“I wanted to let you know, I got a tip that Elijah Smith is coming back to this area in a week or so, probably out toward Limon. I found that on the Web so take it with a grain of salt. But it’s the best I’ve got right now.”
“It’s more than I have. Thanks.”
“I’ll tell you when I get more. Maybe you could leave me a phone number for next time?”
He had the gall to laugh.
“I take it you don’t like phones,” I said.
“Why don’t I come see you at your office in a week instead?”
“Damned inconvenient,” I muttered. It would have been nice to have someone agree with my suggestion for once.
He looked thoughtfully at me. “No one gets that put out over not getting a phone number.”
A seething pit of frustrated intentions, that was me. I frowned. “Could you give me some advice?”
He blinked, surprised. “Well. I thought you had all the answers.”
I ignored that, glancing back at where the monochrome Stella had gone to harass someone else. “You must be in pretty tight with Arturo, to toss around his name like that.”
“Don’t tell anyone, but I’m nearly as old as he is. Nearly as powerful. The only difference is I don’t want to be Master of a Family. I don’t want that kind of . . . responsibility. He knows this, knows I’m not a rival. We have an understanding about other things.”
“Ah. Why are you even here at all? Why even follow him?” This was touching on what I wanted to talk to him about. He’d been around for a long time—he’d just admitted as much. He had answers I didn’t.
He sat back, smiling like he knew what I was really asking and why I was asking. “Being part of a Family has its advantages. Finding sustenance is easier. There’s protection. A guarded place to sleep out the days. These things are harder to find alone.”
Dejected, I propped an elbow on the bar. Those were all the things I needed Carl for. What was I supposed to do if I couldn’t stand him anymore?
Rick continued. “I spent about fifty years on my own, around the end of the nineteenth century. I . . . angered a few dangerous elements, so I set up a place in one of the Nevada boomtowns during the Comstock Lode silver rush. You wouldn’t believe how well the mining operations in a place like Virginia City kept away a certain kind of riffraff.”
I grinned, drawn into the story in spite of myself. “You pissed off a pack of werewolves.”
“You didn’t come to hear stories. You mentioned advice. Though this seems a strange place to find it.”
“I’m running out of friends.”
“Nonsense. You have half a million listeners who adore you.”
I shot him a glare. “Someone asked me recently who I went to when I needed advice. And I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know.”
“You still haven’t told me what you need advice about.”
I asked him because he was old and presumably experienced. And, ironically, he’d never given me a reason to be afraid of him.
“I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t know why Carl and Meg are acting the way they are. I don’t know why I can’t make them understand why I feel the way I do. I wish—I wish they’d leave me alone, but then I’m not sure I want them to. Especially Carl.” There, I thought I’d gotten it all out.
“You’re not looking for advice. You’re looking for affirmation.”
And I wasn’t getting it from the people I most wanted it from. God, he made it sound so obvious. If someone had called in with this problem, I’d have been able to rattle off that answer.
I rubbed my face. I felt like I was five years old again. See, Daddy, look at the pretty picture I made, and what is that kid supposed to do when Daddy tears it to shreds? I didn’t want to think about Carl as a father figure. More like . . . the tyrant in his harem. Or something.
Rick turned a wry smile. “It’s growing pains. I’ve seen it before. It happens in a werewolf pack any time a formerly submissive member starts to assert herself. You’re coming into your own, and Carl doesn’t know what to do with you anymore.”
“How do I make everything okay again?”
He leaned back. “If life were that easy, you’d be out of a job.”