Page 50 of Fighting Furry

“He did. Why are you so surprised?” From what I'd seen, Axel would do anything to protect his pack.

She stared out the window for a long moment, lost in thought. Finally, she looked at me. “I joined this pack shortly after Axel took over as the alpha. I'd left Stu's pack after the divorce and I was a bit lost, a lot broken-hearted. Axel didn't want me in the pack, argued for me to be excluded, but I had a few friends here, had babysat Clarissa when she was kid, and he was outvoted. At that time, I think everyone was desperate to build the pack so they could hold onto this territory.”

“Why didn't he want you in the pack?” There had to be something pretty damning for Axel to bar her, I was sure of it.

She folded her hands in her lap. “Like I said, Stu's family was a pack, but it was small and not very cohesive. Axel didn't think I'd be able to handle pack life. Sure you don't want a brownie?”

“Krista,” I said. “What else?”

She sighed and huffed. “After I divorced Stu, I was pretty angry. I did some stuff I'm not proud of and Axel thought I was a threat to the pack, a threat to the werewolf secret.”

Ah, now that made sense. “You never told me why you divorced Stu. What did he do anyway?”

“I've never wanted you to think badly of Stu, because he's your family, but you're pack now and…Well, you should know everything so he doesn't show up one day and talk you into joining his ragamuffin pack.”

I said nothing, giving her time to gather her thoughts.

“He'd always promised me that if we buckled down and worked, we could retire early and travel.” She sighed. “I've always wanted to travel and learn to sky dive…Anyway, he promised we'd do all those things after we'd worked our asses off and saved our money. It was why we never had kids. I'd had kind of a rough life before I met Stu and I wanted better things…I wanted to experience life. No matter how hard we worked, it seemed like our savings account, our investments, never grew. Stu told me the interest rate was down, the stock market was down, our broker had made some bad choices. He had an excuse for every day of the week, but the truth was he was gambling away all the money we'd earned.”

Honestly, I wasn't surprised. Stu adored Krista, anyone with eyes could have seen that, but he'd never been what anyone would call stable or reliable, I'd known that even as a kid. Probably because he'd made me promises he'd never kept and missed birthdays and forgotten holidays. A gambling addiction made sense. “I'm so sorry, Krista.”

“I think it would have been easier if he'd been in love with someone else, but he chose a game over me.”

“He's probably an addict,” I said. “He's sick.”

“Yeah, I know he is. I felt guilty about that for a really long time, like maybe I should have stayed and helped him quit.”

“If you leaving wasn't enough incentive for him to quit, nothing you ever did would be.”

Tears glistened in her eyes. “He used to call me once a week, telling me how much he missed me and begging me to come back. It broke my heart every time he called. I even took him back for a while, tried to make it work, but he hadn't stopped, he'd just gotten better about hiding it. I had to change my number and move. I just couldn't do it anymore.”

“It's not your fault,” I said. “He's got to figure it out for himself.”

“Logically, I know that. But I still feel like I let him down, and now I've let you down.”

“Don't feel guilty about me,” I said. “Help me out, tell me about these Aspens Whiten wolves.”

She scrunched her nose. “Why do you care about those losers?”

“Because they want this territory and they stole the spirit stick. We need to do something about it.”

Her eyes widened. “I heard it but I didn't believe it until this moment. You're in love with Axel.”

I was so shocked, I sucked in a sudden breath, but that breath came with saliva that went down the wrong tube and sent me into a coughing fit. Krista patted me on the back until I was breathing normally again.

“What makes you think I love Axel?”

“You want to save his pack, sweetie,” she said. “You want to help him.”

I rolled my eyes. Krista had always been a die-hard romantic. “I want to help the pack. I like it here and I like everyone, even Lucinda. I don't think it's right that the Aspens Whiten wolves run us out of here without a fight.”

Krista shrugged. “If you say so. I don't know much about the valley wolves, but I know someone who does.”

***

“No,” Lucinda said. “I'm busy.”

She was sitting on the couch, watching a soap opera that was so cheesy the couple on screen were actually cooing at each other over a pot of cheese fondue. “What if I wait until a commercial break?”

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