Not the casual glance of people noticing a stranger. Something harder. An assessment that starts at our faces, works down to our boots, and back up again. I feel it the way you feel weather; a pressure change, an attention that has weight.
The younger men at the counter hold the look longest. One of them has the easy build of a wolf who shifts regularly. The other is bigger, wider, with hands that wrap around his coffee cup like he’s considering breaking it.
The waitress smiles. “Morning, ladies. Sit anywhere you like.”
We take a booth by the window. Briar sits with her back to the wall. I take the side facing the door, just like Brenna taught me; never let anyone get between you and the exit.
The waitress brings menus. The diner resumes its rhythm: forks on plates, low conversation, the clink of crockery. But the rhythm is different now. There’s a new note in it. An awareness that wasn’t there before we walked in.
They haven’t looked away. Not really. They’ve just gotten better at hiding it.
I open the menu and scan it without reading it. My skin is prickling. The wolf scent in here is so thick I could choke on it. Every person in this diner is pack. Every one of them knows we don’t belong.
Briar orders black coffee and toast. I order the same. We sit in a booth flooded with early Texas sun, surrounded by wolves who are pretending not to watch us, in a town that smells like territory and cedar and the closed ranks of wolves who’ve held this land for a very long time.
We’re behind enemy lines.
And every set of eyes in this room knows exactly when we arrived.
Chapter 3
Willow
The woman at the general store has a wide smile and nothing behind it. I’ve spent the entire morning scouring the town, and everyone has been like this.
“Visiting family?” She slides my change across the counter—bottled water, trail mix, a local map that’s probably ten years out of date.
“Just passing through. Heading to Austin, thought I’d take the scenic route.”
“Oh, you picked a good one. Hill Country’s beautiful this time of year. You should stop at Enchanted Rock if you get the chance. About an hour west.”
“Thanks. Hey, a friend of mine came through this area a while back looking for ranch work. Woman with a kid, a young boy? Said the pay was decent out here.”
The smile stays exactly where it is. Not a flicker. “Can’t say that rings a bell, but we get a lot of folks passing through lookingfor day work. You might try the bulletin board at the post office. People pin up job notices there sometimes.”
“When’s the post office open?”
“Monday.”
Today is Saturday. Convenient… not.
“Thanks,” I say again, and head out into the sun.
The man at the gas station is even less useful. Sixties, leathered skin, cap pulled low, a name tag that reads “Jake.” He fills the truck without being asked, takes my cash, and responds to every question with the same three words.
“Quiet area, huh? Not many new people moving in?”
“Couldn’t say, ma’am.”
“We drove through some ranchland on the way in. Big spread on the northeast side. Who runs that?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“Must be a big operation. Lot of cattle.”
“Couldn’t say.” He hands me my receipt. “You have a good one.”
I sit in the truck for a minute after he walks away. The frustration is a tight band across my shoulders. It’s not that they’re hostile. Hostile I could work with, push against, use. This is something smoother. A town that’s learned to give you exactly what you expect to hear and nothing that matters. They’ve been handling outsiders for years. Maybe decades.