Wolver's Rescue (14 page)

“
You didn’t want him near
you or your wolf didn’t?”

“
Your wolf. You say those
words so easily.” She attempted to smile. “I only knew there was
something inside me, something angry and rebellious, that took
control of me and made me do things I wouldn’t normally
do.”

“
That’s what a pack is for,”
he said gently, “To teach you control.”

“
A pack? Another word that’s
easy for you to say. I didn’t have a pack. I thought I was going
insane and it grew worse whenever he was around. My parents argued
over it. My father said Ray was trying to help. He’d told them my
birth parents had problems, too. My mother said Gantnor was
becoming obsessed, that he was the abnormal one and my behavior was
simply teenaged rebellion.”

“
And what did you
say?”

“
Nothing. They didn’t know I
was listening in. My hearing is...”

“
Better than most,” Bull
finished for her. “It’s a wolver thing. My mother used to say...”
he began and then stopped, expecting the pain he normally felt when
he remembered things he’d rather not.

Tommie’s fingers felt warm against his cheek.
“Bull? Bull, what’s wrong? I’m hurting you, aren’t I? I’m sitting
here feeling sorry for myself when you’re the one who’s injured.
You’re probably cold, too. You need to get that shirt on and your
jacket,” she fussed. She reached for the door handle to let herself
out.

“
No,” he said, more sharply
than he meant to. He drew her hand away from the door. He wanted it
back where it was, caressing his cheek in a gesture of tenderness
he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “I’m not cold or hurting.” And
it was true, but not in the way she meant it.

Having her in his arms, listening to the
sound of her voice, he felt warm in places where he’d only felt
cold for so long. He never spoke of his mother, had trained himself
not to think of her or the others. Yet with Tommie, it seemed
natural, ordinary. He finished what he’d begun.

“
My mother used to tell us
to watch our ears as well as our tongues. Both could bring hurt;
tongues to others, ears to ourselves.”

“
A wise woman. When did you
lose her?” she asked, surprising him with her
perception.

“
A long time ago, when I was
just a cub.” Saying those words didn’t hurt as much as he thought
it would, either.

Tommie held her hand against his cheek again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

And that did hurt, because no one had ever
said it before, and because it hurt, he changed the subject back to
where it needed to be, the business at hand.

“
As I said, it was a long
time ago,” he said brusquely. “We were talking about Dr.
Gantnor.”

She reluctantly withdrew her hand. “Yeah, Dr.
Gantnor,” she sighed. “My mother won, as she usually did with
Daddy. I saw other counselors, but they didn’t help much. Neither
did the drugs they gave me. Uncle Ray still came around, but not as
often, and when he did, I made myself scarce. Eventually, just as
my mother predicted, I got my act together.”

“
How?” He didn’t think it
was possible.

She shrugged and settled back against him,
her head against his bare chest. “I made up my mind that it
wouldn’t control my life. I wouldn’t let it beat me. I stayed close
to my parents, got my degree, and went to work for Harbor House as
a Social Worker. When it acted up, I got angry with it instead of
with everyone else. Most of the time.” She giggled a little. “My
periods were weird and really irregular, but my PMS isn’t. You’d
better be careful. Once a month, I turn into a madwoman.” Her eyes
widened. “Not literally,” she added hastily, looking up at him.

Bull laughed at the look on her face. “The
call of the moon. It does that to all of us, though it doesn’t have
to be bad,” he assured her and felt his wolf yip happily at the
thought of how he’d like to spend the coming full moon. Bull wished
the damn animal would keep its horny thoughts to itself. It was
hard enough to concentrate on the woman’s words and not her fingers
drawing lazy designs on his chest.

Tommie pulled away, looking down at that
chest. “What was that?”

Shit! She shouldn’t have been able to feel
his wolf unless he wanted her to. And he sure as hell didn’t want
her to. She was half starved with a little over twenty-four hours
of recovery from her three month confinement and he still didn’t
know what her wolf would be like once it was let out. She should be
the least attractive sexual prospect he’d ever encountered, but she
wasn’t. The damned female called to him like the moon herself.

He pulled her back against his chest where
she couldn’t see his face and covered his frustration with a
question. “If Gantnor was out of your life, how did you end up in
the cage?”

“
I went to the clinic on
behalf of a client. She insisted two of her family members were
there, but when she tried to find out more, they gave her a hard
time. She had no ID, no proof she was a relative. I thought I might
be able to help. When I got nowhere with my inquiries, I asked to
speak to Dr. Gantnor...”

Things were beginning to add up and Bull
didn’t like the sum. Was he being paranoid? Maybe, but he wasn’t
paid to look the other way when the security of his species was
threatened. It was his job to investigate and eliminate the problem
if there was one. Listening with one ear, he began to compile a
list of questions that needed to be answered.

“
Tell me about this woman,”
he said. “Do you think she was working for Gantnor?”

~*~

“
No! Cora? Absolutely not,”
Tommie answered with complete conviction.

She couldn’t explain it, but she was sure
from the very beginning that Cora was telling her the truth.

“
She’s one of my ladies at
Harbor House. Cora’s special. The minute I met her, I knew she
belonged in my little group. We’re not supposed to play favorites,
but there are always those where you know you can make a real
difference in their lives and Cora was one of them. It was like I’d
known her all my life and she said the only reason she came to me
was because of the connection we shared, so she must have felt it,
too. Have you ever met someone like that? Like you knew them even
though you’d never met them before in your life?”

Realization hit her like a virtual slap in
the head. She wasn’t the one who felt the connection. It was the
thing inside her; her wolf. And the connection she felt for Cora
was like the connection she felt for Bull.

Tommie felt the heat rise in her cheeks when
her wolf - and the word felt more comfortable each time she thought
it - when her wolf began to yip and howl in what Tommie now
recognized as laughter and she immediately understood why. What she
felt with Cora was nothing like what she felt with Bull. Jumping
Cora’s bones had never once crossed her mind.

It wasn’t crossing her mind with Bull
anymore, either. It was permanently implanted there and sitting on
his lap wasn’t helping matters. This wasn’t the time, place, or
conversation in which to be having these thoughts, but they
wouldn’t go away. Maybe she’d just traded one form of craziness for
another.

She shifted her body uneasily at the thought
and then jumped when her rear end slipped from his thigh, made
contact with his crotch, and the bulge behind the zipper of his
jeans jumped too.

“
Maybe I’d better move back
to my own seat,” she squeaked.

“
Good idea.” Bull lifted her
from his lap and dropped her into the passenger seat like she was a
hot potato.

They sat together, looking out the windshield
at anything and everything except each other.

“
Movie’s out,” she said
because she didn’t know what else to say, but couldn’t take the
silence any longer. A mass of people was pouring out of the theater
into the parking lot.

Bull let out a long, whistling breath. “Look,
it’s only a part of the full moon’s call. All wolvers feel it. I’m
sure you’ve felt it before and just didn’t know what it was.”

Another piece of the crazy puzzle that was
her life fell into place. She had felt it before, when she was
running wild. It had earned her a reputation in high school and
later, she’d been shamed by it. The bitchiness she called PMS was
the result of her refusal to give in to the urges of her body.

But because she’d felt it before, she knew
this feeling wasn’t the same. The undeniable neediness that came
from inside was there, but there was a satisfaction in it, almost
as if that need had been met. Except it definitely hadn’t been met.
It was worse sitting with the console between them, unable to touch
him or feel him touching her.

“
This woman, Cora, how did
she know the men were taken?” Bull asked. His voice sounded huskier
and strained.

“
Sh-she saw it. She wouldn’t
tell me how or where, but sh-she saw the car insignia and the men
who took him and her daughter’s mate, that was the word she used,
mate.” She closed her mouth and looked down at her hands. It was
the same word that her wolf was whispering in her head.

“
It’s our word for spouse.
Wife, husband, it works both ways.”

Bull pulled on the clean shirt and shrugged
into his jacket. He started the engine and threw the truck into
reverse.

“
Where are we going?” she
asked with the word still swirling around in her head.

“
To see if we can find two
more wolvers in Gantnor’s torture chamber.”

“
They’re looking for us,
Bull. Shouldn’t we think about this? Shouldn’t we have a plan?”
Tommie asked as she pulled the take out bag from behind the seat
and a burger from the bag.

“
This is the last place
they’ll be looking, and ‘we’ don’t have to think or plan, because
‘we’ aren’t going in there. I am. You’re staying in the truck.”
Bull never took his eyes from the cop car crossing the intersection
while he waited at the red light. When it passed without slowing he
shifted his eyes to her. “Jesus, are you eating again?”

“
My name’s not Jesus, and
I’m hungry.” She bit, chewed, and swallowed. “And you’re not going
in there alone,” she added before taking another bite. She hoped
she sounded braver than she felt.

The idea of going back in there with the
threat of recapture was terrifying, and the likelihood of another
Bull coming along to rescue her was slim to none. Besides, she
didn’t want another Bull. She wanted this one, though at the
moment, she wasn’t sure why. “I’m not going to stand outside and
watch while you get yourself shot.”

“
You’d rather stand inside
and watch it up close?” The light turned green. He took his foot
off the brake and eased the truck up to the speed limit. “Because
that’ll be the only difference.”

“
That’s not funny and you
know what I mean. I can help.” She leaned over to check the
speedometer. “Can’t you go any faster?”

The fool man took his hands from the wheel
and held them up. “Would you like to drive?”

“
Yes! Would you let me?” She
grabbed for the steering wheel, but he got there first.

“
No, and I’m not letting you
come with me, either.”

She changed tactics and said in her most
wheedling voice, the voice that always worked on her father,
“Please, Bull, pul-ease. I’ll be good and do everything you tell me
to. I can help. I know I can.”

He didn’t fall for it. He didn’t roll his
eyes, but he may as well have. “I should have left you in the
fucking dumpster.”

Tommie huffed. “And then you wouldn’t have
known there were two more wolvers at Gantnor’s.”

They’d been arguing since they left the
parking lot. The man had no sense of planning or organization. How
was he going to get in? The same way they got out. How would he
find the other wolvers? The same way he found her.

“
How did you find me,
exactly?”

“
I told you. Smell. The
stench was overwhelming.”

Tommie was sorry she asked. Then again, it
made her think of another question.

“
If you were looking for
Thomas Bane and you didn’t know you’d found him, why didn’t you
keep looking? Why didn’t you smell these other guys?”

~*~

Why didn’t he? Because it wasn’t her
repulsive scent that drew him. It was her soft whine of fear that
drove a nail into his heart. That’s what sent him to her. But once
she was safe, why didn’t he follow through on his mission? He knew
Bane was in there and if there was one thing Bull was known for, it
was the single-mindedness with which he pursued his quarry.

He’d allowed himself to be distracted by the
skinny assed wolver in the seat next to him who was going to be a
fat assed wolver if she kept eating like that.

His wolf rolled over, kicking its feet in the
air and indicating he didn’t care. Skinny assed or fat, he wanted
her.

Bull had to agree, though for the life of
him, he couldn’t figure out why. He liked his women softly pliant
both in and out of bed. He was pretty sure the gentle vulnerability
he’d seen in Tommie the night before was strictly the result of her
exhaustion. There was nothing soft about her. She was angular, and
sharp as a tack. While starvation was partly to blame, the woman
sitting next to him, chomping on her second giant burger from the
bag, and her fourth of the night, had never been round. He’d stake
his last dollar on it.