So he wasn’t giving up on the notion.
He thought about what she’d said earlier. That she’d woken as a woman, naked against him. She must have fled the bed right away or he would have noticed.
Would she flee the bed when she woke this time? He hoped not. If not, he figured she had to agree they were dating, of a sort. Wouldn’t she?
*
Debbie couldn’t believe she had woken and found herself naked against Allan again, except this time she was sleeping against his naked body. And he had to have known it or she wouldn’t be wrapped up in his arms underneath the covers in a totally human way.
She had to admit she loved being held in his arms like this. Loved the way he was so tender. She wished they could have done this as humans and she didn’t have to deal with this wolf business. But she was glad she was alive and better than fit. She had to remind herself of it every time she shifted and was furious over it.
Right now, like this, she wasn’t sure what to do. Unless she quit coming to bed with him as a wolf, she was bound to keep waking up against him as a naked woman so she might as well just get used to it.
He must have felt her tense, because he opened his eyes and sighed. “I’ve been thinking—”
“I’m not dating you.” She closed her eyes and snuggled against him, giving up the pretense that she wasn’t happy with this—here, with him.
“Okay. But I was thinking about the week of the new moon.”
“Which is three weeks from now.” She couldn’t help but be irritated about it.
“Right. We’ll do everything during that week. Investigations into the murders, diving, rescuing. Wherever we’re needed. We’ll do our investigative work at home until then. Internet searches, whatever we can run down. During the week you’re free from shifting, we can go to the movies, eat out, shop, whatever you’d love to do.”
“I can’t really go anywhere for three weeks, can I?” she asked, hating that she would be confined like that. She loved the outdoors and she loved her job because she could go diving and help rescue others or help solve crimes. She hated that she’d be cooped up in the cabin for weeks on end, which she suspected would be the ultimate case of cabin fever.
“After a time, you only will have trouble during the full moon. We’ll have get-togethers with other pack members. If you have to shift, you can do so in a bedroom, and then you can rejoin the party.”
“As a wolf,” she said skeptically.
“Yeah. But we’re all lupus garous, so everyone will understand and have no problem with it.”
“But me.”
“It would be a safe way to learn to get used to it. After a while, it will seem like no big deal to you.”
“I don’t see how I’ll ever get used to it.”
“You will. Do you remember Michael, the artist?”
“Who paints pictures of wolves? Is everyone a wolf but me?”
Allan smiled. “He’s fairly newly turned. He’s just as happy as can be.”
“No wonder he paints such beautiful portraits of wolves. I thought they were drugged so that they could sit and be photographed with people or out in nature.”
“Nope. He’s one of us, and the portraits he does? Only of the lupus garous who are willing to sit still long enough to have their portrait taken.”
“You haven’t had one made of you?”
“No. Nor has Paul. We couldn’t believe he had Lori sitting long enough to do hers.”
“Maybe he takes photographs.”
“He says he can’t capture the essence of the wolf unless he paints the actual wolf.”
“How come he was turned?” Debbie asked, afraid he’d seen someone shift and was forced to be one of them.
“You know Hunter, the leader of Paul’s and my SEAL team?”
“He lives on the Oregon coast.”
“Right. He fell in love with a woman who had wolf genes from a parent. She wanted to be mated to Hunter, and she was really close to her brother.”
“So they turned him?”
“Tessa did. He was glad because they are really close, and he would have been left out of the family otherwise.”
“If he had these wolf roots too, it’s not exactly the same as with me.”
“Well, it is, in that they didn’t have any of the wolf senses, the shifting, none of that. So since Hunter is Tessa’s mate, he oversees her shifting, and others watch Michael because he has no mate.”
“He came here to the art festival. I saw him. No one was with him.” Then she thought back to how either Allan’s mother, sister, or Lori’s grandmother had been nearby. They had a booth where they were selling jams and salsas and hand-beaded moccasins. “Oh, scratch that. I remember he was with your family. He must have had the shifting down fairly well then if he was out in public.” She hoped it hadn’t been long so she could have some of her old life back. Although it would never be quite the same again.