He heard anger, sadness, and frustration. Kendrick wanted to know what dickhead had let her go but he had no time to ask for details.
He tried to sound stern. “If you come with me and it gets too dangerous, I’d have to ditch you somewhere. For your own good.”
Addison’s blue eyes sparkled. “Who decides if it’s too dangerous?”
“Me. If I say go to ground, you go to ground.”
“With the cubs?”
“If necessary.”
Addison bounced on her toes, like Robbie did when he grew excited. “Well, we can argue about that later. Where exactly are you going?”
“I don’t know yet.” Kendrick hated that. “I need to find a place that’s safe, round up my trackers, start over.”
“I see. While we’re on the subject, why aren’t you with other Shifters in the places called Shiftertowns? And why don’t you have a Collar-thingee?” Addison waved her hand at his bare neck. “Not that I think you should wear one—I’m just curious why you’re not.”
“Now that is a very long story.” Kendrick broke from her, swept up the bags Robbie had gathered, and dumped them on the bed. “I can’t promise you safety,” he said. “I’ll do my best but the Goddess only knows what I will find when I start looking. Or I can send you somewhere safe, far from me. Make your choice now.”
Kendrick snapped his mouth closed, waiting for her answer with more anticipation than he’d have liked.
He wasn’t sure why he was giving her the choice at all. He didn’t have time to look after a human woman, even if she’d offered to play babysitter for the cubs. She was excess baggage, and he needed to keep everything simple right now.
And yet, he knew if Addison didn’t come with him, Kendrick would forever be looking for her—around every corner, waiting to hear her voice, see her face. He’d been forced to sever many ties over the years—this one wasn’t even a knot yet—but he didn’t want to cut it loose.
They were both on the brink of something, Kendrick and Addison, and he wasn’t quite sure what.
Robbie broke the silence between them. “Please, Addie. Come with us?”
Zane and Brett took up the chorus. “Yes, Addie, please!”
Addison turned her cocky smile on all three. “Of course I’m coming with you. Your dad is just making things complicated, like guys do. Let’s go. Oh, yeah, I’ll need a toothbrush.”
* * *
Addie asked Kendrick to at least let her change her clothes. With relief, she shed her uniform in the bathroom and pulled on the jeans and loose, flowered shirt she’d kept in her car. She was tempted to dump the now smelly uniform in the trash but someone might find it, and who knew what suspicions that would lead to?
Addie unhooked her name tag from the uniform and dropped it into her purse. She wadded up the ugly dress and tucked it under her arm before she left the bathroom. When she emerged, Kendrick was studying her phone, which he still had, turning it over in his hands.
As she opened her mouth to ask him to return it to her, Kendrick ripped the back from the phone, took out the sim card, and broke the phone into two pieces.
Addie gaped. “Hey, those aren’t cheap!”
“I’ll give you the cost of it.” Kendrick cracked the case and card into smaller pieces, stepped into the bathroom, and flushed them down the toilet. “They can be used to track us,” he said when he emerged.
Addie had known that, but her heart beat faster. “I still need a toothbrush,” she pointed out.
“I have one you can use.”
Addie put her fists on her hips, hands shaking. “Now, hey, I like you, but that’s going a little too far . . .”
Kendrick flicked her a surprised glance. “It’s in a package.”
Addie had figured that’s what he’d meant, but Kendrick obviously took things literally. She was going to have to work on that. Addie winked at the boys. They drew closer to her, their eyes shining with delight.
Kendrick picked up the bags and slung them over his shoulder, heading for the door.
“You still haven’t told me where we’re going,” Addie said.
“Somewhere not here.” Kendrick opened the door and led the way out.
* * *
Kendrick paid for the room at the office, then returned to the bike where Addison had already gotten the boys settled in. He helped her on, started up the motorcycle, rode from the parking lot, and flowed out of town, heading south into the night.
No one followed. This late there were no vehicles at all on the highway, only Kendrick’s motorcycle in the darkness, with his cubs, Addison clinging to his back. The warmth of her cut the growing chill of the wind, and her arms around him were more comforting than anything had been in a while.
Her impulsive kiss earlier tonight had tapped at the mate frenzy inside him, the needs he’d suppressed for years. Something had snapped in him and Kendrick had fallen into the kiss, crushing her up to him, imbibing her, feeling her wrapped around him.
He felt as though he’d been sleepwalking for years, and Addison’s kiss had jolted him awake.
Too dangerous to be awake and aware of Addison. Kendrick had to concentrate on rounding up his trackers, finding a new home for his Shifters, taking care of his cubs. No time for indulgences like mate frenzy or even burying himself in a woman and breathing her scent. His body throbbed with her nearness, berating him for his denial.
The moon had set and the night was dark. Typical for nights in the open desert in spring, it started to get cold. No lights shone anywhere, the darkness complete.
South Texas was vast, miles upon miles of flat country, towns few and far between. The land was filled with ranches, some working, some abandoned, and oil wells, pump jacks cranking, their heads going up and down like strange, rusting, hungry beasts.
Kendrick and his cubs knew how to spend the night outdoors, huddled together for warmth in sleeping bags, the little ones curled up in their animal forms. Addison wouldn’t be used to sleeping rough, though, and he doubted she’d ever had a wolf and two tigers trying to share space with her.
Kendrick would need to find a house, even an empty one, to get them out of the cold. Storms could brew up quickly out here as well, the weather going from calm to tumultuous in a matter of minutes.
His fuel would run out soon, so he’d need to find a town somewhere. He’d gassed up once he’d reached the motel last night but then he’d driven north to fetch Addison and back, and now they moved down this highway at a fast pace.
A length of split-rail fence loomed up out of the darkness, marking the edge of a property along the road. Barbed wire was more commonly used out here, effective for keeping cattle within a range, but ranchers sometimes lined the drives to their houses with split rail, a decorative choice.
Kendrick saw no lights, no closed gates, nothing to tell him the place was inhabited. The house at the end of the drive might be half fallen down or abandoned and full of vermin. Most mice, rats, and snakes would vanish when a wolf walked in, however, even if he looked like an innocent little boy. They knew. A full-grown white tiger was nothing they wanted to encounter either.
Kendrick slowed and turned onto the rutted track that met the road at the end of the fence. Addison’s hands tightened on his middle but she said nothing, asked no questions. Kendrick sensed her exhaustion, her need for rest.
The dirt drive led up over a rise filled with mesquite and scrub, effectively curtaining whatever was back here from the little-trafficked road. About half a mile later, Kendrick pulled the bike to a halt in front of a long, low house whose windows and roof were still intact. A front porch ran the length of the house, and rocking chairs had been placed at intervals so inhabitants could sit and watch the night.
Kendrick turned off the motor, carefully swung his leg over the front of the bike, and stood up.
The silence was immense, which
Kendrick liked. Cities made him itch. He couldn’t properly use his Shifter senses in a town—he was assaulted by too many scents, sights, and sounds, which ran together to form a jumbled mass.
Out here, the night was vast, the sky thick with stars, the constellations that humans called the Big and Little Dippers hanging sharp against the fainter stars around them.
Addison swung down from the bike, yanked the helmet from her head, and rubbed her backside. “Where the heck—”
Kendrick motioned her to silence. The cubs hadn’t said a word. They knew to let Kendrick surveil a possible campsite, waiting quietly while he sussed out any dangers.
He approached the front door of the house from an oblique angle, staying in the blackest shadows. The place didn’t smell deserted but he detected the scent of only one human.
That human yanked open the door and shone a lantern flashlight full in Kendrick’s face. “Can I help you with something?” A voice belonging to an elderly man came at him, and Kendrick heard the click of a cocking shotgun.
If Kendrick hadn’t heard that sound earlier tonight, hadn’t thrown his sons over the counter and rolled after them, he wouldn’t be standing here, and neither would the cubs or Addison. But his reactions were those of a cat, and Kendrick could move fast.
He had the shotgun out of the man’s hands in a heartbeat, pointing the barrels well away from his cubs and Addison.
The lantern dipped, and the gray-haired man raised one hand in surrender. “Now, no need for violence,” he said in a slow Texas drawl. “I just need to be careful about who walks up to my door in the middle of the night. What y’all want?”
Addison, who truly needed to learn about caution, approached. “We hate to bother you, sir,” she said in her pleasant waitress voice, “but we saw your house, and there isn’t much else out here, is there? Is there a town close by where we can spend the night?”
The man glanced at Kendrick, who still held the gun by its barrel, and Addison, who was smiling, a Texas-born girl who knew how to be polite.
“Ain’t no towns around here,” the man said. “There’s Marfa, but it’s about a hundred miles that way and the hippies have taken it over. No, this is the best place to stay in these parts. Welcome to Charlie’s Dude Ranch. Can I book you a room?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What’s a dude ranch?” Brett wanted to know.
The man called Charlie showed them the way in with a big flashlight—after Kendrick had gone in first to check the place out. Not until after he’d decided the house was safe did he allow Robbie, Brett, and Zane off the motorcycle. Charlie handed Addie flashlights to pass around—electricity hadn’t worked since his generator went out, he said.
“This is where city slickers come to pretend to be cowboys,” Charlie said in answer to Brett. “They help round up the cattle and such. Not that there’s any of those around anymore.”
“We’re not city slickers,” Zane said. “Addie, what’s a city slicker?”
Addie handed Zane a flashlight and showed him how to work it. “It’s someone who’s lived their whole life in a city and doesn’t know anything about the country. I’m not one, either. My grandparents had a little ranch when I was about your age. I learned how to ride and use a lariat. That’s a rope you throw around a cow to catch it.”
Kendrick said nothing at all. He looked around the house thoroughly, flashing his borrowed light on walls, beamed ceiling, and the large stone fireplace in the main room. He’d already locked the shotgun into a cabinet in a closet—he hadn’t wanted to hand it back to Charlie.
“Well, the slickers all used to come out here,” Charlie said as he took them through a door that led to a long hallway. “Celebrities too, to get away from it all. Guest bedrooms are back here.”
“You don’t have any guests now?” Addie flashed her light into the first room he opened, seeing a comfortable double bed in an old-fashioned bedstead. “It looks nice.”
“Not for a good many years, young lady,” Charlie said. “Bathroom’s in there.” He fixed his light on a door on the other side of the room. “Plumbing still works. It’s just the lights that go haywire. No, we haven’t had guests in—oh, ten years now. Not since Mrs. Charlie passed away. That’s what everyone called her. Mrs. Charlie. I called her Edna. Sweetest woman you ever want to meet.”
“I’m sorry,” Addie said. Ten years, and deep sorrow still filled his voice.
“She wouldn’t like it if I weren’t hospitable, so as long as you can put up with the busted generator, you can stay. You and your husband can sleep in here and the boys can have the big bedroom across the hall.”
“Oh,” Addie said, her face growing hot. “We aren’t—”
“That’s fine,” Kendrick broke in. “Thank you.”
Charlie turned away without noticing any hiccup. “No mice or snakes—I have a bunch of cats out there who keep down the critters. Coyotes come right up to the porch, though. They’ll eat cats, so the cats run and hide when they come. Here you go, boys.”
He opened the door to a large bedroom that had been lined with wood to look like the inside of a log cabin. A bunk bed filled one wall and a small trundle bed lay against the other. A soft braided rug stretched across the wooden floor, and shelves were filled with books and old-fashioned wooden toys.
“I know kids are lost without their Xboxes,” Charlie said, “or whatever they’re called nowadays, but you’d be surprised how many abandon them to play with the wooden horse and toy soldiers.”
Robbie and the two younger cubs walked into the room and looked it over as though they’d never seen anything like it.
Zane and Brett lost no time in swarming up the short ladder to the top bunk and perching there. Addie watched them in alarm for a heartbeat or two before she remembered they were cats, in truth. Would they land on their feet if they fell?
“You can sleep up there only if your dad says it’s all right,” she admonished them.
The two boys stopped and stared down at Addison in puzzlement. She turned away quickly and focused on Robbie, who was still looking around then sat tentatively on the lower bunk.
Kendrick slung a small duffel bag to a chair. “Settle yourselves in.” He looked pointedly at Robbie.
Charlie said, “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I have some cold sandwiches if you want supper. Can’t cook anything.”
He gave them a genial smile and clumped down the hall to the front. Kendrick gave Robbie another look before he shut the boys in the bedroom. He put his hand on the small of Addie’s back and guided her inside the room Charlie had designated as theirs.
“Why didn’t you ask for separate bedrooms?” Addie said as soon as the door closed. “You could have said I was the nanny.”
Kendrick studied her with eyes that told her he didn’t understand her objection. “He thinks we’re husband and wife or at least a couple,” he rumbled. “He thinks we’re a normal human family. As it should be.”
Addie wanted to laugh. The bubble of hysteria rose. “The fact that you can say normal and family in the same sentence shows you don’t know a lot about human families.”
“Doesn’t matter. I only care what he thinks.” Kendrick set the larger duffel bag and the long bundle with his sword on an empty table. “I have some shirts in there you can wear for something to sleep in.”
“Sleep.” Addie turned her gaze to the bed. It was a high wooden bedstead, the kind with steps. It looked comfy, but . . .
When she turned around, she saw that Kendrick was no longer watching her. He was pacing the room, examining the walls, ceiling, windows, flashing his light everywhere. A fireplace took up the far wall, which backed onto the fireplace in the big living room. The same stone lined it, the whole wall part of the chimney.
Kendrick ran a hand over the fireplace wall, then slapped the stones, which gave off a solid sound. He glided his light over the c
eiling, examining the beams.
He reminded her of a guy on one of the house remodeling shows. Any second now he’d say something like, “Good bones.”
“You planning to buy it?” Addie leaned against the bed, the mattress soft against her back.
“Maybe,” Kendrick said absently.
“An old house in the middle of nowhere with a busted generator.” Addie nodded gravely. “The ideal home. I bet you could get a good deal on it. The question is—why?”
Kendrick switched his light from the ceiling to her, snapping off the beam just before it would blind her. “We have to live somewhere. A den in the ground might have done for my ancestors but I like indoor plumbing.”
He was trying to be funny. Addie’s big, silent warrior had tried to make a joke.
The only light came from her lantern flashlight now, which she’d set on a nightstand. By it she saw his eyes on her, glittering like a cat’s.
“Very amusing,” she said. “But you’re avoiding the question of our sleeping arrangements.”
Did he expect her to curl up in bed with him? Did he expect she’d throw off her clothes and demand to have sex with him? She imagined his welcoming look as he drew her against his big, strong, unclothed body . . .
Addie sucked in a sharp breath that nearly drowned out Kendrick’s next words.
“You take the bed,” he said, sounding indifferent. “I rarely use a bed, and I need to have a look around.”
“Ah. Right.” Addie kept the disappointment from her voice. Not that she’d been ready to throw off her clothes and slide into bed with him . . . All right, maybe she had been.
“Settle yourself in and get some sleep,” Kendrick said. “I’ll go see if I can help Charlie with his generator.”
“Are you an electrician?” Perhaps that’s how he made a living and was able to buy pie every night.
“I know something about it.”
“What about the cubs?” Addie asked. “Are they going to be all right?”
Kendrick hesitated. “They’re off the road, safe for now, under my protection. They’ll be fine. Robbie knows how to look after the little ones.”