The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf (17 page)

“Alicia also mentioned that you went on a date with her brother the other night.”

“Are we going to braid each other’s hair now, Pops?” He gave me the stink-eye in response, so I sighed and said, “I went out on a date with Clay. And it was fine.”

“And you’re making it sound like a trip to the dentist’s office.”

“Why does everyone want to talk about my personal life all of a sudden?” I grumped, jumping and inspecting a wrench on the other side of the room.
“Have you talked to any of those curious souls about your personal life?” he asked. I shook my head. “Are you likely to?” I laughed and shook my head again. He held out his hands and waved his fingers, as if to say, “Bring it on.”

I sighed. “I like Clay. On paper, he is the perfect mate for me.”

Pops nodded. “Clay is a good boy. He’s kind, he thinks before he acts, he takes care of his family—”

“Do you want to date him, Pops?”

Pops frowned. “We should have never encouraged you to speak. So, if Clay has balanced your pros-and-cons list, why aren’t you out there running with him, instead of hiding in this shed?” He smiled at me, triumphant. I never have been able to fool Pops.

I picked at the engine grease under my fingernails. “There’s another man who seems interested in me. And he confuses me, mostly, but I like him, too . . . almost against my will. And I can’t do anything about it.”

“Dr. Thatcher?” he asked, grimacing. “You know, Maggie, there’s nothing wrong with you dating a human. It’s mating with one that’s the problem.”

“Why put the energy into dating someone if you can’t mate with them?”

“The fun of it?” he suggested

“Obviously, it’s been a while since you’ve dated, Pops.”

“I do all right.”

“Ew.”

“You know that we want you to be happy, Maggie.”

“Yeah, but when has telling someone to do what makes them happy ever resulted in a good decision? Remember when we told cousin Todd to do what made him happy and he came home with recently augmented boobs?”

Pops gave me a stern look but was working hard to keep the snickering internal. “As I was saying, we want you to be happy. But you also have to think of what’s best for the pack,” he said. “Do you know why you’re the alpha?”

“Because I got more votes than Samson?”

Pops chuckled. “Because you see underneath. You cut through the layers of . . .”

“Bullshit?”

“I was going to say politeness,” he deadpanned. “And say what you think. It’s an undervalued quality for humans, especially in a woman. But after the initial sting, people appreciate hearing the truth.”

“I have a feeling I’m about to get hit with some of that truth,” I muttered.

“I know you don’t like the idea of mating and marrying. And I know you hate it when one of the aunties declares she’s found the perfect male for you. You’re afraid that you’ll lose the independence you’ve built up. And you’re afraid of spending your life with someone who’s not going to make you happy. But you have to settle down sometime. It’s part of your responsibility as pack leader. You set the example, provide stability for the pack. And there aren’t enough werewolf males running around out there for the taking. If you think you could make a life with Clay, you should start now.”

A tiny, petty voice welled up somewhere in my gut and grumbled that Cooper hadn’t bothered setting an example. He’d tied himself up nice and tight to the first human to break that thick cement shell he’d built around his heart . . . and his brain.

As if he sensed my resentment, Pops added, “You’ve always been the strong one, Maggie. We both know Cooper wasn’t ever going to be ready to lead the pack, not really. I want him to be happy, and I’m glad that he found Mo. But it’s always been you. You’re the one who can make the hard decisions. You’re the one strong enough to make your own happiness, even if it’s not exactly what you wanted. I will love you no matter what you decide, but I can’t help but hope that you’ll make the choice that those around you could not.”

“No pressure, huh, Pops?”

He kissed my forehead and ambled toward the door. “If you want easy advice, ask a different grandpa.”

“I don’t remember ‘asking’ for your advice,” I muttered.

L
ATER
, I
WAS
wandering home for a late lunch, wiping my hands on my overalls, and wondering if it would be weird for me to do repair work nude just to avoid the stains. I passed the community center and noticed an odd, acrid scent on the air. I followed it toward my office door and saw the first curling gray tendrils of smoke winding their way out of the splintered door glass. The motion of my yanking the door open pulled a cloud of thick smoke right into my face. I
spluttered and coughed, pushing my way through to the growing plume of flame blooming from my desk.

Even through the choking gray haze, I could see that my office was trashed. The filing cabinet lay on its side, drawers torn out. My shredded files were strewn across the floor like wounded birds.

Someone had put my wastebasket in the middle of my desk, crammed it full of my paperback books, and set them on fire. The plastic walls of the basket were starting to soften and melt as the flames reached toward the ceiling tiles. Covering my mouth and nose with a bandana, I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and doused the whole flaming mess with white foam. The sterile-smelling chemicals sprayed across my desk and hit the wall with a muted
splat.
After giving the wastebasket one long, final blast, I took out my work gloves to protect my hands while I heaved the smoking remains out into the parking lot.

I left the door open and propped all of the windows to let the smoke vent. I wiped my streaming eyes with the bandana and searched the ceiling for the blinking light of the smoke detector. As the smoke cleared, I could see the frayed wires dangling from where the device had been yanked from the wall.

I moved closer to my foam-covered desk, opening the drawers and finding the petty-cash box intact and the village checkbook still locked up tight. I ran to the other rooms of the center but found that the damage was limited to my office space.

How had this happened without my hearing anything?
Gah, the music.
Between my too-loud worship of all things Journey and the noise of the engine, I wouldn’t have heard a Mack truck parking in my office.

Mom and a few of the aunties appeared at my door, gasping in shock at the mess and the smoke. Ignoring their murmurs, I strode out into the street, working up a decent head of steam while I worked through what might have happened. The kids were in school, and most of the adults were at work or indoors. We ran perimeter checks on occasion, but it’s not as if the valley was under twenty-four-hour guard.

I heard the school bell ring down the street, announcing the end of lunch, and paused. The high school kids were allowed to run home for lunch if they wanted. Between the werewolf stuff and the regular human adolescent roller coaster, their bodies went through more food than could be easily carried to school. It was easier for them to run home and scarf down as many calories as possible just to get through the day. “Free lunch” left them unsupervised for a good hour of the day, but we tried to emphasize trust and personal responsibility in the pack. Obviously, that had come back to bite us on the ass.

I marched to the school building and called all five high school students to the office, which was basically the supply closet at the end of the classroom. If I was going to question one of them, I would question them all. Frankly, if one of them had anything to do with the fire, their friends were smart enough to distance themselves by ratting them out.
Cousin Teresa gave the little kids busy work and sat with me while I marched the teens away.

Their chatter and teasing died the minute I walked into the tiny room. The kids sat up a little straighter and put on their serious faces. They eyed me solemnly, all long, coltish limbs combined with baby cheeks and huge eyes. Of the five, only three, Ricky, Rebecca, and Benjamin, were able to phase, but they all recognized the authority of the pack leader. They knew that disrespect and sass would get them into trouble with me and then again with their parents. It was a double whammy of adult supervision.

My eyes narrowed at Benjamin and Ricky, the chewing-tobacco enthusiasts whom I’d forced to overindulge to the point of vomiting. They were good kids but had been known to cause more than their fair share of trouble. This included accidentally setting my workshop aflame with a badly timed M-80. Had their pyromaniac antics escalated to intentional damage? Were they trying to get back at me for the puking?

“Do any of you have anything to tell me? Something to do with my office?” I asked, giving each of them my best motherly glare. The kids’ eyes went wide, and their mouths clamped shut. “Look, if you did it because you thought it would be funny or you’re upset with me about something, it’s not OK, but I get it. I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was a kid. But it’s better to go ahead and fess up to it and take your licks now than to lie. Because then I’ll be pissed at you.”

Silence. “No one knows who gave my office the arsonist’s makeover?” I asked.

Teresa gasped. “Someone set fire to your office?”

Benjamin, the oldest of the group, shook his shaggy brown head. “Honest, Maggie, we wouldn’t do something like that. My dad’s still pissed at me for the chaw thing.”

“And we’re afraid of you,” Lila added.

The other kids nodded solemnly. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, focusing all of my energy on keeping my frustration and temper in check. I believed them, which meant that my anxiety over the whole episode had just doubled. It wouldn’t do to explode all over these kids just because I didn’t get the easy answer that I wanted. Breathing slowly through my nose, and getting a nostril full of the smoky stink rising from my jacket, I sighed. “When you were on your way home for lunch, did you see anything strange or see anyone who isn’t part of the pack wandering around?”

The kids shook their heads.

“We just heard that crappy old-timer music you like blaring from the shed,” Ricky said, smirking at me. Ricky was the resident smart-ass, which sort of endeared him to me. Rebecca, his twin, elbowed him in the ribs.

My mouth twitched. That smart-ass little answer was exactly what I needed to snap my mood back into place. I kept my voice level but serious. “OK, until I say otherwise, I want you guys to keep an eye on the little kids,” I told them. “And if you see anyone you don’t recognize walking around, tell the
nearest pack member. Don’t try to approach them yourselves.” I saw Benjamin bristle a little. “Even though you are all clearly bad-asses.”

Benjamin smirked, appeased.

“Well, how about we skip the history quiz this afternoon?” Teresa suggested. The kids whooped and hollered. Teresa added, “And as a community service project, you can go over to the center and help Maggie clean up her office.”

“Aww.” The kids groaned.

Teresa lifted her brow.

“I mean, yaaaay,” Ricky said in the least convincing cheerful voice ever.

I laughed. “I’d appreciate it, kids.”

“Shouldn’t you call the cops?” Teresa asked as the teens filed out of the room.

“I sort of am the cops around here,” I reminded her. Teresa had lived in Portland for a while, after getting engaged to a male from one of the local packs. She lived there for two years, an incredibly long engagement for a were, before deciding that he wasn’t a good match, and moved back home. Her mother had told my mother that the bastard had called it off and mated with a human.

City life had left Teresa a bit out of sorts. She was used to public transportation, restaurants, movie theaters, cooperating with the human authorities . . . .

“Oh, right,” she said, frowning. “It’s just been so long since we’ve had any sort of trouble. I sort of forgot the procedure.”

“It’s OK. Thanks for sending the kids over. I’m pretty sure I have a brigade of aunties helping me already,
but the kids will make the job go faster. Do you need anything here at the school?” I asked as she walked me out of the schoolhouse. “Supplies? Snacks?”

“Nope, we’re pretty much covered, as long as I can get the Gilbert kids to stop chewing on the nap-time mats.”

“I miss nap-time.” I sighed.

“Who wouldn’t?” She chuckled, waving me away.

When I arrived at the office, the smoke had all but disappeared. Mom and the aunts and gathered outside the building, whispering among themselves, while the kids worked.

“What a mess.” Mom sighed, kissing my cheeks and checking me over for obvious wounds. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I promised, wiggling out of her grasp. There were people watching, for goodness sake. “And I’m not sure what happened. We might need to have a pack meeting later, OK? Can you all tell your families?” The women nodded earnestly. “For right now, how about you go home and let the kids do the heavy lifting? Burn off a little of that energy.”

I heard my aunt Bonnie, Ricky’s mother, whisper, “Please, Lord,” as the ladies dispersed.

I walked into my office and found that Rebecca, the most organized soul in the group, had already started sorting through the papers and trying to salvage some of my ripped file folders. Ricky and Benjamin were in deep conference regarding which caustic substance would best clean the smoke marks from my ceiling.