The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf (7 page)

“Yes, I know!” she called back. “I’m in the kitchen.”

I rounded the corner and heard Nick Thatcher in mid-sentence, “There are a lot of theories about where exactly the line between man and animal is drawn. Psychologically, spiritually, physically. Where do the two lines split on the evolutionary scale? Is the missing link some step along the way? Or could legends that link man and animal be signs of a step forward? A mix of the best of both worlds.”

Nick freaking Thatcher was sitting at my kitchen table while my mother served him chamomile tea and a piece of her special apple cake. My favorite apple cake.

“Oh, my God! Is nothing sacred?” I howled.

Faced with my mental tormentor, the interrupter of sleep, and his head-clouding scent, I’d expected to feel awkward and bashful again. But mostly, I felt anger. Sweet, clarifying anger. Who the hell did he
think he was, waltzing into my valley, with his stupid feet under my table, eating my freaking cake?

His feet did look awfully big, I noticed, biting my lip. And from what I could gather from a lifetime spent around men who were comfortable in the nude, the old wives’ tales about foot size tended to be accurate.

Gah!

Focus, Maggie,
I commanded my wandering brain. My eyelid actually twitched when he looked up at me.

“Hi, Maggie, it’s nice to see you again,” he said, smiling so sweetly I thought I might need insulin.

“Your work sounds so interesting, Nick,” Mom said, ignoring my outburst and turning back to the stove to stir the contents of a huge iron pot. “But how do you even study something like that?”

Nick smiled. “Eyewitness accounts. As many police reports as I can get my hands on. Local legends. Scientists tend to downplay the importance of oral history.”

While he ticked down the list with his long, strong fingers, my mouth went dry. My worst fears were confirmed. He was just smart enough to be dangerous.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, tired of being ignored.

“Well, I thought we got off on the wrong foot the other day, so I wanted to come by and try to make a better second impression. Your mom was nice enough to keep me company while I waited and serve me some of this delicious cake.”

I scowled. I had to stop thinking about the cake. And Nick. And Nick smeared in cake icing. I glared at my mother. Clearly, this conspiracy was wider spread than I thought. I gritted my teeth and reached for my mother’s cake plate.

“No cake for you,” Mom said, smacking my hand away. “You’ll spoil your dinner.”

“He has some!” I pointed out, shaking my smarting fingers.

“He’s a guest.”

I narrowed my eyes at Nick while he smarmily chewed on a big bite of cake.

He would pay for this. Dearly.

“And I wanted to ask about your brother’s suggestion that you’d show me around. I’d be more than happy to pay you whatever you’d charge for guiding me around the trails. I’ve hiked around a little bit myself. But I haven’t seen much in the way of wildlife. Your brother has such a solid reputation in the field guide community, I was hoping you might show me the best places to look.”

“I just don’t have the time,” I lied.

“Nick, you’re going to stay for dinner, yes?” Mom asked, stirring the huge vat of chicken and dumplings on the stove. She had a knack for relieving the tension in a room by pretending my rudeness away with cooking. Many, many chickens had given up their lives to cover my conversational shortcomings.

“No, he’s not.”

“Maggie, I know you have better manners than that.”

Damn it. Mom was right. Werewolves have this whole thing about hospitality and making sure that guests are safe and well served. Guests never left werewolf land hungry or unhappy. I was behaving very badly, and I should have been ashamed, even if I wanted to make him swallow that stupid Yankees cap along with
my
cake.

I cleared my throat, recognizing when my mother had been pushed too far. “I’m sorry. What I meant to say was that Samson already invited Clay for dinner,” I said. “I wouldn’t want Nick to be uncomfortable.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Nick said, his cheek dimpling.

“Shut it,” I hissed under my breath.

He smirked at me and pushed back from the table, pausing to scrape one last bite from the plate. Just to irritate me. “I’d love to stay, Gracie. And as much as I appreciate the invitation, I’ve got to head back to Grundy before it gets dark,” he said, packing his little notebook into his messenger bag. “I’m moving out of the motel into a rental place in town.”

“Rental place?”

“Yes, Mr. Gogan set it up for me,” he said, hitching his bag onto his shoulder. “I think the owner’s name is Quinn?”

My lip rippled back from my teeth just a tiny bit. Susie Q had been the first person Eli attacked the year before. She’d had to move in with her daughter in Texas because of her injuries. I wondered if he’d chosen the house on purpose or if it was a coincidence. More important, renting a house meant Nick
was planning to stay in Grundy for more than just a “little research trip.” And despite the fact that I knew this was a bad thing, I couldn’t help but be a little happy about it.

Damn it.

“Could I have a rain check?” he asked my mother.

“Absolutely. Anytime you’re close by, come on over,” she said, shaking his hand. “It was lovely to meet you.”

“He’s a nice boy,” Mom told me as Nick shrugged into his jacket and moved toward the front door. “He has good manners.”

“You cannot invite a man into your home just because he calls you ma’am,” I reminded her.

“What if he has eyes the color of the morning sky and a butt that won’t quit?” she whispered.

“Ew, Mom!”

She lowered her voice to a range only she and I could hear. “I’m middle-aged, sweetheart. I’m not dead.”

My mother had been widowed young, and she hadn’t been on so much as a movie date since. It was starting to show. Filing that under “problems I have to solve before they become psychologically traumatic,” I followed Nick onto the porch.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull,” I told him as he took the steps. “But I want you to stay away from the valley. You’ll scare the locals . . . or annoy them into kicking your ass.”

He seemed honestly insulted, frowning up at me and pouting those soft-looking, pouty, full, pouty lips . . . and there went my train of thought. . .

“Why don’t you like me?” he asked. “I’m a fairly likable person. I could get you testimonials from a half-dozen or so people.”

“My mom doesn’t count,” I spat.

He objected, “Your mom should count twice.
She
loves me.”

“No shit,” I deadpanned. “Why are you here, Dr. Thatcher? Why are you so hell-bent on spending time around me?”

“I like you,” he said, shrugging. “You’re funny and prickly, which works for me. You know you’re beautiful, but you don’t seem to care about it all that much. And your bullshit tolerance is low—”

“Then you should realize that I’m not buying your answer.”

“Fine.” He lowered his voice and leaned ever so slightly toward me. We were at eye level and so close I could feel his warm, frosting-scented breath fanning over my cheek, making my mouth water. I could almost feel the burnt-gold strands of his hair brushing against my skin. “Besides hoping to charm you into a date, which is obviously not working, you know exactly why I’m here, Maggie. Your family can’t expect to protect Mo forever.”

Insert awkward pause in which I stare at Nick as if he’s whistling “O Canada” out of his left nostril.

“Wait . . . what?”

“Your sister-in-law has been sweet, polite, downright hospitable. But she has an uncanny way of wiggling out of answering questions.”

Hmm.
Mo
was
way smarter than I gave her credit
for. But I would never, ever tell her that to her face. I scoffed. “Why would you even talk to Mo?”

“Because I studied the reports for the wolf attacks last year. Do you realize that besides the occasional bar fight, there’s nothing in the state police reports even mentioning Grundy for the last two years until Mo reported being attacked by a trucker named John Teague?” he asked. I gave a noncommittal nod, so he just barreled on. “And then, all of a sudden, there’s a rash of wolf attacks around town. And wolf attacks are pretty rare. Wolves don’t normally come close enough to humans to attack them.”

“Unless they’re sick, which was Alan Dahling’s theory about the timber wolf Walt and Hank shot last year,” I told him.

“That wolf wasn’t nearly big enough to leave the bite marks left on Abner Golightly. And it certainly wasn’t big enough to kill two fully grown hikers,” he said. “Look, everything seemed to start with Mo. And she was connected to each of the attacks thereafter. She took in Susan Quinn’s dog. The missing hikers ate at the saloon just before they disappeared. She found Abner in the woods. Everything comes back to her. I think that Mo could be something more than human. And I think you and your family are helping her cover it up.”

If he was trying to imply that Mo was a werewolf, I was going to pee myself laughing. Wait, I think I was going to do that anyway. I had propped myself against the siding and was trying to contain the loud, hiccupping guffaws. “So, you think my sister-in-law,
the shorthand cook, loving wife, and mother, is a
werewolf
?”

Somehow he managed to say with a straight face, “I think it’s possible that John Teague was a werewolf and that somehow, when he attacked Mo, he changed her.”

And now I was back to laughing. “That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard!”

“Why? There are shape-shifting legends found in almost every civilization. The Central Asian stories about snakes that could assume human form and the Japanese
kitsune,
fox spirits that were able to become beautiful women. When you go westward, you find the Wendigo, the Deer Woman, skinwalkers—”

“What does this have to do my with my sister-in-law supposedly wolfing out and terrorizing the townsfolk?”

“Why won’t Mo talk to me about the attack, Maggie?”

My laughter died as if he’d flipped a switch. From what I understood, Mo had been closing up the saloon last year, alone, and John Teague decided she was a prime target for robbery and possibly way more disturbing activities. He’d knocked her around when she wouldn’t cooperate, leaving her with bruises and scrapes across her face. She’d managed to get a few good licks in before my brother swooped in on four paws and saved the day. Mo didn’t connect human-shaped Cooper to the wolf at the time and thought maybe her furry savior had eaten Teague. However, Teague had managed to make it to his truck, then passed out
from his injuries and died in a fiery crash outside town.

“She won’t talk to you about it because she won’t talk to
anyone
about it,” I growled. “Do you realize that most people in Grundy don’t even know about that night? Mo didn’t want a big fuss, the questions, the pitying looks. She just wanted to go on with her life. And then you come along with your questions, stirring everything up again. You’re surprised she’s not just hopping up and down to give you the full Barbara Walters treatment?”

For a moment, a flash of shame flickered across Nick’s face. “I didn’t realize. She seems so sturdy, you know? No-nonsense. I just . . . That doesn’t change what happened after the Teague incident. It doesn’t explain why she was so close to every wolf attack that followed.”

“Shit happens!” I exclaimed. “We live in the middle of one of the biggest untamed wildernesses left on earth. We’re bound to run into animals every once in a while. Sometimes there are no explanations! No matter how hard you try to force it to fit one of your bullshit theories, there’s just no explanation.”

“There’s always an explanation,” he countered, color rising into his cheeks as he stepped closer. I could hear his heart beat in his chest, practically hear the blood humming through his veins as we stood nose-to-nose. “Sometimes you have to sift through a couple of ‘bullshit theories’ before you find the right one, but eventually something clicks. If you would just explain to Mo that I don’t mean any harm. If anything, I want to help her.”

“Who says she needs help?”

“Well, then, why are you being so difficult?”

“Because it’s fun!” I shot back.

Nick tilted his head back and groaned in frustration.

“Maggie, are you driving another guy over the edge?” Samson asked from behind me.

I looked over to find Samson and Clay smirking at us. Well, Samson was smirking. Clay seemed to be glaring a little bit. Nick turned and made a motion to introduce himself to Samson, but I cut him off.

“Dr. Thatcher was just leaving,” I told them.

Samson’s face hardened at the mention of his name, and Nick, wisely, drew his hand back. Samson muttered, “Good.”

Apparently, Cooper had filled Samson in.

“Clay, why don’t you go inside?” I said. “Mom’s just setting the table. You, too, Samson.”