As uneventful as the days after the storm and his return to Four Corners had been, matters changed within a heartbeat when the daily coach came in, dropping off passengers from the train. Ezra was sitting outside Inez's, watching the coming and going as he usually did when a coach was due. One came in right at noon every day, another came twice weekly in the early morning hours. He liked to see who was new, who had come back, what was dropped off at the coach office.
Sometimes one of the other six was there with him, but Chris was out on regular patrol with Vin, Buck was keeping tabs on the lunch bunch that had swarmed into the restaurant, JD was at the sheriff station, and Nathan still wasn't back from his trip to one of the outer farms where he had been called to. Josiah was probably still sleeping after his night patrol.
So Ezra was on his own as he spotted the fashionably dressed woman, blonde hair coiffed to perfection, wearing designer clothes that were absolutely inappropriate for a place like Four Corners and that had probably cost more than most people here made in two months or more. She looked barely in her forties, but Ezra could attest to the fact that she was a lot older, though make-up helped along with the illusion. She was like a bright bird of paradise flitting about the worn street and along the gray and brown buildings.
She drew more than one fleeting look.
"Oh dear lord," he murmured and got up slowly.
Dread pooled in his guts, nerves suddenly on high alert, and he squared his shoulders as he watched her look around. A smile crossed the woman's features, but it didn't really reach her eyes. It was almost predatory, but it didn't reach Larabee levels. An overwhelming need to run and never come back spread through him.
But Ezra stood his ground, looking at the new-arrival with a bland expression.
"Ezra, my darling son!" Maude Standish exclaimed and spread her arms as if she was about to hug him.
Ezra knew better. Hugs were reserved for when they suited a need. To turn her into a loving, single parent, for example.
"Mother," he only said, though even that word was hard to get out. Ever since he had told Chris the truth, thinking of her like that was… foreign.
She barely touched his arm, her gloved hands just brushing over the fabric of his outdoor jacket. The weather had turned colder and it was nasty most nights, downright frosty in the morning, and today was one of those bleak days where the sun barely peeked through the cloud cover. Leaves had turned quickly in the last days, the brilliant reds an indication that autumn was now at its peak and winter was about to set in.
Ezra had dressed appropriately for his morning watch, the thick coat, while bland in comparison to his usual jackets, was no less fine a garment. It was thick enough to ward off the cold, just like the material of his black jeans.
"What brings you here?" he asked neutrally.
"Well, can't I visit my only son?" Maude asked brightly. "In his little… hamlet in the outback?" She sniffed. "I can't say much has changed for the better."
Ezra felt himself stiffen. "Nothing will change," he answered. "The Protection Act prevents developments."
She sniffed again. "I see you didn't get my letter."
"The mail can be slow sometimes."
"It's a miracle you even get it here." The way Maude looked at the town, at the people going about their daily business, she deigned them unworthy of her attention or consideration.
"If you only came to tell me about my life choices again, you can as well take the next coach back."
Maude's eyebrows rose a little. "Of course not." She eyed the saloon and sashayed past him, fully expecting Ezra to follow.
He did. Mainly because he wouldn't let her out of his sight.
The saloon was filled with construction workers, ranch hands, townspeople, and whoever else had come in for lunch. Maude looked utterly displeased and slightly put out to be in their presence, so she continued to where Ezra's room was over the saloon's premises. Ezra shot Inez a weary look, which she returned with a grimace of her own. She briefly nodded at a bottle of fine brandy, a clear offering, but he declined. As much as he wanted to drown himself in alcohol, it would be better to face Maude Standish absolutely sober.
Inez gave him a pitying look. Ezra just sighed, then he followed.
Maude was already in his room. She looked like she was afraid to touch something, that her mere presence might attract dust and grime to her clothes.
"You still haven't relocated to finer accommodations?" she asked as she surveyed his room.
Ezra shrugged out of his coat. He was wearing one of his habitual vests underneath, with a clean white shirt. His mother ran an eye over his outfit and her frown spoke lengths.
"It suffices," the crossbreed answered.
"You live like those workers down there, Ezra! You have started to dress like them, too. Everything is shabby and run-down, wherever I look. It's well below your standing."
Ezra felt something rumble through him, affronted by the words. His room was clean, well-maintained and held all the necessities he could think of needing. Nothing was plush and pompous, which suited his needs. He liked it here. It had become something close to home.
"I'm not visiting royalty," he told her, proud his voice was even. "I'm a regulator. I uphold the law."
Her nose wrinkled. "Which is still beyond me. How can you sink so low, Ezra, darling son? Appearances are everything! I taught you that. As a con it would be superb, achieving a pardon, insinuating yourself into the heart of this decrepit town! You could run for mayor, even! What an angle to work, honey! But you are not," she added with a grimace. "You're not using this position of perfect opportunity."
"I'm not. And I'm not insinuating myself anywhere. This is my chosen life now." Ezra stared at her, hard, eyebrows dipping. "You really came here just to nag me about this again?"
"Nag? Ezra!"
"What else would you call it, mother?"
Yes, the word tasted wrong. It was as wrong as everything that was between them.
"I want you to come to your senses, son! It has been two years and you still haven't left this cowtown and its unkempt citizens who might not even be able to read and write!"
His jaws clenched briefly. "I'm not leaving," Ezra repeated. "Especially not because you asked."
"If you had gotten my letter, you would know just what you could have!" she told him firmly. Maude pulled off her leather glove and showed him a thin, golden band. "I could buy the whole town with just what this ring cost, darling!"
"Who is the unlucky fellow?"
She ignored the question. "I told my dear, new husband all about my uniquely gifted son, my dearest heart who would be so perfect to run one of his companies, maybe even his whole empire."
"Not interested."
"Ezra!"
"I have a perfectly good job. I'm a Territory regulator. It's what I want to do, what I'm getting paid to do."
"Paid?! You call this measly allowance payment for the danger you put yourself into each and every day? For this?" She gestured at the room. "For living in these bedraggled conditions? Doing menial labor? You shame me, Ezra Patrick Standish! This isn't how we live! This isn't far above living on the street! Threadbare linens of questionable origin and rickety furniture?! This is no place for you!"
"It's my life and I want it."
"It's not how I raised my son! You have such potential, Ezra! Think of all the greatness we could achieve! This is such a waste of your god-given gifts, honey!"
Something inside Ezra broke. It shattered into a million pieces and somehow it freed something else. It was a sensation like a knot had been split, like suddenly being free of an oppressive weight that had sat on his very soul. Like his whole skin burst open and emotions he had held in check were unleashed.
It was an incredible feeling.
Heady.
And it had an underlying fierceness he had never felt around this woman before. For the first time there was no hesitation, there were no softer emotions, and there was no more hope that Maude might one day change truly love him as a human being, not just a means to an end.
"You didn't raise me," he said flatly, holding her stunned expression. Even as it turned cold. "You didn't," he repeated, voice absolutely flat now. "Maude. You dumped me wherever they would take me. So-called aunts and uncles, some of which you are not even related to. You paid them. Unless you needed my talents for a con."
Her lips became a thin line, face hardening. "I fed you. I taught you your trade," she stated levelly. "Who would have done that? Who, I ask? They would have thrown you away, Ezra! Like trash!"
"So you bought me. Made me into your little lap dog. Glittering collar and all."
"You went to the best schools! You had the best in teachers! You were clothed and fed and had a life of luxury!"
"As a pet. When you needed me. When it served a purpose. Those schools I attended? For a week? And the teachers? For all of a month at best? Worth nothing!"
Maude's lips thinned even more, her eyes growing colder, harder. "Do you think you would have survived on your own? Do you think you would be here today? In this backwater town? Wasting your talent on these scraggly-toothed low-lives? Endangering your life for people who would burn you at a stake if they knew what you were?!"
"I might not be here without your intervention," Ezra agreed impassively. "I might be dead. Or poor and begging in the streets of your glamorous cities."
Her smile was almost triumphant.
"Yes, you gave me life and shelter. You spent money on me. But you only did it because I was your tool for a new con, Maude. I was your ticket to a life you couldn't have lived otherwise."
Her eyes flashed with fury. "You ungrateful little bastard!"
"I am grateful, don't worry. Your loving care and tender mothering got me to this place. It led me here, to the Larabee pack. They gave me a second chance."
"I gave you a second chance!" she hissed. "I was the one who took you in, who taught you everything you know and need to survive in this world! You owe me everything!"
"And I repaid you. Every single day of my childhood life. Every day after that when I became of age. I made you more money than you had to spend on your little acquisition. I made you more than you would have been able to collect on your own. I stole for you. I demeaned myself each and every day that I spent as your lap dog or any other pet you needed to have. I paid you back a hundred- if not a thousand-fold. Up until I decided to leave everything behind and start over."
"This?" She threw out her arms, encompassing the town in the gesture. "This isn't a new life! It's a dead end. It's a place that is lucky to have running water and electricity most time of the year! This is a place for simpletons and hobos! You will wither and die here, Ezra!"
"Most likely. But it's a life I enjoy," Ezra told her firmly and it wasn't a lie. It had stopped being a lie a long time ago.
"The cities are your life, child!" Maude switched back into her mother-mode. "It's where you thrive. It's where you belong!"
"With you? My loving mother?"
"Yes!"
"No."
The anger rose again and she clenched her hands into fists. "Do you really believe in this so-called pack? Do you really believe they are your friends? Do you think they will still welcome you as a regulator when they know the truth about their little fox shifter?" she hissed. "What you hide from them? What you are afraid anyone could find out?"
"Is that a threat?" Ezra growled, feeling something inside of him snarl at the words.
A tremor passed through him, but it wasn't fear. It was something a lot darker, more personal. He had never felt like this when confronting his mother, until now.
Good heavens, I'm starting to channel my alpha, he thought.
Perfectly plugged eyebrows rose. "Just one wrong word to the right person, Ezra. Maybe that beautiful blond widow who runs the newspaper of this ramshackle place? And does your precious pack know? Does your team leader? Or do you already call him your alpha?"
Ezra's face closed up and his eyes were frozen with an expression of pure anger at her audacity.
"Do not threaten my life, Maude," he said coldly. "I won't come running back to you."
"I'll be all you have left when I'm done! Your Mr. Larabee would tear you apart if he knew what kind of an abomination he has among his so-called pack! Wolves are primitive that way. Like all animals. Like you would have been, Ezra, if I hadn't saved you from a life on the streets, begging for scraps!"
"We are done. Leave," he told her darkly. "Now."
A smug expression in her eyes, Maude smiled at him. "You won't be able to hide what you are forever. Someone will find out. Sooner or later. Maybe sooner now. You will come back to me, to the cities, see the life that is so much safer than anything you can have here, darling. Crossbreeds are a blasphemy, an evil no one can tolerate, Ezra. They will kill you. Your so-called friends will turn their backs on you in a flash. Can't you see that I only want what is best for you? Have you become so lazy and trusting? I taught you better than that, Ezra! I taught you never to trust anyone, to seek out friendships, have relationships aside from professional ones! You are a disgrace to me!"
There was a sudden rumble, barely human, and Maude froze for a second. Ezra knew the reaction humans had to feeling a powerful shifter, especially an alpha wolf of the Fenris' breeding. The primitive hindbrain clamored to run, survival instinct overruling everything.
He had been aware of something a few seconds before Maude had called him a blasphemy, erasing the last piece of sympathy or even empathy he had held for the woman who had raised him.
Maude turned and looked at the man in black, fighting for composure. It wasn't that Chris looked in any kind wolfish. There wasn't a single sign of what he was underneath the human façade, but even to Ezra he had never looked more lethal, more intent on tearing someone's throat out with his bare hands. The black duster helped, hanging around the slender frame like folded wings.
tbc...