Howling on Hold

by E. J. Russell

  “I’m fine.” Chase shook out his hand. “Just banged my knuckles a little.” He smiled at Tanner. “You look . . .” His gaze traveled from Tanner’s hair to the floppy socks protruding below the denim donuts at his ankles. He tucked his lips against his teeth, clearly trying not to laugh. “Clean. You look clean.”

  Tanner scowled at him. “Uh-huh.” I look like a toddler playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes. The last thing Tanner wanted was for Chase to see him as a kid again.

  Chase cleared his throat and nodded at the pot. “There’s stew, but it’s fish.”

  “So?”

  Chase blinked at him. “You don’t mind?”

  Tanner heaved a sigh. “I’ve spent the last three months scavenging all my meals out of garbage bins. I’m not that picky. Besides, Gage is right. Seafood can be pretty tasty.”

  “Okay, then.” Chase’s tone belied his words, but he dished up two bowls of stew, gesturing for Tanner to take a seat on one of the stools at the counter.

  Tanner practically dove into his bowl, one arm curled around it as he scooped stew into his mouth, heedless of the heat that seared his tongue. His shirt cuffs unrolled again, trailing into the broth. A growl rumbled in his chest. I should just rip the damn things off. I should—

  He forced himself to release his death-grip on the spoon. If I don’t want to be treated like a feral pup, I need to stop acting like one. He glared at his sleeve. Or looking like one. He let the spoon plop into his nearly full bowl. “I need different clothes.”

  Chase stopped pretending to eat his own stew and frowned at him. “Do you want to wash the old ones? You’d have to wait—”

  “No. I mean different clothes. Different from those.” He flicked his fingers at the bedraggled bundle sitting by the door. “Different from these.” He gestured to his oversized outfit. “Different. Something that won’t make you snort water out your nose every time you look at me.”

  Chase reared back, outrage fighting with amusement on his face. “I never snorted water out my nose.”

  “It was a mental snort. Trust me. I could tell.”

  “I’m not sure we’ve got an option here, Tanner.”

  “We do.” Tanner stood up. “Ted said there’s a secondhand shop in town that’ll take my old clothes. If they’ll take something as ratty as those, they’re bound to have something that’ll do. What do you say?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Want to take a road trip?”

  “Tanner.” Chase’s tone was loaded with exasperation and regret. “I really don’t think—”

  “Chase, please.” Tanner gripped Chase’s forearm. “I just want to feel normal. I haven’t felt normal in what seems like forever. Besides, do you really think those golems were after me? I’m nobody.”

  Chase’s brow knotted. “You’re probably right.”

  Despite the agitation singing in his veins, Tanner chuckled. “That I’m nobody?”

  “No, you doofus. You’re definitely somebody. But the more I think about it, the more likely I think it is that the golems were directed at Mal. Or maybe Hugh, since he told us that not all of the supe community is on board with having a human involved in our business. Besides . . .” He bit his lip, glancing away. “I mean, I don’t want to scare you, especially since it’s in the past anyway, but—”

  “If somebody had wanted to attack me, they could have managed quite easily at any time since November.” Tanner allowed himself to pat Chase’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’d figured that out already.” Besides, even if Finn had been gunning for Tanner with a pack car, he wouldn’t know Tanner was in Dewton. Hells, Tanner doubted Finn knew Dewton even existed. The Wallowa pack barely admitted that Portland existed, let alone anything further west. “So what about it? Can we head into town?”

  “We could. But I don’t know where it is.”

  Tanner waved Chase’s words away. “No worries. If Ted’s been there”—he tapped his nose—“I can find the way, even in human form. I’ve had lots of practice lately.”

  “Don’t you want to eat a bit more first? Maybe nap?”

  He gave Chase a get-real-dude eyebrow raise. “I’m not tired. When you’re living as a wolf, you don’t have much to do except eat, sleep, and figure out what to eat next. Besides, I don’t want to eat when you’re not.”

  “I was eating!”

  “Chase. I saw you. You did nothing but stir it, with a look on your face as if you expected the fish to leap out and bite your nose. What I need right now are clothes, Chase.” He lifted his foot. “I need shoes.”

  “Normal. Right.” He gestured toward the door. “Lead the way, Super Snoot.”

  Tanner grinned and skidded across the polished floor in his socks to scoop up his old clothes, hoping Ted was right about Shirl accepting something this ratty in trade. When he stepped out onto the porch, he took a minute to appreciate the view. Things look a lot different on two legs than on four.

  Chase joined him, closing the door gently behind them. He pointed into the woods. “Ted said town is thataway.”

  Tanner grinned at him. “Then thataway is where we’ll go.”

  He had no trouble following Ted’s scent—clearly Ted trod the path into town on a regular basis. But after they’d gone about a mile, they arrived at a rocky outcropping, surrounded by heavy brush. Ted’s trail forked—leading both toward the rocks and away from them. Behind a screen of trailing blackberry brambles was the dark maw of a cave.

  Oh gods, not another cave. Tanner had had more than enough of lurking in the bowels of the earth.

  “Oh, hey.” Chase peered into the darkness. “Ted said he had a cave about halfway to town. This must be it.” He ducked inside.

  As reluctant as Tanner was to leave the spring sunlight—especially with the way it was glinting on Chase’s hair—he was also done with trying to hike through the woods in Ted’s oversized socks. He’d leave them inside and they could collect them on the way back to return to Ted.

  So he followed Chase into the cave—and blinked. Because, yes, it was a cave, but it was almost . . . homey. A couple of crates spanned by plywood shelves stood just inside the entrance, stacked with blankets, candles, a box of matches, and cans of beans, chili, and vegetables. A couple of pairs of jeans and some flannel shirts—Ted’s size, judging by their volume—were folded neatly next to the blankets.

  There was a definite scent of Ted-the-bear. But even so, Tanner was strangely reluctant to leave the cave. Stupid. I was just thinking I never wanted to see the inside of one again. But if his hideout over the last months had been as well-stocked and cozy as Ted’s den, Tanner would never have gotten the courage to face his fears.

  Oh right. I didn’t face my fears. My fears faced me.

  A little of his elation at being free and upright again faded. He tugged off the socks—now definitely worse for wear—folded them, and set them next to the shelf.

  Chase frowned at him. “Seriously? You’re gonna go barefoot?”

  “It beats socks.” He nodded at Chase’s loafers, now caked with mud and flecked with stray fir needles. “Maybe the pads of my wolf feet are more suited to the trip than my human ones, but either one of them beat your shoes. I saw how you slithered down that steep section. You barely missed landing on your ass.”

  “So now your feet are superior as well as your nose?”

  “Hey. Don’t hate me because I’m a super wolf.”

  Chase’s solemn gaze met Tanner’s—and held. “I could never hate you.”

  Tanner’s breath caught. Remus’s blood, now I want to kiss him. But I look like a refugee from a remake of The Little Rascals. He cleared his throat. “Shall we get going?”

  Chase twitched—not quite a flinch, but he was obviously surprised. But he followed Tanner out of the cave and back onto the trail.

  After a mile or so, the roofs of a small town were visible through the fir branches. “There it is.” Chase squinted into the distance. “And that’s the ocean just beyond.” He grinned at Tanner. “Too bad Gage isn�
��t here to enthuse about it.” He held out his hand. “Are you ready?”

  Tanner hesitated. Although his own hands were clean, they were far from smooth. This wasn’t how he’d imagined holding Chase’s hand the first time. But if Chase didn’t mind . . .

  He fit his own roughened palm against Chase’s, and as their fingers laced together, his lungs suddenly forgot how to expand. “I’m ready,” he said, his voice strangled. Breathe. If you breathe, you won’t sound like a leaky balloon.

  “Then let’s do this.” Chase eyed a path that got steeper before it leveled out behind the building. “Maybe faster is better than slower. You think?”

  “Why not?”

  Hand in hand, they hurtled down the hill, arriving at the bottom breathless and laughing. Chase tugged him along the rear of a large building at the north end of town—Oh, look, dumpsters; my natural habitat—but when they rounded the corner, the street in view, Tanner’s laughter died at the sight of a passing black sedan.

  Get over yourself. There are a lot of black cars in the world. So Tanner took a deep breath and strode along next to Chase with at least a pretense of courage—although Chase’s hand in his probably had more to do with that than any triumph of logic on his part.

  Halfway along the building’s painted concrete block wall was a wooden door inset with a window, like the office doors of every PI in the classic noir films Chase had introduced the juniors to. Tanner was the only one who caught the bug—Jordan complained that there weren’t enough explosions, Gage preferred anything involving sharks, Dakota liked biopics, and Hector just wanted to be left alone to poke around on his computer. Instead of a PI’s name, though, the letters inked on the window said Stuff ’n’ Things: If you need it, we got it.

  “This is the place Ted told me about.” Tanner studied the door dubiously. “Seems like a pretty unlikely claim, doesn’t it? And the door is a little, well, out of the way. Maybe it’s not the main one?”

  Chase peered through the window. “Doesn’t look like it’s restricted to staff, though.” He turned the knob. “And it’s not locked, so—” he held the door open “—after you.”

  Reluctantly, Tanner released Chase’s hand and stepped inside. He gazed around in awe. For one thing, the place was huge, like the inside of an airplane hangar or something. Yeah, it had looked big from the outside, but from inside? Whoa.

  Of course, the effect might have been exaggerated by the incredible array of stuff piled on the warren of shelves and the acres of tables.

  “Is that a Kaypro II?” Chase murmured, pointing to an ancient computer with a screen the size of an old-style oscilloscope. “Hector would practically swoon. He’s been looking for one of those forever.”

  “I wouldn’t know a Kaypro II if it bit me.” Why are we whispering? “But I’m pretty sure that’s a Schwinn Stingray. Although it’s hard to tell with all those Furbies piled in front of it.”

  A tall, gaunt woman with an improbably high black beehive hairdo appeared from behind a row of shelves holding tattered paperbacks. She was wearing faded jeans and a red plaid shirt buttoned tightly at the wrists—and had about a dozen pencils sticking out of her hair. “Can I help you boys?”

  “Yeah.” Tanner tugged on his shirt. As if straightening it will make me look any less disreputable. “Are you Shirl? Ted Farnsworth told us about your place.”

  She snorted. “Course he did. Well, don’t stand there all day. Come on in.” She turned and stalked away, disappearing behind a wall of mixed car parts and garden tools.

  He glanced at Chase, then shrugged and followed Shirl further into the store, past jumbled piles of boots, stacks of used tires, and tables groaning under mounds of cast-iron cookware. She settled on a stool behind a battered wooden counter, an old-fashioned cash register at her elbow.

  “You boys staying with Ted, are you?”

  “For now.” Chase was gazing at the dozens of clocks mounted on the wall behind her with fascination.

  “Ted said you might be willing to take these clothes.” Tanner hefted his bundle. “And maybe fix us up with some others that fit a little better?”

  She held out her hands. “Give ’em here.”

  Tanner hesitated. “They’re pretty ratty.”

  She peered at him over her glasses. “Trust me to know my own business, boy.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly, and handed over the smelly bundle.

  Shirl heaved it through a curtain behind the counter like a major league pitcher, then turned back to him, studying him through her cat-eye glasses, lips pursed, until Tanner was tempted to hide behind a shelf full of mismatched dishes. Gods, she must think I’m some vagrant, here to take advantage of her friend and rob the store. Although as he glanced furtively around, he wasn’t sure what anyone would be tempted to steal. First you’d have to find something you wanted, then excavate it from the mass of other stuff.

  “Clothes, huh?” She looked Chase up and down too. “Wait here.”

  She disappeared behind the curtain. Tanner frowned, trying to figure out what the curtain could be hiding—including what part of the building could be concealed behind it. When they’d come in from the side, it seemed like the building was one giant contiguous space—although admittedly it was tough to see around the shelves which were easily eight feet tall. Shirl must have some wicked stepladders to be able to haul everything up that high. For all I know, she could have a forklift tucked into a corner behind a stack of secondhand two-by-fours.

  He leaned toward Chase. “Do you suppose we should have told her what kind of clothes we wanted?”

  Chase shrugged. “She didn’t give us much chance. We can tell her when she gets back. I’m not sure how long we’ll have to wait at the cabin for Mal, so I don’t know—”

  Shirl emerged from behind the curtain, her arms full of clothing. She slapped a pair of worn jeans on the counter in front of each of them, followed by a couple of flannel shirts, socks, and— Gods, underwear? She added another pair of jeans to Tanner’s pile.

  He exchanged a bewildered look with Chase. “Don’t you need our sizes?”

  She gave them a withering glare. “He’s a 32-34. You’re a 28-32 at the moment. Shirts in medium for you and large for him, but you’ll want them a little roomy so you can layer the long johns underneath. Still gets cold up there on the hill. We’re not done with winter yet.”

  “I hate to ask,” Chase said, “but could I get another pair of jeans?”

  “You won’t need ’em.” She pointed to two of the jumbled stacks of boots. “Those are size eleven. Those are tens. Pick out a pair each. Socks in the bin.”

  Tanner fought the urge to giggle at Chase’s offended expression. Not many people contradicted him. He was an alpha, after all, and he’d gotten used to authority in his own domain, even if that domain was only the Doghouse. Plus, he was smart. He didn’t like being told he was wrong any more than the next guy.

  So Chase was scowling as he sorted through the boots. Tanner found a left boot he liked almost immediately, and although he expected to have to dig through the entire pile to find its mate, he located it right away. He hesitated at the sock bin. He didn’t want to be greedy, but gods, socks. Socks that fit. To have warm feet again. He selected a nice, cushy-looking pair, but as he turned away, Shirl called, “Three pairs.”

  Oookay. So Tanner took two more and shuffled over to the counter, where his stack of clothing had acquired a belt and some thermal leggings.

  Shirl gathered the jeans, a shirt, a pair of socks, the belt, and gods, underwear and set them—surprisingly gently—in Tanner’s arms. “You can change in the washroom. There’s plenty of hot water and soap too. Use whatever you need.”

  Tanner glanced at the wall Shirl had indicated. Sure enough, there was a door underneath an overfull shelf of miscellaneous crockery. Funny. I could swear those shelves went all the way to the floor. But with the promise of clean clothes that fit—and maybe even a shave—he didn’t care if the door led to Sheol’s antec
hamber, he refused to wait one more second. He turned to tell Chase his plan, but Shirl poked his arm. “He’ll manage. Take your time.”

  Tanner stumbled toward the door. It was unlatched and he pushed it open with his hip to reveal a utilitarian—but sparklingly clean—bathroom. A razor still in its plastic package sat on the edge of the sink. Yes!

  He set his new clothes on top of the toilet lid. “Shaving cream. Shaving cream,” he muttered as he opened the mirrored medicine chest, “shaving . . . soap?” Okay, that’s different. The little round-bottomed cake had the same scent at Ted’s soap and shampoo. Guess he and Shirl do their shopping at the same place. Whatever the scent, the soap, coupled with the razor, delivered the smoothest shave Tanner ever had.

  After he patted his face dry on a towel nearly as fluffy as Ted’s, he noticed a shin-high basin, complete with its own faucet and drain, tucked into the corner. Is that . . . moon and stars, is that a foot bath? He wiggled toes made grubby again by a barefoot hike through the woods. I don’t care if it’s not, that’s how I’m using it.

  He stripped off his borrowed pants and filled the basin with almost-too-hot water, hissing as he submerged his feet. Ah. He was tempted to stand there forever, but Chase was waiting. So he scrubbed his feet with the handy soap, dried off, and got dressed.

  When he stepped out of the bathroom—shaved, clad in clean clothes, wearing actual boots—he felt almost . . . well . . . normal. He took Ted’s folded clothes over to the counter where Shirl was bagging the rest of their purchases and Chase was tying the laces of his boots. Chase stood, eyes widening when his gaze landed on Tanner.

  He grinned. “Wow. Looking pretty spiffy there.”

  Heat climbed Tanner’s throat. “Shut up.” He turned to Shirl. “Do you have another bag for these? I need to return them to Ted.”

  She patted the counter. “Leave ’em here. He doesn’t need ’em since they don’t fit either of those boys anymore.”

  “But—”

  Her deadly raised eyebrow stopped Tanner’s words. “I’ll square things with Ted, never you mind.” She pushed a denim jacket with a fleece collar toward Tanner. “Your friend’s jacket will pass, but you’ll need this.” She retrieved a small bag from under the counter. “And this.”