Heat Race - Tanya Chris Page 0,46

the door with confidence, but he hung back now. Saul gave him a nudge.

“I’m Jack Henry,” he blurted out. “An omega. I dance. And I need a job. I just moved here.” It was a jumbled dump of information, some of which the woman probably didn’t need to know, but she smiled like she’d made sense of it all.

“I’m Dee, as in Dee’s Dance, because there’s only me. And I don’t have any adult classes, I’m afraid.”

“What about the omegas?”

“Omegas?” Dee pursed her lips, which were painted a fiery red. “I don’t get a lot of boys to begin with. A few when they’re small because their mommas can force them into it, but they tend to rebel before they get old enough to present.”

“But what do omegas here do then? Back home, dancing is one of the only ways we can keep in shape. They don’t let us play team sports.”

Dee clucked her tongue. “Not here neither. And I hadn’t thought about it before, but you’re right. Dancing would be a perfect outlet for an omega. A boy needs to burn off energy somehow, doesn’t he?”

Saul had never asked himself why Jack Henry danced. Because he was beautiful and graceful—that was what he’d have guessed. But now he remembered Jack Henry had been a pretty good pitcher back when they were kids. Maybe he would’ve liked to have continued playing baseball, but school policy didn’t allow omegas in the locker room. Sweat was laced with pheromones—which was why Saul had appropriated Jack Henry’s bandana when he’d had the chance—and an omega might find himself in trouble if the wrong sort of alpha caught a whiff of him. An alpha like Lon, for instance.

Saul had shared a locker room with Lon every fall for football, so he knew what sort of things Lon said and thought, and he wouldn’t want Jack Henry or any other omega exposed to them, but for the first time, he realized that the wrong person had been banned. If Lon couldn’t behave, he should’ve been the one to go.

“I’ll tell you what,” Dee said, tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her ear with one hand while she fanned herself wildly with the other. “Convince some omegas to sign up for a class, and you can teach it. Whatever you bring in, you can keep.”

“Really? Thank you so much.” Jack Henry turned to Saul with a wide smile. “We’ll make some flyers, put them up around town. I’ll bet there are lots of omegas here who’d be interested.” But then his face fell. “I don’t know if I’m qualified to teach them though.”

“You’re more than qualified,” Saul assured him. “They’d only be beginners, and you’re amazing.”

“This here your alpha?” Dee said approvingly.

“One of them.”

Confusion replaced approval. “How many alphas have you got, son?”

JACK HENRY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack Henry couldn’t help laughing at the expression on Dee’s face. “You know Jasper?” he asked her.

“Oh, we all know Jasper. He’s the town’s pride and joy.” She said ‘pride and joy’ like it was in quotation marks—not the way the town clerk would say it, but like she was quoting the town clerk saying it.

“You don’t like him?”

“Can’t say I have an opinion about him one way or the other. I’ve never met him, only heard of him. When my second husband—Roy, that is—brought me here to Galvetta, I learned all about Jasper. You’d think he was god incarnate the way folks talk about him. Of course, other people would as soon be rid of him and the whole uber-alpha concept altogether. Uber-alphas used to be a lot of trouble, from what I hear. Maybe it was for the best they died out.”

“Maybe.” Jack Henry moved a step closer to Saul who put an arm around him in response. The bond between them thrummed.

“What’s Jasper got to do with the two of you?”

“He’s my alpha. But so is Saul here, and there’s a third one. Elias. We’re forming a new pack.”

“Huh.” Dee scratched her temple, which dislodged more of her hair. “Well, that’s going to make some people really happy and other people not so happy.”

“Which are you?” Jack Henry held his breath, waiting for her answer.

“I’m the sort who minds her business. Jasper’s nothing to me except I hope he’s good to you. I don’t care how uber an alpha is. Never let anyone mistreat you.”

“I won’t,” Jack Henry promised with a breath of relief. “He doesn’t, I swear, and Saul wouldn’t let him even if he tried. You don’t