The Alpha's Choice (29 page)

He looked at her and turned back to the
window where he spent most of his time staring through the glass.
He could hold the same position for hours at a time and his
stillness was uncanny, particularly when his stare was directed at
Kat. She could feel his eyes boring into her back and it made her
stumble and stutter when she presented lessons. She wondered if he
took satisfaction in that.

There was no way to tell. He didn't look away
when she turned to confront his stare, but his face showed nothing.
Questions he was forced to answer were preceded by a snarl and the
only time he smiled, if a smirk could be called one, was when Kat
begged him to intervene and help her maintain some minimum of
discipline.

Still, there was something about him that
touched her. He had an innate ability to lead and the children were
quick to follow. He never raised his voice or his hand and yet she
was sure they would follow him anywhere. There was a danger to
this, she knew. Sooner or later, they would have to transfer their
loyalty to Charles and the pack, but for now, she needed the
boy.

When she explained that they would no longer
sleep on the floor, but in a bed like all good wolvers do, a riot
ensued. It was River who settled them down and offered a compromise
although it came in the form of an order.

"Dakota, Ranger, you two sleep in that bed
there. You don't have to use the pillows. Forest, Meadow, pick a
bed in the other room. Meadow, no whining. Forest will hold you if
you're scared and the bathroom doors will be open. I'll be right
here. Say good night to Miz Kat."

He made the boys brush their teeth and the
girls brush their hair, but refused to help out at the table. His
face was already filling out with Mrs. Martin's cooking, but he
still refused to eat until the younger ones were fed and he
eschewed the use of utensils of any sort.

He was a strange mixture of cooperation and
defiance, pushing the children to learn some skills and ignore
others. He rarely smiled, but the children held no fear of him
except for Forest who trembled when any male came too close.

As for Kat, she wanted to rest her hand on
his shoulder and stroke his hair away from his brow. She wanted to
tell him how proud she was of him for taking on these kids. She
wanted to tell him it was all right, now. There were other people
here to do the job, but she said nothing. Any overtures of kindness
were met by hostile glares and a curled upper lip.

Outdoors, River became a different person. He
laughed when Buddy played Bear in the Woods with the younger boys
and he whirled Meadow high in the air until she giggled with
delight. He brought the shy Forest wildflowers. And he ran. River
ran like the breeze that skimmed over the new grass, so light and
playful. He ran like the gusts caught in the trees, leaping,
dodging, laughing. He ran for miles, always staying within sight of
the other children, always ready to run back if one of them called
his name. Outdoors, he was free of the burdens that weighed so
heavily on his young shoulders.

Kat decided that outdoor activities should
become part of their daily schedule. The others needed time to
play. River needed a time and place to be free.

Chapter 28

Charles, however, had little time for play or
freedom and was more and more confined to his office. Alex was
still in the city with a contingent of others whose missions were
to transfer the various operations to the Hell Hall location. This
should have been a tedious, but facile procedure, since most of
their work was stored in a main server with off-site back-up. It
was simply a matter of moving hardware. Or it should have been.

During the move, it was discovered that
certain client files had been misplaced while others had been
deleted altogether leaving some financial statements altered and
suspect.

Charles was left with the daunting tasks of
trying to rebuild computer files from existing hard copy, while
informing clients of their investment status. All this was made
more difficult because their Chief Financial Officer, namely Alex,
had left everything in the hands of Stephanie who was at this
moment basking in the sun in South America and refusing all forms
of attempted communication.

"It's not like something like this hasn't
happened before," her friend Rhonda explained to anyone who would
listen. It was Rhonda who told them she was at the Copacabana
Palace in Rio. "The place always falls apart when she leaves town.
Everyone calls her a bitch, but no one gives her the credit she
deserves."

"Why would they when she's already said it
first," Jo countered. "She earns a damn good paycheck for what she
does and you can't say Charles doesn't recognize her for it. She
gets away with murder and all because she's good at what she does.
I've even said she's the best damn negotiator we've got and I'd
probably say it more often if she didn't always beat me to it."

The children were in bed and the women were
spread over Kat's bedroom, gossiping and painting their nails.
Charles, Ryker, and Tanner were out roaming the property as
wolves.

In addition to all his other problems,
Charles was having trouble at the job sites where work on the new
roads had begun. Some heavy equipment had been damaged and several
vacant houses that were due to be refurbished had been vandalized.
The men were convinced it was the work of those who were absent
from the raid a few nights before.

"I don't like Stephanie," Kat confessed only
because her feelings were made known the night Charles found
Stephanie in their bed. "But regardless of my personal feelings, I
think ditching the pack to go clubbing in Rio is a shitty thing to
do. She knew she was needed to reassure clients and help with the
move. Charles was planning to leave her in charge of the city
offices. She could have had the best of both worlds."

"You don't understand," Rhonda argued, "She
couldn't stay. She had to get away for a while. She was
heartbroken, humiliated."

Kat understood humiliated, but
heartbroken?

"Rhonda, you are such a romantic," Jo
laughed, "Or is that what she told you? Honey, you have to have a
heart before it can be broken." She stroked a last layer of polish
onto her nails. "Note to self. Hair and nail salon, top priority in
new development. If Stephanie's 'heartbroken', it's because her
little plan for world domination has been foiled by our little
schoolteacher here."

"World domination? Like Wolvers Unite!" Kat
giggled. "I doubt even Stephanie could pull that one off. Wouldn't
she need some badass Alpha to act as titular head?"

"Not the whole world, just ours and she
thought she had an Alpha in her pocket. You screwed that up
royally." Jo waved her hands to dry the nails and eyed the unopened
bottle of wine. "How many smeared fingernails does it take to open
a wine bottle."

"Give it here. Mine are dry." Kat reached for
the cork screw with one hand and the bottle with the other. "So,"
she asked as casually as she could, "Were Charles and Stephanie…
ah… an item?"

"An item?" Rhonda giggled, "They were hot and
heavy."

"A year ago," Jo snorted, "And it was a lot
hotter and heavier on her part. She had visions of being the power
being the throne."

"She did not," Rhonda argued, but without
much heat. "She loves him. She thought she had a chance to work it
out with Charles when she came here."

"Right. She was just seeking consolation for
her broken heart when she spent the rest of that night in bed with
Alex." Jo snorted in derision. "Or was she setting herself up with
the one guy who might be persuaded to take over the pack. Food for
thought, I'd say."

"But she's not an Alpha's Mate." Kat was
thoroughly confused.

"There was never supposed to be an Alpha's
Mate. We didn't want one. Remember? I admit one of the things that
attracted me to this pack was being recognized as an alpha. I
wanted to hear someone say it out loud. Charles gives us that
recognition, but Stephanie wants more than alpha status. She wants
the whole shooting match and she knows the only way she'll ever get
it is to rule side by side with a weaker Alpha. That's the only way
she can be top wolf."

"She only wants what's best for the pack,"
Rhonda said loyally. "She calls me almost every day and always asks
how things are going. She wants to know everything that's going on
and she wants to be a part of it. She just doesn't know where she
stands with Charles." She looked pleadingly at Kat. "She thinks
you've turned him against her."

"Me? I don't give a damn what she does as
long as she doesn't do it in Charles' bed." Kat had a history
before Charles just as he had one before her. It was pointless to
get upset over things that were over and done as long as they
remained over and done.

* * *

Kat was learning about surviving in the woods
and while some of what she learned made her cringe, like when
Ranger laughingly showed her how to find and eat grubs, other
things she found fascinating. Forest shyly introduced her to
fiddleheads, the small, curled fronds of a newly emerging ostrich
fern. Dakota thought her wits were clearly dim when she couldn't
tell the difference between a good mushroom and a bad one. He found
it hilarious that her choices could kill them all.

River patiently showed her how to set a snare
and while her soft heart broke for the rabbits they caught, she did
enjoy the stew Mrs. Martin concocted from their harvest. The
housekeeper had no sympathy for the greedy creatures.

"Just wait until you wake up one morning to
find half your garden gone, then you can tell me all about the
lovely little bunnies."

The children showed her where a variety of
birds nested in the trees and a fox den built into the earth. They
showed her how to follow the deer and the shallow caves that would
make good places to sleep.

Buddy always came with them and Forest
usually stayed home, preferring the company of Mrs. Martin in the
kitchen.

She was slowly coming out of her shell and
she blushed with pride at the least little compliment to her
awakening skills. Tilda swore the girl chattered when no one else
was around though said little about her previous life. What little
she did say led Tilda to form some strong opinions about the girl's
behavior.

"That child has seen things no child should
see. She worries about the women in the house, but you and the
Alpha most of all," she told Kat one morning in the kitchen. "You
watch her. Every time one of you gives a man a bit of sass, she
cringes. She hangs that head of hers down every time a man walks
by, but she's watching and waiting.

"Yesterday, Ryker called me from the kitchen
and he sounded put out, but it wasn't at me. He was giving some of
the younger ones a good telling about leaving their plates and
glasses about. He said I wasn't to be picking up after them. They
were big and ugly enough to do it themselves. When I got back to
the kitchen, that girl was curled up in the corner, froze stiff
with fear. She clung to me and cried. She didn't say so, but I
suspect she thought I was in for a beating."

Kat nodded in agreement. "I've noticed it,
too, even with River. If he asks her to do something, she scurries
to do it. Tilda, you don't suppose he's…"

"Not for a minute. I've seen him cuff those
two boys, not hard mind, but enough to get their attention. Never
seen him raise a hand or his voice for that matter to either of the
girls. He'd never hurt a one of them. I think he'd die for 'em. And
I've never seen him watching Forest like a boy does a girl, like a
man does a woman. No ma'am. Those cubs's got nothing to worry about
from River."

"You like him, don't you?" Kat had notice how
the thickest chop always found its way to River's plate along with
the largest slice of pie. They'd had pecan pie three times this
week and she wondered if it was his favorite. Tilda showed her love
with food.

"I do," Tilda answered without hesitation.
"Life's been hard on him, too, and he don't trust a one of us as
far as he could toss us. Can't say we've given him a reason to, but
you watch him with those kids. He loves 'em, though he probably
wouldn't own to it and I expect that's because he's been raised to
see it as a weakness. I know what some of these wolvers are
watching for, but I'm telling you here and now that boy's not wild.
The softness has been wore out of his body, but it still abides in
his heart."

"I think so, too," Kat said thoughtfully,
"And I think I understand his anger. When my mother died, I was so
angry with her for leaving me even though I knew it wasn't her
choice. I blamed her for my father's drinking and I was angry with
him for leaving, too, but I didn't know it then. All I knew was I
was so, so angry. It was years before I realized where the anger
came from. For River, it has to be so much worse. I was lucky I had
Grams. When I think about it, I don't know how she put up with
me."

"She just kept on loving you, same as you'll
do for these cubs."

* * *

She told Charles about it later that night
when the house was quiet and they were walking up the lane in the
dark. Between his business and the children and a houseful of
people, it was hard to find time to just be together and talk.

"They need you, you know. They need to see
you're not the man they think you are. They need to know you, not
the Alpha."

"And how am I supposed to do that? The big
one snarls and clenches his fists every time I walk by. The little
one pees. The girl freezes like a deer caught in the headlights and
the boys duck and run for cover. They've been here long enough to
know I'm not going to eat them alive."

"You could start by learning their names.
You, boy!" she snapped her fingers and mimicked Charles' deep
voice, "Is not how you begin a friendly conversation."