The Reluctant Wolf (Book 1 Cloverleah Pack)

The Reluctant Wolf

(
Book 1 Cloverleah Pack Series)

By

Lisa Oliver

The Reluctant Wolf (Book One Cloverleah Pack Series)

Copyright © Lisa Oliver, 2014

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Cover Design by Paul Oliver

First Edition February 2014

All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Conventions.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, Lisa Oliver. 
[email protected]

No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the internet or any other means, electronic or print, without permission from Lisa Oliver. 
Warning:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.  Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.  Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material.  Your support of the author’s rights and livelihood is appreciated.

The Reluctant Wolf is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Warning: 

This book contains material that maybe offensive to some people including graphic language, cursing, explicit sex between males, male-male sex, anal intercourse, oral, rimming and a few BDSM elements.

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following trademarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Bryan Adams,
Everything I do, I do it for you

Chevrolet Nova

Harley Davidson

Dedication

To the one person who thought I could do this, thank you…and to my daughters, Holly and Jasmine who read the book even though they don’t like the genre.

Chapter One

The smell of Kathy’s Diner hit Kane Matthews as he wandered around the corner, reminding him that he hadn’t had lunch yet.  Taking a quick look at his watch he strode over to the door and opened it.  The place wasn’t overly busy - there were a few couples sitting with coffee and a group of students taking up the large table by the diner window.  Walking over to the counter he smiled at his friend Trisha, who was currently counting the cash in the till.  Seeing him Trisha quickly finished counting, made a notation on the pad on the side of the till then straightened up with a smile on her face.

“Hi Kane
, haven’t seen you in here for a bit - you been busy?”

“Hi Trish, yes the shop has been frantic lately - what about you
, still pumping out the best food in Cloverleah?”

“As always.” Trish smiled again. “So what will you have?  The kitchen staff is just finishing up but I am sure I can get you something.”

Kane lifted his head as another wave of delicious smells hit his nose.  Sifting through them he could sense some kind of beef stew, fried chicken and… strawberries and chocolate?  He raised an eyebrow at Trisha and asked, “You serving desserts now?”

Trisha looked puzzled.
  “You know me Kane. The only sweet things in here are ice-cream and my lovely self.  Why do you ask?”

Although she was a human,
Trisha knew Kane was a wolf shifter and that he was gay, although she never commented on either aspect of that.  She learned a long time ago that Kane liked to keep his private life exactly that, private.  That didn’t stop her being curious about what had gotten her friend’s nose twitching.

“Hmm, must be mistaken.” 
Kane shook his head trying to clear his nose of what could only be described as a truly delicious scent.  It wouldn’t leave him and now his wolf was starting to fidget.  He must be hungry.  Looking at Trisha again he said, “Can I just have a large bowl of your beef stew and some bread as a side thanks.” 

Kane
decided to sit in one of the quiet booths on the far corner of the room. As he wandered over to his seat Trisha opened the kitchen door behind the counter to place his order.  The open doors released another strong waft of the same scents Kane had experienced at the counter - strawberries, chocolate and…there was something else there that Kane couldn’t quite place.  He thought for a minute it was another wolf but the scent was strangely diluted.  Whatever it was it had gotten his wolf in a tizzy, but Kane didn’t sense any imminent danger.

Pulling out his phone, he hit number *2* and put the phone up to his ear.  While he was waiting for the call to be connected, he scanned the room again looking for anything that might be out of place.
The older diner had a row of booths along the far wall from the counter, a huge picture window to the front with a huge long table set in front of it and a few tables arranged in haphazard fashion throughout the room.  It allowed for anyone to have their privacy if they wanted it, or not as the case may be. The students at the window table were in the process of leaving amidst giggles and lots of pushing and shoving.  The two sets of couples were finishing up their coffee as well.  No-one else had come in which meant the smell had to have come from the kitchen area.  Just then he heard a gruff voice from the phone.

“Yeah, it’s Griff.  What do you want
Kane?”  Kane smiled to himself.  Griff had been his cousin since birth and his friend since grade school and when Kane decided to leave his home town after a run in with their Alpha Griff had been happy to tag along with his friend. Now miles away in the little town of Cloverleah, Griff had become his faithful second in command of their own small group of lone wolves and his right hand man at their business, Custom Rides.  He was a big no-nonsense type of man that did not like small talk.

“Hey Griff I am at Kathy’s Diner.  Have you had lunch?”

“Yep, but that doesn’t mean I can’t eat another one.  See you in five.”  The phone clicked off.  Kane looked up and winked at Trisha. 

“Can you make that two orders please Trish
a?  Griff’s hungry,” he called out.

Laughing, Trisha went through the kitchen doors again and as she did that smell hit
Kane again.  This time he felt all the hairs on his neck stand up and then all of the nerves in his cock come alive.  What the fuck?  He hated strawberries and rarely had a chance to eat chocolate and what did either thing have to do with his dick?  He had to admit the smell was enticing but still Kane was confused.

Taking a deep breath
Kane tried to focus on his wolf.  Nope, it seemed he wasn’t in any danger - unless having your circulation cut off around the groin area was hazardous to your health.  But his wolf was edgy, anxious and wanting to break free.  It was like he wanted something, or in this case as the faint underlying scent of wolf wandered back to him, someone.  Was there a new shifter in town and if there was, why was the scent so faint?

Just then the front door opened and Griff
Matthews barreled in.  At over 6’ 5”, with a mass of long wavy black hair, a solid chest and long limbs, Griff had a trimmed black goatee gracing a surprisingly handsome face.  Combined with the tattoos covering every inch of the exposed skin of his tree-trunk arms, and more as Kane was well aware, Griff was not someone that you messed with. 

Seeing
Kane, Griff strode over to the booth, his movements strangely graceful in someone so large.  Sighing he sunk down into the booth chair opposite Kane and said “what’s got your panties in a knot?”

“How did you…?  I didn’
t say anything was wrong,” Kane replied staring at his friend. His own deep blue eyes glared at Griff’s equally sharp green ones but Griff didn’t back down.  After a tense moment Griff’s eyes slid down but only for a moment. 

He looked back up, acknowledging his Alpha but then said, “The only reason why you would ask me for lunch at almost 3 o’clock in the afternoon, when you know I am trying to get that Anderson order finished is if there was something wrong.  So I will ask again, what has got your panties in a knot?”

As Kane was trying to find a way to answer his friend without sounding like a complete fool, Trisha came from out of the back of the kitchen with their order. 

“There” he
muttered quietly, “can you smell that?”  He watched Griff surreptitiously sniff the air as Trisha came over.  Griff smiled up at her as she laid out two large bowls of stew and another platter with a pile of chunky bread stacked up on it.

“Hey Trisha, how’s my favorite lady today?  You wearing new perfume or something?”

Trisha grinned at him as she knocked his arm. She was a pleasant looking woman in her mid thirties, her blond hair escaping her bun and her eyes bright and clear. “Of course not, silly.  When do I get the time to wear perfume and stuff in a place like this?  Of course if I was going out somewhere nice…” she looked at Griff teasingly, “then I might be tempted to splash out a bit.

Griff chuckled. “Now you know you are far too good for the likes of me, Trisha.  Besides I heard you were stepping out with that new
sheriff, so the gossip goes.”

Trisha blushed. “Well, Mike might have been by a few times, but who knows.  And you know better than to listen to gossip.” She swiped Griff’s arm again and then headed back to the kitchen.

“So you did smell something too,” Kane looked at his friend.

“Yeah I smelled something sweet with an undertone of shifter but why should that bother us.  There are no other packs in town and we aren’t the type of pack that worries if other shifters come into town as long as they leave us alone.  Probably another drifter like us.  I am not sensing any threat here.”  Griff couldn’t understand what had made
Kane so edgy.

Kane
fidgeted in his seat trying to get his hard-on, which just would not ease, to at least stop trying to burst out of his zipper.

“I thought the same thing,” he grunted, losing the battle with his jeans. He would have tooth marks on his dick shortly, and not the ones he usually liked. “But nothing I have ever smelt has hit me in the balls like this has…and why is there only a faint smell of wolf? Doesn’t that seem weird to you?”

“It’s hit you in the balls?”  Griff laughed and leaned up out of his seat to take a look at Kane’s lap.  “Oh yeah, so it has.”  He chuckled again as he grabbed a piece of bread and dipped it into his stew, sitting back down again.

Kane
frowned at his bemused friend.  “What’s so funny asshole?” He caught himself growling and wondered where the hell that had come from.

Griff kept eating for a moment, not letting
Kane’s uncharacteristic growl bother his appetite.  “Well,” he said in between chews, “hmmm, man this stew is good.”  He carried on eating a minute.

“Griff!” 
Kane was clearly not amused by the situation.  Griff wiped the smile off his face and put down his bread. 

Looking at his friend he said in a quiet voice, “It’s simple really.  If something you haven’t seen grabs you by the balls like that then it could only mean that smell is your mate.”  Griff picked up his bread again and continued eating while
Kane sat in stunned silence for moment.

Mate, hmm, couldn’t happen, not to him. 
Kane thought back to the night the Alpha, his uncle, had kicked him out of his pack back in Arizona fifteen years before.  His uncle had been disgusted that Kane was gay and told him more than once that he had given up his chance of ever finding a mate with his “perverted predilections” as he called it.  A mate, his uncle had told him, was the Fate’s way of ensuring the health and continuity of a pack.  As Kane refused to consider mating with a female and contributing to the pack’s growing bunch of cubs he was kicked out. 

Griff,
had stood by his side throughout, Kane remembered, claiming he too was gay and that he would follow Kane regardless.  For fifteen years he had lived with the idea that not only had he given up his own hope of having a mate, but his friend’s as well.

“Bullshit” he spluttered before snagging the last piece of bread.  His own stew was getting cold and when he glanced up he could see that Griff was eyeing his plate with a hungry eye. “And keep your eye off my stew.”

Griff sat back in his chair and stretched his long legs out the side of the booth.

“Why is it bullshit, as you so eloquently put it?” He questioned his friend quietly.  “What if the Alpha was wrong?  Wouldn’t be the first time, as you well know.”

“Aw come on Griff, you know my uncle.  He was adamant that both of us had given up our chance of finding happiness with a mate that would accept us the way we are.  God forbid, what if that mate was female?  There is no way in hell I am going there.”  Kane shuddered as he ate his stew.

“You haven’t even seen the source of the smell yet.  How do you know what gender “it” is, or more to the point, what “it” is?  I can smell the wolf as well, but it is really faint almost like something else is covering it.” 

Griff looked at his friend again and Kane was sad to see there was a spot of hope in his eyes.  If Kane could find his mate after all this time then it meant there was hope not only for him, but also for Griff and the other gay wolves in his little pack.

“Maybe this excuse for blue balls is already mated - did you consider that?  Just not to another wolf?  That might account for the smell
, or lack of it.”  Kane didn’t want to dash his friend’s hope as he knew how hard it had been for his friend to admit his own sexual orientation in the face of the prejudice in their home pack.

Both
Kane and Griff had been taught from birth that a mate was a special gift to not only the individual, but to the pack.  Someone who would bring unique strengths to the existing pack and help the pack stay healthy and strong in the face of any adversity.  To be told with such certainty that it wasn’t possible for someone who preferred to love someone of the same sex to find a mate was a real blow. 

“Nope.” On this Griff was adamant.  “You only get one chance to mate and one person to do it with.  There is no way your mate would already be mated unless it was to someone in our own pack, like those ménage thingy’s they have up north.  But okay, let’s say your
uncle was right.  So how do you account for the problem in your jeans, which I might add” he raised himself up quickly to look at Kane’s lap again, before sitting back down, “doesn’t seem to be resolving itself?”

“I don’t know,”
Kane said, “I just know it is bloody uncomfortable.  Besides I thought we knew everyone that worked here and this…” he pointed to his jeans, “has never happened in here before.” Truth be told it hadn’t happened anywhere before.

Griff looked over to Trisha who was cleaning down the counter.  The diner was getting ready for the next shift.  Soon the place would be packed with early diners.  “Hey Trisha, could you come over here for a minute?” he called out.

“Sure boys,” Trisha said as she wandered over.  “Is everything all right with the stew?”

“Awesome as always,” Griff charmed her.  “No, we were just wondering, though, has someone been tweaking your recipe?  There is something in the stew that I hadn’t noticed before.
  It’s really good, but I just wondered what was different about it”

Trisha laughed. “Oh, that will be Shawn.  He’s our new cook - he showed up here
about three weeks ago looking for work, so I gave him a chance seeing as Lance just waltzed off without notice.  Shawn is an absolute whizz in the kitchen.  He has picked up all the existing recipes with no problem at all and has even made a few suggestions on some new things I am thinking of trying here.”