“I meant as a werewolf!” he yelled down at her, slamming his fist against the counter, his face again rigid and red.
Carl shuffled, mewling a small groan at Harry’s angry words, hiding behind Nina.
Nina took his enormous, gray blue hand and patted it to comfort him before slapping Harry on the head. “Quit goddamn well upsetting my zombie, you loudmouth. He’s already freaked out by all the extra stimulus. Stop making it worse. Jesus, Harry. Get it together. You go to work and play with all those stupid numbers just like before you were a werewolf. Stop being a pansy.”
“And I hide this”—he tugged at the fringes of his freshly grown, albeit scraggly beard—“how? I get the feeling if I come in clean shaven and by the time lunch rolls around I look like ZZ-Top, I dunno, but I think there might be some uncomfortable questions!”
Nina was in his face in an instant, growling a warning to ease up.
Harry backed right off, as though he were trying to contain himself and his newfound rage. “Apologies,” he offered, contrition clearly written all over his face. “It just happens.”
Mara let her forehead rest on the cool granite of her counter, her grainy eyes sore. Shit. He was right. His hair growth was out of control, not to mention his mood swings. What if someone added some numbers on an invoice incorrectly, and Harry went ballistic on them?
Worse, everyone werewolf would smell his change. How were they going to hide that? “Did Marty say how long the adjustment period takes, Nina? I forget . . .” Good, God. She’d ruined this man’s life. Intruded, invaded, disrupted his world and completely taken it over. Hell wasn’t fit for her.
Nina took Carl by the hand and led him to a stool next to Harry, shaking her finger at him to warn him he should sit and stay. When he reacted appropriately by grunting and giving her that almost endearingly crooked smile, she stroked his stringy hair and smiled back before saying, “Longer than know-it-all Harry has.”
“I have to work. I have to take the kids to school. I have to be there for them.”
Mara immediately melted again. His dedication to his sister’s children outweighed his shitty mood shifts. Sympathy and more remorse than her gut could handle overwhelmed her. “I’ll take care of it. You have sick days, right? Call in werewolf and I’ll handle everything else. Okay?”
Harry swallowed hard, rolling his thick shoulders. “And the kids? How am I going to explain what’s happening to me to them? They’re smart enough to know I can’t grow a beard overnight. And the car-pool ladies? They’re always asking personal questions about me, bringing me casseroles, trying to help with the kids. How do I explain this to them?”
Mara fought a sarcastic, maybe even jealous snort. She’d just bet the car-pool ladies were very interested in Harry. He was single, struggling with two children who’d lost a parent, and he had no idea how ungodly hot he was. He was the perfect prey.
“Don’t you worry about shit, Harry. I’ll handle the chicks in minivans with the tuna casseroles, and the kids, too. Marty and Wanda’ll help. You’re gonna stay the hell put here at Mara’s, and shut your yap until we can figure this out.”
Harry’s face held concern. “Will handling them involve crude language and cracked ribs? The ladies of the Cedar Crest Elementary car pool are the only people who actually like me these days. And they bring me food. Sometimes, it’s even edible. I don’t want to risk a shutout because you beat one of them up. And there are the kids to think of . . .”
Nina chuckled finally, relieving some of the tension between them. “I’ll let Miss Clairol Number Two-twenty-two deal with the broads. She’s good at shit like that. I won’t fuck anything up for Fletcher and Mimi. I like ’em. But I don’t like you. Remember that.”
“Don’t vampires need to sleep during the day?” Harry asked, then made an odd face with a look that said he couldn’t believe he was actually asking something so absurd.
“Don’t kids go to school during the day, Harry? Marty and Wanda’ll take the day shift. I’ll handle the night shift. Plus, I got a kid of my own so I’m used to losing sleep. Especially with a vampini who’s teething.”
Harry’s dark head shot up. “Vampini?”
Nina grinned—because it was in reference to Charlie. Clearly not because of Harry. “You really wanna know, dude? Or do you wanna let the rest of this shit sink in before I freak your already freaked-out ass some more?”
Harry shook his head and almost smiled, but he covered it swiftly with a frown. “Full up on the freak, thank you.”
“I’ll help, too, Harry,” Mara assured, rearranging the fake lemons she’d stacked in a black wire basket to avoid the sudden rush of heat her cheeks felt when she thought about working so closely with Harry. “I can watch the kids and whatever else you need.”
“No fucking way,” Nina interjected with the shake of her finger, slapping lightly at Carl’s hands when he reached over her to grab at one of the vases on the counter. “You go to work just like you always do. You want the council up your ass? We need to keep all suspicion off you until we can figure this mad-assery out. Until then, you do what you do and keep it on the down low. That means no nerd-girl confidentials with that weirdo clan of smart broads you hang out with either.”
Her fingers trembled, making her drop the lemon. How would she hide this from Astrid, Ying, and Leah? She sucked about as much at subterfuge as she did at playing the role of vixen.
She was going to the werewolf pokey for this, for sure. She’d forgotten all about the council in the rush to convince Harry everything would work out. No. She would own this and pay the consequences. “I have to tell them, Nina. I have to own up to my actions. They’ll find out anyway. All the other weres at Pack will smell the change in Harry. I’m headed for the big house.”
Harry placed a hand on her arm, the simple action, painfully innocent, sent a rush of blood to all of her limbs, leaving her warm and tingly. “They don’t have to know. I said I wouldn’t tell them, and I meant it.”
Mara shook her head firmly. “Harry? Take a whiff. A really deep whiff like this.” She inhaled long and exaggerated for his benefit.
Harry mimicked her, his gorgeous eyes widening. He gripped the edge of the counter to anchor his big body in place, the realization so great.
She waved a finger at him. “See? You can smell everything, can’t you? Every last splinter of wood on the floor, every last carpet fiber—everything. There’s no hiding your change. The others will smell it instantly. And you then have two choices. Rat me out or let them think you’re infiltrating Pack. You so don’t want an investigation on where you came from to happen. We know our own kind by scent, Harry. We know fellow pack members. We can identify other weres from other packs, too. All of the people you’ve worked with for all this time who are were are going to know you’ve been turned. And then the hunt for the perp begins.”
Mara fought a visible gulp. God, that would not be pretty. “So I’m going to avoid that at all costs and confess. I don’t want you to suffer any more change or discord in your life because I screwed up.”
Nina reached around Harry and yanked Mara’s hair. “Shut the fuck up, Short-Shot. You’re going to go to work, shut your piehole and let me, Wanda, and blondie figure this shit out. They made an exception for Keegan when he jazzed Marty up, they’ll make one for you.”
Right. Because Keegan’s accident was so much like a baby-making accident. “The council isn’t going to like that I was toying with tradition, let alone DNA, Nina, and you know it. I purposely and willfully created a serum to impregnate myself. I didn’t wait to find my mate. I didn’t procreate the old-fashioned way. I know the council. I’m going to do time for this, and I accept that as my punishment.”
Harry jumped up from his stool, outrage on his face, making Carl cringe. “Who the hell is this council? Is it like the FBI equivalent of the werewolf contingency? People are artificially inseminated al
l the time. What kind of archaic criminal system do you people have in place?”
“Human people do it all the time. Not werewolf people,” she whispered, a stupid batch of tears threatening to fall. “Look, Harry. We live by different rules than humans. We live by different rules because we are different than humans. We have advantages humans don’t. Because we want to live peacefully amongst them, we have a strict code of honor—one I stomped all over in my desire to be a mother. Which I’ll tell you all about tomorrow, after I go to work and pretend I didn’t ruin your, Mimi, and Fletcher’s lives. Now,” she croaked, pushing back her stool, “I need to grab an hour or so before I have to get up and go to work, so no one will become suspicious. I’m going to collapse on overload if I don’t catch my breath. You do just like Nina said, and after work, we’ll figure the rest of this out. But please leave all the worry and planning to us. Deal?”
Harry nodded, that faraway look in his eyes. “I’ll do what you ask—for now, but I won’t let you go to jail for this, Mara—or whatever crazy medieval punishment your people exact to punish you for something very twenty-first century.”
She boldly reached forward and pressed two fingers on the warmth of his lips, allowing herself only a brief second to treasure it, her own lips trembling in time with her fingers, and said, “Tomorrow we’ll talk, but please, if you do anything else tonight while you’re thinking about the day’s events, remember I’m really sorry.”
She shot a look of thanks to Nina before escaping to her bedroom and shutting the door so Harry wouldn’t see her cry like a pathetic weakling.
Diving for her bed, she drove her hands under the yellow and blue eyelet shams and yanked the pillows over her head to cover her sobs.
Mimi, Fletcher, and Harry’s face circled her brain, flashing in her mind’s eye, still pictures of the moments they’d only just recently shared stamping their imprint.
And she was ashamed. Ashamed her selfish carelessness had created a problem she couldn’t take back.
She’d taken from Harry in an even bigger way than just an ordinary accident. She’d involved children he might never be able to tell about his true nature. Might never be able to share with them the rituals of the pack he’d now become an unwilling member of because he’d have to hide what she’d done to him.
And she’d have to go into work tomorrow and hide her gut-wrenching guilt over ruining three lives, and somehow manage to get through the day without exposing herself.
She was a crappy liar.
That was her last thought before she set her phone’s alarm and drifted off into a fitful succession of disjointed dreams involving handcuffs and prison guards.
CHAPTER
7
“Where have you been?”
Mara instantly froze at the sound of her friend Astrid’s voice, guilt and panic washing over her in a wave of chills.
So, yeah, where have you been, Mara? Have you been with Hairy Harry, helping him accept his werewolf-ism, one you created in a lab like some crazy mad scientist?
She looked down at her phone to read the text Harry had sent her, keeping her eyes averted. “What do you mean, where have I been? I’ve been here all morning. Right here. At Pack. Doing Pack things . . .” Shut your piehole, she heard Nina whisper in her head. Less is more, twit.
Astrid placed a hand on her shoulder to thwart her escape up the wide escalator in the center of Pack’s busy atrium. She turned her around, her full face, almost always serious and rosy-cheeked, displayed a frown. She sniffed the air around Mara, her round eyes full of skepticism. “No, you weren’t. I looked everywhere for you on my morning break. I texted you, called you. No one could find you in the lab either.”
Oh, right. That was probably because she’d been in the ladies’ room while she pondered the slammer, hurling every last ounce of her morning coffee, vomiting her guilt up in chunks of last night’s dinner, one messy heave at a time.
She’d decided to stick as closely to the truth as she could. Astrid was genius-level smart—one little thing out of place on an average day made her paranoid and suspicious.
The magnitude of the secret she had would turn Astrid’s world upside down. And she’d be angry if Mara didn’t confide in her. Astrid’s self-esteem, right along with hers, suffered. They just suffered in very different ways.
Astrid’s low self-esteem led her to believe everyone was making fun of her and she was just missing the subtext of their snide jokes. She wasn’t good in crowds, she wasn’t good with change, and she especially wasn’t good at sharing a friend. She hoarded Mara like an intervention was needed.
Sometimes, like today, when panic was clear in Astrid’s voice, it choked her—smothered her naturally loner tendencies. Sometimes she also had to remind herself that one-on-one, she really enjoyed Astrid’s company. She just didn’t enjoy her Saran Wrap–like cling.
A deep breath later and Mara lifted her eyes to meet her friend’s, knowing the slightest thing could set sensitive, meek Astrid off. “I didn’t feel very well. I was probably hugging a toilet in the bathroom.” Mara ran her hand over her stomach. “See? Bloated. Gross.” She exaggerated, letting her tongue hang out of her mouth, making a gagging noise.
Astrid’s hand went to her forehead, concern in her sharp blue eyes. “You don’t feel warm,” she commented in a suspicious tone as if Mara’d purposely gone off shopping and lunching without her. “In fact, you feel fine.”
Should’ve felt me last night when I was pressed up against Harry at Guido’s. No. She couldn’t say that. Mara forced a smile to her lips. “Do I have to feel warm to not feel well?”
Did that sound defensive? You know, like I’m lying?
Astrid paused, her hand going to the signature butterfly barrette holding her dirty blond bangs off to the left side of her head, a self-conscious gesture she made when she was uncomfortable. She adjusted it and made a face. “Touchy much?”
Mara jammed her phone into the pocket of her lab coat and gave Astrid a look of apology. “Sorry. I’m just tired today.”
Astrid nudged her shoulder, shooting her a secretive smile, toothy and wide. “So guess what I know that you clearly don’t know, Crabby Patty?”
No. Why don’t you guess what I know that you don’t know instead? Here’s what I know that you can’t ever know. I turned my obsession into one of us. Then I stalked him to his house and tried to convince him being a werewolf is super cool.
Then I stalked him some more by hunting him down at the local witch doctor’s to convince him being a werewolf isn’t so bad for the second time in the span of five hours. And then my friend Nina came home with a zombie named Carl who eats vegetables, not people.
Instead, she just asked, “What?”
Astrid’s face scrunched up. “I said guess,” she ordered when Mara wouldn’t play the game to suit her.
Astrid was also demanding not just as a coworker, but as a friend. However, she wasn’t up to the game today. Mara scowled at her, squinting at the bright glare of winter sun from the atrium’s ceiling. “I don’t want to guess, Astrid!” The moment the words flew from her lips in a resounding echo, making the small clusters of people turn around, she clapped her hand over her mouth. Way to do covert, jackass.
Astrid’s eyes went round with hurt before she shrugged her shoulders. “Then don’t.” She turned on her heel and began to stomp off, her white Crocs making a dull thud on the floor.
Regret washed over Mara, prompting her to grab Astrid’s arm. “Damn. I’m sorry, Astrid. I am touchy today. I don’t feel well, and I didn’t sleep very well last night.” Truth. Chasing your fantasy man all over Buffalo was a sure way to lose sleep. “So I’ll guess, okay? You found a nonsurgical cure for small boobs, right? Phew. Just in the nick of time, too. Maybe bigger boobs are the answer to my manless problems?”
Astrid softened, giggling a low chuckle. “Harry’s out sick.”
“He’s not sick,” she was quick to correct until she saw suspicion on Astrid’s face. “I mean, he is not? Shut the front door! Really? Harry’s never sick.” She injected as much disbelief as she could into her words.
Astrid was all things Harry. Knowing Mara had an enormous crush on him, her small group of friends often teased her about it, but Astrid took her job, and Mara’s crush, very seriously.
She often reported things she’d heard, seen, thought she’d seen to Mara on a daily basis. Mostly, Mara humored her—today, when she was a liar whose pants were just shy of being on fire, she just wanted everyone to go away and leave her in her guilt.
But Astrid bobbed her head. Once more, Mara’s confidante in all things Harry. “I know! But he’s out today. Word is, he has a twenty-four-hour flu. I figured you’d want to know so you could make pretend chicken soup in your mind and make a pretend trip to his house to pretend to give it to him,” she teased.
“Ha-ha. Funny Astrid. We all know, for as long as I live, I’m never going within a mile of him—ever. It’s my own mental restraining order. Not after last year’s Christmas party. Never again. No, sir.”
Astrid seemed to take comfort in that just by the way she overall relaxed.
Mara often wondered if Astrid could keep her to herself and not have to share her with the other two girls in their hodgepodge of a group, if she’d finally realize that Mara was a loyal friend to her. If that would be enough to fill up her friendship cup.
“Well, anyway, he’s not here for you to watch over a cup of steak soup while you pretend you’re not really watching him.”
“Bummer that. There goes a perfectly good visual lunch, huh?”
Astrid stuck her arm through Mara’s. “It’s okay. You have me. I’ll share my steak sandwich with you. C’mon, let’s go find a table in the cafeteria. I’m starved.”
The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) Page 10