Ready to Run: Werewolves in Love, Book 3 Read online

  She slapped his back. “Put me down!”

  “Okay, okay.” He stood her on her feet, then put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up. “Tomorrow night. I’ll tell you everything.” And with a whisper-soft brush of his lips against hers, he was gone.

  She ended up having a sleepless night anyway.

  Chapter Two

  “I’ll have the bacon double cheeseburger with onion rings and a chocolate shake.”

  Sara smiled and nodded at the gangly teenage boy. “Okay. What about you, sweetie?”

  The second boy, another teenager, wanted a T-bone with a baked potato all the way and squash casserole. The younger boy next to him ordered cheese enchiladas with rice, no beans and a Sprite.

  The family wasn’t local. They were from Texarkana, passing through on their way to Longview.

  “Excuse me, miss,” interrupted the man whom Sara took to be the father of the large, unruly group. “Aren’t you going to write this down?”

  “Oh no, sir. I’ve got a real good memory for taking orders. My regulars like to test me.”

  The ancient woman at the other end of the table sniffed and frowned. “If you get our order all mixed up, we ain’t leavin’ you a tip.”

  She was way too tired for this. “That’s all right, ma’am. I wouldn’t expect one.”

  The father smiled and shrugged in an “old people, what are you gonna do, huh?” gesture.

  She kept her own smile pasted on ’til she got to the order window.

  When the food came up in the expo window twenty minutes later, she hoisted it all onto one tray and carried it out to the table.

  Sara rattled off the order as she set the plates in front of each person.

  “Chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and broccoli casserole, meatloaf with green beans and a salad—no croutons, no cucumbers, ranch on the side—bacon double cheeseburger with onion rings, T-bone with a baked potato all the way and…”

  Once all eleven orders were in front of the people who’d placed them, she stepped back with her best service smile, barely suppressing a yawn.

  “There we go. Everything look okay? Did I miss anything? Please tell me I didn’t miss anything.”

  She knew she hadn’t, so she waited, enjoying the wide-eyed wonder on everyone’s faces, including the old lady’s.

  This was the best part of her job. Waiting tables didn’t offer a lot of intellectual stimulation, but she loved impressing people with the way she could remember every order, no matter how long or complex. It made her feel special. She took care not to demonstrate her extraordinary memory in any other situation, so she never attracted undue attention.

  After the family had praised her memory, her service and the food, and she had refilled the drinks and checked the condiments, she left the check and returned to the terminal to run her sales for the day. Then she collapsed in a booth from which she could keep an eye on the table as she did her checkout.

  She’d been on the floor since the breakfast shift, and even though her feet were throbbing and her shoulders hurt, work had helped her not to obsess over Nash and whatever it was he wanted to talk about tonight.

  Wendy slid in across the table from her and started her own checkout. The lull was ending, the old folks and early dinner crowd pouring in, and the next shift of wait staff were already on the floor. Susan walked right by them, greeting Wendy but pointedly ignoring Sara.

  Bitch.

  “How’d you do?” asked Wendy.

  “Not enough for the way my feet hurt, but I made the car payment. And I’m doing another double tomorrow.”

  “You going out with Nash again tonight?”

  “Yes, but…I dunno. Last night we…” She stopped and shrugged, feeling oddly reluctant to talk about it. It would sound so pathetic—the way he’d shut her down after getting her so hot and ready—and she didn’t want to hear Wendy warn her that he was going to tell her something awful.

  “You what? Come on, tell me! Did you get you some hot, sweaty Nash lovin’?”

  She laughed in spite of her worry and exhaustion. Wendy could always make her relax. They were second cousins through their grandmothers and had been best friends since birth. Sara could tell her anything.

  Well, almost anything.

  “No, we didn’t do it.” She sighed. “I thought we would. I’d already decided I was going to jump him, or seduce him or whatever, but then—”

  Wendy waited a whole five seconds, and when Sara didn’t continue, she reached across the table to grab her arm and shake it. “But then what?”

  “Then, nothing. We were eating dinner here, and Susan started talking about a bunch of people who got killed up in Wake Village—”

  Wendy made a face. “Yeah. That’s horrible.”

  “What, she told you about it too?”

  “Yeah. She was all ‘I’m not supposed to tell anybody,’ so you know she’s told the whole county by now.”

  “I wonder if Dwayne knows Susan is a one woman public address system?”

  “Who’s Dwayne?”

  “Bobbi’s boyfriend. You know, the Bowie County deputy?”

  “Really? I can’t believe you remember stuff like that. We don’t even know Bobbi.”

  Sara froze, but only for a moment. “I think Susan mentioned it last night.”

  “Oh. Okay, anyway, what did she say?”

  “Well, you know everybody’s already convinced it was werewolves, right?”

  “Right. But you don’t think so.” Wendy was the only person who knew about Sara’s fascination with shifters.

  “No, I don’t. Werewolves don’t use weapons—or at least, it’s real unusual. And I sort of said that out loud, without thinking, and Susan got all holier than thou on me, because you know she’s a good Christian lady. I mean, she may be screwing Connie Robb’s nineteen-year-old son when Connie goes to visit her mother—”

  “She’s gonna get her ass shot one day.”

  “—but she don’t know nothin’ about no werewolves, ’cause she’s a righteous woman. And then the nasty bitch threatened to tell Grandma.”

  “What?” Wendy slammed her tickets down and leaned across the table. “She did not!”

  “Shh!” Sarah hissed. “Keep your voice down. She sure as hell did. And I got pissed off.”

  “I guess so!”

  “And— I don’t know. The whole thing—the talk about werewolves, and then bringing up my family, and just…” She tossed her hands up to indicate her frustration. “Anyway, I couldn’t stay and finish dinner. We went back to my place and had a couple of beers.”

  “And?”

  “And we fooled around like a couple of Baptist teenagers, and then he said he knew I had to work a double, and let’s get together tonight because he has something very important to talk to me about. But he wouldn’t tell me what it is, even though he said it could make me mad. I don’t know what the hell it could be—he probably thinks I’m a freak and doesn’t want to see me again.”

  Wendy snorted. “He wouldn’t make a date to tell you he doesn’t want to see you anymore.”

  “What if he wants to break up with me?”

  “A guy doesn’t break up with you after three dates. He quits calling.” Wendy’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Hey! Maybe he’s ready to go back to Houston and he wants you to go with him!”

  “Yeah, right. After three dates. We barely know each other. And why would he think that would make me mad?”

  “Well, I can still tell the boy’s crazy about you.”

  She’d love to think so. Beneath her polo shirt and khaki pants—Nash was right, it was a godawful uniform—she could feel every spot on her body where he’d touched her last night.

  But then again…“Yeah, but what’s the point?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’m moving to Marshall in a couple of months.”

  “So? It’s only an hour away and he’s got that big-ass Harley.”

  “Okay. How long do
you think a guy like him’s gonna stick around?”

  “Who cares? Sara, you can’t be worrying about the rest of your life every minute. You have to enjoy what you’ve got right now, and what you’ve got right now is six feet plus of hot blond with abs as sharp as his cheekbones.”

  Sara narrowed her eyes. “You’ve seen his abs?”

  “No, I just have a better imagination than you do. You listen to me. Guys like Nash Keeton don’t come along that often, not even in Marshall or Houston or wherever. You’re not gonna be twenty-two forever, and by the time another one shows up, you’ll be too old to do anything about it! I’ll tell you something else—you need to figure out how to fit in one of his saddlebags, so when he rolls outta here, you go with him.”

  She was grinning now, grateful to—and for—her closest friend. “Nope, can’t go with him. I’m going to Marshall.”

  Wendy heaved a huge sigh and said in a singsong voice, “Marshall, Marshall, Marshall!”

  Sara started cracking up again.

  “Honestly, girl, what am I gonna do with you? You’d pass up a chance to run off with a guy like that to go to college? There’s colleges everywhere! And you’re young—you don’t have to go right now.”

  “You just said I’m not gonna be twenty-two forever.”

  “Yeah, but you can go to college at any age. Your bod’s got an expiration date.”

  “Oh, stop.”

  Finished with her checkout, she bussed the recently departed family’s table and came back to wait for Wendy, who looked up and said, “You know, they allow werewolves in Marshall.”

  “They don’t allow werewolves. Werewolves live there, which is completely normal to most people, Wendy. Luxor is weird, not Marshall.” Whenever she visited the city, she kept an eye out for shifters, which was just stupid. A human couldn’t recognize one when he was in human form, and it wasn’t like they went running around in broad daylight in their animal forms, so if she’d ever met one, she didn’t know about it.

  “Their kids go to public school and everything,” Wendy continued. “There might be some at the college.”

  “So? It’s the fucking twenty-first century.”

  Wendy sat back and blinked at Sara, who rarely used hard profanity.

  “Seriously, Wendy. You’re always talking about moving to Houston. They have the second largest pack in the country. Do we have to think shifters and fae are creatures of the Devil just because our parents and grandparents did?”

  “So, what, now you’re not an Apocalyptic?”

  Sara shrugged, trying to appear casual. “Apocalyptic isn’t synonymous with Christian.” She was probably the only person in Luxor who thought so.

  “Oh. Synonymous. Listen to Miss Intellectual.”

  “All I’m saying—”

  “Oh, fuck hell.”

  “Hey!” Sara flushed. She’d never told her cousin she didn’t share the religious beliefs of everyone else in town. In Luxor, you’d be better off admitting you were gay.

  “What? Oh, no, not you, sweetie. I mean, I hate to think of you hanging around werewolves—they scare the bejesus out of me. But I just remembered I’m working the breakfast shift tomorrow.”

  Sara laughed a little self-consciously. “Oh. No, no you’re not. I took it for you so you could stay out with Tucker tonight, remember?”

  “Oh yeah!” Wendy said with a grin. “God, what would I do without you and your memory? Okay, I’m out of here. Shit, there’s Wayne.” She dropped a kiss on Sara’s forehead and whispered, “Remember, two more months. And quit talking about werewolves, or Aunt Helen will lock you up.”

  A big ball of lead settled in her stomach as Wayne slid his sweaty bulk into the spot Wendy had vacated. Her heart sank as he pushed a deep rectangular Tupperware container across the table to her.

  “What’s that?”

  “Food for Mama. She’s been sick all week, and she’s out of everything. You need to take her this.”

  The café was full now and Wayne was speaking loudly, as he usually did.

  Susan stopped by their booth, completely ignoring Sara, who would’ve laughed if she wasn’t feeling so ill all of a sudden. “Wayne, did I hear you say Miss Helen is sick? I wondered why we didn’t see her at Wednesday night service. We missed her banana nut bread. Can I get you a beer?”

  Wayne’s smile was open and friendly, the fat apples of his cheeks forcing his eyes into a squint. “No thanks, Susan. I was just asking Sara Mae here if she’d take some food out to her grandmother this evening.”

  He knew how she loathed her full name.

  “Well, Wayne, you tell your mama I said hi, and we hope to see her at church this weekend.”

  “I sure will, Susan, thank you.”

  As Susan walked away, Sara started to protest, even though she knew it was pointless. She’d end up doing what he told her. She always did.

  “Wayne, I have plans.”

  “Your grandmother needs this by five o’clock.”

  “It’s almost four-thirty!”

  “It’s a twenty minute drive, honey. You’ve got plenty of time.” He smiled at Mr. and Mrs. Tomlinson as they walked past to sit down two booths away.

  Anger flared inside her. “Damn it, Wayne,” she whispered furiously, “I have a life. I have things I need to do, and I have a chemistry test on Monday. Why can’t you go out to Grandma’s house?”

  He reached across the table to put a hand on her arm, like Wendy had done earlier, but one squeeze made the tears pool in her eyes. He knew she wouldn’t cry out. She had the physical strength to kick his ass, but he knew she’d never do that, either.

  His cherubic smile didn’t falter, and he lowered his voice so no one else could hear him as he said, “You’ll get your ass out to my mother’s house by five o’clock tonight, girl, and I’m not gonna tell you again, you hear me?”

  She didn’t answer, gritting her teeth against the pain of his grip.

  “I know you’ve been seeing that new pretty boy at JP’s. How’d you like it if I had a little talk with him about you? Matter of fact, how’d you like it if I talked to Wendy?”

  Sara swallowed the tears and closed her eyes. The son of a bitch had been threatening to tell her secret ever since Grandma had figured out what she was. It wasn’t an idle threat. He’d ruin her, and enjoy doing it, if she ever defied him. Once she was out of Luxor, she didn’t give a damn what people knew about her, but she couldn’t handle it while she still lived here. She might not even be safe if people knew.

  So she ran errands for Wayne when he told her to. She couldn’t forget anyone she’d met or anything she’d heard, of course, but she could ignore it. She was good at ignoring.

  He squeezed her arm even harder. That would make a nice purple bruise on her pasty white skin.

  “Well? Don’t just sit there looking at me, you little freak. Say ‘yes sir’ and then get the fuck out of here.”

  Either he was on something tonight or someone had spooked him good. Maybe he’d had another come to Jesus meeting with Grandma. Whatever it was, the malice in Wayne’s eyes, the scowl on his sweaty red face, told her she didn’t have a choice. When he was like this, he might do anything. She jerked her arm. He let her go. She grabbed the Tupperware and stalked out of the restaurant without a word to anyone.

  Her cell phone rang as she was putting the top down. She glanced at the number—Nash. She couldn’t answer it; she was so furious and miserable right now that if she heard his voice, she’d start crying, and she didn’t want him to remember her as weak and weepy. Angrily wiping the tears from her eyes, she pulled out of the parking lot.

  Bryan Keeton pulled into the parking lot of Café Caddo a little before five. Sara wasn’t answering her phone. He hoped he hadn’t missed her.

  The hostess, a high school girl whose name he couldn’t remember, greeted him as he walked in.

  “Hey there, Nash! How you doing tonight?”

  He’d always liked his cousin’s name, but now he was sick of it
and couldn’t wait to drop the pseudonym.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” he replied with an insincere grin, deliberately ignoring the signals she was flashing and the sex pheromones she was shedding. Even if he weren’t on an assignment, he didn’t mess with jailbait. “Sara still here?”

  “No, I’m sorry.” No, she wasn’t. “Sara left about fifteen minutes ago. Was she expecting you?”

  “No. I’m supposed to see her later, but I was thinking I’d buy her dinner so she wouldn’t have to cook.”

  “Well, you just missed her. Want to stick around for dinner?”

  “Nah. I think I’ll head over to her house.”

  “Oh, she’s not there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “’Cause her Uncle Wayne came in a little while ago with some food for Miss Helen. That’s her grandma.”

  Bryan nodded. He knew exactly who Miss Helen was, and he didn’t like where this was going. “And?”

  “The poor thing’s sick again, and Wayne told Sara she needed to take her some food.”

  “What do you mean, sick again?”

  “Well, she is eighty years old or something like that. She gets sick a lot and Sara has to take her food and medicine.”

  “I see.” He should have been excited, but instead it felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach.

  “Sara didn’t seem real happy about it.” The female made a pouty frown of disapproval and shook her head with an expression of concern so obviously fake Bryan would’ve known she was acting even if he hadn’t smelled the pheromones. “I know it’s hard for Sara, working full-time and going to school, and it’s not easy driving out there all the time, but Miss Helen raised her, after all, and we have to take care of our old folks. Sometimes I think Sara acts like she doesn’t care what—”

  “I gotta go.”

  He heard her bitching about his rudeness as he climbed on his motorcycle and strapped on his helmet. He blocked her voice out as he started the bike and then sat there, trying to decide what to do next.

  Chapter Three

  The autumn breeze in her hair and on her face soothed her. She spent a lot of nights driving around with the top down, letting the wind blow her stress away. The 2001 candy apple red Mazda Miata was her joy and treasure. She knew it was sinful to attach such importance to a material object, but it meant so much. It was a symbol, both of what she’d accomplished and what she still had left to do. It would be paid off in November, right before she drove it to Marshall.