How to Flirt with A Naked Werewolf (30 page)

He frowned. “Mo, I killed eleven people. How many does it take to be the scariest guy you’ve ever dated?”

“Twelve,” I said, shrugging. “That’s my boyfriend body-count threshold. I have to have some standards.”

“You’re a little sick.”

“I’m living with a werewolf. I have to be a little sick.”

18
 
 

On the Next
Dr. Phil

U
NBURDENED
, C
OOPER FELL ASLEEP
long before I did.

I drifted off, staring at the stars, mulling over Cooper’s tale. Was it disturbing, knowing that my werewolf lover was capable of killing? Definitely. Had I glossed over that a little to help him feel better about telling me? Damn skippy. And while I knew I hadn’t quite processed my feelings about it, it’s not as if he was murdering fluffy bunnies or even—really—human beings. He’d killed fully grown, capable werewolves who were staging a hostile takeover and would have murdered his family to accomplish it. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have helped him, given the chance.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I became with Maggie. Yes, she was young, but how could she come down so hard on Cooper for having what were likely normal posttraumatic reactions to a mass killing? How dare she make her hurt feelings his problem? Who knew how Cooper might have adjusted and accepted what happened if she’d just kept her mouth shut?

Cooper’s sister needed to know how much she’d hurt him. She needed to grow the hell up. But short of pinning her with a Howitzer and having a forced intervention with Dr. Phil, I didn’t think I would emerge from such an encounter with all of my digits.

However, the image of Dr. Phil yelling Texasisms at Maggie was relaxing enough to put me to sleep.

When I woke the next morning, I could tell something was bothering Cooper. He sniffed the cold, smoke-smeared air, worry furrowing his forehead. He tried to play it off, tried to pretend that he wasn’t rushing us off the campsite, that he wanted to get me back to our bed so he could love me properly. He claimed this was the advantage of camping without a fancy RV or tent. “At the end of the weekend, all you want to do is get home, not spend an hour packing up your gear.”

“You’re just trying to get out of bringing a tent next time.” He once again lifted his face to inhale the breeze. “Cooper, what’s wrong? You keep doing that. You’re not having regrets about talking to me last night, are you?”

“No. Definitely not,” he assured me. “Something smells funny. Has since I woke up this morning.”

“I told you not to eat all that jerky,” I muttered.

“Let’s just get going,” he said, wrapping an arm around me as we headed through the trees.

We hiked for more than a mile, Cooper growing more tense by the step. We hopped over a dip in the trail, and he suddenly stopped, sniffed, and bolted into the trees.

“Cooper?”

“Stay there!” he yelled.

“Oh, yeah, that’s likely,” I huffed, following him as closely as I could. I found a trail of clothes in his wake, so it didn’t surprise me to find him wolfed out when I hit the clearing. He was hunched over something. As I got closer, I saw the thin legs encased in worn hiking boots. Cooper whined and nudged the fallen form with his nose. “What the . . .”

I gently pushed him out of the way and cried out, “Cooper, it’s Abner!”

Abner was flat on his back, his pack still strapped around his chest. His rifle was loaded and unused at his side. There were deep gashes clawed across his chest, dangerously close to his neck. There were dark, slashing stains on his trousers, which I realized were wounds, caked over with blackened, dried blood.

The hair on Cooper’s neck was bristled high as he scanned the trees. His back was turned to me as he paced a circle around us.

“Abner?” I whispered, my voice shaking as I gently pressed my fingers to his neck. His skin was cool and dry. His pulse was weak and erratic. I sucked breath through my teeth to fight back the hot tears that threatened to fall. My numbed fingers reached for the hem of Abner’s work shirt, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at the damage underneath. I was almost knocked over by the wave of shame at my own squeamishness.
I can do this. I have to hold it together,
I told myself.
One task at a time. One step at a time.
I rummaged through my bag for the first-aid kit and my water bottle.

Cooper turned toward me and whined again, a hollow, defeated sound. He seemed to be trying to tell me something as he stared at the first-aid kit.

“Too late?” I asked him, wiping my eyes. “Bullshit. He’s not dead. That’s bullshit.”

Ignoring Cooper’s canine murmurings, I took the bottle and ever so carefully propped Abner’s head in my lap. I poured just a little bit of water between his dry, cracked lips. His papery eyelids fluttered open. A rattling breath wheezed out from his throat.

“Shh,” I told him, giving him a weak smile as I offered him more water. “Don’t try to talk. It’s going to be OK. We’re going to get some help for you, Abner.” Abner stared at me with the empty delirium of someone who couldn’t tell if he was awake. I smiled at him, pretending that my nose wasn’t running, that the effort wasn’t making my face hurt. “You can’t go anywhere, Abner. I was about to take you up on your offer. What kind of girl could resist warm feet and cable TV?”

Abner smiled, and the effort split his lip. He raised a feeble hand and patted my arm. A low whimper sounded from Cooper’s throat, even as he kept an eye on the woods around us. Abner’s attention followed the sound. His whole body twitched as his eyes fell on the black wolf. I could hear the scream building from the bottom of Abner’s abused lungs long before it came out, a plaintive, panic-stricken wail. His eyes were wide, unfocused in raw terror. His fingers clutched at my arms as his legs frantically pushed away from the wolf.

“Abner, it’s OK, calm down!” I cried. “Please!”

Abner let loose one last bleating gasp and fell still against my legs. I felt warm trails of tears streaming down my face to land on Abner’s forehead. I pushed his frazzled gray hair back from his battered face. I kept my fingers cupped around his throat, waiting for some sign of a heartbeat, but his body was completely still. No breath. No pulse. No Abner.

Cooper huffed at me and started toward the trees. When I didn’t move, he gave a sharp bark.

“We’re not leaving him here.”

He growled and jerked his head toward the trail.

“We can’t just leave him.” Cooper carefully grabbed my sleeve between his teeth and dragged me through the tree line. “Damn it, Cooper, cut it out.”

I snagged his clothes as we threaded through the low-hanging branches. We reached the trail, where we’d left Cooper’s pack. He phased, grabbing his clothes from my hands and struggling into his boots. “We’ve got to get out of here, right now.”

“We have to take Abner back to town with us.”

“We can’t do anything for him now, Mo. We’ll bring Alan and Buzz out here as soon as we can, but we have to get moving. I’ve got to get you somewhere safe.”

“You think whatever attacked Abner is still out here?”

Cooper’s expression was bleak as he took my hand and pulled me toward civilization. “Yes.”

We all but ran the rest of the way to the trail-head, where my cell phone had enough of a signal to call Alan. Cooper dragged me to the truck. My hands were still shaking, and I was in no condition to drive. Evie came to pick me up while Cooper led Alan and Buzz to Abner’s body. I rode home with a nervous, unsettled tension in my belly. I felt like a robot as I walked Oscar around the yard and led him back inside for kibble. I crawled into bed with my camping clothes on and waited, but I woke up alone.

A
FLOOD OF
curious faces rushed into the saloon the next day, but I didn’t see the one I was looking for. To avoid the awful, overbright stares of diners who wanted all of the gory details of Abner’s death, I hid behind the grill. I didn’t need Alan to tell me that there were two sets of wolf prints at the clearing where we’d found Abner, one of which obviously belonged to Cooper. I didn’t need to be told that Abner had sustained massive internal injuries brought on by crushing force on his ribs and sternum, that he’d bled heavily from his wounds while he lay in the clearing overnight, that he’d ultimately died of shock.

Alan was increasingly frustrated with his inability to track the wolf. He called in experts from the universities and the wildlife department, but they always emerged from the woods without anything close to a clue. Alan blamed himself for Abner’s death, for the hikers, and even for Susie Q, despite the fact that every expert told him this wolf didn’t follow any typical patterns of behavior, that he couldn’t possibly predict where or when it could strike. I wanted Cooper to talk to him, to explain about the werewolves, but I knew that wouldn’t happen. And I couldn’t betray the pack’s secrets, even if it would make Alan stop beating himself into an emotional pulp. All I could do was listen when Alan vented and remind him to eat.

We didn’t bury Abner in Grundy. His last wishes had been that he be returned to his native Oklahoma, to be buried with his family. We held a memorial at the saloon, where we drank his favorite beer, sang his favorite songs, and told stories about him until our sides hurt from laughing. It was a fitting tribute to a good friend. And Cooper missed all of it.

I hadn’t seen him since that afternoon on the trail. He didn’t return my calls. Checking on his house became part of my evening routine. Clock out at work, check Cooper’s house, walk Oscar, eat, go to bed. I tried to tell myself that he’d been called out of town or had been helping the rangers track the monster that had killed Abner and just hadn’t had time to call me back. Then, one night, I saw his kitchen light on. I saw his silhouette against the window as he stood at his sink. From his vantage point, he had to see my truck. He couldn’t miss it. I waited, wanting him to come running out of the house or even amble leisurely, armed with a good reason for dropping off the freaking planet. But he moved away from the window and turned off the light.

About a week later, I saw him loading camping gear into his truck in front of Hannigan’s Grocery. He looked haggard and miserable, as if he hadn’t slept in days. Although my first instinct was to soothe, to brush kisses over those tired eyes and wrap my arms around him, the stronger instinct to smack him won out.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded, slapping the back of his head.

Cooper seemed to have missed the fact that his girlfriend had just bitch-slapped him on a public sidewalk. He wouldn’t even look at me as he raised the tailgate of his truck. “Not now.”

“Oh, you’re right, we have spent so much time together over the last couple of days, you must be getting sick of me.” I followed him to the driver’s side.

He opened the door to his truck and stepped in, putting it between us. “I can’t be around you right now.”

I skidded to a stop. “What?”

“You need to stay away from me,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “You know why. Susie Q, those hikers, Abner. I can’t be near you. I can’t take the chance that I could hurt you, too. I couldn’t stand it.”

My jaw fell slack, the indignant anger draining away. “You weren’t a wolf on the night Abner was attacked,” I whispered, well aware of the crowds gathering in shop windows to watch what promised to be the public lovers’ quarrel of the decade.

“We don’t know that!” He slammed his truck door, grabbed my elbow, and dragged me around the corner, behind the buildings of Main Street, until we’d reached the trees that surrounded Grundy. No one would hear us there. No one would see.

Cooper let go of my arm, and the momentum of my body carried me a half-dozen steps from where he stopped. “I can’t remember anything from that night, no dreams, not waking up to check on you, nothing,” he said. “I could have crawled out of the sleeping bag and phased without waking you up. How else could Abner get mauled by a wolf so close to our campsite?”

I protested, “You’ve never done that at home—”

“But I could have! How many wolves do you think were running in that area? When Abner saw me, he was terrified of me. Like he recognized me as the thing that hurt him.”

“You are not a thing, do you hear me?” I insisted. He gave me a long, piteous stare. “You don’t bully Oscar when you’re in wolf form. Every time I’ve been around you while you’re a wolf, your concern has been for my safety. You’ve never snapped at me, even when you were wounded. And you were nowhere near here when those boys went missing.”

Cooper looked at the ground and muttered, “Yeah, I was.”

“What?”

“I was worried about you. I couldn’t take being so far away from you so long, so I waited until the hunters went to sleep, changed, and ran home to check on you. I changed back, ran through the preserve, and got back to the camp before anybody woke up. Then I got back to town and heard that two kids went missing from the preserve, near your house, on the night I was running. I tried to ignore the signs, Mo, but it all keeps adding up.”