RaleighPointRescueSue (8 page)

Chapter Eight

Lisa snuggled.

Mac lay quietly, listening to the sound of her breathing. He
knew she hadn’t fallen asleep despite her needing the rest. He could
practically hear the thoughts ticking around in her brain. She had a lot of
stuff to process, but damn, she needed the rest as well.

“Lisa?” Mac moved to face her, and her eyes opened. “What is
it? Can I help?”

“I have another question.”

Mac propped himself up on his elbow to see her. “You can ask
anything.”

“Well…” Lisa fidgeted.

Mac put two fingers under her chin and raised her face. He
snagged her lips for a very satisfying kiss.

Lisa smiled. “Is that so I forget what I need to ask?”

“No.” He wiped his thumb over her lips. “It’s to give you
the courage to ask.”

“Do I lose my temper because I’m an alpha?”

Mac grimaced. Where was Cassie when he needed her? “Yes and
no. How old were you when this started becoming a problem?”

“Around eleven or twelve I think.” Lisa screwed her nose up
thinking.

Mac could feel himself reddening. “And what things normally
happen to a girl around that age?”

Lisa looked confused.

“Maybe you should talk to Cassie about this?”

“Cassie, but why?”
Lisa stared at
Mac. “It doesn’t matter really. I’ll talk to Cassie tomorrow.”

“Oh shit.” Mac sat up, and Lisa looked alarmed.

“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.” Lisa bit her lip.

Mac felt the biggest idiot that walked the earth. He’d told
her to ask him anything, and he’d
wussed
out at the
first question. “I’m not mad at you. I’m embarrassed.” Mac sighed, lay back
down, and scooped her up. “Girls
start err
—
changing
around that age.” Mac stopped
and didn’t know what else to say.

“Oh my God, are you serious?” Lisa’s face was thunderstruck
as understanding dawned. “They locked me up for that?”

“Okay, so obviously I don’t know that much, but we’ll find
out for you.” He added hurriedly, “We were told that what an alpha female goes
through is like off the charts compared to a human woman. It causes violent
uncontrolled outbursts. The trouble is because you weren’t brought up in a pack,
you wouldn’t have had the male companionship you needed.”

Lisa stiffened.

“No, honey, I don’t mean like that, I mean a father figure.
Apparently it can be controlled if you have support. Later when you get older,
well…” Mac cringed unable to go any further.

“And that’s what you did.” Lisa stated baldly. “I lost half
my life through ignorance and being in the wrong place.” Her head lowered. “I’m
sorry you were forced to do that.”

“Forced? What do you mean forced?”

“You don’t have to shout. I’m just saying it put you in a
bad position.”

“I wasn’t in a bad position. You’re my mate. Did you not
listen to anything I’ve been telling you?” Mac couldn’t believe it. He knew he
shouldn’t have started this conversation.

Forcing himself to calm down, he glanced at Lisa’s face.
Tight and frowning.
Hell.
“Lisa honey, calm down.”

“Calm down! I lost half my life!
Half my life
.
How can I ever make
up for that? Calm down?” Lisa shook her head and wrapped miserable defensive
arms around
herself
.

Mac put a hand on her arm, and she shook it off. She jumped
out of bed and reached for her jeans. “So, tell me, how come you got the call?
Since when did twenty-year-olds qualify for foster placement?”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly like that. I mean where…”

Mac swallowed at Lisa’s thunderous expression.

“Where else was I
gonna
go? That
was it, wasn’t it? That’s what you were going to say?” Lisa was shaking so
much,
she could hardly fasten her jeans.

“Lisa, honey—”

“Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that.” She grabbed
her sweatshirt.

Mac jumped up, realizing she was going somewhere, and he was
naked. “Lisa.” He grabbed for his jeans.

She put a hand on the door and drew a deep breath. “So what
was I, Mac?
A challenge?
Some time off from having to
be so good-looking for all your dates?” Tears streamed down her face. “And what
was that?” She tossed one careless arm at the bed.
“Poor
Lisa, never done that before.
Let’s give her one good pity fuck, to make
up for the hell that’s been my life for twenty years?”

* * * *

Lisa didn’t know how she got the last few words out before
her throat completely closed up. She ran, nearly blind, down the stairs and
across the hall. She registered Mac behind her, put on a burst of speed she
never knew she had and ran out of the door, straight into Alex

“I need to get out of here,” she cried, lungs heaving and
eyes streaming.

Alex, with better reflexes, had caught her before she ran
into him. He looked startled at Mac trying to catch up, and summed up the
situation quickly for a kid. “
Wanna
go for a walk?”

Mac caught up to them. “Alex.”

“I know he’s been sighted. I’ll be careful, and I can smell
him before you. We won’t go near the woods.”

Mac sighed. Lisa still refused to look at him. “Got your
phone on you?” He half-smiled as Alex gave him the
duh
look.

“Come on, Lisa, I’ll show you where all the coats and shoes
are. You can grab something there.”

Lisa followed him to a small mud room off the front door.

“They keep it well supplied in here. Spare clothes.” He
glanced at Lisa. “Well okay, we need some girl stuff, boots, sneakers, coats.”

Lisa grabbed blindly at some boots and a pair of socks. Mac
had walked to the end of the hall and just stood there. She ignored the
troubled look on his face.
“Why all the clothes?”

Alex grinned.
“For when we shift.
You saw earlier?” Lisa ducked her head, and Alex shrugged. “No one gets
embarrassed around here. We sometimes have to shift in a hurry, so bang goes
your stuff. Starting off with nothing on is way better.”

Lisa breathed slower. She had to get out of here, but at
that moment was unsure she could put one foot in front of the other. Alex
tugged her coat on.

“We’ll just go around the back. There’s some swings and
stuff for the younger kids. It’s a nice place to just sit sometimes.” He shuffled
anxiously, like he wanted to help.

Lisa smiled and stood. She liked Alex. He reminded her of a
boy she’d been in a foster home with. They’d had a good three months together,
and then the lady who wasn’t supposed to be able to have kids had gotten herself
pregnant. They’d both been shipped off straight away to different homes. She
couldn’t even remember his name now.

“Lisa, I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“I think I did as much yelling.”

“Call it even then?” He grinned and opened the door. They
headed to the back of the house and sat on the swings.

“Have you been here long?” Lisa asked.

Alex frowned and sighed. “Not as long as I’d have liked.” He
changed up to a grin. “But don’t tell anyone I said that.” He sat quietly for a
few beats. “I didn’t grow up in a pack, either.”

Lisa calmly waiting to see if he wanted to
share.
He toed the ground with his sneakers.

“I left the pack when I was about three or four. Mom took
me. I don’t know why. She said it was good for us.” He frowned as if trying to
remember.

Lisa looked away toward the same unseeing distance that had
Alex enthralled.

“Then she had to go get a job.” Alex poked the ground. “She
couldn’t take a kid. I just got dropped off at a home. She said it was only for
a few days. I never saw her again.”

Lisa ached.
Words that were spoken so
quietly, but echoed with injustice and pain.
“When did you move here?”

“Two years ago.” Alex shrugged, trying to seem unconcerned.
“Kept getting into trouble for fighting.”
He seemed
determined to dig a hole with his sneakers. “I gave them hell though. I always
thought my mom wouldn’t be able to find me if I wasn’t where she’d left me.
Stupid, huh?”

An easy silence settled.

“Mine died in a car accident. I never knew them.”

“How come you never got adopted?”

She shrugged. “Had a couple try once. But nothing ever
worked out. I never fit right, I guess.”

Alex nodded. “At least, I always knew what I was. I can’t
believe how hard it must have been for you.”

Lisa smiled. He really was a nice kid. “I never thought
about it.” Lisa stopped, realizing that was wrong. The kids used to get giddy
at the homes when prospective parents came. They weren’t supposed to know, but
they always did. The girls put their best dresses on. Boys seemed to be better
behaved, played football better, and tried harder, like it would make a
difference. Make them stand out. She hadn’t. She’d seem to go naturally the
other way, defiant and argumentative. She never felt like she fit in. Maybe
that was why. Maybe she’d always known she was different.

Lisa grinned at the boy trying so hard to be a man. “Well,
like you said, ‘We alphas got to stick together.’”

Lisa followed Alex back to the house and risked linking
arms. He didn’t seem to mind. Laughing, they both shrugged off boots and
jackets in the mud room and followed the amazing smell coming from the kitchen.

Cassie was trying to fold pasta for lasagna and balance the
baby.

“Can I?” Lisa held her arms out.

“Oh, please.” Cassie blew a lock of hair off her face. “I
don’t suppose you would mind feeding him, would you? He had some baby rice earlier,
but he’s due for a bottle now, and I need to get this lasagna in.”

“I’d love to, although I’ve never done it before.”

“Well, that’s okay because up to six weeks ago, I hadn’t
either.”

Lisa looked down at the baby. For only six weeks old, he
seemed awfully big, but what did she know?

Cassie laughed at Lisa’s doubtful expression. “Zack only
found out about him six weeks ago. His mother was an old girlfriend. Zack
didn’t even know she was pregnant. She’d left Zack months ago.” Cassie paused.
“It’s not really my story to tell, but we think she was a drug-addict. They
found Codie alone in some god-awful basement. A sheriff friend of ours knew he
was a shifter.” Cassie smiled at Lisa’s puzzled look. “He could smell him. So,
he would have come here anyway, but then the sheriff found some papers saying
Zack was his father.”

Wow
.

Cassie tested the milk and handed it to Lisa. “There you
go.”

Lisa nestled herself in one of the big Adirondack chairs in
the corner of the massive kitchen and laughed when Codie latched fiercely onto
the bottle. She watched him in awe. No one had ever trusted her with one of the
little ones, but she’d desperately wanted to play with them. She remembered a
foster family that had a young baby. Lisa had been quite little, but the mom
used to plonk her in a big chair like this one, and she got to cuddle the baby.
She hadn’t been able to stay there long. She thought the mom got sick, but no
one ever told her, and after a while, she stopped asking. It was safer that
way. She didn’t need people to tell her she was bad and no one would want her.
She already knew.

Just then, the kitchen door opened, and Lisa smelled wolf.
Instantly, she was on her feet, clutching Codie.

She jumped around the chair and curled her body over Codie’s
protectively.

Zack followed a shorter guy in laughing and carrying a bunch
of papers. Mac was right behind them. Lisa flushed. Codie had cried, startled
when she’d suddenly jumped up. Embarrassed, Lisa knew Zack would take his baby
back. She cringed. Suddenly, she was back to thirteen, and her foster mother
was screaming at her for shoving her precious boy against a wall. The foster
mother’s perfect baby was taking lunch money off some younger kids, and Lisa
had just found one crying. No one trusted her around kids, and her throat
closed on the huge lump that lodged itself there. Idiot, why had she left
herself open to this again?
Wicked.

Zack gave her a level look and smiled. “Good instincts. It’s
good to know we have another pair of hands around here we can trust to look
after him.” He calmly dropped a kiss on Codie’s forehead, but made no move to
take him from her, and sat down.
“Something
smells good.”

Lisa sat, flustered. The warm place that had started inside
her grew. Codie eagerly latched back onto the bottle, and a gentle pair of
hands settled on her shoulders.
Mac.

She automatically shook the hands off her shoulders.

“Lisa, we’d like you to meet Brett.”

Lisa smiled at the shorter guy. Well, he wasn’t too short,
probably normal height. It was just the others that were making him look
little.

Light brown hair fell messily over a freckled face and an
easy smile.

“Hi, Lisa, good to meet you.
Oh
wow, is that Codie? He’s huge. What you been feeding him?” Laughing, he lifted
the little guy, who promptly burped and smiled back.

Lisa looked at them all, happy and smiling, like families
ought to be. She felt a bit like she was looking through a shop window at
something she really wanted, but couldn’t have. Her head lowered, she was
suddenly tired, probably from the warmth in the kitchen and the walk with Alex.

Mac was back at her side and urging her out of the room. She
let him guide her to the stairs, stumbling on the bottom step. Then all the air
whooshed out of her as a pair of big strong arms lifted her up.