Overwhelmingly Precious [Werewolves of Hanson Mall 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  Quintana smiled at him again. He seemed so very young. Was I ever that young? Or that innocent? Probably not.

  “We’re alone for the moment, unless a customer comes into the store, so how can I help you?” She deliberately didn’t ask him about his reference to whether or not Meriel knew about something or other. About the wolves? she wondered. It wasn’t relevant to the conversation now, anyway.

  Wynn stood up straighter, gained confidence, and suddenly didn’t seem quite so young. “You know about the werewolf family history project I suppose?”

  Ah. He is thinking about the shape-shifters. “Yes, and I know you and Georgia are leading it with a lot of help from Willow and Hawthorne.”

  “Hawthorne and Willow are compiling the data sheets and cross-referencing all the various family groups. Georgia and I are leading the interview teams, except that most of the easy interviewing has been done. We’ve sent people into the senior citizen centers in the various packs and got video and sound recordings of the old people sharing their memories. We’ve interviewed the Alphas. But there are still huge gaps in our knowledge. I want to interview you. Because you’ve been involved in the mall since the very beginning I guess you must have knowledge of the shape-shifter community. Maybe with your help we can explore a new circle of connections, more from the human side of the situation.”

  Quintana stared at him. She’d expected some question about buying lingerie for his girlfriend, not this. She hadn’t ever thought about it before, but she supposed she might know some people to add to their database, maybe even lead them onto a few more people.

  “How long with this take? I have a business to run.”

  “I thought we could meet up in the mall conference room in the professional suites one evening at six thirty. Or whatever time suits you.”

  Okay, so just one evening. She could spare that much time. She didn’t spend every night working, just most of them. “All right. How long are you in town for? Will tomorrow night be okay?”

  “Tomorrow will be excellent. Text me when you get to the glass doors of the professional suites and I’ll get one of the security guards to come down and let you in.” He handed her his business card.

  She watched him leave, tapping his card against the palm of her hand. Then she pulled out her cell phone and entered the number in it right away, and the meeting time into her calendar. He was quite cute. But too young. So very young. Even his light brown hair was boyish, curling up at the ends.

  Quintana shook off her thoughts. If she was going to be interviewed tomorrow night that meant she needed to be sure all next week’s orders were ready to go tonight. She hurried around the counter and sat at the computer. But he was good looking. Too bad she wasn’t twenty again.

  No. I wasn’t happy at twenty. I’m much happier at thirty.

  * * * *

  As part of his job interviewing werewolves for the family history project, Wynn had talked to people in packs where the men were encouraged to join with another man they thought they could build a family with. Only when they’d settled such issues as how they’d work together as a team, where they’d live, how they’d support a woman, and similar issues, were they permitted to begin searching for a mate. Or, if they already had a woman they both were interested in, to invite her on a date.

  Wynn had talked to Keelan. He respected his cousin and they got along very well together. Keelan had agreed to think about the idea, and the next time Wynn had stayed with him Keelan had spoken of his regard for Quintana. Wynn had nearly swallowed his tongue. Quintana wasn’t just stunningly beautiful, she was also amazingly smart, and four or five years older than him. Still, if she was the woman Keelan wanted, Wynn was good with that plan. Although he was nervous. Very nervous.

  Which was why he was pacing around the conference room, walking around and around the long table, until Keelan said, “For fuck’s sake, Wynn, sit down. You’re making me giddy.”

  “But what if she doesn’t like us?”

  “Wynn, we can’t lose. Even if she refuses to have dinner with us you’ll still have data for the family history project. Besides, we can wait a week or two and then say we need to ask her more questions, or get more details, or whatever it is that you do, and then we’ll ask her out again.”

  Wynn turned to Keelan. “Rinse and repeat until we’re successful?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay. I can live with that.”

  He sat down in front of his iPad and brought up the screen where he’d be taking notes, then minimized that screen and changed to the recording screen before minimizing it as well. He was as ready as he could be and just had to hope that she’d enjoy talking to them. That she’d like them both. Oh God, that sounded like elementary school all over again. Wanting someone to like him. But if there was to be any hope of a relationship at all, she had to enjoy spending time with them, not just tolerate it for the good of the pack.

  However he couldn’t relax. It was one thing to know how to act sensibly, but it was another entirely to be able to do it. “I’ll wait downstairs for her. Maelor’s going to let her in as soon as I text him.” Wynn knew he was babbling. Keelan already knew that. But it showed how important this meeting was to him. He’d led dozens of interviews, possibly even a hundred, and he was never anxious. Oh sure, he always hoped for new information, and to be able to get it without upsetting anyone, but never before had he had this itchy sense of being unable to sit still, unable to wait like a mature adult for the interviewee to arrive. He should be sitting quietly at the conference table, talking about the latest movie star scandal with Keelan, instead of running down the stairs because he couldn’t bear to wait for the elevator to arrive.

  He was standing by the glass doors, looking out into the mall, when the elevator dinged behind him. Wynn turned around to speak politely to whoever it was, only to see Maelor getting out of the elevator.

  “Quintana’s always punctual so I thought I’d wait here instead of making you all wait while you texted me and I came downstairs.”

  “Thanks, Maelor.”

  “And here she is.”

  Wynn turned around again, this time to the entry to the professional suites, as Maelor hurried past him and opened the doors, locking them behind Quintana. There was a special setting so the doors were locked to casual passersby, but anyone with the right code on their swipe card, such as the managers with apartments in the professional suites, could still enter or leave.

  “How’s your day been, Quintana?” asked Maelor.

  Wynn stepped into the elevator behind them and waited while Maelor swiped his card and pressed the button for the sixth floor. None of the buttons were labeled. People had to know which one to push.

  “Not bad, thank you, Maelor. How about yours?”

  “All peaceful. No dramas.”

  Maelor held the door open for them at the sixth floor, then watched as they walked toward the conference room. Wynn had left the door open and he ushered Quintana in ahead of himself then turned and waved to Maelor, who nodded and presumably pressed the button for his own floor.

  “Hi, Keelan. I didn’t realize you’d be here, too.”

  “I’m just here to get the coffee for you.”

  Wynn tried not to smile. Quintana, of all people, would see through that lie in a heartbeat. He waited until she sat down and then woke up his iPad. “I’ll be taking some notes, but they will mostly be for myself, to remind me of things I need to check or people I ought to talk to. The interview will be taped but at any time you can ask me to switch off the tape. At no time will your name be used in any of our paperwork. All the information goes into a central database and from there our researchers look for links to other people and to try to see if there has always been human input into the werewolf packs every few generations. Do you have any questions?”

  He’d made that speech so often likely he could do it in his sleep. But it was important everyone understood that this project was about the big picture. They were looking fo
r general trends not to pinpoint any particular person as a human or a werewolf.

  “I understand.” Quintana was looking at him but she picked up the water glass Keelan had put in front of her and took a sip.

  Wynn touched the screen to begin the recording. “Please tell us when you first met a werewolf shape-shifter with as much detail as you feel comfortable giving.”

  “I don’t remember the incident at all because I was probably only a month or maybe two months old at the time. My great-uncle Harry insisted that my parents bring me to meet him. Harry had four sons, a passel of grandsons, and two great grandsons. When he heard my mother had given birth to a daughter he was ecstatic and all he wanted to do was hold me. But up until then I’d only seen people with dark hair. He had a full head of completely white hair and when he tried to hold me I screamed and screamed. The poor man was heartbroken. But later, when I was asleep, my mother put me in his arms and fortunately I didn’t wake up.”

  “So he was a werewolf?” asked Wynn.

  “Obviously I didn’t know that then, but all his side of the family were wolves, yes.”

  “Where does he fit in your family tree?”

  “It’s complicated, but let’s see if I can get it straight.” Wynn watched as Quintana closed her eyes and placed both hands flat on the conference table. From time to time she half lifted one of her fingers up, evidently counting or tabulating her family in some way.

  “My father was the youngest of five brothers. Harry was his father’s older brother. There was a middle brother as well, but I think he’d been dead for a while before I was born. My father’s father died when I was little. Maybe three or four. I don’t remember him either.”

  Wynn listened intently as she described the family tree, sketching the outline as she spoke.

  “There were far too many people to scrape a living off the family farm, and my father always felt that as the youngest he was overlooked and not treated fairly. Also great-uncle Harry was the only person who ever supported him in family arguments, and really, that was because my father had produced the first girl in several generations, and even that rankled a bit, because I think Dad would have preferred a couple of sons, like all his brothers had. Anyway, when great-uncle Harry died we came here to the city. My father was convinced that living in town, he’d soon be wealthy. He saw himself as running his own business and making a lot of money. That never happened.”

  “What didn’t happen? Didn’t he get his own business?” asked Keelan.

  Wynn had almost forgotten Keelan was there. He was so much involved in his work persona right now, making a list of questions he needed to ask. Quintana still hadn’t said who was human and who was werewolf although he assumed Harry was a wolf with all those sons, grandsons, and great grandsons, and since she’d begun by talking about him.

  “Dad simply didn’t do the math. He saw money come in and he spent it. He forgot all about allowing for utility bills, council payments, all those things that had been done by the family as a whole. Bills he’d always ignored because he wasn’t responsible for them. Now he had to earn money to pay everything himself and he had no clue about budgeting. Also he argued with the customers and yelled at Mom if she tried to get him to act differently. He died of a heart attack at forty-three and Mom went straight back to the farm. I was the one who sold up everything and had to pay the bills.”

  No wonder she was so intent on making her business a success. She’d learned how to run a business the hard way, by brutal experience. Wynn longed to say something sympathetic to her, but wasn’t sure what to say. Finally he said, “I’m sorry he died so young. That must have been hard for you.”

  “It was better for him though. He was already coming to understand he didn’t have the right skill set to make a success of a business.”

  “So, Harry was a werewolf?” asked Wynn, leaning his pen on the tree he’d drawn.

  “They all were except my parents and my grandmother.”

  “All of them?” asked Keelan.

  “Yes. My grandfather was a wolf but he married a human, yet he and my grandmother had five sons, no girls. The only difference was that Dad was human, not a shape-shifter. The older four boys were all shape-shifters. I think that’s another thing that rankled with Dad, and I expect it’s why he married a human. He didn’t want a wife who could transform and go out running with the rest of the family, when he couldn’t do that.”

  “Can you give me all their names and birthdates, please?”

  Quintana closed her eyes again, resting her hands flat on the table as she’d done at the start, and listed each family, with all the members down to her generation, and where they were now, for the ones she knew. With such a large family, it took her a while, and Keelan got up and refilled her water glass, so she could have a drink when she finally reached the end of the list.

  “That’s been very comprehensive, thank you. That really adds a lot to what we know.”

  Quintana smiled. “If you contact any of them, make sure you say you’re doing a genealogical study of the Simon family. That will warn them it’s the shape-shifter side. I don’t know if the extended families are aware of the ins and outs, so it’d be better to be circumspect at least at first.”

  “Yes, I will. Thank you. Now the questioning and family mapping is moving out of the shape-shifter homelands we’ll need to be more careful. Maybe we can do some of the interviews here. It’s a good secure place,” said Wynn.

  Keelan stood up. “Quintana, you’ve been really helpful. Can Wynn and I take you to dinner at Sam’s Steakhouse, now? The least we can do is feed you after all your efforts for the wolf pack.”

  Chapter Two

  Quintana had to work hard to hide her surprise. She definitely hadn’t been expecting that question. She’d been prepared for the questions about her family, and had thought through how much she was prepared to divulge, but neither man had pushed her for extra information. Wynn had accepted what she’d offered and the questions the men had asked had been logical and worthwhile, not intrusive or in any way pushy. So was the dinner invitation just generosity, a way to say thank you, or were they wanting more? No, she thought it was just a nice gesture, a means of thanking her for her time. They wouldn’t pry into her life in a public restaurant when they’d had the perfect opportunity to do it here in private.

  “Thank you. That’d be nice.”

  Wynn packed his things up quickly, and then Keelan held the door open for her. Maelor was already standing in the open doorway of the elevator. She’d missed that. She wondered which one of them had texted him to say they were ready to leave. It didn’t really matter. It just demonstrated that they were very organized.

  Quintana liked Sam at the steakhouse. He was endlessly helpful and always made a point of talking to his customers, to the store managers, and just generally making everyone feel welcomed and special. He greeted them at the door to his restaurant and whisked them away to a table at the side of the room, where they had a little more privacy than in the open. Quintana appreciated the gesture, although she didn’t think she would be saying anything that required privacy here.

  Sam handed them each menus, and she took a little time to choose what she wanted. Quintana seldom ate out. Mostly she was working in the evenings and ate at her desk. Unless she was relaxing, in which case she tended to eat while she watched an old favorite movie. Sometimes she ate sitting at the table with Helena and Dakota, her roommates, although they all had weird schedules so that was quite rare.

  “What would you like to drink, Quintana?” asked Wynn.

  “A green lantern please.”

  “With or without the vodka?” asked Sam.

  Quintana had already thought about that. One drink, with a meal, wouldn’t impair her ability to drive home. “With, please.”

  “What’s a green lantern?” asked Wynn after Sam had walked away.

  “Yeah, I’d like to know that, too.”

  Quintana smiled. They’d both ordered beer. T
ypical male wolves. “Lime juice, lime zest, parsley, a little sugar and water, soda, plus a dash of vodka or gin.”

  “Parsley? In a drink? Are you serious?” asked Wynn.

  “It’s just for the flavor. It’s strained out before you drink it. I’ll let you taste it when it comes. It’s really refreshing.”

  “No thanks. I’ll take your word for it,” said Wynn.

  Quintana laughed and so did Keelan.

  “You’re cousins, aren’t you? Or have I misremembered?”

  “We are cousins but it goes back so many generations I can’t explain it,” said Wynn.

  “My father told me all about the connection once, but it’s way too complicated to remember. I just say we’re seventh cousins twice removed. That’s close enough,” added Keelan.

  Quintana was about to ask another question but Keelan got in first. “What’s your favorite gemstone or jewel? Precious or semiprecious, it doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve ever thought of.” He’s a jeweler, no wonder he asked that question.

  “Think about it now, then,” suggested Wynn, his big brown eyes shining at her.

  Quintana did a mental rundown of the colored stones she knew. Emeralds appealed to her, the most, she decided. “Maybe emeralds.”

  “You really are into green, aren’t you,” said Wynn.

  “I suppose so. It’s a restful, balanced color, and grass and trees are restful things as well.”

  “What about jade, tourmaline, agate, peridot, or chrysoprase?” asked Keelan.

  “I like jade. I thought agates were blue, and I don’t know anything about the other ones,” she said.

  “Actually they’re often reddish or grayish, but they do come in blue, green, and other colors.”

  Quintana leaned forward on the table as Keelan talked about various rocks and stones. She was quite fascinated by the conversation. She’d never thought much about rocks and jewels before. In fact, she had almost no jewelry, as it’d never been anything she really needed. She was also impressed with how much Wynn knew as well. It was obviously a topic the men had discussed many times.