CHAPTER SEVEN

“I can’t find out anything about those Jaguars,” Blue said on his end of the three-way phone conference the next afternoon. “It’d be easier to research them if I knew their group’s name. Can you find out if there is one?”

Lance put his forehead against the kitchenette tabletop and thumped it a few times. “Yes, Blue, I’m going to prance on over to the Jaguar death-van and ask those harpies what name I should formally reference them by.”

“No need to get sassy.”

“Just sayin’.” Lance let out a breath and sat up, catching a glimpse the bouncing curls of Lily’s ponytail as she passed by the window. She’d started her aggressive avoidance of him at around dawn. “Hold on a sec,” he said to Blue and Kenny. “Talk amongst yourselves.” He muted his mic.

Lily stepped into the trailer with a taco in one hand and a baby in the other arm. “Do you know where my phone is?” she asked without meeting his gaze. “I need to call Ellery.”

Lance turned down his phone speaker’s volume. Blue and Kenny had launched into a spirited discussion about whether or not the whole mess was Lola Perez’s fault, and Lily probably wouldn’t find that productive. “Why?”

“Have you seen it or not?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“No.”

“So you ask why just to annoy me, huh?”

He shrugged. Her being annoyed suited him. Annoyance hormones smelled better than nervous or insecure hormones and didn’t make the dog part of him want to chase his own tail.

She set the taco on the counter, shifted Martha to her other hip, and rooted through the drawers.

She found her phone mixed in, for some damn reason, with the serving utensils. After grabbing a tissue from the mounted box, she wiped the baby’s runny nose and then left.

He grabbed the taco. Looked okay, so he took a bite.

Restoring his phone volumes to their previous levels, he said through a full mouth, “All right, I’m back. Lily came in and went right back out holding one of those Jaguar women’s kid. If they trust her so much with their spawn, maybe they like her enough to tell her the name they go by. There’s gotta be something more than El Culto.”

Not that he wanted her doing him any favors. She’d probably find a perverse pleasure in that shit.

“That’d be awesome,” Blue said. “Normally, I could shake someone out of my network who knows a little bit about the folklore of a particular place, but this has me stymied. The only people I can think to ask are Lola herself or her son Tito, and I’m not sure we should alert them to the issue just yet. Things tend to get spirited quickly when Cougars are involved.”

“Gotta give the Jaguars props, though. They know how to keep their secrets,” Kenny said.

“Yeah,” Lance said. He ate the remnant of the taco and wiped his hand clean on his pants. Good taco. He wouldn’t have minded having another two or six. “Any news from Regina?”

“Last I heard, she was down near Las Cruces. Said the radiator on her car is kinda sketchy, so they’re inching their way up slowly.”

“Probably be faster if I could just go get her.”

“Yeah, but don’t,” Blue said. “As far as we know, we are the only organized Coyote group in this state, but until we clear up some historic boundaries, we have to behave as if there’s still a pack between there and here. She’s still out of the legal range of our territory, so stay put and let her come to you. No shifter she encounters is going to give her any shit because she’s an old lady with a kid who hasn’t gone through puberty yet. You, on the other hand, are a dominant adult male Coyote, and other dogs would take offense to you traipsing through their lands without permission.”

“Noted.”

“I’ll see what I can do about the territory issue,” Kenny said. “I guess that job falls on me, though I’m not sure where to even begin or who to contact. None of the territories have been assessed in at least fifty years, and I don’t know if the council meets anymore.”

“It does, just not as often as it used to,” Blue said. “Lance had to fly me out to them when I took over the Maria pack. They had to swab my DNA and stuff to establish my identity and all that. Also, there’s some paperwork they keep on file regarding pack ownership. Turned out that the last couple of Maria alphas hadn’t bothered with it. The last person listed as the territory’s alpha died seventy years ago.”

Kenny whistled low. “Well, I could see where all that bureaucracy would be necessary. Packs learn from previous mistakes. I think some of the guidelines are pretty effective at keeping the warring down—like a Coyote not being able to formally transfer his pack membership unless the new alpha signs off.”

“Right. Can’t be in two packs at once. Coyotes may not be the clearest thinkers, but whoever had the foresight on that issue should be sainted.”

With few further pleasantries, they disconnected.

Lance strolled to the door, hands in pockets, scanning for Lily.

He was going to have to take his chances and leave the trailer. He couldn’t stay cooped up in there like a dog whose owners were at work. Not only did he need to gather information about the motives of those Jaguars, but he needed to have a calm, collected, adult conversation with his soon-to-be ex-wife about the timeline of their divorce.

He’d give her whatever she wanted just to go ahead and put a period on the situation. Money? Fine. He had a little. Working for Blue had its advantages. Silence? He could give her that, too. He’d keep his mouth shut about the past few months and would do her the favor of crossing the street whenever he saw her in town.

They could go right back to pretending the other person didn’t exist.

He ground his back teeth and pushed the door open.

Nobody was going to buy that he could look in her direction and look past the most beautiful woman in Maria.

He didn’t even buy it.

He was a dog, and dogs didn’t want to give up their toys…not even when the toys were dangerous for them.

*

Lily nudged her phone into her back pocket and settled onto her bottom atop a cushion Josefina had tossed to her from the van. She crossed her legs and nestled Martha into the cradle they made. “My friend says Martha should be okay. It’s common for them to have the sniffles after getting certain vaccines.”

“See?” Josefina called out to no one in particular. “Told you.”

“Should clear up in a couple of days.”

“Ojalá.” Estela shrugged.

The ladies turned their attention back to their individual crafts. Nayeli, beside Lily, was busily decorating ceramic figurines. They were village women engaging in various chores: making tortillas, grinding spices, and washing dishes. Perhaps it was the carefully drawn expressions on their little faces or their proud bearings, but somehow, she’d managed to convey the divine in mundane tasks.

“That one’s my favorite, I think.” She pointed to the one Nayeli had been painting flowers onto the dress of all morning. “She kind of looks like my grandmother Linda.”

“I call…Flora,” Nayeli announced, swishing her paintbrush like a wand. “Many Floras. People buy.”

“Yeah, I can see why.”

Nayeli beamed at the compliment. Even though the smile brightened her sweet face, there seemed to be an intense weariness around her eyes like she’d recently been in recovery from a grave illness. Aunt Glenda would have taken one look at her and ushered her into the nearest bed.

“Where is your grandmother?” Blanca asked.

“Just outside of Mexico City. My mother lives with her and my half-brother.”

“Why you here?” Guadalupe asked, “and she there?”

Lily grimaced. It was a common question, but that didn’t make coming up the words to answer it any easier. She was about to give her standard answer of “It’s complicated” when the trailer door slammed.

All five Jaguars, formerly relaxed and unhurried, sprang to their feet, weapons at the ready. Lily tensed. Where they’d produced those various knives and clubs from, Lily had no idea.

Don’t do anything rash, Lance.

Lance walked around the back of the trailer, one pale eyebrow raised, arms folded over his chest.

French Fry abandoned the plastic container he’d been trying to chew the corner off of and ran toward Lance in full Xolo attack mode. He made it all the way to Lance’s feet only to turn tail and take off with a pitiful yip when Lance growled at him.

Blanca groaned with disgust. “Tan estúpido, ese perro.”

Josefina shushed her and swiped her knife lazily in her direction. “French Fry no es estúpido. Es valiente!”

“Bah. Es muy, muy, muy valiente. Sí. Es verdad.”

Lily pressed her lips together and tried to choke down the laugh in her chest. The “very, very, very brave” dog was, at that moment, hiding behind Lily and licking his bits.

“You go inside,” Estela said to Lance. She pointed toward the trailer with her club as though he were just the other doltish dog within earshot.

Lance just looked back at the trailer, and then at them again before shrugging. “Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”

“You should mind yourself.”

“Thanks for the advice, but I’ve been doing that for a long time. I may not look it…” He made a demonstrative hand wave toward his face. “But I’m probably older than all of you broads. You could do yourself a favor and mind your elders.”

Blanca whipped around and whispered to Lily in a rush, “What is a broad?”

“Slang that means a woman. Kind of like being called mujer.”

“So… don’t stab him?”

“Not over that,” Lily said through clenched teeth, eying the Coyote with as much censure as she could possibly project. “I’m sure there’ll be other reasons you’ll want to.”

What the hell is he doing?

He was supposed to be in that trailer playing it cool until those ladies moved on to their next stop, which could have been soon. Lily had gotten them to pretty much stop querying her about La Dama altogether. They weren’t exhibiting any evidence that they thought Lily was holding out on them. When they’d finished with their craft sales, they would have taken their leave and they could all get out of each other’s hair.

But there was Lance, being a typical shifter dude, Kool-Aid-manning himself into a situation he didn’t need to be in.

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “Just wanted to find out if it was all right if I go walk off some energy on that trail.” He pointed in the general direction of the one-mile loop, the trailhead of which couldn’t even be seen from where they sat. “Doesn’t serve any of us well if I’m cooped up in a metal box and my wife is out of my range of vision.”

Lily rolled her eyes so hard that she nearly got a sprain. Fortunately, none of the ladies were looking.

“She don’t need you, perro,” Blanca said.

“I never said she needed me. I said that I couldn’t see her. There’s a notable difference there.”

“Why you think she want you to watch? We do nothing. We treat with dignity and respect. What you do?”

Lily was interested in learning the answer to that as well.

Unfortunately, Lance didn’t seem interested in engaging the women further. He started walking toward the trail. “You can’t stop me from going for a walk. This place is littered with humans right now, and you broads have to be on your best behavior, huh?”

All five of the women turned to Lily with do-something-or-else expectancy in their gazes.

She cringed and scrambled to her feet with Martha. “Here.” She gave Blanca the baby, dusted the dirt off her jeans, and took off after Lance.

When she caught up with him, she gave him a hard poke in the middle of his back.

“Behave yourself,” he said without slowing.

“Whatever. Just so you know, I think Nayeli is about to trail us.”

“So go back. I only left the trailer because Blue needed information.”

“About what?”

“What that group calls themselves. Can’t assess the threat level very well if he can’t pull any research on them. He needs something to start with. What do you know?”

“Oh, so now you want to cooperate?”

He threw a discreet glance over his shoulder and picked up his pace a little. “We don’t have to be a couple to cooperate with each other.”

“Maybe not, but it would help if you were at least a decent person.”

“If you want to argue about whether or not I meet your purity test for a decent human-ish being, that’s fine, but we can have that argument a little later when it doesn’t matter if we’re overheard by half the damn park. Right now, let’s deal with the goddess situation so we can find out what exactly these women are capable of. Just because they don’t read you as a threat doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous. Trust me on that. Some of the deadliest beings I’ve ever encountered come in cute packages.”

Lily swatted at a chokecherry shoot as she passed it. She couldn’t argue with his point, at least not without seeming exceptionally petty. They didn’t have time for pettiness. “Tell me again what Blue needs to know.”

“What they’re called and how many of them there are in total, maybe. If you can get a better answer about where they originated, that would help, too.”

“I’ll see if I can think up some way to get that information without being totally obvious.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine. You know how to talk to people.”

“I would hope so. I’ve got an expensive degree in a storage crate in my closet that proves I’ve got the credentials. My father would be thrilled to know I’m actually using that degree for something.”

“What’s your degree in?”

“Communications. Not what I wanted to major in, but my father was the one paying the tuition, so…” She shrugged and snuck a glance over her shoulder. Nayeli was just about in earshot so it was probably best if they steered the conversation onto less subversive things, anyway.

“What’d you plan to do with that degree?” he asked.

“I didn’t plan to do anything with it. I think my father always thought I’d go into broadcast journalism or something.”

“Well, you have the look for it.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“That was a compliment, Lily.”

“Oh,” she said weakly.

It was probably the laziest compliment she’d received since tenth grade when Darnell Pino had told her that she was “All right, I guess.” Still, the fact that Lance had thought positively of her appearance made her pulse kick up a few notches. He never really looked at her like any sort of interest, except that night with the liquor, and even then, she’d thought his staring was just his way of picking a fight.

Maybe not.

“Well…thank you.” She got even with him on the trail. He slowed his pace a bit so she could keep up with her much shorter legs. Her blood pressure would probably appreciate if she turned on her heel and went back in the direction they’d come from, but she thought that would make her look suspicious to Nayeli. They needed to show some effort that she’d tried to talk sense into him. She could cue up the tantrum and storm off in a few minutes.

“Since I didn’t want to go into that field, I dragged my feet as I got closer to graduation and didn’t put in any resumes or apply to internships,” she told him. “I moved home and grabbed some temp work.”

“What did you want to major in?”

“Dance performance. Could have gotten a partial scholarship, but it wouldn’t have come close to covering everything, and Dad said he wasn’t going to foot the bill for the rest unless I double-majored. He said dance was frivolous and that I wouldn’t be able to support myself, but I didn’t believe that. Still don’t believe it. If I auditioned and couldn’t get work, I could teach. I was comfortable with that plan.”

“So, why didn’t you double-major?”

“Because I know my limits.” She shrugged and stopped to tie her shoe.

Lance stopped, too.

Ten yards behind them on the trail, Nayeli stopped as well.

She had to be able to hear them from where she was, so Lily needed to steer the conversation accordingly.

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with all the conditioning and rehearsal for dance and taking a full course load for COMM at the same time. I would have burned out. My dance would have suffered, and my grades would have been shit.”

“So, you dropped dance.”

Lily shrugged as she stood and they got walking again. “Formally, anyway. I still took some classes outside of the major. I also taught at a studio in town and did some choreographing. It was satisfying, but was it completely fulfilling?” Again, she shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“What’s stopping you from going back into it now? You’re still young enough.”

She snorted. “I’m twenty-six and haven’t done any real bodywork in almost a year.”

“Twenty-six is hardly washed up, so do the work.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need to work to support myself, for one thing, and for another, professional dancers spend the vast majorities of their days honing their bodies so they behave the way choreographers need them to. I’m already at a huge disadvantage as a jazz and lyrical dancer because I’m short and tend to have bulkier muscle than my peers. The only things I have working in my favor are speed and power. I’d need to be in the studio for months before I’d dare to show up at anyone’s audition.”

“My mother always told me that if I wanted something bad enough, I could find a way,” he said.

“Yeah, well, I can’t make my body do things it isn’t conditioned to do, no matter how…bad I want it.”

Like she’d wanted that baby. Her body had turned on her when the pregnancy didn’t progress.

Lance opened his mouth and then closed it without saying anything. He kicked up some speed and raced ahead of her on the trail, and she didn’t follow.

She turned back toward the trailhead and said, as she approached Nayeli, “Quédate soltera, ¿sí? Marriage will probably take twenty years off your life.”

The statement made Nayeli, bewildered, stop in her tracks. “Why you marry, Lily?”

“Because I thought I had to,” Lily said with a distressed scoff. “And maybe deep down, I thought I could fix him. I guess I was wrong.”