“We play the long game here. The only way it works is if she WANTS to go to our Pack lands, and the only way that happens is if she is invited by someone she knows and trusts.” Charles thought for a while. “She only has one friend, and that friend is human. When they move, we need to move with them to watch and protect them, but she will need to make new friends. That new friend has to be Pack.” He took his phone out and called Martin, hoping he would let the teenager he was thinking about join them.
Dawn let Rea drive her to the rental car place; their car would not be big enough, and it was still registered in their old names. “Clean break, right Mom?”
“Clean break, baby. New home, new names, new lives.” The decision to change their identities had been liberating for both of them.
She rented a full-size SUV with unlimited mileage under her new identity, taking the optional insurance. She then followed Rea to a used-car lot where the Ford Focus was sold for cash. Her father’s car and motorcycle had already been sold, since Mom didn’t have a motorcycle license and the big Harley was too heavy for her. They drove home, taking only an hour to load up all the boxes they were taking with. The real estate agent and the buyers took a walkthrough and then the keys, and they were finally free of their old life. Dawn merged the big Excursion onto I-90 east, heading for Chicago and their new life.
They decided to stop for dinner when they saw the road sign for the Cracker Barrel near Madison. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop calling you Treasure, Rori,” she said. They had picked their names off lists on the Internet; Rea wanted something that sounded similar. She found the name Rori on a list of Irish names she was looking at because her hair color and freckles had people thinking she had Irish origins. Rori was the female version of Rory, which meant “red-headed king.” Fitting, she thought, since they had picked King as their new last nam; it was fairly common and Rori liked it.
“And I will need time to think of you as Donna, but at least I can just call you Mom,” she said with a laugh. She looked in the mirror as Mom started to exit; the silver Jeep Cherokee had turned its blinker on as well. She had seen it before, several times, always a few cars behind them. They reached the bottom of the offramp, and it was now behind them. She moved the mirror on her side to get a better view; there were two men in the front seat and one in the back. Her unease grew as they turned right, then left onto the frontage road, and the Cherokee did the same. As Mom sat in the left turn lane for the entrance, she breathed a sigh of relief as the silver Jeep kept going.
She looked over, taking a good look at the middle-aged male who was driving. He was big, broad-shouldered, wearing a flannel shirt and with black hair tinged at the temples with silver. He glanced at her, their eyes met, and she felt like her chest was being squeezed and she moved her head to the side, quickly looking away. It was only a second or two and then they were gone. “What the hell was that,” she thought to herself.
She was debating whether to tell her Mom or not as they got out of the rental car and walked inside. She’d always loved this place, especially the little store they’d hit after they ordered for snacks for the road. They were seated, and she decided on breakfast for dinner; chicken-fried steak, eggs and pancakes, while Mom went for shrimp. “Are you going to let me drive,” she said after the waitress left.
“Rental car agreement says no drivers under 21,” she said. “When we get to Florida, we’ll get you a new car.”
“I don’t want a car, Mom. I want a motorcycle.”
“You’ll have to get a new license, and I don’t know what they’ll require in Florida for a motorcycle endorsement.”
“I already looked, Mom. I have to take a state-approved motorcycle safety course, then it gets added to my license.”
“No riding without a helmet, boots and leather, I don’t care what they ride with or say down here. I’ve seen too many…”
“Mom, I’m required to wear a helmet by law. You and Dad have both taught me never to ride without one.” She put her hands on her Mom’s. “You could learn too.”
She shook her head no. “I loved riding with your father, but I never wanted to do it by myself. I’ll be nervous enough with you riding around. Now, what kind of motorcycle are you planning to get?” The meal went quickly as she showed her Mom the models that were in her price range.
—
“She spotted us,” Nate said as Charles turned right at the bottom of the ramp. “I can see her looking at us in the side mirror, she’s moved it.” To wolf sight, the move allowed Nate to watch her just as easily, the small mirror was clearly seen by him.
“We have to get the tracking device back on,” Charles said. “We have to see where they are going then we’ll just stay out of sight.” The rental SUV signaled to go into Cracker barrel, and he stayed in the lane and drove towards the Home Depot instead. He couldn’t resist glancing over, his wolf HAD to know his granddaughter was all right. It was a mistake; their eyes met, his wolf reached out to her and she reacted. Her eyes lowered, and she exposed her neck to him, her wolf submitting to his dominance even though she had no idea they were related. A wave of protective feelings rushed through him as he continued driving.
“I screwed up, she saw me, and her wolf recognized me for what I was,” Charles said as he pulled into a spot near the back of the lot. “Nate, you get out and take the tracker with you. Wait until you are sure they can’t see you, then place it under their car.” When they had seen the two women sell their car, Nate had to go in and retrieve it while pretending to look at it as a customer. “We’ll go get some Arby’s while you’re gone.”
They would have to depend on GPS from this point on to track the pair, they couldn’t risk being spotted again. They filled up their tank, then went to get the food. By the time they picked up Nate, he reported the two were eating their meals and would probably be done in twenty more minutes. Charles made sure everyone had taken a bathroom break, and they took turns stretching their legs. He sat in the back seat, the laptop open to a map that showed the GPS coordinates of the tracker.
His mind kept going back to the brief moment he had shared with his granddaughter. She was beautiful and strong; his wolf had felt her power just before she submitted. The confusion that went across her face showed him the real problem, her wolf and her human weren’t talking.
They stayed at least a mile away from the pair as they drove southeast, staying in different hotels, eating at different places. They watched as they stayed in her Grandmother’s apartment for a week before they moved into a large duplex, backed up to the pine forests and swamps north of Orlando. Charles quickly rented a unit nearby, the upstairs windows providing the perfect spot to maintain surveillance.
Ashley had arrived, and it was time to put their plan into action.
Rori stretched on the back patio of their condominium, getting ready for her morning run. She smiled as she loosened up her legs; moving to Florida had been good for a lot of things, but late afternoon exercising in the June heat was not one of them. As the humidity rose she started waking up before the sunrise, something she hated to do, but it was better than the alternative.
Wearing running shorts, a sports bra and a loose crop top, she jogged to the blacktop bike path that circled the big development they lived in and connected to other paths in the area. She started slow, jogging the quarter mile circle until she was behind the townhomes on the other side of her street. “Ready for sprint day,” she asked with an evil grin as she saw Ashley come out the sliding door on the back of her house.
“Oh man, I’m going to die,” she said. Breaking into a jog, she joined her friend on the path and they settled into their warmup. “Interval training kicks my ass. I can’t believe you LIKE it.”
“It’s what keeps me faster than you,” she said as her iPhone beeped. She took off at a dead sprint; the program would give them short sprints meant to go at full speed, then longer intervals where they slowed to a medium jog. Ashley groaned as she tried to keep up to her fleet-footed friend. Rori was shorter than her, only about five-foot-five compared to her five-foot-ten, but she was faster and in better shape.
The phone beeped again and Rori slowed to a jog, but since she was still twenty yards behind her friend, Ashley had to keep running a little longer. Of course, that meant her rest period was cut a little shorter, and it got worse and worse as the run continued until she begged Rori for mercy. “Stop, I can’t do this anymore. How many miles have we done?”
Rori looked at the program on her phone. “Six miles, two to go. Tell you what, cut across here and I’ll meet you at the road.” Rori took off around the pond, a little over a mile path, while Ashley did a cooldown jog on the quarter-mile shortcut. She stretched while she waited for her to show up, then they jogged the last mile home.
Ashley flopped dramatically onto the chair on the patio behind her house. “Why do I let you do this to me,” she said as she held the back of her hand to her forehead.