Wolf Moon

by Madelaine Montague

  "Sounds fantastic. As long as you don't mind protecting me from the Big Bad Wolf. I get a little grabby watching scary movies."

  Jeff winked. "Doesn't bother me none. Besides, you couldn’t pick a better man for the job."

  Hannah smiled at him. "You know where to find me."

  "I do," he said as he spun around and watched her head to the checkout. "How's 8:00 sound?"

  She looked at him over her shoulder. "Make it 7:00. I have a feeling I'm going to have quite an appetite."

  Jeff followed her, watching as she chatted with the checkout girl. He was surprised at how quickly he was drawn to her. There was something about her, something different, something irresistible.

  Now I know why...

  "Sir?" the checkout girl prompted. She had already finished with Hannah's groceries, he discovered, and was waiting to check his items. He ignored the girl, stepping aside and waving for the next customer in line to take his place.

  Waiting until he saw Hannah get into her truck and pull away, Jeff ditched his basket and headed out of the store. He jogged over to where he’d parked his car and got inside, slamming the door behind him. As he started the engine, he looked over at the stack of photos he'd left there earlier. Hannah was pretty, but the pictures didn’t really do her justice. They couldn’t show the vibrancy of her personality.

  It was a pity he had to use her, really.

  Chapter Three

  Jeff was so preoccupied, he pulled his car out of the parking lot and into traffic before he considered that damned little went unnoticed in such a small place. If he’d been seen talking to Hannah and then following her it would be all over the town grapevine in no time flat. Of course, in such a small town it was hard not to look like you were following someone! And her house wasn't far--nothing in Homerville was more than a five or ten-minute drive from one end of town or the other.

  Still, to be on the safe side, he turned off on the first side street he came to and circled around. He knew where she lived. He didn’t have to follow her. Besides, he wasn't interested in talking to her again. He had work to do.

  After a short drive, he arrived at Hannah's house. He pulled his car to the side of the road and rolled it to the end of the long driveway, watching as Hannah continued up to the side of the house and stopped. Jeff waited until she got out of her truck and went inside before he made a move.

  As he got out of the car, he made sure to ease the door shut so that he made no noise. He checked the inside pocket of his jacket and took out his camera and small flashlight before skulking up the driveway toward the house, uneasy at the thought of being spotted but determined to check out the strange markings she’d mentioned before they were lost to the weather.

  After only a few steps, he realized he wasn't going to need the flashlight after all. The moon still needed another night before it would be completely full, but it was already so vibrant that its pale white light illuminated the countryside. A soft breeze stirred up gold and amber-colored leaves, which had fallen and lined the driveway. Jeff did his best to sidestep them as he made his way up the drive and around the side of the house. He didn't want to alert Hannah to the fact that he had followed her there.

  Realizing it was a potential disaster waiting to happen, he began trying to think what lie he could tell that would sound believable if she did catch him in the act.

  Nothing occurred to him, unfortunately, so he decided to just try to focus on not getting caught.

  He saw she still hadn't cut back the bushes since he'd been there last, but when he shone his flashlight into the brush, he saw that many of the branches had been snapped back and dead leaves were scattered around the bases in the dirt.

  "I knew it! I knew I was on the right track," he muttered triumphantly.

  Kneeling, he illuminated the ground with his flashlight. The dirt had dried since the rain, preserving the prints and drying them so that the markings were as clear as if he’d made a mold.

  "She was right. He's been here already." Jeff held his hand out, comparing it to the tracks. "Damn, he's a hulking son-of-a-bitch, too.”

  Taking his camera out of his pocket, he snapped a few photos before skimming through them and comparing them to the ones he'd taken a few nights ago. The prints looked to be the same size, but this time, they were right up against the house instead of out in the field where he’d seen them before.

  As he studied them, he could see the distinctive print of a hind foot further back in the dirt, which meant the beast had sat here, watching Hannah, probably waiting for her to make herself vulnerable enough so he could pounce on her when she least expected it.

  Dismissing it for the moment, he snapped a few more photos. He was going to have to wait until he got back to his hotel room to do a more careful comparison to the others he had taken as he’d tracked the animal across the state, but at least it made him feel like he had a better idea of what he was dealing with.

  He's getting bolder, becoming hungrier, Jeff thought as he stood and looked up at the sky and watched a few scattered clouds sweep across the face of the bright white moon. And tomorrow night, when the moon is full, he'll stop at nothing to get her.

  Tucking the camera and flashlight back into his jacket, he padded back over to his car and slipped into the driver's side before easing the door closed again. He took out the small recorder he had been using to keep track of his observations and hit record.

  "I've been to the Walker house again. There were a number of tracks leading from the field directly up to the East side of the house. A few of the markings suggest the animal has been lying in wait. I made contact with the subject earlier this evening. She mentioned she’d heard strange scrapings and noises outside her house at night, but she said nothing that leads me to believe she knows the source of those noises."

  Outside, an owl's haunting call sounded in the dark, drawing Jeff's attention. He noticed the light in the upstairs window suddenly come on, so he figured he'd better get out of there before someone spotted him. But first, he made one final recording.

  "The moon will be full tomorrow night. I have made plans with the subject, and will be seeing her then to continue my work."

  He turned off the recording device, and then tossed it on the passenger seat. Hesitating briefly, he finally shrugged and started up his engine. It didn’t matter if she heard him now. She wouldn’t be able to identify him or the car from her upstairs bedroom.

  One more night, Jeff told himself as he started away from Hannah's house in the direction of his motel. One more night until all my planning finally pays off.

  I’m going to end that bastard!

  * * * *

  Rafe watched the hunter’s departure through narrowed eyes. “Persistent fuck,” he muttered. The bastard had been dogging him since Chattanooga. He’d thought he’d lost the son-of-a-bitch south of Atlanta—but like a bad penny ….

  That was bad enough and had created headaches Rafe hadn’t decided, yet, how to deal with. But sniffing at Hannah was going to get the bastard killed.

  His lips tightened as he transferred his attention from the road to the house.

  The light was on in Hannah’s room.

  And he could hear her humming to herself.

  He frowned. She was a cheerful person and he’d often heard her humming to herself, but it was like her rain gauge. She hummed when she was happy and he couldn’t think of a fucking thing about a trip to the grocery store that would have her humming a sappy ‘oldie’ love song.

  Except something that thoroughly pissed him off.

  It pissed him more that he was running out of time to make a move and he still hadn’t gotten a green light from the council.

  Well—he was out of time. The moon would reach its fullest the following night and although it was pure bunk that werewolves couldn’t control themselves and shifted on the full moon, it was an absolute fact that they were more feverishly inclined to mate.

  Especially when they’d already earmarked a female
they wanted.

  Looked like he might be going rogue after all.

  Hannah wasn’t going to know what hit her!

  The hunter—well, that was a different matter. He was encroaching on werewolf territory—Hannah—and he was about to be damned sorry!

  Chapter Four

  After a day of scraping old wallpaper, Hannah nearly dozed off in the hot bath she ran for herself to get ready for her date with Jeff.

  She was just that excited, she thought sleepily, struggling with the urge to just doze a while.

  The problem was she’d had a whole night and day to consider what she’d done and she wasn’t at all comfortable that she’d not only leapt at Jeff’s invitation, she’d flirted outrageously.

  That was so not like her at all!

  Not that he wasn’t attractive even though he was a good bit older than her, she knew, older than the men she was inclined to be attracted to.

  Sighing, she sat up to scrub, searching carefully for flecks of paint she’d missed the night before.

  Who was she kidding? She was afraid she’d seemed desperate because she was!

  Not that she wasn’t reasonably attractive! She’d had plenty of men to choose from—before—and she was still young. But the dating scene seemed to have left her in the dust. Most of her friends and acquaintances had already settled on a mate and were busy making babies or raising the chicks they’d already produced—well on the road to their first divorce.

  There just weren’t a lot of single men in such a small town to choose from.

  And it didn’t help that she’d known most of them her entire life and held no romantic notions about any of them.

  It also didn’t help that she’d been panting after Rafe since she’d met him and he was all business!

  Probably because the poor guy couldn’t take the chance of a relationship screwing up his finances worse than they were already.

  That thought brought her to the conversation she’d had with Jeff that was almost as much a source of embarrassment as her cheesy flirtation.

  Because it had been on her mind and was really bothering her and she had felt a need to share so he’d tell her it was nothing.

  It made her cringe to think she’d probably come across as a nut case.

  Or a desperate woman trying to use ghosts and goblins for attention.

  See! It’s not that no one wants me! Some weirdo is stalking me!

  She had asked Rafe about it, but he didn't seem to know anything. He’d humored her, and looked around the property after dark just to ease her mind, she supposed. She’d almost hoped he would find something, just so she could explain the scraping noises and such, but when he came back in with nothing to report, she thought maybe it really was just her mind playing tricks on her.

  And that didn’t make her feel any better at all.

  Besides not convincing her there wasn’t something trying to get in.

  Dismissing it abruptly from her mind when she glanced through the open door of the bathroom at the clock on her bedside table and saw it was already 6:30, she quickly finished bathing, pulled the plug in the tub and got up to rinse with the handheld shower.

  Grabbing her towel, she scrubbed herself dry and then squeezed as much water from her hair as she could and twisted it into a turban with the towel. She dressed, then, in the clothing she’d laid out—pretty underwear to make her feel sexy and a flirty dress she hadn’t worn in ages.

  She discarded the towel next, raked the tangles from her hair and then left it loose to dry while she applied a little makeup—mostly just to feel like she was preparing for something special.

  It worked to a degree. By the time she was ready, she was a nervous wreck from rushing but found she was actually looking forward to the date—in spite of the unnerving possibility that occurred to her that she’d come on too strong and might have given the guy the impression that she desperate enough for attention to put out on the first date.

  She wasn’t that desperate!

  Ok, she was a little desperate for male attention! It had been well over a year since she’d had a date, after all—and that had gone flat almost as soon as she’d walked out her door. Normally, she wouldn't have agreed to go out on a date with a stranger, but living in the country was lonely and she was a little starved for attention.

  She’d been hopeful she might click with Rafe, but that had been a disappointment.

  He hadn’t shown the least bit of interest and … well, he was gorgeous enough to totally intimidate her. She just couldn’t bring herself to risk embarrassment and rejection by making the first move.

  She would’ve if he’d just seemed shy, but not when he looked through her so coolly.

  Standing, she moved to the window, looking down over the small patch of land that ran alongside the house. Rafe, shirtless despite the chill in the air now that the sun was setting, was balancing a bushel basket at the top of his ladder, filling it with perfectly golden pears that he was plucking from the tree adjacent to the front porch.

  "Such a shame," she said, sighing to herself. "We could have had so much fun if you weren't so romantically illiterate."

  He glanced toward her window at that, lost his grip on the basket, and it went tumbling, pears flying out in every direction.

  Clapping a hand over her mouth, Hannah leapt away from the window self-consciously, struggling to keep from laughing.

  Well—a basket full of bruised pears!

  She didn’t think he could possibly have heard her, but she must have distracted him so she supposed it was her fault.

  Her shoulders slumped after a moment.

  Her amusement fading away, she moved back to the window resolutely and gazed toward the road, cutting her eyes toward Rafe a couple of times to see if he’d noticed her. When he didn’t, she struggled to dismiss him from her mind.

  When he’d first showed up looking for work, Rafe had seemed like he would be the perfect solution to the dilemma she’d found herself in and the perfect distraction.

  She’d already spent the better part of two months removing the old furnishings and junk that had accumulated in the old house over decades of living and had begun stripping the old, ragged wallpaper from the walls. When she realized that was just the tip of the iceberg where the renovation was concerned, she began to question whether she’d bit off more than she could chew when she’d decided she could make the old Victorian into something more modern … that still preserved its charm.

  She was ready to leap at Rafe’s offer to help once she’d gotten over her initial shock at their first meeting outside her barn, realizing she needed someone that actually had experience in doing the job she’d taken on so blithely.

  It didn’t hurt that he was drop dead gorgeous to boot!

  Deep down, she supposed the fantasy had been born the same day, that doing the renovations together would be a recipe for romance -- the two of them working up a sweat on the house during the day and curling up together in front of the fireplace at night. But after spending the past few weeks trying to get Rafe to notice her, Hannah had finally had to accept that he had more interest in hammering nails and collecting his pay than, well ... her.

  If he’d shown her even a little interest she wouldn’t have given Jeff the time of day, but she supposed the date was still about Rafe—showing him she could get a date, that at least some men found her worth their time!

  Not that she expected him to fly into some kind of jealous rage that she’d turned to another man!

  Well, she didn’t want that anyway!

  And she didn’t really expect it to pique his interest.

  But it helped her feelings to have a date, a little attention, and it soothed her ego that she could show Rafe!

  The total lack of a love life hadn’t really bothered her before Rafe had come along. She’d had her chance to pick a life companion and realized she just didn’t care enough about any of the local bachelors to settle with one of them.

  Actually, she’d
never pictured herself settling in Homerville at all. She’d thought when she went off to college that she’d settle in the city and somewhere along the climb to success she’d meet a guy she couldn’t live without and he’d feel the same way and they’d breed.

  But then she’d lost her grandmother and right behind her, within a year, her grandfather and she couldn't quite let their old house go. She’d decided, for the time being at least, to stay put and fix the place up. When she was done she could decide what to do with the house and her life.

  Chapter Five

  Hannah wasn’t opposed to having a little fun in the meantime, though.

  In fact, she was very much in favor of it from the moment she’d set eyes on Rafe!

  Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to have any interest in having fun—with her anyway. “I hope it bothers you—a lot! And if it does, then it serves you right! I wouldn’t be going out with Jeff if you’d shown a speck of interest, you asshole!”

  In spite of her determination not to look at him again, she did, discovering he had come down off the ladder and squatted with the basket at the base to pick up the pears he’d spilled.

  The golden light of the setting sun gleamed on his skin, displaying every beautiful, well developed muscle enticingly. His dark hair, sweat dampened, was tousled by the breeze and far more appealing than it should have been.

  Rafe was one of those rare men who looked good enough to eat when he was a mess from working and better when he cleaned up.

  It was a damned shame she felt that way because that was pretty much the only way she saw him unless she managed to make it outside before he got to work!

  Shaking her thoughts, she moved away from the window abruptly.

  Leaning out the damned window lusting over the hired help while she was waiting for her date, she thought with disgust!

  Moving back to the mirror, she checked her reflection. Her hair was mostly dry by now, thanks to the breeze coming in the window.

  And that was totally why she was hanging out by the window drooling over Rafe!