A Werewolf's Valentine: BBW Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance (7 page)

“It might have, but someone gave it to me after I filled in for a band member who took off, one autumn when I found myself in Kodak, Tennessee. There was this bluegrass festival.” He took her hands. “I can’t read music, but they had me come in to jam with their fiddler. He was an old timer whose music came to him pretty much the same way mine does. I appreciate all this, but you didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to,” she said, thinking,
I’d do anything for another of those smiles
.

And inside, her cat gave a small but definite, purr.

She served up a plate of scones, set out some of her mom’s good honey from her beekeeper cousin, and while he devoured those, whipped up some eggs and bacon. While she did these things that she never did for her . . . pick-ups . . . dates . . . she balked at both those words, as he was more than a pick-up, but they hadn’t really dated. Lover?

Don’t jinx this by putting a label on it
, she told herself, and set plates before them both.

They talked about food as they ate breakfast, and music, and their favorite seasons. All easy stuff.

She whipped up a second batch of scones while West took a shower. The clothes had finished, and he was drying off when the door banged open, and Rolf appeared.

McKenzi paused in the middle of dishing out hot scones, and sighed. “Rolf, I’m glad to see you, but could you not bang the door?”

“It bangs itself,” he said with an impatient shrug at this triviality. “Aunt Doris says, can you come over?” Rolf turned from her to West.

He turned from Rolf to McKenzi, then back again. “Sure. Let me finish my breakfast first, okay?”

Rolf brightened with the sort of smile McKenzi hadn’t seen since he was a kid of ten, and only rarely then.

He let the door bang—again—as he ran off. McKenzi turned to West, remembering that he had never actually answered her sideways-question about dealing with her family. “Are you okay with this?”

He paused in buttering a scone and set his knife and fork down carefully, as if placement of them was a matter of national security, then met her gaze, his own questioning. “If you are,” he said.

That surprised her. But then everything in the past couple of days had been a surprise. “I’m good,” she said, reaching inside herself and finding that that was the truth. “And hey, if they get to be too much, we can always come back here and lock the door.”

His lips curved, and he said in that low, rough, panty-melting voice, “I was kinda hoping we could do that anyway.”

Heat flashed right through her. Wow. But now was not the time. She took a deep breath to banish it. “Okay. While you eat those scones, I’ll give you a rundown on who’s who. Starting with Grandma Enkel, who escaped from East Germany with Great-Aunt Gretel back in the bad old Iron Curtain days, leaving behind my great-uncle, who was a bat. They shifted to cat form, and walked over the border during a blizzard . . .”

She was glad she’d taken the time to introduce them when they walked up to the ranch house just before noon, and found them all sitting in a row on the couch, like a panel of Olympic judges. But the second West walked in the door, McKenzi was relieved to see them all smile. Even Uncle Lee, though it was a typically sad, bloodhound sort of smile.

McKenzi saw her family giving each other glances, and could feel their invisible cat tails twitching at the ends, the fur ridging over their backs. Not that they were mad—far from it—but she could see at a glance that she wasn’t the only one feeling like she’d just set her paws into newly sprayed water.

“Okay,” she said. “This is West, who travels around as a musician. He’s also a wolf shifter, and he understands about keeping the town’s secret. So we can skip the third degree, right?”

Her mom said, “We just wanted to know where he’s from?”

McKenzi felt the unasked question hovering in the air: and where he’s going?

Before anyone could say anything awkward, she blurted, “He writes songs about his travel. West, maybe you’d like to sing one?”

Rolf turned toward Uncle Lee. “Dad, you should play, too.”

“We now have two instruments. I brought a guitar,” McKenzi said.

West’s expression didn’t change much—McKenzi had learned by now that he was habitually too wary for that—but the tension went out of him as he smiled at Uncle Lee. “I’d be happy to jam with you.”

Uncle Lee’s expression was closer to a real smile than McKenzi had seen for a long time. By the time McKenzi had fetched the banjo and guitar and the two guys had gotten them tuned again, the sky was clouding up for another band of rain. Her mom set a fire going in the fireplace, and from the smell, Grandma set about making her famous Apfelstrudel as West and Uncle Lee made the transition from the twang-twang of testing single strings to strumming chords.

Uncle Lee said, “You know any Jimmy Rodgers, or Bill Monroe?”

West said, “I like to jam—I’m pretty good at that—but songs, I don’t know anyone’s but my own.”

Uncle Lee said, “You sing what you want. I’ll just feel my way. It’s been a while.”

West dipped his chin in a nod, and began to play, and then to sing.

Uncle Lee listened at first, then began tentatively, then with more assurance, playing a counterpoint to West’s melodies.

McKenzi watched her mother, grandmother, and great-aunt all get caught by the smoke and whisky of his voice as West sang about the road, then segued into ballads that told stories about various people he’d met on the road. First was one about an old woman and the Dust Bowl that made grandma stop making pastry and sit down to listen. That was followed by a funny one about an ornery old geezer somewhere in the Appalachians who everybody kept trying to make wear shoes, but he wouldn’t, then finally he turned into a crow and flew away.

West sang a sad song about the cages of city life, then one about the open road. The next was about desert wanderers, followed by one about the lights of Los Angeles. And then, to McKenzi’s total surprise, he began strumming the intro to a familiar melody, and he sang “Las Positas Motel,” which had been all over the radio the previous summer.

It was word for word the same song, only sung in his low, rough voice instead of Anessa Noel’s famous soprano, backed by a rock band—until the very last verse, which was new. The minor key ballad was about a woman who searched for love, but every lover turned out to want something other than love, and it had been a huge hit. That last verse changed the entire song, turning the meaning inside out: the love those unsuccessful lovers offered was never enough.

West finished, and strummed as if nothing had happened, apparently unaware of the stares his way. Even McKenzi’s mom and dad had heard the song wafting through the air through the cottage windows as Kesley was painting.

Rolf burst out, “I thought you didn’t sing other people’s stuff.”

“I don’t,” West said, glancing his way in question.

“But ‘Las Positas Motel’ is on Anessa Noel’s album.”

West looked surprised, then lifted a shoulder. “I gave her that song. It was a parting gift. Beautiful voice, but she didn’t have any of her own music in her.” His voice was mild.

“Her CD doesn’t have that last verse,” McKenzi said.

“No?” He flashed a smile at her. “Not surprised.” But he didn’t say anything more, just launched into another song, this one about a truck driver driving up and down the Colorado River.

A couple more and Grandma said, “Lunch is ready. West, would you like to eat with us?”

He thanked her, set aside the guitar, and slid into Kesley’s place at the table. McKenzi was amazed to see him there, a wolf among cats. And yet he wasn’t the only canine. And he fit in so easily.

The conversation stayed general, and the food, as always, was great. McKenzi divided her attention between West, watching for clues that he was uncomfortable or wary, and Rolf, whose typical fourteen-year-old total lack of subtlety made it really clear that he had something on his mind, and he was only waiting to get his relatives safely shuffled out of the way before he would spill it.

When lunch was over, sure enough, he followed McKenzi and West back to the cottage. As soon as they reached it, he got it out in a rush. “West, I practiced those basic stances. Will you teach me some stuff? About fighting? Before the Valentine’s Dance?”

“I can teach you a little about self-defense,” West said. “But you can’t learn much more in two days than maybe getting someone off-balance enough so you can run. If you want to get a fight going, that isn’t going to help you.”

Rolf flushed. “I don’t
want
a fight. But Jeff Olsen always does. I know he’s mad that LaShawna asked me to the dance, after she turned him down.”

West looked outside, then at Rolf, and said, “Is this dance that important? Can’t you skip it and go with your girl to a movie?”

“
Everybody
will be at the Valentine’s Day dance,” Rolf said. “A girl asked
me!
And if I wimp out, Jeff will think I was too wimpy to show up, and LaShawna said she has a new dress . . .”

“Got it,” West said. “It’s important.”

For all the wrong reasons,
McKenzi thought. But at fourteen, what were the right reasons?

West said, “Self-defense it is. We can get a start on that when McKenzi has to go to work, okay?”

“Thanks!” Rolf took off, as usual banging the door behind him.

West said to McKenzi, “I wasn’t sure what to say there.”

McKenzi said, “I was all ready to add that to the Valentine’s Day hate list, but it would be true for any dance. And it’s not all about impressing a girl. Yeah, he’s been getting into trouble, but mostly with his temper, and he did get into a shoving fight with a friend. But this Olsen kid is different. His dad used to hassle Uncle Lee back in their high school days, I know that much. And from everything Rolf has said, his kid sounds like a dedicated bully.”

“That kind is usually motivated by anger,” West said. “And under that, as often as not, pain. If they aren’t mean by nature.”

“I don’t know what the Olsens’ issues are. But I’d like to thank you in my own way. And as for work, I’ve got four hours, thirty minutes, and . . . twenty seconds?”

His eyes widened, and glowed.

The space around them seemed to shrink to its own world—no, it
expanded
all the way to the edge of the universe, all heat and light, thrumming to the syncopated beat of their hearts. She spread her fingers, wanting to touch all of him as her questions vanished like smoke. He was life, and all life was him—

She arched as his hands cupped and kneaded her breasts, then stroked down over the softness of her belly to her hips. She’d always been content in her body—any guy who didn’t like her size was an instant turnoff—but with West she felt
beautiful,
every contour radiant from the tender savoring of his touch.

His hot breath scorched her lips before they came together in a shaking, devouring kiss, annihilating space and time. No boundary existed between them; every communication, every negotiation, carried out in the dance of press, release, demand, surrender: tongues and fingers, lips and teeth, his two-day stubble and her long hair, each sparked sensations that added to the conflagration burning in her core higher, and yet impossibly higher, as she whimpered with want, far beyond mere words.

That was when he slid his fingers up between her legs, pausing to caress, ever so slowly, the tender skin inside her thighs. When he finally cupped her hot, throbbing sex, her core had become the pulse point of the entire world.

As she opened to him, his thumb found her clit. Again he sent her shooting skyward into blinding ecstasy. He took her from behind, and then she rode him, and finally they finished in the shower, and stumbled to the bed, boneless with contentment.

When it was time to dress for work, she picked up the apron, now fresh from the dryer. When she looked at it, she no longer saw Pepto-Bismol pink hearts and ruffles. She saw his heated gray gaze, felt the tender command of his hands, remembered her delicious surrender.

And he’d be there when she came home.

She left with a smile.

Eight

West

He watched McKenzi go out to her car, enjoying the prowling cat swing of her delightfully curvy hips, and the little prancy lilt in her walk, emphasized by the contrasting parabola of her glossy hair swishing against her shoulder blades. She was so very . . . cat.

He had never been captivated by a cat—but this one filled his entire world.

When her car vanished down the lane toward the center of town, he retreated back inside. Rolf would show up any minute, but right now all he could think about was McKenzi. His wolf stirred in him, contentment harmonizing with West’s own sense of completion and contentment.

It wasn’t just the afternoon of fantastic sex, though he deeply appreciated the fact that he’d had more sex in the last couple of days than in the last few months. It was the intensity of it, the
her
of it. In the past he’d appreciated a blow job, especially one as lavish and enthusiastic as McKenzi made it—he’d been content to blow and go, as one of his old road friends had said. With McKenzi he couldn’t let it end there. Oral sex was foreplay to the main event. He had to be in her, next to her, touching everywhere they could—sex with McKenzi wasn’t about getting off, it was about letting go, losing the self in the act of becoming one with another.

If she’d been a wolf, he would be testing the concept of mate.

His wolf echoed,
Mate.

How was that possible? He’d always assumed that if it happened at all, it would result from finding his pack at last, and a benign alpha introducing him to a female wolf. As a human, McKenzi was in every way perfect, except that she had that cat-like independence. She didn’t want complications. She’d been straight with him about that. And he’d had a lifetime of feeling the same.

He wasn’t sure what he was feeling now, except that the prospect of saying goodbye to her made him want to howl until the hills shivered with echo.

He turned away, his gaze falling on a shelf fit into the corner next to the TV—DVDs and CDs.

He walked over and flicked on the poor, abused lamp they’d kicked over during their shifter self tussle. He paused to grin at the memory of her laughter, then ran his finger down the CDs. Yes, there was Anessa’s name.

He pulled the CD out, opened it, and checked the liner. He had to laugh. He knew that out of all those songs, maybe two had been written by her, and that was with help. His song, the one she called “Las Positas Motel,” was dedicated to the lone wolf who had walked into her life. And she listed herself as the writer.

Las Positas Motel, wasn’t that the name of the place she’d taken him when they first met at a West Hollywood open mike bar, almost a year ago? He was pretty sure that was the name. Maybe that was where she tried all her prospective lovers before she’d trust them at her mansion in the hills, where he’d spent two of their three days, some in bed, most of it in her personal sound studio. He couldn’t remember the sex—it must have been all right—but nothing to the joyous celebration that was shared passion with McKenzi the cat.

Anessa was ambitious, that much he did remember. She’d told him that up front. He shrugged. Her story was done, as far as he was concerned. The question was, how long would his story with McKenzi last? As he stood there in the middle of her living room, with that mural glowing golden in the lamplight, it occurred to him that he never wanted McKenzi’s story done, that he would never get enough verses to compass all that was McKenzi.

Inside, his wolf let out an internal howl.

A splashing step was all the warning West got, then Rolf banged the door open, bolting in eagerly. West replaced the CD, turned to face the expectant teen. “Help me push the chairs back and carry the table into the kitchen.”

For several hours West put him through some basics. He’d never taught in any formal way. He hadn’t been schooled any formal way, except three periods when he’d stayed in one place long enough to attend classes in aikido (Albequerque) and Shotokan karate (Colorado Springs), and a tough old vet wolf shifter in Chicago during a winter ten years ago had showed him some Krav Maga after he’d helped the guy in a bad situation. So he approached teaching the way he liked to be taught, with demonstration and explanation, then practice scenarios.

Rolf was so eager—too eager. West remembered what he’d been told. He suspected Rolf’s motivation had more to do with Jeff Olsen than learning for the sake of learning.

So he tried again to explain that learning one or two moves wasn’t any guarantee of expertise. “You’ve got to practice until it’s automatic,” he said several times. “If you have to stop and think, it’s probably already too late.”

“I know, I get it,” Rolf said with a typical teen shoulder-jerk of impatience. “Hey, can we go running? My dad said I can’t go out at night alone.”

A run was exactly what West needed. “Sure. But this time, you lead. What’s our first step?”

“Uh,” Rolf looked around wildly. Then he snapped his fingers and said in triumph, “Right. Leave our stuff in a safe place.”

“Safe being the operative word.” West clapped him on the back. “You can always keep your stuff at your house, but it wouldn’t hurt to get in the habit of hiding everything and securing your area of return.”

“Okay.” Rolf straightened, squared his shoulders, and took the lead.

He picked the back porch of the empty cottage. They shucked their clothes, rolled them up, and stashed them. Then they shifted, and ran for the joy of running. The cold that felt so bitter on human skin didn’t bother wolves. Mud was there to splash through on the way to a world filled with interesting scents. At first Rolf did really well, though he often looked back at West to make sure of himself. A yip sent him going again—until he caught the fresh scent of some rats.

He took off like a streak, West pacing him. The rats seemed to be heading for some sort of agricultural establishment. West caught the scents of multiple humans, cows, and chickens, plus fruit crops. From Rolf’s behavior, West established that the boy didn’t recognize these rats—they were not shifters—so he backed off and let Rolf try his first hunt.

With no success.

The rats escaped into a barn, and when Rolf barked and howled, claws scrabbling at a rickety wooden door, lights came on in the house.

A man’s voice shouted warnings, followed by two gunshots into the air.

Rolf took off, West again pacing him—until Rolf stopped, sniffing, panting, whimpering as he looked around. He’d completely confused his own trail, and was lost.

West knocked him over with a paw, and gently tugged at the ruff near his neck to get his attention. Then let him up, and led him back to the trail as another band of rain came sweeping in.

It was nearing midnight when they reached the familiar scents of Upson Downs again, and followed their own trail to the hilltop where Rolf lived. Muddy and wet, they returned to where they’d hidden their clothes. As soon as they were dressed again, Rolf said, “That was
awesome
. Except when I, uh, got lost.”

“We can work on that,” West said—then caught himself.

Don’t make promises you might not be able to keep
. That much was instinct, but with the thought came that hitch at the heart, because for the first time he wasn’t certain about his next move.

“Oh, crap, five texts from Dad—I’m late,” Rolf exclaimed, having pulled his phone from his pocket . “Later!” He sprinted up the hill toward the ranch house.

West walked around the side of the cottage to find the lights on at McKenzi’s. The door opened, and there she was. Happiness ignited in him, heat and light, and he walked into her open arms. She kissed him hard. Exploratory kisses have their own sweet mystery, but this was a kiss that struck all the way to his marrow, a kiss of claiming and knowing, all layers gone up in smoke.

He was instantly ready for more, but to his amazement she put her hands on his shoulders, stepped back, and looked up into his face. “Rain check?”

She turned her head, and he caught the sound of the water shutting off from the bathroom sink. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said in a low voice.

The bathroom door opened, and out stepped a scrawny, nervous looking guy with a fearful, gap-toothed grin, a grubby eyepatch covering one eye. The other looked out anxiously from under gutter-water, greasy brown hair.

“West,” the guy exclaimed. “I found you!”