An American Werewolf in Hoboken (12 page)

JC stayed near, her hand on his hindquarters. “So, with all this talk of him being so big, the animal shelter said he might be part wolf, but I was wondering what your thoughts on that are?”

Dr. Jacobs gave him another chuff under the chin and smiled at JC with one-hundred-watt brilliance. “I hate to speculate, and there’s really no way to tell for sure. I
can
tell you he’s probably a mix of several breeds—maybe even inbred.”

He huffed his vehement disapproval, swishing his hip against JC’s thigh.
My mother would wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you say that.
Inbred. He was no inbred. He was pure to the core.

“Inbred?” she asked, gripping his leash tighter.

Dr. Jacobs dropped a pen back into the pocket of his lab coat. “What I mean by that is, if he came from a puppy mill, they breed them over and over. It’s hard to keep track of who’s been bred with whom, if you understand how puppy mill breeders work.”

He watched JC pale. Both she and her friend Viv, whom he’d rather liked the night he’d met her, were staunchly against puppy mills.

She stroked his head harder. When she spoke, her voice hitched, and his ears picked up on her worry. “Puppy mill dogs often have a lot of problems related to inbreeding. I’ve done a lot of reading on it. Make sure this exam is as thorough as possible, please. I’d die a thousand deaths if he had a health issue related to something so awful as a puppy mill—it’s why I went to the shelter in the first place. I’m wildly in love with him at this point. We’ve bonded. If I lost him, or he…” She shook off whatever horrible act she was clearly thinking.

Yet another case in point for him to keep right on being Fluffy. JC would end up heartbroken if he took off and didn’t come back while he was still in the process of winning her heart as Max. But someone had to go—either him or Fluffy—and soon. Because this was killing him.

The kind, touchy-feely doctor put a hand on JC’s arm to comfort her. “There’s no saying for sure where he came from, Ms. Jensen. Just something you should be aware of. Likely he was a stray, just like you said. Definitely one of the biggest dogs I’ve ever seen, regardless. He rivals an English mastiff or a St. Bernard in size, but he doesn’t look like either. Don’t worry—his breed doesn’t matter at this point. Let’s be sure he’s healthy and then we’ll handle whatever else comes up, okay?”

Max wedged his way between the doctor and JC, swishing his hips back and forth.
No-no touchy-touch, Doc. My woman.

Dr. Jacobs laughed at his attempt to keep them apart. “And clearly, he’s very territorial.”

JC gave his leash a subtle yank—the yank that meant “bad dog, no biscuit,” shooting the doctor an apologetic smile. “He’s like that with men. I’m almost afraid to introduce him to my boyfr— Um, the new man I’m seeing. I’ve kept them apart for two weeks now because Fluffy’s so pushy.”

His ears twitched. She’d almost called Max her boyfriend. His chest puffed outward. He was winning.

Dr. Jacobs leaned an elbow on the examining table, his eyes skimming JC’s breasts encased in a royal blue sweater that hugged her luscious curves before asking, “So you’re seeing someone?”

Yeah, dude. Me. Back the fuck off.

He watched JC’s reaction to the question, focused on her body language, sniffed the air to read the tone in her words.

She smiled at the vet—it was full of warmth. It was just like one of those secret smiles the women of his pack wore when they were falling for a mate. And, he noted, her heartbeat raced. “I am.”

Ahem. My woman, Doctor Dashing. Move along, little doggie.

Dr. Jacobs looked at her for a moment, and then, as though resigned to the idea, nodded his perfect head of hair and said, “Good enough. Let’s weigh him and then we’ll get his shots updated.”

* * *

An hour later and the verdict was in. He had gingivitis and a fat ass.

But his glands were now properly milked, if anyone were to ask.

“I think watching what he eats would be a good thing. He’s not overweight, but I’d definitely say he’s on the husky side and could run toward heavy. He’s a big dog, Ms. Jensen. You’ll have to watch his hips. I’d begin measuring his food carefully.”

No. Say it isn’t so, Doc.
Less of the peanut-butter-berry-baked goodness? How would he live with the disappointment?

“So should I give him a different brand of food? Put him on a diet?” JC asked, concern lacing her tone.

He loved that every decision she made where Fluffy was concerned was made with careful consideration. She’d make an amazing mate.

If he could stop being her dog long enough to tell her as much.

“We have some great choices in the reception area for dogs who have to manage their weight—you can check them out when you schedule his neuter. Now we just need to update him on his shots, and you’ll be all set.”

As he eyed the vet, his testicles shrank, tucking themselves safely into his body to protect them from the scalpel.

Dr. Jacobs held up a long syringe and flicked it with his fingers. “Just hang on to him, would you, please?”

A low growl escaped his throat before he caught it, and on cue, JC made the frowny face of disapproval he’d become accustomed to.

Behave, behave, behave.

If he kept behaving he’d have no nuts, he mused as the sharp sting of the needle penetrated his skin.

Damn that hurt!

He let out a piercing howl—the kind of howl usually reserved for a full-moon run—to alleviate his frustration, and the sudden crash of chairs and yelping from the waiting room filtered to his ears.

Revenge will be mine, sayeth the werewolf.

And then he smiled on the inside.

Chapter Ten

“Mom?”

“Max! Oh, honey, it’s so good to hear your voice! How are you, son?”

Max smiled at the warm relief in her tone. His mother, Faith Adams, the anchor in their lives, never failed to remind him why he loved Cedar Glen and home so much, despite its whacky inhabitants. “I’m good, Mom. How’s everyone?”

“Dying to meet your mate, that’s how. I know you’ve found her, I can feel it.”

He winced. Telling his mother about JC wasn’t going to be easy. Maybe Eva had read her chicken soup wrong?

“Max? What’s the problem?”

“Well, dilemma,” he said, twisting around in his chair to look out the window at JC’s empty parking space. After their trip to the vet, she’d dropped him off and headed to the salon, giving him time to squeeze in a call home and take care of some work things before he had to be back on Fluffy duty.

“You’re sounding my alarm bells, Max.”

Ding-ding-ding.
“Don’t be alarmed, Mom.”

“Wasn’t that what you said when you were at your friend’s bachelor party, and your brother was caught in half-shift by that poor woman in Vegas after he’d had too many shots of tequila?”

Max winced again. Yeah. That’d been bad. Sometimes tequila did that to Derrick. “But I was right. No cause for alarm. She was drunk, too. We took her back to her room, tucked her in and it was fine.” Well, it hadn’t really been
fine
-fine. Not at first.

When she woke up the first time, they were all sitting around staring at her like a bad scene from
The Hangover
, trying to figure out what to do so she wouldn’t be scarred for life if she remembered Derrick and his half-shift trick.

And she had. You could tell just by the look of horror on her face, she remembered. She’d screamed so loud, Max had thought for sure the Wynn was going to send security up to her room.

But she’d passed back out, and they’d called in a friend of a friend who’d whipped up some herbal thing they’d smeared all over her face to make her forget the entire incident.

“Max, explain.”

The warning. That was the warning. “Okay, so here’s the thing. On my life-mate journey, there was a small glitch.”

“Glitch? I don’t understand. You find your life mate, which you’ve done. You court her like all good life mates do, then you bring her home to join the pack and you live happily ever after and I finally get some grand-weres. How glitchy can that be?”

“She thinks I’m her dog.”

“Her dog…”

“I got caught by Animal Control.”
There.

His mother made a wheezing sound, sort of raspy and stuttered before she burst out laughing. There was a muffled sound and a small crash and then someone else was on the line.

“Brother?”

Fuck.
“Derrick?”

He said one word. “Speakerphone.”

Max sighed, running his hand through his hair. “How many heard?”

“Counting me?”

“Don’t be a jackass.”

The hiss of his brother’s laughter whispered in his ear. “Everyone. Counting me, that is.”

Perfect.
“Put Mom back on the phone,
now
.”

His mother got back on the line, still snorting. “I’m sorry, honey. So you’re her dog, right?” Max still heard her muffled laughter.

He clenched a fist, leaning back in his office chair. “Yes. I got caught up by Animal Control and she adopted me.”

“I—” She began to laugh again, that hyena-like cackle, before struggling to catch her breath. “I told you to just
drive
to Hoboken, didn’t I?” she wheezed.

“You did. I just thought it would be nice to have some time to myself.” He didn’t get much of that as alpha of the pack.

“What’s your doggie name, honey?”

“Mom…”

“Oh, c’mon, kiddo—we’ll look back on this someday and laugh together. Promise. Now cough it up. We’ll laugh for you until you’re ready to see the funny.”

He couldn’t help but smile. It
was
pretty funny if you looked at it from the other side. “Fluffy.”

There was no pause before the outburst this time, just cackling—and a “Here, boy!” or two.

It wasn’t
that
funny. “Mom!” he bellowed into the phone.

“Oh, sweetheart, that’s priceless! Fluuuffyyy!” she stuttered between more fits of laughter.

“Maybe you should call me back when the lot of you are done laughing at me—because I need your advice, not a bunch of comedians.”

He heard her take deep breaths before saying, “I’m sorry, Max. Tell me, how can I help?”

“Well, here’s the problem—I mean, aside from me pretending to be her dog.”

“Why did you pretend to be a dog in the first place? Can’t she smell you as her own kind anyway? Why didn’t you ‘run away’ or something?”

Here we go.
“That was the original intent, but when I did, she was so broken over losing him—”

“Fluffy…”

Max let his chin fall to his chest and ran a hand over his temple. “Yes, Fluffy. Anyway, she was so upset about him running away, I couldn’t stand seeing her cry. So I kept pretending to be her dog.”

“I still don’t understand what’s wrong with her nose. She should’ve identified you as her own kind by now. And if her sniffer’s on the blink, why didn’t you just shift in the shelter? You could’ve solved all your problems by just getting out of there.”

He shook his head. “Well, at first I was drugged after they darted me. Once I woke up—on death row, no less—I knew she was going to show up, Mom. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. I just knew it in my gut. Somehow, I just knew she’d be there. So I waited.”

There were tears in his mother’s voice when she replied. “That’s the life-mate call if I ever heard it. That invisible tether the two of you will always be connected with. So what’s the dilemma, honey? I mean, aside from the fact that you’re her dog and she can’t track you as any different.”

“That’s because JC’s human.”

“Oh, what a pretty name. Wait…
What
?”

“Human, Mom. She’s human.”

“Oh dear.”

* * *

JC sat on the edge of her kitchen counter, reading the text from Max and smiling that same smile she’d been fighting since she’d almost called him her boyfriend at the vet’s office.

Been thinking of you all day. Dinner—my place?

She almost invited him to
her
place, but she wasn’t quite ready to let him meet Fluffy yet. It was like letting the new man in your life meet your children. Sort of. Almost.

Letting Max come to her place meant letting him into her world fully—all the way—and she was afraid. She didn’t choose
not
to spend the night at his place just because of Fluffy. She opted to go home each night because she was afraid to get too attached…become happier.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard of her phone.
More pizza?

Is that cynicism I hear in your text?

She giggled, tucking her bathrobe around her.
No. That was a groan. I’m all extra-cheese-and-pepperonied out.

Tonight I wine and dine you with my mother’s infamous tuna noodle casserole and a fresh green salad. Take that, cynic.

Tuna noodle? Should I dress for the occasion?

You should definitely come undressed.

The smiley face he tacked onto his text made her sigh. If only she was as comfortable wandering about naked as Max. He had absolutely no inhibitions, and it was delicious, not to mention an insane turn-on.
How about I bring the wine?

How about you bring the wine naked?

Just like a man. Sex and tuna noodle casserole are all you need.

Well, yeah. That and a good football game. And you. Definitely you. Wait. Maybe Doritos, too.

Her stomach did that melty thing it always did whenever she thought of Max
. Is six good?

Six is perfect. See you then.

JC smiled again then she frowned. She was afraid to smile. He was too good to be true. He was funny and to-die-for sexy, and they had long conversations about life and the world and politics and he made the most amazing love to her.

But what were Max Adams’ faults? He had to have some. She had plenty. Many of which involved her choosing men who had faults—major faults.