Dreaming of the Wolf (Heart of the Wolf #8)(69)

Tom cleared his throat when he realized Peter was watching him, waiting for a response. “Maybe Jake felt we didn’t need to go in. He might have thought we’d be more protection if we watched the front door while they went inside.”

But Tom knew that wasn’t the case. Sure, Jake had to have felt it was safe enough for Alicia since he hadn’t insisted that Tom and Peter come inside even if she objected. But Tom couldn’t for the life of him think of what had her so bothered that she would be afraid for others in the pack to know. Maybe it was a female thing.

Peter rubbed his chin and stared at the door, then dropped his hand away and shook his head. “I heard her vehemently say we didn’t need to come inside. So that made me wonder what she didn’t want us to see that she was buying.”

“Probably a woman’s thing, Peter,” Tom said.

“Oh.”

But Tom still wondered what was going on with Alicia. He couldn’t help thinking about that morning and how red her eyes had been when she’d first come down for breakfast. Jake had been tense, ready to defend her, from the way he had hovered over her. Something was wrong. Not that Tom had thought it had anything to do with the trip to the drugstore. Then again, maybe it did.

A few minutes later when Alicia walked out with Jake, his arm around her waist and escorting her to his truck, Tom eyed the small package she carried. Her expression was glum. Jake’s wasn’t any more cheerful than hers. If it hadn’t been for the trip to the drugstore, Tom might have thought they were just concerned about what they might find at the apartment, and further, what they might discover among Alicia’s mother’s things. But the small package made him think something else was the matter.

“Condoms?” Peter asked, as he started the engine, then pulled in behind Jake as the truck headed back onto the street.

“We don’t wear condoms when we have a mate. Hell, we don’t ever wear condoms. No need.”

Peter didn’t say anything right away, but then he cast Tom a sly smile. “Maybe she’s afraid of having triplets since they run in your family.”

Poor Jake, if that was the case. No wonder he looked so glum.

Normally, Jake and Tom could talk about anything and often did, even about Darien when he had been in such a black mood before Lelandi came into his life. But Jake had refused to tell Tom what had been bothering him while he’d been frantically trying to locate Alicia. Tom and Darien had talked at length about what could have been upsetting Jake, assuming it had to do with the woman who’d been in the shower running in the background that Darien had heard over the phone.

Tom sighed. No matter what, when he found the right woman to mate, he wouldn’t be anything but bowled over with joy.

***

The most noticeable things about Alicia’s redbrick, two-story building were the gardens in front of each of the townhouses. Alicia’s was overflowing with vibrant red roses and golden sunflowers and yellow daisies.

Jake pulled a gun from his glove box, and Alicia’s eyes widened. He patted her leg. “I said I didn’t have a gun with me when I first saw you in Breckenridge. But it seems prudent that I take a gun with me anytime I go out with you now.” He pulled out a lock pick set and helped her out of the truck.

She frowned at him. “Lock picks? I’ve got my keys.” She patted her purse. “Why do you have lock picks?”

He was so accustomed to using lock picks to get into places that weren’t family owned that he hadn’t even thought about her keys. “Most of us carry these in case we have an urgent need to get inside a building and hide ourselves. If there’s a wolf on the premises, I’ll have to shift quickly and deal with it.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding surprised.

Her response reminded him how newly turned she was and how difficult it had to be for her to think in terms of being a werewolf or that others might also be werewolves and had to be dealt with differently.

Peter and Tom joined them at Alicia’s apartment door and hovered close as Jake said quietly, “Tom, I want you to stay with Alicia until Peter and I make sure the place is all clear.”

Using her key, Jake unlocked the door, and with guns drawn, he and Peter stepped inside the house. The place was quiet, and Tom and Alicia remained in the entryway watching their progress.

Jake lifted his nose and took a good strong whiff, just like the others did. He smelled the telltale scents of several men who had been here recently. Pungent colognes, primarily. The odor of male testosterone and sweat. And the faint odor of wolf. Male wolf.

He and Peter quickly scanned the small living room, which was filled with a blue floral couch and two solid-blue love seats, a light-oak coffee table and a couple of end tables, leaving nowhere for anyone to hide. A cheerful yellow kitchen was just beyond the living area, and in an open dining room were a glass table and wrought-iron chairs but nothing else. The bar divided the kitchen from the living room, however, and anyone could be crouching behind it.

Jake motioned for Peter to follow him and they quietly strode to the kitchen, but he shook his head at Alicia and Tom when they found no one there.

A creaking noise in the bedroom floor upstairs caught everyone’s attention. No one said a word as Jake and Peter quietly stalked up the carpeted stairs, Jake leading the way. He wasn’t sure what he would face—a wolf or a man. But he smelled the scent of a wolf and a man on the way up the stairs. If the man was in his human form, he’d be armed and dangerous. If he was a wolf, Jake would take care of the problem once and for all.