chapter Twelve
“Got more pancakes ready?”
Shane slid a few stacks onto the serving plate in Jay’s outstretched hand. “We need a bigger griddle, especially for the morning after the full moon.”
Jay shrugged and set the plate in the middle of the table. “Add it to the list.”
“My dad might have some ideas.” Eden snatched a pancake off the top of the stack with a grin. “He said this kitchen hasn’t been updated in half a century, so if we’re going to do it, we might as well think a little less farmhouse and a little more industrial.”
“Which sounds expensive,” Jay pointed out. Lord knew they’d have enough to worry about just keeping the place running until some of the business investments they’d planned started to pay off.
“Not necessarily.” Lorelei poured herself another cup of coffee. “If Austin has some good contacts, you can get plenty of commercial equipment secondhand. You boys are good enough with your hands to handle most of the basic renovations, which just leaves tricky stuff like electrical and plumbing. Easy to subcontract out.”
“I know someone,” Eden said. “I had to have the wiring on my house redone a few years ago. He’s friends with my father and he’ll cut us a deal. Dad feeds him enough free—”
“Shit.” Colin turned away from the window, his face grim. “Car coming up the drive. Fast.”
For all his warnings to Eden the night before, it didn’t seem like the Memphis alphas’ style, a head-on attack in broad daylight. Jay would have expected something sneakier. Deadlier. “There could be more coming through the back. Fletcher, go take a look—howl if there’s anything going on beyond the barn. Shane, go wake Stella.”
The wolves at the breakfast table scattered as if they’d practiced for this moment a hundred times, synchronized in a way they hadn’t been before the full moon. Colin fell in on Jay’s left as he headed for the front door. Eden followed them as far as the stairs, blocking the only way up to where Kaley and Mae still slept.
The car screeched to a stop, the engine still rumbling, but the wolves in it weren’t enforcers. A woman with dark circles under her eyes pulled a little boy from the back seat and clutched him to her chest as three more people spilled out of the car, some beaten. Bloody.
Jay’s first thought was of a trap, and he steeled himself against their terrified expressions as he stepped off the porch. “This is private property.”
“Sanctuary,” the woman whispered, fingers tightening on the boy. “They said this was sanctuary.”
Oh, shit. “You came from Memphis?”
Lorelei folded her arms across her midsection. “That’s Tammy. One of Christian’s women.”
Agony twisted the woman’s features. “We do what we have to when there’s no hope. You know that as well as anyone, Lorelei.”
“I never gave him anyone else,” Lorelei whispered fiercely. “I never set anyone up. I didn’t do what you did to Zack!”
The boy made a frightened noise. Tammy slid a protective hand to the back of his head, hiding his face against her neck. “You don’t have a son.”
Pain flashed across Lorelei’s face, harsh and gone in an instant. “How the hell would you know?”
Jay laid a hand on her arm. “Go inside. Ask Eden if she’ll get the extra rooms ready.”
He could tell she wanted to argue. She even opened her mouth to give voice to the protest sparking in her eyes, but in the end Lorelei turned and walked back into the house.
Jay rubbed his face. “I won’t have any trouble here. That’s the first and last rule, the only important one. This is a safe place, but only if we keep it that way.”
“We couldn’t have stopped them.” Lorelei’s challenge had given the woman spine, but without it she seemed lost. Exhausted. Tears filled her eyes, and she lowered her gaze to Jay’s feet. “Everything Christian did to their pack, he did it to us first. By the time they came for Zack’s people, most of us just wanted to keep breathing. We don’t want trouble. We just want to survive.”
“Okay. Shut the car off and come inside.”
One of the other wolves, a man with a puffy black eye, spoke up. “It’s hotwired. We had to steal it.”
One more bit of danger, something else he’d have to cover up. “Shane?” he called.
But he and the witch were already pushing through the screen door. “I heard. I’ll take care of it.”
Whether the car ended up in a chop shop or at the bottom of a lake, Jay really didn’t care. He motioned to the others. “Get your stuff and come inside. Food or rest first?”
“Rest,” Tammy whispered. “Thank you. Thank you so much. We won’t make trouble, we’ll pull our weight. I can work—”
“For now, you can rest,” Eden said, stepping out onto the porch next to Jay. “If you come with me to the smaller house, we have an empty room already set up. We may have to do some rearranging, but I think we can get all of you bedded down near each other. Sound good, Jay?” Though she made it sound like a question, she turned her back on the new arrivals long enough to say, “Colin will explain.”
He didn’t have to. Whether they’d been coerced into it or not, these new arrivals had hurt the others, and everyone would be better off with a little space.
Eden exuded confidence and dominant power as she hopped down the steps. She swept the tired wolves ahead of her, herding them toward the little house as she admired Tammy’s son and held out the promise of hot baths and soft beds.
As her voice drifted out of easy hearing range, Colin stepped out onto the creaky porch. “Lorelei’s really rattled, and I take it Kaley doesn’t need to find out they’re here while they’re within choking range.”
“Not if Peters used any of them to get to Zack,” Jay agreed. “You know it might be a trap.”
“Might be just as dangerous if it isn’t. You think that kid is his?”
“Shit, I don’t know. Those are two very bad choices—Trojan horse versus insane a*shole bent on reclaiming what’s his? I think we’re just about out of time, either way.”
Colin snarled his agreement. “Eden asked if Shane and I would move over to this house. The girls seemed okay around us last night, and I’d feel better being on hand.”
“It’s a good move. Fletcher can stay over there, keep an eye on things.”
“He’ll probably want to.” Colin crossed his arms over his chest. “He’s trying not to dig in, get too attached.”
“I know.” Every step closer to belonging was one step closer to an inevitable fight. “He doesn’t want this pack, but things are what they are.”
“Fletcher doesn’t follow,” Colin agreed. “Back in the day, I wasn’t much for it either.”
He said it as though everything had changed. Jay leaned against the porch railing and focused on his friend. “And now?”
Colin closed his eyes. “I’ve spent ten years hunting monsters. Stalking them. Getting into their heads, figuring out how to take them down. That’s too much time thinking like a monster. I don’t know if I trust myself anymore.”
Too long without boundaries. Orders. “You’re welcome to stay, man. As long as you need to.”
“I need to stay. I want to.” He rubbed a hand over his hair. “I’m tired of revenge. I want to protect someone so they don’t need avenging.”
“That’s the goal, right?” Jay held out his hand. “I’m glad you’re going to be here, Colin. Damn glad.”
“Might be nice to stay in one place for a while.” Colin clasped Jay’s hand. “We could build something here, once this is over. Something real nice.”
A safe place, a haven. “Sanctuary,” Jay murmured. It was all any of them wanted.
Eden had been in her office for all of two minutes when a member of the board knocked on the partially open door. Virginia Burke must have been waiting to pounce from the moment Eden set foot in the library, and from the look on the older woman’s face, Eden knew she wasn’t going to like what was coming.
She set her address book next to the stack of mail she’d been sorting through and fixed a smile on her face. “Come on in, Virginia. It’s nice to see you.”
“Likewise.” Virginia closed the door almost silently behind her. “I’ve left you several voicemail messages over the last few days.”
“I wasn’t due back until tomorrow,” she reminded Virginia, keeping her voice as light as her smile. Bright and happy, even if the wolf was unamused by this intruder in their territory.
The woman arched an eyebrow. “Yes, I know. I was calling to see if you’d resolved your family emergency.”
Eden had known this conversation was coming, but somehow it felt worse sprung on her like this. She wanted to have it on her terms, at her time, not trapped in her office with Virginia’s perfume strong enough to give a werewolf a migraine. “Actually, I was hoping to talk to the board. I know everyone’s worked hard to give me the time to deal with this, but I might need a few more days. Just to get everything settled.”
“More time?” Virginia released a breath on a heavy sigh. “Eden, I know that Albus’s boy is back in town. Everyone does.”
Zack’s absence had put most of the cruel whispers about him to rest, but Eden still remembered being a child. She remembered women like Virginia whispering in church and gossiping at the grocery store, fiercely shocked and secretly delighted by what a bad end that Zack Green would come to.
Temper stirred, a hot pressure beneath her skin. Maybe Jay had been right. Maybe she wasn’t ready. She couldn’t even sound friendly as she ground out one word. “And?”
Virginia didn’t avert her gaze. “I would advise you, as a friend, to distance yourself from his problems as much as possible. Come back to work, Eden. Whatever trouble he’s gotten himself into, whatever path he’s taken, you can’t help him. Only the Lord can do that.”
Eden fisted her hands. If she gripped the edge of the desk in her current mood, she’d snap the thing in half. “I wasn’t raised to turn my back on family,” she said, spacing each word out to be slow and clear. “If you have a problem with my work performance or my need for time off, then I’ll be happy to discuss it.”
“I understand.” Virginia took a step back. “I’ll have to take your request for extended leave to the board.”
They’d expect her back at work tomorrow. Memphis could have attacked by then, or there could be another crisis at the farm. More refugees, more people needing help. Every moment she spent away from Green Pines felt like a moment waiting to hear something had gone wrong. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, just like she had her whole life.
And now she’d be waiting to get fired. It would happen. Standing in her mundane, paper-cluttered office, Eden could see the truth with cruel starkness. She didn’t fit in this tiny room anymore. It had been her sanctuary, her cocoon, but now the only thing she liked about it was remembering Jay on the fire escape, luring her out for a kiss.
They have to change jobs—change lives, even—because nothing fits right anymore.
God damn it, she was tired of waiting for things to happen to her.
Moving carefully, she picked up her address book and her mail. “I think I can save the board some time. Considering the likelihood that family obligations will be taking up an increasing amount of my attention, it would probably be smart to offer you my resignation.”
Virginia started. “Eden, you should think about this. Don’t be hasty.”
“If you need me to help with the transition, I’ll do everything I can.” Eden dumped her address book in her purse and tossed her organizer in after it. “I’m sorry, Virginia.”
“I don’t even…” The woman held up her hands. “Write it up, and I’ll take it to the board. But Eden—be careful, sweetheart.”
Virginia was watching her like she’d lost her mind. None of them had ever seen her make a hasty decision in her careful, claustrophobic life. “I’ll be fine,” Eden promised, and she meant it. For the first time in years, she could breathe deeply. “Don’t worry about me.”
“How could I not? What will you do? There isn’t exactly an abundance of jobs like this in Clover.”
Might as well plant the seeds now. People were undoubtedly already whispering about what was going on at Green Pines. “The family that came to stay on the farm has a business selling organic soaps and bath products. They’re doing so well, they’re expanding their operation. I might help.”
Again, that look like she’d gone insane, simply waltzed up to the deep end and jumped off. As if nothing about her made sense anymore.
It was probably an expression Eden would need to get used to.