Baz relinquished the cup to her, his fingers ghosting warmly over hers, and pulled out onto the highway. “The whole alpha thing ... It’s hard to explain to non-shifters. But alphas can sort of, uh, push their willpower at other people in their clan.”
Arden frowned at him. “What happens when you do?”
“Don’t know, I haven’t done it much yet. I guess I’ll find out if I have to. Anyway, Declan won’t force you out if I make a point of it. He can’t.”
She picked at the fabric on the edge of the truck seat. “I don’t want to cause problems for you.”
“Don’t worry about it. That’s for us to deal with. You have a place with us as long as you need it.” He seemed to teeter on the edge of saying something else. Finally he went on, “I want you to know, Arden, that I’m not going to ask any questions about where you were before Windrock, if you don’t want to talk about it. I can tell it was something bad. People who have good lives don’t end up living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a backpack. You don’t have to answer questions from the others, either, and if they have a problem with it, they can come and talk to me. But—let me know if you need help with anything, okay? If you have some stuff somewhere that you need to go and get, say. We can help with that.”
Tears threatened, prickling behind her eyelids, and Arden blinked them back. “Thank you. That ... that means a lot. I don’t have anything I need your help with, not right now but—I’ll let you know if that changes.”
Baz nodded and immediately changed the subject, starting to talk about his childhood growing up on a nearby ranch. Hecontinued to carry the conversation for the rest of the drive, while Arden slowly got herself back under control.
When they entered the town, Arden looked around with interest. This was the same small town where she had eaten at the diner and the waitress had told her about Windrock. Now she realized that there was more to it than she’d noticed before. It was large enough to have a decent array of amenities catering to the surrounding farms and ranches, including a grocery store, feed and hardware stores, a tractor dealership, and a few restaurants.
“This is Wildcat Forks,” Baz said. “It’s really grown up since I was a kid.” He pointed. “The old gas station is one of the few businesses that’s still operating. And the sheriff’s department has a branch here now, down that street. Lexie’s dad, Axl, used to be the county sheriff. The only office was in Meadow Springs then. He retired a while back.”
“What were you planning to do while we’re here?” Arden asked as the truck pulled into the small downtown. There was a short main street with angle-in parking on both sides. At the end of the street was a park with a gazebo, where some kind of event seemed to be going on. There was a crowd of people, and she heard music booming over a loudspeaker.
Baz waved a crumpled sheet of paper. “Lexie has a list of supplies and hardware I need to pick up. There are some great little shops here if you want to do a little exploring rather than reading the temperature ranges of bathroom caulk with me. We can meet back here and get lunch while we’re out.” Baz grinned. “My treat.”
To Arden’s dismay, her eyes prickled again. She was going to need to buy Kleenex first thing if this kept up.
It was just such a strange feeling to have people caring about her. Protecting her. Not as a matter of duty or public image. Baz did it for no reward other than because hewantedto.
Probably, she reminded herself firmly, the real issue was that Baz didn’t want her trailing around after him like a lost puppy all day and had decided to give her a graceful way out.
“That would be great,” she said quickly, before he had a chance to notice her brimming eyes. “I’ll meet you back here by noon, okay?”
“Sure.” Baz parked in front of a hardware store. “If you buy anything that you don’t want to carry around with you, you can leave it in the bed of the truck.”
“Thank you.” For some reason, she kept looking toward the end of the street. There were some billboards advertising whatever was happening over there. She couldn’t read it from here, but there was a grinning face visible on the signs, and as she recognized it, she felt the color drain out of her face.
“Whoa, are you okay?” Baz put a hand on her arm. “We could get something to eat first, if you need to.”
“I’m fine.” Arden made herself smile at him. “You’re right, let’s go run our own errands and meet here for lunch. That’s a great plan.”
But her gaze kept drifting back to that billboard.
“You want to go check out whatever that is?” Baz asked.
“No,” Arden said quickly. “No, I’m gonna go do some shopping. I’ll see you later.”
She tore her gaze away from the handsome but soulless face grinning toothily from the billboard.
The face of her ex-husband, Senator Grant Hamilton.
In all honesty,Arden would have loved to stay with Baz, even if it involved wandering around through hardware stores and lumberyards. She doubted she would find anything boring in hiscompany. Also, she had very little money with her; she needed to be careful with it.
And it would have kept her away from the horrible temptation of finding out what was happening in that park, in that gazebo. Grant couldn’t behere, could he?
But once she had walked away to get herself under control, she couldn’t think of a good reason to explain to Baz why she had reacted so oddly or why she had left and then come back.
She did some shopping first, buying a few small necessities: deodorant, a cheap package of underwear (the amount she had with her was simply not enough when she didn’t have ready access to a washing machine), fuel for her camp stove, batteries for the lantern. Baz’s group seemed more than willing to share their food with her, but she hated the feeling that she was sponging off them, so she bought some canned goods. She was unable to resist a shelf of cheap used paperbacks by the door of the supermarket. Without her phone, there wasn’t much to do at night, so she splurged on a couple of romance novels and a book about local plants.
There was a small art supply store among the downtown shops, but she couldn’t afford to go in there and accidentally spend money, so she just window-shopped. The whole time, whatever was happening in the park went on happening, and at last curiosity pulled her closer.
She could hear it all over downtown. At first it had been nothing except music and people wandering in and out, but now Grant was up on the small stage beside the gazebo with a microphone. She couldn’t understand the static-garbled words, but she knew the cadence of his voice.
