Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles #2) (15 page)

Detective Cranston, one of her father’s police friends — he had many friends in the force — had taken Katelyn aside and explained that her mother was disoriented from the sheer amount of stress she was under. He told Katelyn that she needed to take care of her. And Katelyn had.

But who is taking care of me?
she thought now, trying to shake it off.
I don’t need taking care of. I’m seventeen.

But the entire exchange between Lee and Justin had freaked her out. Permission? To go to Little Rock? How was she ever going to get out of Wolf Springs and have a real life? Was her future really going to be so strictly controlled?

She took a deep breath and said aloud, “You will get out. You will make it happen.” Things would change. Lee Fenner would be replaced. She would earn that new alpha’s trust, and then her freedom. She’d get out.

She had just about calmed herself down when she rounded the last corner before coming into view of the cabin and saw Trick’s Mustang parked out front. She flinched. What was he doing there?

She got out slowly and walked up the steps onto the porch. Opening the door, the first things she saw were an old, battered suitcase and a duffel bag by the front door — her grandfather’s luggage, she supposed.

Trick and her grandfather were bustling around in the kitchen, Trick rinsing dishes while her grandfather gave her a wave with a kitchen knife.

Mordecai looked at her inquisitively as he finished cutting a sandwich — she smelled cheese and salami — and laid it on a plate. He’d made two. One for him and one for Trick.

“Oh, hi. I—” she babbled.

“Hi. Sandwich?” Mordecai asked.

“Yes, thanks. Just cheese.” Even though she wanted the salami. But she was on record as being a vegetarian and didn’t want to raise any more red flags.

She glanced at Trick, whose face was turned as he scrubbed a coffee cup as if getting it clean was a matter of life or death. Apparently he hadn’t told her grandfather about the piece of silver she’d seen. That surprised her, since the two seemed so close. He set the cup down and looked at her with hooded eyes.

“Surprise,” he said.

Her grandfather started making the sandwich. “I thought you might like it if we took a friend with us, so I got another ticket to the show. I figured you’d invite . . .” Mordecai drifted off, and cleared his throat. “I just asked Trick.”

Cordelia.
He’d thought Cordelia would be going with us.
Katelyn’s chest tightened. She’d be going with Trick now, instead. She told herself that given what had happened in the parking lot, she wasn’t sure she wanted to spend a weekend with him. But who was she kidding? And what could she do about it anyway?

She turned to Trick. “I — I’m glad you’re coming,” she said, her face going hot.

“Thanks,” he bit off. “Me, too.” So there was to be a truce, but they weren’t in the best of places. That was better than having to salute him and call him “sir.”

Sheesh.

Her grandfather looked from one to the other, and then occupied himself with getting something out of the fridge, grinning slyly. “We should head out soon.” He glanced out the kitchen window. Clouds had rolled in, and the day was gray. “Might rain.”

“Gimme five,” she told him. “Ten,” she amended. She hadn’t packed and she still wanted to look at that old drawing again.

She spun on her heel and dashed upstairs. She took a moment to retrieve the old parchment from her underwear drawer and unfolded it. There was the rock-shaped heart and behind it, a waterfall, just like in the painting that had hung downstairs: it had to be the location of the mine.

She quickly threw some clothes into her father’s leather suitcase engraved with his initials SKM — Sean Kevin McBride — on a brass plate, making sure to pack her new dress from Babette’s very carefully. Then she slipped into clean jeans and a turtleneck the color of her light blue eyes. After running a brush through her hair she trotted back downstairs.

“All set,” she said, as she picked up the cheese sandwich her grandfather had made. She devoured it while her grandfather put away the dishes Trick had washed and they all then piled into her grandfather’s truck, Katelyn sitting on the front seat between them. She had thought about suggesting that they take her Subaru, but that would have meant Trick would be in the back seat.

I shouldn’t care
, she thought.

Her grandfather put the truck in drive and a moment later they were rolling away from the cabin.

“We’re off,” he announced, sounding more excited than she’d ever heard him. Maybe he needed this trip just as much as she did.

“And as an added bonus,” Trick said, “I mixed a playlist.”

“Remember the rule,” her grandfather growled, though the corners of his mouth twitched.

“Don’t mess with the driver,” Trick said. “I think you’ll like what I picked out, though, Doc.”

“Not very likely. Your taste in music hasn’t been good since you were five.”

Trick had brought a portable speaker, which he set up on the dash. He plugged in his phone and a moment later “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” was blaring. It was so unlike his usual choice of music that Katelyn couldn’t help laughing out loud. Her grandfather actually cracked a smile.

Trick moved his leg, maybe by accident, maybe so he could rub it against hers, and something in his face shifted. She thought about unpredictability and his assumption that she was going over to the Fenners to chase Justin. Best to let him think so. Life was too complex. But it hurt in a strange new way and she found herself changing her mind once again and adding two words to her vow to have a normal life: with Trick.

Maybe Mr. Fenner wasn’t the only crazy one.

The drive took a little over four hours, but they finally reached their hotel, got their suitcases, and trooped inside a welcoming Victorian lobby decorated with brass pots of ivy. A couple of minutes later, they were upstairs in their one-bedroom suite with two twin beds in the bedroom and a sleeper sofa in the living room.

Her grandfather tapped the key card against the knuckles on his other hand. “I figured that I’d give you girls the room, but—” he stopped abruptly.

“Don’t worry, Dr. M. I’m all about the couch,” Trick said quickly.

“Sounds great,” her grandfather replied.

Katelyn was a bit weirded out at the thought of sleeping in the same room as her grandfather — it wasn’t like he felt totally like family yet — but he took his suitcase into the bedroom, and she followed.

“I call window,” she said, dropping her bag on the bed nearest lacy white sheers giving way to a view of the street. It was dark, and she could already see stars glittering over the tops of brick buildings and a white marble cupola.

“Fine with me. I always like to sleep closer to the door.” He lowered his voice. “I hope this is okay.”

“Oh, yes. It’s fantastic, Grandpa,” she replied, sounding maybe a little too chirpy in her eagerness to reassure him. “Thank you.”

He gave her a measured look, pleased at the “Grandpa.” “Did I invite the right guy?”

She reddened. So he thought she was hanging out with Justin, too.

“How much do you know about Trick?” she asked instead.

He raised a brow. “Such as?” When she didn’t say anything, he crossed to his suitcase and opened it. She saw that he had packed a suit, and she was touched by all the trouble he’d gone to to make this a weekend to remember.

“I’ve known Trick since the day he was born,” he said. Then he added softly, “And I met Justin the day he risked his life to save a little girl.”

Katelyn remembered that day very well; a little child — just a toddler — had run in front of her grandfather’s truck. Justin had leaped off his motorcycle and grabbed the girl, rolling to the side of the road with her and saving her life. It had been amazing. Fast. Quick. Brave.
Werewolf speed
, her mind told her. But now Mordecai’s comment gave her pause that her grandfather hadn’t dismissed Justin out of hand. Was it because he thought she might like him better than Trick?

“Let’s go have a nice dinner and turn in,” he suggested. “We’ve got a full day tomorrow and that was a long drive. I’d like to beat Trick about the head for sliding in a few heavy metal nightmares once I was lulled into complacency.”

She laughed and gave him a quick, impulsive hug. He flushed and patted her back in return. The grandfather/granddaughter relationship was growing stronger day by day, but neither felt totally comfortable about it yet. After all, Katelyn hadn’t seen Mordecai for over five years before moving to Wolf Springs to live with him. Soon it was time for dinner; she kept up the pretense that she was still a vegetarian, and then they went back to the suite and climbed in their beds.

But Katelyn was too wired to sleep. She felt odd sleeping in her grandfather’s presence, and wished she’d asked for the pullout couch instead. She remembered trips up to Tahoe with her parents when she was a kid, how they’d always slept together in the same room. But with her parents it had been normal; she’d been used to it and them. Then a text message came in, and she jumped, hoping it was from Cordelia. But it was Justin, and she remembered with a jolt how he had told her to keep in contact. Oh, God, she really wasn’t all that good at being a werewolf, was she? Following the rules.

Everything OK?
he had sent.

She texted back a yes-sir — her version of an apology — and decided to try Cordelia again. Then, even though the phone was on vibrate, she heard her grandfather clear his throat. She wished even more fervently that she’d asked for the couch, but sighed and lay on her side looking toward the window, staring at the stars. When she closed her eyes, she kept seeing Cordelia’s face as she got into the Gaudins’ car, and then the glowing forest. And she wished there was something she could do not just to save herself but also to save her friend.

~

Katelyn woke in the morning and it took her a moment to remember where she was. She checked her cell phone to see if any new texts or calls had come in. Nothing.

The shower was running. She rolled over to find her grandfather’s bed empty, just as the water turned off. A minute later, the bathroom door opened and she rolled back toward the window to give him privacy. After she’d allowed him some time, she rolled back over again.

He was wearing a pair of trousers with a towel across his shoulders, and just as she was about to wish him a good morning, he turned to get a fresh shirt hanging in the closet and his towel slipped. Suddenly Katelyn could see his back. She stared, startled.

Deep, hideous scars ran from his shoulder blade nearly to his hip on his right side.

Scars that looked like claw marks.

9

“Grandpa, what happened to you?” Katelyn blurted before she could stop herself.

He jumped and turned to her, eyes wide, nostrils flared. He shrugged his shirt on quickly and began to button it. “Good morning. Didn’t know you were awake,” he said gruffly. “You sleep okay?”

She bit her lip as she nodded her head, her skin tingling with anxiety. He was avoiding her question. Maybe she should let it go, but his scars looked exactly like the gouges the werewolf had left on her. Scratch marks that had miraculously healed within a couple of days.
One of the first signs that something had changed about me.

“Happened a long time ago,” he said curtly, tucking the shirttails into his pants.

“What happened?” she persisted.

He was silent for so long that she wasn’t sure that he was going to answer her. Just as she was about to give up and head for the shower herself, he answered.

“I got attacked while I was hunting,” he said. “Long time ago.”

Her heart pounded in her chest as she stood up. “Did it bite you?” she asked, voice tense.

He gave her the strangest look and she swallowed, panicky. Did he know why she was asking?

He shook his head. “Nope. I was cocky, and I got too close. It just scratched the hell out of me.”

“Did you, did you kill it?” she asked, hating the fact that her voice was quavering. She didn’t want to betray anything she knew about the things that attacked people in the forest.

“Never saw it again.” He walked out to the living room. “Hey, Vladimir, you vampire. You up?” he called.

She made it into the bathroom and got into the shower. It took her forever to figure out the faucet controls; she was high-strung, jumpy. Something had left those scratches on her grandfather’s back.

Wait. He never said what kind of animal it was. He just said he never saw it again.

A thousand questions raced through her mind as she tried to focus on the feel of the water pounding on her face, the heat. His back explained so much. Why he knew the woods were dangerous.

It wasn’t just about what happened to Becky Jensen before I arrived. It’s about what happened to him.

When she finally left the bathroom, she dressed swiftly and then walked into the living room, where Trick sat on the edge of the couch, muzzy and all bed-head — for someone with short hair. He was wearing a pair of black sweatpants and his chest was bare. She felt herself blushing.

“Did you use all the hot water?” Trick asked, rolling his shoulders and cricking his neck. She blushed again as she looked harder.

“Find out for yourself,” she said tartly.

When he walked past her she couldn’t help but sneak a peek at his retreating back.

No scars on him.

She grimaced, mortified, when she saw her grandfather taking it all in, no expression on his face.

A day of sightseeing flew by, and before she knew it the three of them were standing in line for Cirque. She was in her new black dress, her grandfather had on his suit, and Trick was wearing a white formal shirt, black jeans, and a really nice black jacket. He had on polished black cowboy boots, and she was sorry he’d left his hat back in the hotel.

“I couldn’t get the third ticket in the same row, but it’s close,” Mordecai said, squinting at the seat numbers. “You and Trick can sit together.”