The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf

7





Say It with Pastry





ON FRIDAY MORNING, I walked outside to find a tow truck unloading my truck in the little side lot by the community center. It hurt to see the scraped, dented side panels, the huge crater the trees had left on the passenger’s side. The fender was bent to hell where the truck had tugged it up the incline. It was a wonder the tow truck had managed to winch it up from the ravine at all.

I could still smell Nick’s scent, mingled with mine, wafting from the rear compartment. The scent made all previous empty chest aches feel like a mild tickle. I actually had to bend over and brace my hands against my knees as the tow-truck driver lowered the winch and gently dropped my poor baby to the concrete. He stepped out, a rangy, weathered man in his forties, wearing blue overalls that stated his name was Wesley.

“Hi, can I help you?” I asked, straightening and doing my best to function like a normal person. “Did the state police send you?”

“Nope,” he said, unhooking a chain from under my truck’s tires.

There was something off about his smell; he definitely wasn’t human. He wasn’t a werewolf, either. He was definitely a were but something little, which was sort of funny, given that he looked as if he was blown out of a straw. I sniffed again. A weasel? Oh, come on. This guy was a were-weasel that ran around with “Hi, my name is Wesley” stitched on his shirt? Some people had no sense of irony.

“OK, do you just drive around the wilderness rescuing random were-creatures’ stalled vehicles?” I asked, my tone just a little bit snotty.

“Nope.”

“Do you ever say anything besides nope?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nope.“

I laughed, which made his lips twitch. “The bill’s taken care of. Your cousin Caleb says you should call him.”

With a chortle at my shocked expression, he drove away, taking the north road through the preserve. I dashed into my office to grab my cell phone and dial Caleb’s number.

“Y’ello?” my cousin and packmate mumbled into the phone, using his “being held hostage” voice, which he only used when he was conducting surveillance.

“Hey, cuz! You got a mullet yet?” I sang cheerfully into the phone . . . because it annoyed him.

He sighed. “Hi, Mags.”

“Everything OK?” I asked. Normally, Caleb, who spent his time on the road using his werewolf senses to track down society’s misfits for a handsome fee, loved a good Dog the Bounty Hunter joke. “Who was the were-weasel who just dropped my truck off? And how the heck did he manage to yank it up a forty-percent incline?”

“Wesley’s done some work on my truck,” Caleb said. “He replaces a lot of my windows.”

I snorted. As a not-quite-legitimate bounty hunter, Caleb came into contact with people who did not like being delivered back to the people they owed money to. And sometimes they took out their “feelings” on his truck.

“He’s a good guy. And he gets into those hard-to-reach places. Samson called, told me what happened to your truck. I thought Wesley could lend a hand.”

“Well, thanks, I appreciate it. But is it causing you pain in some way? Why do you sound so weird?”

“Wesley took a look under the truck when he was hooking up the chain. He said your brake line looked worn. But not from use or age. He said it looked like something sharp had been scraped over the brake line over and over until it was ready to rupture. Maggie, have you pissed anybody off lately? Besides Cooper? Or Samson? Or Mo? Or your mom? Or—”

“I get it, I get it,” I grumbled, considering the question. “Honestly, other than that little problem last summer with Eli, I haven’t gotten into any more scrapes than I normally would.”

“That’s not saying much.” He snorted.

“Thanks,” I muttered. “Seriously, I’ve been a relatively nice girl.” Caleb snorted again. I shot back, “I said relatively! So, what, you think someone tampered with my brakes because I was a smart-ass to them? Or maybe it was a rabbit out for revenge for all the little bunnies I’ve eaten? Seriously, I rarely leave the valley. Who would mess with my truck?”

“I don’t know, Mags,” he said. “I just think you need to be careful.”

“I live in a veritable fortress, surrounded by burly protective relatives willing to kill for me. And not to mention, I sort of kick ass myself.”

“Yeah, but you’re not invincible,” Caleb argued.

“Fine. If I see a rabbit dressed in camo trying to jimmy the screen door with a hunting knife, I’ll call for help.”

“Somehow I get the feeling you’re not taking me very seriously.” He sighed.

“And you would be right,” I told him. “But I will keep an eye out, I promise, just to humor you.”

“Thank you,” he said.

Caleb kept me on the phone for another twenty minutes, asking about various relatives, which meant he had to be worried. He tried to avoid talking on the phone whenever possible. I hung up, unsure what to think. How likely was it that someone had tampered with my brakes?

I shrugged out of my jacket and slid under the frame. There were clods of dirt, pine needles, and dead grass spotting the worn chrome. I inched my way under the axle . . . and realized I didn’t know nearly as much about big engines as I thought I did. I recognized the bottom of the transmission and the fuel line. I found the brake drum and followed the thumb’s-width plastic rope with my fingertips. It was smooth and unmarked until it reached the point lowest to the ground. I frowned. It wasn’t cut, exactly, but it was definitely damaged. And the tear didn’t look like something that would occur over a long period of time. As far as I could tell, I’d hit some debris on the road and ripped it myself, which wasn’t surprising, considering the tumble the truck took off the road.

I leaned closer to inspect the rupture in the line and picked up the faint scent of dryer sheets, the sort of clean, floral fabric-softener stuff my mom was always using. I chuckled. Wesley didn’t look like the April Fresh type. But maybe he had a concerned she-weasel mate at home.

I heard two of my older uncles arguing loudly between their front stoops over a borrowed power tool. Apparently, they’d decided to use other power tools to settle the dispute, so I crawled out from under the truck. Distracted by senior citizens armed with band saws and extension cords, I abandoned my defunct vehicle and didn’t give the brakes another thought.



NICK SENT ME a freaking apology pie.

Several, in fact. First, it was apple-raisin, then Mo’s famous chess pie, then French silk, each delivered to my door every day by my decreasingly bemused sister-in-law.

“I’m charging him mileage,” Mo told me as she walked through my front door and placed the chocolate “too fluffy to look real” meringue masterpiece in my hands. I could see the delicate little chocolate shavings speckling the crusty brown dome through the plastic carrying case. Mo slapped the note into my palm. It just said, “Please.”

This was the saddest pie of all. The previous pies had at least told me Nick was sorry and that he wanted to start fresh.

“He’s moved on to meringue,” Mo said, shaking her head. “This does not bode well.”

“I honestly don’t know how to respond to this,” I said, taking the pie into the kitchen. Mo collected the empty pie tins from the counter. Pie never lasted long in our house. Samson had taken to stopping by the house every night to make sure no pie was left behind. As long as Mo was making daily deliveries, he said I could stay mad at Nick forever.

“I’ll talk to him,” I promised her. “Even though I really don’t want to.”

“You should,” Mo countered. “He asked this morning if I could get enough peaches to make a cobbler.”

“No one says they’re sorry with cobbler.”

“Yeah, ’cause saying it with pie is super-normal,” she retorted.



WORKING WITH MY hands generally helped me sort through whatever had me wound up. The weird swooshy, acidy feeling that twisted through my chest whenever I thought of Nick or Clay had me taking apart the village’s snow blower piece by piece.

At least my emotional turmoil was serving some purpose. Part of the problem with having an aging population was elderly werewolves’ increasing inability to negotiate icy streets and sidewalks. We couldn’t afford to replace the snow blower, but we also couldn’t afford the cost of adding a Broken Hip Wing onto the clinic. Hence my need to squeeze one more year out of the twenty-year-old snow blower.

I’d replaced the belts, the oil, and the spark plugs and was now praying that it wouldn’t literally blow a gasket or part of my hand as I fired it up. I grinned like a madwoman when the diesel engine roared to life. Then a cloud of black smoke spiraled up from somewhere just out of reach, and I heard the first signs of stalling.

“Stupid, useless piece of crap!” I yelled, the sound of the engine whining and sputtering to its death covering the worst of my curses.

“It’s nice to see that some things, like your naturally even temper, never change.”

I looked up and saw my grandfather standing in the doorway, clearly amused.

“I thought I would come by and pay my favorite granddaughter a visit,” Pops said, winking at me.

At eighty-two, Noah Graham was sort of the Robert Redford of the Alaskan werewolf community. He was still blessed with a headful of iron-gray hair and the blue-green eyes Cooper had inherited. He also appeared to be in his early sixties, which was one of the perks of being a werewolf. Our bodies are resilient because of the constant phasing, lots of collagen. As long as we keep up with the sunscreen, we can look young well into our golden years.

But we aged, like everybody else. Pops had had what Dr. Moder called a “minor episode” the year before, which scared the hell out of all of us. We’d all babied him shamelessly, which irritated his independent soul. He finally blew up and tossed a quart of chicken noodle soup at my aunt Maisie. That was when I knew he was getting better.

Pops and I had always had a close relationship. Most girls confided in their mothers when they were worried about a test or upset with a friend . . . or going through “weird new body parts” anxiety. I relied on my grandfather. Cooper and Samson went to him with their problems, and I figured I should, too. So far, with the rare exception of what we will only call the Training Bra Incident, it had worked out pretty well.

I kissed his cheek. “Don’t let your five other granddaughters hear you say that.”

He shrugged as he hitched himself into the seat of a defunct tractor-mower. “Well, you’re each my favorite in some way.”

“Nice save, Pops.” I snickered, handing him a bag of the Reese’s Pieces he favored. “How are you feeling?”

“I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t start every conversation that way,” he said, cocking a gray eyebrow at me.

“Force of habit.”

“I’m fine,” he told me, tugging my hair gently. “How is the search for a new truck?”

“Stalled,” I griped. “Bad pun intended.”

“You know I enjoy bad puns.”

I chuckled. “I haven’t had time to go look for another one. Fortunately, I don’t leave the valley much, except to visit Grundy. I can run there, so it’s not a huge deal.”

“Yes, I know,” he said quietly. “I saw your aunt Billie earlier. She seems to be having a good day. She was playing Legos with Paul and Ronnie.”

“She thought they were Eli and Cooper, didn’t she?” I asked.

“Probably,” he said, nodding. “But she was happy and smiling. And at this point, we should be grateful she can have days like that. Alicia told me to thank you again for sending the aunties over to help at night while she bathes the boys and gets them to bed. She says it’s been a big help.”

I shrugged. “That’s why we’re here. Nobody should have to shoulder all that responsibility alone.” Pops smirked at me. “Oh, hush,” I told him. “We’re not talking about me.”

“Alicia also mentioned that you went on a date with her brother the other night.”

“Are we going to braid each other’s hair now, Pops?” He gave me the stink-eye in response, so I sighed and said, “I went out on a date with Clay. And it was fine.”

“And you’re making it sound like a trip to the dentist’s office.”

“Why does everyone want to talk about my personal life all of a sudden?” I grumped, jumping and inspecting a wrench on the other side of the room. “Have you talked to any of those curious souls about your personal life?” he asked. I shook my head. “Are you likely to?” I laughed and shook my head again. He held out his hands and waved his fingers, as if to say, “Bring it on.”

I sighed. “I like Clay. On paper, he is the perfect mate for me.”

Pops nodded. “Clay is a good boy. He’s kind, he thinks before he acts, he takes care of his family—”

“Do you want to date him, Pops?”

Pops frowned. “We should have never encouraged you to speak. So, if Clay has balanced your pros-and-cons list, why aren’t you out there running with him, instead of hiding in this shed?” He smiled at me, triumphant. I never have been able to fool Pops.

I picked at the engine grease under my fingernails. “There’s another man who seems interested in me. And he confuses me, mostly, but I like him, too . . . almost against my will. And I can’t do anything about it.”

“Dr. Thatcher?” he asked, grimacing. “You know, Maggie, there’s nothing wrong with you dating a human. It’s mating with one that’s the problem.”

“Why put the energy into dating someone if you can’t mate with them?”

“The fun of it?” he suggested

“Obviously, it’s been a while since you’ve dated, Pops.”

“I do all right.”

“Ew.”

“You know that we want you to be happy, Maggie.”

“Yeah, but when has telling someone to do what makes them happy ever resulted in a good decision? Remember when we told cousin Todd to do what made him happy and he came home with recently augmented boobs?”

Pops gave me a stern look but was working hard to keep the snickering internal. “As I was saying, we want you to be happy. But you also have to think of what’s best for the pack,” he said. “Do you know why you’re the alpha?”

“Because I got more votes than Samson?”

Pops chuckled. “Because you see underneath. You cut through the layers of . . .”

“Bullshit?”

“I was going to say politeness,” he deadpanned. “And say what you think. It’s an undervalued quality for humans, especially in a woman. But after the initial sting, people appreciate hearing the truth.”

“I have a feeling I’m about to get hit with some of that truth,” I muttered.

“I know you don’t like the idea of mating and marrying. And I know you hate it when one of the aunties declares she’s found the perfect male for you. You’re afraid that you’ll lose the independence you’ve built up. And you’re afraid of spending your life with someone who’s not going to make you happy. But you have to settle down sometime. It’s part of your responsibility as pack leader. You set the example, provide stability for the pack. And there aren’t enough werewolf males running around out there for the taking. If you think you could make a life with Clay, you should start now.”

A tiny, petty voice welled up somewhere in my gut and grumbled that Cooper hadn’t bothered setting an example. He’d tied himself up nice and tight to the first human to break that thick cement shell he’d built around his heart . . . and his brain.

As if he sensed my resentment, Pops added, “You’ve always been the strong one, Maggie. We both know Cooper wasn’t ever going to be ready to lead the pack, not really. I want him to be happy, and I’m glad that he found Mo. But it’s always been you. You’re the one who can make the hard decisions. You’re the one strong enough to make your own happiness, even if it’s not exactly what you wanted. I will love you no matter what you decide, but I can’t help but hope that you’ll make the choice that those around you could not.”

“No pressure, huh, Pops?”

He kissed my forehead and ambled toward the door. “If you want easy advice, ask a different grandpa.”

“I don’t remember ‘asking’ for your advice,” I muttered.



LATER, I WAS wandering home for a late lunch, wiping my hands on my overalls, and wondering if it would be weird for me to do repair work nude just to avoid the stains. I passed the community center and noticed an odd, acrid scent on the air. I followed it toward my office door and saw the first curling gray tendrils of smoke winding their way out of the splintered door glass. The motion of my yanking the door open pulled a cloud of thick smoke right into my face. I spluttered and coughed, pushing my way through to the growing plume of flame blooming from my desk.

Even through the choking gray haze, I could see that my office was trashed. The filing cabinet lay on its side, drawers torn out. My shredded files were strewn across the floor like wounded birds.

Someone had put my wastebasket in the middle of my desk, crammed it full of my paperback books, and set them on fire. The plastic walls of the basket were starting to soften and melt as the flames reached toward the ceiling tiles. Covering my mouth and nose with a bandana, I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and doused the whole flaming mess with white foam. The sterile-smelling chemicals sprayed across my desk and hit the wall with a muted splat. After giving the wastebasket one long, final blast, I took out my work gloves to protect my hands while I heaved the smoking remains out into the parking lot.

I left the door open and propped all of the windows to let the smoke vent. I wiped my streaming eyes with the bandana and searched the ceiling for the blinking light of the smoke detector. As the smoke cleared, I could see the frayed wires dangling from where the device had been yanked from the wall.

I moved closer to my foam-covered desk, opening the drawers and finding the petty-cash box intact and the village checkbook still locked up tight. I ran to the other rooms of the center but found that the damage was limited to my office space.

How had this happened without my hearing anything? Gah, the music. Between my too-loud worship of all things Journey and the noise of the engine, I wouldn’t have heard a Mack truck parking in my office.

Mom and a few of the aunties appeared at my door, gasping in shock at the mess and the smoke. Ignoring their murmurs, I strode out into the street, working up a decent head of steam while I worked through what might have happened. The kids were in school, and most of the adults were at work or indoors. We ran perimeter checks on occasion, but it’s not as if the valley was under twenty-four-hour guard.

I heard the school bell ring down the street, announcing the end of lunch, and paused. The high school kids were allowed to run home for lunch if they wanted. Between the werewolf stuff and the regular human adolescent roller coaster, their bodies went through more food than could be easily carried to school. It was easier for them to run home and scarf down as many calories as possible just to get through the day. “Free lunch” left them unsupervised for a good hour of the day, but we tried to emphasize trust and personal responsibility in the pack. Obviously, that had come back to bite us on the ass.

I marched to the school building and called all five high school students to the office, which was basically the supply closet at the end of the classroom. If I was going to question one of them, I would question them all. Frankly, if one of them had anything to do with the fire, their friends were smart enough to distance themselves by ratting them out. Cousin Teresa gave the little kids busy work and sat with me while I marched the teens away.

Their chatter and teasing died the minute I walked into the tiny room. The kids sat up a little straighter and put on their serious faces. They eyed me solemnly, all long, coltish limbs combined with baby cheeks and huge eyes. Of the five, only three, Ricky, Rebecca, and Benjamin, were able to phase, but they all recognized the authority of the pack leader. They knew that disrespect and sass would get them into trouble with me and then again with their parents. It was a double whammy of adult supervision.

My eyes narrowed at Benjamin and Ricky, the chewing-tobacco enthusiasts whom I’d forced to overindulge to the point of vomiting. They were good kids but had been known to cause more than their fair share of trouble. This included accidentally setting my workshop aflame with a badly timed M-80. Had their pyromaniac antics escalated to intentional damage? Were they trying to get back at me for the puking?

“Do any of you have anything to tell me? Something to do with my office?” I asked, giving each of them my best motherly glare. The kids’ eyes went wide, and their mouths clamped shut. “Look, if you did it because you thought it would be funny or you’re upset with me about something, it’s not OK, but I get it. I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was a kid. But it’s better to go ahead and fess up to it and take your licks now than to lie. Because then I’ll be pissed at you.”

Silence. “No one knows who gave my office the arsonist’s makeover?” I asked.

Teresa gasped. “Someone set fire to your office?”

Benjamin, the oldest of the group, shook his shaggy brown head. “Honest, Maggie, we wouldn’t do something like that. My dad’s still pissed at me for the chaw thing.”

“And we’re afraid of you,” Lila added.

The other kids nodded solemnly. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, focusing all of my energy on keeping my frustration and temper in check. I believed them, which meant that my anxiety over the whole episode had just doubled. It wouldn’t do to explode all over these kids just because I didn’t get the easy answer that I wanted. Breathing slowly through my nose, and getting a nostril full of the smoky stink rising from my jacket, I sighed. “When you were on your way home for lunch, did you see anything strange or see anyone who isn’t part of the pack wandering around?”

The kids shook their heads.

“We just heard that crappy old-timer music you like blaring from the shed,” Ricky said, smirking at me. Ricky was the resident smart-ass, which sort of endeared him to me. Rebecca, his twin, elbowed him in the ribs.

My mouth twitched. That smart-ass little answer was exactly what I needed to snap my mood back into place. I kept my voice level but serious. “OK, until I say otherwise, I want you guys to keep an eye on the little kids,” I told them. “And if you see anyone you don’t recognize walking around, tell the nearest pack member. Don’t try to approach them yourselves.” I saw Benjamin bristle a little. “Even though you are all clearly bad-asses.”

Benjamin smirked, appeased.

“Well, how about we skip the history quiz this afternoon?” Teresa suggested. The kids whooped and hollered. Teresa added, “And as a community service project, you can go over to the center and help Maggie clean up her office.”

“Aww.” The kids groaned.

Teresa lifted her brow.

“I mean, yaaaay,” Ricky said in the least convincing cheerful voice ever.

I laughed. “I’d appreciate it, kids.”

“Shouldn’t you call the cops?” Teresa asked as the teens filed out of the room.

“I sort of am the cops around here,” I reminded her. Teresa had lived in Portland for a while, after getting engaged to a male from one of the local packs. She lived there for two years, an incredibly long engagement for a were, before deciding that he wasn’t a good match, and moved back home. Her mother had told my mother that the bastard had called it off and mated with a human.

City life had left Teresa a bit out of sorts. She was used to public transportation, restaurants, movie theaters, cooperating with the human authorities . . . .

“Oh, right,” she said, frowning. “It’s just been so long since we’ve had any sort of trouble. I sort of forgot the procedure.”

“It’s OK. Thanks for sending the kids over. I’m pretty sure I have a brigade of aunties helping me already, but the kids will make the job go faster. Do you need anything here at the school?” I asked as she walked me out of the schoolhouse. “Supplies? Snacks?”

“Nope, we’re pretty much covered, as long as I can get the Gilbert kids to stop chewing on the nap-time mats.”

“I miss nap-time.” I sighed.

“Who wouldn’t?” She chuckled, waving me away.

When I arrived at the office, the smoke had all but disappeared. Mom and the aunts and gathered outside the building, whispering among themselves, while the kids worked.

“What a mess.” Mom sighed, kissing my cheeks and checking me over for obvious wounds. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I promised, wiggling out of her grasp. There were people watching, for goodness sake. “And I’m not sure what happened. We might need to have a pack meeting later, OK? Can you all tell your families?” The women nodded earnestly. “For right now, how about you go home and let the kids do the heavy lifting? Burn off a little of that energy.”

I heard my aunt Bonnie, Ricky’s mother, whisper, “Please, Lord,” as the ladies dispersed.

I walked into my office and found that Rebecca, the most organized soul in the group, had already started sorting through the papers and trying to salvage some of my ripped file folders. Ricky and Benjamin were in deep conference regarding which caustic substance would best clean the smoke marks from my ceiling.

After convincing them that hydrochloric acid was probably overkill, I directed the others to help me gather my paperbacks and throw what couldn’t be saved into the Dumpster out back. As I leaned over to right my slashed office chair, I caught the faint whiff of a familiar scent. Something clean and floral under the smoke.

Fabric softener. The same sort of April Fresh scent that had lingered on my truck.

I leaned closer, inhaling. It was new, definitely not something that had been clinging to my chair that morning. I tried to circulate through the room and subtly sniff the kids to check if maybe they’d cross-contaminated the chair with their moms’ laundry habits.

But kids today, what with the Dateline sex-predator exposés, notice when an adult sniffs them. Frankly, that made me feel better about the kids’ survival instincts. And it ended up being an exercise in unnecessarily creepy futility, because none of them smelled April Fresh. Spring Meadow? Mountain Breeze? Sure. But not a whiff of April Freshness.

I didn’t know what to make of it. I believed the kids when they said they didn’t barbecue my office. And we hadn’t had a stranger wander into town for random vandalism in, well, ever. And I couldn’t shake the odd coincidence that the undercarriage of my truck had smelled like dryer sheets. Who the hell would want to cut the brakes on my truck? Or toss my office? One act seemed rather serious, while the other just annoyed the hell out of me and cost me a new wastebasket. And who the hell used so much fabric softener that it obliterated all other traces of their natural scent?

Eli. The pack’s former alpha would have thought of something like that as he was terrorizing and attacking people near Cooper’s home in Grundy—Susie Quinn, a couple of teenage hikers, Abner Golightly. Cooper had been convinced that he was doing it himself, that he was having some sort of wolf blackout, which was exactly what Eli wanted him to think.

Cooper had a harder time remembering his time as a wolf than most of us. The more time a wolf spends with the pack, the clearer memories are during the phasing. There was a sort of collective memory among us, which could be unfortunate, given some of the stupid shit Samson pulled while on four legs. Since Cooper had spent nearly two years away from the pack, he was practically an amnesiac. When people started dying and Cooper thought it was possible that he could hurt Mo, he thought his only option was to leave.

Eli would have pulled something sneaky and backhanded like messing with my truck or setting fire to the “seat of my authority.”

But Eli was dead, which left me without a suspect list.