Stormy
I was a long, long way from home: five states and fifteen hundred miles… give or take.
Gram died three weeks ago, and I hit the road the next day, after standing at her grave through the night until the sun rose again. My old Chevy truck ate up the highway, taking me farther away by the second.
I missed her desperately. I could still hear her voice, the warmth of her hand on mine, how she always smelled of cloves and honey.
I missed my family too: mom, my brother Bly and my sister Roxy.
But Gram was gone, and I needed some time to myself.
She would’ve understood. She always told us tales of spirit quests and the journeys of our Native American ancestors.
She would have called my story Runaway Were-Puma Looking for…
Looking for…
What the hell was I looking for?
I wiped my dry eyes with my forearm.
I’d run out of tears by Oklahoma City. Now I was—
Where was I?
Oh, I saw a sign in the distance.
Grayslake, Alabama. Five miles.
Hmmm…
I hadn’t stayed more than a day anywhere so far. I just kept driving south-east—because that’s the way my truck seemed to want to go—stopping long enough to eat and sleep and shower, and then driving south-east again.
Day, after day, after day.
Not really the most scenic way to tour America.
Not the best way to forget your troubles and get happy again either.
All I did was drive and think. Think about Gram, about mama and Roxy and Bly.
And why the hell I hadn’t been there when Gram’s heart had failed her.
Why I hadn’t been there to pound on the old woman’s chest, and to blow life back into her lungs.
She’d practically raised us three while Mama was working double shifts at the family bar and grill.
Daddy had been committed—well, obsessed with making a baby werewolf with my mother. So we had him for five years. But once Bly was born, and smelled of wolf instead of puma, the call of the rodeo took him away. He sent postcards, sometimes. But they were years apart.
I hit the brakes and stopped, clenching my teeth so hard my jaw cracked.
The only sounds were of the Chevy’s engine running—a slight miss in the timing, something Bly would have had fixed the instant he’d heard it—and my own pathetic, near hysterical breathing.
Steady…
I opened my eyes and blew out all the air in my lungs.
I needed to eat and sleep again.
You need to quit blaming yourself, I heard my Gram say.
I looked up into the sky, at the pink and orange sunset that had only an hour ago been as blue as a cornflower. It was summer, so there was still time before it got dark. There were some fluffy white clouds… and one very determined dark gray one that looked to be headed right toward me.
I bit my lip, took my foot off the brake and hit the gas, making my old blue Chevy roar gamely as it rolled down the road toward Grayslake.
About two minutes later I saw two things at the same time. One was a sign that read, “Welcome to Grayslake, population 5042”
The other was a thin older woman with a spine of steel, gunmetal gray hair that was pulled up into a neat as a pin bun, and a lethal stare.
She also had her hand up.
Not a wave, but a command to stop.
She didn’t look like Gram, but she certainly had the same You damn well better stop for me glower.
I stopped, pulling up alongside where she stood.
“How are you today?” I asked. I may have been raised with fangs and claws, but I’d been raised with manners too.
“I’m just fine, thank you.” She gave my old blue Chevy a long look over. “Could I bother you for a lift? My grandson works a short ways into town.” She smiled. It was dazzling.
“Sure,” I said right off and started to get out of the truck. I didn’t think she had a gun in her purse. I hopped out of the Chevy and ran around to open the door for her. She was a spry old gal, grabbing hold of the door and stepping up into the cab of my Chevy with an ease far more youthful than her appearance.
Maybe she did yoga?
She smelled strongly of chamomile tea and black licorice.
Maybe she liked Galliano in her tea?
Once she was seated and had pulled the seat belt about her, laughing lightly as it clicked, I slammed the door shut—it’s an old truck, and you have to slam the door to get them shut right—and jogged back over to the driver’s seat.
As I rolled down the road she hummed a sweet, familiar tune. But I couldn’t put my finger on the title. Just that I’d heard it before.
“I’m Stormy, by the way,” I said crossing over a small, narrow bridge.
“My name is Ester, but my grandson calls me Nonna.”
Oh, yes, the grandson she was going to visit.
“My grandson’s single, by the way,” she said, opening her purse and pulling out a small foil wrapped piece of candy. She offered the candy to me.
I didn’t want to be rude—I d been taught to be polite, and to accept things offered to me. But I shook my head when I caught a whiff of it. That was the source of the chamomile/black licorice smell.
“That’s nice,” I said noncommittally.
“He’s a good looking young man, my Maddox. A real catch.”
Good lord, she was trying to set me, a perfect stranger, up with her grandson.
I rolled my eyes to the heavens and bit the inside of my mouth. The spirits were having fun with me today.
“A Lone Bear, like his daddy and his brothers—makes for a lonely road until they finally find their mate.”
Jesus Christ Superstar! She’d just outed her grandson to a total stranger.
I gave her another sniff. Under the Chamomile and black licorice… she smelled of bear. A little stale smelling, but…
I bit my lip, suddenly very nervous.
It wasn’t everyday you gave a lift to an apex predator.
But I still couldn’t get over her telling me about her grandson.
Maybe she just didn’t realize that being a shifter was a dangerous thing in this day and age. Even if shifters were out of the closet, you didn’t go around telling everyone about it.
The old woman looked at me, her gray eyes sparkling, reflecting a little of the blue of the afternoon sky. “I think a nice girl like you would be wonderful for him. You’re a cat, right? A panther?”
Cripes…
“Puma,” I said miserably.
How in blazes did she know all this? Sure, she could smell as well as I could, but to be able to narrow it down to panther—which is just another name for puma.
Unless…
“Are you a witch?”
How on earth had I let a witch into my truck?
Witches came in many variations, but the most common one was the black witch, and they were a terrible, menacing thing, gaining their power from the pain and suffering—and deaths—of others.
“Yes, dear… I am.”
Fudge, sugar… argh!
“Black?” I ground out. This little ride had just gone colossally sideways.
“Do I smell like a black witch to you?” she asked with a little placating grin and a touch of her withered finger to her nose.
I sighed. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve never met a witch before.”
“I’m no black witch. They reek of death and rot. I’m a white witch with a bit of the sight, that’s all. Drives people crazy sometimes, but that was back when I was alive.”
“What?” I about hit the brakes. Did she say when I was alive?
She blinked at me innocently. “What?” she asked back.
“What did you say?”
She pursed her lips. “Just now? Well, I said I have a touch of the sight, and it drives people crazy sometimes.”
“And after that?” I didn’t know whether I was scared or getting pissed at the old woman.
“Oh, I said especially when I lived in the city.”
Is that what she’d said?
“Folks are fine with a seer if she lives out in the middle of nowhere. But put one right beside you and you start getting paranoid.”
Oh…
“That sounds reasonable enough.”
But I still didn’t think that was what she’d said.
We were in town now, and going down the main street.
“There it is on the right… the one with the Stone Herbs Shop sign.”
I saw it. And low and behold, there was a nice wide parking space right up front.
I pulled into the spot but didn’t turn off the engine. I just sat there.
Was I that scared of the little old woman sitting in the passenger seat?
The little old lady that was a werebear and a witch?
A little old lady that could explode into an apex predator…
Or the little old lady able to kill me with a thought…
Yeah, I admit it. She scared the crap right out of me.
“I’m not going to harm you,” she said, teasing in her crinkled, singsong voice. “I need you.”
I turned and looked at her, her eyes met mine and I felt this little jolt—there was more to this old girl than being a shifter and a witch. I could feel it.
It had something to do with her smell too. That staleness…
“Need me for what?” I asked.
“I need someone magically inclined, little medicine woman.” She turned and tried to open the door to the truck, but it was sticking.
It did that sometimes.
I shook my head, reluctantly switched off the ignition, and then jumped out of the truck. A few steps and I was at the passenger side door, opening it for her.
“Thank you, dear. This truck of yours isn’t as old as me, but it has just as many stiff parts.”
I smiled. “Funny.”
She hopped down out of the truck with agility. Not so impressive now that I knew she was a shifter.
I closed the door and stared at her.
Medicine woman?
“You’ve got the wrong girl, lady. My Gram is…” I closed my eyes and pushed through the pain that still flooded me whenever I thought of her… and remembered she was dead. “She was the medicine woman of our tribe. But she’s gone now.”
She nodded and started toward the open door to the shop. It was propped open so the wonderful fresh air could waft into the enclosed space. She disappeared into the darkened doorway.
“I’m not sure who will take her place,” I said, following after her into the store. “She once told me it was passed down, but I’m not sure how.”
It was darker in the store. They must be trying to save on the electric bill. But moments later my shifter eyes adjusted just fine.
And that’s when I realized I was standing in the little shop all by myself.
I blinked and looked around.
What the…
The most gorgeous man I’d ever seen—or imagined (thick amber colored hair, a beautiful face with a lush, kissable mouth, and a strong, broad-shouldered body—walked out from a backroom and gave me a smile. It didn’t make it to his eyes, so I knew it was just for show, but he did have lovely straight white teeth.
Teeth…
Was this her grandson… the lone bear… and apex predator?
My puma shivered inside me. She was usually fearless, but something about this man was making her want to run.
Stupidly I didn’t.
Instead, I stood there and tried to return the smile. I’m sure it was as fake as his was.
His fake smile slid from his face as if it had never been there. “Can I help you?”
I saw his nostrils flare as he took in my scent.
His eyes got really big, then.
He surely couldn’t be afraid of a little old puma.
“You smell like…” He just stood there and stared at me, his chest rising and falling with the quickening of his breathing.
Oh, crap…
“I’m a puma, garden variety, so that’s… what… you’re… smelling.”
He took two big strides forward and was suddenly standing not a foot away from me.
Double crap, that was fast…
“You smell like Nonna.” His voice had hardened and was intensified with a deep, vibrating growl.
I took a step back. This wasn’t good.
“Yeah, I gave your… your Nonna a ride into town.”
He stepped closer to me, his eyes darkening.
Gulp…
I started rambling. “She wanted me to help her with something—chatty little thing. A little too chatty.”
His eyes blazed gold. “What kind of sick joke is this?”
I tried to back away again but hit the wall.
I put my hands up in surrender. But my eyes were trying to steer me back toward that open front door.
“Her scent’s all over you!” he shouted, his voice booming like thunder in the small enclosed space. “Do you have something of hers on you?”
I shook my head and licked my very dry lips. “As I said, I gave her a ride into town. She was out by the city limits, by that ‘Welcome to Grayslake sign’.”
When he opened his mouth I saw his teeth were elongated. Fur had started to sprout on his face and down his arms, and his fingernails had turned to black claws.
He was going to shift right here and now.
And just like that the most horrifying thing I’d ever seen happened.
This man stopped his change.
Literally just stopped it right then and there. I saw the moment he stopped himself from losing control. The fur melted back into his flesh and his eyes turned back to their normal deep dark brown—but there were cracks in his irises where the gold of his bear was seeping through.
Holy cow!
I watched just long enough to see his teeth sink back into his gums—that was when I turned and ran for the door.
Once outside I scrambled around my old Chevy and fumbled with my keys, dropping them on the street, and crouched down to grab them.
The werebear wasn’t following me, but I still jerked myself into the cab of my truck and hit the gas the instant the engine caught.
Luckily, no one was driving by just then, or I would’ve crashed right into them.
I kept looking in my rearview mirror, relieved to see the werebear wasn’t coming after me.
Maddox…
That’s what the old woman had called him.
Sweet spirits in the sky, that was horrifying. I’d never seen anyone stop themselves from changing, not once they’d actually started.
And the way the bear was still leaking through, those cracks in the irises of his eyes. What in the world did that mean?
I shook that question out of my head.
First things first… I needed to get the heck out of this town.
Pronto.
I looked at my truck’s gas gauge. It was teetering on empty.
Who knew when I’d hit another town? This was pretty far out in the middle of nowhere.
I started scanning the city blocks as I careened down the street.
There, on the left: Jerry’s Gas Station.
Perfect.
I pulled into a pump and looked around, checking to make sure that werebear wasn’t coming after me.
But would he really do that in the light of day?
I shivered. I didn’t want to know.
The credit card slot on the gas pump was taped-over. A post-it said to pay the cashier inside.
Rock, hard place.
I jogged across the parking lot and pulled open the door to the station, making the bell taped to the top of the door clamor.
A tall, thin man stood behind the counter, and he smiled at me. “Hi, can I help you?”
Déjà vu…
I took a deep lungful of air and smelled human. Good, that was good.
Plus his smile was real. Just a happy guy.
I looked at his name tag: Jerry.
Must be the owner.
“I need to fill up.”
He nodded. “Cash or credit?”
“Credit.” I glanced nervously out the window. Still no sign of Mr. Werebear.
Good…
He took my card and slid it through his cash register. “Sorry about that. I’ve got a guy coming to fix the credit card readers this afternoon.”
“No problem,” I said, and then my stomach growled.
Loud enough that Jerry gave me a look.
“There’s a good place to eat down the street. Carly’s Burgers. Get The Contender. You won’t be hungry for days.”
He handed me my card back. “Your receipt will print when you finish filling.”
“Thanks,” I said and turned to leave.
“You’re welcome.”
I filled up my truck, snagged my receipt, and got back in my truck.
Still no sign of Maddox the werebear.
I slid out into traffic and immediately saw Carly’s Burgers.
My stomach roared this time.
Okay, a quick bite and I’d get my ass back on the road. If anything I’d sleep in my truck when I absolutely had to sleep.
***
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