Grey Mountain Pack Series: The Prophesied Luna

Coconuts and Island Breeze

Once the wrecker had unloaded Savannah's car, she paid the driver and looked at the mechanic; he had her hood up and was shaking his head. Before she could ask what was wrong, Tyler spoke up. "So, Kevin, what is the damage?" Kevin Harrison was a man in his early fifties and was balding on the top of his head. He had a silver-gray mustache with just hints of the black it had once been. He straightened his stance and wiped his hands with the red grease rag he kept in the front pocket of his faded blue jean overalls, then put it back, looking at both Tyler and Savannah before going into the speal of what had happened to the Toyota. He told them that the car had blown a head gasket and that the motor was ruined and needed to be replaced or rebuilt. He also told them that this could take anywhere from two weeks to two months depending on whether he had to order a new motor or rebuild the one already in the car. Plus, it needed new hoses; the old ones were cracked.

Savannah gasped as the mechanic relayed the news of what needed to be done to her precious car. What she dreaded most was the cost of everything, because she knew that replacing a motor could cost several thousand dollars, but she had no idea what it would cost to rebuild it. Seeing her obvious distress at the diagnosis, Tyler asked Kevin what it would cost to do either of those. "Well, depending on if my supplier has a motor in stock for this make and model, it could cost anywhere from $2,500 to $3,000. Now if I have to rebuild it and outsource parts, it could cost upwards of $5,000 to $6,000." Savannah knew what her next question should be and, as she was preparing to ask if Kevin took MasterCard; Tyler once again piped up before she could speak. He told Kevin to let him know as soon as he could what the final cost would be and that he would take care of it. Savannah had to snap her mouth shut in astonishment that this stranger was acting as if she was incapable of speaking for herself.

Tyler turned to Savannah after hearing her teeth clink together when he told the mechanic to give him the bill. He noticed that her green eyes seemed to be ablaze and that her cheeks were turning a bright red. To keep himself from laughing at her haughty look of frustration, he turned to start unpacking her car and putting her belongings into the back seat of his truck. Tyler could not get the image of her out of his mind while he was trying to busy himself. He could just imagine that by now her hands had flown to her hips; just as his mother's did when she was about to let him, his sisters, and younger brother know what's what and scold them for whatever they had just done wrong.

Savannah watched him load her stuff up in silence. This was not the time or place to let him see her rage; he was, after all, helping her out. However, she was going to talk to him about the mechanics bill once they were alone. He needed to know that she could take care of the bill on her own and that he was doing far too much as it was. The last thing she needed was a man trying to take care of her. She was self-sufficient just as her father had taught her to be plus growing up around three older brothers, she knew that when a man saw a woman on her own he would think that she was an easy target that they could manipulate into paying bogus charges for things they don’t even need or that may not even exist. Her brothers had always tried to talk her out of going to the mechanics near them alone. They had always told her that a mechanic would try to take advantage of her because she was a woman. Joseph, her oldest brother, had warned her repeatedly about how men would try to take advantage of her. Then one summer she had convinced him to let her take their old farm truck to a garage in Warner Robins and that he could ride along only if he promised to stay out of sight and let her handle it. Before they got to the shop which was beside a Dairy Queen, she pulled in and let him out to get their lunch and headed over to the shop.

Once there, she asked to speak to the lead mechanic to tell him that she wanted to have the fan belt changed on the old ford. Gary Olsen was the man whom she spoke with, and he took one look at her and smirked. He popped the hood and began to give a cursory glance at the engine bay and clicked his tongue. Savannah meandered over to the passenger side to stand beside him. She propped her elbow up on the truck and asked him how much it was going to be for the fan belt. She remembered how he looked at her when she asked. He then tried to tell her that the fan belt was not her only problem, that he would have to replace a bunch of other things, one of which he tried to say was "blinker fluid". He really thought she was going to go for it, until she put her hands on her hips and turned her steely green gaze directly onto him. He tried not to visibly cringe when she did; but he could not help it. She could not keep her rage from flying off the handle then. "How dare you think that just because I, a woman, don't know what you've just done. I knew you were going to try to pull the wool over on me. You see, I really do not need a new fan belt. I just wanted to show my brother over there that I could handle myself when it comes to guys like you. To think that you thought I could be so easily taken advantage of! Oh, and one more thing; there is no such thing as 'blinker fluid'." Gary was so dumbfounded that all he could do was stand there with his mouth wide open.

Tyler cleared his throat, jerking her out of her reverie. "Are you ready to go?" he asked her once he had her attention. She nodded her head and started walking towards his truck to get in. As soon as she buckled her seat belt, he climbed in and started the engine. "Where were you just a moment ago? You looked as if you were a million miles away," he asked her, catching her off guard. Savannah inhaled deeply before telling him about how her brothers had taught her to handle mechanics. He freely laughed this time instead of trying to hide it. He knew she had been irritated when he stepped in to talk to Kevin, but he had no idea that she could harbor such a temper. He did not know that it had miffed her so badly that he wanted to make sure the bill was taken care of. "You know I could have paid the bill on my own; I do have a MasterCard." Savannah stated after they had been driving for about ten minutes. Tyler just smiled and thought carefully about his answer. "Kevin is kind of old school when it comes to payment methods. He doesn’t take any kind of credit cards or checks; he prefers to deal only in cash." Dumb-founded Savannah had not heard of anyone that still preferred to be paid in only cash. She had thought that everyone had moved into the twenty-first century and had machines where people could just swipe a card and be done. Apparently, she was very wrong about that and that was just her luck because what little cash she had had on her went to the wrecker driver after he hauled her Toyota into the shop. All she had left was her credit cards and the debit cards linked to the bank accounts that her parents left her.

She was going to need to find an ATM so that she could at least have a little cash on her just in case she needed anything and also if, wherever they shopped, didn't take plastic she would have cash. "Do you know where the nearest ATM is Tyler?" Savannah asked. Tyler nodded yes, indicating he knew where there was an ATM and asked her if she needed to go by it to withdraw some cash. She nodded, confirming that she did need to go to the ATM. Tyler made a slight left turn onto some road that if she had not been with him, she would never have known that it was there. A few moments later, he pulled into the parking lot of the bank. He chose to park his truck just a few feet from the ATM. He knew that she would prefer some privacy when getting the money she needed. Savannah climbed out of the truck and made her way to the machine. Once she was in front of the machine, she inserted her card and punched in that she wanted to withdraw $300, which was her daily limit to take out. Savannah figured that would be enough to get her by a few weeks before she would have to either take out more or load up and move on. After she climbed back into the cab of the truck, Tyler asked her if she needed to go anywhere else to get anything else she might need before going to the cabin. She shook her head no and told him she was good for a few days.

Tyler started to pull out of the parking lot but stopped and asked her if she was hungry. Before she could say anything, he told her about a great pizza place nearby. Almost as if in an answer, her stomach growled so loudly that she could not help but blush. Smiling, Tyler turned to the right and headed to Peppino's Pizza just up the street. When he had put the truck in park, Tyler walked around to help her out of the truck and lead her toward the front door of the restaurant. The lady at the front desk asked if they wanted a booth or a table to sit at while gathering two menus and silverware. Looking at Savannah to see if she was going to answer or if she was waiting for him to answer for her as he had done at the garage. When she did not answer, he shrugged at the waitress and told her anywhere was fine. She led them to a booth near the rear of the dining room and took their drink orders. Savannah had ordered a Pepsi with no ice and Tyler ordered a Root beer. After the server went to get their drinks, they began to discuss what kind of pizza they would order. Finally deciding on a pepperoni and pineapple pizza with extra sauce, they waited for their waitress to return to give her their pizza order.

______________________________

About twenty minutes after they had finished their pizza and paid the check, they arrived at his cabin. During dinner, Tyler had told her all about how his Great Grandfather Carson Grier had built the cabin back in the late 1800s. Savannah had been completely fascinated by Tyler's story of how his family moved here from Virginia and how they had to cross the country in a wagon. Tyler’s Great Grandfather had been a young man when he came to Montana. She had heard about people coming west to start over when she was in school, but she had never known anyone who had done so. Thinking about it now, she supposed that one of the reasons she had traveled so far away to begin with. Tyler helped her get all her belongings into the house. Once everything was inside, Tyler showed her to the guest room and to where the bathroom was. He left her to get settled in, and he went out back for some wood to start a fire in the fireplace.

Savannah put some clothes in the closet and a few in the dresser in the corner of the room. She heard Tyler go outside and wondered what he might be up to. She finished putting away her clothes before going into the bathroom to take a warm shower, hoping that would help warm her up from being out in the cold for so long. After turning the water on to get it warm, she began to rummage through the linen closet to get a towel and washcloth. Not long after she had what she needed for her shower, she heard Tyler return from outside. Since she had not undressed yet, she decided to let Tyler know that the shower was going to be occupied for a little while. Savannah walked into the living room and saw that Tyler was bent over into the fireplace building a fire; she cleared her throat, causing him to jump and send his head crashing full force into the mantle. "Oomph," Tyler cried out, reaching instinctively for the throbbing point on the back of his head. Savannah muffled her laughter at seeing him rubbing his head and the pained look on his face was more hilarious than it should have been. "Oh, I am so sorry," she cried out. "Are you alright? I didn't mean to scare you and cause you to hurt yourself." He kept rubbing the sore spot but managed to say that he was alright and then asked her to go into the kitchen to get the ice pack that was kept in the freezer door. She turned quickly and rushed into the kitchen, retrieving the ice pack and brought it back to him. When she returned to the living room, the steady sound of running water reminded her of what she had come in here for. "Tyler, I just wanted to let you know I was going to occupy the bathroom for a short time. I need a shower." Tyler tried to nod his head to acknowledge what she said, but all that did was make his head throb even more. Wincing from the pain, he managed to get out, "Ok, I'll be in here nursing the goose egg on my head and building a fire to get this place warmed up, so you're not freezing when you get out of the shower."

Twenty minutes later, Savannah walked out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around her head holding her hair up in a turban-like manner. As she walked into the living room, her fresh fragrance wafted in through the doorway before she had even entered the room. Tyler smelled her before he heard her. The sweet aroma of coconuts and the ocean breeze hit his nostrils. She smelled of a Tahitian beach in the middle of the summer. That is when it hit him. The smell he had been ignoring since he had found her on the side of the road. His wolf hummed and pounced inside him, and he knew it could only mean one thing.

“Mate.”

This time he turned to greet her instead of her needing to clear her throat. Savannah could see that he no longer had the ice pack held to his head; she assumed that he had returned it to its rightful place in the freezer. "Did you have a nice shower?" Tyler managed to ask Savannah after getting over the initial shock of seeing her with the towel still wrapped around her hair and the urge to claim her right there. "Yes, I did thank you." she replied after only a momentary pause. Tyler made a hand gesture for her to have a seat on the couch in front of the fireplace to keep warm before she started shivering again. He had no idea if she was a werewolf too or if she was just a human. He did not need her running out in the middle of the night and freezing to death, so he had to fight his urges and act like everything was normal. Killian was practically chomping at the bit. He wanted his mate and he wanted to claim her. Tyler had to work really hard to keep him at bay. “Killian, we have to wait. I don’t know if she knows about our kind. I can’t sense if she has a wolf or not either.” Killian whimpered but simmered down enough that Tyler didn’t have to put as much effort into keeping him contained.