Wyatt wisely chose to just nod his head and look around the room again. I was thankful because his continued dislike of lone wolves was becoming an authority issue. As my beta, Wyatt usually followed what I said without question, or if he felt strongly enough, he would tell me why and leave the final decision to me. Like with Jarren, I relied on Wyatt’s opinions. He helped to balance things out when I was too serious.
Wyatt’s feelings about lone wolves were just an old prejudice. Many packs wouldn’t accept them for fear that they would try to usurp the currant alpha. I knew better, after several talks with Jarren. Most of them were just restless wolves. They may want to belong to a pack, but they still wanted to have the freedom to roam. That’s why my job for Jarren was suiting him so well.
The few lone wolves who deserved the distrust by packs were wild. They gave into their baser instincts and hid in the wild. If they encountered other wolves or even humans, they would attack. Almost like a rabid animal, but they didn’t eventually die off from it. If they were found, they were caught and either rehabilitated or locked up.
There was a third type of loner, and those were who Jarren searched for. They were the wolves who had been shunned from their pack, or had chosen to leave, or just hadn’t found a pack to fit into yet. Jarren was looking for them and trying to convince them to join our pack. I was happy that it looked like he had finally found some.
I didn’t say anything else to Wyatt as I mused about the loners. Instead I waited for Zee to make a return trip to our table. She seemed to be avoiding us completely. Wyatt’s right though, I thought as I inhaled her scent when she moved quickly past our table on her way to the bar. Definitely a human, which was why Wyatt found my attraction to her so odd. It wasn’t unheard of for a werewolf to find interest in a human, it just didn’t happen often. It was even less common for born wolves like Wyatt and me. Some said it was a subconscious way for us to keep our bloodlines pure. I hadn’t given it much thought before. I had never felt pulled to any wolf, born or made, a fact my mother lamented about during every phone call. This human though, she was different.
My wondering thoughts were interrupted by the little blonde bombshell who brought us two more beers. An unnecessary act, since Wyatt had only taken two drinks, and I had wisely ignored mine. She fluttered her eyelashes at us both, but I just leaned over to look around her for Zee. Not to be discouraged, she started flirting with Wyatt who had her giggling quickly enough. I held back a whine when I couldn’t see Zee anywhere in the bar. I took a deep breath, trying to block out blondie’s overwhelming perfume and tried to catch Zee’s scent.
Chapter Three
Zee
I could see Jackie flirting with Wyatt from my hiding place behind the door in the kitchen. Jackie was truly shameless as she bent forward to flash Wyatt her cleavage and caress his arm. I shifted my gaze to Alex. His head was lifted, and he was looking around the room. What is he doing? I wondered as he appeared to be sniffing the air. I jerked away from the crack in the door when I realized he was staring directly at me.
“What the…,” I gasped as I backed quickly away from the door that led out to the bar. How the hell did he know where I was? I thought as I moved farther into the kitchen. I doubted that Jackie had told him I was hiding back here. She was way too busy trying to lure Wyatt into the employee bathroom for a quickie, as per her usual routine. Either way I had no intention of going back on the floor until after Alex left.
I slid past Curtis as he flipped a burger on the grill. I didn’t want to get roped into taking plates out to customers. I decided I’d help with dishes, a decision I regretted immediately as I rounded the corner in the sink area. I groaned at the mess. Dishes caked with grease and ketchup were stacked up on the sideboard. A huge tub of glasses from the bar was sitting on the floor. The sink itself was full of dirty pans and water sloshed out as the jets ran, rotating the water and dishes. Against the wall by the sanitizer sink, sitting on an upside-down beer crate, was the dish washer.
“James!” I shouted as I kicked his foot. He jolted upright and rubbed his eyes before looking at me incredulously.
“What?” he asked as he stretched his legs out in front of himself and tilted his head back against the wall. I looked at him disgustedly when he closed his eyes and seconds later started snoring loudly. Resigning myself to the fact that I would be a greasy soaked mess by the time the night was over, I dove in and started scrubbing while taking great care to splash water onto the sleeping lump every chance I had.
******
Hours later, after helping close the bar I was finally slinking home to wash the grease off my body and collapse into my bed before getting up to head to my second job, cleaning cabins, in the morning. I was forever thankful that I lived in a small town, as I drove the short distance to my apartment
