Shifter's Magic (The Wolvers Book 8) Read online

  But she wasn't going to stay in Gilead. She'd made her bed, and now she had to lie in it, no matter how hard and lumpy it was. She was admittedly a fool and a failure, but she still had her pride.

  Chapter 2

  "Damn. Colder than a well digger's ass out there. Old Isaac says it's going to stay that way, too. He says it's gonna be the coldest winter on record."

  The speaker didn't identify himself, but it wasn't necessary. Brad recognized him before he spoke. Those beat up size fourteen boots – all he could see of his visitor - were a dead giveaway.

  "Old Isaac says that every winter."

  "Then he's got to be right sooner or later and I'm thinking this is his year. The Mate wants to know if you have room to store a few boxes in the new pole barn."

  "Warehouse, Matt," he corrected from beneath the pristine front end of a four-year-old Ford. The back end was a mass of crushed metal and broken glass. "Or it will be as soon as I get the money to put some shelving in. All we've got in there now is the flatbed, so I guess there's plenty of room. But no heat," he added. Until the parts business began to show a profit, he had no money for that either.

  The warehouse was the second pole building he'd erected on the property, the first being the garage he was now working in. He'd thought long and hard about the expense, but finally bit the bullet and made the purchase. There was no point in saving money for a vacation he would never take, or a house he would never need. There was a market for used auto parts and he planned to take advantage of it.

  "Don't you want to know what you're storing?"

  "Nope. If it's for the Mate, that's all I need to know."

  Doc and Jazz Goodman, Gilead's Alpha and Mate, had taken him into the pack when everything about him should have warned them away. He owed the pair everything, including his life.

  "She said you'd say that." The boots shuffled, giving away Matt's uncertainty. He either wanted Brad to ask, or he was about to add something his boss wouldn't like. Unfortunately, it was the latter. "Mama wants to know if you'll come by for supper tomorrow night."

  "Tell her thanks, but no thanks."

  "Okay, but you don't know what you're missin'. You'd think the Queen of Sheba was coming for a visit the way she's been cooking."

  "Yeah, well, don't expect me to help roll out the red carpet for her majesty. I get she's your sister and you're all glad to have her home, but I'm the last person she'd want to see."

  "She'll have to see you sometime," Matt argued, though Brad knew he meant it the other way around. Brad would have to see Livvy.

  "Not if I keep my head down and out of the way. I'm done with your sister and she's done with me."

  He said no more because Matt was his friend and employee. He didn't want what he felt for Matt's sister to come between them, but as far as he was concerned, Livvy Dawson could kiss his ass.

  "Then what's the harm in stopping by?"

  "No harm, but no help either. Ellie needs to give it up and put it in the past."

  Brad respected Matt's mother, Ellie, loved her even, and he'd followed her advice. Wait. Let Livvy chase her rabbits. Sooner or later she'd tire of it and come to her senses. Give her time.

  Like a fool, he'd listened to her. He told himself that Livvy, having lived a sheltered life in Gilead, deserved a chance to chase her rabbits. She deserved a chance to experience the world outside of Gilead. Like a fool, he'd listened to his wolf. The animal was convinced Livvy's wolf was its true mate. It couldn't accept that the she-wolf didn't feel the same.

  Like a damn fool, Brad had ignored the truth. He'd known from the beginning that what he had with Livvy was no more than a dream to be enjoyed while it lasted. What he hadn't known was how painful it would be to wake up. Like a man ignoring his morning alarm, he'd pulled the covers up over his head and dozed, pretending he could recall the dream and make it real. But a man couldn't sleep forever. Sooner or later, he had to face reality. The final wakeup call came when Livvy brought her future mate home to meet the family.

  Brad was fully awake now, and he'd learned to live with the pain. He wished Livvy Dawson no harm, but he was done sitting by the door like a pet dog waiting for a mistress who would never return. He was a wolver. He had his pride.

  Just as he had, Ellie Dawson needed to face facts. Her daughter wanted nothing to do with Gilead in general and Brad in particular.

  "Your mother needs to move on," he added. "I have."

  Or at least he was trying. He rolled from beneath the car, stretched his back when he stood, and wiped his hands on the greasy rag he carried in his back pocket.

  "I ain't telling her that," Matt objected with a laugh. "She gives up on Livvy, she'll be movin' on to me. How about I just tell her you have to work?"

  "Won't be a lie. Jeanie went into labor this morning, so Stan's taking the next few days off." The phone rang and Brad trotted across the garage to answer it. "You wouldn't be interested in taking a few extra runs, would you?"

  "Like you have to ask." Brad raised his finger as he spoke into the phone and Matt waited until he finished before he added, "If you get this parts thing going, you're gonna need another full timer anyway, aren't you?"

  "I need one now, and could probably use someone to answer the phones, at least part-time, but it'll have to wait until I can straighten out the books. No promises until I'm sure I've got the money." He tore the top sheet of paper off the pad he'd unearthed from the mound of papers that littered the desk, and handed it to the younger wolver. "In the meantime, you can cover for Stan. It's a two car. One's drivable. One's in the ditch. Haul it to Carmichael if you can." He frowned when Matt curled his lip at the name. "What's your problem with Carmichael? He does good work and he's pack."

  "It's not the old man. It's the son."

  "What's the matter? Tony interfering with your love life?"

  The older son was known for his popularity with the ladies. Brad considered Tony a friend and on rare occasion, joined him on his weekend hunts, the prey being females at any one of a dozen area bars. For some reason, single females tended to move in pairs, so while Tony used his formidable charm to lure his chosen quarry in, Brad was left to entertain the one that was left. After all, he wasn't looking for anyone special. He'd had special and she bit him in the ass. Now, he only looked for someone willing to scratch his itch – no strings attached.

  "Not Tony," Matt huffed. "It's the younger one, Rudy. He's been sniffing around my sister. Again."

  "No shit?" Little Lucy? Brad waved it off. "It's only schoolyard stuff, right? Lucy's not old enough for anything else."

  "Damn, bossman, where've you been living? She's been going over the moon for over a year now."

  "Damn. Really? How the hell did I miss that?"

  Shifting to wolf and running with the pack for the first time was a big deal in Gilead. It was a cub's first acceptance as a full-fledged adult. Granted, his time was more invested in the building of his towing business than the social life of the pack, but still, Lucy was like the little sister he never had and he'd missed her special day.

  "Livvy was home," Matt said by way of explanation. "Remember now?"

  He didn't need to say more. At the time, everyone Brad bumped into had something to say about the fancy assed wolver Livvy had met, and how it looked like it might be a match. Angered and humiliated by playing the fool for so long, he'd snarled at anyone who crossed his path. Even the Mate backed off and left him alone, though not before she told him, in no uncertain terms, what she thought of his behavior. She was right, too. He'd become more jackass than wolf. It lasted for weeks until he lost a chunk of flesh to the winch cable because his mind was on Livvy and not on what he was doing.

  The pain was worth it. It snapped him out of his miserable mood. It brought his focus back to his business, and the scar on his arm was a constant reminder to keep it there. He ran with the pack because it was expected. He lent a hand with any project around the village that needed one. He was polite and respectful. He satisfied his nee
ds. For the rest, he kept to himself. Growing up, he never had the kind of bond shared by the members of Gilead. Livvy Dawson had given him a taste of how much it hurt when those bonds were broken.

  Once burned, twice shy had become his motto.

  "You want me to have a word with the little bastard?" Brad asked. His thoughts passed beyond having words, and he smiled at the thought of a wolf on wolf challenge. Rudy was an adult now, right? It would be an excellent way to burn off the steam that was building up to Livvy's arrival. He had every right to protect a younger member of his pack, didn't he? His fists clenched in anticipation. His wolf snarled.

  Teenaged sex was neither frowned upon nor encouraged in the wolver community. Brad, however, knew how painful it could be when one partner became too attached. He didn't want that pain to be Lucy's.

  Right on top of that thought came another. What the fuck was the matter with him? Though officially an adult, Rudy Carmichael was still a cub. Beating the shit out of a teenager was something his brother, Cho, would do. Brad had left that kind of shit behind. He stuffed the unreasonable anger down, and locked it away.

  What was he going to do if Matt said yes, have a few words with the cub and make 'em hurt? Fortunately, Matt didn't.

  "Nah, we already spoke." The young wolver turned his chin to display the fading bruise. He laughed when Brad's eyebrows arched toward his hairline. "He started it. I finished it. I didn't do too much damage, but he won't be sniffing around anyone for a while." He laughed. "Not until his nose heals anyway."

  Smirking his approval to hide his relief, Brad snagged the keys from the peg and tossed them to Matt. "Take the big boy. You're gonna need it. And don't forget to log it in."

  The log was his biggest pain in the ass when it came to bookkeeping. Time, mileage, vehicle make, type of assistance, and a half dozen other considerations went into the fees charged. Taxes, insurance, and maintenance for the wreckers had to be accounted for, too. There were times when he shorted his own paycheck in order to pay Stan and Matt. Hiring someone to man the phone and radio would free him to take more runs, but would the money coming in exceed that going out?

  There were so many things he didn't know when he started the business and so many expenses he didn't anticipate. It took two hundred dollars to fill the big boy's gas tank. It took several thousand to securely fence an impound area to satisfy police department requirements. The money he'd spent on Livvy Dawson wouldn't make or break him in the long run, but it sure would have helped in the short term.

  He couldn't make it on towing alone. He had to expand to used parts, but that cost money, too.

  Left alone, Brad went back to work. He already had the hood removed and a growing pile of door handles, locks, and window mechanisms on the floor before he was interrupted again.

  "Hey, handsome."

  Didi Wilson never met a man who wasn't handsome. No one took it seriously. She was attractive in a lay-it-all-out-there kind of way, and even after bearing three pups in record time, she was still curvaceous in all the right places. Her jeans were tight, her heels were high, and her shirts were always chosen to show off her impressive cleavage.

  "Hey, yourself. What's up?"

  "Well," she said, moving cautiously into the garage as if there might be grease floating in the air just waiting to land on her frilly white blouse. "I was coming up that big hill on Route 42 and there was a lady pulled over to the side with a flat. She had her phone out, but you know there's no coverage on that hill. Roger's always saying how every dollar counts so I figured I'd be neighborly and stop by to tell you about it."

  "Did you stop and ask if she needed help?"

  "Oh, honey, why would I do that?" She wiggled her fingers at him. "These nails aren't meant for changing tires. The best I could do would be to tell her I'd call for help when I got home, so why waste the time stopping? I'm here, telling you, aren't I?"

  "Thanks, Didi. I guess I'd better take a run out there." And hope a passing motorist hadn't already stopped. If they had, it would be an hour wasted, not to mention the gas. "What kind of car?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know. It's a blue one, pretty old, and not worth much." Leave it to Didi to assess the age and value if not the make and model. He was already reaching for the keys on the wall when she added, "You can't miss it. She's towing one of those dinky rental thingies behind it." She looked at her watch. "Now I really gotta run. I promised Roger I'd be back before naptime was over and it's long past. He's probably tearing his hair out by now and we all know he doesn't have much hair left to lose, poor baby."

  "Poor baby my ass," Brad muttered as he started the truck.

  "She wears me out, wears me out I tell ya," Roger complained regularly. He was one of those people who had to say everything twice. "A man needs his sleep, but my Didi thinks I'm still a cub. She won't hear it when I tell her a man needs his sleep."

  No one believed the complaint was real, because he couldn't wipe the shitty smile off his face when he said it. How a guy like Roger Wilson attracted a looker like Didi was one of the great mysteries of life. And unlike Livvy, who Brad refused to think about, Didi had no interest in Roger's prestige or money. Oh, she liked spending it well enough, but you could tell by her own mile-wide smile whenever Roger came into view, neither the woman nor her wolf would trade that paunchy, balding wolver for all the gold in Fort Knox.

  "Some guys have all the fucking luck," Brad griped aloud. Unfortunately, he wasn't one of them. This was confirmed when he crested a rise and saw his stranded motorist. "Well, shit."

  A woman in form fitting jeans and a bright red sweater was walking up the road, arm held high to the sky in supplication to the gods of cell phone service. She wasn't watching where she was going or anything around her. She was oblivious to the doe that grazed along the edge of the ditch not thirty feet away. She turned the phone from side to side, tight lips turned down in a frown. The gods weren't answering today, or any day for that matter. They never did on this part of the road.

  The gods weren't with him, either. Brad didn't want to think about Livvy Dawson much less see her, but there she was, and as much as he wanted to, it was too late to pull a U-turn and head the other way.

  Her hair was shorter and lighter than it had been when he'd last run his hands through it. There was more curl, little wisps of it now that the weighty length was gone. She looked thinner than she used to be, more stiff and upright, too, obviously frustrated that the world wasn't spinning her way.

  Brad's wolf recognized her, too. It yipped, leapt, and spun in circles at the sight of her. This, Brad thought, was proof positive that the animal was crazy. Livvy and her wolf had left them both. Not just left, but stabbed them in the heart and kept on walking without looking back. If his animal had any sense, it would turn its back on her and scuff the ground as if it was covering its scat. But his wolf had no sense when it came to the sweet faced she-wolf. It never had.

  The doe, finally recognizing the approach of possible danger, stared at the woman for a moment, and then leapt out into the road. Brad had already slowed in anticipation of the move. Deer seldom ran the way they ought to. They leapt without thinking just as he had when he first saw Livvy.

  She looked up as it leapt, as startled by the appearance of the truck as she was the deer. Her hand dropped to her side. Her smile erased the hard lines of irritation until the truck rolled up beside her, and she saw the name on the door, and then the face that had been obscured by the tinted windshield.

  Brad leaned across the seat and pushed open the door. She didn't say hello, so he didn't either. "May as well get in."

  She hesitated, clearly not liking the idea of sharing the cab with him. She looked up and down the road as if another source of rescue might magically appear. When it didn't, she took one last glance at the useless phone in her hand, frowned, and looked back up at him. "I'll keep trying. Father will come and get me."

  Father, not Daddy. She even spoke like the folks from the city. Called herself Olivia now, too
. Brad shrugged. The name change fit. She sure as hell wasn't Livvy anymore.

  He'd never called his own father anything but Boss. And what's in a name? He remembered hearing that somewhere in high school and thinking, 'Nothing, unless that name is Sec Seaward'. Brad wasn't that guy anymore, either. He knew he wasn't being fair to Livvy, but fair didn't mean much at the moment.

  "Suit yourself." He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "You ought to get a bar or two about a mile up. He's not home, though. He's over to Crowley on a painting job with Harvey and Joe. It's a good one, four houses, all new builds, and maybe more to come, but you know Tom. He'll come when you call." It was pure meanness and not worth it, but the words continued to spill out. "Won't matter if he leaves early and slows the job down so maybe they lose the next one. What the hell, for that kind of money, it's hardly worth the effort, right?"

  She knew exactly what he was talking about. "That isn't funny," she said.

  "Wasn't funny when your boyfriend said it, either."

  "He... he didn't understand," she said.

  "But you did."

  And she'd said nothing when the bastard laughed at Matt's excitement about hiring on part-time with Brad. It seemed Matt's weekly paycheck would barely cover a meal at some fancy-assed restaurant that no one in Gilead ever heard of.

  Brad wasn't there at the time, but he'd heard about it the next day. Matt, being better natured, laughed as he told it, and wondered what kind of meal could be worth that kind of money. If he heard the insult, he didn't show it, but Brad heard it and it pissed him off.

  "Maybe that was too complicated to explain, too," he added as another dig.

  That was her excuse when he wanted to know why she was breaking up with him, as if he was too damn stupid to understand. He understood it. He'd always understood it. He wasn't good enough and never had been.

  The truth of that became perfectly clear when he saw his replacement zip through the village. There was nothing complicated about manicured nails, tailor made clothes, and a luxury car. The wheels alone were worth a fortune. Brad ought to know. Boosting wheels like that was how he earned the money to buy his motorcycle. Among the rogues he'd grown up with, such theft was common and considered smart. His father had agreed.