Protector Wolf. Linda O. Johnston
Apparently he couldn’t—although his question was definitely pertinent here. And her answer, partly thanks to the low-level aromas she could inhale, was, “Me, too. This is a good place to be hungry. But what about Rocky? Will he also eat here?”
“He had his breakfast back at the inn,” Ryan said, “but I won’t be surprised if he talks one or more of us into giving him some of what we’re eating, too.”
“Bet on it.” Piers was also smiling but his gaze drifted around the busy dining area as if he hoped to glom on to a table they could request. Which would have been unlikely even if they didn’t have Rocky along, since, although a few more people had been seated since their arrival, there were still a couple more groups ahead of them.
Maya made herself tear her gaze away from Ryan’s great-looking, angular face with just a hint of beard shadow, as if he hadn’t fully shaved that morning. Though those dark brown eyes looked a little tired, they seemed to be studying hers. Why? Hadn’t he slept well—and had he been out looking for wolves? And now, was he trying to figure out if she was telling the truth, that she really was hungry?
Absurd. And yet she thought she sensed some kind of question, or message, in his expression.
Her mind began churning around possible ways to lead into a conversation with him, get him to reveal what he’d done last night and what he was thinking. But before she got very far the restaurant hostess invited the last groups ahead of them in line to follow her.
They should be next to get a table—at least assuming the patio area designated as appropriate for Rocky to join them had a vacancy.
Rocky. He’d been sitting, examining the air around them and behaving like a well-trained dog, despite his resemblance to wild wolves. But something, maybe the movement of the people ahead of them, apparently got his attention, and he stood.
Ryan immediately tautened the leash attached to his collar, drawing closer to the dog. “Easy, boy,” he said.
Maya noticed then the people hurrying toward them from between the nearest tables, people who’d been at the bar yesterday and indicated their support of what WHaM stood for. The Sharans. Kathie and Burt, right?
Kathie was ahead of Burt and she looked first at Rocky, then at the people with him.
“Hi,” the short, attractive woman said as she reached them, smiling toward Maya. “So you brought that adorable dog who resembles the wolves you talk about to breakfast with you?” She moved her hand slowly in Rocky’s direction as if making sure he knew she was friendly.
Rocky started to rear up on his hind legs, but Ryan, pulling the leash gently and also pushing him with his other hand, got him to settle back down. “Sit, boy,” Ryan said, and the dog obeyed, though he began sniffing the air even more than Maya had noticed him doing before. Interesting. She didn’t smell even a hint of a difference in the food aromas around them and wondered what Rocky smelled.
He pulled sideways again when Burt, a beefy guy with a short chin and long nose, got close and put out his hand, too, as if he also wanted to pat the dog. Rocky seemed pretty interested in these people. Maybe they were the reason his sniffing had grown more pronounced, and Maya wondered what they had just eaten.
“I’m delighted to have Rocky’s company for breakfast,” Maya said. “Oh, and Ryan’s and Piers’s, too.” She lifted her eyebrows as she passed her gaze over the two men, waiting for their reaction.
Surprisingly, neither was looking at her. Ryan had one hand on Rocky and was watching him, and Piers was regarding the couple who’d just joined them here as they’d been leaving the restaurant.
Maya sensed something going on that she didn’t follow, but no matter. She’d ask about it later.
For now, she wanted to say something nice to these friendly folks who appeared to love wildlife. “You said before that you own a grocery store, right?”
Kathie nodded. “Yes, we do. We sell pet food there, too.” She grinned as she looked toward Ryan, obviously knowing who was in charge of Rocky.
“We brought enough for a while,” Ryan responded, “but we’ll still check out what you’ve got.”
“Well, I’m sure I’ll need some snacks while I’m here,” Maya said. “I’ll definitely come to visit your store.” And buy something there, in support of these people who seemed truly in favor of the idea that wolves had returned to this area.
The hostess returned then. “We’ve got a table for you on the patio, where your dog is welcome,” she said, menus still plentiful in her arms.
“We’ll let you go now,” Kathie said. “We’ve got to get back to the store anyway.”
“See you there later,” Maya said, earning another smile from Kathie.
But before Kathie and Burt had taken more than a few steps, another woman stepped in front of them, blocking them—Vinnie Fritts.
Rocky, still under Ryan’s control, remained standing—and growled, not a good thing, Maya thought.
But Maya considered growling herself, and more, when Vinnie began talking. “How dare you bring that damn dog here!” she spat toward Ryan. “And how dare any of you say that it’s a good thing that wolves are back in this area? What happened last night is at least partly your fault, damn you.”
Maya didn’t really want to ask but said anyway, “What happened last night?”
“Those damned wolves. Did you hear them howling? My husband did, and he decided to go check them out, make sure the town was safe. And it wasn’t. He wasn’t.”
Maya had a sinking sensation that she knew what was coming, but she had to ask again, “What happened?”
“Morton was attacked. Mauled. Fortunately, he’s going to be okay, no thanks to you. But those horrible creatures don’t belong here. One way or another, they have to go.”
* * *
Ryan couldn’t help it. His first reaction, rather than sympathy—feigned or otherwise—was to glance at the Sharans. They were blocked from leaving by Vinnie but now faced her back as she looked furiously toward Maya.
He felt fairly certain that the Sharans were the wolves he’d confronted last night to protect Maya, shifters with no human cognition or control. He couldn’t recognize their scent for sure while he, and they, were in human form, but he did sense that they weren’t ordinary humans—and Rocky’s reaction to them also suggested a different aroma from a regular person’s. The dog hadn’t acted that way when they’d been around the Sharans before, but he might sense now that they had recently shifted. Did all cover dogs have that ability? Ryan wasn’t sure.
The Sharans’ reaction was what his should have been. Both maneuvered around Vinnie so she could see them. They began expressing how sorry they were to hear of Morton’s injuries. No admission that they’d had any part in them, of course. But they acted like concerned fellow townsfolk.
Even if they were the cause of the man’s injuries, they might not even know it, since they wouldn’t have had human awareness—but might they have recalled their attack anyway?
Ryan recalled a lot of what he’d done while shifted before he had joined Alpha Force and learned about the elixir—mostly visualizing, not consciously thinking about what he’d done, or analyzing it.
But would the Sharans? Assuming it had been them. There were probably some truly feral wolves in the area, too—and possibly more shifters.
“Thanks,” Vinnie muttered at their sympathetic words, but she still kept her focus on Maya.
Heck, Maya was the last one here who should get any blame for a wolf attack. Ryan moved around this group so Rocky was behind him. He whispered to Piers, as he passed, to take the dog to the table the hostess had found for them. “We’ll catch up.”
Then