Shiftless (15 page)

I half expected the Haven werewolves to rise up in revolt after Wolfie and the majority of his pack hit the road with Haven's young adults in tow, but the remainder of the community instead came to me with heads bowed starting that first morning.  They needed advice on this problem, help with that problem, and I found my hands full just getting the village back into shape.

In an effort to keep the yahoos out of trouble (and to lighten my own load), I kept Wolfie's loaned helpers running so ragged with errands from the first day that they didn't have time to get into mischief.  Cricket fed their voluminous appetites, which seemed to give my stepmother something to worry about other than the fact that her husband's wolf appeared to have completely taken over his human side.  My father spent most of his time hunting rabbits in the woods now, and when he came to the back door to check on his mate, I couldn't see any hint of the man I'd known in the canine's eyes.  But that absence was almost a blessing—it seemed that the ruthlessness of Crazy Wilder had been within the man, not in the wolf.

Like the yahoos, I stayed too busy to worry over anything that wasn't directly in front of me over the next few weeks.  Despite my full hours, I expected the ache in my stomach to reappear when Wolfie slammed his pickup truck door and sped off, but I seemed to have finally accepted that the young alpha wasn't walking out of my life permanently—he was just living somewhere else for a while.  It also helped that my wolf and I were able to trade off responsibilities, and I often let her simple canine brain take over when exhaustion was threatening to turn me melancholy.

On one crisp winter day, the wolf had treated us to a run on four paws, and I was smiling when I stepped back into my clothes in the foyer of my family home, smelling stew bubbling in the kitchen and hearing the yahoos chattering away at the kitchen table.  But I smelled something else too—leaf mold and pine needles and a hint of peppermint....

I whirled, hoping that the scent meant Wolfie had come to visit, even though I knew that wasn't true.  Instead of my mate, a young woman in her late teens stood uncomfortably in the formal sitting room that no one ever used.  I couldn't quite imagine Cricket parking a visitor there, but my wolf could see that the stranger's canine half was skittish and ready to bolt, so I immediately understood how this girl might feel more comfortable alone than in the midst of the revelry clamoring forth from the kitchen.

The girl looked me up and down, sniffing the air with a human nose much like I would in wolf form, then she silently extended the hands that had been hugging a book to her chest.  Her offering was the new Patricia Briggs novel that I'd left in that bookstore so long ago, and even without bringing the paper to my nose, I knew the pages smelled of Wolfie.  Although I should have been welcoming my visitor, I couldn't resist opening the cover of the book instead to see if my mate had written anything inside.

He had.  "The whole pack misses you, but I miss you more," Wolfie had penned with a firm hand, then he'd signed his name with a muddy paw print.  "P.S.," the inscription continued.  "I'm sending you trouble.  But you can handle it."

The leaf mold and pine needle aroma was strong on the pages of the book, but that wasn't the primary source of the odor I'd picked up on as soon as I came in the door.  My wolf pushed to the fore and reported that the young woman smelled nearly identical to our mate, with the addition of a minty overtone.  Did that mean she was Wolfie's relative?  Heaven forbid—his daughter?

I looked back up at the young woman, who seemed to be restraining herself from bolting with an effort.  "I'm the trouble," she admitted, her eyes on her feet, which were already turned toward the door.  Despite her submissive gesture, I had a feeling she was right about her self assessment, and I already had plenty of problems to contend with.  But Wolfie had sent her, and my heart went out to the skittish young werewolf, so I put out my hands to capture hers before she could flee.

"Welcome, Trouble," I greeted her.  "I'm Terra."

I hope you enjoyed
Shiftless
!  If so, I'd be eternally grateful if you'd consider writing a review (even of just a sentence or two) on Amazon or Goodreads.  Your kind words help strangers decide to take a chance on a new author, and they urge me to keep on writing.

While you're on Amazon, you might enjoy checking out my other novels and short stories. Most relevantly, t
he sequel to
Shiftless
,
Pack Princess
, picks up right where this book left off and continues Terra's adventures, while
Bloodling Wolf
  is a prequel short story about Wolfie's childhood. In addition to the currently available titles, a short story about Wade is currently in the works, as is the third novel in the Wolf Rampant series. Be sure to sign up for my email list at
http://forms.aweber.com/form/35/528967935.htm
if you'd like to be the first to hear about new releases, and to find out when my books are free or on sale.

Beyond the world of werewolves,
Burgling the Dragon
is a middle-readers sword-and-sorcery novel that will be enjoyed by fans of Harry Potter (especially if you wished that girls got to take the lead in more of the adventures).
Flight of the Billionaire's Sister
is a young-adult short story that stands alone, but that also leads into my billionaire romance novel,
Despite the Gentleman's Riches
, while
Watermelon Summer
is a young-adult novel about a teenager tracing her roots back to the Appalachian farm where she was conceived. Finally,
Lollipops, Garlic, and Basement Salamanders
is a collection of three urban-fantasy short stories.

Flight of the Billionaire's Sister
is for sale on Amazon but is also available for free download if you sign up for my email list. In addition, if you drop an email to [email protected] with a link to your review of any one of my books on Amazon, I'll email you another book of your choice in pdf format for free. (There's no restriction on your rating, of course—a one-star review may leave me crying in my cocoa, but it will make me no less likely to email you a free book.)

Want more free reading? All of my books are also enrolled in KOLL, so you can borrow them for no cost if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited or Amazon Prime. Finally, my titles are all lending enabled as well, so why not share this book with a friend?

Thank you so much for reading and for spreading the word! You are why I write.