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Once semi-presentable I opened the bedroom door and glanced across the hall. As Clay's deep snores reverberated from his bedroom, some tension eased out of my shoulders. That was one problem I could avoid this morning.
I slipped out into the hall and past his closed door. With an uncanny abruptness, the snoring stopped. Cursing under my breath I hurried down the first few stairs. Clay's door creaked open, followed by the padding of bare feet on hardwood. Don't stop, I warned myself, and don't turn around. Then I stopped and, of course, turned around.
He stood at the top of the stairs looking exhausted enough to tumble down them at the slightest touch. His close-cropped gold curls were an unruly mess, rumpled and plastered down by sweaty sleep. Sandy blond beard shadow covered his cheeks and square chin. His eyes were half-lidded, struggling to focus. He was dressed only in the white boxer shorts with black paw prints that I'd bought him as a joke during one of our better periods. With a yawn, he stretched and rolled his shoulders, rippling muscles down his chest.
"Rough night guarding my escape routes?" I asked.
He shrugged. Whenever I had a bad day at Stonehaven, Clay spent the night staking out my possible escape venues. Like I'd ever be so cowardly as to sneak off in the night. Well, okay, I'd done it before, but that wasn't the point.
"How 'bout some company for breakfast?" he asked.
"No."
Another drowsy shrug of his shoulders. Let a few more hours pass and he'd never take the rebuff without a fight. Hell, in a few hours, he wouldn't bother asking if he could join me. I started back down the stairs. I got exactly three steps when he jolted awake, trotted down the stairs after me, and grabbed my elbow.
"Let me get your breakfast," he said. "I'll meet you in the sunroom. I want to talk to you."
"I don't have anything to say to you, Clayton."
"Give me five minutes."
Before I could answer, he'd jogged up the stairs and vanished into his room. I could have gone after him, but that would have meant following him into his bedroom. Definitely not a good idea.
At the bottom of the stairs, a smell stopped me in my tracks. Honeyed ham and pancakes, my favorite breakfast. I stepped into the sunroom and checked the table. Yes, stacks of ham and pancakes were waiting on a steaming platter. They hadn't materialized on their own, but I might have been less surprised to find that they had. The only person who could have made them was Jeremy, but Jeremy didn't cook. Not couldn't--didn't. That isn't to say he expected Clay or me to serve him, but when he did fix breakfast for us the only thing that steamed was the coffee. The rest was always a hodgepodge of breads, cheeses, cold meats, fruits, and anything else requiring minimal preparation.
Jeremy walked behind me into the sunroom. "It's getting cold. Sit and eat."
I said nothing about the breakfast. When Jeremy made a gesture he didn't like it recognized, much less thanked. For a moment I was sure this was Jeremy's way of welcoming me back. Then the old doubts resurfaced. Maybe he'd only fixed breakfast to placate me. With Jeremy, I could never read his intentions, even after all these years. Sometimes I was certain he wanted me at Stonehaven. Other times I was convinced he only accepted me because he had no choice, because I'd been thrust into his life and keeping me calm and under control was in the best interests of his Pack. I knew I spent too much time dwelling on this, struggling to interpret his every gesture, far too eager to see some sign of approval. Maybe I was still stuck in the old patterns of childhood, wanting a father more than I'd admit. I hoped not. Needy waif wasn't exactly an image I cared to project.
I sat down and dug in. The pancakes came from a mix, but I wasn't complaining. They were hot and filling, and came with butter and maple syrup--the real stuff, not the imitation junk I always bought to save a few bucks. I gulped down the first stack and reached for a second. Jeremy didn't so much as raise his eyebrows. One good thing about Stonehaven: I could eat as much as I wanted without anyone commenting or even noticing.
While Clay had staked out my bedroom window last night, it looked like Jeremy had been lying in wait for me here this morning. His easel was set up between his chair and the window. On it was a fresh sheet of paper with a few unconnected lines. He hadn't got far on the new sketch. The few lines he had drawn had obviously been erased and redrawn several times. One spot of paper was threatening to break through to the easel behind.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" I asked.
"Are you going to listen? Or are you trying to pick another fight?"
He drew a new line over the ghost of the last, then erased it. The brown of the easel peeked through the hole.
"It hasn't gone away, has it?" I said. "The reason I left. You're still angry."
He didn't look up from his sketch. Damn it, why didn't he look up?
"I was never angry with you, Elena. You were angry with yourself. That's why you left. You didn't like what you did. It frightened you, and you thought you could make it go away by leaving. Has it gone away?"
I said nothing.
Sixteen months ago, I'd gone to investigate a report of someone selling werewolf information. Now, the Pack doesn't chase down every joe who says he has proof of werewolves. That would be a full-time job for every living werewolf in and out of the Pack. We do keep an eye on stories that sound legitimate, excluding anything with keywords like silver bullet, baby killing, and ravaging half man-half beast creatures. What's left is a part-time job for two people: Clay and me. If an outside werewolf was causing trouble and Jeremy wanted to make an example of him, he sent Clay. If the trouble had gone beyond the point of a quick fix--or if it involved a human--then it needed caution and finesse. For those, he sent me. The case of Jose Carter required my brand of troubleshooting.
Jose Carter was a small-time con man who specialized in paranormal phenomena. He'd spent his life bilking the gullible and vulnerable with tales of loved ones trying to make contact from the beyond. Then, two years ago, while working in South America, he came across a small town that claimed a werewolf was preying on their village. Never one to miss an opportunity, Carter moved in and started gathering what he assumed would be phony evidence that he could sell in the United States. Trouble was, it wasn't phony. One of the mutts had been touring across Ecuador, hitting village after village and leaving a trail of dead bodies. The mutt thought he had the perfect gig, raiding villages so remote that no one would see the pattern. He hadn't co
unted on Jose Carter. And Carter hadn't counted on ever finding the real thing, but he was quick to recognize it when he did. He left Ecuador with eyewitness reports, hair samples, plaster paw-print casts, and photographs. Returning to the United States, he'd contacted several paranormal societies and tried to sell the information. He'd been so certain of his find that he'd offered to accompany the highest bidder back to South America to track the beast.
I'd caught up with Jose Carter at his "information auction" in Dallas. I'd tried to discredit him. I'd tried to steal the evidence. When nothing worked, I'd taken the only route left. I'd killed him. I did it on my own, without orders from Jeremy and without even contacting Jeremy. Afterward, I'd gone back to my hotel, cleaned up, and enjoyed a good sleep. When I awoke, the full impact of what I'd done hit me. No, not so much what I'd done, but how I'd done it, how easily I'd done it. I'd killed a man with as much moral compunction as I would have swatted a fly.
On the way back to New York, I'd prepared my argument for Jeremy, to explain why I'd acted without consulting him. Carter had been a clear threat. I'd done everything I could to stop him. Time had been running out. Had I called Jeremy, he would have wanted me to do the same thing, so I'd saved a step and taken care of matters myself. Before I'd reached Stonehaven, I'd realized the truth. It wasn't Jeremy I was trying to convince. It was myself. I'd crossed the line. I'd acted with the single-minded purpose of protecting my Pack, devoid of even a drop of compassion or mercy. I'd acted like Clay. That scared me, scared me so bad I'd run and sworn I'd never go back to that life again.
Had it gone away? Did I once again feel in complete control of my instincts and impulses? I didn't know. For over a year, I hadn't done anything so blatantly wrong, but nor had I been in a position where the opportunity arose. One more reason why I hadn't wanted to come back to Stonehaven. I didn't know if it was gone and I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.
