Alison Paige: Little Red and the Wolf

A special thanks to the wonderful people at Samhain who make their authors feel like part of a great family. Thanks to Anne Scott for all her hard work and patience, and thanks to my family who understand it’s not a competition between them and my writing, it’s proof of a deep love of both.

“Wolf.” Granny leaned into the table, her liver-spotted hand resting on Maizie’s. “You hear me, Little Red? The man’s a beast.”

“I hear ya, Gran.” Maizie glanced over her shoulder at the Armani suit strolling toward the front doors of the Green Acres Nursing Home. “He’s a wolf. Got it.”

The word iced through her brain. Maizie didn’t like wolves or dogs or pretty much anything four legged and furry. But pushing the nightmare images of fur and fangs from her mind wasn’t hard when her brain had better things to entertain it.

Salt-and-pepper hair curling over his collar had Maizie guessing Granny’s wolf-in-an-Italian-suit was about forty-five, maybe fifty. No rings or tan lines on his fingers, and the sprinkle of dark hair over sun-kissed skin contrasted nicely with the stark white of his shirt cuffs.

Smoother, taut skin on his hands bounced his age down to forty-five, maybe forty-two. The expensive suit jacket hid the details of his ass-not that she was checking him out, strictly diagnostic. Although if she were checking him out, she’d be intrigued by the way his slacks cut a fine line down to the gray shine of his shoes.

He stretched a hand toward the push-bar on the door, looked back as though he felt her watching.

“Whoof.” Her reaction was purely chemical, instinct, no higher brain function needed. Heat flushed through her, burning her cheeks, wetting her panties.

The man couldn’t be a day over thirty-five with ice-blue eyes that found hers as though he’d known exactly where to look before he’d turned. He paused, his hand resting on the push-bar, and stared at her.

Reflex nagged her to break the eye contact. She didn’t. There was something about the way he stared at her, as though daring her to shy away. Shy was so not Maizie’s thing. She lifted her chin, feeling her expression turn hard, confident.

Nostrils flared, making the trim shape of his nose seem more delicate. His face was all sharp angles and hard lines, a squarish jaw and a gently rounded chin to match his nose. His brows were black, thick, just like his lashes, and set off the contrast with those pale blue eyes.

He was clean-shaven, although he’d probably look just as good with day-old beard stubble. From this angle his hair appeared more silvery-gray than speckled, with thick waves that rolled back from a scowl-wrinkled forehead.

Just when she thought she might have pushed her bold stare a second too long, his brow smoothed and a faint, lopsided smile dimpled his right cheek.

Great googly-moogly, his mouth was too perfect. If he was a wolf, she’d let him gobble her up. Maizie stiffened, worrying her thoughts might show on her face. She turned around, ending the sex-charged staring contest. The back of her neck tingled like thrumming fingers rippling across her shoulders and down her back.

He was still watching her, she knew it, but she’d had enough. No sense toying with the idea of something she didn’t have the time to finish. There were only so many hours in a day and she’d already wasted more seconds than she could spare on Gran’s sexy silver-haired wolf-man.

Every minute was accounted for, a half-hour visit with Gran then back to the shop. And her neglected libido would not steal another second of it.

Maizie knew the moment he left, the warm tingle of his stare vanishing from her skin. Good . What’d a man like that even want with her grandmother? “So why’s he a wolf?”

She hated eating up their time together discussing him, but Gran was getting up there in age and it wouldn’t take much to confuse her, take advantage. Maizie wouldn’t let that happen, no matter how sexy the guy was.

“Because he’s after the cottage, of course.” Granny nudged Maizie’s plate closer. She’d been feeding her peanut butter sandwiches since she was seven. Now she made sure the nursing home staff had one ready the moment Maizie walked in the door.

Didn’t matter that she wasn’t hungry and the things were like a gazillion calories. Gran said eat, she ate. Old habit from an obedient childhood. Maizie picked up a triangle half and took a bite. Besides, peanut butter sandwiches had always been her comfort food.

“No one wants the cottage, Gran.” The two-bedroom hovel had only been one good storm away from being a pile of rubble when she was a kid. It hadn’t gotten any better since they’d both moved out.

“Bah, course not. It’s the land. He wants the dang land. Gonna tear down all my trees and build one of them malls. You hear me?”

“Uh, sure, Gran. I hear you. The big bad wolf is after your land.” Maizie swallowed the knot of emotion in her throat and shifted her attention to the wicker basket she’d set on the table beside her, pretending to sift through its contents. She didn’t want Granny to see the tears welling in her eyes. The cottage was in the middle of nowhere. No one would want to build a mall there.

As good days and bad days went, this was still one of the better days for Granny. She called them “spells” when she described them to Maizie. Days when the world was a whole different place where everyday things got twisted in her head and memories, real or imagined, mixed with the reality of present day. The worst part was when the spells passed and Granny remembered-everything.

“I brought you some of my chocolate-chip cookies,” Maizie said, hoping to pull Granny out of her fantasy world. “The ones mixed with white chocolate and almonds. You still bribing Nurse Ron for extra time on the back veranda?”

Granny’s face wrinkled, her bright eyes wider, confused. She nodded. Did she know she was locked inside one of her spells right then? Maizie didn’t want to think about it. She owed this woman everything. Making her feel as comfortable as possible was the least she could do.

“I brought some of those cinnamon sugar twists Clare at the front desk likes. And two boxes of the gingerbread cookies so you have something to offer your room guests.” Maizie busied herself unloading everything she’d brought from her Pittsburgh bakery onto the table.

“He said I should sell him the land. I remember…” Granny’s voice wobbled. “He said I was being selfish holding on to it. That you needed the money.”

Maizie snapped her attention to Granny. “Who said that?”

“I…I’m not sure. Riddly? I think it was my Riddly.”

“No, Gran. It wasn’t Dad. Riddly Hood’s been dead for twenty-one years. He died in a car accident when I was seven. Both him and Mom. You remember that, don’t you?”

Granny blinked, the droopy skin of her eyelids making her confused expression painfully adorable.

“It’s okay, Gran. I forget things sometimes too.” Maizie reached over and smoothed the white wisps of hair framing Granny’s face toward the neat little bun at the top of her head. She straightened the edges of her cardigan and fastened the top pearl button.

Everything about Granny seemed so fragile, so unlike the woman who’d taken her in, raised her, given her everything. Granny should’ve had the last twenty-one years to focus on herself. She’d raised her son. But she’d set her own needs aside and raised Maizie anyway. By the time Maizie could fend for herself, age had begun toying with Granny’s mind. It wasn’t fair.