The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf

9





Are Eyelash Curlers Banned by the Geneva Convention?


THE NEXT FRIDAY NIGHT, I climbed out of my mother’s SUV, pulling uncomfortably at my skirt and cursing the day I was born with two X chromosomes.

Yes, I was wearing a skirt.

I’d finally made time for another date with Clay, and it just happened to be the biggest social event of the season. Such as it was. Every year, Evie and Buzz hosted the Big Freeze at the Glacier, a sort of big last hootenanny before winter set in. The first heavy frost of year always came pretty early, in what most lower forty-eight residents would still consider fall. And although it would be weeks before the snows truly set in and made travel difficult, the people of Grundy put on their Sunday best and gathered for beer, dancing, and general merriment. For most of the people who lived on the fringes of town, it was the last chance to socialize before winter hit. I rarely went, since it was basically a way for unattached men and women of Grundy to find the person they planned on shacking up with during the cold months.

Normally, Evie scheduled the party right before the almanac forecast the first freeze. But this year, she and Mo had rescheduled at the last minute because some Food Network guy was coming by to film a segment about “Hidden Gems of the Northwest,” and they wanted to hold the party before the crews arrived. Clay had been pretty understanding when I told him that our date was suddenly semiformal and that I would have to meet him there, since I was dropping my mom off at Cooper’s so she could babysit. Which was just one more reason to like Clay.

Mom knocked on Cooper’s door, because she didn’t want to be “that” mother-in-law. I rolled my eyes and opened the door, despite her scolding. Cooper was standing in the living room, eager to hand the baby off before she could spit up on his good shirt.

“Hello, my sugar pie!” Mom cooed at Eva, who was all pink and rosy and recently bathed. That would last all of five minutes. As Mom snuffled and nuzzled her pride and joy, Kara and Mo came out of the bedroom and screeched to a halt. They were staring at me.

“What?” I said, looking down at my sleeveless black knee-length sheath. “You said to dress up. I’m wearing my dress.”

“Is it your designated funeral dress?” Kara asked, adjusting the strap of her own low-cut royal-blue number.

I huffed out an annoyed breath. I caught my mother, my own flesh and blood, standing behind me, nodding.

“Come on, sweetie, we only have an hour or so to make this work,” Kara said, pulling at my elbow.

“Make what work?” I demanded.

Mo and Kara hooked their arms through mine and dragged me toward the bedroom. Mo wasn’t playing fair. She knew I wouldn’t do anything in front of Kara. She knew I couldn’t just shake her off, phase, and run. Cooper came ambling out of the bedroom, looping his tie around his collar.

“Cooper! Help!”

The coward turned on his heel and walked into the kitchen as if he hadn’t seen me getting frogmarched by the estrogen squad. “Hey! Don’t act like you don’t hear me! Seriously! Remember that time I hid a salmon in your truck and it stank for a month? Child’s play! My revenge will be swift and terrible. Damn it, Cooper!” I yelled as they dragged me into their den of girliness.

They threw me into a chair near Mo’s bathroom and spread out torture devices on the bathroom counter. They glared down at me like supervillians trying to pry information out of James Bond.

“She’s got such beautiful skin,” Kara said, lifting my chin and talking about my face as if I wasn’t even in the room. “No sense in covering it up. We just need to play up the eyes, tame the brows, and gloss the lips. A good, strong blood-red, I think.”

I snorted and muttered something about a quick hunt on the way to the dance, and Mo gave me the stink-eye. Without warning, they pounced. My dress was whipped over my head, and my hair was pulled out of its ponytail. The next half-hour was a haze of stuff rubbed on my face, my hair yanked, and my body pushed and pulled at as if it wasn’t even mine. I was tweezed. A lot.

“Can’t do much about the painfully sensible shoes,” Mo muttered as she safety-pinned the sides of my dress to give it a “silhouette.”

“It’s too cold out for sexy shoes.”

“Tell me about it. The one thing I miss about home is being able to wear peep-toes year-round,” Kara griped, giving my hair a gentle yank to remind me to keep my head up. She was arranging my hair into some weird cinnamon-bun shape on top of my head. I only hoped I wouldn’t walk out of there looking like Princess Leia . . . then again, Nick might dig that.

But I didn’t care what Nick liked, I reminded myself. Clay was my date. Nick was the guy who was currently considering whether he could be a silent witness to my family’s wolfy weirdness.

I hadn’t heard from the good doctor in a few days, and given the fact that the valley hadn’t been overrun with teams of commando scientists, I took that to mean that he was still considering my proposal. I’d had twinges of panic that first day after the “big reveal,” wondering if I’d made a huge mistake in trusting him. But the silence of the last few days had been a sort of balm. Surely, the first twenty-four hours after hearing something like that were the hardest to keep it a secret. But I couldn’t go looking for him to ask him what he decided. Every time I did that, I ended up naked in some way.

This might be harder than I thought. I frowned.

Kara stepped back to look at her handiwork. “She looks like a grumpy ballerina.”

“It’s a little too . . .” Mo took out the pins and shook my hair out, slicking it back with some citrusy goo. “That’s better. More tousle, less froufrou. She needs a smoky eye.”

“That sounds painful,” I said, and was ignored. I shied away when Kara came at me with what looked like a cross between pliers and a speculum. “What the hell is that thing?”

“It’s an eyelash curler.”

“How are you going to curl my eyelashes when that thing rips them all out?” I demanded, jerking my head away when she moved toward me with the sinister-looking device.

“Hold still, and it won’t hurt,” she said, clamping it down on my lashes.

“Owowowow!” I yelled, my eye watering as she pulled the lid away from my eyeball and crimped the hairs. “You’re a damned liar, Kara Reynolds.”

“Beauty is pain, babe,” Mo advised me. I snaked my hand around Kara and took a swipe at my sister-in-law. Since she could freaking move, she just danced out of the way.

“Well, just focus on your breathing, and you should be fine,” Kara said wryly as she went for the other eye.

“You stay away from me, you psycho.”

“You can’t just walk around with one set curled. It looks weird,” Mo protested.

“It can’t make that much of a difference,” I shot back. Mo rolled her eyes and thrust a hand mirror in front of my face. “Oh, I guess it does.”

Since the lift and curve of my newly pressed eyelashes really did make them look bigger, I dutifully sat still while they put three shades of gray eye shadow on my eyelids, followed by eyeliner . . . then they wiped the whole thing off and started from scratch because it was “too much.”

“What’s that called?” I asked as Mo painted a bright, bold red across my lips.

She checked the little label on the end of the lip-gloss tube. “Cabaret.” I frowned, so Mo added, “As in, ‘life is a’?”

“When you wonder why we don’t always understand each other, it’s because of jokes like that,” I told her. Mo huffed and slicked my lips with gloss.

I wasn’t allowed to see a mirror. Kara kept muttering under her breath about killer cheekbones and “lucky bitch who doesn’t even appreciate her teeny-tiny pores.” Finally, they stood staring at me, trying to figure out what to do next.

“Maybe we could. . .” Kara trailed off.

“No, she’s perfect,” Mo said, stopping Kara’s hand as she reached toward me with the powder brush. “Doing anything else would make her overdone.”

“I think I hate her,” Kara said. Mo shrugged.

They turned me around to face the mirror.

I was me but different. My hair looked as if I actually planned for it to fall around my face in dark waves, instead of all messy and wind-blown. My eyelashes felt all stiff and goopy, but they looked damn good. The cinched-up dress showed off the few curves I had, and the satiny red scarf Mo had tied around my dress made my waist look tiny. Don’t get me wrong, I like me. But seeing this hotter, femme incarnation of myself was very cool.

“Let me get this straight. You guys spend an hour scrubbing and polishing your faces, putting on three layers of makeup, and fiddling with your hair so you can like me after I take most of the makeup off ?” I asked, grinning at them.

“Yep, definitely hate her,” Kara decided.

Mom gasped and scrambled for a camera when I emerged from Barbieville, USA.

“Mom,” I moaned.

“Oh, hush, you’re gorgeous. And it’s not like you went to your senior prom. Give me a chance to fuss.”

“This is why I didn’t go to my senior prom!”

Mom snapped picture after picture, from every angle conceivable. Only Eva’s spitting up in my mother’s hair persuaded her to stop. I mentally doubled the amount I’d budgeted for Eva’s first Christmas present.

“Mom, it’s just a party. There’s no reason to make a big deal out of it,” I told her. “It’s just another Friday night at the Glacier.”

* * *

AND I THOUGHT so, right until we got to the edge of town and I lost my nerve. I wasn’t about to change for some stupid guy. Even if he was hot and available and a werewolf, I didn’t want Clay to think he had that kind of power over me. Screw this; the minute Mo was in the door, I was going to phase and run home.

Eyeing the way I was gripping the truck door, Mo warned, “You do that, and I’m telling Samson you were too chicken-shit to go to a silly dance.”

I grunted, growling at her and shoving a couple of warm, cheesy mini-quiches into my mouth.

“I hate you,” I muttered as Cooper parked his truck in front of the Glacier. “I hate the both of you.”

“And me, too?” Kara asked.

“You, too,” I muttered. “Welcome to the family.”

“I’m so touched.” Kara sighed, with her hand over her heart.

“Well, hate me while you’re carrying in that tray of mini-egg rolls, OK?” Mo asked, handing me one of a dozen carefully wrapped parcels of appetizers for the party. “But eventually, you will agree that you look hot and I am right, I have always been right, and I always will be right.”

“It’s best not to argue with her when she’s like this,” Kara told me. “She literally remembers every single occasion she was right. She still brags about warning me against fluffy bangs in tenth grade.”

“But you went ahead and did it anyway,” Mo snickered. “And now, who hides her sophomore yearbook like it’s homemade porn?”

“I’ll pay you ten bucks to see the yearbook,” I offered Mo.

“Done,” Mo said, grinning. Kara scowled at us both. And it struck me that, other than the facial torture devices and hair shellac, hanging out with girls wasn’t that different from hanging out with the boys. They didn’t care if I cursed at them. We called each other names and threatened each other regularly. That was pretty much my top three activities with my male packmates. I wasn’t ready to let them paint my toenails, but maybe I wouldn’t respond quite so rudely the next time Mo asked me over for a movie night or something.

As we came through the door, goodies in hand, Alan sidled up to Kara and kissed her cheek.

“Hey, sweetheart, who’s that with you—” Alan started as I took off my coat and turned toward him. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed. The room got quiet as everyone turned to see what had made straight-arrow Alan curse. I heard glass crashing to the floor and looked to see Buzz holding a dishrag in one hand and a shocked expression on his face.

“Thank you,” I muttered to Alan.

Clay looked very nice, if not uncomfortable, in a crisp white shirt and red tie. He’d obviously taken time to get his sandy hair in some order. Clay and Cooper eyed each other and gave each other a distant but not unfriendly nod, which I thought was pretty normal for brother-date interactions. At least, Cooper didn’t start cleaning a firearm in front of him.

“Hey, Mags.”

“Clay,” I said, waiting for some comment as he eyed me from head to toe.

“Wanna get a beer?” he asked, having to shout a little now that the band Evie and Buzz had brought in from Dearly had started a bad rendition of “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.” People were moving toward the dance floor in twos, doing dance steps I knew I was in no way qualified to execute.

“Sure,” I said, a little taken aback that he hadn’t even mentioned that I wasn’t wearing jeans and flannel. Was he setting me up for some sort of joke? “So, uh, you don’t have anything to say, something smart-assy about my dress or the stuff on my eyelids?”

He shrugged. “You always look this good.”

“Oh, I like you,” I said, smiling at him as he put his arm around me and walked me to the bar.

Across the room, Nick was talking to Alan, Kara, and Darby Carmichael, a checker at Hannigan’s Grocery. Darby was a tall brunette with a heart-shaped face and big caramel-brown eyes. I’d never really paid much attention to her before, but now, given the way her fingers were curling around Nick’s arm, I sort of hated her. With the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

Nick saw me with Clay and frowned. He looked down at his beer, and I could see his hand flex around the bottle.

Ha, right back at you, Doc.

“Wanna get a table?” I asked. “I’ll grab the beers.”

Clay grinned and waved at Mo as he claimed one of the booths near the pool tables.

“Maggie, what are you doing?” Mo asked, smiling around the question and waving back at Clay.

“I’m here with Clay.”

The line of her mouth did this weird pretzel thing, which was pretty funny. “I thought you were going to meet Nick here.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, Cooper mentioned that you two were getting close. Or ‘got pretty close to something.’ I don’t know. He flushed beet-red and started to mumble about concussions. I love him, but I don’t always understand him,” she said, frowning.

“Well, he neglected to mention the part where I told Nick that us getting close was a hallucination brought on by head injury.”

“Yeah, he did leave that part out,” Mo said, chewing on her lip. “This is why we need to spend more time together. I need unfiltered information.”

“Well, I’m sorry your makeover efforts for Nick were in vain.”

“Oh, honey, that wasn’t for Nick. We’ve been itching to do that for a while. It had to be done, for the good of mankind,” Mo told me. I frowned. Mo made a gesture toward her upper lip. “Mustaches are for porn stars and Tom Selleck, not young ladies.”

“F*ck you very much, Mo.”

“Don’t kiss my daughter with that mouth. I’m afraid of what she’ll pick up.”

I made a sour face at her as I sauntered back toward the table. As I was walking past the restroom corridor, there was a yank on my arms. I was rather proud that I didn’t spill a drop of beer as Nick pulled me into the little hallway.

“Hands! Hands!” I exclaimed, shrugging out of the hold he had on my arms. He held up his hands in a defensive position but didn’t step away. He kept his voice low, quiet, as he murmured, “Sorry, I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”

“How about ‘Hey, Maggie, how about we have a conversation that doesn’t involve lurking near a men’s room?’ “

“That probably would have been better,” he agreed. “So, I wanted to tell you, I’m in.”

“I really don’t know how to respond to that.”

He rolled his eyes. “I mean, I’m willing to give up the possibility of ever telling anyone about your family, if you let me study your pack. I want to know everything there is to know about you. It would be worth it, just to have my questions answered. I give you my word, it would be for my own personal enlightenment. I will never tell a soul.”

The intensity of his voice, the close proximity of his mouth to my ear, sent a shiver down my spine. I cleared my throat, backing away as much as the wall would allow.

He continued, “We don’t even have to tell your family what I’m doing. In fact, their behavior would probably be more natural if they didn’t know why I was there. You can always tell them we’re dating.”

“I can’t tell them that, because they know that I’m already dating Clay.”

The confident nonchalance he’d been using melted away, and he seemed honestly bewildered for a moment. “You were serious about that? I thought you were just trying to put me off at the clinic.”

“I was trying to put you off at the clinic with information that’s true. We’ve been out a few times,” I said, shrugging. “He’s a nice guy, a member of the pack. And that’s important.”

“Why?”

I looked down the corridor to make sure none of the other guests was within earshot. But given the head-splitting volume at which the band was playing, it wouldn’t matter if they were. “Fewer and fewer of us are mating with werewolves. We’re basically breeding ourselves out of existence. There are more dead-liners—that’s what we call our relatives who can’t phase—living in the village than pack members.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Nick muttered, patting his pockets for his little notebook. He settled his glasses on his nose and found a pen. He took a deep breath and smiled at me. “Explain.”

“Well, wolves mate for life,” I said in a low, soft voice. “Werewolf mates are claimed with a bite, which is sort of ceremonial, or through flat-out impregnation. Our genetic material is what you might call obsessive. Once our bloodline mixes with someone, something in our bodies just won’t let us make babies with anyone else. It’s a one-mate-only opportunity. It’s why you don’t see a lot of remarried widows of childbearing age in packs. Their new husbands won’t be able to have children of their own.”

“So, you’re all virgins when you get married?”

I waffled my hand back and forth. “Most are, but there are exceptions. We can have sex with someone and not be mated to them . . . but since werewolves, particularly the females, are hyperfertile, having sex means you’re probably going to end up pregnant either way. So most of us don’t risk knocking up a random one-night stand.”

“So, you’re a virgin.”

“I’m not talking to you about this.”

He held up his hands. “Purely scientific interest.”

“No comment,” I grumbled.

“Subject is uncooperative,” he murmured, scribbling.

“Subject can’t believe you’re taking notes about my virginity,” I shot back.

“So, what does any of this have to do with you dating Clay instead of taller, smarter, more charming candidates?”

I snorted. “When I get around to having kids, I need to pass the wolf genes forward. And for a good shot at that, I need to mate with a werewolf. Our pack is dying out. Werewolves everywhere are dying out. We’re an endangered species. I can’t risk being with somebody unless I know for sure that I can produce a werewolf with him.”

“But you said there are dead-liners who come from two wolf parents, right? So, there’s no guarantee.”

“I have to at least try. I have a responsibility to my people, Nick. How could I live with myself ten years from now, fifty years from now, when there aren’t any more wolves born to my pack? If I let this go anywhere, if I let myself get involved with you, and we couldn’t produce a wolf, it’s not like I can try again with someone else. I can’t take it back, you see?”

“No, frankly, I don’t see why that would be so bad.”

“Because if I do, what kind of example am I setting? I’d be telling my people that duty and responsibility take a backseat to being happy? That putting yourself first is more important than the long term? I’ve got people counting on me, Nick. Look, I like you, a lot. I like spending time with you. But if we’re going to keep seeing each other, it can only be as friends.”

“Bullshit.” He took the beer bottle I was throttling out of my hands. I think he was afraid I would chuck it at him. “That’s bullshit, Maggie. If you don’t want me, fine. But don’t go blaming some breeding obligation for you running.”

“Running?”

“Running scared,” Nick challenged.

“You don’t know anything about me except what I’ve told you. And I’ve told you more than I should. You can at least pay me back by not calling it ‘bullshit.’ I thought they taught you better at all those fancy schools, cultural sensitivity and all that crap.”

“I’m not calling your beliefs ‘bullshit,’ I’m calling your hiding behind them so you don’t have to deal with me ‘bullshit.’”

“I don’t have to stay here and listen to this,” I spat, snatching the beer from him. “I told you what you wanted to know. Now, either stand by your word, or go straight to hell.”

“Well, let me move aside so you can run away.” With a mocking little bow, he stepped aside and cleared a path to the barroom.

“You’re an a*shole!” I spat as I brushed by him.

“You’re a stubborn brat!”

“Good! I guess that will make it easier for you to get over this lame little crush on me!”

“Well, we’re on to a great start on this ‘friends’ thing, aren’t we?” He grunted as I stomped away. He caught my arm and ignored my protests as I tried to free myself, practically dragging him along with me. He turned me toward him, my nose nearly colliding with his chest. His free hand floated just over my shoulder, as if he knew that touching me would send me over the edge toward decking him.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, his mouth hovering close to my ear. I shivered but played it as a squirm to get away from him. “I’m sorry that I’m not handling this very gracefully. I want you, Maggie. But if he’s what you want, I’m not going to stand in the way.” I shoved past him, but he caught my arm again.

“What are you doing? You said you wouldn’t stand in the way. This is standing in the way and dragging me around like a rag doll, you jackass!”

“Clearly, I was bluffing!” Nick exclaimed. “And you called me on it, so good for you.” He grabbed my arms and shoved me against the door. His body pressed against mine, and the weight felt so good. Instead of pushing his shoulders away, as I intended to, I found my fingers wrapped around his collar, pulling him closer. His hand snaked around to the small of my back and bunched the fabric of my dress, until I could feel his fingers brushing against my ass.

His mouth was hovering so close to mine I could feel his breath fanning over my lips, and I instinctually flicked the tip of my tongue over them. He moved closer, and just before his whiskers brushed over my hypersensitive skin, I pressed the flat of my palms against his shoulders.

“I can’t,” I said softly.

He rested his chin against my temple and whispered, “He’s no good for you.”

“Neither are you,” I said, stepping sideways, away from him. “Besides, aren’t you on the verge of being engaged to Little Miss Express Lane?”

“Darby’s a nice girl.”

“Well, Clay is a nice guy. You just don’t like him because you’re jealous.”

“Yeah, I wish I had a forehead that proves our genetic link to Cro-Magnon man.” I glared at him. He sighed. “OK, fine, that was petty. And I am jealous. What am I supposed to do? He’s a likable guy, and he can do the one thing I can’t.”

“Find his glasses without the aid of the state police?”

“And that’s the delicate charm that calls me like a siren’s song,” he said, his lips twitching into a smile.

I murmured, “This is it, Nick. We can be friends, or we’ll have nothing. Your choice.”

“You’re not making this easy for me.”

I huffed out a laugh. “I’m not supposed to.”

“If it means that I can spend time with you, I’ll call myself your friend. I’m not going to stop hoping for more. But I’m going to wait for you to come to me.”

“That won’t happen,” I said, to myself as much as to him.

“We’ll see,” he said, wriggling his golden-blond eyebrows at me.

I rolled my eyes and turned away, leading Nick out of the hallway.

Unfortunately, Clay had gone to the bar to look for his wandering date and was talking to Darby. I tried to plaster a pleasant expression on my face as I slid into the empty space on his left. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“I thought you’d crawled out the bathroom window to escape,” he said, taking the beer and bussing my cheek. He stopped for a moment, inhaling. He shot a suspicious look at Nick, who had sidled up behind Darby.

“I’m more of a ‘cause a distraction with a bar fight, then sneak away through the back’ sort of girl,” I teased, watching Nick warily as he put his hand at the small of Darby’s back. Without warning, I had the irrational desire for the power to make her spontaneously combust with my mind.

“Clay, have you met Nick Thatcher?” For now, I was omitting Nick’s job description. It would get around to the pack eventually, but it might help if the pack got to know him and trust him beforehand. Still, Clay’s smile was sharp, and not all that friendly, as he reached forward to take Nick’s hand. I guess he picked up on more than just my scent on Nick. I sighed and took a step farther away from both of them. Darby and I watched as the boys seemed to be competing over who could squeeze more circulation out of the other’s fingers.

“Well, this isn’t awkward,” Darby muttered. Despite myself, I shared a commiserating little grimace with her.

“I’m Maggie, by the way. I don’t think we’ve ever really met.”

“Darby,” she said, shaking my hand in a way that didn’t leave me wincing, like the boys were doing now.

“Darby works full-time at the supermarket,” Nick told me. “She just got promoted to assistant manager.”

I threaded my arm through Clay’s and smiled affably. “Clay is a mechanic. We keep him pretty busy around the village, but there’s nothing he can’t fix. It’s taken a load off of Samson.”

“Darby’s studying for her master’s degree online, in social work. She wants to help kids like herself who grew up in the foster-care system,” Nick shot back, his tone a little bit more aggressive than proud.

“Clay is helping his sister raise her two children while they care for an ailing elderly aunt,” I retorted as Clay began to look distinctly uncomfortable under my “praise.”

“Darby takes in retired rescue dogs. She’s adopted two German shepherds through a state shelter program,” Nick said.

Damn it. That did make me like her a little more.

“OK, I think it’s time to get out of firing range,” Clay said, pulling me toward the dance floor. “Darby, it was nice to meet your résumé.”

She snickered and waved as Nick glowered at us.

“So, what was that?” Clay asked, spinning me around and slipping his hand to my waist. He stared over my shoulder to where Nick and Darby were chatting companionably. I gritted my teeth and stepped back, so Clay would have to turn me away from them. “Were you two dating or something?”

“No, he’s a friend,” I grumbled. “A friend who is a giant pain in my ass.”

“You want I should get rid of him?” he asked in his best New Jersey accent. “We could make it look like an accident.”

“That’s what I said when I first met him!” I exclaimed as Clay snickered and pulled me closer. My head tilted up, and my forehead brushed the line of his jaw. Seriously, when did God stop giving men jaws like that? I muttered, “But I guess cold-blooded murder is wrong and all that junk.”

Clay’s eyes flickered with some emotion I didn’t quite understand. His smile faltered. And it was as if some invisible mask had been pulled away from his face. He caught himself, it seemed, and lifted the corners of his mouth again. “Well, if you need help burying the body, I’m handy with a shovel.”

I chuckled. “Good to know.”

“So, let’s talk about something more interesting,” he said, sliding his fingers along the bare skin of my shoulders, leaving a little trail of sparks in his wake. “Let’s talk about you.”

“Oh, you must have read a book on how to charm lady wolves,” I said.

“I’m not a proud man,” he said. “There were Cliffs Notes involved.”

God help me, I actually giggled as he swayed me around the floor. The rest of the night was like that. Clay made me feel comfortable, more comfortable than I think I’d ever been with a guy. He kept me talking so much I hardly noticed we were dancing. He was light on his feet and managed to step out of the way if I was on my way to stepping on his toes. He didn’t even break his stride when I tried to lead a time or two, just went with the flow.

I know he noticed when I tried to subtly brush my nose along his collar, but he was too polite to say anything. He smelled like citrus and sage. And I pulled him a little closer, so I could hold that pleasant, distracting scent in my head.

It surprised me when I looked up and realized we were among only a few stragglers left at the party. Everyone but Mo, Cooper, Evie, Buzz, and Nick had headed home. Nick was standing at the bar, drinking a beer, and trying very hard to make it look as if he was talking to Cooper and not watching us. Cooper wasn’t making any pretenses. He was watching Clay like a hawk.

“It’s later than I thought,” I said, laughing and suddenly realizing that my feet were killing me.

“I could give you a ride back home,” Clay offered. On hearing this, Nick and Cooper both stood and not so subtly moved closer to us.

“I appreciate it, but I rode with my mom. And she’s at Cooper’s watching the baby. I need to drive her back tonight. But I’ll walk you to your truck,” I said, frowning at Cooper as we passed on our way to the door.

I slipped into my coat but slipped out of my too-tight shoes, grateful for the soothing, biting cold of the pavement as I walked outside with him. This was the part of the night that I was sort of dreading. So far, Clay had been sort of perfect. And if he was a dud in the kissing department, I was going to be right back to fantasizing about blue eyes and dusky Viking lips. I couldn’t have that.

“Thanks for putting up with all this,” I said, jerking my head toward the disheveled bar and what I’m sure was my brother’s face pressed against the picture window like one of those suction-cup Garfield dolls. “I know I sort of put you through the wringer.”

He grinned. “It’s all right. It was kind of nice to see you out of your element. I had a good time with you tonight, Maggie,” he said, leaning toward me so I had the choice to close the remaining space.

I took a little nerve-bolstering breath and kissed him, nipping at his bottom lip with my teeth. He moaned a little and worked his fingers into my hair, pulling me closer. He tasted like whiskey and cinnamon. It was nice, warm, and sweet and stoked a pleasant little fire in my belly. It wasn’t fireworks and snowflakes, but it was a cozy burn. He leaned back, keeping his arms laced around my waist.

“So,” he said, smiling and tilting his head, “I was thinking we might go to Burney to see a movie this week? It’s a drive, but there’s a new action movie opening up. Bomb squads and terrorists.”

“Well, you know how much I love bomb squads and terrorists,” I said with a little laugh. “How could a girl resist?”

“What if I throw an extra-large bag of Twizzlers into the deal?”

“No, no, no,” I told him. “Twizzlers are fifth- or sixth-date material. You have to start out slowly, with Goobers or Sour Patch Kids.”

Clay chuckled. “I thought presenting a girl with Goobers was tantamount to a proposal.”

“Well, I guess movie candy is governed differently in Canada. Your country’s all peculiar,” I said as he climbed into his truck.

He shrugged. “Yeah, I know, funny bacon, inability to pronounce all the ‘o’ sounds.”

I waved as he started the truck and pulled away. I was still sort of smiling as I came back through the saloon door. And my sister-in-law was making her “trying not to comment” face. She was trying hard to cover it up, fussing with Tupperware containers of leftovers and wiping down the already-clean bar.

“What?” I asked Cooper.

“Damned if I know,” he said, watching her bustle back and forth. “I’m still working on the whole ‘my sister’s a grown-up, and it’s normal for her to date’ thing. Why do you think I’m still drinking?”

I snorted. “Nice.”

“Just to be clear, I don’t like either one of them. It’s in the guy code. ‘Thou shalt despise any man who wants to nail your sister.’ “

“You’re coping well,” I noted.

His lips twitched as he raised the beer bottle to his mouth. “I’m seething on the inside.”

I placed a hand over Mo’s as she swept by with a damp rag. “What is going on, Mo? What’s got you all OCD?”

“Nick,” she said, wincing a little.

I looked around. Nick had disappeared like Wet Wipes on a porn set. “What about him?”

“He left,” she said hesitantly, which was a weird look for Little Miss Resolute Face. “While you were outside. With Clay.”

“Oh,” I said. I realized that meant he probably saw me kissing Clay, all snuggly against the side of Clay’s truck. My stomach felt sort of ripply and cold. “Oh.”

“Sorry!” she exclaimed. “We couldn’t keep him from leaving. I was afraid he would interrupt whatever you had going out there with Clay, but I couldn’t figure out how to keep him away from the door. I thought throwing myself at him and dragging him back inside would send an upsetting mixed message.”

“I think I would be upset by that,” Cooper dead-panned. “The only person I want you throwing yourself at is me.” Mo smiled at him in that gross, lovey-dovey, cartoon-eyes way that didn’t exactly help my icky stomach.

I shuddered. “Look, it’s no big deal. Nick and I, we’re trying to be friends. He knew I was here with a date. It’s not like I got all wound up when he was dancing with Saint Darby, the Animal Rescue Princess.”

“So, you’re OK with this?” Mo asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you called her Saint Darby, the Animal Rescue Princess,” Mo said. “It expresses a certain amount of latent hostility.”

“Don’t try to shrink my head, hippie spawn,” I snapped at her.

“Well, now you’re expressing direct hostility,” she said. “Which is more your speed, anyway.”

“Shut it, Moonflower,” I shot back, using the super-secret, never-to-be-spoken-in-public legal name bestowed on her by her hippie parents.

“That was too far,” she growled. “See if I ever help you again.”

“Hey!” I shouted as she stormed toward the coat rack. “If you consider pulling my eyelashes out by the root help, you can keep it!”