The Werewolf Nanny

by Amanda Milo

  Finn turns to Susan and Charlotte and Maggie. “You better follow her. She’ll probably Change fully clothed and need to be stripped fast so that she can run.”

  “Got it,” Charlotte calls, and jogs after her friend to help.

  To me, Finn tips his head. “You’ll be needing help too, won’t you?” He looks back to Susan. “This one,” he says of me. “So shy.”

  With that, he pulls down his track pants.

  Susan is hauling Maggie’s face into her thigh to preserve the child’s eyes, but she needn't worry. Finn has ripped down his pants only to reveal the loudest pair of board shorts ever created.

  ‘KISS ME, I’M IRISH!’ they scream in shamrock green on black.

  “Finn,” Susan huffs, shaking her head at him and letting Maggie loose.

  “Come on,” I tell her, and I send a look at Finn. A grateful one.

  He winks at me—because although I wouldn’t strip naked with humans present, I too am wearing board shorts that I can easily kick free of after I’ve Changed. And I’m not shy.

  But neither of us is going to tell Susan that.

  CHAPTER 36

  SUSAN

  There are twenty-eight acres of cornfield. Ten miles of maze trail winds through it, but that’s the fun part for the humans. The shifters have their noses to rely on, an excellent sense of direction, and they’re poised and focused to reach their target: the barn. They aren’t about to bother with the maze. Every entrant is lined up, facing the long bare rows of dirt that run between the towering corn stalks. All challengers get busy turning into an array of colorful, mostly lupine shifters.

  I’ve never seen Finn Change before. And after seeing every geographical morph of werewolf, including a red Ethiopian wolf (who, it turned out, is mated to an African Wild Dog shifter—just gorgeous!)—I’ve got a distracted sort of curiosity to see what color Finn’s inner animal is.

  He’s positioned himself in the third row from the end. The end spot is Deek’s, nearest to the tree line at the edge of the field. Ginny is crouched, her muzzle aimed down the row between them.

  Deek turns into his sleek chocolate lycanthrope self, and Maggie and I strip his furry body of his pants, shorts, and socks. His shoes, as always, simply fall off his feet when he steps out of them.

  Charlotte is helping Ginny. At Charlotte’s gasp, I glance up, in the middle of folding Deek’s pants, and follow Charlotte’s shocked gaze.

  She’s looking at the spot where Finn was standing a moment ago.

  The spot where an animal is kicking off a garish pair of KISS ME, I’M IRISH! shorts.

  It’s Finn. It has to be Finn. But he’s not a wolf.

  “Is he… an Irish wolfhound?” Charlotte whispers, awed.

  “He’s HUGE!” Maggie cries, thrilled. And she’s right—he dwarfs the werewolves around him. And werewolves aren’t small.

  “Uhhh,” Charlotte protests in confusion. “Didn’t wolfhounds help exterminate wolves?”

  The wolfhound in question turns his giant head, his jaws part, revealing a gleaming row of massive teeth—somehow, he’s flashing a perfectly recognizable Finn-grin on us. He wags a wiry-haired whip of a tail.

  “I’m starting to think the Pack has a twisted sense of humor,” I say faintly.

  Marú mac tíre, werewolves call him in secret. Wolf Killer.

  Finn makes a coughing bark and launches into the field.

  None of the other wolves follow him, although they tense, ready to spring.

  “Why is Finn going first?” Maggie asks.

  Deek sways his tail and taps her cheek with his nose reassuringly.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her, but I think I have an idea as we watch Finn whip around shockingly fast, eyeing the row of werewolves along the edge of the field. I’ve only ever seen video clips of Irish wolfhounds when they’re relaxed, I guess, and it gave me the mistaken impression that they are a lumbering breed.

  There is nothing slow or lumbering about Finn. His frame is all strong muscle and bone and surprising speed. Under bushy, wiry fur that curls off of his stop—that indentation where his muzzle is supposed to meet his forehead—his eyes are sharp, and for just the briefest moment, they’re different when he watches the werewolves on his periphery. His eyes have gone predatory.

  But then Deek wurfs at him and Finn literally shakes himself. He turns, lowering his nose to the ground. His paws hit the dirt in an easy lope—and then his speed is blinding, he’s flying down his row of corn.

  “It’s like watching a bullet train fly down its track,” Charlotte muses. “No wonder all the wolves in Ireland went extinct.”

  “What’s everybody waiting for?” Maggie whispers loudly.

  “I don’t think the other wolves can safely run with Finn, honey,” I whisper back.

  I no more than say this when Finn flies back, looking just huge, and every werewolf in his vicinity freezes.

  Like prey.

  Deek, who's on the far side of his friend, drops to his belly and lowers his ears submissively. Finn barks—a deep, deafening sound that makes all our eyes widen—and with blinding speed, he lunges at Deek. Towering over him, he snaps his teeth playfully above his shoulders before he snatches his bucket’s handle in his mouth and tears off, zooming into the corn which doesn't look nearly as big when an Irish wolfhound is the measuring stick.

  Deek low-sways his tail and affably trots to where Finn’s own bucket sits, and he takes that one since his friend stole his. With a happy look at where we’re standing, he turns and trots after his friend.

  All the werewolves and other shifters recover their composure, racing after him and Finn with impressive speed.

  We humans are left to traverse the maze in order to reach the barn everyone furry is hunting in. We start off in a group of other non-shifting people, happily getting lost in the corn maze while our werewolves clean out the farmer’s barn of mice and rats.

  Hours later, with one very happy farmer, Ginny (who had help from Finn and Deek and others who scared mice into running in front of her) fills her bucket with the most rodents and wins the game.

  Helping her win was a weirdly nice thing for the guys to do. For all of the wolves and shifters to do.

  She’s proud as heck, her eyes shining with wild excitement when we make it to the barn, bearing her clothes so she can Change back into a human.

  Sticking close to her is an enormous maned wolf named Hudson. Ginny looks tiny compared to his lanky form: a shifter with a storybook-red coat, crazy long black legs, a distinctive mane of fur, and a white-tipped tail. He’s a giant Brazilian fox, basically. The mane gives the impression of high-set shoulders though, almost tricking the eye into thinking he has a sloped back. In reality, he’s level as any werewolf, but his legs are practically a mile long.

  And Ginny keeps taking surreptitious sniffs of the air, like the bright red male beside her is wearing incredible cologne.

  Finn had been delighted when she showed such interest in the scent earlier. He’d identified it as belonging to a Brazilian visitor, and it’s clear Hudson is the scent she noticed, the one that captured her attention over the deliciousness of candy apples.

  I want to ask all the questions, and I’m watching them like hawks. To my great interest (and Finn’s and Deek’s and several other shifters in the vicinity), Hudson seems just as keen on Ginny’s smell. He even boldly puts his nose into her ruff, inhales hard enough to stretch his skin so tight it shows the dips between his ribs, and wags his tail.

  Interesting.

  When everybody Changes back, he asks Ginny what she’s doing next, and when she tells him about the upcoming crash course in performing a car’s oil change, he asks her if she’d mind if he tagged along.

  Shyly, she shakes her head.

  And when we walk to the garage where the minor medical mechanical procedure will be taking place, Hudson walks so close to Ginny that their shoulders brush, and to my intense interest, she doesn’t shy away. In fact, more than once, she glances
up at him where he towers above her, and smiles.

  CHAPTER 37

  LUCAN

  Today was church for me, and to my quiet delight, Susan and her whole brood stayed for the service.

  I drag the heel of my hand over my chest, right over my heart, reliving how it made me feel to look up and lock eyes with Susan.

  It was awesome.

  Now we’re back home. Susan’s home.

  “Hey, Deek, did you smell the cookies?” Charlotte asks.

  I’m at the top of the stairs, having abandoned my notes for next week’s Bible study because I was being driven insane by the scent of sugary, buttery baked goodness. “Yes.”

  Charlotte’s smile is a little too sparkly. Something tells me not to trust it. “Great! Have a seat.”

  Narrowing my eyes, I sweep my gaze to the side of her. She’s got her school notebook on the island next to a plate that doesn’t have a crumb on it. There’s also an empty glass set upside-down beside it, clean.

  Just… waiting.

  I flash her a glance. “This feels oddly like a setup.”

  She’s still smiling. “It is. Sit.”

  I do.

  “Thank you.” She drops a wafer on the plate.

  I lean in, peering at it. “What the…”

  “It’s chocolate chip,” Charlotte offers.

  “Yeah,” I agree. “As in there is a single chocolate chip on it, period.” I pick up the coin-sized disk and scarf it down.

  Charlotte takes the glass and fills it with milk, returning it to the side of the plate. She moves around the island so that she’s across from me, and tugs her notebook in front of herself, raising her pen and scratching the tip across the paper for a moment before she sets it down, and folds her hands over what she wrote.

  I thought, when I came up here, that I’d get cookies. Not the world’s tiniest piece of a cookie. Feeling cheated, I glance up and meet Charlotte’s eyes. “You’re mean.”

  She smiles huge and from out of nowhere produces another coin-sized cookie. “Here.”

  I stuff it in my mouth. Dropping my gaze mistrustfully to her now-empty hands, I dart looks around the kitchen, wondering where the rest of them are. When I don’t find any, I look back to her. To her face. I meet her very direct gaze.

  She grins. “Good job.” She sets another cookie on my plate.

  “Where are you getting these?” I ask.

  When she doesn’t answer, I glance up at her again, staring into her eyes with confusion.

  She only smiles. “You’re doing great, Deek.” She gives me another cookie.

  Mulishly, I take the single bite it requires to chew it and toss back milk. And defiantly, I meet her eyes. “What are you doing?”

  Her bright expression does not dim under my glower. She deposits another treat on my plate. “I’m taking a psychology class.”

  I frown, my gaze jumping from her hands to her face. “Aren’t you in, like, what? Seventh grade?”

  She hands me another cookie. “Technically, but I’m taking advanced classes. Right now, I’m writing a paper on operant conditioning. You’re my guinea pig.”

  I stare at her. “Your what?”

  She smiles and hands me another cookie. “Very good, Deek.”

  I stuff the cookie in my mouth and back off of the stool.

  “Wait!” she cries, and when she stands, I see she was huddled over a Tupperware container of oven-fresh cookie bites.

  I look her dead in the eye.

  Her eyes widen, and she stops. “Oh, that’s good. Hang on.” She snatches two cookies out of the container and thrusts them out at me.

  Ginny rounds the corner into the kitchen. “Did it work?”

  My gaze darts from her to Charlotte. “Did what work?”

  Charlotte’s eyes sparkle as she hands me another cookie. “His reactions are textbook.” To me, she explains, “Your conditioning. You’re nailing it.”

  “Aww, way to go, Deek,” Ginny congratulates. She pulls a glass down from the cupboard and fills it with milk.

  Grinding the cookie with my molars, it’s so small it’s easy to ask around it, “What, exactly, are you conditioning me to do?” Nerves are making my hair sprout. My arms itch.

  Charlotte passes me another cookie, never breaking our gaze. “Make eye contact.”

  With my behavior pointed out, I immediately drop my gaze. “Why?”

  “Because it isn’t bad for you to look at us. You’ve been doing it more and more on your own, and Finn said it’s a sign that you’ve grown comfortable. I know that extended eye contact is something you can’t do, but I wanted to see if applying a reward for desired behavior—eye contact—would help you acclimate faster.” When I slide a look up at her, she presses a cookie into my hand. “I started yesterday with no rewards, and took note of how often you made eye contact and for how long. The difference between that and now will boggle your mind.”

  “You boggle my mind,” I mutter. “Give me the container.”

  When she doesn’t say anything or even move, I glance up.

  She’s grinning so big, I roll my eyes. She hands over the Tupperware dish full of mini cookies, and I snatch it up, reclaiming my spot near the milk. “I’m telling your mother.”

  “Hey, can I have some?” Ginny asks me.

  I pass her the container, and she picks out a few.

  “Speaking of my mom,” Charlotte says, in a measured tone I don’t trust. “I noted that of all of us, you look at her the most.” She darts a sly look at me, one I see because I’m staring at her cheek. “And you make direct eye contact with her for the longest.”

  I reach into the Tupperware, catch a handful of cookies, and cram them into my mouth.

  “Deek?” she asks.

  I look into her eyes.

  Charlotte claps. “Yay!”

  Ginny pats me on the back. “So proud of you!”

  “You like my mom,” Charlotte announces. “As in, you like her, like her.”

  Mercifully, Susan and Maggie are grocery shopping, so there’s thankfully no one but us who hears her point this out.

  Although… Finn forbade me from telling Susan what she is to me.

  But he never said I couldn’t tell Charlotte. Or Ginny.

  My eyes do not lower from Charlotte’s when I confess, “She’s my mate.”

  CHAPTER 38

  SUSAN

  FRIDAY

  “Just seated a couple at table six, Sue,” Sally, the pub’s hostess of the day, says over the music, a rousing rendition of “The Wild Rover.”

  “Thanks,” I call, pulling out my notepad and pen, adjusting the strap on my wrist brace. I’ve found that my wrist does perfectly fine as long as I baby it at work, so that’s what I’m doing. I look to table six—and do a double-take. “Carly?”

  A young woman with purple hair so vibrant she nearly matches Finn’s car is sitting with her profile to me. At the sound of her name, she looks up—and surprise is chased over her face by delight. “Mrs. Bennet!”

  She stands, I meet her at the table, and she throws her arms around my shoulders. “I miss your family!” she cries.

  I squeeze her before pulling back. “It’s Ms. Taylor now. I’m divorced. And man have we missed you too! You ruined us for all normal babysitters, no joke.”

  Carly turns to the man seated across from her. He’s smiling at us, holding out a toy to a toddler in a height chair. “Hon, you remember Ms. Taylor from when I was babysitting.”

  He smiles at me. “I do. Nice to see you again, ma’am.”

  I bite my lip, trying to recall his name. “Antonio?”

  He’s just opening his mouth to provide his introduction, but he stops, brightening. “That’s me.”

  I slap my hand over my heart, looking between them. “You two were the cutest couple, and you still are!” I look down at their baby. “And who is this?”

  “This is our Emiliano,” Carly says proudly. “And it is so nice that we’re getting to see you! I still talk ab
out you guys all the time.”

  I pull her into another fast hug and let her go. “It is nice.” I’m grinning ear to ear. “All right. Let’s get you guys fed.” I take their order, and I’m about to head for the kitchen to put it in, but before I do, I share, “And really, I’m just Susan to you. You know, since you don’t work for me anymore.”

  Carly’s smile is rueful. “I wish I did. Man, that was a great job. Charlotte has to be all grown up now.” Her eyes bug out. “And Maggie! She was like… eleven months?”

  “She’s six now. And Charlotte, some days, seems all grown up all right. She’s fourteen.” I tap my order pad on the corner of their table and smile at their son before looking between the couple. “Carly, if you ever want to get into babysitting again, let me know.”

  “I actually still babysit,” she says. “We’ve been talking about setting up a daycare, but for now I go to whoever asks for me. Most kids though,” she grimaces and looks at me, bewildered. “People do not raise their kids right. Your girls spoiled me for everyone else,” she claims, laughing.

  I just look at her. “Are you serious? You’re still taking jobs?”

  Finn murmurs, “Gabh mo leithscéal,” as he moves past me, his version of excuse me as he leads a big group to their table. That he’s on the floor means we’re filling up, so I need to hustle.

  Carly folds her hands together like she’s praying and leans forward. “After Christmas, I’ve got nobody lined up. I would babysit for you in a heartbeat. Name the time and the day.”

  I rip off a sheet of order paper and flip it over, writing down my number. I meet her eyes. “Consider yourself hired. We’ll see you after Christmas.”

  CHAPTER 39

  LUCAN

  “Welcome home, Susan,” I call out in greeting as I bound up the basement stairs.

  She’s shucking her sneakers by the front door, looking work-weary. At the sight of me or the sound of my voice, she smiles. “Hey, you, I have to talk to you. Were you working?”