Page 12 of Fixer
“I want togo!”He glowered over his shoulder at me, growling deep in his throat, his eyes boring into mine.
For a moment, my wolf considered bowing our head.Wade was younger and smaller, but he had a powerful presence when he chose to use it.I stuck to my guns, though, didn’t change my relaxed position, just raised an eyebrow at him.
“Crap.”Wade bit back the growl, slumped, and rubbed his face.“Okay, yeah, I should eat.”Of course, he didn’t sit down, just lifted a covered bowl out of the refrigerator, grabbed a spoon, and began stuffing cold stew into his mouth.
“Whatever works.I’m going to hit the john.”I went into the bathroom, but left the door ajar.I was a snoop by nature and training, and Wade needed reassurance more than I needed to check the contents of his medicine cabinet.Anyhow, we wolves didn’t use much medication.At most, there’d be condoms in there if he’d been sleeping with women, and I found I didn’t want to know.
By the time I was done, he’d finished the stew, washed the bowl, and was penning a note on a piece of paper.I peeked over his shoulder.
“Hi Mrs.French, I have to go out of town for a few days.I’ll call you if it’s longer than that.Tell anyone who needs me to leave a note if it can wait, and go to Mr.Owens if it can’t.
Wade McKinley.”
He folded it in half and glanced back at me.“See what you wanted?”
“A wolf takes care of his people.”
“They’re not my people.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”Wade could’ve been Alpha material one day, if he hadn’t been forced out of the packs.Well, no, perhaps not quite.He had the protective instincts, but not the ruthlessness that an Alpha needed, to keep a whole pack of wolves in line.Perhaps he was better with a human pack that would accept protection without challenging him at every turn.
“Let’s go.”He opened the door for me, stopped to lock it behind us, then motioned me toward the stairs while he slipped his note under the door across the hall.
Before he could straighten, the door opened and a tiny old lady in a bathrobe peered out.“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Mrs.French.Wade.”He picked the note off the carpet and handed it to her.
She took it, the paper fluttering in her grasp.“I don’t have my readers on.Can you tell me?”
“Just letting you know I’ll be out of town with… my friend for a few days.Maybe a week, max.”
“Oh, good.”
“Good?”
“Why yes.”She patted his arm with one small hand.“You need a vacation.Five years you’ve been here, and you only travel for a day here and there to sell your carvings at the markets.You do work around this building seven days a week.I don’t think you’ve had a real holiday ever, and I don’t see you party with your friends.You’re a young man.You deserve some fun.”
“I… Right.Thank you.”He stepped back.“You know, you shouldn’t just open your door in the middle of the night.I could’ve been anyone.”
“This is the safest building on the block, and I’ve lived here fifty years.I’ll be fine.”She smiled at me.“Make sure this man has a good trip, okay?He deserves it.”She closed the door, and I heard her click the deadbolt.
“At least she locked it,” I murmured.
“Yeah.”Wade stared at her door for a second before he shouldered his pack.“Let’s go.”
When we reached my car, he paused for a moment, pivoting to scan his squat tenement building with its red-smudged bricks, the street, the alley, the buildings next door.Conflict showed in the set of his shoulders and the scowl on his face.He touched the front pocket of his pack where Shawn’s photos were stowed, then tossed his bag into the back seat next to my stuff and climbed in the front.
I’d hoped, forced to sit together for hours, that Wade and I might get to know each other again, begin to bridge the gap between us, but as soon as we were on the road, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes.I figured he was avoiding me.His “sleep” was clearly fake.Except, slowly, as hour after hour spun away in the darkness, his muscles softened and his jaw sagged open.Whatever plans I’d made for conversation were thwarted as his breathing evened out, but I’d take Wade McKinley trusting me enough to actually sleep as a win.
Chapter 4
Wade
My mouth went dry when I woke somewhere around Duluth to realize I’d drifted off beside Dustin.Not something I’d imagined doing any time in the last seven years.I’d tried to be vigilant in my seat, to keep my guard up as we rolled along darkened highways, but the insomnia of the night before must’ve caught up with me.I kept my eyes shut, testing my muscles for stiffness with subtle flexing.My wolf seemed amused, as if unsurprised that, down inside, I trusted Dustin enough to believe he wouldn’t kill me in my sleep.
Dustin had stopped at a rest area in the Wisconsin Dells at some early hour of morning and refueled the car while I pretended to snore against his passenger window.He’d apparently kept a full can of gas in his trunk.No stations were open at that hour, of course, with gas scarce and limited to certain times of day.It figured Dustin was a think-ahead kind of guy.
Now he said, “Gas gettin’ low again,” and pulled off the highway again.I sat up.Morning had come, bringing a gray, cloudy day with a little breeze ruffling the trees.I had the impression we were in Minnesota.
