“I won’t so much as jaywalk anymore. I’m not proud of what I’ve done, and I won’t make excuses for any of it.”
“Good, because I don’t want to hear them. I only want to hear that you won’t do any of that again, that you will obey the law of the land, and the pack. Can you do that?”
Xio looked up and held Drew’s gaze. “I can.”
“If you have any secrets, you need to come clean now.”
“Nothing I can think of.” Except for the massive pile of money I have in the bank as Sarah. That was something to fall back on—her exit plan, if things got too rough in the Black Hills. Foolish not to have one, so she wasn’t about to disclose what she had. Alpha or not. Doubtful she’d ever need to use it anyway.
“Excellent. You now have a clean slate.” Drew sat up, opened his desk, and pulled out a piece of paper. He scrawled something across the surface. “You can start by getting a job in town. You’re interview is with Gee, a were-bear, tomorrow at eleven sharp at The Den. You’ll be washing dishes and waiting tables for him. Once you prove yourself, you can tend bar or do whatever it is he wants you to do. Don’t be late. He’s expecting you.”
“Just like that, I get a job.”
“Idle hands are never a good thing. I’m going to keep you busy, and you’re going to need some money for rent.” Drew tossed a set of keys to Marcus. “Two blocks from The Den, 1020 First Street. I took the liberty of furnishing it. Nothing fancy, but it’s clean and cozy. Perfect for starting a family.”
Drew turned toward Marcus. “I’d like to talk to you about what you did for your brother’s pack. I already have a Beta, but I am looking for knowledgeable enforcers and you fit the bill. The pack has been without a leader for a long time. A lot of our numbers are starting to come back, trickle in one at a time. Those who don’t want to see us back in good form have been eyeballing our territory. I expect some aggression from neighboring packs and the occasional lone wolf who thinks he might like to stake a claim. Come by and see me tomorrow, after you drop Xio off at work.”
Chapter Five
Xio lifted dishes into the rubber tote and hauled them toward the kitchen. She actually liked busing tables and washing dishes. She could listen to her language lessons and didn’t have to interact with anyone, explain who she was, or talk about her past. That couldn’t be more perfect.
She shoved through the saloon doors that separated the bar from the kitchen. Caught up in repeating a line in Chinese about ordering a beer, she ran head-on into Gee, her new employer and a bigger enigma than she.
He reached up and plucked one of the headphones from her ears. “You’d like to order two beers?”
Xio blushed and shut the MP3 player off. Gee speaks Chinese? And it had been the most he’d said to her all week. Her mouth dropped open.
“Yeah, I know. What’s a big old bear like me doing in the midst of a wolf pack speaking Chinese?”
“Something like that.” She furrowed her brow. Yeah, the bruin had just become a bigger mystery. Who’d have thought? “So…?”
“I’m kind of a pack authority, historian, if you will. I knew your grandfather and grandmother. Mai Ling actually taught me to speak Chinese. She looked a lot like you.” He smiled.
“You knew my family?”
He nodded. “All of them.”
“That makes you exactly how old?”
The bear frowned. “This conversation isn’t about me.”
“Fine. Tell me about my family, about my grandmother.”
Gee glanced out into the empty bar. He grabbed the tote and set it down by the dishwasher, snagged her arm, and guided her toward a table. “We can take a break.” He pulled a chair out. “Sit.”
Xio dropped onto the hard surface and waited while Gee grabbed another and straddled it backward, making it look no bigger than a piece of child’s furniture. Once settled in, he laced his fingers together and cracked them.
Xio cleared her throat.
“Patience is a virtue.”
“I’m not very virtuous.”
“Hmm.” Gee began his tale—in Chinese.
Xio opened her mouth and he raised his hand to silence her, continuing on like there had been no interruption. How could she tell him she didn’t understand a word, well maybe one or two, but ninety percent of it slipped by her? It was embarrassing enough he’d caught her with the language lessons. She opened her mouth again.
His hand came up again. “Listen.” It would be the last word he said in English for the next fifteen minutes.
Mai Ling—blah, blah, blah. Eli Snow. What the hell? “You don’t know anything about my family in English?”
Gee furrowed his brow. “This is about you learning your heritage. If you want to know the story, you need to listen to it the way it was told to me.”
“That’s not fair. I don’t know Chinese.”
“Well, grasshopper, when you learn to speak your native tongue, ask me again.”