Little Wolf (9 page)

Tim swallowed, then swept a look around the room—the slightly out of order desktop, the touristy mug used to hold pens and pencils, the Shasta State Park calendar on the wall, the pinboard covered in paper. He didn’t see any pictures or personal effects. They might be in the desk itself, but Tim wasn’t about to start snooping, at least not until he was more comfortable. Anyway, that desk reminded him of Carl saying the sheriff didn’t have a life. The desk was all work, no play.

Tim looked down at his knees. “I’ll try not to bother you, okay? And I’ll be out and on my way as soon as I have more money and a plan.” It should make it better with Carl if Tim did his best not to burden Nathaniel more.

“You aren’t a bother, Little Wolf.” Nathaniel ran a hand over his hair as if he meant the exact opposite of that.

“Yeah,” Tim snorted. “Because I have such a sparkling personality. It’s okay. You can admit that you’re helping me just because I’m were.”

Nathaniel’s visible confusion over something Tim said was so familiar it was almost comforting. “It’s not just because you’re were.”

“I know you probably would try to help a human too. That’s kind of what this town is about, right? Rescuing people is what you do. I didn’t mean to imply that you wouldn’t want to help anyone.” Tim angled his head to one side, and Nathaniel met his eyes, staring until Tim felt a shudder roll through him, as if his own wolf wanted to come out.

“I would help you because you need my help.” Nathaniel was breathing hard, pissed or frustrated when Tim was trying to be nice. “But it isn’t a bother for me to help you because you’re my ma—” Nathaniel broke the stare to glare at the floor. “Instinct,” he growled after a second, then grabbed the doorknob again, hard enough to make it creak.

“Try to rest. I’ll be back soon,” he bit out, then left and closed the door firmly behind him.

He didn’t lock Tim in, but when Tim got up to look outside after several minutes of breathless confusion, he found himself staring at a few sharp-eyed, curious deputies. He shut the door again and sat back down on the couch, not entirely certain he hadn’t made a huge mistake in agreeing to stay.

T
IM
AWOKE
to the smell of good coffee, a vending machine pastry being waved under his nose, and Nathaniel whispering, “Good morning.”

Tim wanted to sit up, then realized he already was because he’d fallen asleep that way. He tried not to be too horrified or dwell too much on how he was surprisingly well rested for someone who had slept on a couch in a police station. He meekly accepted the cup of coffee.

Nathaniel smelled great. Better than the coffee, but Tim gulped it down anyway, not caring how hot it was. He was tired, okay? It was his excuse as to why he took the pastry too, without even attempting a bigger argument. “Have
you
eaten?”

Nathaniel pointedly dropped some empty wrappers in the trash, so Tim accepted that answer and swallowed down his breakfast without any more hesitation.

“I slept all night?” Tim scratched at his face and adjusted himself without thinking, finally glancing up after he did. Nathaniel had dark circles under his eyes, a huge sign of exhaustion for a were, but he was grinning. He
did
get a little dopey when he was tired. Tim wanted to smile dopily back at him at the knowledge, even if he didn’t care for the reason why Nathaniel was so tired.

The sheriff
, Tim tried to remind himself,
the sheriff
. But it was no good. That scent and presence meant
Nathaniel
now and forever in his consciousness. Tim stood up and stretched. “Come on, then,” he announced with more confidence than he actually felt. “Let’s go so you can get some rest.” He hefted the bags easily now that he’d had a good night’s sleep.

Nathaniel had an expression on his face that said he wasn’t sure how to take Tim’s sudden urge to go to his house. But he walked over to lock up his desk and then came around to open the door for Tim. As they walked out and the morning light hit Nathaniel’s face, Tim decided there were worse ways to spend his mornings. He could deal with being handed pastries and coffee by a gorgeous were who looked radiant in the sunshine.

It made him wonder what Nathaniel would look like under a silvery moon, though he focused on keeping up with Nathaniel as they left the building. Most of the people around them were not the ones from last night, but Tim still somehow felt like he was doing a walk of shame. Since he had never done a walk of shame before, he raised his head and grinned. His urge to smile lasted until he caught the smirk on one man’s face.

So the thought of their sheriff wanting Tim was ludicrous, but Tim could have enjoyed his dream for a moment longer. He huffed and walked on, then stopped when he reached the entrance and realized Nathaniel wasn’t with him. Nathaniel was off to one side, talking with a man in the uniform of a ranger, probably some kind of liaison with the state park.

“What the hell?” Tim’s mouth was moving before his mind could stop it. “He hasn’t slept in days. What is so important that someone else can’t handle it?”

Everyone turned to look at him, and by everyone he meant
everyone
.

“Way to sound like his husband, Tim,” Tim said out loud, then pasted on a smile. “I’ll be in the car.”

It got no reaction from them, and maybe he was still half-asleep, but it irked him that they didn’t see a problem with their sheriff working himself to death. “Although honestly, isn’t that why you all are here? Like a dozen people in here and no one else can do anything,” he finished under his breath, because the other weres would hear it anyway. He turned to the door.

“Tim, wait. You can’t leave….” Nathaniel’s call stopped him short.

Tim snapped back around. “I can go where I want! No one tells me what to do!” He charged forward a step and then belatedly heard the rest of Nathaniel’s sentence.

“…If it’s not safe,” Nathaniel finished, regarding Tim as though he was from another world. “I’ll be there in a second, if you don’t mind waiting.”

Tim could hardly look at him. For a moment there, he had been fifteen again, arguing with Silas.

He found the sheriff’s truck right outside and wasn’t surprised it was unlocked. He chugged his cup of coffee like humans threw back alcohol, which was the only response to his current levels of embarrassment and discomfort, then shoved the empty paper cup in the cup holder. The interior of the truck was drenched in Nathaniel’s scent. Tim stuck one of his bags on his lap to hide any embarrassing reactions to that, then let out a breath when Nathaniel walked out of the station and got into the truck. He had that one eyebrow raised when he glanced Tim’s way but didn’t seem upset.

Tim considered that. “How tired are you right now?”

“At this moment I could sleep peacefully for a year.” Nathaniel took a long breath and started the truck. “Did you want to drive?”

“What?” Tim twisted around. “Are you sure you’re an alpha wolf? And no, I can’t… I don’t know how to drive. I might figure out an automatic, but this is a stick so… no. I’ve lived in cities since I was fifteen.”

“By yourself?” Nathaniel was very casual. He wasn’t even looking in Tim’s direction, but Tim paused and replayed what he’d just said and wondered if he wasn’t more tired than he thought as well. He was giving an awful lot away, and he wasn’t even alarmed that they were heading out of town into the woods.

He lowered the window and let his mouth fall open at the blast of chilly, dark-sweet morning air, full of pine and dirt and bark and animal. He squirmed in his seat and tilted his face up to catch more of it. The town scents of cement and rubber and gasoline were already fading, though he could smell the truck’s engine.

He pulled away from the window but didn’t roll it back up. Despite how Nathaniel’s deputies had peppered him with questions and information at the station, the radio in the truck only offered occasional staticky exchanges between deputies driving through the county. Either Tim’s scolding had shamed them into doing their jobs or, far more likely, Nathaniel had said something to them. Whichever it was, at least it meant Nathaniel would have some peace so he could sleep.

“Is that everything you own?” Nathaniel was keeping his eyes on the road and both hands steady on the steering wheel, except for when he had to shift gears. “You weren’t kidding about not taking up much space.”

“Everything else is at the manor house,” Tim remarked snippily, trying to keep an eye on the woods around him in case he needed to find his way through them, like, say, if he had to run from Nathaniel’s house in the dead of night. The thing was, the trees all looked the same—tall and graceful, spaced out and then crowded in together.

Scent would guide him if he weren’t such a loser at it. He nearly choked at the overwhelming flood of
everything
that hit him. It was like coming into a city for the first time and smelling every person, every garbage can, every rusty pipe and patch of sun-warmed sidewalk, only it was cool and alive and singing to him, and he couldn’t track it all. He inhaled and then inhaled again, trying to figure out if it was the rich scent of the earth or the hidden, shadowy scent of the trees that was so amazing.

Nathaniel put a hand on his shoulder, and Tim abruptly realized he was almost hyperventilating over the scent of the foothills. He flinched from the window and put his hands to his face. “I am such a dork. Like I’ve never smelled a few trees before.”

“You really haven’t ever been in the wild, have you?” Nathaniel slowed the truck. Maybe Nathaniel was worried Tim would shift and bolt from the vehicle, which seemed strange, because Tim wasn’t even close to shifting.

Then Tim looked down and saw his hands, more like paws really, grasping tight at the seat of the truck. “I am so sorry.”

Nathaniel glanced over, considering Tim’s half paws before looking back at the road. He moved one hand, and Tim turned in surprise as his window rolled all the way down. “Feel free to stick your head out, as long as you’re buckled up.” Nathaniel gave him a short, serious look. “Or I could pull over and you could run free.”

“Free? Like as a wolf?” Tim’s voice rose. “No. Nope. That is not happening. I don’t… I don’t do that.”

“Ever?” Nathaniel seemed stunned. He took his foot off the gas and gave Tim a much longer look. Tim tried to stare back but ended up turning to the window again.

“Look, I don’t… you should know right now I’m not much of a were, if it weren’t already obvious.” He frowned at the scenery and everything in it that he was itching to explore. “Still want me around?”

“Little Wolf….” Nathaniel probably wasn’t used to sounding so unsure. “Are the people after you also weres? Because if they are, don’t you think it would be useful to—” He paused. “—know more about yourself?”

“Trust me, there’s no advantage with them.” Tim shrugged uncomfortably. “They’re like you. What weres should be.”

“Just because you’re small…,” Nathaniel started with more force than Tim would have expected, and Tim shrugged again and put his hands, well, his almost-paws, on the door to face the outside world.

“Admit it, you were shocked when you met me.” How Tim wished it were otherwise. Nathaniel was silent too long for him to try to deny it, not that he did.

“You have no idea.” He spoke easily, like there was a joke Tim didn’t understand, unless the joke was Tim.

Tim bit down on his lip until it would have bled if his fangs had been out, and then he changed the subject. “What is that living, earthy smell?”

Nathaniel took a deep breath. “Moss.” He grunted. “Tim….”

“What kind of trees are those?” Tim was not being subtle about avoiding this conversation. “They don’t seem like the other ones.”

Nathaniel was probably glaring at the back of Tim’s head. “Silver fir.”

“I bet you know everything.” Tim sighed. “Of course you do, because you are perfect.”

“Tim, if I told you that I like you the way you are, aside from your tendency to call me an asshole for no reason, what would you say?” Nathaniel was definitely glaring at the back of Tim’s head; he had to be. Tim sighed again.

“I’d call you a liar who was being nice to me.” Tim mused for a moment. “And an asshole.” He leaned over to stick his face out of the window and into the wind and barely heard Nathaniel’s surprised snort. He hoped it was a laugh. “I don’t mean anything by it, exactly,” Tim apologized haltingly a second later, while keeping his face turned away. “Outside of customers, I don’t really talk to people.”

When Nathaniel didn’t respond, Tim ducked inside and shook his head. “Sorry, if that’s not apologizing too much.” Listening to himself made him cringe. “Real prize here. Constantly apologizing or creating reasons to apologize. And now I can’t shut up. Ha. You’d think I was nervous or something, which okay, yes, I am, because this is weird, but don’t worry, I’ll be gone soon.” He looked over at Nathaniel, who was driving steadily toward his house without showing any signs of being as tired as he probably was. “You must be the most patient, understanding were I’ve ever met, when you aren’t being a total freak.”