Alpha Omega 02 - Hunting Ground

at Tom.
    He shrugged, his face not looking half as meek as his words. “You think I’m going to argue with her, you’ve got another think coming.”
    Moira bumped him with her hip. “Ooo. You’re so scared of me.”
    The big, scary wolf grinned, his mouth pulled a little by the scar on his face. “Truth. Nothing but the truth.” He spoiled it by rubbing the top of her head, then he kept his hand where it was so he could stay out of reach as she batted at him.
    Anna had quit being nervous around him after the first hour as he patiently led them from one store to another. She’d heard of Pike Place Market for years . . . and at first she hadn’t been that impressed. It looked like just another flea market . . . with fresh fruit and fish.
    Then Moira began tugging her here and there to this little store and that little booth—for a blind woman she was a heck of a shopper. And Tom was always in the right place to put his arm out to guide her and murmur low-voiced warnings as they dodged around other shoppers and across the uneven floor.
    Tom was consulted about fit and color while Moira fingered fabrics and dickered with the shopkeepers. The result was that for less than she’d spent on a couple of pairs of jeans in high school, she had the beginnings of a whole wardrobe. When the booth didn’t take credit, Tom paid despite Anna’s protests.
    â€œCalm down,” he told her. “Charles is good for it.” The last statement seemed to amuse him.
    She also acquired a whole slew of Christmas presents as ordered. Last year she’d been afraid (and too broke) to send presents to her father and brother. This year she . . . she and Charles had them and all of Charles’s family and a double handful of others to buy for.
    The conference would run through Christmas—she had the impression that there had been some incident that had stepped up the Marrok’s timetable. Charles had been gone for a couple of days and returned even more grim than usual. He hadn’t volunteered where he’d gone or what he’d done, and she’d been too intimidated by his oppressive silence to ask. It had been the next day that the Marrok began planning this summit—and he and Charles had begun to fight about it.
    She’d found a pair of small gold hoop earrings with round bits of rough amber for Charles—to replace the one he’d given to the troll. And at the same shop, she broke down and bought a cheaper, more dangly pair for herself. She felt guilty about it—but maybe she could pay him back for them. They had been cheaper than they would have been in Chicago.
    She came out of a little shop the proud new owner of three silk shirts—and her gaze caught on the display window of a store a few doors down.
    â€œWhat?” Moira said urgently. “What is it, Tom?”
    â€œA quilt, I think,” he rumbled. “Jeez, Moira, if the two of you buy anything more, I’m going to have to help carry stuff—and that makes me a lousy guard.”
    The quilt was trimmed with narrow strips of red and green, the colors of the old Pendleton blankets. On the interior, there were four squares and a center section that was round. The square panels were abstract mountain scenes of the same mountain, the top two were daylight, spring and summer. The bottom were night, fall and winter. The center panel was deep mottled green with the red silhouette of a wolf howling.
    â€œI don’t think we face anything worse than a pickpocket here,” Moira was saying to Tom. “I trust you to handle them with a few bags on one arm.”
    Moira touched Anna’s shoulder. “What are you doing out here? Go in and buy it. Tom, what does it look like?”
    Anna looked at the price on a discreet tag pinned to the edge of the quilt and swallowed.
    They went back to the hotel after that, Anna the proud new owner of three . . . three . . . quilts. One for her dad, one for the Marrok, and one for Charles—the one she’d seen in the window.
    â€œYou can put them down on the bed,” Tom said, sounding amused. “They won’t break—or run away.”
    â€œI’m in shock,” Anna told them. “Except for the first time I saw Charles, I don’t think I’ve ever lusted after something so badly in my life.” Then because Tom, at least, would know that she wasn’t telling the whole truth, “Okay.