SwitchBack: A Paranormal Werewolf Romance (Knightsbridge Canyon Series Book 1) (8 page)

I had just cracked the spine when Mother materialized in the toilet. Again, I would say “on the toilet,” but as usual, her aim just wasn’t that good.

“Mother!” I hissed. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I just thought I’d check in and see how you’re doing.” She had that gleam in her eye that told me she was up to something.

There came a scratching and whining at the door and I looked at her, exasperated. “How come he always knows you’re here?” I asked.

“Animals are more sensitive to energies and emotion than we give them credit for,” she replied. “Or it could be the dog thing again.”

Hmph. I laughed. Maybe I should get my own miniature Schnauzer. Use him as an early warning system.
Warning. Dead Mother Approaching.

“So, Mommy dearest, tell me again how I managed to get lycanthropy and Amber only got allergies?” I settled back for a bath-time story.

“Once upon a time, your great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother Louisa Scott was visiting relatives in Scotland,” Mom began.

“Hence, the Scott in our name.”

“Am I telling this or you?” She sank deeper into the porcelain bowl.

I bit my tongue and smiled as she continued with her obviously fractured fairy tale. Never tells it the same way twice, no matter how many times it’s been. I keep hoping she’ll slip and tell me something that sounds true, but hell, how would I know? Nah, I’d know. I’d feel it, right?

That’s what I keep hoping.

Mom continued, “The story goes that she was out picking wolfsbane and moonflowers in a fairy circle one starlit night in the Highlands when Titania took umbrage and caused her to fall into a deep sleep. While asleep, Titania enchanted a passing wolf into the circle and turned it into a man, who lay with Louise and on that night she conceived. Upon returning to America, much to her husband’s delight, who thought that they couldn’t have children, she gave birth to twin girls, the first of many sets down through the generations. One twin is always a lupine, the other, an oracle of some kind: a seer or a prophetess. I don’t know what happened this time around to your sister, except for the nightmares and migraines, and the fact that she always seems to win when they go to Vegas, and she has a keen eye for fashion trends…anyway. You’re the one with the more demonstrable powers. Which reminds me of the reason I’m here.” She pointed at the ceiling. “Full moon’s coming up soon and you’re going to have to make a shift.”

“I know I have to, but I don’t wanna,” I whined. “It’s such a pain in the ass. Hurts like a son of a bitch. And it’s totally disgusting.”

“Yes, well. Either you choose the time and the place, or the change will choose it for you. And you know what happened the last time you let that happen.”

“I know. I know. I went through a whole herd of sheep before I tired out and changed back. Thank God I didn’t hurt anyone. The only good thing about the shift is that I seem to lose most of my body fat when I turn back.”

“It’s a metabolism thing,” my mother said. “And you should be grateful. Some women would kill to have your bone structure.” She floated over to caress my face with icy digits.

“So, how many days have I got?” I asked, as if I didn’t know. Believe me, I always knew. I sighed and tapped the hot water faucet with my foot to heat up the by-now-lukewarm bath.

“Ten days before the next cycle,” my mother said.

“Bummer,” I mumbled.

“Oops, gotta run.” She apologized and condensed to a small drop of water that plinked into the bowl.

“Aunt Ash?” came J.R.’s voice through the door. “Who are you talking to?”

I cringed. Great. Now even my nephew thinks I’m a freak.

“No one, honey. Just to myself. Do you need something?” I asked sweetly, testing the air.

“No. I was passing by and Spanky was sitting here listening to you talk and I thought it was really weird. I almost thought there was somebody else in there with you. Anyways, I need to brush my teeth and my toothbrush is in there.”

“Nope. Nobody but me, myself and I. I’ll be out in a sec.” I said and stood up, dried off and let the kid have his space, retiring to my room and puttering on my laptop while I thought.

Ten days. Cripes. First the dog, now the kid. And a full moon coming up. I really needed to figure out how I should handle the next change. I supposed I could just do what I used to when I lived in town, which was to leave the basement window unlatched and set so I could enter in whatever form I happened to be at the time.

Only this house had no basement, unlike the one I’d grown up in. You know, the one where Will was now. The one where, if I could just get my head screwed on straight, I could probably stay over and do the same thing. Only, how was I supposed to sneak out of Will’s bed without him noticing?

I thought about drugging him. Hey, it was a plan, but there had to be a better way. Maybe I should just go home to my place in the City and take my usual laps around Golden Gate Park.

I was still thinking about this when my email beeped, and I brought it up without even reading the subject line.

Oh, great. Another one.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I AM STILL WARNING YOU ABOUT WHAT MY EMPLOYER WANTS TO DO TO YOU FOR SOME REASON. LIKE I SAID BEFORE I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU ARE WHAT IS SAID ABOUT YOU BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER SO JUST BEWARE. THERE IS CERTAINLY A CONSPIRACY SURROUNDING THIS SO TRUST NO ONE NOT EVEN THOSE CLOSEST TO YOU AND DO NOT DO WHAT ANYONE WANTS EVEN IF THEY WANT YOU TO.

SINCERELY,

A FRIEND

I felt like I was back in first-year creative writing class, willing to drive icepicks into my eyeballs rather than suffer through another round of insufferably sophomoric prose. Yeah, I know here in my diary I take liberties with the language but holy freaking Grammar Girl, what are they teaching kids these days in English class?

Then I forced myself to focus on the meaning and ignore the execrable delivery.

It seemed as if he, if it was a he, was trying to give me a friendly warning that someone was trying to force him to do something to me, along with the implication that someone close to me was not to be trusted.

Master of the obvious, right? But I was no detective, and besides, nothing other than these emails themselves had appeared to threaten me since I had returned to Knightsbridge. Also, there was a kind of lunatic, conspiracy-nut quality to the messages that made me think the sender wasn’t really all there.

So.

I had to figure out whether or not to tell anyone. After a moment’s thought, I moved the email to my saved file and decided not to say anything. It would just get everyone spun up again and worried about nothing. I would just have to keep my eyes open and stay away from animal control officers, biker chicks, local hunters or old flames trying to entice me to crawl back into the cozy shell of my former life.

The next morning when I opened the front door, I ran into Will Stenfield camped out on the porch, and he wouldn’t leave until I talked to him. I guess I could have slammed the door and not come out, or tried to run out the back, but…he was right, in a John Cusack,
Say Anything
sort of way. I had to deal with him sometime.

“Hi,” he said tentatively, waving a sack of sweet-smelling custard-filled chocolate donuts like a peace offering.

“Hi,” I replied, not really sure how to feel about anything at this point, but I decided I was not about to pass up a mouthful of Bavarian crème.

“Figured since you weren’t returning my calls, I’d need something to get me in the door.”

“Well, since you’re here, you might as well come all the way in,” I told him, motioning from the foyer.

“Where’s the rest of the gang?”

“Hell if I know.” I went to the fridge. “Milk? Amber only buys the nonfat crap.”

“That’s okay.” He whisked out a couple cartons from the bag he was carrying. “I know how you like whole milk, so I brought some.”

“Humph,” I said skeptically. “I don’t know if that screams stalker or sweet.” But inside, I was getting all gooey again, like the donut. I shook it off. “Let’s go sit outside on the patio.”

Will followed me and Spanky followed him, sniffing.

Amber and Elle had the best backyard. An awning-covered patio with a glass table that seated six comfortably, eight in a pinch, and a black-bottomed swimming pool with an attached hot tub that spilled water over the beveled edge in sheeted columns at just the right height to dip your head under – oh, and at least four chaise lounges for sunning, which I had yet to use. The sound of the water soothed me, and we sat in silence as we ate. The not speaking was kind of nice, until it got awkward.

“So, are we going to talk about it?” Will asked.

“Talk about what?” I replied, dreading the answer. He was going for the RDT, the Relationship Defining Talk, and I had no idea what I was going to tell him.

Sitting there staring at me, all muscly and stuff.

“Fine. Let’s talk about it,” I finally said.

“I said I loved you.”

“I heard you.”

“So, how do you feel about me?”

“God, Will. I don’t know!” I sat back, exasperated.

“Ouch.”

“Give me a minute. I’m not good at this stuff.” Now where had I heard that before? “And why is I don’t know so bad? It just means I don’t know.”

“Okay. Pretend you’re talking to someone else. Pretend I’m just a sounding board.”

“A sounding board. What is a sounding board anyway? Who ever saw one? Is that from when they used to make violins by hand or something?”

“They still make violins by hand, Ash. Pretend I’m an objective third party, who doesn’t have anything at stake. What would you say to him? If I were Amber, what would you say to her?”

“Well, first she’d ask me, ‘So, Ashlee, how do you feel?’” I said, getting into character. “And I’d say, ‘I don’t know, Amber. I mean, I like him. I care about him.’”

“But…” Will prompted.

“Butt?” I looked over my shoulder at my ass, drawing a strained laugh from Will. I know, in the middle of an RDT, right? Humor as a defense, that’s all. “Not but…” I went on. “
And
…and, and the part of me that knew you back in high school and loved you then, loves you now.”

Will moved toward me.

“But I’m not that girl anymore. And you can’t try to make me be.”

“So, let me get to know the new Ashlee.”

“The new Ashlee’s a bit more complicated than the old one,” I said as I picked Spanky up and cuddled him to my chest while he licked up the crumbs off the tinted table. I think I figured while I held Spanky, Will couldn’t hold me.

“Of course. We’re both older and wiser. And I like complicated, sometimes.”

“Not this kind of complicated you don’t.”

“How do you know if you don’t give me a chance?”

I sighed. “You have a chance.”

That brightened him up. “So,” he said to me.

“So,” I said right back at him.

“So, you’ve never been what you’d call low maintenance.”

“You must be thinking of Amber, ’cause in comparison…”

“I’m not talking about Amber. I’m talking about you. You’ve got layers, Ash. You’ve always had them. Only before the…” He stuttered off.

“Before the
incident
.”

“Before the
incident
, you were willing to talk to me about them.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve got trust issues.”

“We’ve all got trust issues, Ash,” he said. “I keep wondering if it’s me you don’t trust, or if you just don’t trust yourself.”

My ego defenses went up. “What are you, my shrink?” I put Spanky down on the ground and got up to pace.
He’s getting too close
, a voice in my head started singing. I began walking the edge of the pool, circling it and coming back again.

Will stood and stopped me. “Ashlee. What are you afraid of?” He held my shoulders and bent his knees to look square into my eyes.

Trapped.

“I’d never knowingly do anything to hurt you,” he said.

I shrugged him off and collected the trash from the table. “Yes, well, it’s the unknowingly hurting that I’m worried about.”

“Life is a risk, Ashlee. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

“No pain, no gain, right, Will?”

“Not the same. Like I said, I won’t hurt you Ash. At least not intentionally. I love you.”

“I wish I could say the same thing,” I muttered, not sure whether I was talking about loving myself or him.

“Ashlee. Stop it.” He took the bag of garbage from my hands. “Just tell me, whatever you need to say. I can take it.”

My palms began to itch. “God, Will! I’m a bitch. I’m sarcastic, obnoxious, rude and opinionated. I don’t look at the bright side and clouds don’t have a silver lining. I walk into a room full of people and can’t help but wonder what their angles are. That’s why I’m a writer. That way I can put everything that I’m thinking into a palatable form, and when I don’t get it right, I have an editor who does it for me.”

“And…” He put his hands on my shoulders again, and looked me in the eyes.

“You can’t love me!” I pushed him away.

“Why not?” Whipping me back around to face him, his voice rose, not caring if the neighbors heard.

“Because, I don’t even love myself!” I cried and collapsed into his arms.

“Then that’s where we’ll start.” Will held me and rocked me and let me cry it all out.

“But Dad,” I heard her say. “She needs to get over herself and make a move.
Do
something,” she said. “I know we’re twins, but where does my responsibility end and hers begin? Well. Yes, she’s contributing to the household. She wrote me a check just the other day, but I haven’t cashed it…I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right. Fine. I’ll cash it. But I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I mean, Ashlee is one thing, but having Will over here all the time is seriously putting a damper on my own relationship. I mean, I haven’t had a guy in the house this much besides J.R., since I lived with his father. I know. I don’t mean to dump this on you, but can’t you take her for awhile? Either that or Elle and I are going to have to go away for the weekend just to get some time to ourselves. And that’s not fair, is it?”