The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) (20 page)

Harry lifted her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his, his gaze intent. “Then we need to investigate, okay?”

Mara clenched her eyes shut, hoping her utter humiliation would go away if she just willed it gone. When she popped them open, Harry was still gazing at her. No such luck. “Okay. But please let me talk to her first? Astrid’s an odd bird, and I know that. I’ve always known that, but I don’t want her to feel cornered if she had nothing to do with this. She’s already low in the self-esteem department. She thinks no one likes her no matter how openly we say we do. It could really hurt her if she’s not responsible.”

Harry gave her chin a gentle squeeze. “Deal.”

“All right, ladies and gentleman,” Wanda interrupted with a warm smile. “It’s late, and I have children to get up with in the morning. So I’ll say goodnight, but we’ll see you on Friday night for sledding. Oh, and the kids miss you, Harry. They said so just tonight after snack and bath time. I’m really enjoying them. Thank you for sharing them with me,” she said with a warm smile.

Harry’s expression went humble. “Good to know. Thank you, Wanda, for watching out for them. You, too, Arch. I don’t know what I would’ve done without all of you.”

You just don’t want to be one of us.
Ugh. Why did that trouble her so?

Wanda and Arch signed off with the promise they’d give the children Harry’s love.

Nina dropped off the stool, holding out her hand to Carl. “You two keep the screeching during the sexy times down, would ya? Carl’s fucking freaked out with all the stimuli. All that ‘do that to me one more time’ shit’s bound to rile him.” She cackled at her joke, taking Carl off to the lone guest room.

Mara’s face went red, her cheeks burning, but Harry scooped her up from behind, nuzzling her neck. “Don’t listen to the cranky vampire. ‘Do that to me one more time’ is perfectly acceptable bedroom talk. Succinct, yet super seductive and sexy. And a song, I think, right?”

Mara stifled a giggle, allowing Harry to lead her into the bedroom.

Tomorrow she’d talk to Astrid. Tonight she’d try to forget that Harry didn’t want to be a part of the pack, and that it bugged the hell out of her.

Tonight was for living in the moment.

The moment with Harry in it.

* * *

“
M
ARA!”
Astrid flagged her down in the hallway as she approached the lab. Mara fought a visible cringe. She’d spent all morning trying to find the words to cobble together in order to avoid coming off confrontational, but still get some answers from Astrid.

She sucked at confrontation. Hard. The last thing she wanted to do was accuse Astrid of something so horrible without sound reasons behind it.

Sucking in a breath, she plastered a smile on her face and waved as Astrid approached.

Astrid was all smiles today. If she was upset that she’d missed their usual morning coffee break together, she didn’t show it. “Hey! Missed you at morning break.”

Mara fought a look of confusion. What? No interrogation. No wisecracks about her and Harry in the janitor’s closet? Who was this cheerful, friendly soul? “Sorry about that. I’ve been so backed up in the lab, I totally lost track of time.”
Liar!

Astrid smiled again, brilliant and wide. Two times in as many seconds? “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something. Got a sec?”

And here it came. Mara braced herself for Astrid’s anger. “You bet. Bathroom?”

Astrid led the way, her white Crocs following a precise pattern on the floor, her soft counting just above a whisper. She propped the door open and smiled again, letting Mara enter first.

Mara leaned against the ceramic row of sinks, forcing herself to look Astrid in the eye. “What’s up?”

Her return gaze was contrite. “Look, I know I behaved badly about Harry and you. I kinda took all the fun out of your announcement, didn’t I? I suck, and I feel like shit about it. I know I’m insecure and moody and difficult, but I acted like a total jerk. There’s no excuse for it. I can only say I’m sorry.”

Mara frowned, readjusting her position against the sink. She opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut while Astrid waited for her response. Yesterday Astrid had behaved like they were in grammar school, but today she was an adult? Maybe she’d just had a bad day? But Astrid always had bad days. More often than not.

Mara’s voice was tentative when she finally replied. “So you’re okay with it?” She couldn’t believe she was asking her friend if she was okay with her dating Harry. Like Astrid was her mother and she needed permission. But here she was, not rocking the friendship boat.

Astrid gave her a sheepish look from behind the glasses she wore for no other reason than to hide her eyes from the world. “It’s not for me to decide, Mara. And of course I’m okay,” she said with warm conviction, reaching out to squeeze Mara’s arm. “I think it’s great that your dreams suddenly came true. I guess I was just caught off guard by it. I felt like we spent so much time talking about it that when it happened, and when you didn’t tell me, I was really hurt. It was like planning a wedding with your friend and then not being invited, ya know? You know how lame I can be about stuff like that. I’m stupid insecure. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. So I was a bitch because of it.”

This was more like the Astrid she’d learned to appreciate early on in their friendship before they’d teamed up with Leah and Ying. Mara let out a breath. “I’m so relieved. I worried about it all night. I didn’t call or text because I didn’t want to push you.” Mostly true. She had worried Astrid would hack off her limbs and use them to make a Mara marionette. Relief flooded her from head to toe, almost making her shaky.

Astrid waved a dismissive hand and smiled. “I’m really happy and excited for you. All the time invested finally paid off. So, if you don’t mind me asking, when did this happen? How did I miss it? Was I being selfish again?”

Now the lying began—again. She turned to wash her hands in the sink, letting the disinfectant soap pile into her hand until it looked like soft-serve ice cream. “Just two days ago. Harry asked me out, actually kind of suddenly. I never picked up the vibe from him. Well, you know that because we talked about it so much. So I was surprised, but I said yes, of course, and we just sort of clicked. It’s nothing official yet. But we figured it would be stupid to try and hide it.”

Astrid nodded her consent, a smile still fastened to her face. “Definitely not easy with the kind of gossip that goes on here. How are you going to handle that, by the way? The human and werewolf thing? I mean, the humans won’t think anything of it, but the werewolves will be curious. I know the rule no longer applies to us dating humans, but you know, the old order still exists in some narrow minds. Everyone knows you’re my friend, so I want to give the kind of answers you’re comfortable with. Just say the word.”

Mara paused for a moment, trying to pick up any sign Astrid was just giving good face, but there was nothing. Not a hint of dissent. She turned to face her to find Astrid smiling. “For now, we’re just trying to see what happens. Day by day thing. So maybe just say we’re taking it slow and that’s all you know?”

“You got it. And I’m still sorry I kind of ruined the intro bit.”

Mara gave her a sudden, grateful hug, partially out of relief that she was pretty sure Astrid wasn’t the one who was snatching people out of their lives, and partially because when she tried, she was a really good friend. “It’s all good. Forget it and come have lunch with Harry and me today, okay?”

Astrid smiled again, holding the door of the bathroom open for Mara. “You bet. Save me a seat.”

On another sigh, Mara waved to her and skipped off to her beloved lab, happy in the knowledge she had Astrid’s support of her new relationship with her pretend boyfriend.

She ran right into Leah on her way back down the hall. “Hey? You okay?” her friend asked.

Mara forced herself to look her directly in the eye. “Yeah. I’m good. Why do you ask?”

Leah rolled her eyes, brushing her sandy hair away from her face. “I just saw you leave the bathroom with Astrid. Is she giving you shit about you and Harry? Because I know what she’s like, and she’ll suck the life out of all the fun. Just like she does with everything else that even remotely smells like happiness.”

Mara squeezed her arm. “Actually, this might surprise you, but she apologized for being so awful to Harry yesterday. Said she was happy for us, and that she was just upset because I didn’t tell her about us first.”

Leah made a face. “She’s a nut, Mara. You be careful around her. Who says she should have been the first to know anyway? Is she like your mother now? That’s why we stopped indulging you at lunch when you talked about Harry—because Astrid always acted like it was just a secret between you two instead of all of us. She got mad at Ying once because she mentioned something you’d said about Harry, and Astrid didn’t know about it. It made Ying and me uncomfortable. It’s like she wants to wear your skin or something.”

Mara made a face, taken aback by this new information. “Grim.”

Leah snorted. “No kidding. But anyway, as long as you’re okay—just know we’re happy for you. He’s hot. So, so hot. I’d be jealous if not for the fact that you’ve been crushing on him forever.”

Yeah. Forever. And now here she was. At the end of forever. Instead of divulging that, she smiled at Leah, grateful for her support. “Thanks, Leah. Thank Ying, too.”

Leah squeezed her arm. “Will do. Gotta run—see you tomorrow. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do with your hot new boyfriend, huh?” She chuckled as she turned to leave.

If only he was really her hot boyfriend.

A big hell yeah for all things fake.

* * *

H
ARRY
fought to concentrate, loosening his tie and ruffling invoices needing approval on his desk. He was still working at blocking out the overwhelming buzz of voices in the office, but it was distracting and took all of his effort to focus on the task.

Add in the effort to work the numbers swimming before his eyes and his mind’s eye straying to Mara, naked and supple on top of him, and he was losing the fight.

His eyes fell on the oval-shaped, silver-framed picture of Fletcher and Mimi with his sister—smiling, laughing, happy, making his heart feel like a heavy weight in his chest. For all the hardships they’d endured as they attempted to bond, he loved them, wanted to understand how he could help them heal.

Hearing Wanda say they missed him reminded him he needed to get things in order—for them. If he did nothing right from this point on, he’d do right by them if it was the last thing he did. He was sick with worry about their safety and determined to do whatever he had to in order to keep them safe.

But how, when the unknown entity was still at large, and worse, it was unknown? They had next to nothing. The person responsible for kidnapping the kids and Carl was a woman with “swingy” hair like Mara. According to Mara’s texts, it wasn’t Astrid. There was nothing swingy about Astrid anyway. She was just gloomy.

So who? Why?

He’d been chewing on potential suspects all day long. If it wasn’t Astrid, who’d become the likely suspect due to her Mara fixation, then who’d go to such lengths to make their displeasure about he and Mara known in this format?

He gripped the pen he used to sign invoices. Couple that with trying to find a way to get his old life back, with absolutely no luck, and he was doomed to never concentrate again.

In order to get things right, he needed to find a way to reverse this. No one thought it was possible, but then, who thought it was possible for Mara to make baby juice?

Anything was possible as far as he was concerned, now that he’d seen what he’d seen. Demons and vampires and werewolves were just the tip of the iceberg, baby.

“Yeah, no shit, man! She’s a hot piece of ass. Can’t believe Emmerson was the one who nailed her.”

Harry’s head shot up, his fingers gripping the pen he held. His eyes searched the small cluster of desks in front of him, mostly empty due to an afternoon break, and zeroed in on Lloyd Beecham and Gary Lingfeld.

In short, of the two, Lloyd was the asshole. He used women like he used his overbearing cologne: liberally and without any sort of discrimination. They were nothing more than a depository for his limp dick to find solace.

Both were werewolves, a trait he still couldn’t believe he was capable of assessing.

And if he didn’t like the smug asshole before, he sure as hell didn’t like him with Mara’s name on his lips. Yet he stayed seated in his chair, forcing himself to focus on numbers and block out the voices.

“She’s got an ass I’d tap so fast, it’d beg for mercy,” Lloyd bragged, his snicker rubbing Harry’s nerves raw.

Harry’s pen snapped in two, bits of the fallout flying across his desk. He fought a snarl, gripping the edges of his desk. He cracked his neck, considering a good hard workout tonight after work. Just to relieve the unbearable tension in his muscles.

For a moment, Lloyd and Gary’s voices became muffled. But then, they drifted back to his highly attuned ears, crisp and sharp.

One more word . . .

“You’d better shut the hell up, Lloyd. If boss man heard you talkin’ about his sister like that, he’d eat your sorry ass for breakfast,” Gary warned, his chair squeaking as he began to roll back to his desk.

Harry’s eyes narrowed in the direction of Lloyd’s smug face, his throat squashing a low grumble.

Lloyd guffawed at the idea Keegan would kill him. “Please. Keegan Flaherty’s all talk. He should be grateful I’d pork her. Even though I don’t get it, nobody else seems to want to. Why else was she single for so long?”

Motherfucker.

And that was it. It was the last semi-functioning, almost rational thought he had. Before he’d even realized he was doing it, he’d done it. And he didn’t just do it a little, he went all the way. Best news? He didn’t stumble once on his way to kill Lloyd.

Lloyd was up against a wall with Harry’s fingers digging into the flesh of his throat until it compressed and turned red beneath his grip. Desks had been scaled; papers, calculators, files, assorted lunches, and Gary were all knocked over like bowling pins in the process, but he hadn’t fumbled once.