Silver Moon (A Women of Wolf's Point Novel) (17 page)

Pete gave her a calm half-smile. “That fool of an ex-husband of yours got anything to do with whatever’s going on?” Becca nodded. “You want to talk about it?” Becca shook her head for an answer. “All right then. But feel free to bend my ear whenever you’re ready.”

She nodded and opened the fridge to yank some bread out of it. “Toast?” He nodded and she popped it into the toaster without further comment.

She and Pete ate breakfast in companionable silence before they walked downtown. It was odd how soothing and ordinary his presence was. For the first time in days, she didn’t feel like crawling out of her own skin to escape from the rest of her life. No weird urges to kiss him, either, so that was all right.

The feeling of general goodwill and amiability faded a bit when Shelly turned up at the store but it didn’t completely die out. After all, she really couldn’t blame her pack alpha for sending people to watch her. No one made her run amuck in the woods, then have a tantrum and kiss her neighbor, after all. All things considered, she’d have set babysitters to watch her if she’d been in Shelly’s paws…shoes.

The moment that thought sank in, it brought a wave of pure depression with it. This Pack stuff was all well and good but she was going to have her house sold out from under her unless she did something about it soon. And she’d just made a very public pass at someone she thought of as a good friend. Not that after being married to Ed, many women wouldn’t consider becoming lesbians if it was an option. But what if she was just lonely? She still wasn’t sure what she really wanted and that wasn’t fair to Erin.

While her thoughts bounced around like she was stuck in a pinball machine, more trouble came calling in the form of Oya and one of the guys from the Nest. They didn’t come strolling into the store though; apparently, that was too daring even for them. Instead, they waited outside and down the block a bit until Becca went out to pick up her lunch.

“What the hell do we have to do to get you people out of this town?” Becca snarled when she got close enough to them to speak quietly.

The guy at Oya’s side snorted and she gave him a long, slow glare. He was big and pale-skinned and blond with a widow’s peak that came down his forehead to form a triangle over his nearly white eyebrows. He also had silvery-gray eyes like a Husky and one of his hands was bandaged.

But it wasn’t the way he looked that made her blood race and her wolf-self howl its way into wakefulness inside her head, but rather the way he smelled. She sucked in his scent, recognizing a strange and new, but not-right, not-Pack wolf smell. He smelled like magic gone bad.

Oya smiled, her eyes gleaming. “That’s right. Scott was like you once, but he’s been cured.” She reached out and clutched Becca’s arm. “Just like we can do for you. We can put all this behind us. You could be human again, normal, just like you used to be.”

Becca shook Oya loose and stared harder at Scott. He stared back and she tried to read what he was thinking. Was he really cured? Did he miss being a wolf? He gave her a doggy grin in response, only just steering clear of panting. His eyes held something that seemed like anger or maybe even jealousy, belying his puppy-friendly smile. It certainly didn’t look like he was ready to put anything behind him. “So where did she find you?”

Scott bared his teeth in something that wasn’t a smile. “Does it matter? I can smell your fear and your questions, elder sister. Trust her: it can be better.” He glanced sidelong at Oya, as if for approval.

“Elder sister?” Becca thought about biting him. With any luck, her magic would be contagious and he’d go back to being a wolf. That probably wasn’t the best idea though. He smelled like a big city and she guessed that he was that other kind of wolf she’d read about. If they fought, who knew what their bites might do to each other? She shifted her attention to Oya instead.

That strangely familiar quality about the other woman was back and this time it seemed like more than was justified by their few meetings. Oya looked a bit like Lizzie in broad daylight but that wasn’t the only resemblance. Now that Becca was paying attention, she could smell another whiff of wolf in the air and it wasn’t coming from Scott. Her eyes narrowed. “You were one too, weren’t you? How come I couldn’t tell before?”

Oya laughed, the sound tinny and insincere in Becca’s ears. She did notice that Oya didn’t move her head back when she laughed, keeping her throat covered. Disturbed that she’d even noticed that detail, she looked away for an instant.

Oya’s voice called her back. “Not talking about me in the intro sessions, I guess. Yes, I was one of them once, years ago, running around like an animal every month. Fighting ordinary, normal people I had nothing against. Then I recognized that it was wrong. Being a wolf is a disease, not a gift. Why would anyone want to turn into an animal possessed by the moon’s phases? It’s disgusting and wrong.” Oya stepped closer. “You feel it too, don’t you? You’re not a killer. I can see it in your eyes.”

Becca remembered watching her neighbors and longing to be normal again. It wasn’t a memory she was proud of right now, but she could hardly forget something she’d wished for that very morning. Life had been so much simpler before all of this started; she missed that more than anything. To her horror, she could feel her eyes start to tear up and she shook her head angrily to clear it. Whatever Oya was offering had to be snake oil. How could she even begin to trust anything this woman had to say?

Oya stepped back, but not before she slipped something in the breast pocket of Becca’s shirt. “That’s my card. My cell number’s on it. I suspect you’ll want to get in touch with me. Call me when you’re ready. Come on, Scott.”

Becca snarled, “I’ll never be ready for anything you have to offer!” Oya and Scott turned without another word and started walking toward the white van while she glared after them. She noticed that Scott sent a glare of his own back her way. Apparently, the cure didn’t make anyone mellower.

But she didn’t take Oya’s card from her pocket and rip it up either. And from the set of Oya’s back, the other woman knew it. Becca could feel her fists ball up, the wolf’s howl echo through her head like her body. The question she’d been asking all morning was back: what was she supposed to do now?

Shelly’s eyebrows rose. “Who’s Oya? The Nester bitch, Sara?”

“She goes by Oya now. Was Sara her name before she joined the Nesters?” For the first time, Becca wondered what the Nester’s new name meant. She’d said something about a storm that brought change back at Millie’s, what seemed like a decade ago. At the time, it hadn’t seemed that important. Now she wished she had paid more attention.

“Oya?” Shelly snorted. “Well, I knew her as Sara Hunter. You know she’s our cousin, right? And that she used to live here?”

“So she mentioned. And I know that she’s a wolf. Or at least she used to be one so she had to have been in the Pack.” Becca faltered a little.

Shelly’s face froze like one of the mountain lakes and something raged below the surface. “That was when Margaret was alpha, back when I first started to change. Sara was the Pack beta back then but she wanted something more. Her parents died in an accident, but she blamed Margaret and the Pack for it. Used it as an excuse to attack Margaret.” Shelly’s shoulder twitched like she was trying to shake off a bad memory.

“I don’t think I’ve met a Margaret,” Becca began, feeling her way cautiously.

“That’s because Margaret’s dead. We think Sara k–” Shelly stopped abruptly as a customer walked in. When Becca was done helping him, Shelly was off helping someone else. Frustrated curiosity was clawing its way through her until she very nearly called Pete up from the stockroom to take over. But that, after missing Monday afternoon, would have felt like professional suicide, so she made herself restock while she waited for the rest of the story.

And waited. The afternoon went by in a flood of customers.
Just as well,
Becca thought,
for my job security if not for my mental health.
She spent the whole time she was answering questions about paint and plumbing supplies wondering about Oya/Sara and Shelly and Margaret.

If Sara/Oya killed Margaret in some kind of sneaky way, that probably got her kicked out of the Pack. That made the most sense, given Shelly’s reaction to her question. But if Sara had killed the old alpha, why wasn’t she in charge now? Wasn’t that how it worked? Just the thought made her stomach hurt; did that mean that Erin and Shelly might fight to the death someday? She never wanted to see that.

It didn’t look like she was going to get any answers, at least not today. Shelly’s sister called just as Erin strolled in the store’s front door. Becca went beet-red and couldn’t stop herself from making a halfhearted attempt to duck behind the counter. She scrambled around in the supply box on the top shelf to try and make it less obvious while she muttered a less than enthusiastic, “Hi there.”

“Hi. I noticed that your phone seemed to be turned off so I’d thought I’d stop by to make sure everything was okay.” Erin leaned against the counter, corded muscles standing out under the light tan and freckled skin of her arms.

“You must about ready to strangle me,” Shelly got off the phone and groaned. “But I’ve got to help out with my mom again. I’ll try and finish our conversation tomorrow, okay?” She patted Becca’s shoulder as she shot past. “Hey, Erin. Keep an eye on things, will you?”

Erin gave her a wry half-smile. “I’ll try.”

Becca watched Shelly disappear and felt like she was drowning. All of a sudden, the only people in the store were her and Erin. There would be no interruption to save her now. She stared down at Erin’s long fingers, almost without realizing that she was avoiding eye contact. After a minute, Erin’s hands began to sway slowly back and forth on the worn surface, like she was playing with a cat.

Becca looked up when she realized that she was following them through a second pass across the counter. One corner of Erin’s mouth quirked up in amusement. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. You think you’re about ready to talk now?”

“Here?” Becca stared frantically at the front door as if all of Wolf’s Point was about to stampede through the doors looking for remodeling supplies.

“Well, it is fifteen minutes before closing time. I can certainly wait that long. I need some stuff for my house anyway.” Erin walked away and down the nearest aisle and began picking up things, looking at them as if she wasn’t quite seeing them.

Becca thought about smacking her head against the counter a few times. It might help. Instead, she watched Erin. The silence went on long enough to feel her guts get all churny as well as to develop a distinct impression that she was being out of line. If she wasn’t going to think about Erin
that
way, then she shouldn’t be ogling her, right?

Except…when had she decided what she was going to think about Erin at all? She had a brief flash of running with her neighbor through the streets as humans, then around the mountain as wolves. The memory of the hours that they’d spent together since she’d started to change were, for the most part, pleasant. And she knew she liked Erin. Was that enough to want something more?

Fifteen minutes took an eternity, but finally, when she couldn’t stand it anymore, Becca went over and locked the door and flipped the sign to “Closed.” Now she just had to find the words to say whatever it was that she needed to say. When she turned around, Erin was back at the counter. “Look…” they both said at once before dropping into a tense silence.

Erin cleared her throat and tried again. “I know you’re really freaked out about everything that’s going on. I realize this is a lot to take in.”

Becca leaned back against the door. “So that excuses me making a pass at you and running away?” She snorted. “I would have thought that I was old enough not to let my hormones run away with me, but I guess not.” She crossed over to the counter and looked up at her neighbor. “What happens now?”

Erin looked baffled. “Well, what do you want to happen? I’m not going to deny that I think you’re an attractive woman and that I’m interested in more then being pals but I can see where coming out as a werewolf and coming out as queer in the same three-month time period would throw a gal for a loop. I can wait for an answer.”

Becca’s stomach mixed itself up. This was the moment to say what she wanted, whatever that was. Instead, she barked a laugh. “Yeah, you can say that again. It’s been one wild ride so far.”

Erin rubbed a hand on the back of her neck and looked at the floor. Finally, she asked, almost like she wasn’t ready to hear the answer, “So did you mean it?”

Becca gave her an incredulous look. “No, I go around kissing just about anyone who shows up on my front porch. Didn’t the Welcome Wagon lady warn you about that when you moved in?”

Pete’s sudden appearance in the storeroom doorway came as both a shock and a relief, as far as Becca was concerned. “Oops, didn’t mean to interrupt. Just want to let you know that I’m on my way out, Becca. Evening, Erin.” His ears, as he turned away, were the pinkest that Becca had ever seen them and she couldn’t suppress a quiet snort of laughter.

“Sure thing, Pete. Thanks again for understanding. I’ll get the till counted out and bring the deposit over to the bank.” Becca walked behind the counter and pulled out the cash drawer as Pete vanished. Then she made herself meet Erin’s gaze. “How about you help me get everything closed down here and we go for a run after I stop by the bank? Then we talk.”

Erin gave her a baffled look but nodded back. She pulled the shades and ran the broom around while Becca finished counting up the money and prepped the deposit. The companionable silence felt better than the strained conversation and Becca could feel both of them start to relax. A night run would feel great after this. She could almost feel the cool air on her skin and the breeze in her hair. Everything would be clearer after that, or at least she hoped so.