Bad Boys and Billionaires (The Naughty List Bundles) Read online

  Grandpa grunted a laugh. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to figure something else out. Oh will you listen to me? I’m just rambling along. It’s your big day, Leroy, what do you want to do?”

  The school gym had more or less emptied out by then, just a handful of them, none of whom I was ever close to, were still around. Ollie, the kid who juggles, was over with his parents, and Aly Smith had the bridge nose pinched between her fingertips to stave off what was almost certainly another in a long series of fake headaches.

  Still no sign of Damon, though.

  “Hey, Grandpa?” I turned back to him. “Did you ever see Damon?”

  “Oh, uh... remind me. He’s the big one, right? Real tall guy with the hair that went halfway down his back? That kind of muscled...”

  “Yeah, you used to call him ‘meathead Donnie’.” I couldn’t help but laugh a little, despite never actually getting that joke. “Real tall, black hair, dark eyes, and –”

  A light flickered in his eyes. “Oh yeah, sure, sure, yeah. Meathead Donnie. You dated him for almost a year, huh? No, didn’t see him. Hope everything’s okay.” Even though grandpa pretended he didn’t remember, he always liked Damon. The two of them got along probably better than Damon and I did, from how they’d sit up talking.

  That hung between us, heavy in the air for a second before Grandpa spoke up again. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. How about that deli across the square from the jail? Want to go there?”

  That’s another thing about Fort Branch. Everything is measured by its proximity to the town jail, which also serves as the courthouse and offices for the county sheriff, the mayor and all the other ‘city importants’ as Grandpa Joe calls them.

  “That’s it? You graduate high school and all you want is a sandwich?”

  I grinned. “I don’t know if I’d call a Reuben with a fried egg, grape jelly, coleslaw, horseradish and garlic juice just a sandwich.”

  The scrunched nose and curled lip that I got at mentioning my regular favorite was absolutely priceless and at least half the reason I never got anything different.

  “Yeah, I’d say I wouldn’t call that a sandwich either, but... well, it’s your stomach, I guess.”

  One of the ushers, who also happened to be my science teacher and the coach of both the girls’ volleyball and the baseball team, waved to us from the door. “Time to go, folks!” he said. “We gotta clean this place up. Only rented it out for the morning.”

  “Well there you go,” Grandpa said. “We better do what he says, or we’ll be running laps.”

  I giggled. “Yeah, or doing worksheets. So, the deli and then, how do you feel about a movie? There’s one of those new blow-up-everything movies you like so much.”

  Grandpa furrowed his fuzzy eyebrows. “Now, Leroy, let’s not pretend I’m the only one who enjoys cartoon violence and muscled up men screaming at each other.”

  He never failed to get me smiling. Everything around me was changing, and in a way, felt like it was leaving me behind, no matter how hard I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me.

  Caitlyn going off to Harvard, Hell, even Aaron was going to college, but here I was plan less and adrift, and dare I say it – clueless. Not only didn’t I know how to get where I was going, I didn’t even know the first exit to take to get there. I didn’t even know which highway to take.

  “You okay, Leroy? I’m hungry.” Grandpa Joe’s voice shook me back to life.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I said. “Got lost in my own head for a second. I... is it okay that I’m not excited about this? I mean I am, but—”

  “Hey, hey,” he turned me around and crouched down so we were eye to eye. He had one hand on each of my shoulders. “Everyone gets scared,” he said. “Everyone’s afraid right now, no matter what sort of face they’ve got on. You’re supposed to be all giddy and excited and, if you were listening to that fellow who spoke for upwards of an hour, ready to conquer a small country. But the truth is, every single one of the people sitting around you, they’re all scared. And their parents are scared for them.”

  I nodded, intent on keeping myself together. “Were you?”

  “Me? Scared? I was so scared of graduating that I never did it. Seemed a better idea to me to join a club that sent me to Europe to get shot at for a couple of years instead of graduating high school. I was so terrified that I lied to get out of high school early. Lots of people did.” He pushed one of my short curls out of my face. “Everybody gets scared, Lily. It’s what you do afterwards that makes you who you are.”

  I sniffed and looked down for a second, blinking furiously. He only calls me ‘Lily’ when he’s really serious. “Okay, yeah. Sorry, I’m fine.”

  “No more apologies,” he said, holding me tight. “Everything’s gonna be fine. We’ve got each other, and you’ve got your whole life in front of you, which is probably more terrifying than it is anything else.”

  I laughed a little. He always knew what to say. Always had.

  “Sandwich?” I said, wiping my eyes with my thumb, very careful not to smear my eye shadow.

  “Are you wearing makeup?” Grandpa asked with a quirked up eyebrow. “Were you trying to get a date, Leroy?”

  “No,” I said, laughing and sniffling all at once. “I mean yes, I’m wearing eye shadow. What’s so weird about that?”

  “Nothing at all, it’s just... you’re so beautiful I didn’t even notice until I was right next to you. Here.” A handkerchief got stuffed in my hand. “Now. About that awful thing you want to eat?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks. You’re the best, really. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

  His answer was a shake of his head. “Come on, we’re getting kicked out by Mr. Stimson, I think.”

  Grandpa pushed open the door and held it as I walked through.

  Was he telling the truth? Grandpa I mean. Was everyone really as scared as I was about everything? Even Caitlyn with that smug, obnoxious half-grin she always had? She was moving all the way across the country to go to a school that people go crazy trying to get through.

  Aaron hadn’t ever been away from his parents for more than a weekend, and he was moving to Flagstaff, two hundred miles from here. Must be pretty horrifying.

  Somehow, knowing that everyone was just as creeped out about the future as me gave me a little bit of perverse comfort.

  “Hey, grandpa?”

  The ancient Bronco’s engine roared to life. “Yep? What’s got your gander, Leroy?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing, I just wanted to say thanks. That’s all.”

  “Anytime, little girl,” he struck a match with his fingernail and touched it to the top of his pipe-full of vanilla flavored tobacco. “I know what it’s like. I might not remember much, but I sure remember all the little things that make life interesting.”

  As we made our way down the skinny town road to the middle of town, neither of us said much. The only sounds were the air hissing through the tobacco in grandpa’s pipe and the rhythmic, gentle pop of his lips.

  I closed my eyes, happy for a few moments of repose, and let my head roll back and forth against the window with each little bump in the road and rumble of the old engine.

  Two

  “You know, Leroy, someday you might look back and wish you’d paid attention to my rambling old-man stories instead of fiddling with that phone all the time.” Grandpa whistled and rocked back in his chair.

  He stuck his finger in the end of his pipe a couple of times then touched another match to it, blowing a big puff of sweet, vanilla-scented smoke.

  “Why not tell me a different one, grandpa?” I smacked my gum. The candy shell crunched for the first couple of chomps. Little bursts of mint filled my mouth and my nose. “If all that stuff about the wild packs of monsters running around the forests and the mountains is true, why do you only ever tell me the same story?”

  “They’re true,” he insisted, taking his pipe out of his mouth and pointing it to the horizon. “See that?” He jabb
ed the stem in the direction of a weird plateau jutting out. “One of them lives in a cave near the base of the mountain. Goes up there to survey the land and make sure everything’s on track. You can see him every night. Well, almost every night. He’s a little old too, but it’s different for them.”

  “So,” I said, pulling my knees up to my chin against the growing desert chill, “there’s a... would you call him a werewolf up there? If I sit out here all night, I’ll see him? This isn’t some story you just made up?”

  “Stay out here and find out,” he said. “As for me, there’s a game coming on, and I’d rather sit in there instead of out here in the wind. Anyway, when are you getting married?”

  I laughed so hard I snorted. “Married? It’s been at least a week since you asked me that, Grandpa. And just like then, I’ll say that I haven’t even thought about it.” I put my bare foot up on the table, wiggling my toes.

  “Well you should, you’re getting pretty old there, too Leroy. Just like me and Po—” he cut himself off with a draw on his pipe.

  “Grandpa,” I chuckled, “you’re the old one! Anyway, why does it matter? I’ve got my whole life in front of me. What’s the point in worrying about all that stuff now?”

  The truth was that I hadn’t stopped thinking about settling down and getting married for as long as I could remember. I guess growing up the way I did – with no one around but myself and my grandpa to rely on – made me crave stability and security. That, and I’d just never found anyone I liked enough to really get serious about.

  Except, of course, the guy who wouldn’t have anything to do with me if it required talking about subjects deeper than motorcycle repair.

  “Soul mates,” he said absently then shook his head.

  “What?” I said. “Soul mates? What are you talking about?”

  Grandpa coughed into his hand. “Well, you wanted a new story, huh? So here’s one. Wolves, they’ve all got spirit mates. Soul mates, fated lovers, whatever you want to call it. You can see them picking one another. In the pack, the alpha, he picks his mate, right?”

  I nodded, not sure where the story was going.

  “What you don’t know, and what they don’t say on those nature documentaries you watch all the time, is that they have souls. Their souls speak to each other. It isn’t random chance, or the result of a fight or anything as simple as that.” He lit his pipe again, and took another long draw before setting it down and letting it go out. “They search. Those ones that live on the bluffs, you call them werewolves, but that’s not... anyway, they search for their mates. The whole pack goes from place to place as the alpha looks for his mate.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said with a laugh. “Did you say werewolves? Those aren’t real. They’re monsters in books, movies, whatever. They’re not...”

  “Nineteen years old and knows the world, this one.” There was a hint of a tease in his voice. “They’re not werewolves. That whole business about the full moon and all that, you’re right, it’s a bunch of hogwash. But there’s something out there, and they’re certainly real. Huge men who run in packs, turning back and forth between wolf and man,” he tapped his fingernail on the side of his pipe bowl and trailed off.

  “Oh, one other thing I forgot,” he said, startling me. “They get caught. Sort of, er, stuck.”

  A look of disbelief crossed my face, and a chill down my back got me to pull my knees tighter against my chest. “Stuck?”

  “Yeah, halfway. Partly transformed. I don’t know, it never made much sense to me, and I’ve never seen one in such a state, but –”

  “Seen one?” I said. “You’ve seen these things?”

  “Never a stuck one, no. But those wolves we see sometimes? Ever wondered why they come through and then vanish? They’re looking for a mate. One of them’s looking for his soul mate.”

  “This sounds like some kind of weird destiny-prophecy stuff.”

  Grandpa reached across the table and smiled, patting my hand. “I’m old,” he said. “I’m sentimental. I’m sure it’s probably nothing.”

  But that wasn’t what the look on his face said, not at all.

  Almost on cue, a howling wind swept across our little stretch of land, kicking up a dust cloud some thirty yards away. It had a bite to it, but summer was setting in, and the desert nights stopped cooling off so much. I stared off in the distance where he pointed. The lingering, relaxing smell of his smoke followed my grandpa inside. The screen closed behind him with a long squeaking sound, then a clatter of metal on metal.

  I swept my eyes from east to west, squinting. By then, full darkness had descended. Another wind swung through, gusting then breathing softly, putting the towering radio antenna on top of the hand-built house to a gentle sway.

  Judging from the speed with which the wind came in, a storm was probably coming. Whenever it rains out here, it’s strange. We go so long without any that the ground gets too hard for the water to soak in very much, so it pounds off the cracked dirt, then pools up for a time and if there’s any left in the morning, it evaporates before it can do much. That’s storms anyway. Long, slow, patient rains, they make the desert come to life for a few short days.

  “Where are you?” I said into the darkness. “Shouldn’t you be here by now?” My gaze fell on the spire-like plateau that grandpa pointed out as his words replayed in my mind.

  There was something about it, how Carey’s Bluff just stuck out of the ground, defiant and proud. Then again, it was just a rock. A big one, sure, really big, but just a rock sticking out of the ground; there was no magic about it, no ley-lines or whatever... vortexes. None of the stuff they talked about on the radio show grandpa listens to every night.

  Behind the plateau rose a hazy, fat moon. It was a little orange, the sort that always preceded a storm.

  A shiver rolled through me. When I looked away for a moment, to check my buzzing phone, I thought I saw a shape climb the on the edge of my vision, but when I looked back it was gone.

  Old wives’ tales and the weird, almost alien landscape went together perfectly. Although a wide ring of desert – ten miles or so – stretched past our house, it quickly turned to brush, then woods surrounding the mountain bluffs, the biggest of which was Carey’s.

  Laying my head on the table, I felt the cool metal latticework press into my skin. Cold and biting, it gave me a little bit of a shock before I relaxed. I closed my eyes and let the whistling wind and the chimes in the background of my mind carry me away.

  “What was that?” I started, first lifting my head and then standing and peering into the dark. “Someone there?”

  It was something like a howl, but not like any I’d ever heard. Coyotes aren’t rare around here, and every now and then a pack of red wolves will lope along and carry on some before moving on to better parts. I looked all along the horizon. The moon rose higher, framing the top of Carey’s Bluff in a halo of pale yellow.

  Something moved.

  I squinted, leaning forward.

  Nothing. When I stared directly, there was nothing to see. But then, the instant I looked away, to another of the rocky spires, I saw it again.

  Movement. Something was moving, and I saw it. That time, I saw it.

  But still, I couldn’t focus. It was as though something purposefully blocked my sight. A hazy circle on top of Carey’s Bluff kept my attention.

  Soul mates. The alpha has a mate that’s meant for him – and who he is meant for – and he searches far and wide until he finds her.

  The thought sent a hot wave snaking down my stomach. A brief sound pierced the night, somewhere between a cry and a screech. Briefly, I wondered if the stuff grandpa said might be true. How horrible, to be stuck partway between two lives, between two beings.

  I shivered again, a chill rattling me all the way to my core, followed by a wave of warmth when another howl pierced me straight through.

  “What is that?” I asked myself, clutching my arms around my chest. As the beast – or whatever it was �
�� went on making that powerful, half-howl half-cry, I couldn’t help but envision the sort of mouth it must come from.

  Half a man and half a wolf, Grandpa had said.

  The images that came were horrible, but fascinating. Would this great monster be fully man, but with teeth like a wolf, and long, hard muscles like one? Or more bestial, with an elongated face and terrible teeth and dead, black eyes?

  It howled again, and that time the warmth I felt was further down, in a place that made me first smile, and then blush, hoping that no one was around to notice.

  The teeth, the claws, snapping and tearing and pulling, all took my imagination in a different direction. I imagined long, dagger-like teeth scraping my throat, then snapping shut inches from my face. Phantom claws painted a hot, red streak down my back as the beast, infuriated with lust, ripped my clothes, forcing me to the ground.

  Whoa there, cowboy. That’s certainly a different thing to imagine. There’s a bunch of wolves on a bluff and the first thing you think is about one of them ravaging you? Time to go find myself a man, I guess.

  I made a hollow laughing sound, the sort that a person makes when they want to convince themselves something is funny. Biting down on the wad of gum in my mouth, I noticed it had gotten hard with how long my mouth had hung open – apparently a whole lot longer than I realized.

  After another few seconds spent staring at the figure on the bluff’s peak and having wave after wave of goosebumps and heat on my skin, the sound seemed to grow closer. That was impossible, the bluff was twenty, maybe thirty miles from where we lived, but even so, it just felt closer, like the wolf’s voice was carrying across the distance and stroking my face.

  With that, I got up and went straight inside, fell on grandpa’s couch and wrapped myself in a red and black checked blanket so tightly that I couldn’t move.

  I was vaguely aware of his voice, calling ‘goodnight, Leroy’ from down the hall, but I was so lost in my own head that I didn’t even think to respond. It was like some kind of a trance fell upon me as I closed my eyes.