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I reached the pass just as the sun went into its disappearing act into the ocean to the west. On the western slope of the Sierras, we had the ocean in our sights, but the Triple L Ranch would not. This could be my last view of the Pacific for at least a while. Maybe forever.
Drama queen much?
I turned from the orange ball fanning its light over the waves, the bobbing dots of sailboats and a tanker far out to sea. Those aboard would see places I could only dream of. Having had a really minimal homeschooling education, my knowledge of where those places might be or in many cases, what they were called was laughable.
But what I did know was where the various packs in these mountains were located. A few we’d visited, and representatives of others had come to us over the years. Each seemed to have a slightly different culture from the others, and I listened carefully when we had campfires and the guests would talk about their homes.
Some were very modern and actually drove almost right up to us in cars and pickup trucks. They were usually connected to the grid, had jobs in the human world, and their kids even went to school with humans. Others lived a more off-the-grid life but still had so many conveniences, I was ashamed of how we accomplished daily tasks.
Plodding through the pass, in places narrow enough that my shoulders brushed the walls, I remembered one man who’d talked about how one of the females of their pack had run away from an arranged marriage only to marry into the Triple L hierarchy. The fellow’s outrage had touched the heart of our alpha who agreed that she should have been followed and dragged back by the hair. Forced to follow her alpha’s ruling. At that point, there had been a moment when he’d commented that he needed to find a mate for me, if not here, then somewhere. Luckily, it was too much trouble to bother, and he never mentioned it again.
Shadows filled the stone notch, becoming full darkness before I reached the other side. I needed to find somewhere to sleep, soon. Stars were dotting the sky, forming a jeweled fabric that seemed to blanket the earth. Cold beauty.
Triple L had never visited us themselves. So I only had the stories of others to make me think that it might be the paradise I sought. A place where females were respected and the alphas nurtured the talents and skills of their pack members. And where someone like me might be allowed to stay. I’d offer to do anything they wanted, for this permission.
My abilities were probably not valuable. I could cook and clean, and I’d raised chickens and other poultry for eggs and meat. I enjoyed baking when ingredients were available. And, once, when we’d gotten some wool, way back when I was a little girl, my mother taught me to weave. We carded and dyed and did all the things to create the blanket that filled too much of my pack. But I couldn’t leave it behind. Her loom had been painful enough. Standing in the corner, unused for so long, it was still her prized possession.
Beginning my first descent, I watched for any little cave or alcove that might provide shelter but found nothing, and my teeth were chattering. I could shift and be warmer but not and carry the heavy pack. So I continued down the stone face and into a stand of pinyon pines.
They were heavy with cones, a good source of pine nuts, if I’d had a way to carry them. And processing them took weeks. Perhaps there was a faster way, but I only knew the one we used at home.
At my former home.
If the goddess willed, Triple L would be my new home.
Finally giving up on finding any real shelter, I was surprised and pleased to find a broken-down shack, only held up by the saplings sprouting through its grayed-board walls. The door had fallen in, so I needed no key, and the whole thing was in too much disrepair to make considering a fire for warmth safe. Everything was tinder these days. But it would block the wind, and I dug out all my warmest garments prepared to put them on when I realized how silly that was. Instead, I found the blanket Mother and I had woven, cleared a space of as much natural debris as possible, and laid the blanket out to provide a layer of protection from the cold ground. I removed all the clothing I wore. Shivering hard now, teeth clicking together, I shifted into my fur and curled up into a tight ball.
My wolf was quiet, had been all day, even now when in ascendance. She didn’t like the idea of leaving our pack. It went against the grain to do so, against her instincts, so I didn’t press her to keep me company.
I’d never felt so alone.
Chapter Three
Emmalise
I never actually thought I’d end up as a waitress in the same restaurant where my mother worked all the time I was growing up. Right until the day she disappeared. Working the morning shift required I arrive before dawn, often in the dark. It was the one time of day when I thought of her, since it was just before the sun rose, in that last velvety darkness that I became more or less an orphan.
Because of this, I preferred not to be on the early shift, but sometimes Marva needed me to fill in when she had something to do or didn’t feel 100 percent. She wasn’t a relative, but since I’d been working here since I turned sixteen, and had hung out here with Mom after school and on the weekends, she might as well have been. And although she tried not to let people see it, her age had begun to slow her down just a bit. Unlocking the door, I twisted the knob and stepped inside. As soon as the door clicked closed behind me, I locked it again, feeling instantly safer. No one else, except the breakfast cook, was due in for the next hour or so, and he had a key. By then, we’d have some daylight, and my nerves would settle down.
I moved to the dining room to make sure everything was ready for the first customers. Marva was usually here from opening to closing, one of the reasons she was probably feeling her age. She would have stayed until every salt and pepper shaker was filled, the napkin holders as well, and the final dishes through the dishwasher and placed in their racks. And everything seemed as it should be, neat and clean and all in its place.
And almost identical to when I sat at the table near the kitchen door and did my homework or colored or played paper dolls. My eyes puddled, despite myself. Mom had been gone almost ten years. Shouldn’t grief get a little easier by then? Brushing the droplets aside with the back of my wrist, I took out the plastic-coated menus and gave them a quick spray and wipe with the vinegar-and-water solution we used as much as possible for cleaning here. As long as I had the bottle in my hand, and the cloth, I walked around the room, spot cleaning things here and there. The glass counter by the register was a fingerprint magnet, the stools at the counter always collecting something. But as I worked, I began to worry. Not that anyone would notice these things being less than pristine—anyone but Marva who hadn’t left the place with a thumbprint on that counter in my memory.
I was leaning over the booth by the window, removing a smudge from the glass when something darted past me, and I stumbled back with a shriek. But then I gave myself a shake and tried to laugh it off. We were in a mountain town, and wildlife was all around. Raccoons, possums, skunks, rabbits, coyotes, even. Toward the edge of town, bears were occasionally reported getting into trash cans or swimming in a vacation house pool.
No…there was that one time. A mountain lion had been prowling around a residential neighborhood just a few blocks away from me and had been tranquilized by fish and game. They took it away to relocate it, but then it escaped while the driver of the truck was getting takeout, of all things.
Surely it couldn’t be the same cat.
Nobody I knew had encountered a full-sized—bigger, even, if my nature-show-watching experience was accurate—mountain lion cruising our small downtown area since then. When I looked again, there was no sign of the big cat or any other animal out there. Must have been one of those tricks of the eye at dawn and dusk. Or maybe…well, I had no other maybe at all. I was kneeling on the seat, looking out the window and still trying to puzzle out what might have made me think I saw a mountain lion of all things when the snap of the back door closing again made me jump.
I fought the urge to hide under the table. “Gabe?”
The cook, who dressed all in white, in full diner grill-cook mode, poked his head through the pass-through. “That’s me, but why are you here?”
Everyone knew I hated the early shift. And most who had been here any length of time probably knew why. “Marva asked me to fill in.”
He waved a spatula around in a circle. “She’s never going to admit she needs to retire, is she?”
