to a guy I barely know.”

Rose’s head came up but she kept on knitting silently, just listening to the conversation.

“How do you feel about Tracker?” Carla asked hesitantly. “Is it okay for you?”

“If you’re asking about the sex, it’s fine.” Tami cleared her throat self-consciously. “Jelly asked about it, too, so I guess it’s a hot topic.”

Carla smiled. “Believe it or not, these wolves are a bunch of gossips. They say it’s only about things that could affect the Pack, but they’re always sticking their noses into everything.”

The Grandmother snorted, coming out of her doze fully alert. “Yes, they do like to talk. But I’m not sure you’d call it gossip, exactly. They really do care about each other, so they want to know what’s happening and how it’s affecting their Pack. That’s not gossip. Gossip is hurtful. Being aware is caring. See the difference?”

Tami remembered Jelly asking her about how her wedding night had gone. Maybe the old lady had a point. “I guess.”

“I don’t know,” Carla said doubtfully. “The first time Taye and I made love we had just about every wolf under the age of eighteen out in the hall, listening. Taye thinks I don’t know, but I grew up with four brothers. Besides, Jelly spilled the beans a few weeks later.” She smiled. “That was just plain curiosity.”

Rose’s eyes rounded and the knitting dropped to her lap. “Sky, too?”

Carla nodded. The grandmother laughed. “Since none of the boys have any idea about sex, can you blame them? It’s not like the Times Before here, you know. We don’t have girlie magazines or raunchy television, so anything the boys want to know about they have to ask or find out for themselves. If they’d been with the Clan, they might have stumbled on their parents or cousins making love at some point. But here at the Pack’s den there were no couples at all until Taye mated Carla.”

Tami cringed at the idea of dozens of men growing up with no knowledge of sex. Amazing, really, that they had turned out so sweet. Werewolves, sweet? Maybe that wasn’t the right word. Respectful. That was a better word. What if they had grown up back in Denver? They would have seen things on television. Even commercials had half naked women on them. Late-night television would have given them a pretty clear idea of sex, or they would have seen some porn on the internet. But since they’d had no exposure to porn, they were curious, but respectful.

Tami thought about it. No, it couldn’t be only that. Leach had grown up here, too, and he hadn’t been respectful or kind. The difference between the way the Pack treated her was a sharp contrast to the way the Greasy Butte men had treated her. The men in Kearney had been respectful to the women at the Plane Women’s House. Of course, having everyone know the Pack were keeping an eye on them may have something to do with it.

“Well, they shouldn’t,” said Rose primly. “It’s nosy and rude.”

“Boys will be boys, even if they’re wolves,” yawned the Grandmother. “I think I’ll go lie down. You girls have fun tearing your men to shreds.”

Tami didn’t feel any need to tear Tracker to shreds. She was going to have a different sort of life here, and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Tracker didn’t have an office job. In fact, he didn’t have a job at all. Brad had become so focused on his career he had lost sight of her. That wouldn’t happen with Tracker. He made her feel like she was the only woman in the world. He seemed to genuinely care about her. She’d take that any day, even if she had to live on horseback eight months out of the year.

Rose interrupted the silence with a very quiet question. “Um … I was wondering. Um.” She had to clear her throat. “Does it hurt?”

“What?”

Rose looked around the empty rec room uncomfortably. “You know. Sex. Does it?”

Tami exchanged a quick look with Carla. “Well, it’s not supposed to. The first couple times weren’t the best for me.” She tried to remember what it had been like the first time she and Brad experimented with sex while his parents were out. “A little bit, right at first. But after the first time? No.”

Carla nodded. “No. Why are you asking?” Her hand tightened on the frets of her guitar. “Did someone—”

“No!” Rose blushed at her raised voice, and lowered it. “No, I was just wondering. My mom talked to me about it, but I’ve barely dated. I was just wondering,” she repeated.

“Good.” Carla relaxed a bit. “I don’t even want to imagine what Taye would do to anyone who flirted with you. Much less anything more.”

“Nobody would ever do that.” There was a hint of bitterness in Rose’s voice. “Everyone knows what happened that time in Kearney when Sky tried to murder that man who sat beside me.”

Tami asked, “Who’s Sky?”

There was no mistaking the bitterness in Rose’s voice now. “He’s Taye’s cousin. He said his wolf has chosen me for his mate. Then he left to go live in Omaha.”

“Oh.” Rose was pretty young. “How old was this guy?”

Carla answered firmly. “Sky is about a year older than Rose. He’ll probably be back at the end of next summer.”

Rose’s face was mutinous when she put her attention fiercely back on her knitting. A yawn surprised Tami. Carla caught it and yawned, too. The Lupa stood up and put her guitar in its case.

“I’m going to lie down for a nap,” she announced.

Tami got up. “I think I will, too.”

Glowering, Rose muttered almost inaudibly, “That’s what happens when you stay up all night.”

Tami waited to exchange a look with Carla until they were out of the rec room. Then the two new brides looked at each other and giggled. “She’s been talking to Jelly, hasn’t she?” Tami choked.

“Probably. I think Taye sent him with Stag and the priest just so we’d get some peace from his grumbling.”

Tami stopped at her door. “Oh, well. He’ll change his tune in a couple years, when he meets the right girl.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of!” Carla made a face and disappeared into her room.

* * * *

Tami fell so soundly asleep she felt groggy when the howls of wolves woke her. The gap in the curtains let in a little light, so it was probably late afternoon. The escort must be coming back from Kearney. They always howled a greeting to the guards at the fence. The knowledge Tracker would be back in a little while made her smile. She was looking forward to…

But her thoughts turned away from lovemaking with Tracker as she listened to the wolves. Those howls weren’t the usual ones that announced approaching wolves. Tami cocked her head. They sounded frenzied, the way the dogs on her ranch sounded when a stranger drove into the yard. She swung her legs out of bed and shivered as she pulled on her jeans and tied the laces to her hiking boots. Strangers had come to the den before, but the wolves hadn’t sounded like this.

Out in the hall she found the Grandmother leaning on her cane, listening carefully.

“Something’s wrong,” the old woman announced. She pulled the wrap she had draped over her thin shoulders more tightly under her chin. “This is bad.”

Tami nodded. That was her thought, too. “I’ll go see what’s up.”

Tami hurried up the hall, tucking her cold hands under her arms to warm them. Carla was already in the hall between the rec room and dining hall, glaring at the front door. She muttered something to herself before noticing Tami.

“Jay said we need to lock ourselves inside,” she said curtly. “Help me with this, okay?”

“Sure.”

Tami had never noticed the front doors had two sets of large U-shaped metal brackets attached to their backs, or the six-foot-long pieces of rebar that leaned against the wall. The rebar was damn heavy as she and Carla lifted each one and threaded it through the loops on the back of the door. It would take a battering ram to force these doors open.

“What’s going on?” she demanded of Carla once they had finished securing the doors.

“I’m not sure.” Carla’s face was a little pale. “Jay just yelled to bar the door and get all the women to the dining room and close the door to the kitchen. Will you go find Rose and the Grandmother?”

“We’re right here,” Rose said from behind them. “What’s going on?”

Carla pointed to the dining hall. “Get in there and lock the door to the kitchen, okay?”

Rose practically ran to the kitchen and slammed the door closed, locking it, while Carla closed and locked the door from the dining hall to the hallway. The three younger women worked together to drag some of the tables in front of the door to the kitchen and the door to the hallway. With no windows, and the door to the kitchen on one end and the door to the hallway on the other end locked and blockaded, the dining hall was a fortress. Carla sat at a table in the middle of the dining room and cleared her throat, looking first down at her clenched hands and then at Tami.

“From what Jay said, a large group of mounted men are riding right for us. We don’t need to be worried. There are thirteen wolves here, plus another eight outside the fence running patrol, so we’re not defenseless.”

“Dickinson,” spat Tami.

“Probably,” Carla agreed. “I sure wish I would have thought to bring my knitting or something.”

“I could run and get it,” Rose offered, glancing at the barricaded door to the hall.

“No, we’re supposed to stay in here until Jay gives the all clear,” Carla said.

The Grandmother sat down and pulled a deck of cards from under her shawl. “Poker? One-eyed jacks wild?”

Tami had just lost her third hand in a row when they heard the echoing cracks of gunfire, and then a crashing sound outside.

“What was that?” Tami asked involuntarily.

“I believe that was the gate going down,” said the Grandmother calmly. “Your deal.”

“The gate?” wailed Rose. “You mean the gate in the fence?”

Carla’s hands clenched over her cards. “Those men have guns! The Pack doesn’t!”

“Wolves don’t need guns,” soothed the Grandmother. “Tami, you dealing?”

Tami dealt shakily. None of them concentrated on their cards very hard, not even the Grandmother. They gave up altogether when Rose burst into tears.

“Don’t worry, roomie,” the Grandmother comforted her. “First of all, one wolf warrior can account for three human men without breaking a sweat. Second of all, the last thing those men attacking want to do is kill us. They can’t marry dead women.”

Tami met the faded blue eyes over Rose’s blond head. Dick might not kill her, but what he would do wouldn’t be pleasant. She wished she had that pistol Tracker had given her long ago to defend herself from him. She had given it back when they arrived at the den. She didn’t know what he’d done with it.

Booming sounds made all of them jump. Carla looked at the door to the hall. “That’s from the front doors. They’ll never get those open.”

The sound of breaking glass came from the kitchen. “Omigod!” gasped Rose. “They’ve broken the kitchen window!”

Gunfire cut through the howls. The howls turned to yelps. The door between the kitchen and dining hall began to rattle. The violent rattling was almost drowned out by growling. A man screamed. A gun boomed and a wolf whined in the kitchen as an immense crashing sounded the front doors’ demise.

“Quick!” said the Grandmother calmly. “Tip the table on its side by the wall. We’ll get behind it.”

But they didn’t get a chance. The tables barricading the door from the kitchen to the dining room squealed and crashed across the floor as the door was shoved open. Men and wolves poured in, snarling, yelling, and fighting. Tami jerked around as the other door crashed open. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rose push the Grandmother back and grab a chair to use as a weapon. To the other side of her, Carla was struggling madly with a man who had taken her elbow. What a fool! Taye would—And there was one of the wolves, flashing into a naked, enraged Taye, grabbing the fool by the throat. But after that Tami didn’t see anything except Dick Dickinson as he shoved tables out of his way. His eyes narrowed on her as he strode through the dining hall like a conqueror.

Such a wave of hatred rose in Tami that she found herself marching up to him before she even knew she was moving. He held a pistol in one hand, and reached for her with the other. Tami stopped, panting and glaring, while a mini war raged around her.

“You asshole!” she screamed.

His eyes narrowed more. His hand gripped her upper arm in a bruising hold and shook her. “Don’t you talk to me like that!”

She snatched the gun out of his hand. “Don’t
you
talk to
me
like that!”

He jerked her arm almost out of its socket, grabbing angrily for the gun. “Damn you, Tami! Someone is going to teach you a lesson.”

There was a deafening roar, like fireworks exploding. For a minute Tami didn’t know why her hand hurt like a mule had kicked it. Dickinson’s angry expression, only inches from her face, melted into surprise. His hand fell away from her arm, and he slid down her body in slow motion, like a deflated balloon, still with that absurd look of surprise on his face. His blood was warm where it soaked into her shirt.