Silver Moon (A Women of Wolf's Point Novel) (10 page)

Even so, lunch with Ed was likely to be even more of a treat than she had anticipated. Becca could feel that already. Her body seemed to be trying to melt away, which made it difficult to wait on customers and even harder to concentrate. She made two mistakes while making change and very nearly recommended that Al Watkins paint his garage hazard orange and that was just the first hour of Friday morning.

Pete stopped over in time to turn Al’s colorblind attention to a more neutral color, then stood behind Becca as she rang him up. The minute the door closed after Al, he stepped to Becca’s side and leaned on the counter. “You doing all right? Maybe it’s time for a break.”

Becca glared up at him and started to snap. But just then the bright orange hunting gear hanging above Pete’s head caught her eye and the fight ran out of her. “Oh crap. I’m sorry, Pete. What between one thing and another and Ed calling about lunch today, my head’s just a mess. It won’t happen again.”

“Wait, you’re having lunch with Ed?” Pete’s eyebrows rose.

Becca could almost read his thoughts. Pete’s opinion of Ed had really plummeted right before the divorce when he heard about her ex cheating on her. It was nice to see that it wasn’t making a comeback.

She hid a smile despite the way she was feeling and looked down at the counter. It was good to know that there were still nice guys out there. “Yeah. He wants me to meet him for lunch to talk to me about the house. Or so he says. Maybe he decided that there’s something to be said for experience after all.” She bared her teeth in an almost smile and Pete snorted.

“So are you going to meet him?”

“Might as well. I’m guessing he’ll keep calling otherwise. Besides, I’m curious to find out what he wants.”

Pete nodded. “Seems like a good idea. You going to be okay here until then?”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Everything will be shipshape for the rest of the day, before and after Ed. I promise.” Becca gave him a chipper salute. She was surprised to realize she felt a bit better. Maybe she’d just needed to get it out of her system. After all, it was just lunch. How bad could it be?

She kept telling herself that as she walked down to the Riverside an hour and a half later. Her stomach was uncomfortably fluttery and she kept replaying her last fights with Ed before the divorce was finalized. Now she wished he’d left well enough alone and kept giving her the silent treatment. They were better off done.

But that just wasn’t her luck. He was sitting in a booth toward the back, waving to her as she came in. She made herself keep moving, walking as if she hadn’t a care in the world. He looked different somehow, even with the same old bald patch and the small paunch.

Finally, it struck her: he looked happy. He even smelled happy. She twitched a little at that thought, then decided she’d analyze that part later. His shoulders were tense, but it was clear that it was temporary, not their natural state. He realized that she was studying him and gave her an uncertain smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes.

She hadn’t seen him look happy in a long time, years maybe. Maybe he was looking at her the same way. She hoped she looked happy to him, even if she wasn’t right now. After all, they had loved each other once, she was sure of that much.
How did we come to this?
The thought showed up unexpectedly and sent a pang through her. Maybe it was time to bury the pain of his affair and the divorce.

“You look great, Becca.” Ed said with the kind of fake enthusiasm he used to reserve for talking to elderly relatives.

Or maybe it’s too soon for that.
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Let’s get lunch ordered so I can find out what you want and we can get this over with.” She ordered a salad and soup the minute the waitress showed up, deliberately hurrying Ed into ordering the first thing he saw on the menu.

“Thanks for coming down to meet me, Becca. I know this isn’t easy for either of us.” Ed straightened, looking more formal as he pulled a folder from his bag.

Becca raised an eyebrow and she’d tried to look cool and collected. “What, no lawyer? Last time I saw you with paperwork, you were hiding behind your cousin Pamela and her briefcase.” She bit back a snarl at the memory.

“I’m hoping that won’t be necessary. I think we should probably wait until lunch gets here to talk about it though. Things always go down better on a full stomach.”

“Do they? Sometimes it’s better to just rip the band-aid off and get it over with.” She reached out and yanked the folder out from under Ed’s elbow before he could react. Then she flipped it open and frowned for a minute as she tried to comprehend what she was reading. The shock froze her in place, unable to speak or even breath for a minute. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? “Oh, shit. You want the house too. Destroying my life wasn’t enough for you, was it?”

Ed made an unhappy noise. “It’s not like that, Becca. Give me a chance to explain. Christy’s pregnant and—” He saw the look on her face and stopped mid-sentence. “This is not how I planned on doing this.” He rubbed his hands on his forehead and covered his eyes with them for a moment.

“Pregnant? For fifteen years you told me that you didn’t want kids and I let it lie, thinking it might be for the best. Not even two years with Christy and she’s already knocked up. Well, that’s just great, Ed. Thanks.” Becca could feel her hands trembling now, and tears of white-hot rage gathering behind her lids. How dare he do this to her now?

With a huge effort, she pushed the hurt down deep and something else welled up in its place. She remembered that she wasn’t just Ed’s ex-wife anymore. No, she was a powerful creature of moonlight and magic now and she would not cry in front of her louse of an ex. But she couldn’t bite his face off either, unfortunately, not here in the diner anyway. No matter how much he deserved it. She felt the shadow of the wolf retreat a bit.

Even so, when she opened her eyes again, Ed gasped and turned very, very pale. Becca smiled at him and for a moment, she could feel the monster race just below her surface. It made her feel powerful, invincible even.

“Okay, Ed. Let’s talk about the house. You do remember that you never paid me support, right? Not even after I put you through school? That was your little gift from the judge, seeing as we didn’t have children.” She snarled the last word then took a deep breath. Losing herself completely would be a bad idea right now. Though there was something seriously compelling in the notion of seeing Ed’s guts up close and personal.

Ed’s hand on the table trembled a little and he looked away from her, but he didn’t bolt for the door. She had to give him credit for that. “I don’t make that much money, Becca. Not enough to provide for all of us and I have assets tied up in the house. I don’t suppose you can afford to buy me out?” He glanced at her sidelong as if she might lunge across the table at any provocation.

“I work in a hardware store. What kind of money do you think I make? My savings won’t cover it.” Her heart twisted inside her when she realized she was telling the truth. But she loved her little house, had put her heart and soul into making it a home. Right now, it felt like was all she had left in the world and the thought of losing that last bit of her old life opened a pit inside her, one that felt like it went on forever.

“So we sell it and split the money. There’d be enough left over for you to get a retirement condo or something like that.” Ed’s voice trailed off again and she wondered what was looking out of her eyes now. “I’m sorry, Becca. I can’t see any other way and things are different now. I have to do something. You know this was never meant to be permanent, just until you got on your feet and the market got better.”

The realization that he was serious and that as co-owner, he could force her into selling sank in rapidly. All Becca’s anger faded as she stared down at the documents in the folder, shuffling through them without seeing them. What was she going to do? The waitress set their food down and she stared at it blankly before looking up. “I’m sorry, I’ve changed my mind. Can I get these to go?” She stood up, closing Ed’s folder with a snap and tucking it under her arm.

“Wait, Becca. Can’t we talk about this, get it resolved?” Ed’s voice was pleading now.

She remembered how he sounded when he finally confessed to her about Christy and the familiarity of his tone made her flinch. “I’ll need to think about it.” She grabbed her bag and went to meet the waitress at the register.

Ed followed her. “So you’ll call me next week and let me know what you want to do? Just remember what the market’s like right now. If we’re going to sell, we’ve got to put it up for sale soon. You can keep the papers; I’ve got other copies.”

Of course he did. His lawyer would have seen to that. Becca looked away and felt her head nod like it was on strings. Now all she had to do was to figure out what to do next. And how she was going to keep her home with no money to pay for it. Suddenly turning into a wolf on the full moon seemed like child’s play.

“She’s hanging in there; we can talk about that later. In the meantime, Pete told me about Ed. Why don’t you come back to the office and sit for a minute? I’m guessing that you’re not ready for the general public just yet. Pete’ll watch the counter.” She nodded to Erin over Becca’s head.

Next thing Becca knew she was in the back office with the two of them. Shelly handed her a box of tissues. “Let it out. I can tell you’re holding back.”

Becca knew she must look pretty bad, but it wasn’t like she was ready to burst into tears. Not right now. Not in front of them. It was way too humiliating. She started to muster an indignant denial, stringing together the words that would make it clear that she could take care of herself, most of the time anyway.

Then she thought about the house and broke down sobbing despite herself. “Damn it! I didn’t want to do it this way,” she choked out. She took a deep, tremulous breath. Then instead of pulling herself together, she buried her face in a tissue and gave a few more deep, hiccupy sobs.

She managed to stop long enough to say, “It’s Ed. He wants to sell the house, my little house, because he’s having babies with his damn midlife-crisis wife!” She collapsed into one of the chairs and bawled into a fistful of tissues.

Erin took Ed’s folder from her lap, while Shelly rubbed her shoulders. Becca let out deep shuddering sobs, hating her loss of control almost as much as the situation. She wasn’t emotional like this normally and she didn’t want to start now. Stupid changes in her body, all of them.

At least she ran out of tears pretty quickly, much to her relief. Erin cleared her throat when it was obvious that Becca was paying attention to her. “We might be able to help you with this, you know. Let me look into it and stop worrying about it while we look for a way to take care of the problem.”

Time stopped for an instant as Becca considered what Erin’s tone of voice might mean. It seemed significant, somehow. Then she stared up at Erin in horror, Oya’s story flashing through her brain. Did she really hate Ed enough to want him dead? Especially since, if the wolves of Wolf’s Point went after him, she’d most likely be right there with them. Sure she was pissed off, but not really what you’d call rip-the-man’s-throat-out mad.

Erin gave her a puzzled frown but it was Shelly who figured it out an instant before she did. “We’re not going to eat him, you know. What do you take us for? The Pack has an emergency fund and Erin handles our books. We should be able to get you a good deal on a loan and maybe some cash down.”

Becca drew a long shuddery breath. These were her friends and neighbors. Of course they weren’t going to eat her ex-husband. What crazy ideas she was getting ever since she, well, started turning into a wolf. She pressed her face into her hands; maybe the Pack could recommend a good shrink too, one that specialized in dealing with this kind of thing. She found herself groaning out loud, then decided she was being silly and looked back up.

“So who’s been putting these ideas into your head? I know we haven’t had any time to talk about what went down when you left for Mountainview, but I think we can read between the lines.” Shelly was frowning now and there was a newspaper in her hand. “What happened out there?”

Becca flinched when she saw the headline, “Suspect in boy’s kidnapping attacked, killed by wild animals.” For an instant, she was back on the mountain, covered with blood that glowed in the moonlight. A voice that didn’t sound like hers forced the words out. “I’m sorry. But I had to. He had the little boy. And a knife. He kept stabbing me and I just wanted to stop him and save the kid.”

“Do you understand why wolves usually travel in packs?” Shelly’s tone had a weight to it that made it sound like the fate of the world hung on Becca’s answer.

“Well, they’re like dogs. They like the company, I guess, and someone to have their backs. And you’re saying that I shouldn’t have gone off alone.” Becca scowled. “It’s not like I knew this was going to happen, you know. Come to think of it, when Lizzie took me up to see those cave paintings, none of those paintings showed women-wolves in packs. They were all by themselves. You’d think they would have painted them with a pack if it was that important.”