Молли Харпер - How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf

Evie shook her head, choosing to gloss over the fake-ID story for obvious reasons. “We didn’t get to spend a lot of time with them—”

“Did they seem like they were OK or not?” Mr. Ryan shouted, plunging the already quiet dining room into silence.

“They were fine,” Buzz said gently. “Just a couple of kids, glad to be heading out on the trail. Happy to be out of school.”

Mrs. Ryan’s lip trembled. “So they were happy?”

Faced with their wild-eyed, hopeless grief, I took the coward’s way out. I hovered in the kitchen. Knowing that it was possible that I knew something about their sons’ death, that I could speak up, and that I wasn’t made me feel guilty and useless. Then again, what would I say? “Hi, I think it’s possible your children were eaten by werewolves”? How would that help them?

I told myself it was sympathy for the parents that kept me from sleeping, because it felt criminally self-indulgent to think about an absent lover when people were missing their children. Still, I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep, tangled in sheets that smelled like Cooper. I stripped the bed, but the clean sheets left me unable to sleep and missing his scent. So I ended up putting the Cooper sheets back on.

I was not proud.

Instead of sleeping, I searched the Internet for stories of wolf attacks in our area, but the last proven mauling within one hundred miles was in 1987. And it involved a hunter who tried to chase a hungry wolf off the elk he’d just shot. It didn’t exactly fit with our wolf’s pattern. It was far more common for campers to be injured by bears or moose. I read about the various species of wolves living in the state but couldn’t find anything that looked like Cooper, who seemed to be a cross between a black-furred wolf and a common gray. I read about their diet, scent marking (ew), and body language, hoping to be able to decipher Cooper’s moods better when he was in wolf form. For instance, I learned that if Cooper folded his ears back and ducked his head, he was scared. And even if he was scared—which would be an indicator of something pretty bad, since he was an apex predator and all—I shouldn’t run like hell. If we were facing another wolf, running would decrease my chance of survival. I didn’t find this to be very helpful information.

Unable to channel my energy elsewhere, I was eager to get to work every morning, hoping it would help spin out the hours, but everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. I threw myself into cooking, hopping on every ticket the minute it came through the window. I practically launched the plates out of the serving pass for Evie. But I’d look up at the clock and only a few minutes had gone by.

At least, I could count on Abner to keep me entertained. On the fourth and final day of Cooper’s trip, Abner smiled broadly as I slid the plate in front of him. He inhaled the fragrance of home cooking, took my hand in his, and pressed it against his bony, flannel-covered chest. “OK, gal, this is my final offer. Come live with me and cook like this every day. You’ll get a toilet seat that’s always down, warm feet, color TV, and I’ll even install central heat.”

I giggled. “Abner, I’m holding out for a convertible. I’d only be able to drive it for a month every year, but I think it would be worth it.”

He chuckled, forking pot pie into his mouth.

“Abner, has it occurred to you that you’re sexually harassing Mo?” Alan teased as I walked back into the kitchen. Alan, who’d made a trip into town to meet with the state police for a status report, was scruffy and trail-worn, with large dark circles under his eyes. He looked as if he could fall asleep facedown in his patty melt.

“The female mind is one of nature’s greatest mysteries,” Abner informed Alan solemnly. “Every woman is a puzzle waiting to be solved. Mo’s just a tougher puzzle than most. But someday, I’ll find the answer. And she and her home cookin’ will be mine, all mine.”

Alan frowned. “Abner, what you know about the female mind wouldn’t fit in your sock drawer.”

“Doesn’t keep me from tryin’,” Abner retorted.

I heard the bells over the front door jangle as it swung open. I was still laughing at their good-natured banter when I turned toward the noise. Cooper stepped through the door, his face tired and covered in three days’ growth under the worn maroon cap. I felt all of the air leave my body in a happy cry. Alan’s brows drew together as his eyes bounced between Cooper’s relieved smile and my own jubilant expression. I rounded the counter in a few quick steps.

I paused to kiss the top of Abner’s head and ducked around several diners to launch myself at Cooper. It was embarrassing how natural it felt to throw myself into his arms, to wrap my legs around his waist and let him lift me as I pressed kisses to his jaw. The constant drag of confusion from the last few days melted away, and my whole world was centered on Cooper’s mouth. Maybe it made me callous or selfish, but at the moment, my need for him just wouldn’t let me care.

When Cooper finally released me, I leaned back and grinned goofily down at him. “Hi.”

“Hi back,” he said.

“I missed you,” I told him.

“You smell so good,” Cooper murmured into my hair as he rubbed his heavily stubbled cheek against mine.

“I smell like grilled onions,” I told him.

“Yeah, to a werewolf, a woman who smells like a patty melt is all the more tempting,” he whispered.

“I’m not sure if that was a compliment.” I snorted as he looked past me to the bright yellow flier featuring the missing hikers. His brow furrowed for a moment, but he shook it off, returning his focus to me.

I expected Cooper to put me down on my feet, but he held me where I was, his hands cupping my denim-clad butt to keep me anchored to him as we spoke. And it suddenly occurred to me that I was making a giant spectacle of myself in front of half the town. But when I turned, there were a lot of smiling faces. I’d lived among them long enough to know that the minute we left the room, we’d be chewed over like yesterday’s lunch special. And maybe they were grateful for a more cheerful topic of conversation. I shot a look over at Evie, whose smug expression threatened to sprain her cheek muscles.

“Um, Evie, I’m going on my break.”

“Just go,” Evie said, waving us out the door.

Cooper grinned at Evie, threw me over his shoulder caveman-style, and marched me out the door. I snagged my coat from the rack, catching a glimpse of Alan’s deflated, slightly resentful face. I felt a flare of shame blossom in my chest. Alan hadn’t deserved to find out about Cooper and me this way. But I pushed it away in favor of finally feeling happy, at peace, for the first time in days.

“Drive fast,” I told Cooper as he gunned the engine and sped toward my cabin.

I WAS GOING to have to retrieve our coats and boots from the porch before it started snowing again.

Giving Cooper a sneak preview of today’s selection—cobalt-blue lace bikins with a rather stunning demibra—while he was driving proved to be unwise. He almost ran off the road. So, really, I had no one to blame but myself when he pulled me out of the truck, slung me over his shoulder again, and started stripping me before we got to the front door. I was never so glad not to have neighbors.

We managed to navigate through the dark cabin blind, falling into bed. With the blue lingerie now fully in view, Cooper uttered a low moan.

“Now, this is not the underwear of a woman from Grundy,” he assured me, reverently running his fingers along the waistline of the little panties. His breath came in a long, labored wheeze.

“Well, pardon me for not knowing about the thermal-only panty rule,” I said, smirking as he dipped his head to nuzzle one of the silky bra cups. “I’ll rush right out and buy some long johns.”