Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)(39)
“Yes,” Angus answered as he geared down for a turn. “I drove a rig for a while, back before Shifters were outed. Good way to make a living.”
“You did?” Ciaran asked. “You never told me that.”
Angus shrugged. “That was a long time ago, son. Can’t do it anymore.”
He hadn’t wanted to talk about it. But it felt good to sit high above the road again, the big steering wheel in front of him. Angus had driven all over the country for several years, earning enough to support himself and then a mate, back when Shifters had to hide what they were. Shifters weren’t allowed such jobs anymore, as humans worried that Shifters, with their stamina and strength, would push them out of the workplace.
The humans probably weren’t wrong. Shifters were smart, driven, and tireless. At least some Shifters were. Others were complete idiots. Shifters came in all flavors, as did humans.
Maybe one day humans would understand that. Maybe they’d realize that Shifters were just trying to live life, and would never be a threat.
“Are we still going to Kendrick’s?” Ciaran interrupted his thoughts.
Angus took the on-ramp onto the I-10, heading west. If Dimitri and Jaycee on Jaycee’s bike were following, Angus couldn’t see them.
“Best place,” Angus said, although he was having second thoughts.
Tamsin would be safe with Kendrick, without doubt. She’d be in the middle of a horde of un-Collared Shifters who’d lived under the radar for twenty years and knew how to keep hidden. Dimitri and Jaycee would take care of her.
But if Shifter Bureau was after Tamsin as hard as they could be, Angus might be leading Bureau agents straight to Kendrick and those in his care. In spite of Dimitri’s assurances about the anonymity of the truck cab, in spite of Angus’s firsthand knowledge of the security of Kendrick’s place, it was starting to feel not right to him.
He glanced at Tamsin. She turned a dial, and a radio blared to life. Smiling happily, she began to push buttons, trying station after station until she halted on one belting out country music.
“Hey, I love this song.” She leaned back and started to sing at the top of her lungs.
Angus hadn’t heard the song, which seemed to be about a man and woman kissing in the moonlight, and then both of them thinking about the kiss, alone, all night long. Tamsin’s voice couldn’t quite hold the tune, but she sang with enthusiasm, squeezing her eyes shut to warble out the emotional phrases. Ciaran leaned forward, listening in fascination.
Tamsin tasted joy in every second of her life, Angus realized. She was on the run, being hunted by Shifter Bureau, wanted in connection with Angus’s brother’s activities and more recently a murder, and yet she took time to find delight in a simple love song.
Angus had once had that joy in him. It had surged when Ciaran was born, when he’d held his tiny cub in his hands, marveling that this was his son.
The song wound down. The next had a jumpy, rock beat and was about a man and his lady making love somewhere along a back road.
Tamsin sang this one word for word, and Ciaran joined in, his treble cutting through Tamsin’s faulty alto. Angus hadn’t known Ciaran liked country music, especially the kind with raunchy lyrics.
The truck filled with song, and with laughter when Tamsin and Ciaran both attempted a sexy “mmm-hmm” in the middle. Tamsin’s laugh was as musical as what came through the radio.
Something inside Angus loosened as he drove through the darkness, the voices of his son and the fiery woman he’d rescued weaving together and nestling in his heart.
Texas was much bigger than Tamsin had imagined. Less than an hour after they left Lake Charles, they were crossing the border, heralded by nothing but a green sign that read “Texas State Line.” They came to a turnoff to a travel information center with tall flagpoles poking up beside the freeway. Tamsin wanted to stop, but Angus sailed past.
Another hour and a half and they were in Houston, a giant city that went on endlessly. Two hours after they left the heart of Houston, they were in a dark, flat, empty plain that stretched all around them. Still Texas, Angus said. They’d traversed only one small part of it.
It wasn’t simply the distance Tamsin felt. The land opened up around them, the darkness beyond the road unbroken by lights, buildings, trees. The sky arched high above, dark and silent. This was a place of vast spaces and silences.
The radio was off now that Tamsin and Ciaran had sung every song they could, some of them twice. When the stations segued into endless commercials, Tamsin had shut off the noise, and Ciaran slid into sleep.
“You don’t look happy,” Tamsin said to Angus.
Angus gazed down the road, one hand resting negligently on the large steering wheel. She believed him when he said he’d once done this for a living—he drove in a relaxed way, as though far more used to taking a rig across country than chasing fugitives through swamps.
He glanced briefly at her. “Why am I supposed to look happy? My cub should be home in bed, waiting for me to get back from the club. Instead I’m in a borrowed truck, heading down the freeway in the opposite direction.”
“I mean, you don’t seem relieved you’re taking me to a safe place. What’s wrong?”
Angus let out a breath, not looking surprised she’d read him right. “I don’t know. Maybe I just feel like it’s too easy.”