Chapter Eight
Blake
The sky was pitch black now, sprinkled with thousands of cold white stars. Blake clenched the wheel of the SUV so tightly that the plastic cracked in his grip. Krista stared out the window, making a big show of ignoring him.
And they were still hungry. Krista nibbled on a protein bar that Blake had brought, but that wasn’t going to be very filling.
When they’d tried to put in a to-go order, Floyd had hustled over and elbowed the waitress out of the way and said, “You say hey to Dawnie yet?”
And when Krista had told him that Dawnie wasn’t home when she’d stopped by, he’d frowned and said, “Maybe you should come back later then.”
Krista had flashed him an annoyed look and snapped, “I’ll pass that along to Hattie.”
So, they’d left, stomachs growling, feeling the curious and not so friendly gazes of a dozen customers burning into their backs as they walked across the parking lot.
Krista was frustrated, Blake knew. She didn’t worry. As they drove, they’d debated what Bo’s behavior meant. Was he threatening them just because he was a bully and an asshole and he felt humiliated at being out-wolfed by Blake? Or did he have something to hide—like, say, a kidnapping?
Earlier, Stef had directed Blake and Krista to meet her and the rest of the team in a house an hour’s drive from Flowering Dogwood. The U.S. Marshals had confiscated the house during a drug bust, and Stef had called in favors to get them to let her team use it during the search. The Marshals were as eager as Shifters, Inc. to see Ethan Coffman found; an all-out shifter war would be a disaster for both humans and shifters in the region.
A dark anger still burned inside Blake at the way Bo had spoken to Krista, but he knew that going wolf and ripping Bo’s face off would have tanked their mission before it started. He should never have lost it like that.
The way Krista had dealt with him, calm and fearless, filled him with admiration. There wasn’t a thing he didn’t like about her. He just wished there’d been another way to get her help on this case. She was completely icing him out now, which wasn’t surprising, but it stung.
He wished he knew what had happened to make her so reluctant to come back. Surely there had to be more to it than choosing a path other than the family “business”. He wondered what memories were haunting her now. He knew a lot about dark thoughts creeping in uninvited.
And he didn’t like the frown creasing her forehead or the tense set of her jaw. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, sure, I live for close encounters with brain-rotted peckerwoods who bullied me all through high school.” She turned her blazing eyes to meet his. “That’s just a tiny part of the kind of thing I thought I’d left behind me forever. I never planned on stepping foot here again. But I have no choice. You took my choices away from me. That feels pretty familiar too, actually. When I was growing up here, Dawnie Reed had my path planned out for me, and I barely escaped by the skin of my teeth.”
His stomach twisted inside him. “I didn’t want to have to drag you here like this.”
“But you did it anyway.” She didn’t bother to look at him as she said it.
He felt a snap of impatience. His wolf didn’t like it when she was angry with him. “Yep. I did what I had to do, Krista. I regret that it was necessary.”
“Oh, bite me.” She flung open the door and slid out.
“Where?” he called after her in an attempt to lighten the mood, and also because he’d love to nibble on any part of her body that was offered up to him, but she was already stalking off.
She paused as a large, dark minivan pulled in to the driveway. He strolled over to her. “That’s my boss Stef,” he said. “You’ll like her.”
She didn’t answer, just stared off into the distance.
“Krista. You do understand the importance of all this, don’t you? Can you imagine what Michael Coffman is going through?”
She twisted around to look at him, her eyes burning with an intense fire. “Blake, I would march into a den full of rabid wolverines if I thought it would help find that cub.” He believed her; he could see the hot, angry truth in her gaze. She was in a healing profession, and she’d chosen to work in a clinic in the poorest neighborhood in Crystal Bay. She wasn’t about money or prestige or shiny objects. Her purpose in life was to help. She really believed that there was nothing she could do to help him.
“I know,” he said quietly.
She ran her fingers through her hair, her face twisting in frustration. “What you saw tonight is exactly what I told you we’d get. Stonewalling, threats, and a warning shot. And mentions of Dawnie, as a reminder that their loyalty lies with her, and I’m on her bad side. I’m sincerely afraid that me being here is going to make things worse for you and make it harder to find Ethan.”
“What did you do to Dawnie Reed that’s got everyone so riled up?”
Her gaze slid away.“Well, for one thing, I left town when I was 16 after I’d lived with her for two years. You reject Dawnie’s hospitality, it’s kind of like spitting in Dawnie’s face.”
“And for another thing?” he prodded.
“That’s plenty.” And that wasn’t an answer.
