Kristin Miller - Four Weddings and a Werewolf

“If I ever fall in love with a werewolf,” Veronica said, as she stared at a drunken wedding guest being escorted out of Seward Park, “shoot me.”

“Famous last words.”

Veronica Vale, wedding planner extraordinaire, folded her arms across her chest and gazed up at the cords of white lights streaming over the dance floor. “I don’t care how powerful they think they are, take them out of wolf form and they’re nothing but overgrown dogs in need of a muzzle.”

“Ouch.” Heather, her assistant wedding coordinator, eyed the bridal party as they waltzed to a beautiful rendition of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” Huffing, Heather leaned over and bumped Veronica playfully in the shoulder. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s no excuse to get all worked up, especially at a wedding. Just goes to prove that they’re animals. Completely incapable of controlling their anger.” Veronica’s thoughts whirled around the incident that’d barely been avoided. Mr. Grady, the groom’s canine uncle, was offended that he’d been removed from the lineup of people to toast the bride and groom. The order came straight from the groom, but she was the one who had to relay the message and take the brunt of Mr. Grady’s anger. Veronica’s heart pounded in her chest as she strained to lower her voice. “If we hadn’t caught Mr. Grady when we did, seconds before he shifted, he would’ve burst through his tuxedo in front of everyone. Body hair suit?” She scoffed. “Not exactly wedding couture.”

Heather laughed. Veronica was grateful she had a friend to talk to about the werewolves in Seattle. If she had to bear the burden on her own, she didn’t know how she’d handle it. As it was, thinking about her older sister, Leah, being attacked last year and turning into a wolf made Veronica’s arm hair stand on end. It didn’t matter that Leah had accepted the hand she’d been dealt and fallen in love with a born werewolf from the Seattle Wolf Pack.

They were unnatural and had serious anger issues that turned them into beasts. If it weren’t for Leah getting info from her werewolf fiancé, Jake, and tipping Veronica off as to which wedding guests could shift into the mangy things at the Grady wedding, Veronica wouldn’t have known to watch out for the groom’s uncle in the first place. There were a handful of other wolves attending the Grady wedding—from what her sister had said—and Veronica had assigned Heather to keep a close eye on all of them.

They couldn’t be trusted.

With a start, Heather whirled around and leaned into Veronica’s shoulder. “Don’t look now, but he’s staring at you again.”

Veronica scanned the dance floor, and as a couple spun by, her gaze caught on the guy who stood on the opposite side of the floor, the one who’d been checking her out all evening. His body was slender but powerful, with square, broad shoulders that tapered down to narrow hips. His tuxedo enhanced his frame, hugging his biceps and pulling at the seam in his groin. The way he stood, with his arms folded over his chest and his feet shoulder-width apart, screamed dominance. He had a body that made Veronica’s thoughts nosedive from vanilla to downright dirty.

Veronica’s breath hitched and she glanced away, studying the DJ as if she hadn’t noticed him, yet.

“He hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night,” Heather continued. “Maybe he’s your secret admirer!”

“You really think so?” Veronica had been getting notes and flowers for weeks, but had no clue who sent them. It was thrilling, knowing someone out there cared enough to surprise her that way. “But wait, I don’t know that guy over there. From the sound of the notes, my admirer has met me before.”

“Okay, maybe he’s a stranger who thinks you’re hot. Either way, you have to go say something.”

“Umm, that’s a no.” Veronica pretended to laugh as the song changed to something more upbeat. “He’s probably looking at you.”

“Please. If I wanted to nail a guy like that I’d have to stand as far away from you as possible so there wouldn’t be any distractions. In case you haven’t looked in the mirror in a while, you kinda steal the show.”

Heather gave Veronica a once-over, adding an eyebrow wiggle for dramatic presentation. She got an A for effort, but Veronica wasn’t buying it. If she was as hot as Heather always insinuated, it wouldn’t have been months since the last time Veronica rolled over and fetched a bone.

Feeling nervous, Veronica adjusted her simple black dress and crossed her feet at the ankles. “Thank you, but now’s not the time for personal business. We can talk about that in two nanoseconds when the reception is over.”

“You know, the one major plus to planning weddings is all kinds of hot, single guys show up, and I’ve never seen you take advantage of it. Not once. It’s okay to mix business with pleasure, you know.”

Veronica sighed and fidgeted with the spaghetti strap that’d slipped off her shoulder. “It’s never okay to mix the two. Besides, there is more than one good thing about my job.”

“Free drinks?” Heather swiped a champagne flute off the tray of a passing server and nodded in thanks.

“No”—Veronica let her gaze skim the dance floor, from the couples moving in time to each other, to the white lights crossing overhead, to the moonlight-tipped waves of Lake Washington shimmering in the distance—“you get to witness really great love. Think about it, Heather. This couple will remember today as the day they were blissfully happy. Today is the day they love each other the most, when everything is perfect and magical. When things get tough, they’ll think back to this. It’s kind of special to think that I—we, had a hand in it.”

“You are kind of a wedding genius, and I’ll scream your praises to everyone I meet,” Heather said, sipping on her drink and turning back around. “But if you wanted to bark up that guy’s tree at the end of the night, I wouldn’t tell a soul.”

…

Whatever you do, don’t take your eyes off Veronica Vale.

His friend’s instructions rang through Logan’s ears, loud and clear: keep her safe, keep your hands off, and find the werewolf who is stalking her.

At first, when Logan had taken the job assignment from Jake McKenna, his packmate and Marine brother, he thought he’d lost his ever-lovin’ mind. Watch a human? Logan didn’t watch humans. He was a werewolf, bodyguard for hire, and hit man for the Seattle Wolf Pack. But Ms. Vale had a stalker, and the creep was a werewolf. There was a very real possibility that whoever was following her around was a member of their pack, which meant this order was one that needed to be taken seriously.

Calling the police was out of the question: werewolves took care of their business so humans wouldn’t know they existed.

According to Jake, Veronica believed she had a secret admirer. Someone who sent flowers to her office and left anonymous love notes on her doorstep. But after Jake and Leah Vale’s engagement party last month, Jake had arrived at Veronica’s house before everyone else and found a wooden jewelry box full of wolf hair, along with a small emerald ring. Being that Seattle was often called the Emerald City, they’d assumed an emerald ring coupled with the wolf hair signified the stalker was part of the Seattle Wolf Pack. There was a note, too. One that spouted off notions of true, undying love and all that bullshit.