Молли Харпер - How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf

“I want you to promise me that you won’t take Oscar out at night by yourself,” he said in a voice that sounded so dangerously close to a command I considered threatening several of his orifices with a spatula. He was keeping pace with me as I crossed from the stove to the pass, back and forth, more like a caged animal than I’d ever seen him. I didn’t think provoking him with kitchen utensils was a great idea at this juncture. “Don’t get out of sight of the cabin. Lock up tight at night.”

“OK, but you’re ruining my plans. Evie and I were going to order pizza, raid the liquor cabinet, and invite some boys over to play Spin the Bottle.”

“I’m not kidding, Mo,” he said, shooting a snarling glare toward where Alan sat devouring pancakes.

“I lived alone for years before you came along,” I told him, taking his chin in my hands and giving him a stern look.

He countered, “Within six months of moving here, you were robbed at knifepoint and stumbled into the path of an angry bear.”

I shrugged. “So if the laws of probability hold, the chance of anything else happening to me is pretty low.”

He growled, a low rumble that started deep in his chest. “Mo.”

“Honey, I know this is all part of that instinctual protective alpha-male thing, but you’re pissing me off. You’re the one who’s going to be stuck in the woods with a bunch of drunk, armed attorneys. Frankly, I’m more concerned for your safety.” I snickered, kissing his chin where I’d swiped flour across his skin. “But I promise, I will not go out alone, tell unknown callers I’m home by myself, or accept candy from men driving unmarked vans.”

“That’s all I ask,” he said, his lips quirking.

IT TOOK ME practically dragging Cooper to his truck to get him to leave, but I managed to get through the afternoon relatively unscathed. Lynette gave me the wrong orders, called me by the wrong name, or just slung dirty dishes at me through the pass. It was kind of nice to return to that normalcy.

Evie had agreed to come over to my place for a Sandra Bullock chick-flick marathon. She was going to make something she called “Melt Your Face” margaritas, which had my stomach lining quivering in fear. I’d just popped While You Were Sleeping into the DVD player when Evie was called away from whatever the hell she was pouring into my blender by an obnoxious pop tune from her cell phone.

“Aren’t you a little old for Britney Spears?” I asked dryly.

“Buzz?” she snickered into the phone. “I told you, we’re getting drunk and watching people being obnoxiously likable. Serious girly business—What? What’s going on?”

I sat down on the couch with a heavy thud. Oh, God, who is missing now? Which one of my friends was missing or hurt or worse? I thought of Alan, who had been able to venture out into the woods more often as the weather warmed up. What if he’d been attacked? Abner had been going on his prospecting trips into the preserve lately. Walt had been fishing. Hell, Gertie had been planning to dig a garden in her backyard. None of them was safe. I buried my face in my hands and waited for Evie to get off the phone and give me the bad news.

She snapped her cell phone shut and returned to the blender, measuring and pouring with a chemist’s precision. I stared at her, dumbfounded.

“Well?” I asked.

“Alan found the hikers, what was left of them,” she said, sounding oddly resigned. “Buzz wanted to let me know that Alan asked him to contact the state medical examiner’s office to handle the remains. Buzz is heading up the mountain now.”

I took the tequila and poured us each a shot. “Where were they?”

She tossed back the liquor and winced. “A mile or so from their campsite. They were just . . . bones, scattered around a ravine. Alan was finally able to see them now that the snow has cleared. Buzz said they’d been gnawed on . . . by a lot of different animals. Alan doesn’t want to leave the scene until they can get them somewhere decent.”

I didn’t know why this news was such a blow, when I’d known there was little chance of those boys being alive, that it was only a matter of time until their bodies were found. Knowing that they’d been found made the situation seem so final but at the same time opened up the same old questions. What happened to them? Who had attacked them? Would there be more attacks? Thinking of Alan, sitting on the dark mountain, keeping watch over bones, made my stomach hurt.

“How about we put this off until another night?” I suggested, reaching for my Tums. “Buzz is probably going to want to see you.”

“Buzz is going to help Alan,” she said. “And you and I have a date with too-good-to-be-true romantic comedy.”

“Evie.”

“Moonflower,” Evie shot back. “What else can we do? They’re up on the mountain, and we’re here. It will be hours before they’re home. Do you think there’s anything you could do to help Alan?”

I shrugged. “What if I told Alan, ‘Hey, I know where you can find a huge population of wolves. How about we go make some dental impressions and compare bite marks?’”

“Then you’d betray Cooper and the pack after they trusted you with their secret,” she said, slamming the bottle down on the counter. “This isn’t something we’re meant to interfere with, Mo. If I’ve learned anything from living with the pack, it’s to let them sort out their own problems, figure this out on their own.”

“It’s not exactly a squabble over the last Moon Pie. The problem is, they may or may not have someone in their pack who’s killing people!” I cried. “Your husband is up on that mountain. Alan is up on that mountain. What if whatever is out there comes back to that ravine looking for its trophies?”

“Is that honestly what you think is happening?” Evie demanded, the color draining from her cheeks. “You think someone in the pack is doing this?”

“You’re telling me that you haven’t thought of it?”

“No!” she exclaimed. “Those people are my family. They might hurt someone in a fight, but none of them is capable of random killing. I meant that this is probably just some rogue werewolf, a loner who enjoys any kill. If that’s the case, the pack will hunt him down. Honestly, Mo, sometimes I don’t know what goes on in your head.”

“Well, then, tell me what to think. You’re so sure of yourself, sure of the pack. Tell me what to think so I don’t feel so damn guilty all the time. How can you watch Alan beat himself up over not being able to find the wolf every day, when you know you could help him?”

“How will handing my family’s secret to a representative of the U.S. government help anything?” she asked quietly. “And I can watch Alan struggle because I’ve had years of practice keeping secrets. Dead-liners aren’t able to phase. The one service we can offer the pack is our silence. I didn’t grow up in a hippie love commune where you made a collage every time you had a thought or a feeling!”

“Hey, that’s not fair!” I shouted. “I don’t run around expressing every thought in my head. I just think we have some responsibility in this situation.”

“We don’t even know what this situation is.”

“Fine,” I growled. “But don’t use what I’ve told you about my parents against me, Evie. I don’t throw your family’s meat consumption and distracting random nudity up in your face.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth. Evie’s eyes bugged open, and she doubled over laughing. I shook my head. This was not the way I’d wanted the evening to go.

“That was a really impressive growl, Mo. Cooper would be so proud,” she said, grinning. “I’m sorry, hon. Sometimes I forget how new you are to all this, how shocking this life has to be for you. I take it for granted sometimes. And if I thought I could stop more people getting hurt, I would find a way to help. But I don’t think this is something you or I will be able to stop.”