Anna couldn’t help but glance at her husband, but if there had been an expression on his face, she was too late to see it.
Briskly the old woman said, “Hosteen, take those filthy boots off before you come into the house. Please.” The “please” was an afterthought.
“Yes, Maggie,” said the Alpha, his voice soft. “And who is it that gave you a broom?”
She raised an eyebrow at him and thumped her broom on the stone of the walk in front of the door. “No one gives me a broom in my own house, Papa. I took it from Ernestine. She is a good girl, but she doesn’t get the edges where the floor meets the wall. Usually it doesn’t matter, but today we have visitors.” She looked at Charles and her face softened.
“It’s good to see you again,” she said, then ducked her eyes away almost shyly. “Joseph apologized for missing your arrival, but he takes an early lunch and then naps in the afternoon on most days. He would love to see you later.”
Charles took the old woman’s hand in his and kissed it with a gallantry Anna had seldom seen him use with anyone but her. “I look forward to speaking with him.”
Joseph, Anna thought, was not the only one Charles felt affection for in this household. She was a little wary of this turn of events. Clearly she should have pinned her husband down and forced him to disgorge more information.
Warned by Maggie’s scolding of Hosteen, Anna pulled off her shoes and put them on a mat near the door while Charles pulled off his boots.
“You two haven’t been playing in the horse manure all morning,” said Maggie. “You can leave your shoes on.”
“It is no matter,” Charles disagreed. “Shoes come off and on without trouble.”
The interior of the house was full of white plaster walls and high, dark-beamed ceilings with big fans designed to help keep the air moving. Though it was February, outside it had been pleasantly warm—especially compared to Montana, which was still in the middle of a deep freeze. Being a werewolf, Anna didn’t mind the cold, but she didn’t mind being out of it, either.
The floors were hardwood. Anna knew oak floors, and these had a different grain, with the worn patina that comes with decades of foot traffic and the gleam that comes with cleaning. She couldn’t help but check, but she didn’t see any hint of dirt against the wall.
“Maggie and Joseph and I are the only ones living here right now,” Hosteen said. “Ernestine, Maggie’s great-niece, comes in on the weekdays to clean and cook for us. Ernestine’s sister Libby does the same on the weekends.”
“Which is a waste of money,” muttered Maggie. “I am perfectly capable of caring for two old men for two days a week.” It had the sound of an old argument—all the heat gone.
“Kage knows you’re here,” Maggie told Charles. “He called from the barn to say he’d be up in an hour or so. They are shorthanded because one of the stable girls quit last week and my son is picky about the people who touch his horses. We’ll feed you a late lunch and then he’ll take you out to look at horses.” To Hosteen she said, “Why don’t you wash up, Papa, and I will show Charles and his wife to their room?”
She didn’t wait for Hosteen to say anything but turned and, summoning her guests with a gesture, led them through a large living room designed for entertaining. Anna recognized a pack house when she saw one. This room, with its multiple levels and conversational groupings, could hold twenty or thirty people, a whole pack, and still feel comfortable rather than crowded.
“That old wolf,” said Maggie as soon as they were alone, “is pleased as punch and flattered that you are shopping among our horses. Don’t let him make you think otherwise.”
Anna heard a huff of laughter coming from behind them somewhere. Maggie might think that they were out of earshot, but Hosteen’s ears were a lot better than an old human woman’s.
As she led them to a set of mission-style stairs, Maggie stopped and gave Anna a good once-over. Then she said something in a foreign tongue, almost staccato in its rapid use of short syllables, but the consonants were too soft. Pizzicato.
Charles narrowed his eyes. Whatever Maggie said, he didn’t like it. “Yes, she is.” His voice was soft. “It is impolite to talk in a language that your guest doesn’t understand. And even more impolite when you are talking about her.”
Maggie looked at Anna. “I told him you are beautiful and young.” She made it sound like a bad thing. “He will run over the top of you and never notice.”
“He is beautiful, too, don’t you think?” said Anna, big-eyed. She was unable to resist the urge to respond to the disapproval in Maggie’s face. She was tired of being misjudged, and more tired of people who thought that Charles would marry a doormat. She put all the earnest sweetness in her voice that she could manage. “And he makes me so happy. I would never dream of disagreeing with him. Why would I? He is strong and so much wiser than I am.” She reached out and ran her hand down his arm.
She was afraid she’d overdone the last sentence, but evidently not. Maggie frowned at her, missing the fleeting grin Charles gave Anna’s meek little speech of adoration. The old woman turned to Charles and let loose a flood of words.
“You know that she is Omega,” Charles said finally, when she had run to a stop. “Hosteen knows; Joseph knows, and it is something that he would tell you.”
She said something more, and her frown turned into a scowl.
Charles laughed, the quiet happy sound he made only when he was among friends. “Omegas aren’t submissive,” Charles told Maggie. “Some of them even have a sense of humor and tease well-meaning people who worry about them when they are hanging around big bad wolves. Don’t worry, she argues with me a lot. She even holds her own with my father.”
“With Bran?” Maggie looked at Anna as if she’d grown horns.
Anna said modestly, “My father-in-law could use more people who will argue with him. It would do him good.”
“I misjudged you,” Maggie said. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t sound sorry. Charles might think that Maggie had been worried about Anna, but Anna knew better. She knew jealousy when she saw it.
She knew a number of very old people who looked as though they were twenty-five instead of two hundred or however old they were. One of the lessons that had been drummed into her was that no matter what a person looked like on the outside, who they were on the inside could be quite different. Lurking inside Maggie was a woman who still had feelings for Charles.
“People tend to look at me and think I’m a lightweight,” Anna acknowledged. “You aren’t the first.” She understood loving Charles, and since it was she who had him, she could make an effort to be gracious. “But you were worried, which was kind of you. It’s all good.”
She and the old woman exchanged equally insincere smiles. Anna had the distinct urge to roll her eyes and stick out her tongue.
Maggie ushered them into a suite of rooms with a sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom. “When you’ve freshened up, come down to the kitchen—you still remember where it is, Charles?”
“I do,” he said. “And we will.”
Anna used the bathroom, washed her face, and went back to the bedroom. Maggie was gone. Charles headed to the bathroom, presumably to do the same.
When he reemerged, she said as neutrally as she could, “Maggie likes you.”
He understood what she meant.
“We dated once upon a time,” he told her somberly. “Though ‘dating’ is too formal a word for it. Flirting is better, but too lighthearted. We didn’t suit in the end—and she and Joseph were married. 1962, I think. Though I could be off a year either way.”
Anna heard it all in his voice. The sorrow of friends who grew old and died when you did not. She hadn’t experienced it herself yet, but she knew that the probability was that she would live to see her father and brother grow old and die while she still looked like a woman in her twenties. Charles, she knew from talking to his father, had made a point of never getting involved with human women. Until
Anna, he’d pretty much steered clear of any kind of real relationship with any woman. Maybe, she thought, Maggie had been one of the reasons why.
Charles knew the way around the house—it hadn’t changed much in the last twenty years. A few new pieces of art, different throw rugs, but mostly it was the same.
Despite what she’d said, Maggie met them at the top of the stairs. He could see her younger self superimposed in his imagination. Her fiery eyes were the same, and the straight spine that made people give way when she passed by.
Charles let the women lead the way down to the main rooms of the house, Maggie first, her back stiff and hostile. He was not unaware that Maggie had decided she didn’t like his Anna, a very unusual reaction to his Omega wife. Since it didn’t bother Anna, he let it ride. She had taught him that despite Brother Wolf’s determination to protect her from anything that would cause her discomfort, Anna was perfectly capable of protecting herself.
Brother Wolf had bowed to Charles’s belief that to protect Anna from everything would cause her more harm than good. It didn’t stop his wolf from being very unhappy with Maggie.
“I can’t find my phone,” said a half-familiar man’s voice in the kitchen. “I had it this morning. Have you seen it anywhere?”
“I don’t keep track of your toys, Kage,” said Hosteen. “But if I did, I might have seen it in the laundry room this morning.”
“I found it and put it on the phone table in the hallway,” Maggie announced as she entered the kitchen. “I thought you’d look there first. I’ll get it.”
Charles put a hand on Anna’s shoulder and walked into the capacious kitchen beside her.
Seeing a forty-year-old version of Joseph made Charles feel like a horse had kicked him in the stomach. The last time he’d seen Kage, he’d been a young man and the resemblance had not been so obvious. His attention on his mother, Kage grinned Joseph’s grin. “Thanks, Mom. I knew I could count on you. Now, as Chelsea likes to tell me, if I could only find my common sense, I’d be all set.”
Maggie shook her head. “If you had any common sense you’d have left this place to be a banker like your older brother. And you’d have been as unhappy for the rest of your life as he would have been if he’d stayed here. Be content that your phone is found.” She patted his shoulder and left by another doorway, presumably to get the phone.
“You find your rooms all right?” Hosteen asked them.
“Beautiful,” Anna answered for them.
Kage looked toward his visitors for the first time and stiffened warily. “Charles. Hosteen told me your names, of course, but I didn’t make the connection to you. I don’t think I ever heard Dad use your last name.” Charles wasn’t aware of anything he’d done to make Kage wary of him, but people often feared him. He had a sudden flash, an image of Kage as a young boy peering at him from around his mother’s back as Maggie sobbed, accusing him of …
He didn’t remember anymore.
Maggie was another reason that it had been such a long time since he’d last visited. It had not been her fault nor his, but his presence brought tension between Joseph and his wife. Oddly, the trouble wasn’t from Joseph, whom she had picked second. It was Maggie who couldn’t let the past rest. She had rejected Charles, but she was still possessive of him.
Anna smiled. “Lots of people named Charles around,” she said.
“Kage,” Charles said. “This is my wife, Anna. Anna, meet Joseph and Maggie’s son, Hashké Gaajii Sani. He goes by Kage.”
Anna smiled and moved forward, holding out her hand. “Pleased to meet you,” she said with the warmth that was so much a part of her. “I understand that you’re going to show us some horses.”
“That’s the plan,” Kage agreed, his face relaxing under Anna’s influence. “I just need to grab my phone—”
Maggie slid back into the kitchen from another direction and handed him an old-fashioned, battered flip phone.
“Thanks, Mom. Do you prefer mares or geldings?” Still paying attention to Anna, Kage flipped the phone open and glanced at the screen.
“I don’t know,” Anna said. “Mostly I’ve ridden geldings.”
“I understand you have a couple of weeks,” Kage said. “The big show starts in three days and I’ll have to spend most of my time there. I have a few horses in mind. I’ll show some to you today and then I’ll take you out on a trail ride tomorrow.”
Anna shot Charles a startled look, probably at the “couple of weeks.” But Charles needed time with Joseph. If the tension between Maggie and Anna got worse instead of better, they could find a hotel. Besides, choosing a horse was serious business; it was important to take the time to do it right.
“I’ve missed some calls from my wife,” said Kage with a frown. “She gets nervous when I don’t pick up. She rides pretty good for a city girl, but she knows that horses are big and things happen. I’ll give her a call and then we’ll go down to the barn.”
He hit a button and waited as the phone on the other end rang directly to a message. “This is Chelsea Sani. Please leave a—” He cut the message off and gave his phone an irritated look. “I have four new messages since this morning. I’m sorry, I’d better listen to them.”
“No trouble,” said Anna. “We have a couple of weeks. A few minutes isn’t going to make any difference.” She hesitated. “You should know this already, since Hosteen is a werewolf. But if you listen to the messages here, Charles and I will be able to hear them, too. So if they are private…”
He grinned at her. “No worries. We have a teenager and two younger children. There is no way either of us would leave private messages on our phones.”
“Kage, damn it. Pick up.” The voice was the same woman as before. But instead of being professional and cool it was irritated and … Charles didn’t know this woman well enough to do anything more than pick up some intense emotion.
The second message was more troubling. “Kage. You have to come home, please. I don’t feel well. Headache from hell.” She gave a laugh that was more like a sob. “And there’s a knife. It’s shiny and sharp.”
Kage was frowning when he called up the third message. This time his wife was whispering. “Something is wrong with me. Can you help me? Help them?”
The fourth message had them all bolting out of the house, all besides Maggie. She was left behind by an aging body that didn’t allow her to run with the rest of them. Brother Wolf grieved, but Charles was more worried about Kage’s children.
“I’ll drive,” Hosteen said shortly.
There wasn’t room for the four of them in the cab, and with a glance at Anna, Charles changed his direction and leapt into the truck bed. Anna landed gracefully beside him an instant later. Hosteen put the truck in reverse and burned rubber backing out of the parking area. He stopped and threw open the passenger door for Kage, who, human slow, was the last one to the truck.
It took them under ten minutes before Hosteen stopped in front of a pale stucco two-story house. A maroon BMW was parked in the driveway. As they all bailed out of the truck, Hosteen held one hand up. He looked at Charles and gestured toward the back of the house.
Brother Wolf hesitated but decided it was okay to take orders in this situation because it was Hosteen’s family in trouble. Hosteen would know best how to organize the hunt.
Anna, ignored by Hosteen, had chosen to come with Charles, and she had no more trouble than he did hopping to the top of the eight-foot cement wall that separated the public front yard from the private back. She waited on top of the wall with him while he took a quick but comprehensive impression of the situation.
The backyard was not extensive, consisting of a couple of small areas of arid-appropriate plants and a tile walk that surrounded a moderately large swimming pool. There was no sign, to any of his senses, that anyone was nearby. The nearest people were several kids playing in another swimming pool several yards to the west.
What he did notice was that someone was playing cartoons overly loudly in
one of the upper-floor rooms in Kage’s house. He stood up and walked along the wall until he was fairly near the house. Someone had been safety conscious enough that there were no windows within easy human reach from the wall. But Charles had never been merely human.
He jumped toward the house, catching himself on the sill of the window and doing a chin-up so he could see inside the room the sound was coming from.
The bed was against the wall the window was on. He could see the backs of the heads of three people who were seated on the floor using the bed as a support. Two of them were young children cuddling as closely to the third as they could. One of the littler bodies still vibrated with the results of a bout of tears.
“Dad is coming, right?” asked one of the youngsters.
“Dad is coming,” said the one who was adult size. His voice was more hopeful than definite to Charles’s ears.
“Is she still out there?” asked the other child. “She quit knocking on the door.”
“I don’t know,” the older one told them. “It’ll be okay. You just stay in here with me, Michael. I’ll keep you safe.”
Charles dropped soundlessly to the ground and then went back up to the wall, where Anna waited. “The kids are up in that room. I don’t think any of them are hurt, but one of us needs to get in there and make sure they stay okay. You’re less scary than I am.”
He kept his voice quiet, well below the range anyone in a room with the TV blaring could hear.
“Do I go through the window, or open it?” she asked.
The window was modern. He’d have had to break the latches or go through the glass. Anna had another option.
“Why don’t you see if you can get the kids to open the window?” he said. “Save breaking the glass as a last resort. I’ll see you safely inside. Then I’ll go down and into the house from the back.”
He jumped back to the ground and stepped out of immediate view. Anna’s leap to the window was graceful, and she chinned herself up just as he had. But she kept going until her upper body was clearly visible, and then she knocked on the window.