Most Eligible Wolf - Julie Steimle (e novels to read TXT) 📗

coming with Howard the Third at the convention center. Not his regular bodyguards would be there, someone had heard. An NYPD cop was going to attend with him. Another person retorted that they had heard it was a CIA agent. This piqued Audry’s interest. Their other friend said that Howard the Third was not going to have any bodyguards at all this time, but was just attending with friends.

“That’s ridiculous,” Jandra protested. “A rich white dude does not go around without bodyguards. They just don’t.”

Which was mostly true. Audry recalled, however, that Rick often did go around without bodyguards in public places. He just dressed normal. No fancy suits. But she knew at this function he would be in a suit and tie of the finest make, making him look like the most eligible bachelor alive.

However, the talk got Audry thinking, and she said out loud, “He has friends who are cops, and one who is CIA. So all of it can be true.”

They all stared at her.

“Do you know everything about him?” Jandra asked.

Blushing, Audry shrugged. “Like I’ve told you—I’ve met him. I’ve even briefly met a few of his friends.”

Which was actually a lie—though not entirely untrue.

“A few? As in how many?” one of them asked, laughing.

Rolling her eyes, Audry counted on one hand, “I dunno. I was at his ski lodge for my Master’s research. He briefly introduced his friends from school before I left for home.”

Which was technically true… for that instance only. Audry just did not want to openly admit it, but she had done more than briefly meet his friends. And not just those friends. And though she and he were barely talking on friendly terms, Audry had on occasion exchanged words with people who knew Rick very well, including in New York Society’s Junior League. Besides them, she was—of course—involved with people like Silvia Lewis. And through Silvia, she had regular conversations with Rick’s friend from Massachusetts, Daniel Smith. He was Silvia’s brother who came by frequently to make sure Silvia was safe from their weird family connections to ‘witchcraft’. And because Daniel came around a lot because Silvia was hiding out with her, Jessica Mason—Daniel’s good friend (and Rick’s friend) and an NYPD cop—also visited a lot. But Jessica had come to make sure Silvia wasn’t going to harm Audry. At least at first.

Jessica later came around more frequently to complain about her boyfriend, Andrew—who turned out to be Rick’s best friend—with Silvia who knew Andrew well and could commiserate. Andrew, apparently, had gotten so wrapped up in med school that he had been neglecting Jessica. From that, Audry, Silvia, and Jessica had (against all odds) bonded over boyfriend grief—especially as it took a bit more for Harlin (Audry’s ex) to get the hint that he ought to give up on Audry before he ended up with the rest of his life in jail.

Eventually Andrew had come around and became a better boyfriend. About the same time Silvia had moved together with Audry to a new apartment. And most recently, Jessica had handed Audry their wedding invitation, where Rick would most likely be the best man. Unfortunately, their wedding nuptials were during Audry’s planned Africa trip, and neither group could postpone it. It was a weird friendship.

“Hello!” Jandra waved her hand in front of Audry’s face. “Earth to Audry. Someone is asking you a question.”

Audry blinked, having not realized that she had spaced out. She turned to see who was asking the question.

It was pretty, honey-colored blonde with bright blue eyes who was wearing a flowing peasant-style dress. There was something peculiarly feral about this young woman, though she did not act in anyway ill-mannered that would give such an impression. In fact she smiled politely like a southern gal and said with the sweetest accent that had to have come from Georgia, “I’m so sorry. I don’ mean to interrupt your thoughts or nuthin. But I was just wonderin’ about those tee shirts you are sellin’.”

Shaking off that odd feeling, Audry straightened up and smiled. “These? We’re selling them for twenty dollars each. It is for good cause. We are doing an animal rescue trip in Africa.” 

The honeyed blonde smiled more, though it was a little like she was thinking how cute, but totally wrong. “No. That wasn’t exactly my question.”

Audry noticed others with her. Several peculiar-feeling people with her. All of them had an off-the-plantation and out-of-them-hills kind of look about them—like they had never really been in the big city, but they knew all about it.

“What I was askin’ was, that wolf in the picture—how did you get picture of it? Did you buy it somewhere?”

Shaking her head, feeling all that group’s eyes on her, Audry replied, “No. I took the picture myself.”

The group stared more intently.

The blonde’s eyes widened like a tenderly shocked southern belle. Her hand flew up over her mouth and she gasped, almost like one would expect from Scarlet O’Hara. “Ya kiddin’ me?”

Audry shook her head. “No. I do nature photograph as a hobby. I have a full book of my stuff for sale if you want to take a look. I sell postcards also.”

“Do you have them here?” Jandra asked Audry, her eyes raking over the group also. All of them were white—which Jandra, to be frank—found suspicious. She also didn’t like their southern accent. It bothered Audry when Jandra did that because she was blind to how she was profiling other people based on their color and background. Unfortunately there was no way Audry could address the issue without being accused of being racist also.

“Sure I do,” Audry said. “I just didn’t think of them as big sellers. With the popularity of texting, people don’t use snail mail anymore.”

She pulled out from under the table a box full of her postcard prints. She also took out one of her books. Truthfully, Audry only brought such stuff out for the big wigs—the people with the money who liked coffee-table books and paper things. Half the environmentalists at the conference looked down on the use of paper, and often shot her dirty looks when she sold them.

A bunch of the boys reached for the book, poring through it. They only stopped on the page including the major predators, and they lingered on the pages with the wolves. Audry only had a few.

Her college group also peered at the cards, snatching up a stack. Jandra flipped through them, slipping out the ones with cheetahs on them.

The blonde smirked at it, then looked to Audry again. “Amazin’.”

Audry grinned with pride.

“Is that what you do? Go to wild places and take pictures of wild animals?” the blonde asked.

Audry shook her head with a chuckle. “No. Actually I am an animal rescue worker. Like I said, we’re raising funds for an Africa trip. However, I’d like to start my PhD studying North American wildlife and how to better preserve them.”

The blonde looked sincerely impressed.

So did the others. Some of them pulled out money for the postcards—nearly all of them of wolves.

“You like the wolves?” Audry asked, glancing back at her tee-shirts, thinking about sales. “Do you want to buy a shirt?”

They grinned, several nodding.

“But we don’t have a lot of spending money,” a guy with vibrant amber eyes said. He didn’t have as strong of an accent.

A number of them chuckled.

“I want one,” the blonde said, digging into her purse.

Audry guessed at her size. “Small or medium?”

As the blonde held out the cash, she said, “Medium, please. A little loose is good.”

The men in the group chuckled.

But then the blonde said as she exchanged the money for the shirt. “But what I really wanna know is, where did you take that picture of that wolf?”

“New England,” Audry replied, jotting down notes in the accounting book and producing a receipt. “At one of the Deacon family’s wildlife reserves.”

The blonde blinked at her, her pupils narrowing a little. It sent a tremor though Audry that she could not explain. “Really? And when was that?”

“About two years ago,” Audry said, trying to fight off the nasty sensation that was rippling through her. She got the feeling that this lady was deathly interested in knowing the location, though it wasn’t clear why. “But there were no wolf dens there. He was a lone wolf. And locals said he only comes around on rare occasions.”

“Was that the same time you did your Master’s?” Jandra asked her.

Audry nodded, feeling uncomfortable. Of course it was. She already told her about the bullet for pity’s sake.

“You know, I heard a rumor that those Deacons keep pet wolves,” Jandra said. “I bet you anything it was his pet. He was there when you were there.”

“For only three days,” Audry protested. “We hardly even talked. All he did was ask me about the state of the wildlife and ague that he could never be a vegan.”

One from that group giggled. The others looked likely to laugh—including the blonde, though she set a keen eye on Audry.

“That’s messed up,” Jandra said, shaking her head. “That whole family is weird.

Audry was about to agree, having met his grandparents and his mother the last time she had bumped into him.

“I know,” the blonde replied, leaning in. “His father is a major control freak.”

“You heard that too?” Jandra said with a nod.

Chuckling, the blonde shook her head. “No. We know it, because we know Rick Deacon.”

Meeting the Summer Fling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

The entire booth of people stared back at them—Audry especially.

The honeyed blonde stuck out her hand toward Audry and said, “I’m Daisy MacTire.”

Audry cautiously received her grip, Daisy’s slim fingers fitting around her hand with a gentle handshake. “Um…”

“I’m sorry.” Daisy blushed. “Let me explain myself—and us, actually. We’re actually lookin’ for Rick Deacon. He’s a friend of ours. Or was. We figured he would be here, and we really need to talk to him.”

Shivers went down Audry’s arms. She continued to stare.

“You see, he used to be my boyfriend,” Daisy explained… which got ripple of gossip through everyone at the booth and near it. “But his father didn’t like him being with a girl like me, and the old man broke us up.”

“No kidding?” Audry felt her mouth go dry.

Daisy nodded. “Yep. The man has got an agenda for his son. You know, Rick and I used to exchange secret letters, and then post cards—but his daddy had them intercepted and I-dunno-what done to them. Rick and I had planned to get married after he graduated, but his father obviously stopped that. And I haven’t heard from him in over four years.”

Daisy’s group nodded with commiseration. Most of them were college age, the majority men. The few gals all looked like they were just along for a tour, just off the set of that old TV show Dukes of Hazzard.

“Do you happen to have his phone number?” Daisy asked Audry in particular. “His father changed his phone the last time I tried to call, and he threatened us—”

“Us?” escaped Audry’s mouth before she could stop herself. She was enraptured and at the same time bewildered as Daisy seemed to be talking like Rick had dated her community and not just her.

Daisy flushed, ducking her head sheepishly. “Actually, he seemed to think our entire town was bad for him.