A Werewolf's Valentine: BBW Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance (10 page)

As she helped hang silver, white, and red balloons from the light fixtures, she saw Nate working miracles with bits of plywood and different lengths of two-by-fours.

The time raced by. They finished in time for a delivery of sandwiches by Deedee, from Ralph’s, after which she, her mom, and Nate headed back.

The entire family gathered around to see Rolf decked out in his only pair of good slacks and a dress shirt, with a corsage that McKenzi’s mom had picked up. McKenzi’s dad drove off with the nervous boy to pick up his date, after which West, McKenzi, and Nate climbed into the VW to head for Bud’s.

As McKenzi settled into her seat near the stage, she watched West get set up with the borrowed guitar, Uncle Lee now firmly established as his backup banjo. Uncle Lee had learned several of West’s songs, shifting his sound from experimental jamming into real duet. From snatches of conversation she overheard, it sounded like he was writing them out in musical form for West.

And the evening started out great, especially when the other jammers showed up and joined in. Some of the audience sang along with the easy chorus on the trucker song, and the wolf and the moon one. Everything was going great, until eleven o’clock—when the high school dance was to end, but Doris, McKenzi’s mom, had offered to be pick-up chauffeur so that Uncle Lee could play banjo.

Suddenly West faltered in a song, frowned, and though he went on to finish the verse, the tension pouring off him ignited worry in McKenzi. She glimpsed Nate, sitting on the other side of the stage, looking back and forth in a shifty way.

“I’m going to take a water break,” West said to Tori and Mr. Lopez, but surreptitiously beckoned to Uncle Lee, whose face blanched as he followed West toward Bud’s storage room. McKenzi rose and went after them. She shut the door behind her.

Uncle Lee was looking at his phone.

West said, “Something’s wrong with Rolf. I can feel it.”

And Uncle Lee said in a high, panicky voice, “He tried to text me—but it cuts off. I think he pressed send before he could finish, something about Jeff. Oh, God. And Doris has the van—”

“I’ll drive,” McKenzi said.

“Where’s Nate?” West asked.

They all looked around—but Nate had vanished.

Uncle Lee kept his phone gripped in his hands as McKenzi drove as fast as she dared through the rain straight to the high school. The parking lot was full of parents arriving and picking up oblivious kids. Nobody seemed to be concerned, and McKenzi began to hope that whatever was wrong had been resolved, except for the grim set to West’s jaw, and the way he moved through the crowd, his leather coat flaring. A lot of people got out of his way, some staring as Uncle Lee and McKenzi followed in his wake.

“There’s LaShawna, his date,” McKenzi exclaimed.

A pretty dark-skinned girl with beaded braids, dressed in a white lace gown, stood with her arms crossed, her mother nearby. Her scowl changed to a worried frown when she saw Uncle Lee. “There you are! Rolf went off to the restroom a million hours ago. My cousin Noah said that he thinks he went off with that ass-wipe Jeff. I don’t know what’s going on, but they haven’t come back.”

“Do you know where they went?” West asked.

She shook her head. When her mother touched her on the shoulder, LaShawna said, “Mom will take me home, Mr. Enkel. I made her wait until I saw you. But tell Rolf to text me, okay, please?”

“I will,” Uncle Lee said in a tight, sick voice.

“Let’s go to the restroom and start from there,” West suggested.

Uncle Lee said, “If I have to, I will shift and find a trail from there.”

But when they got outside, to their complete surprise, they found a one-eyed coyote dancing around. He pointed his muzzle in one direction, then danced back, ears flat, tail low. He’d been to the high school earlier, so he’d know right where to find it, McKenzi realized. And it looked like he’d already found the scent trail.

“Lead on, Nate,” West said.

McKenzi bent into the cold wind, hating the splats of rain chilling her head and neck, but there was no way she was not going with them. In silence they followed the coyote slantways across the campus, the buildings she’d lived with for four years a decade ago looking half-familiar, half-strange when lit by floodlights.

Very soon they reached the football field beyond the gym, which was totally dark. Their footsteps sloshed across the soggy field. McKenzi held tightly to West’s hand. She suspected that he and Uncle Lee would have preferred to shift, but they didn’t because she was with them. No one spoke as they reached the fence on the other side, and the open gate.

Beyond lay open field. Nate zipped through the gate, leading them into the field and down a hill, where branches slapped at McKenzi’s face, and her feet dumped into disgusting, muddy potholes. But all she could think of was poor Rolf out there—who knew why. It couldn’t be for any good reason.

Then the sound of voices registered through the soft hiss of the light rain. The coyote shot ahead, running mostly on three legs before he vanished in the gloom, barely lit from the distant school on the top of the hill to the west.

“Go on, get him! Get him!” shrilled teen voice.

And a man’s voice over them all, “Come on, son, show that little wolf turd who’s alpha around here.”

A half second later, a smallish boar let out a piercing yelp as the coyote attacked him. Then a leather jacket landed in McKenzi’s arms, followed by West’s top and jeans, and a moment later, a huge wolf, glowing pale in the weak light, howled, freezing everyone into a tableau of shock.

As West’s wolf paced toward the small boar, a rustle of clothing and some muffled cursing presaged a huge boar shape grunting angrily. McKenzi stepped to the side, with the light behind her, and made out the scene: a bunch of teens circled around the wall of a dilapidated shed, against which a cub shivered, menaced by the young boar now fighting with the coyote.

The big boar charged, and West’s wolf leaped to the attack. A tangle of pelts and animal legs, fierce growls and mud flew. Then suddenly the big boar was down, the wolf’s jaws at its neck. The blur of a shift, and the boar became a huge, bulky man: Tom Olsen.

The wolf also shifted, and West stood up, half a head shorter and a lot lighter.

“Get ‘em, boys,” Tom ordered as he sprang up and advanced menacingly on West.

The teens moved forward, arms swinging in wild, untrained punches. West moved among them in a few smooth steps and sent them all flying into the mud, howling various versions of “Ow!” “Hey!”

Then he turned back to Tom Olsen. If the bigger man had thought that shifting back to human would give him an advantage, three moves later he lay stretched full length in the mud, buck naked, as an equally-naked West held him down one-handed by the throat, a knee squarely on his chest. Olsen senior’s hands clawed ineffectually at West’s wrist, but nothing was dislodging that steely grip.

The small boar retreated from the coyote and shifted to a teenage boy, who scrambled backward, clutching an elbow and yelling in pain and outrage. A moment later another blurred shift resolved into Rolf, who launched himself at his dad, clinging and shivering.

“It was just a little horseplay—” Tom Olsen began.

West’s low, growly voice cut through. “What,” he said, “have you just learned?”

Tom made a sudden move, trying to throw West, but West held him flat in the mud. His voice became distinct, soft with threat. “What have you just learned?”

As the teenage gang slowly got to their feet, keeping a wary distance behind Jeff Olsen, Tom Olsen said, “Fuck you, tough guy. What do you want me to say, you’re stronger?”

“No. That doesn’t mean squat,” West said. “Then you didn’t learn anything. Rolf? Can you help this man out here, tell him what matters?”

Everybody was silent, except for the hissing rain.

Rolf’s quavering voice gained strength as he said, “My pack. I have a pack. They came for me.”

“I’ve got
my
pack,” Jeff began belligerently. “Right here.”

“No you don’t,” West said. “A pack backs each other up. A pack is loyal, not afraid. There’s a difference. A pack keeps each other safe from harm. It doesn’t threaten everyone else with harm. A gan
g
is bound together by fear, its only goal anger and destruction. What you’ve got here is just a gang.”

“Like father, like son,” Uncle Lee said, his voice thick with loathing. “A two-bit punk raising another bullying two-bit punk. Sometimes I wonder what Sam, over there in Iraq, facing real enemies, would think of the bullshit he left behind.”

“Fuck you, Lee Enkel. Let me up, asshole,” Tom Olsen said, but everyone could hear the plea under the bluster, McKenzi thought.

She saw the truth of it in the way the teens behind shifted uneasily, then West lifted his hand, rose, and stepped back. In silence those who had clothes there pulled on their wet things. Rolf just stood there next to his dad. The Olsens and their gang had obviously forced him to shift somewhere else.

So West put his leather coat around Rolf, and together the five of them started back, the others staying behind, low voices punctuated by a lot of cussing. McKenzi guessed that Tom Olsen was doing his best to reestablish his authority.
Good luck with that,
she thought.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Rolf began crying in a choked voice, but he got hold of himself again by the time they reached the football field. He headed toward one of the goal posts, where he picked up his muddy clothes. “They made me shift,” he said. “Said, you think you’re so badass, wolf, and let’s see how good you run. And shit like that. Jeff was supposed to hunt me down. Beat me up, or . . . I don’t know.” Another sob. He wiped his nose on his ruined shirt.

“How’d they get you out there?”

“I guess they were watching me. Waited until I had to go to the can. Then suddenly there they were. They wouldn’t let me go back to the dance.”

“I’ll be talking to the principal tomorrow,” Uncle Lee said.

“Dad, you can’t. It’ll just make things bad for me at school,” Rolf said. “West! Tell him he can’t!”

“Rolf, that’s for you and your dad to work out. What I want you to know is that Nate and I both felt you in danger through the pack sense. You don’t have to be afraid. You’ve got backup, so maybe you could consider letting the authorities show Jeff that there are consequences to his actions.”

The coyote pacing them uttered a small yip.

Uncle Lee said, “Rolf, you said it yourself. Your pack is behind you. What I want you to consider is what a responsibility that is, son.”

Rolf was silent as they crossed the school to the parking lot, which was mostly empty. Rolf looked around anxiously.

McKenzi said, “LaShawna’s mom took her home. She said to tell you to text her.”

“They stomped on my phone when I tried to text you, dad,” Rolf muttered as he slid the leather coat off. He handed it to West, and struggled into his pants.

Uncle Lee sighed, and nobody spoke as they climbed into the car. Nate took off running. McKenzi figured that he would beat them home, as the roads were slippery and full of water. Sure enough, when they reached home, Nate was waiting on the porch, still in coyote form.

McKenzi parked and everyone got out, but Rolf stopped after three steps. He turned to face them. “West. Nate, you, too. Thanks. I’m sorry about all that.”

“We can talk it all through later. Get some rest,” West suggested.

“Come on, son,” Uncle Lee said, and to the others. “Thanks.”

Nate turned his head from one to the other. “Good job, Nate,” West said.

The coyote yipped again, then took off downhill toward Main Street, probably to get his clothes, McKenzi thought.

West’s cold hand gripped hers as they retreated to the cottage. He walked with his head bent, his expression thoughtful.

West is so badass,
McKenzi thought.
And he doesn’t even know it.

No, that wasn’t it. Being badass wasn’t important to him. And in his head, he was still the orphan wolf on a long, lonely quest.

They walked through the door, neither speaking until they got cleaned up, and climbed into bed. Then she said, “You’ve been really quiet.”

His arm slid around her. “I was thinking. All my life I’ve been looking for my pack. But ever since I heard your voice and those thousand reasons why Valentine’s Day sucks, that search became less important. I kept wondering why everything seemed so off-balance, and meanwhile here you were, so wonderful, and then Rolf happened, and then Nate came back, and he’s trying so hard to make a home, and then Lee did what he did . . . and now I’m sure of it. We really are a pack. It might not be a pack as others define it, but it’s a pack just the same. I have found my pack. I just didn’t know it for certain until tonight.”

He turned his head and gazed searchingly into her eyes. “I found my pack, and I found my mate.”

Mate.

Inside McKenzi, her cat began to purr. She gazed back at him.

“Mates.” She tested the word. Like the toxic pink apron, it had sneakily taken on a completely different meaning. “Wow. Here I’ve been trying to define what you are to me—what we are to each other—and the right word was there all along. But I couldn’t see it. I thought I knew what mates were, and they weren’t for me. But I love you, and I want you, and nothing makes me happier than seeing you here every day, and thinking about you being here tomorrow—next week—next year. The rest of my life. Does that make
any
sense?”