The Patient Wolf (Wicked Urban Fantasy #1) (9 page)

Chapter 13

Ana had just cleaned
up the breakfast dishes and pulled out her school books to begin studying when the doorbell rang.

“Grandpa! What are you doing here?” she asked in surprise when she answered the door. You don’t usually stop by on the weekend. Sophie isn’t here. She’ll be so disappointed she missed you. Jonathan is keeping her until Monday morning.”

“I’ve been waiting to talk to you without Sophie—or anyone else—around,” Hank said. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as he headed straight through her living room to sit down at the kitchen table. “Got some coffee for your grandpa?”

Ana looked at him sharply as she added fresh water to her Keurig and popped in a packet of her grandfather’s favorite French roast blend. He couldn’t know about her night with Chris, could he? Chris had been gone for several minutes before he came to the door; surely they had missed each other. It was just her own guilt feelings, she told herself.

When she had poured him a cup of coffee and handed it to him, Hank came right to the point.

“Do you know who you are going out with?” he said sharply.

“You mean Alexander Fontaine?” she said. Of course that was who her grandfather meant. Alexander was the man he had seen her with just yesterday. He had no way of knowing how complicated her love life had become in less than twenty-four hours.

“Why do you seem so accusatory?” she added. “You acted as if you were delighted to meet him yesterday afternoon. Besides, I’m not dating him. I’m working on a project for him at the university.”

She was babbling. She knew it, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “Yes, he is taking me out to dinner tonight, but I don’t really have any idea of ‘going out’ with him. And what business would it be of yours, anyway?”

Why should she feel so defensive about her date with Alexander? It wasn’t like it was any business of her grandfather’s if she wanted to date two men, she told herself. She realized her long-winded answer had probably clued Hank in that she felt guilty about something. Family! It didn’t matter how old you were or how independent you became, when it came to some things, like who you were dating, parents and grandparents could always make you feel like a little girl again.

“Not him. The other one. The one you just spent the night with.”

“How do you know I spent the night with anyone? Are you spying on me? And besides, what business is it of yours? I’m a grown woman.”

“Your brother saw you eating dinner with him last night at Flannery’s and I saw him leaving here just as I was pulling up to your house.”

“Danny saw me last night? Why didn’t he stop by my table and say something to me? Why did he come to you?” Ana paced the kitchen, becoming more and more irritated with her family with each passing moment. “I’m thirty-two years old. I have a thirteen-year-old daughter. I have a house and a job. Why would my brother go running to tell you who I was having dinner with? I’m tired of being treated like a child by everyone in this family. I swear, when I get my degree I’m getting out of here. I’m going somewhere where Sophie and I can live our own lives, on our own terms.”

“Because Danny knew who the man you were with is, and he was concerned for you. That’s why he called me. Then he kept an eye on you and Spier.” Her usually genial grandfather said the name as if it were a curse. “You can imagine how your brother felt when he realized his little sister was sleeping with a Hunter.” Hank slammed his coffee mug onto the table, folded his arms and gave her a penetrating stare that usually cowed everyone in the family and had them jumping to obey him.

“A Hunter? Chris? Grandpa that is just the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. You and Danny have got it all wrong. Chris is the man who saved me from the attack the other night. He didn’t know what that animal was.”

“And you think it was a coincidence he was right there when the wolf attacked?” he grandfather responded. “I know, I know, everyone is saying it was a dog,” he added when Ana started to protest his description of the animal who had attacked her. “But let’s not pretend here. You and I both know what it was. What it had to have been. And if you had been with the rest of the family, you wouldn’t have been in danger at all.”

Ana felt as if she had just fallen down a rabbit hole. Nothing her grandfather way saying made any sense at all. She continued to pace back and forth.

“Grandpa, we’ve gone over this and over this, and I thought we’d come to an understanding,” Ana said, finally flopping down in one of the kitchen chairs and putting her head in her hands. “If I’m ever going to get my degree, I can’t make every family get-together. You know that. You let Danny and Jennifer off the hook while they were college.”

“They didn’t come home their first semester pregnant and married to that damn jerk who thought he could use you and your family to climb some social ladder and give his career a jumpstart. Jonathan Dugan was bad enough, but now you’re fraternizing with a Hunter! I am the head of this pack and I won’t have it.” He slammed his hand on the table again for emphasis.

“That is so not fair, Grandpa! And you know it.”

“I know Dugan ran off and left you and Sophie as soon as he figured out I wasn’t going to lift a finger to help him get into a high falutin’ law firm or finance some congressional campaign.

“But that’s water under the bridge,” he said, taking a deep breath and visibly working to calm himself. “We need to look to today. You’ve been away from the family too long if you call a pack meeting a ‘get-together’ as if it were some damn Fourth of July picnic,” Hank spit out. “You’re going to make the next one, though, and no excuses, because it is going to be tonight. You just told me Sophie is with her father, so you can’t use that that to wiggle out of it.

“And I want Sophie to have a chance to be with the pack, too, but we aren’t going to go into that today. I’ll save it for later,” he added in a tone that Ana knew meant that ‘later’ would come very, very soon.

“You get home tonight and you bring this Alexander Fontaine with you.”

“What? Are you out of your mind?” Ana cried. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “First, you’re talking about Chris, now you’re talking about Alexander. I know you’ve always admired his books, but it is one thing to ask him over for lunch and tell him a few old legends, and it is quite another to invite him to a pack meeting. You’re the one who has preached secrecy to me my whole life, and now you want me to bring a man who studies paranormal legends home to meet the pack?”

“I have my suspicions about Alexander Fontaine and I want to know if I’m correct.”

“You have your suspicions? You have your suspicions!” Ana couldn’t sit still any longer. She got up from the table and began to pace again. “First you tell me you think Chris is a Hunter, and now you have suspicions about Alexander. Grandpa, are you feeling okay? This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Just what are you suspicious about?”

“He’s a wolf, honey. And if I’m right he’s the rogue who attacked you and killed a man a few days ago.”

“This is all insane. You’re out of your mind. I would know if he were the wolf. Grandpa, I am starting to get really worried about you.”

“No, honey, I’m not going crazy and don’t you worry, I’m not getting Alzheimer’s, either. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” Hank said, shaking his head. “As soon as a man gets a little up in years, these days, everyone is sure he is losing his marbles. Pretty soon I’ll have your dad and Danny challenging me for leadership. My senses are working just fine, thank you. It’s your senses I’m worried about. If Alexander Fontaine is the rogue you should have known. You should at least have known he was one of us. You’ve been with him how many times?”

“The night of the attack I used my mace. I couldn’t smell anything for hours. I wasn’t about to do anything else right outside my own front yard with all the neighbors watching.”

“And don’t you think it a little suspicious that he just happened to run into you at the flea market? When I’m there? It seems a little orchestrated to me.”

Ana quit pacing and stopped in front of her grandfather. Ys, she’d wondered that herself, but that was crazy. Wasn’t it? She shook her and said as much to her grandfather. “That is wild. It was a coincidence. And, anyway, I don’t like the way you say, ‘been with.’ We’ve had a couple of professional meetings at the university and I ran into him at the flea market yesterday. That’s all.”

“Well, and how am I to know that? First Dugan and now this Spier fellow.”

“Grandpa, that’s two men in thirteen years!” Ana came back to the table, pulled a chair out and sat right in front of him. “How many women has Danny dated in that time? Talk about double standards!” Ana huffed.

“It is not a double standard. Danny hasn’t come home with a child yet.”

“Don’t say it like that. You adore Sophie, and you know it. You have doted on her from the day she was born.”

Hank’s face softened at the mention of his great-granddaughter. “Yes, Sophie is certainly a good thing. But that’s another reason you need to be with the family more often. Sophie is one of us. She needs to be trained, and she needs to be able to spend time with others who are like she is.”

“I know, I know. I worry about it, too. And I promise she can spend as much of the Christmas holidays as possible out at the farm with the family.

“But Sophie is not what you came here to talk to me about. Let’s get back to Chris and Alexander. What makes you think they are each…well…what you think they are.”

“Because Danny and I have checked them out. And why haven’t you? My god, girl, you’re the one with the fancy college education, not me. You’re the one who has made it clear you know all about the modern world. That your backwoods family doesn’t know anything. Don’t you know enough to check out your dates on the internet?”

“Of course I checked Chris out on the internet. I looked at his website and his LinkedIn profile. He’s a consultant. He does business management. It’s boring. He told me so himself. And Alexander is not only a professor at the university where I work, he’s a well-known author. You’ve talked about him for years. I didn’t need to check him out.”

“I don’t mean just on the internet. Didn’t you check them out on PackNet?”

“You know I don’t have a connection here at home. I don’t want to take a chance of Sophie getting into it. She’s too young. I don’t care how many spells and enchantments and encryptions are on it for security. Sophie doesn’t need to wander onto PackNet accidentally until she is old enough. You’ve said that yourself about the other children in the pack.”

“Sophie is fast getting to be old enough to learn more about who and what she is. Yes, I know there are places on PackNet you think she’s too young for, and maybe you are right. But she still needs to learn about tradition, and where she comes from. As soon as we get all this business about a rogue wolf and a Hunter under control it will be time to for her to learn all of her family’s traditions.”

“I’ll decide when it’s time, Grandpa. Not you.”

“I’m the head of the family, Ana.” Hank stood up to go. “I’ve given you a lot of leeway. More than I’ve given anyone else in the family. You always could wrap me and your father around your little finger. Looking back on it, I’m not sure it’s always been good for you.

Hank put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him as he looked her straight in the eyes.

“But this time, Ana, you are going to listen to me, and you are going to do what I say. Go out and have your dinner with Alexander Fontaine. Talk to him. Find out about him.

“Then, when you are done you are going to come home to the farm tonight. And you will bring Dr. Alexander Fontaine with you.”

Chapter 14

After her grandfather
left, Ana got out her books and diligently began catching up on her schoolwork. It was well after lunch when Lindsey came to the back door, and she was glad to take a break.

“Sophie texted Kaylee the big news and told her she’d see her at school tomorrow. How do you feel about the baby?” Lindsey said as she made herself at home, pulling a mug out of the cabinet, adding water to the coffee maker and taking time over her selection of coffees from the basket Ana had on the counter.

Ana laughed. With everything that had gone on in the past twenty-four hours, she had totally forgotten that her ex’s wife was pregnant. Funny how something that had seemed so momentous just yesterday suddenly felt very unimportant.

“Oh, so that’s why you came over. You were worried I was feeling sad. That’s so sweet.” She gave Lindsey a hug.

“Well are you? Sad?” asked Lindsey, pushing Ana toward the living room where she sat down with her coffee.

“Not at all. It’s a good thing for Melanie, she’s wanted a baby for quite a while. I’m not really sure how Jonathan feels about it, though. He wants everyone to see him as the perfect daddy, but you know how he is. Most of it is just for show. He doesn’t want to take time away from his career. And a baby does take up a lot of time—and that’s time he would rather be using to further his political aspirations.”

“Well, I know you’ve said Melanie has wanted a baby for a long time. I hope it goes well for her. She deserves something easy in her life, married to that lunk. And how does Sophie feel about it?”

“She’s honestly very happy for them and really excited, too. There’s enough age difference there’s no way she can feel jealous. At least I hope not. I really didn’t have a chance to ask her before she left yesterday morning. I’ll find out tomorrow after she gets home from school.” Ana closed her laptop and stacked her notebooks on top of it. “I’m done with studying for today,” she told Lindsey. “Let’s go into the living room. I’ve been sitting in this kitchen for hours.” She picked up her coffee mug and led the way into the next room.

“And you’re sure you’re okay with this? I know you always wanted another baby. Ooh, the flowers are lovely. You don’t usually splurge like this, but they really make your living room look so pretty.” Lindsey went over to the fireplace to admire the two bouquets. Ana smiled, but decided not to mention why she had two beautiful fall bouquets—an extravagance she usually never would have allowed herself.

“Maybe I’d have a hard time with it if I didn’t have a date tonight,” Ana said, slyly slipping in the news she’d been dying to tell her friend.

“Again!” Lindsey turned in surprise. “Joe saw Chris here last night. I must say, he works fast. And here I thought he was the shy type who would need to be prodded along.”

“Joe is worse than Mrs. Andres!”

“Well yeah, he is,” Lindsey said almost proudly. “But how else would I learn everything that is going on in the neighborhood? With my schedule at the hospital, half the time I’m working nights and sleeping days. Besides, men always are the worst gossips. They just pretend it’s us women.

“But you are getting me off the track. How was the date? It must have been great if you are going out again so soon.”

“I don’t think I’ll be going out with Chris again.” Ana was thinking about her grandfather’s ultimatum. It still worried her, but she couldn’t resist using it to tease her friend.

“What! But you just said…”

“I found out some things about Chris. I just don’t think it will work out between us. He’s a very nice person, but we are too opposite, that’s all.”

There was no way Ana could ever explain to Lindsey just what the problem was between her and Chris. A Hunter and a wolf. It was laughable, really. How could she not have known? How could he? Or did he know? Maybe he did know and he was just playing some kind of sadistic game of “bed the wolf.” Then, when she was complacent, he’d come in for the kill—literally. Well, she wouldn’t let it get that far…”

“Come on, Ana. Don’t make me beg for it,” Lindsey’s voice cut across Ana’s thoughts, bringing her back to the present.
“If you aren’t going out with Chris tonight who are you going out with?”

“Sorry. I guess I just got to thinking about something else.”

“It must have been your date tonight. So who is it?” Lindsey asked. “Who in Rivelou did you suddenly meet who is so fabulous that you’ve thrown Chris over already?”

“He’s a professor I’ve been working with, so…”

“You go, girl!” Lindsey cut in. “But you are always telling what stuffed shirts all the professors are. What made you decide to go out with this one?”

“Well, he asked me, for one thing. And I couldn’t say no.” Ana shrugged her shoulders. This conversation felt so awkward. She’d been looking forward to telling Lindsey and Monica about her two-date weekend, but now, because of her grandfather—no, because of who she was, she corrected herself, always ready to take the blame—everything had become extremely complicated.

“You mean he’s harassing you? Oh, Ana, you aren’t worried about your job are you?”

“No, no. That’s not what I meant. It’s not like that at all. He’s just so elegant and sophisticated and I’m so…” Ana threw up her hands. “So not. I don’t know what he sees in me other than that I’m helping him on a project for the university. He really wants it to be successful.”

Or that my grandfather is head of the local pack. Either way, I’m not sure he’s interested in me at all, she added silently.

Lindsey had heard enough. “Don’t put yourself down, honey. I know you too well. Right now you are sitting there coming up with a hundred reasons why a man wouldn’t be attracted to you instead of thinking about the hundred reasons why he would.”

“Lindsey…” Ana started to protest, but Lindsey cut her off.

“A lot of men would be—and are, if you’d just notice—attracted to you. You’ve just had your nose to the grindstone for so long, either being a mom or studying, you just haven’t gotten your head out of your books long enough for anyone to ask you out,” Lindsey said, vehemently defending her friend from herself.

“But enough of the lecture. Tell me more about this professor. He’s obviously incredibly smart since he is attracted to my very beautiful best friend.”

“Where do I start?” Ana took a deep breath. “First, I guess, he’s very different than, well, Chris. He’s much more sophisticated. Actually I’d say he really is the kind of person Jonathan would like to be. That’s kind of amusing, isn’t it?” she added with a laugh. “One of the differences I had with Jonathan was he was always trying to be this sophisticated person…and he wasn’t. Alexander just is that person and he’s easy with it.

“He’s traveled; he can talk about a lot of different subjects. Oh, and he dresses like a dream, Lindsey. He always wears suits that are obviously made for him. I don’t mean like having the man at the department store fix them hems and adjust the jacket. Alexander’s suits fit him like a glove. And even yesterday, when he was wearing jeans and a turtleneck, he somehow looked so sophisticated. Not like all the other guys in Rivelou, who just look sloppy when they dress down on a Saturday afternoon.”

“Ooh, he sounds fabulous. If you decide you don’t want him, send him my way.”

“Hah! You are much too happy with Joe to ever look at another man,” Ana said.

“True, but I can still fantasize, can’t I? So you told me about his wardrobe, what does he look like?”

“Wardrobe! That’s the important question, Lindsey. What should I wear tonight?”

“Well, where is he taking you?” Lindsey asked reasonably.

“I don’t know!” Ana said with frustration. “Why do men always do this? Chris did the same thing. Asked me out, then never gave me a hint of what the plan was.”

“And did you ask him? No of course not. That would have been the reasonable thing for you to do.” Lindsey shook her head.

“Well, I was so surprised at first—both times—that they were asking me out at all, and then when I did think about it, it kind of felt rude, you know?”

“Yes, I can see exactly how you got yourself into this—both times. You just don’t have enough confidence in yourself,” chided Lindsey. “I could suggest you call this mystery professor up—what did you say his name was?”

“Alexander Fontaine, and no! I couldn’t.”

Lindsey shook her head and sighed. “Okay, we’ll just have to work with the information you’ve got. It’s like a game. ‘Where in the world will Alexander Fontaine take Ana?’ You say he is sophisticated. Sounds like the classy restaurant type. No chain restaurants for this guy. That means you need something classy and chic. Let’s check out your closet.” Lindsey shepherded Ana upstairs to her bedroom and happily began to rummage through her clothing.

“Hmm…. not this. No, not this,” she murmured, throwing various skirts, blouses, and pants onto the bed.

“Lindsey. You’re making a mess. You’re as bad as my little sister.”

“I’ll help you clean up. Here,” she said, finally, holding out a black dress. “Put this on. Let’s see what we can do with this.”

“I feel so out of my league with Alexander,” Ana said, as she pulled off her jeans and put on the tight black dress for Lindsey’s inspection. “I’m sure he’s really just being nice to me because he wants help with this seminar he’s planning. It is really important to him. I’m sure he isn’t interested in me. Not in that way.”

Lindsey sighed. “Jonathan really did a number on you, didn’t he?” she said, guiding her friend to the full-length mirror that was nailed to the back of the bedroom door. “Just look at yourself, girl. You are a very beautiful person. You have fabulous hair. It’s thick and full,” Lindsey fluffed Ana’s hair out as she said this. “You’ve also got beautiful eyes and a figure to die for.”

“And a thirteen-year-old daughter.”

“And a charming thirteen-year-old daughter, and any man good enough for you is going to appreciate Sophie, too. There are men out there like that, you know. They aren’t all Jonathans.

“Now, you wait right here. I’m going to get you my pearls. They’ll add just the right touch of class to that dress.”