lacing up a pair of boots…? Just the thought of it exhausted her.
Hm, so maybe this was what burnout felt like?
Too bad she couldn’t afford the luxury.
A force of will had her tugging out an outfit and pulling it on. Whether any part of it matched any other, she neither knew nor cared. She was covered. As long as the law was satisfied, so was she.
Honor made her way down the stairs conscious of the silence surrounding her. The big house felt empty. She couldn’t sense her cousin moving around on one of her cleaning rampages, and her nose told her that her mate was nowhere within these walls. In fact, she smelled no one until she stepped into the kitchen at the same moment that her uncle came in through the back door.
He took one look at her and headed to the coffeepot. Pouring two steaming mugs, he handed one to her and raised the other to his lips.
Honor accepted it and opened the refrigerator for the cream.
“Heard you had a busy morning,” Hamish remarked.
Honor recapped the cream, put it away, and dropped a spoonful of sugar into her mug. A quick stir later, she sipped, nearly sighing with pleasure. Any morning that started without coffee made her want to cry. She hadn’t taken the time for a cup earlier. Now her day could really begin.
“Some kids from town came out here joyriding last night and took down a section of fence,” she said. “Max found it when he was out for a run and came to tell me about it. It took a few hours to get the cows back where they belonged and rig up something to keep them there until we can replace the fence. Of course, trying to dig postholes was bad enough today. It’s going to be a real bitch in a couple of weeks after the materials come in and the ground has had a chance to freeze even more solid.”
“Gotta do what you gotta do.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Hamish eyed her. “So why are you standing around here, then?”
Honor blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t you have a few other things on your plate right about now?”
“I thought I’d finish my coffee first, but sure, Uncle Hamish. Just as soon as I’m done I’ll wave my sparkly magic wand and go fix everything. Thanks for the reminder.”
He chuckled, apparently unfazed by the dark look and rude gesture she threw in his direction. “Sweetheart, the day I see you wave a sparkly magic wand is the day I go vegetarian. I wasn’t criticizing. Fact is, I was suggesting that you need to get away and clear your head. The Howl is tomorrow night. If you waste today taking care of a thousand little chores that won’t spell the end of the world if they get missed, you won’t be doing yourself any favors. If you want to come up with a plan, you need to get away from the pack and do some thinking. If it were me, I’d hightail it so deep into the woods, the squirrels couldn’t find me, and then I’d do some thinking.”
Honor deflated like a popped balloon. “I’ve been doing nothing but think for a week now,” she admitted, “and so far it hasn’t gotten me anywhere but right back to where I started. I don’t know if I
Hamish stepped forward and wrapped Honor in a hug, the kind of big, encompassing, comforting squeeze she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “That’s why you need to get away, Honor. I have faith in you, little girl, and I have faith that you’re going to figure out a way to beat this, but even if you come up with a plan worthy of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and the Duke of Wellington all rolled into one, it’s not going to do you any good if you drop from exhaustion before you can put it into action. You need rest, you need quiet, and you need the pack to stay the hell away from you for twenty-four hours. You hear me?”
Honor snorted against his chest, but hugged him back briefly and fiercely. “I hear you, old man, and I appreciate the advice. Now are you going to be the one to tell the pack that I ran away from home when they come up here or to the office looking for me?”
“It would serve them right if that was exactly what I told them. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’ll make sure Max and Joey know. Between the three of us, I’m sure we can put out enough DO NOT DISTURB signs to give you a nice little vacation. Now get out of here.”
Leaving her empty coffee cup in the sink, Honor took a deep breath and gave her uncle a small smile, the first one in days that felt like she meant it. Hell, maybe even in months.
“Thanks, Uncle Hamish. I really do appreciate this.”
Before he could finish telling her to shut up and scoot, Honor was out the back door and halfway into the woods. She knew exactly where she’d go for her little meditation, too. At the far southwestern edge of the pack’s territory, one arm of their miniature lake jutted out into the neighbor’s property, but behind that was an isolated little strip of land with an old shack that her father had never bothered to tear down. He didn’t think anyone would want a cabin out that far, and he’d likely been right, but for Honor it was a little piece of heaven. She’d worked in secret for an entire summer when she was sixteen making sure the roof didn’t leak, the walls were sound, the chimney drew, and the little hideaway held a stock of blankets and first-aid supplies. Every few months, she also replenished it with firewood and bottled water. None of the pack ever went near it, something she could verify by scent, and it was the only place in the clan’s territory where Honor ever felt like she could be herself. Maybe there, her head would clear enough for her to think.
Her stomach rumbled, reminding Honor that she’d missed breakfast, and she’d just walked away from a giant refrigerator filled with lunch possibilities. She never left food at the cabin, since attracting wildlife wouldn’t help keep the place clean and sound, so there was nothing there for her to eat, but she didn’t care. As soon as she got there, she planned to strip off her clothes and go for a nice long run. There would be plenty of game near the shack to satisfy her hunger, but what would really be satisfied was her soul. It might be nice to remember what that felt like.
Thirteen
Logan found himself storming up to his bedroom on Friday evening in a piss-poor mood. Again. It seemed like he’d suffered from piss-poor moods just about every hour that he’d spent among the White Paw Clan, so it didn’t surprise him that he had another one currently digging a pickaxe into the headache brewing behind his eyes.
It didn’t help his mood that he’d seen neither hide nor hair of his erstwhile mate since their altercation yesterday afternoon. Last night, of course, he’d spent half the night roaming around the forest taking his aggression out on bunny rabbits, but Honor had been gone from the house before he woke up in the morning, and he hadn’t run into her even once during the day. His hours furthering his education about the state of the pack had provided him with neither any reassurance as to their state of general organizational health, nor a single mate sighting. He’d wondered if she was deliberately avoiding him, but when he’d asked casually about her, none of the other pack members seemed to have spotted her, either. He heard all about her early-morning foray into fence- building, but she hadn’t turned up all afternoon. He’d even gone back to her office, only to find the small cabin dark and empty. No fresh tracks led up to the door, either. It was as if his mate had vanished.
He could have tried to follow her scent trail, he supposed, but he didn’t know how much good that was likely to do him. Honor’s scent spread across most of the territory her pack held. As acting alpha, she had reason to go almost everywhere, so even the freshest bits of her scent could lead him in circles for hours. He had better things to do than chase his tail at the moment. Like ditching yet another phone call from his own persistent alpha.
Graham had called five times that day already, and it was only just after five P.M. Apparently becoming a mate and a father hadn’t taught the other male very much about patience, or about other Lupines not jumping every time he walked into a room or pushed the buttons on a phone. Logan, however, had nothing to say to him at the moment, so he let the call go once more to voice mail.
What was he supposed to tell Graham, anyway?
