SwitchBack: A Paranormal Werewolf Romance (Knightsbridge Canyon Series Book 1) (13 page)

“I love when two beautiful girls fight over me,” Will broke in, “but I agree with Elle. We need to get out of this fortress. The investigation’s going nowhere and unless whoever is sending the notes makes another move, it won’t.”

“Yeah, I knew this was too good to be true,” I said. Why was I always getting kicked out of places? If I wasn’t being asked to leave by boutique hotels that didn’t like my reviews or cruises because I had a bad habit of sneaking into the crew’s mess in my search for the human part of the story, then I was being passed around from family member to family member like the perpetual problem child. Damn, and just when I thought the crisis had brought us closer.

Then again, I guess I was a handful sometimes. “Fine. I’ll take Will back to the city with me.”

“Great! I finally get to see how the other half lives,” he said. There were hisses and boos all around, except for J.R., who laughed uproariously like the kid he was. I doubt he knew what he was laughing at, except his elders’ antics.

Elle said, “Actually, I think you and Will should go stay in a hotel. Someone might be watching your place. I’ll be guarding Amber and the house back here, and I called in a favor with a bail bondsman I know who has a couple of security guys.”

“Why?” I pointed an accusing finger at Elle. “Are you trying to dangle some bait for the, the, what do you call it…”

“Perp. Perpetrator. So what if I am?”

A smile spread across my face. “So what if you are. Anything to get away from here.”

“Love you!” Amber said.

“Love you too,” I replied, “but I don’t see you objecting.” In fact, it had been frustrating as all hell, sleeping in the guest room with Will but not, you know,
sleeping
with him. At least, not the full Monty, if you know what I mean and no, I will not give details. You can fill in the blanks. But anyway, fun and frustrating, because I hadn’t fully convinced myself getting back with him was the right thing to do and going all the way was just going to make the inevitable breakup that much harder, pardon the pun.

That was our usual pattern, anyway, back in high school. Things would go along good for a while, closer and closer and even, yes, that close, and it was wonderful, but then the explosion would come. My explosion. I knew it was me, always me. Will hardly ever got mad, just irritated, when I would sabotage things when I felt like we were getting too close.

That’s what it felt like now, getting too close, so going away would either finish the pattern with fireworks, or maybe we could derail the speeding train and do something different. Maybe if we got away from my family and this pressure and I was on my own home ground, I could get past my fear of flying and think about being with Will the way he wanted to be with me.

Then I thought about what I was, and all the fear came back again. There was just no way I could tell him…if he would even believe me. Until I proved it, that is, perhaps by ripping him to shreds the way I’d done to goofy dorky hunky innocent Shane.

I felt sick.

“Ash,” Will jogged my elbow. “I think we lost you.”

“Just thinking,” I said with a forced smile. I turned to the alpha female. “Okay, boss, what do we do?”

Elle laid down the plan. Will and I were okay with it, and surprisingly, so was Amber. I guess I didn’t expect her to be willing to play me in hopes of drawing the threat into the open. Never thought of her as brave, but there are different types of courage.

Will took me to the Claremont Hotel in Oakland, not my apartment after all. The place was a marvel, towering like an ostentatious
grande dame
on the hills overlooking the Oakland-Berkeley line. Like a California version of the hotel Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour haunted in Somewhere in Time, it nestled among the pines and towering fragrant Eucalyptus trees across the slope. Hard to believe that the old Highway 13 was just over the rise, it gave such an illusion of remoteness.

Since I’d written the hotel a stellar review, the management offered to comp our stay, as I normally couldn’t afford a couple hundred a night just for grins. I must admit I did imply that I was going to do a follow-up article, sometime in the future.

I might.

You never know.

Will laughed and said he could handle it. I reminded myself that he had taken over the family business and was actually reasonably well off, if not super-rich. That got me thinking about the fact that none of the local hotties had snapped him up yet, and that I was pretty lucky that he wanted me after all these years.

That led me to wondering about the house he’d bought – my house! Which was so weird, but so romantic. You know, a lot of girls think they would kill for a guy like Will, but like most fantasies, when they actually start happening they aren’t quite the same as you think they will be. One girl’s romantic beau is another’s creepy stalker, and what was I supposed to think about him sleeping in my room – I mean, in my old house – every night? Was that love, or infatuation, or obsession?

We settled in for an afternoon at the pool and a cozy evening on the veranda. Shrouded in secrecy that I claimed was necessary to avoid my legions of rabid fans – ha, ha – the hotel had even let us come and go through the employee entrance.

We stayed up late and got up late the next morning. I dragged Will out to Mill Valley, where I ran him ragged hiking from the shadows of Muir Woods on up and over the Dipsea Trail to the bluff above Stinson Beach and back. MoonFall was coming that evening and I had so much energy, I thought it would just be easier to tucker Will out so I could sneak away and make the change without interference.

We had dinner back on the terrace of the hotel’s restaurant. He ate enough for two and me for three. “Damn, girl,” he joked, “I’m gonna have to get a side job just to feed you.”

“Oh, it’s your responsibility to feed me now, is it?” I teased.

“If you want it to be.” He took my hand and caressed it, and I let him. “I think Uncle Will sounded pretty good.”

“Will…”

“I know, you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Just not yet, okay? Not until this thing with the threats is resolved, and…”

“And what?”

“Nothing.”

“Look,” he said, “we can leave Knightsbridge. If it’s Jeanetta, she’s so attached to the Park and the Canyon she won’t follow you, and you’ll be gone and once you’re out of her field of view she’ll stop. She and her animal rights wacko buddies can kiss my ass as we leave them in the dust. I can get a manager for the landscaping business and travel with you, or sell out entirely and start over somewhere far away.”

I sighed. “That sounds lovely. Like paradise.”

“Then why not?”

I just couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Besides, there was Elle’s plan, which Will almost seemed like he’d forgotten about. He was such a sweet, live-in-the-now kind of guy, which I guess fit with my personality too, except I tended to be the worry-about-tomorrow kind of girl. You can tell by my bitten fingernails, so different from Amber’s long perfect ones.

“It’s complicated, Will. Look, I really like you.”

“You used to say you love me.”

“I…I do love you,” I admitted to him. “But that may not mean exactly what you think it does, or it may not be enough, or the timing might just not be right. So can we just leave it at that for a while?”

“That we love each other.”

“Pushy bastard, aren’t you?” I smiled to soften my words.

“I know what I want, and what I want is you, Ash. Always have.”

“You’ve been waiting around all this time for me? Never went out with anyone else in all these years?”

“Not so many years. I’ve kept busy.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

Will sighed. “I never asked anyone out. I took Denise Paulos out a couple of times on pity dates, because Carl begged me. We didn’t even hold hands. That’s all.”

“You really did wait for me?” I guess the disbelief came through in my voice, because he showed a touch of anger.

“Yes, I did. You say that as though it was a bad thing.” He stood up. “It wasn’t. It was a noble thing, a good thing. I wanted to wait, because you’re worth waiting for, Ashlee Scott, and I’m really sorry you can’t see it. But don’t try to diss me for it. I gotta pee,” he ended, and stomped off toward the restaurant’s facilities.

“Will –” Grrr. I signaled the waiter and ordered a bottle of champagne. That had not gone well. Maybe I could smooth it over. When he came back, face and hands damp from the sink, I had two glasses poured. “A toast,” I said.

“To what?” he asked, intrigued.

“To my stupidity.”

“Did you order a magnum?” he quipped.

“Watch it, buddy,” I winked. “I’m trying to apologize here, okay? Now drink your toast.”

“I’d rather drink my champagne.” Will raised the glass. “To your stupidity.” He drained it.

So did I. “Look…it was really romantic, or noble or whatever for you to have waited for me these past five or six years, but it’s a lot of pressure. I’ve been footloose and fancy-free for all that time and now I come back to my hometown and you want me to just pick back up like nothing has changed.”

“Some things have changed, but not others,” he said a bit cryptically. “That’s life. Okay,” he held up a hand, “I’ll back off. I’ve waited this long. I’ll wait some more.”

I wondered how long he would wait, and for a moment almost gave in to the impulse to polish off the bottle, drag him up to our room and give him the night of his life. Or maybe vice versa, since I hadn’t had my ashes hauled in quite some time, and it had never been as good as it was with Will.

That thought stopped me in my musings for a moment. I realized it was true. No sex had ever been as good as with Will, even though it was just early, awkward teenage backseat stuff, mostly. I guess what they say is right: it’s not so much about what you do as who you’re with, and I had brought Will with me in my mind to a lot of lonely nights on the road.

Then why the hell was I fighting him so hard?

I glanced up at the twilight sky and could feel the moon getting ready to break over the horizon, and that gave me my answer, at least for tonight.

Later I slipped a crushed Ambien into his glass and made sure he drank it all, and then led him up and tucked him in after a hot bath. His snores assured me that I could do what had to be done that night with him none the wiser. Maybe it was just putting things off, but sometimes, that’s all I could do.

“Sleep well, Tree Jockey,” I whispered and kissed his forehead as I headed out to answer the call of nature and the autumn moon.

I was ready. It was time, past time. I had to change. I’d put it off too long.

The shift was upon me.

My head snapped back, my back bowed, and my legs collapsed under me as I slid to all fours. A ripple through my belly heaved and I heard my bones crack and felt the slice of pain across every aspect of my synapses. I dry-heaved and the wave of nausea washed the pain through me as my skin slit and slid over my flesh and my muscles took on a meaner and leaner look.

The wolf came over me in waves, like the mirage on a horizon, rippling hair and fur and blood and bone. My feet elongated and it seemed like my fingers splayed from hands to claws and back again. When I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, my head snapped out and I screamed as the muzzle slid into place, replacing mangled flesh. I howled and a hundred thousand howls called back. I crouched and shook my pelt, sending blood and gore flying all directions as once again, I was reborn.

I knelt, my forepaws in the grass, then sprang.

On my feet or my paws, whatever word described them best today, I raced along the edge of the patch of forest, past blurring brush and trees. Smells surrounded me, overrode me for a while and humanity deserted me for at least a mile.

I ran.

I ran until I could comprehend what I was once again.

Ashlee Scott. Werewolf. Writer. Sister. Twin. Mate of Will Stenfield, though he didn’t know it yet. Nor did my human half, but the bitch part would work on that.

My eyes saw into every shadow. They pierced the depths of the dark with a fluorescence that human vision cannot. I’d forgotten the joy of truly being free. As a wolf, my only responsibility was to my belly, to my heart, to my family.

I thought of my mate asleep back at the hotel room and smelled him on my fur. I licked him from my skin and tasted him upon my lips once again. The musky scent of mown lawns, the rich loam of moist earth, his tangy sweat and salty acrid taste until he showered, all melted into earthy scents of cedar, pine and vetiver grass.

My man, I marked him and I found myself upon his trail. We’d walked here today, I thought as I bolted out of the trees near the hotel’s pool.

Night full of shadows, I slipped beneath the gate to the pool house where I’d left a spare change of clothes earlier that day. As I’d given them a great review, the staff at the Claremont gave me more access to the workings behind the scenes. This served me now as I knew the areas that were often overlooked in the quiet dead of night. I told myself I could just sleep in a corner underneath the benches inside the locker room until the dawn, when Ashlee would take over and the wolf would slip away once again.

My mind seemed so much clearer when I let out the wolf, like cobwebs being swept out of my brain. Everything distilled into its simplest forms. Love. Eat. Sleep. Pray and thank God above that I was what I was.

Right then, I wanted nothing else.

Unfortunately what my mind wanted, what the rational human me said, didn’t make the wolf bitch happy at all. She wanted to run and hunt and run some more, to smell and taste and howl and mate under the looming moon. She wanted Will to be there with her. She wanted him to be what she was.