Tightly Held [Werewolves of Hanson Mall 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 2

  Nolan turned, looking around his almost empty room. A couple of model airplanes he’d made as a boy sat on the bookshelf beside a Lego toy and a baseball trophy. A few of his oldest work clothes remained in his closet. And that was pretty much it. Thirty years had disappeared inside two suitcases. Two suitcases older than he was.

  I will make a success of this. I will learn whatever I need to learn. And together with Ethan I will win Georgia as our mate.

  * * * *

  “I’m still surprised the Alpha has given us this truck to use. I sort of expected someone to be sent with us to bring it back to the farm,” said Ethan.

  “It just shows how important this is to him. More important that we have the use of the truck if we need it, than all the people back on the farm who’ll be complaining about having to walk places,” said Nolan.

  “Huh. No pressure. Much.”

  “What if we can’t do what we’re supposed to? If I don’t understand?” Nolan sounded genuinely worried.

  Ethan had been thinking about this himself. “Remember Elsie said women like people to communicate with them. Men tend to keep things inside themselves and not talk about them, but women expect to be told, to be listened to, and to have complete conversations.”

  “Yeah. She said grunting isn’t an answer.”

  “Exactly. So if we can’t figure something out, we tell her. We might feel stupid doing it, but that’s what we need to do so we don’t make some terrible mistake.”

  Ethan was pretty sure he was going to hate looking like the country cousin who didn’t know how to behave in the city, but that’s exactly what he was. He’d work damn hard to make as few mistakes as possible though.

  Nolan was driving and Ethan was hoping like hell he’d memorized the route properly. Surely a mall would be big enough that they couldn’t miss seeing it. “The mall itself is only four stories high but there’s a tower at one end of it ten stories high with offices and suchlike.”

  “Yeah, you said that a couple of times already. It’ll be a good ten minutes before we get there. We aren’t quite in Heidelberg yet.”

  Ethan scanned the road ahead of them and out both sides of the car. There seemed to be a whole passel of tall buildings which didn’t help him locate the one he wanted. A few minutes later they were driving through an area of houses and apartment blocks, nothing too tall, and he could see one taller building to their northeast. He pointed it out to Nolan. “Maybe that’s it.”

  “Could be. If we are going to be doing a lot of driving around here we’ll need to buy a GPS.”

  “Are they very expensive?”

  “I don’t know, but if we need it we need it.”

  That was just one more thing to worry about. The Hanson Mall pack was going to give them a place to stay and meals—or some meals anyway. But was the Supreme Alpha going to give them some kind of allowance? Their own Alpha wouldn’t be paying them anymore since they weren’t working for the pack, and the Simon pack had very limited money anyway. But if they weren’t getting any income how would they buy things they needed? Not rubbish and junk, but genuine necessities. Like food and a GPS. He had a small amount of savings and he expected Nolan did, too. But it wouldn’t last long if he was buying his own meals and gas all the time.

  And how could they romance Georgia with no money? Assuming she didn’t nail their balls to the wall for even speaking to her.

  Fortunately, before he could worry himself sick, he saw the turnoff to the mall.

  “Take a right up here, Nolan. I see the sign to Hanson Mall.”

  “Got it.”

  They drove into the parking lot and up to the fourth level as Georgia had told them to do, finding a parking space toward the back of the lot.

  “Double glass doors to the professional suites,” he muttered as they entered the mall. He’d have liked to walk around and just look at the mall, but work had to come first.

  Nolan led the way forward confidently, and Ethan tried to mimic his friend’s long, lazy strides.

  Inside the professional suites, a pretty young woman sat behind a desk. Ethan followed Nolan across to greet her, both of them standing a little back from the counter until she looked up at them.

  “Can I help you?”

  “We’re Ethan Simon and Nolan James. Georgia Edwards and Wynn Evans are expecting us. We were told to come here.” Nolan was doing the talking, which suited Ethan just fine. The woman was pretty, although he had no idea whether she was a human or a wolf. But she didn’t make his cock stand up the way Georgia did. Still, she was smiling at them and answered them kindly, so it was all good so far.

  “I’ll tell them you’re here.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Ethan stepped back from the counter and looked around the foyer area. Several doors led to what he guessed were offices. There was an elevator and a door to the stairs and that was about it. If he’d been at the farm he’d have leaned against the wall, but he was pretty sure that wouldn’t be polite in a public building, so he simply stood and waited. It wasn’t long until the elevator dinged and Wynn arrived. He recognized him from his visit to the farm. Not that they’d been introduced or anything back then.

  “Nolan?”

  Nolan stepped forward and Wynn shook his hand.

  “And you must be Ethan.”

  Ethan smiled and shook hands then obediently followed Wynn back into the elevator.

  “The security guards will bring you a key card. You have to swipe it to open the elevator door, and again before you press the button, but they’ll explain all that.” Wynn was swiping and pressing as he talked and Ethan tried to look at what he did, but the buttons weren’t numbered. How the hell was he supposed to press the correct one?

  When they left the elevator he looked all around but the floor wasn’t numbered either and none of the office doors were labeled. At least the room they entered was easy to remember because it was right at the end of the hallway.

  As they entered the room he caught sight of Georgia. She was sitting at a table, her head bent over a computer screen, and a pile of papers were beside her. She looked up, her pale blue eyes sparkling and a wide smile lighting up her face.

  In that second he fell in love.

  Chapter Two

  While Wynn went down to collect their two recruits, Georgia logged off the work she’d been doing and closed down the files she’d had open. It wouldn’t be fair to expect them to do any work today. They’d need to get unpacked and settled in. She or Wynn would have to take them shopping for some groceries as well.

  Wynn introduced them to her and Georgia had to press her lips together so she didn’t say something unladylike. But fucking hell. She’d never seen two such stunningly handsome men side by side before in her life. Nolan had dark-brown hair and eyes to match, with the broadest shoulders she’d seen on man in a long time. His skin was tanned, likely from being outside on the farm in all weathers, and his muscular arms and legs were a clear statement that he was used to hard work.

  Ethan’s eyes were hazel and his hair a reddish brown. His skin was lighter than Nolan’s but his shoulders were almost as broad and his plain white T-shirt displayed his bulging biceps to advantage. If these two men were half as useful as they were delicious to look at she’d be endlessly grateful to Cadfael for agreeing to accept them as workers on this project.

  To get her mind back on her job Georgia stood up and waved her arm around this main room of the apartment. “This is Apartment 7C. It was originally kept as a guest apartment for when interstate or overseas sales managers came to the mall. It became Willow and Hawthorne Cunliffe’s apartment until they were mated, and they turned it into an office for the family history project. When we go into the smaller bedroom you’ll see what I mean. Fortunately for you, the larger bedroom still has beds in it where you can stay, and there’s a bathroom, of course. But this living area is constantly used as a meeting room for the genealogy project, so your personal property will need to stay in the bedroom, although obviousl
y you’re free to cook here, watch television, and relax in your spare time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The response was in unison from both men.

  “Okay, let me walk you around our office.” She led the way into what had been the smaller bedroom. All four walls were almost completely covered in family trees. “The colored sticky notes track the links between the various families and packs. The colored squares clearly show how groups have intermingled, with each color dotted over the various walls. The few packs with no colored sticky notes tend to be the packs that have died out or been absorbed into other packs, like the one to which Lewis belongs. Lewis is a recent addition to the Hanson Mall pack. He’s building a roof garden for the wolves, and has mated Dakota, one of the security guards, and Andreas, the manager of the fitness center. You’ll likely meet him soon.”

  “Which reminds me, as workers here for the Hanson Mall pack, you’re automatically eligible for membership at the fitness center. It’s on the fourth level of the mall if you want to go sign up and use it,” said Wynn.

  Georgia grinned. “I need to warn you, though, that Marbella is married. Almost every bachelor who visits the gym sees her and signs up for her classes hoping to get to know her better. By all means take aerobics and Zumba classes, but don’t expect her to go out on a date with you.”

  Wynn laughed out loud. “Marbella is seriously fit. About half the men who go to her classes end up in the First Aid room with pulled muscles. You wouldn’t catch me attempting anything more than a beginner’s class with her, ever.”

  Georgia got serious and gave a brief overview of their work, and then she moved back to the living room and opened the refrigerator. She took out a gallon of orange juice, four bottles of water, and a box of donuts. She collected four glasses from a shelf and placed everything on the table.

  “Let’s have a break and you can ask me or Wynn any questions you want about the project or the mall.”

  Neither man attempted to take a donut until after she and Wynn had both taken one each, and the same with a drink. Wynn poured himself a glass of juice and she opened a bottle of water, and only then did both men serve themselves some juice.

  Either they have lovely manners or they’re still on their best behavior.

  “What would you like to know?” she asked again after taking a few bites of donut.

  Ethan swallowed then brushed his hand across his mouth before saying, “What tasks would you like us to do first?”

  “We want to go back to some of the people we interviewed at the very beginning of our study. We’ve learned a lot over the past year or so and have new questions we should ask. Besides, once people start talking, they often trigger memories among each other. We mostly begin by interviewing people in a group to gain those benefits, then separate people to ask more detailed, targeted questions.”

  “Would we have to write down their answers?” Nolan looked worried.

  Georgia shook her head. “Good heavens, no. Once people start remembering we don’t want to stop them in case they lose the thread of their thoughts. We’ll record the interviews. You’ll be handing out question sheets, and encouraging people to talk about their memories. Sometimes older people think they’ve forgotten all the details, but once one of them starts talking it’s surprising how much information they can add. Stories about people are very worthwhile. They mightn’t have known someone wasn’t a wolf, or was only part wolf, but once they get talking they notice that none of them ever saw her in wolf form or preparing to go running and that’s a clue for us. Of course it’s not proof. Some people prefer to run in private. But if no one ever saw her in wolf form it’s a definite link we should check.”

  “I understand.” Ethan was nodding and smiling.

  She noticed both men had finished their donut and pushed the box over to them to take another.

  “If you both do the driving and navigating from place to place, that’ll leave me free to plan out the details of the meetings and write up the reports.”

  “We can do that, no problems,” said Nolan.

  “Where will we stay on these trips? If you want to camp on a pack’s land we can set up camp for you. Put up tents and build fire pits and so on. If you’ve got tents or can borrow them.” Ethan’s voice got a little nervous as he started backtracking toward the end of his speech, but Georgia wasn’t upset.

  “I haven’t been camping since I was a Girl Scout. I wouldn’t mind that in summer. Never in winter though. But no. The packs usually let us stay with one of the families or in a vacant house. Because there’s a lack of females a lot of packs now have empty houses.”

  They talked a bit more and then Wynn said, “Let’s go get your luggage and get you settled in the bedroom here for the moment. After that we can shop for some basic groceries for the next few days while I show you around the mall.”

  As soon as they left, Georgia pulled up one of her files. She was glad Wynn would walk around with them. She absolutely had to get her list of questions organized to give her new recruits a run-through the program tomorrow, because the day after that, if everything was ready, they’d be off on their travels.

  * * * *

  “Please may we use the laptop to check the route for the road trip?” Ethan asked Wynn as he was about to leave them that evening.

  “Of course. It’s part of the family history project’s equipment. Use it for anything you need.”

  Ethan was glad to hear that. He had a cell phone. Nolan did, too. But they were the prepaid kind with minimal data allowance and he really wanted to study the route they needed to take online before they left, and not have to use his tiny data allowance unless it was essential.

  He and Nolan sat at the table with a notepad and the laptop, planning the route, sketching a diagram, and noting key crossroads on their journey.

  After they’d eaten they moved into the bedroom to unpack their luggage.

  “Oh, shit. I don’t have a backpack or anything to take a change of clothes in for the journey. Dammit, I should have thought to borrow one from someone,” he said.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got one. If we roll our things up tightly we’ll fit a change of underwear and a clean shirt each in it, and we shouldn’t need fresh jeans or boots,” said Nolan.

  “I’ll sleep in my boxers. No one will know. If I have to go anywhere I’d be putting my jeans back on not walking around in pajamas anyway,” added Ethan, relaxing a little.

  “Exactly. We’ll manage just fine.”

  Ethan couldn’t remember a time when money in the Simon pack had not been scarce. There was never anything left over for luxuries, but every child always received a birthday and Christmas present, and he’d always had his schoolbooks, even if they were mostly secondhand or thrift shop bargains. It was only in the last year or so he’d started realizing he was almost always hungry. Not starving-hungry, just dammit-my-plate’s-empty-already hungry. He reminded himself that plenty of health gurus advocated always leaving a meal before the stomach was full, and did his best to ignore the feeling.

  Despite all their planning and organizing, they were still in bed at a reasonable hour and Ethan was wide awake and heading for the shower half an hour before he needed to be.

  “That smells great,” he said, walking into the main room where Nolan was frying bacon, potatoes, and tomatoes.

  “Yeah. When Wynn said we could buy whatever we wanted at the supermarket and put it on the mall account, I had to be careful not to go crazy and fill the trolley with junk food. Today, I thought if we had a good breakfast we’d be less likely to spend money at a diner or truck stop on the way. Other than to buy coffee, of course.”

  Ethan laughed. Nolan pretended to be addicted to coffee, but mostly it was just a good excuse not to spend a lot of money. With coffee in hand, they could act like they’d already eaten or weren’t hungry.

  “Good plan.”

  Between bites they rehearsed the road trip directions, until Ethan felt quite relaxed and assured
that they would find their way to their destination.

  They’d both been given a seventh-floor swipe card which opened the elevator door for them, and then they pressed the lowest button which was the fourth-floor foyer.

  “Seven is that one, isn’t it?” Ethan pointed to the button he hoped was the one for their apartment level.

  “I think so.”

  Good. It was damn tricky using an elevator that had no labels on anything. Good security, sure, but scary for newcomers like him.

  They walked out to the parking lot and up the stairs to the fifth level of it, which was for staff only. Then Ethan stopped dead. “What if we’re supposed to use our truck?”

  Nolan turned and stared at him and then gulped. “Shit. I never thought of that. Let’s just hope we’re going in her car. Or one belonging to this pack.”

  Ethan looked around quickly but didn’t see anyone nearby. “Community. Not the word you used, remember.”

  “Sorry.”

  That was something else that would be difficult for them. Both of them had spent almost all the years since they’d left high school on the farm among wolves. They would need to relearn the code words werewolf shape-shifters used for their pack and their Alpha and such things out in the human world, real fast. Some humans were terrified of shape-shifters. Others persecuted them. Ethan needed to be very sure he didn’t endanger anyone. That would be the worst possible thing he could do.

  They stood and waited in the lot, Ethan hoping like hell Georgia wanted to use her own car. But how likely was that? She wanted to rest and work while they drove. Likely she would expect them to drive their own truck. And that meant buying gas. Plus, the truck was old and not particularly reliable. If the truck broke down on the farm, probably he and Nolan would be able to get it running again. There were plenty of tools there and other people they could ask for advice. If it broke down on the side of the road without any tools they had no hope of getting it working again. In particular, no hope of getting it working and delivering them to the pack expecting them on time. Ah shit. His life was just one big crisis right now. All he wanted to do was think about Georgia and winning her love and respect. Instead he was more likely to be sent back home with a kick on his ass for causing her grief and trouble.