Page 41 of The Thief

The Shifter with the brown mullet reluctantly turned around and retrieved the pants from the hook. Kevin didn’t have a casual mullet that could be mistaken for a slovenly haircut—it was Wall Street in the front and Mardi Gras in the back. The frizzy hair screamed for conditioner.

“Where does he keep his wallet to pay for drinks?” Robyn mused. “I’ve seen his horse trotting around with a tool bag in his mouth, but…”

She left the thought hanging in the air like a foul odor.

“Calvin said he buries money all over the place like a squirrel. That way, if he’s running out for supplies, he can dig up his money and get what he needs. Can’t make it up.”

She eased away from the bar. “So much for horse sense.”

I hurried over to Bear and helped him gather the cleaning supplies.

He handed me a small plastic sack. “I got this for you.”

I looked inside at a bag of peppermint patties. “How did you know these are my favorite?”

Bear put the last two bottles into the bucket. “I didn’t, but I do now.” After standing, he noticed the serious looks our packmates were giving us. “Is everything okay?”

I scratched my forehead. “Just the usual. I need to watch Kevin before he saddles up.”

“Who’s Kevin?”

Bear said it loud enough that others heard, and when they did, they all whinnied like a horse and choked on their laughter.

I pointed at the half-naked man walking barefoot to the bar. “That’s Kevin.”

Chapter 8

My packmates hung out at the bar for the rest of my shift. While they were enjoying themselves, I suspected the real reason they were staying longer than expected was to make sure Argento didn’t return.

When it came time to leave, Montana offered me a lift home. Tak needed his truck back since they were heading out of town for the family thing. Joy and Salem joined us, but Robyn and Krys wanted to stay longer. Poor Bear was still busy scrubbing away thirty years of grease and grime.

Once we got home, Tak and Lakota packed up the vehicles. Hope left us the keys to her green sedan so we wouldn’t be trapped, and when Virgil found out Robyn and Krys were still at the bar, he begged Montana to take him. Before leaving, Montana assured me I was safe with Archer, Salem, and Catcher around.

Catcher stayed outside, doing his usual perimeter check while chasing butterflies. We often left the back door ajar during the day in case he wanted in. To keep flies out, someone had installed a magnetic screen door that allowed our wolves to push their way through. At night, it stayed closed.

After Montana and Virgil left, I took a shower and then a nap. It was tempting to work on a project, but Tak had promised us a vacation, so I was going to enjoy my free time.

Supper had come and gone with unremarkable notice. With so few of us, we made sandwiches and had a quiet meal at the small tables in the dining room. Joy demonstrated a new knitting pattern and expressed a desire to learn how to sew and make quilts. She explained the difference between knitting and crocheting, which was interesting since I’d thought they were the same. After dinner, Archer washed dishes before going to lift weights.

An hour later, I entered the game room and found him on a weight bench. Since we hadn’t yet decided on what to put in there, Archer used it to store his weights and equipment.

Lying on the bench, he lifted the bar and held it above him before slowly lowering it, his muscles locked tight. When he’d completed ten reps, he placed it back on the holder thingy. I was so used to seeing him without an arm that it was strange to see a metal prosthesis attached. He looked like a futuristic cyborg.

After unlatching the artificial hand from the bar, he sat up and straddled the bench. A rivulet of sweat dripped down his bare chest, his muscles taut and well-defined. Unless he was swimming or shifting, Archer always wore a T-shirt, even on hot days. I wondered how much of his choices had to do with his disability. For instance, he usually wore sneakers when working on the property, but he almost always wore loafers going out. Slip-on shoes made sense—they didn’t have laces that could come untied. He also never wore button-down shirts. Archer didn’t like attention when it came to his disability, but it must have been a challenge to live in our world with such obvious limitations.

“Don’t you need a spotter?” I asked, not knowing a thing about lifting weights outside of what I’d seen in the movies. “What if you dropped that heavy thing on your chest?”

“I don’t need a spotter with this amount.” He gestured to the black discs on a stand. “If I need to add more, Krys spots me. I’m not training for a championship or anything.”

I stared at his prosthetic arm. “Someone made that for you?”

“Yeah. I have to take good care of it.” He held it in front of him and ran his fingers over the sleek black parts. “It took a while to get used to.”

“I thought it would have fingers.”

He chuckled and touched the hand, which looked more like a curved hook. “This was made to hold a weight bar. It’s not just for looks. I can attach a hand to it, but I don’t use that thing.”

“You should keep your equipment in here permanently,” I suggested, looking at the open space. “I don’t think we’ll put anything more than a pool table and a few dartboards in here. Maybe a table for card games.”

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