Purr For The Alpha (A Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack) (13 page)

             
Ty was not a stupid shifter. The second he laid eyes on Karen, he could tell something was wrong and he was somehow the cause of it.

             
He’d driven up to the camp, after hearing that Karen had made a surprise visit to her brother and sister. She wanted to drop by and make sure that nobody was bullying them any more.

He’d expected her to light up when
she saw him, the way she always did. It made him feel warm all over, like the rays of the sun were beaming down on him.

Instead, as he walked towards her, she
looked away immediately and bit her lip.

She was sitting on a picnic table bench with Isadora, who was letting Leah braid daisies into her hair.  Her brother Riley was sitting on the table talking to a shifter named Kimberly, their heads bent in close.

              He walked over, and she pretended to suddenly be very involved in texting someone on her cell phone. “Hi,” she muttered.

“Hey, I just came to pick you up for dinner,” he said.

             
“Actually, Leah and Riley wanted me to stay here and do a cookout with them,” she informed him coolly. “I’ll be back later. Much later. You probably shouldn’t wait up.”

             
He could tell from Leah and Riley’s started glances that she’d lied about the cookout. This was the first they’d heard about it.

             
Isadora also shot her a strange look, but didn’t say anything. Neither did Virginia or Kimberly. Of course, all the girls were sticking together.

             
What the heck? He was baffled. They hadn’t gotten in an argument. When she’d left the house that morning to head over to his uncle’s office, she’d been all sweetness and light.

             
“Is everything all right?” he asked.

             
“Everything is fine. I read the contracts, wrote down my suggestions, and gave them back to your uncle for review,” Karen said stonily. She certainly didn’t sound as if everything was fine.

             
“Did my uncle mention that he likes the idea of you coming to work for us?”

             
“Yes.” She didn’t comment further.

             
“All right. I’ll go pick up some barbecue sauce for the cookout.”

             
“No need,” Karen shook her head.  Her face was a mask. He couldn’t read it.

             
“I’ll be back in a little while,” he said, exasperated.

             
He walked off without waiting for her reply.

             
He drove up to his uncle’s house to get the barbecue sauce.  His aunt Jade was famous for her sauce, and she always had extra jars in the pantry.

As he pulled up, he saw that his cousin Max, his new wife Josephine, and Steele were standing
out front nursing frosty bottles of beer.

“Hello, Ty!” Josephine waved at him. “Good lord, so many Alphas in one spot. I do declare.” She pretended to fan herself like a Southern belle. Max saluted Ty with his beer, but at the same time, he tightened his arm around his wife’s ample waistline. Josephine was a pretty, full figured girl and Max was known to be very territorial around her.

“I’ll say,”
Ty agreed. “I’ll be out of here fast, don’t worry.”  He was probably good for at least a few hours, but Alphas could only remain in each other’s presence for so long without getting irritable, and then snappish, and then stupid fights would happen.  It was a chemical reaction, a fog of hormones that would start to cloud the brain at a certain point.

It didn’t start to kick in until an Alpha was fully mature, usually in his early to mid-twenties, but he and his cous
ins were all in that age range.

             
“Anything new with the disappearances?” he asked Steele.

             
“Yes, actually,” Steele said. “It came as a result of you handing out all those flyers at your club, so I thank you for that.   We’ve discovered that there are missing female  and male shifters from different species, not just wolves. It’s happened throughout the midwest. We’ve contacted the police departments and Alphas and pride leaders from different states, and we’re trying to organize a task force.  We need something like humans have – a central agency that reports back on issues that affect shifters of all species, in every state. Right now, it’s far too easy for crimes that could be of a serial nature to slip through the cracks.”

             
“Interesting,” Ty nodded. “Let me know if you need help with that.”

             
“I will. By the way, anything wrong? You look…I don’t know. You’re not your usual cocky self.” Steele said.

             
“It’s probably nothing. Apparently, I just don’t understand women as well as I thought I did. Hey, what’s so damned funny?”

Steele and Max were both laughing.

              “Forget you two,” Ty said, annoyed.

He turned to Josephine. “This morning, Karen was happy and everything was fine between us. I just went to pick her up for dinner, an
d she looked at me like I’d murdered a puppy, but she’s denying that anything is wrong. Any female insight that you can share with me?”

             
Josephine pondered this for a minute. “Uh…you’re a guy, so I’m sure that somehow it’s all your fault?” she suggested.

             
“Really? That’s the best that you’ve got?”

             
“Give it a little time, give her a little space, let her know you’re ready to listen when she’s ready to talk.”

             
“Thanks. I guess that’s all that I can do.” He shot a dark look at Max and Steele. “Screw you guys.”

             
He grabbed a couple of bottles of barbecue sauce and headed back to the campgrounds. Unfortunately, Karen was still upset about whatever it was that was bothering her, and she barely spoke to him the rest of the day. When he spoke to her, she answered in monosyllables.

             
At least Riley, Leah and the rest of the campers finally seemed to be getting along well. 

             
That night, when they went back to his house, she headed straight for her own bedroom.

             
“Karen!” he yelled after her, as she stalked stiff-legged down the hall.

             
She turned to look at him, her expression unreadable.

             
“Whenever you want to talk about what’s bothering you, I’m here,” he said. He was starting to get pissed off now.

             
She shook her head, a look of sorrow washing over her features. “No, that’s the thing. You really aren’t,” she said, and slammed her door shut.

             
Ty went to bed, baffled and frustrated. What had he done? Why was she being like this? Had someone told her something bad about him, made up lies? Evangeline maybe? He couldn’t imagine her listening to Evangline.

             
He headed out that morning without speaking to her. He was angry and frustrated with her sudden coldness, and he didn’t want to get in an argument with her.

             
He went straight to The Zoo. His handymen were there doing some painting, and he dove right in with them, glad to have something to distract him.

             
He’d been there for a few hours when his cell phone rang. His heart leapt, and then he saw that it was Max’s number. He was amazed to realize how disappointed he was, how much he wanted it to be Karen.

             
“What’s up?” he said, trying not to sound irritable.

             
“Trouble in paradise. You need to go to the camp right now. Something to do with Karen’s brother.”

             
Cursing, he headed straight for the summer camp.  He tore along the winding roads so fast, his wheels left the asphalt several times.

             
When he arrived at the summer camp, he parked quickly, his wheels sending up a spray of gravel as he jammed on the brakes. Looking across the parking lot, he saw a group of campers standing outside the boy’s cabin, along with Warren and two security guards who worked for him. They had Riley in handcuffs.  Karen was there too, screaming furiously at Warren.

             
As he climbed out of his truck, he saw that Evangeline was in the parking lot.   She was standing by her car, as if she’d been waiting for him to get there. She rushed over to him, blocking his path as he hurried towards Karen.

             
“Ty, I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice full of fake sympathy. “I know how hard you tried to help those people, and look how they repay you.”

             
“What the hell have you done?” he demanded suspiciously.

             
An expression of hurt crossed her face. “How can you talk to me that way? I haven’t done anything;  I just came to offer my support. I told you he was a thief, and I was right. Listen, once they leave you’ll be able to think straight again, and you and I-”

             
“There is no you and I.”  He stalked past her, breaking into a run.

             
Virginia was standing with Karen, shouting at Warren.  There were half a dozen camp counselors standing behind her, and they were all clearly furious. Warren had two of his pack mates with him, towering over Riley, who glared up at him defiantly.

Leah
stood next to Kimberly, her fists balled up.

             
Riley’s face was flushed and angry.   His hands were cuffed behind his back, his lip bleeding. His hair was ruffled and there were twigs tangled in it.

             
One of the security guards had five bleeding scratches on his face, and he was glaring at Karen and growling. Karen’s claws were extended, the fur rippling on her arms and hands.

             
Ty whirled on him.  “Back the fuck off and stop growling at her if you want to live past the next sixty seconds,” he snarled. The security guard blanched, let out a low whimper, and took several steps backward, hanging his head in submission.

             
Warren, however, tightened his grip on Riley and glowered at Ty defiantly.

             
“Let go of my brother before I chew your face off!” Karen yelled at him.

             
Rage boiled up inside Ty. He went half wolf, his snout shooting out, his clothes exploding off him, and lunged at Warren.  He knocked Warren off his feet, and grabbed the handcuff keys from him.  Shifting back to human form, he quickly uncuffed Riley.

             
“You have no authority to interfere!” Warren snarled. “I work for your uncle, not you, and this is his land.  I’m here to protect his interests.”

             
“Get over yourself, you lameass rent-a-cop,” Karen hissed. “Protect Vince from a fourteen year old? I’ll claw your eyes out if you touch my brother again.”

             
“What did you do to this boy?” Ty’s voice came out in a growl. “His lip is bleeding, you son of a bitch!”

             
“He ran from us!” one of Warren’s other packmates whined defensively.

             
“I’d run too, if I was him and I saw you three assholes coming at me.” Ty shot the man a death stare, and the man hunched his shoulders and hung his head.

             
“We searched his room and found this underneath his bed in the cabin,” Warren said. He held up Riley’s knapsack, and dumped it out. Along with Riley’s clothing, a dozen hand tooled leather wallets fell out.  “When we came out of the cabin, he saw us holding his knapsack and tried to run for it.”

             
“Someone planted them there. He hasn’t been near your family’s workshop. He’s been up here at camp the whole time.” Karen’s face was red with anger, and the fur on her face rippled and receded again and again. Low growls rumbled up from her throat.

             
“No, he hasn’t,” Warren said coldly. “He disappears into the woods every day, for long periods of time. Isn’t that true?” He raised an eyebrow at Virginia.

             
Virginia folded her arms across her chest and glared at him.  “It’s only minutes at a time, and there’s a reason for it. I can’t say what the reason is, because I promised not to, but he’s never gone long enough to have made it all the way down to the workshop. That’s miles from here.”

             
Karen flashed Riley a startled look at that news. It was news to Ty as well. Why was Riley sneaking off into the woods?

             
“What were you doing in the woods?” Karen demanded of Riley.

             
He shrugged, and he and Leah looked at each other. He gave her the tiniest of headshakes.