CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I’m pretty sure they got along just fine carrying Martha to craft fairs with them before now, so why the ditch and run?” Lance followed Lily down the aisle of the superstore in T or C, scratching his chin to help himself think. He just couldn’t wrap his head around those Jaguars’ actions.
“Can you get that?” Lily pointed to a twenty-pound bag of dog kibble on the low shelf. Premium, no fillers. Luxury price for a dog that wasn’t even theirs.
He growled and picked it up anyway. At the rate they were going, French Fry was going to get better meals than Lance was.
They’d been on the move all day. After limited discussion, they’d decided to try to track down the craft fair the Jaguars had likely gone to. They’d found it, but the event had turned out to be over capacity and the fire marshal had turned them away. They saw the van in the lot. At least they knew the ladies hadn’t gone too far.
Lance didn’t like feeling like they were cutting things so close, though. Per Kenny’s last text, Regina and the boys were probably an hour outside of T or C, and Lance reeled at the possibility of her having a Cat encounter. If things got messy again, he didn’t know if he’d be able to keep his human form. The last thing he wanted to do was complete a full shapeshift in front of two Coyote kids who hadn’t been acclimated to the pack energy yet. They didn’t know him from Joe, and pack leadership was going to have a hell of a time earning their trust if the first thing the boys saw was Lance going full berserker.
He dropped the bag into the cart. “I bet you they’re using that baby as bait. Trying to get your guard down so they can abduct you.”
“Oh, please. Stop trying to make sense of them,” Lily said.
“Okay, how about this, then? What if they abandon that baby with you?”
“They wouldn’t do that.” She redirected Martha from her efforts at gnawing on the cart handle and steered toward the grocery aisles.
“But what if they do? They left the dog with you, too. They didn’t do that before. He was just roaming free all over the park.”
“Maybe they’re afraid he’s going to get run over or something. Maybe they forgot last time.”
“I don’t buy that, and I don’t think you do, either. What if they vanish and you have to take Martha back to Maria?”
“Oh well. I’ll deal with it.”
“Deal with it? Lily, I don’t know if you realize this, but shifter babies are a lot of work.”
“Yes, you told me that the day we agreed to get married.”
Gods.
He raked his fingers through his uncombed hair and held his tongue.
Don’t dwell on it.
If they got sad, they were going to get snarly, and he didn’t want to get snarly with her. He hated thinking that he’d ever hurt her feelings. He just wasn’t used to having to deliver his honesty with such carefulness.
He wasn’t used to wanting to.
“Ooh.” Lily grabbed a box of frosted cereal off the shelf. “The little grocery store in Maria doesn’t carry these.”
“So get more than one,” Lance suggested.
Lily doubled back, grabbed three more boxes, and then stared at the shelf for a while. Looking somewhat bashful, she cleared the shelf. She dropped the boxes into the cart and resumed rolling. He couldn’t help but notice there was a little added pep in her step after that cart addition, though. That meant he knew exactly two things that made her happy: dance and Frostee Nugs.
“Sweet tooth?” he asked, swallowing a chuckle.
“Yeah, but mostly it’s about texture. I carry cereal around in my pockets to snack on when I’m outside at the ranch. Keeps me satiated until I can get back to the house.”
“How the hell did you end up working there, anyway?”
“If you’re asking if when I was a little girl, I decided I wanted to be a cowgirl when I grew up—no.” She pivoted around an end cap, grabbing a tube of sanitizing wipes as she went. “Ooh, that’s the good brand,” she murmured and called over her shoulder, “They’re quilted. Don’t have those in Maria, either.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’ve got a lady to do my cleaning for me. Not that I’m ever at home to enjoy it.”
“I think I’d prefer to do my own cleaning. My house is small enough that it’s not that big of a chore if I do a little every day.” She continued her slow amble down the aisle, scanning both sides methodically as she went. She pushed one-handed because Martha had claimed her left fingers and was staring at them like she was on some kind of infant psychedelic trip. “Anyway, I ended up there because Belle moved back when her mom was wanting to scale back her duties. We used to be roommates when we lived in town.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Me, Belle, and Alex. If it weren’t for them, my father probably would have insisted I move back home.”
“You’re a grown woman.”
“You noticed?” She winked and flicked a can of coffee into the cart. Not his kind. It was a kind he’d never heard of, but she’d gone right for it.
He scooped the can out of the cart and read the label. Roasted by a company in Colorado. She’d probably drunk it in college. He wondered what she was like in college, not that it was all that many years ago for her. He should have been able to clearly imagine Lily of six or seven years ago, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine her living in a world where there weren’t Foyes and Cougars and…far too much bullshit.
He didn’t want to, either, because that meant she wouldn’t have known him.
“My father is…” Lily clucked her tongue and slowed her gait. She sighed and paused to deliver a kiss to the top of Martha’s head. The clucking sound had made the baby look up curiously. “Well, my father isn’t like your father.”
“You’ve never met my father.”
“No, but I’ve heard about him. You should know by now that it’s hard to keep your business your own in Maria. When I was at the coffee shop a few weeks ago, your mom was in there picking up coffee grounds for composting, I guess,” Lily said. “She was talking in hushed tones to Frances.”
Frances was the Coyote who’d recently been promoted to manager at the coffee shop.
“I try not to eavesdrop, but when I hear names I recognize…” Lily made a well, you know gesture.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he thought he already did. “They were talking about me?”
“Tangentially. Your mom was telling Frances about the mess in Sparks and how Coyotes were still trying to transfer out of there. She said your father was taking sort of a wait-and-see approach, and it was driving her nuts.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Mom. She’s more of a doer.”
“Right. Well, my father isn’t the wait-and-see sort. He’s the micromanaging sort. Sometimes, I wonder if it registers in his brain that I’m his daughter and not a project for him to organize.”
“He’s doing what he does because he loves you.”
“You think so?”
“You doubt it?”
Lily’s cheek twitched. Once again, she crossed the wide aisle from the grocery side of the store to the department store side. She was moving with purpose again, though to where he couldn’t guess.
“You don’t think your father loves you? Also, where are we going?”
“Since we’re here, I need to get leggings. Avert your eyes if walking past women’s intimate apparel upsets you.”
He rolled his eyes and followed her toward the racks of soft goods.
“It’s always weird to think about love and my father in the same sentence because he always weaponizes his love,” she said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he says things like, ‘I do this because I love you’ and ‘No one else is going to look after you like I do.’”
Lance let out a thunderous guffaw that actually managed to distract Martha from her studious examination of Lily’s knuckle.
What Lily had said was straight-up bullshit. Lily was a strong, competent woman who looked after herself fine, as far as Lance was concerned. And she had plenty of people watching her back, him being one of them. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her, even if that meant treating her to random surprise visits every eight or twelve hours or so when they got back to Maria. He wasn’t entirely certain when he’d decided that, but it was a decision that seemed to have coalesced in his mind long before he’d realized it.
Huh.
“I don’t like to think it, but he’s a little bit manipulative.” Lily paused in front of a rack of sweaters. Fondled the cuff of a soft pink one. Checked the tag. Kept moving.
Lance checked the tag and whistled low. Big box store clothing apparently sold for a premium. He found the sweater in shortcake size and hurried to catch up to her. He didn’t like her putting so much distance between the two of them. With her being barely taller than the racks, she was hard to find, and that uncertainty made him curiously anxious. His palms were sweating.
That never happened to him.
“You gotta look behind you and see if I’m still there,” he said on approach.
She wasn’t listening.
She’d stopped moving in front of the women’s fitting room and was staring into the entryway.
“What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer. She was too preoccupied with staring at the woman emerging from the fitting room. He’d never known Lily to be the kind of woman who stared rudely at people, so he immediately suspected something wasn’t right. He eased in close enough to her to put a hand on her back.
“Lola,” Lily said hoarsely.
Oh.
It was her. The goddess could change her appearance as she pleased, but being that close Lance could recognize her by her energy and smell that particular blend of smoke and flowers that made up the undercurrent of her scent. Lily probably would have known most of the goddess’s multitude of forms. The lady took many of her meals at the ranch and Lily sometimes babysat her granddaughter.
Lola clasped the hangers of the clothing items she held onto the put-back rack and approached, hands knitted together in front of her belly, gaze on Martha.
“No cameras in the fitting room,” she murmured.
“That’s how you got in here without being seen,” Lily said.
“Mmm.” Lola unclipped the safety belt at Martha’s waist and lifted the child from the seat. She held the baby out at arm’s length, brow furrowed, black eyes narrowed.
If Martha knew she was being assessed by the fount of her line’s magic, she didn’t show any indication of her awareness. She was gnawing with renewed enthusiasm on her fist and drooling copiously all the while.
Lola grunted softly and set Martha on her hip. A natural, like Lily.
Lance scratched the chest over his heart. His heart rate had suddenly kicked up for some reason.
“How did you find us?” Lily asked.
“There is a mark on your neck. Perhaps you have noticed.”
“Yeah, and I’m not the only one who has.”
Lola turned her hands over in a gesture of confession. “Simple magic. Easily identified. My apologies for not telling you.”
“I’ve got so many questions, but right now, you should know we’ve been having some problems,” Lily said. “Maybe you’ve heard.”
“I am aware.”
“I’m assuming you have a good reason for not popping in sooner.”
Another soft grunt from Lola.
“Want to tell us what you know?”
“Not here.” Lola glanced at her watch, grimaced, and set Martha back into the cart. She buckled the baby in and took a large, but graceful, step backward. “Where is your campsite?” Her tone was clipped and rushed.
“Number 17 at Elephant Butte.”
“I will meet you there in an hour.” Lola retreated to the fitting room, where Lance suspected she’d vanish.
“What do you think she’s up to?” Lance asked Lily.
“I dunno, but whenever she’s coy like that, I get a little nervous. I try to watch Tito’s cues and see if he’s getting nervous, too. If he’s not, I chill out.” Lily steered the cart toward the leggings as she had been before the interruption.
“What if Tito’s wigging out?”
“If Tito’s losing his cool, I nope myself out of the gaggle, whistle like I don’t know shit about shit, and lock myself into my house until all the paranormal dust settles.”
“And yet here you are, dancing in the dust storm.”
“Because I don’t have a choice. I’m not going to cry about it.” She grabbed a pair of light gray leggings, a brown pair, two pairs of black ones that had weird geometric cutouts on the sides, and a sparkly pair that had prancing unicorns.
“Where are you going to wear those?”
“Wherever I want.”
Probably a good answer, so he kept his mouth shut and, instead, opened his wallet.
*
An hour later, Lola materialized inside the trailer, looking oddly stunned for a moment. Then she eyed Lily smearing numbing gel on Martha’s gums, and murmured, “I’ll be down at the lake.”
She left the way of mere mortals—using the door.
Five minutes later, they found her perched on a rock, staring out at the calm water, hands laid primly atop her lap. Usually, Lola was partial to white blouses and billowy skirts, but on that particular day, she’d donned all black like the Jaguars. Whether that had been intentional or not, Lance couldn’t guess. Her long braids practically disappeared in the rich tone, making her look as though her hair was connected to her dress.
She cut her gaze sideways to Lily, who held Martha, and then looked out at the lake again. “I’ll be brief. There are some who can track me if given enough time to meditate.”
“And I take it you don’t want to be discovered right now,” Lance said.
She looked at her watch. “I ask that you keep the contents of this conversation between us for now.”
“Why?”
“I will preface this by saying that it is difficult for me to sit here in front of that child who knows nothing of her fate and how doomed she is. I do not know if you can understand the guilt that follows not being able to do more, and thinking that perhaps doing nothing would have been better.”
“What do you mean, she’s doomed?” Lily asked frantically, holding the child at arm’s length for inspection and shaking her head hard. “What do you know? I didn’t think you were that kind of psychic.”
Lola waved a dismissive hand in Lily’s direction. “I do not know the future, but I know that child’s constitution. The same as all of them. The fact they have survived for this many centuries… Well. Perhaps I underestimated them.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Lance asked.
“I want you to understand that by me telling you this, you will know more about my Jaguars than they know about themselves. They were not supposed to survive this long. There was not supposed to be a second generation.”
“Tell us,” Lily said. “Estela said there was a ship.”
Lola nodded curtly. “There was a ship full of human cargo. I was journeying down the coast at the time, seeking isolation from my kind and others. I saw the explosion. The fire. I saw the struggling bodies, still shackled, unable to swim. I…” Her lips flattened into a grim line and fingers fluttered across the end of one of her braids. “I was not supposed to interfere. We never are in matters that do not personally affect us.”
“But you did.”
Still staring ahead, Lola grunted and settled her hand back onto her lap. “I pulled some to shore. Young women. By the time I got them there, they were already more dead than not. I respect Death. Where human lives are concerned, I do not prevent Death from doing her work.” Looking at her watch, she added in a whisper, “Tito could confirm that for you.”
There was probably a story there, and Lance didn’t want to know it. He had enough of his own angst to digest. The cause of most of it was standing six feet away from Lola cuddling a baby that wasn’t hers.
She would have been in her second trimester—maybe pregnant enough that she couldn’t hide her state from her cousins and her father. Far enough along that people would have expected him to step up, to confess, to take responsibility.
And he would have.
He’d tried to, in his own clumsy way. He’d done what he thought was decent, but it wasn’t just that. The animal part of him must have thought the accident was an opportunity. There was no way in hell he would have hooked a woman like Lily otherwise, and he knew it.
“If I’d been willing to break my code,” Lola said, “I may have been able to do more for them, but—” Lola read her watch and vanished without another word.
“What the hell is she doing?” Lance asked.
Lily gave her head a frustrated shake and settled Martha into the crook of her other arm. “You’re asking me, of all people, to make sense of Lola Perez?”
“She hangs out at the ranch.”
“She eats at the ranch and brings her granddaughter over to ride the horseys. Lola’s not there to have sleepovers and to dish on all the latest gossip.”
“Lemme hold the baby. Your wobbling stance says she’s getting heavy.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’ve been within smelling distance of her all day. She’s used to me now. I don’t think she’s going to start shrieking.”
“Well, she’s…keeping my body temp up. Yeah. She’s like a portable space heater.”
He gave her a few seconds to recant that weak-ass excuse, but she didn’t. “Lily.”
“As I was saying,” Lola continued. She’d reappeared on the rock without so much as a pop!, zap!, or flash of light like the angels they knew always did. “When I pulled them to the beach, I only gave them enough fire…” She tapped her chest over her heart. “For them to get back to their home. Several Mesoamerican peoples believe that you are from wherever your people are buried. I suppose I believe the same. I assumed they’d have less than two years. Long enough to find a way and make the journey. Before I left them for good, I showed them the new world they’d been brought to. Taught them how to find our foods. Gave the ability to protect themselves as jaguars since their human bodies were so frail. I could not strengthen the human parts of them. Those were too far gone. I could only give them an alternative form that they could draw on as they saw fit.”
“But they didn’t go home,” Lance guessed.
“It would seem that they did not.”
“And obviously, they survived for longer than you’d expected,” Lily said. “Why is that?”
“There was someone else,” Lola said acidly, “and I believe he is to blame.”
“Is he…your brother?” Lily asked gently.
The shake of Lola’s head was almost too subtle to see. “No. He appeared to me as a stranger—a disruptor—and there on that beach, we could not agree on anything. He would have considered the whole of the ship and all of the lives on it acceptable losses—”
“But because some survived because of you, he decided to make new plans?” Lance asked.
“Yes. We argued. He thought since they were already there, that they should be given a chance. I told him I could do no more. I believe that they are still here because he added his magic to mine, and far more than he’d said he would. He is not like me and so they have no balance.”
“They’re unstable?”
“I would bet on it.”
“What does that mean?” Lily asked. “What happens to them?”
Lola splayed her fingers atop her lap and stared down at them, perhaps at the rings she’d chosen for the day. Chunky statement pieces with stones probably older than the rock she was sitting on. “Your young Coyotes approach,” she said. “At the park gate.”
Shit.
That meant Lance needed to go fetch them and direct Regina to parking. He’d hoped they’d be able to head back to Maria in the morning, but if Estela and company didn’t return to fetch Martha and the dog, they wouldn’t have a choice but to stay…or root them out, wherever they were.
But that didn’t seem right. He didn’t like the idea of hunting down those women to thrust a baby at them when the baby was perfectly content for the moment where she was. The opportunistic coyote inside him even thought, “Hey. Just take her. Lily would be a great mom, remember? I bet she’d be happy. Let’s make her happy,” but fortunately Lance’s head was screwed on a little tighter than most dogs’. He knew what would happen if he and Lily bounced with that kid. Those Jaguars were going to track her to the ends of the earth if they had to and raise hell everywhere they went until they found her.
If by morning, they weren’t back, he and Lily would have to find them. Period.
“I have not been following their group closely over these past five hundred years. I am not connected to them in the same way I am to my Cougars because the magic in them is polluted. I can make some guesses, however,” Lola said. “They probably live to around thirty. Thirty-five at the outside. I imagine that is all they have in them because you can’t create a race out of the barely living.”
“What happens at thirty?” Lance asked. Estela had to be near that if she wasn’t beyond it.
Lola gave her fingers a brisk snap. “My guess is that they vanish. Perhaps they turn into nightmares like so many lost souls do. Avenging spirits. The fire in them is the sort that feeds on desperation and revenge. That is what I gave them.”
“You’re hiding from them, aren’t you?” A brazen question, but Lance didn’t care. If he was going to wade into muck of Lola’s making, he wanted to be armed with the full truth arsenal. He couldn’t make good decisions for his safety or Lily’s if he didn’t have the whole truth.
“Yes and no,” Lola said. “I am not running from them, though I would prefer that they did not find me. I am a relic. There is nothing more I can do for them. There is no one who can save them but themselves.”
“How?” Lily asked.
“By doing something they are unlikely to do. In that regard, they have too much of my fire. They may not think the lives they would have if they took that medicine would be as good as they have been accustomed to.”
“What’s the medicine?”
Lola turned slightly toward Lily. Not quite looking at her, but seeming to tune into her. “The same you are currently seeking an antidote for, I believe.”
Nearly all of the blood drained from Lily’s face before Lance caught on to what Lola was talking about.
She was talking about him and Lily—about their connection…or what passed for one. She’d guessed that they were trying to break it.
How?
“Wait,” he said, “nobody knows about that. How do you know about it?”
One little corner of her mouth kicked up—the closest thing to a smile he’d ever seen on the staid creature. “I do not make trouble. You know this of me. If a thing doesn’t concern my son and his family, I mind my business. I will say only that your scent is in her. Did you intend to do that? I know little of Coyotes.”
“That’ll go away.”
Lily moved into his line of vision, eyes blazing with some dark fury he probably deserved.
Lance’s phone buzzed in his back pocket.
He grimaced. It was Regina looking for guidance.
He sent her an “I’ll be there in a sec” text and looked up to find Lily still glowering at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“Does the scent usually go away, Lance? For the others?”
“How the hell should I know? I didn’t stick around. I didn’t want them.” He turned to Lola to give her a piece of his mind for stirring up shit between him and Lily, but Lola’s expression became profoundly less serene.
Genuinely fearing for his life, Lance took a preemptive step away from her.
Taking a deep breath, Lola looked at her watch. “Leave the Jaguars to drift. I do not believe they will linger unless they have good reason to. They should be transient by nature.”
“Because their lives are too short,” Lily said. “I see why they wouldn’t want to look for mates. Who needs that kind of trouble, huh? That would probably shorten their lives even more.”
“Lily,” Lance scolded.
Lola vanished.
Lily kicked up sand, heading toward the road up to the campsites.
“Lily,” he called after her. “Slow down.”
“Just let me talk to you, will you? She was obviously trying to divert from the real problem.”
“So what if she was?”
“I don’t see how anything she said about me should matter to you.”
That made her stop and slowly turn. Through clenched teeth, she asked, “But does it matter to you?”
“You agreed we should get a divorce.”
“No, I accepted that we would. Just like with the wedding, the divorce was your suggestion. I agreed to the first. I’m only complying with the second. I don’t want to be with anyone who doesn’t want me.”
“Gods, woman, I never said I didn’t want you. There’s just no fuckin’ way we can make this work. You’re kidding yourself if you think otherwise.” He was shouting and it seemed that before, there’d been no one on the beach, no one caring, no one paying attention, and suddenly there were dozens in the distance, all looking their way.
Lily’s mouth hung open. Her eyes narrowed into angry slits. Red crept up her cheeks. She closed her mouth and had shaped her lips to say something, but he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t need any new blows to his ego.
He took off at a sprint and called back, “I’m going to get Regina. I’ll see you up there.”
She didn’t respond.
That was probably for the best.