Diablo Lake: Moonstruck (6 page)

Chapter Seven

Over a week later, Katie Faith still hadn’t consummated her relationship with Jace, which was frustrating, but also sort of fun.

He got delightfully annoyed when work had called, or one of the jillions of Dooleys popped over just to say hey and interrupt him when he was hurriedly trying to get her laying down or backed up against stuff.

And when he wasn’t being interrupted, she was. Katie Faith had had to make a run, two hours away, to pick up a new fridge for her parents because their old one up and died.

Aimee had helped get all their food into the cold case at the Counter while Katie Faith had gone to get the refrigerator. All in all, it had taken up most of the day and that night she had a girlfriends’ night out so if she planned to ever end up in Jace’s bed, she might have to steal him away to Knoxville or something just to have him to herself long enough to gain some carnal knowledge.

Unlike that hopeful anticipation, the dread over the looming confrontation with Darrell, rat-eating-pigdog-cheater, Pembry sank in her belly like a stone.

She’d heard he was looking for her, but since she worked in the same place every day, she wasn’t hard to find and frankly, she wasn’t really looking forward to seeing his face when he finally found his balls and decided to man up and face her.

It would happen, one way or another so she wasn’t that surprised to look up to see him just a few feet away, looking like the egg sucking dog he was. Even so, she groaned as she slowed her pace.

“I thought I smelled dog poop. I thought you’d stepped in some.” Aimee first looked to Katie Faith and then over to Darrell where he stood blocking the sidewalk in front of Salt and Pepper. There was a crowd inside who’d all,
of course
, turned to watch the much anticipated confrontation.

“Turns out it’s just the dog crap you nearly married.” Aimee sneered up at Darrell and his handsome boy face darkened. “You so dodged a bullet, Katie Faith. Hell, he’d probably have loved it if you changed your name to Kit.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?” Katie Faith asked Aimee with a snicker. “I swear you hold on to stuff for years. Like a hoarder.”

Aimee flailed her hand, gesturing toward Darrell. “I kept my mouth shut about this lumbering moron and look what happened. I can’t in good conscience allow you to continue believing you’re suited to be called Kit. I need to crush all your pretensions in that direction or you’ll try it again later. Like a goldfish.”

That made Katie Faith guffaw. “You’re a real friend. Please do feel free to tell me if I’m about to marry a hairball on legs, though, okay?” Katie Faith, now that she and Aimee got warmed up, really would have been just fine if they’d kept on walking and left this scene behind.

She linked arms with Aimee and continued on their way.

Naturally, Darrell needed to ruin that by blocking their path. “You’re not needed here, Benton.” The thin veneer of his charm slipped away as he spoke to Aimee, who curled her lip, crossing her arms and standing her ground next to Katie Faith.

Katie Faith wanted to punch him in the tin cans right then for being such a jerk all the time. Other big men didn’t find it necessary to push folks around with their size. But he was barking up the wrong tree if he thought he could scare Aimee.

Laughter came from her then.
Barking up the wrong tree.
Aimee turned to her, smiling and waiting for Katie Faith to share the joke.

“I was just thinking how he was b-barking up the wrong tree if he thought he could scare you.”

Aimee looked at her blankly for a moment and then got the joke, laughing along with her.

“Did he do that? Bark while you were, you know...” Aimee made the universal makeout sign, wrapping her arms around herself and making smoochy faces.

It was so terribly inappropriate Katie Faith got the church giggles and couldn’t stop.

Finally, Darrell, grumpy he wasn’t the center of attention, cleared his throat. “Grow up, Katie Faith.”

Which was sort of like gasoline on a campfire. Her amusement melted away into anger.
She
needed to grow up? Her head snapped as she narrowed her eyes at him

“Why are you blocking our way like a big, empty-headed sack of rocks?” Katie Faith demanded.

“I heard you’d moved back home.”

She looked at him, waiting for more until she sighed. “Yes. As you and everyone in town knows, I’ve moved back.”

He crowded her just a little more, getting in her space. Katie Faith didn’t allow herself to move back. Darrell was playing some sort of dominance game and if she didn’t stand up to him, he’d never let her be.

He growled a little but eased back.

“We don’t need to have anything to do with each other. I live here but that’s really the only thing we have in common these days. And I’m cool with that.” Katie Faith added a hand at her hip because what she wanted to do was punch him.

“I’d been hoping you could finally let go of your grudge. Come on, let’s not fight. We were close once.” He sent his patented
guaranteed get to second base on the first date
smile her way. “There’s no need to go turn your nose up at any other Pembry wolves because of old history. You don’t need to go lowering yourself to Dooley level.”

Katie Faith curled her lip. That was what this was about? “You get an A-plus at insulting and patronizing.”
Gah
, she couldn’t believe she’d actually let him get to second base once upon a time. Probably more than once. And way more than second base. But whatever.

“Yes, I’m back. No, I don’t wanna be best friends and hold your hair back when you’re sick. Yes, I’m sorry to see you’re still a pimple on legs. Yes, I hope your wife can handle the skid marks you leave on your underpants. Lastly, have a nice day, Darrell Wayne.” She fake-smiled at him and started to move around his body when he shifted, pressing her against a nearby wall.

His face was a mask of anger, his wolf very close to the skin. It scared her almost as much as it made her spitting mad. Darrell’s nose nearly touched hers as he spoke. “Got anything to say now? Huh? All talk and then nothing? You used to use your mouth for something a lot better.” Sneering, he used his chest to press her back harder, the bricks digging through her shirt.

Aimee ordered him to stop from where she stood to his right. He ignored her, keeping his attention on Katie Faith. Using his wolf to attempt to control her. Using his size to scare her into compliance.

That wasn’t going to happen because strength didn’t necessarily have to come from size.

That’s
what pushed past the fear. No one was going to treat her that way, least of all him.

“Get off! I’m warning you, Darrell Pembry, back your dumb ass right on up. Now!” Katie Faith kept her tone sharp, not letting any of her fear show through.

“Or what?” He sneered, his face just inches from hers. Aimee was now pulling on his belt loop to get him away from Katie Faith but he was six and a half feet of solid muscle, he wasn’t moving anywhere. Not like that.

He knew it.

Before she could think about it, Katie Faith pulled her power up through the soil at her feet. Soil her people had nurtured and fed for generations now. Magic unraveled within her with sweet and seductive strength. It welcomed her back and offered itself up to her.

She hadn’t even taken a breath after her last warning to get off her. Time snapped back into place as Katie Faith grabbed all that power with sure hands. With a whip of intention, she knocked him back and off the curb, stumbling a few feet and onto his ass.

The noise from the sidewalk and from inside the café all died away as people gaped at Darrell Pembry picking his sorry butt up off the pavement.

Wow, well wasn’t that a surprise? Where had that come from?

Darrell’s face darkened as he stalked back toward her. Fear filtered past her amusement and wonder at her burst of power.

“You bitch,” he snarled, his wolf leaking through the words. His eyes were not human.

“I don’t believe you were raised to speak to a woman that way.” John Joseph Dooley strolled out of Salt and Pepper and right between Darrell and Katie Faith. JJ may have been in his eighties, but no one in their right mind would tangle with him and though Darrell was a fool, he wasn’t
that
big a fool. He broke eye contact and took a step back.

Briefly.

“She used her magic on me,” Darrell said.

“Self defense,” Aimee said. “I called the cops.”

Which was evident as Katie Faith watched Jace unfold himself from the front seat of his truck and stalk over.

He was so angry it flowed from him like a furnace blast of heat.

“What happened?” he asked not JJ, but Katie Faith.

“She used her magic to assault me,” Darrell called out.

“You shut the hell up, Pembry. I didn’t ask you,” Jace snarled.

“Way I saw it, you deserved all that and more,” JJ said. “I’m sure most of the folks out here right now will tell you the same thing. You went too far, boy. Don’t make it worse by lying now.”

“Like I care what a Dooley has to say.” Darrell sneered at the men and then looked around them toward Katie Faith. “This isn’t over. You broke the law.”

“I did not! You shoved me against a wall. I defended myself.” Katie Faith shook herself free and moved around Jace. Not surprisingly, he reached out and touched her arm, looking toward her briefly with concern.

“We’ll see what the mayor’s office has to say about this.” Darrell shrugged.

JJ shook his head, chuckling, but there wasn’t a lot of humor there. “Are you stupid as well as foolish, Darrell? Get on out of here. Next time you try to scare a woman with your size, you best pick one that’s not got enough magic to knock your butt out into the street.”

“No. He doesn’t leave yet.” Jace turned slightly, never taking his attention from Darrell even as he spoke to Katie Faith. “Do you want to press charges? He threatened you? Did he hurt you?”

“I made my point,” Katie Faith told him loud enough for Darrell to hear. “He doesn’t mean anything to me now. I just want to be left alone.”

“All right. If you’re sure.” Jace nearly growled it and that’s when Aimee’s father showed up.

Thank goodness because Katie Faith figured they were just a skosh away from a full on street brawl.

* * *

“We saw the whole thing, Carl.” JJ spoke calmly, firmly taking over. They’d been at the police station for less than an hour but Jace wanted them all to finish up so he could get Katie Faith home.

Jace hoped some of his anger would wear off by the time they were ready to leave the police station.

“Darrell Pembry blocked the way. He started talking to Katie Faith and Aimee. They tried to walk around him and he pushed her against that wall just next to the front door. I’d called Jace by that point because I had a feeling it was only going to get worse. But when he shoved Katie Faith, me and half the restaurant got up to rush outside to stop it. Can’t abide a man using his hands on a woman. Turns out, that little lady’s got a kick bigger’n most full grown wolves.” His cackle made Jace smile even though he hadn’t planned to. “Knocked his ass right out into the street.”

Katie Faith had been magnificent. Strong. Full of fury and power. However, she was also
his
. Agitation rushed through him again, filling him with rage anew at the thought of Darrell Pembry attempting to harm her.

JJ continued, “She used her magic, Carl. And yes, she knocked him back. Been a long time since I’ve seen that much raw power in a woman her age. But he was askin’ for it and it was self-defense. You know as well as I do that you’ll have twenty people all telling you the same thing. It ain’t right to have her in a cell.” JJ frowned.

Katie Faith and Aimee were currently hanging out in Carl’s office, as far from a cell as could be. Hell, they’d probably ordered takeout while they waited.

Carl groaned, waving a hand at JJ’s theatrics. “She’s
not
in a cell. What do you take me for, JJ? I’m not charging her. I wanted to take statements and go from there. This is complicated business, as you well know. So I want to handle it right. By the book. I was convinced it was self-defense before I started talking to everyone and hearing pretty much the exact same story from a passel of people only underlines that.”

In other words, the mayor was going to try to get his son out of the fire by tossing Katie Faith in his stead. Carl was going to protect her, which allowed Jace to relax just a smidge.

The cop part anyway. The wolf part would handle this business in his own way. And it
would
be handled.

One of Carl’s deputies poked a head into the interview room. “Mayor’s here.”

Jace snorted and his grandfather squeezed his arm, hard.

“‘’Course he is. ’Cause this day ain’t been bad enough.” Carl shoved a hand through his hair but before he could leave the room, Dwayne barged in.

“Mind telling me what the Sam hell is going on? I hear tell a witch used her power to harm my son,” Dwayne yelled.

Carl didn’t rise to the bait. Guardian witches had dealt with off-the-handle werewolves enough over the generations to know not to engage in this hysteria. “Sit down, Dwayne.” He indicated a chair. “You really think little old wisp of a girl, Katie Faith Grady
just happened
to up and juice your son for no reason? You think all nearly seven feet of him didn’t deserve it?”

Dwayne’s jaw locked a moment but his spine soon lost tension. “Tell me.”

Carl nodded, satisfied. “Boy shoved her against a wall. Wouldn’t let her go. She knocked him on his behind. There were plenty of witnesses of all persuasions who back up her story. Even Darrell himself admits he was intimidating her. ’’Course, he’s saying he was merely walking by and she unloaded on him because she wants him back or somesuch. But we both know that’s not true.”

Dwayne sighed. “She got that much power in her?”

“Girl didn’t even touch him with her hands, Dwayne. I felt the rush of electricity from inside Salt and Pepper.” JJ looked smug and Jace, though proud of Katie Faith, worried at the expression.