Page 20 of Cold Moon

“Hey there. I’m Ridge Paterson.”

I took his hand, and he shook. It wasn’t over the top or threatening, but he had a firm, rough grip. I got the sense that the strength of his arm was responsible for the big shake, more than any intention he had of making me uncomfortable.

“Dante Reid.”

Ridge let me go and looked between Alpha Grove and me. “Linden here tells me you’re going to help with the Sterling stuff?”

“Yes, sir. If I can be of help, I’d like to.”

Ridge clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. He hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. “Well, good. I don’t have any samples to test this very second, but Lex’s folks are coming out to stay with the Hills here at the farm in a couple days. I’ve asked ’em to bring some straight from my parents’ old place. We know whatever they’re putting on stuff, they’ve done it there, so by my thinking, it’ll be fresh and easier to find and isolate the compound. Less cross contamination like you might get at a grocery store. Mind, it’s not strictly legal—stealing produce from the Sterling farm. Of course, it’s not strictly legal, poisoning werewolves, now is it?”

He grinned toothily, and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. He seemed like a pure-bred country wolf, but there was some kind of sharp intelligence in his eyes. Truth told, he looked a bit like an alpha wolf who’d been threatened, and even the softest alpha had fangs when the people they cared about were in danger.

“I’m plugging my ears on that,” Alpha Grove said with a laugh. “You two all right here? I should probably get back to the clinic.”

“We’re good,” Ridge said. “I can give him a ride to the meeting tonight.” Like it took him a second to remember I was there, he glanced my way. “That cool with you?”

“Sounds good.”

Truth was, not one part of me wanted to crawl my ass into a Grove pack meeting while I still had stitches and smelled like a Reid. But Ridge Paterson wasn’t making a big deal about me showing up, and I didn’t want to be rude, especially when Alpha Grove nodded.

“See you there.”

He went back to his SUV and drove off, leaving me with the awful feeling that I was stuck out here. Even still, Ridge didn’t press that vulnerability, only turned to walk out toward one of the barns.

“I can’t take the whole day off to get you situated, but I’ve got some work to do to get the tractor ready for next spring. You mind hanging out with me in the shed while I do some tinkering and I tell you what’s been going on?” He kept right on moving, expecting me to keep up.

I saw one other guy off in the distance, near some goat pens, but it seemed like an awful lot of farm for just a couple guys to keep up.

“Yeah, sure. No problem. I mean, sorry I’m not much of a mechanic.”

Ridge laughed, smiling at me again. “Don’t worry about it, Dante. We’ve each got a part to play, and it just so happens this is mine. When we go in for lunch, I’ll introduce you to Lex, my mate. He’s working on his podcast right now—you probably saw him on the porch. Anyway, his cousin, Claudia Wilson—she’s the pack’s second, if you haven’t been introduced—showed some symptoms of the Condition that came on real fast. She’s doing better... now that her mate’s gone on a rampage and destroyed every Sterling product in the house.”

I winced when we walked into the shed. It was dark compared to the bright morning light outside. “Doesn’t sound like coincidence.”

Ridge clapped me on the shoulder, then nodded me over toward a stool against the wall. “With any luck, you’ll help prove it’s not.”

12

Skye

I’d known that Dante was starting work for Linden on Monday. Heck, Linden seemed to be downright excited about it. He seemed to think Dante was very smart, which wasn’t a surprise to me after getting to know him.

Linden also seemed to think there was a good chance of not just finding the cause of the Condition, but maybe eliminating it, which seemed almost silly. It was a little like saying he thought maybe we could achieve world peace. It was too much, too big, and involved too many moving parts to be accomplished so easily.

But then, Linden hadn’t grown up with the Condition, let alone trying to manage it. It was sweetly optimistic of him, and I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him what frozen things did in summer.

On the other hand, eating without my breakfast buddy sucked.

Yeah, we’d only been doing it in the office for a week, and then at the Grille itself for two days, but it had been nice. Having a friend was nice.

Ugh, I was so pathetic.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that without him, the clinic felt emptier. After finishing my lunch, I sat at Linden’s desk and put my head down, like I was a kindergartener in need of a nap.

“Feeling okay?” Linden asked when he came in, because of course he did. I wasn’t allowed to have down days. When I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep in the morning, everyone jumped to the conclusion that I was having an episode, and worried over me until I pasted on a smile and got back to it.

If I wasn’t smiling, I was sick. If I was sick, I had to deal with more hovering than usual.

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