How to Run with a Naked Werewolf (26 page)

“And I watched. I saw that the story Schuna fed me was total bullshit. I saw how sweet you were to everybody who crossed your path, even though it was so obvious that you were exhausted and scared and barely hanging on. I saw you smile . . . and that was it for me.
You
were it for me. I figured whatever was really going on with your husband, I could find a way to help you. I’d finally worked up the nerve to talk to you, which was why I was waiting in the parking lot for you—which I will admit sounds a little creepy, now that I’ve said it out loud. Anyway, I was waiting for you, and that’s when Marty showed up, and the whole thing just sort of snowballed.”

He looked at me, obviously hoping to see some softening
of my expression. He winced when he saw me glowering at him. “And that convoluted, slightly insane story explains why you continued to lie to me,
how
?”

“Well, how the hell was I supposed to come out with all that without it sounding convoluted and slightly insane? You were already so skittish I was afraid you were going to bolt at any minute. Then you found my tool kit in the truck, and you
did
try to bolt. I’m so sorry I lied, but by the time I thought you might trust me, it was too late for confessions. I knew you’d be so angry that there would be no getting past it. I just wanted to get you back to the valley before I confessed everything,” he said, as if he could tell the last few words out of his mouth were not the words of a reasonable, intelligent werewolf.

“Where I would be trapped for the winter and couldn’t get away.”

He pulled a face that looked remarkably like a wince. “ ‘Trapped’ is such an ugly word.”

I glowered at him. “I can think of a few more.”

“Can I put some pants on so we can discuss this?” he asked.

“You’re worried about being naked? Isn’t that a werewolf’s favorite outfit?”

He shook his head, glancing down. “I feel all vulnerable.”

I rolled my eyes and waved toward the bathroom. He bounded up from the floor, having recovered from his Tasering in record time, and threw on some sweats. He offered me his hand, to help me off the floor. I glared up at him.

He sighed and dropped to the carpet next to me. “I’ve kept us moving just in case Schuna sent another investigator after you. And I’ve been feeding him fake progress reports. I told him you were spotted boarding a plane from Anchorage to Ontario. And then I told him you’d taken the ferry back to Washington State. Anything to keep him off your trail. We took off after Trixie because Schuna told me he was going to send a second investigator to Fairbanks to help out. I had to get you out of town. Suds is stalling him, telling him that I’m working on another case. By the time we got back to the valley, we’d be snowed in, and we’d have time to figure out something long-term. I’ve been trying to help you, Tina, I swear.”

“Well, it’s not working, because Glenn is still driving Schuna nuts with requests for follow-up reports. So, short of killing you or faking my death, this plan is a failure.” He opened his mouth, as if he was about to propose something, and I cut him off. “I am not faking my own death.”

“I was going to ask why I would have to be killed in this scenario.”

I ignored that, because I thought the answer was apparent. “I really don’t know where to go from here,” I told him. “Everything about us is just one layer of lies after another. We’re a lasagna of lies. This is a terrible basis for a relationship.”

“No, you’re it for me,” he told me. “It’s always been you.”

“I don’t want to be loved just because I smell right.”

“Well, you do smell fantastic. And I do love you,” he
promised me. “Not because you smell right. I love you because you’re funny and smart, and you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘quit.’ ‘Common sense’ and ‘self-preservation’ are also terms I would like you to look up. I love you because you’re stubborn and insanely smart and willing to get into fistfights with strippers to help someone out. I love you because you’re so much stronger than you think you are. I love that you can only eat waffles if there is an equal amount of butter and syrup in each square. I love the way you can only sleep if you have a toe sticking out from under the blanket. I hate that you feel like you can’t trust me, but I understand that I’m the one who made you feel that way.”

“Well, that’s awfully generous of you,” I grumbled.

“Don’t you have anything you would like to say to me?”

“Not that you would want to hear,” I retorted. I hated the hurt expression that crossed his face, but I wasn’t willing to try to make Caleb feel better or tell him that I loved him. Wanting to hurt him in some way felt like a reasonable thing.

Caleb reached up to touch my shoulder. I moved away, which seemed to deflate him. He slumped against the side of the bed. “So what now?”

“I need time to think,” I told him. “I have a whole other life set up for me. I’m not sure where. That’s why I had to come to Anchorage, to get the papers and money I needed to get started.”

If it was possible, Caleb went even paler. “Tina, no.”

“I’m not saying that I’m definitely going to take it. I just need some time to think about everything.”

“Everything?”

“Your lies. My lies. Glenn. The werewolf factor. Everything. I can only deal with so much.”

“OK.” He nodded slowly and got to his feet. I stood, wanting to keep us on the same level. He turned to the closet and threw on a shirt. I watched as he moved around the room, collecting his laptop, toiletries, and clothes. It only took him a few minutes.

A strange sense of desperation came over me as he slid into his coat.
Don’t let him go, you idiot!
a little voice in my head commanded.
Stop him. Go with him. Something! Don’t just stand there!
Instead, I stood stone-faced by the bed.

“I’m going back to the valley,” he said. “You stay here in this hotel under your assumed name for the next week.
When
no one shows up looking for you in that time, you’ll know that I’m on your side.
When
no one shows up, I will find a way to get you back to the valley. Hell, Suds will probably come pick you up. I’d rather it be me, but I figure that would interfere with your ‘space’ thing.”

I nodded slowly. It was a fair plan. It gave me an out. But that didn’t mean I was happy to see him leave. He went to the safe to retrieve the cash. He counted out a large stack of twenty-dollar bills and put them on the dresser.

“You don’t have to do that,” I protested.

“You’re going to need cash,” he reminded me.

“You don’t have to do that because I already took eight hundred from the stash.”

His eyebrows winged up, and despite the exceedingly crappy situation, I could see the barest hint of a smile
quirk the corners of his mouth. “Well, keep that, too. You’ll need it.” He cleared his throat. “If you decide . . . not to join me, will you stay in Alaska?”

“I don’t think I should tell you that.”

“Well, if you run again—”

“Don’t call it running,” I snapped.

Caleb shifted from one foot to the other. “Either way, I’m going to send Schuna a report stating that I’ve come to a dead end with your case. No more leads. No more information to follow. It’s not the first time things haven’t panned out on a case. It won’t make him suspicious.”

I nodded. “I appreciate that.”

He moved closer and bent his head to kiss me. I stepped away, shaking my head.

“I can’t,” I told him, even when my eyes burned and I couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. I stared down at the carpet, unable to look at him.

Without another word, he walked out the door.

For hours, I
sat on the bed, staring at the door, sure that Caleb was going to walk right back through it. And I wasn’t sure whether that would be a good thing or not. I flip-flopped on whether to grab my bags and run for the Canadian border. Finally, I pulled all of my belongings together, went downstairs, and rented a new, more reasonably priced room under “Anna Moder” and created a little rabbit den there. I spent the first day curled in the fetal position under the covers, trying to
alleviate the ache in my chest. There was a diner next door to the hotel, and I abused its delivery policy terribly, eating huge amounts of room service. I watched movies on HBO until I could no longer stand the sight of Zac Efron. (It didn’t take long.) And I took daily pregnancy tests, all of which were negative.

I didn’t stray far from home base. When I decided it was time for professional follicle intervention, I went to the salon on the ground floor of the hotel, where the poor stylists clucked over the damage I’d done over the years with repeated dye jobs. I got a deep-conditioning treatment and new, sassy layers while my toes were painted a frosty cotton-candy pink. I went to the hotel boutique and shopped for clothes that (1) weren’t secondhand and (2) weren’t ordered over the Internet, which was a novelty. I wore makeup—real cosmetics, not just flavored ChapStick—for the first time in years.

I will admit, I indulged. I dropped my guard and made silly, selfish decisions. I knew I needed to move beyond my physical needs and constant fretting over the immediate future. I had to look at the big picture. I was stalling like hell from picking up Red-burn’s packet. It was the polar opposite of self-preservation, but I needed this time to process thoughts such as
Caleb, you jackassed, half-wit jerk-face, I would dearly love to tap-dance on your testicles.
I needed some control over my life. I needed to find my footing and make choices based on preference instead of panic. For so long, I’d based my clothes, my meals, my appearance, on what was available to me. It took some field testing before
I remembered how I preferred my jeans cut or which kind of lip gloss I liked best. (Skinny jeans and a violet-pink shade ironically called “Lupine.”)

At least I looked good while I stalled.

Every morning, I would wake up, pack my bags, and practically sprint to the lobby.

I would hitch my bag over my shoulder, prepared to make a blind run to the post office to pick up Red-burn’s package. I could feel the cold fingers of outside air tracing the lines of my cheeks. And instead of walking out into the cold, somehow, my feet changed direction, and I was standing at the bank of elevators, ready to go back upstairs. And every morning, the staff would look at me with increasingly alarmed expressions.

I was angry with Caleb. There was no question about it. But I’d lied to him, pretending to know he wasn’t lying to me, while he lied to me, pretending he didn’t know I was lying to him. Neither of us was the picture of healthy communication.

In my minibar-buffeted den, I mulled my options over and over. Run back to the valley, or start another new life, or go back to Tennessee and straighten out the mess I’d made of my old one. The last was more of a not-even-the-least-bit-likely palate cleanser.

A tiny, twisted part of my brain kept telling me I was damaged, messed up in the head. I couldn’t even cross a parking lot without having a panic attack. Werewolves needed fierce mates who could stand up to the strange, violent pressures of their world. I would fold under the first test. I knew that pack mating rules seemed
unquestionable. But maybe whatever magic governed them would make an exception, since Caleb hadn’t gotten me pregnant. Maybe he could go on to have babies with some nice girl from another pack, a girl who didn’t have night terrors and trust issues. And yet the very idea made my blood boil.

I didn’t want him marrying some other woman. I didn’t want her touching him, helping him with cases. Caleb was mine.

Now I just had to figure out how to go about talking to him again without Tasering him.

On the sixth
day of my self-imposed Howard Hughes retreat, Red-burn resolved my quandary with a phone call.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“What do you think about your new ID? My connection worked really hard to make sure your picture came out nice. And I picked your name myself. I always thought you sounded like a Bethel.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your new ID. Haven’t you picked it up yet? Honey, I sent it a week ago, three-day guaranteed delivery. I thought you hadn’t called because you were on the move. Or because you were pissed because your new first name is Bethel. But that doesn’t matter, because right now, there’s an animal clinic in Ottawa waiting for you to take over a vet-tech position.”

Sadly, given the amount of time I’d spent working
with both wolf and human anatomy, I was probably qualified for this position. “I haven’t had a chance to pick it up.”

“What’s going on with you?” she asked. “You hassled me for weeks for that ID, and all of a sudden, you don’t have time to pick it up? You sound all weird and distracted . . . wait, is there a man in this picture?”

“Sort of.”

Red-burn snorted. “Honey, either he is or he isn’t.”

“He is.” I sighed. “I have the chance to build a good life with someone. A life I could live as myself.”

“That’s fantastic. What’s stopping you?”

“This insane roller coaster of a life I live?” I suggested.

“Not good enough.”

“For the first couple of months we knew each other, I lied to him about who I was.”

“You’re in the domestic version of witness protection. You get a pass. Not good enough.”

“He lied to me about who he was. And he was a bounty hunter hired by my ex to find me.”

There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line. “OK . . . that would be an obstacle.”

“Why do I hear glasses clinking?” I asked.

“I’m making myself a drink. You do the same, and we’ll talk this out.”

I cracked open a tiny bottle of vodka from the minibar and tossed the contents down my throat in one shot.

I hissed loudly, making her snicker on the other end
of the line. “You didn’t mix that with anything, did you?”

“No,” I whispered hoarsely.

The whole sordid tale poured forth from my mouth in one long run-on sentence. How I met Caleb in the parking lot and helped him through a gunshot wound. (I left out the spontaneous healing.) How we’d bounced around the state fighting crime, sort of. How I’d slowly, almost against my will, fallen in love with him. And finally, how having above-average Internet-surfing skills led to Schuna’s e-mail and the Tasering of a lifetime. I don’t think I used so much as a comma.