Dire Wolf Mates - Chapter 97: Chapter 97

A few minutes earlier…
Gwen swallowed back her fear, trying for courage when she approached the bar where a dazzling redhead stood smiling at the group of dancing, giggling women.
Hmm.
That was odd. The entire crowd was female. Well, except for a few gyrating, almost naked men.
What the heck?
Gwen looked around. All women, almost all nude men thrusting their hips on stage, speakers blasting 70s disco—fuck. She’d crashed a party.
Oh well. She was already there. What did she have to lose?
Famous. Last. Words.
Fast forward to Gwendolyn being grabbed, kissed within an inch of her life, and almost vaulting over the bar to jump the six foot whatever hunk of redheaded hotness before her mind came back to her.
What the heck am I doing making out with some stranger?
Sure, the man could kiss, but why was he kissing her? And why was she letting him? That was it.
SLAP!
“OUCH!” the man grunted in obvious shock.
“What is wrong with you?” Gwen grabbed a napkin, wiping her drool to her utter embarrassment.
“What the heck was that for? I just sucked on a peppermint!”
She had no idea what he was talking about? But yeah, now that he mentioned it, she felt a minty coolness in her mouth after she’d swapped spit with the dude.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you any manners? I came in here for a job not to get manhandled by some puffed up playboy,” Gwen hissed.
Then she was being petted and placated by a pregnant female who was also scolding the red-headed, hot boy. She was so mixed up, she could hardly follow their byplay. But two words managed to breakthrough her kiss-addled brain.
“I’m hired?” she asked, gaze going from the pregnant woman’s to the man who’d kissed her stupid.
“Um, yes?” he said.
“Definitely!” the woman replied after glancing at the man.
“Whooooeeeee! YASSS!” Gwen yelled, balling up one hand and fist-bumping her other one, making a complete ass out of herself.
But what did she care? She’d just been hired! Ignoring the sexy redhead would not be a problem, she told herself, determined to keep her vow and help her Pop.
“Um, are you okay?” the woman asked.
“Yep. I am great. When do I start?”
“Um, come back tomorrow and we will begin training!”
Gwen nodded at the woman, ignoring the man as she gathered her wits and left the place. She would be back the next day where, hopefully, she would find herself with a job.
Fingers crossed.
What the heck am I doing back in this place? Dear Lord, if Pop could see me now—he’d probably ask for a beer.
Gwendolyn’s thoughts raced from one thing to another so quickly they were liable to make her sick, but she just couldn’t slow them down. At least the roadhouse was on the outskirts of town, and no one she knew would see her.
She doubted many members of the small church she belonged to, where her Pop had been a deacon, attended the raucous bar. That was one saving grace. But what did she really care? She needed money and bartending was an honest living.
“Hi Gwen! What are you doing here?” a somewhat familiar voice called out.
Dang it.
She turned her head and saw Kelly Vanderbilt running up to greet her. She’d been one of those annoyingly perky teenagers at Maccon City High School. Not one of Gwendolyn’s small circle of friends, but they’d had some classes together.
“Hi Kelly. I’m training to be a bartender here,” she told her, with a tight smile on her face.
Kelly was tall and blonde with a svelte physique and flawless skin. She was gorgeous in a way Gwen could never compete with, so she never tried. Why bother? She knew her limitations, and she was perfectly happy with the face and body God gave her.
“You? I thought you were like super religious?” Kelly said, though it sounded like a question to Gwen.
“Nothing against bartending in the Bible, Kelly,” she teased, and the other woman laughed.
“I suppose not. Anyway, good luck. It’s a good place to work, just don’t break your heart on any of the guys. These boys are all dogs!” she said cheerfully and ran inside.
Gwen shook her head after the woman, tapping her fingers against her pocketbook as she followed much more slowly. She thought about what Kelly said about her being religious and supposed she had earned that rep back in school.
Oh, there were plenty of things about the church she did not agree with, but that was neither here nor there. Pop was a deacon, and she had attended services with him every Sunday. She even taught Sunday school classes when she was younger. Later, she was giving art lessons at the local preschool, but after circumstances, she’d lost that job.
She’d been so happy when Pop had been accepted into Hope Springs Senior Residence Center in Blue Valley. It was rated the best assisted living facility in three counties, and Lord knew Pop deserved the best.
After her parents skipped out on her, Gwendolyn was left with nothing and no one. Pop was her father’s father. He hadn’t seen his son in years, and he didn’t even know Gwen existed until a kind woman who worked for the Division of Child Protection for the state of New Jersey had tracked him down.
He’d come down to the home where the DCF agent had taken her like an avenging angel. His wife, the grandmother she was named after, had passed from cancer a few months earlier, and Pop, aka John Hoffer, had thought himself alone in the world. She could still recall the first time he came to see her…
Gwendolyn had a cut on her knee from where an older girl had shoved her on the playground and it was still oozing blood. Pop kneeled down in front of her and took a clean white hanky from his pocket and introduced himself.
“What happened there?” the old man had asked her.
“I got pushed. Who are you?” Gwen asked in return, clutching her ratty old teddy bear to her chest.
The old man had a thick mass of white streaked gray curls on top of his head, kind brown eyes, and a smile she sort of recognized.
“I’m your grandfather. You can call me Pop, little Gwenny. Your father is my son,” he explained as he cleaned my scrape.
“Dad went away with Mom,” Gwen whispered, her little six year old brain trying to wrap around the enormity of what that meant.
“I see. Well, your Granny went away to Heaven a little while ago.”
“Heaven? I don’t think that’s where Mom and Dad went. I’m sorry Granny left you,” she whispered.
“Don’t be. Heaven is a wonderful place where we get to see and be with all our loved ones. I will join her there someday. But not for a while.”
“Oh. Maybe I could go there too.”
“To Heaven? Sure you can, but not for a very long time, Gwenny. You still have stuff to do here,” Pop said and smiled kindly.
It was the first time anyone had offered her such a sweet expression. Her own troubled parents were too involved with whatever had brought them down so low to pay any attention to her. She was just something extra to them.
“I’m scared. Don’t wanna stay here,” she confessed.
“I bet you are, but I am here now. You know, I got a big house with plenty of room for a little girl, a yard, too. I was thinking we could keep each other from being lonely. So, what do you say?”
“Okay.”
“Well, okay, then,” Pop said and smiled, offering a hand.
The two of them had been inseparable since that moment. He’d been a deacon at the small church on Main Street, and Gwen had attended services with him. But all her religious studies had done nothing to curb Gwendolyn’s wild side. In high school, she’d been a tad rebellious, sneaking off to the Big Apple to take in the sights and museums. Yeah, she might have danced her butt off a bit, too.
In college, she did more of the same. Majoring in art, she had hoped to work in a museum or gallery. She just loved the multi-cultural climate and the bright lights and artistic richness of city life. Then her heart got stomped on by a boyfriend and she’d run back home.
That was almost eight years ago. Gwendolyn had done her best to stay optimistic and true to her promise ever since. It was easy. She’d simply sworn off men.
“Hey, you coming in?”
Gwen looked up to see Lucy standing by the bar’s front door, hands on her belly. She wore a pair of black leggings with a tight shirt pulled over her stomach and a loose flannel she’d left open on top of that. She looked comfortable and cute as a button, Gwen thought, and secretly wished she had the nerve to wear tight clothes when she was pregnant someday.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” she said, jogging, so the expecting mother did not have to wait in the fall breeze.
“I gotta say I am happy you came. I wasn’t sure you would be back,” Lucy said as she showed her the way to the employee breakroom.
There were a few lockers against one wall, and Lucy gestured to one Gwen could use. She thanked her and hung up her thin jean jacket and purse.
“So, where do we start?”
“Well, first we have some paperwork, but I am starving. How about lunch?”
“Lunch?”
Gwen’s stomach was rumbling at the mere mention of food, and she could have died of embarrassment. Ever since Pop got sick, and she found she needed more and more time off to care for him, she’d been living paycheck to paycheck.
Food was a luxury these days, curvy body or not. Her eating habits had become heavily dependent on what she could afford. She didn’t regret spending all her cash on her grandfather’s care, after all, she would not have him forever.