by Holley Trent
Missed being a part of something.
She let out a ragged breath and chased away the creeping self-pity in her mind. She didn’t have time to be pitiful.
“I’m making some notes in case this don’t pan out,” Scott said. “We’ll know better for next time.”
“How very practical. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go fetch fruitcake.”
Ben cleared his throat and shook his head.
“What?”
He crooked his thumb toward the restaurant, specifically toward the table of elves.
“So?”
“How’re you gonna get into Noelle’s house?”
Alex groaned and checked her watch. “I’ll have to fetch it after my errand, then. I’m not gonna let a night pass with that fruitcake under someone else’s roof.” She spun her key ring around her index finger and started walking toward her house. She’d left her truck parked in front of it, and needed it for the faraway skulking she had planned.
“What would you rate him on a scale of one to five?” Scott shouted after her.
Perplexed, she stopped, turned. “What?”
“Like him?” He pointed to Ben, who was shifting his weight in that nervous way again. His gaze had leveled out, though, and at the moment, his stare was leveled on her.
A fix, Scott had said. Ben needed a fix, and apparently she was a fixer.
No way.
Sure, he was attractive in that feral, barely groomed sort of way, and his voice—grunting aside—was prime cheek-heating fodder. Ben was the kind of guy she’d flirt with at a bar knowing full well nothing would come of it because guys like him didn’t stick. In her experience, most guys didn’t stick. Her last one sure hadn’t. She’d been serious. He, on the other hand, had been looking only for a rebound.
He’d pirated her time and her enthusiasm. She’d never get those things back.
Because Alex was Belle’s friend, and Belle was married to Steven, who was one of the sheriff’s favored deputies, that other deputy wasn’t allowed in the diner anymore when Alex was there. A soft rule, but no one in his or her right mind wanted to get on Belle’s bad side—the sheriff included.
“Deputy Dipshit,” Alex murmured.
“Do what, now?” Scott asked.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Never mind.”
“So, do you like him?”
“Doesn’t matter if I like him. I’m not dating anyone right now.”
“Honey, you don’t have to date him. I’m telling you to take him home and let nature take its course.”
She would have laughed if he hadn’t sounded so matter-of-fact. Ben didn’t seem to think what his cousin had said was all that funny, either.
Scott was still poising that pencil over the page.
“You’re dead serious,” she said.
Scott shrugged. “No reason to beat around the bush. You know what’s what, and he needs someone.”
“Anyone?”
He shrugged again.
“Oh, that fills a girl with Christmas spirit for sure.” She turned on her heel and hurried off. She had a twenty-minute drive ahead to the county’s public open space. As long as she got through the gate of the property before dusk, the county park officials wouldn’t make her leave. She didn’t plan to be there long enough for them to start making their hourly rounds, though. They’d be curious about what she was doing. They’d ask questions, and she didn’t want to give people an opportunity to tell her “no” to things she knew she was damn well legally allowed to do.
All she needed was fifteen minutes and a powerful enough prayer so that her flashlight batteries held out.
“So, does he get at least a three out of five?” Scott called after her.
Hell, she would have given him a five if he could make conversation at all, but apparently, holding a conversation wasn’t a skill that particular Wolf possessed.
She threw up a hand and shouted back, “Sure. I’ll give him that,” before rounding the corner.
Ben caught up to her ten seconds later.
“Yikes!” she shrieked. “FYI, that wasn’t an invitation.”
No response from him. He was staring down at her, wolfish brown eyes intense like she was a rabbit he wanted to eat but he wasn’t entirely sure what part of her to bite down on.
“I think wild wolves usually go for the neck,” she said, shaking her head.
“You want me to bite you?”
“Oh, so now you talk?”
“Give me a little bit.”
“A little bit of what?”
“Time.”
Realizing she was leading the big, bad Wolf straight to her little house, she stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not taking you home. I’ve got nothing against you needing a one-night prescription, but even if I were in the market for no-strings-attached sex, I really don’t want to be anyone’s bottom-of-the-barrel pick.”
“Sorry you feel like that.”
“Like what? Second-choice goods? Or like being someone’s lover requires a modicum of courtship? Because if the latter, your statement is pretty creepy.” She knew plenty of ladies who’d been mate-napped, three of whom were married to Belle’s brothers. The Foyes had literally swept the women who’d become their wives off their feet and abducted them to avoid becoming victims of their goddess’s curse. Things had worked out for them. They were disgustingly happy, all on the ranch living the Were-cougar dream or whatever, but in Alex’s experience, rash decisions usually led to broken hearts.
Ben didn’t answer her. Just stared.
“In case you need to be told specifically . . . ” She poked his sternum with her index finger. “Don’t bite me.”
“Not gonna bite you.”
“Go back that way.” She pointed toward the corner.
He didn’t look away from her. “Where’re you going?”
“That is really none of your business.”
“You don’t like me?”
Dammit.
She rubbed a hand down her face. Lying would be so much easier, but she’d never been good at it. “There’s a certain hillbilly charm about you, I guess, but I’m not looking for anyone right now.”
“Won’t change your mind, even for a night?”
“You really don’t hash your words.”
He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders back before saying on a sigh, “Not lately.”
“Are you even capable?”
“Was.”
“Did you get lobotomized?”
A squint. More staring.
“Lobotomized means—”
“Know what it means,” he said, slashing his hand though the air with frustration. “Everything’s slower,” he said. “Gotta think longer now than before. Can’t tell who’s acting.”
“What do you mean, who’s acting?”
“Me or the wolf part.”
“Oh.” She shifted her weight, pondering. Belle had tried to explain what having a split consciousness was like. At times, she felt like the human part and the beast parts were at odds. At other times, they worked together as one brain. Alex had always assumed the trait would be one of those things she’d never fully be able to understand without being turned into a shifter herself.
“You’re not gonna, like, go wild right now, are you?” she asked him.
Slowly, he shook his head. “The only thing keeping me on two legs right now is standing here.”
“Here specifically?” She looked around, wondering if there was some special plant impacting his mood or if a sliver of the moon had appeared in the late-afternoon sky, but didn’t see anything out of place.
Then she realized he was looking at her. Only her.
“Wait.” She backed up a step and put up her hands to deter him from getting closer. “You’re not suggesting that I have something to do with you not being furry?”
“At the moment, you do.”
“Wolf likes you.”
“Because I’m your last-ditch option.”
More staring.
What did he see when he looked at her like that? Or what was it that he was thinking twice about saying or doing?
She dragged her tongue across her dry lips and twirled her keys some more. Anything but to look at him. That aggressive stare was making her legs noodly and her stomach flip-floppy.
“No means no,” he said.
And she hadn’t said no. She’d simply been trying to outrun him like a paranormal noob. Belle had always told her not to try to outrun a shifter. “Use words,” Belle had said. “Be clear and specific, otherwise they’ll think you’re asking to be convinced.”
Clear and specific should have come out of her mouth sounding like, “No, thank you, please shamble back to your cousin.” What actually came out of her mouth was, “Why me? Is there a list of women?”
“Short one.”
“Who else is on it? Every unattached lady in Maria?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your batting average so far?”
“TBD.”
“I’m the first you’ve asked?”
A blink. A nod.
“What would you rate me on a scale of one to five?” She raised her chin in premature triumph at throwing their own question back in his face, but when he said, “I’d give you a six,” her legs nearly gave out beneath her.
Not because she’d been on her feet all day, either, but because he hadn’t hesitated. Hadn’t had to think twice.
She hated herself for needing the flattery, and for having convinced herself in the past year that she was no longer susceptible to it.
“A little skinny, and a little weird, but you’re real pretty.”
“I’m weird?”
And pretty, apparently.
She wasn’t sure if pretty trumped weird, though. Weird wasn’t a compliment to people who weren’t named Belle Welch.
“You’re swiping seeds,” he said placidly.
“Like I said, long story.”
“Tell it.”
“The story will bore you.” It had bored Deputy Dipshit so much she’d had to explain twice, and he still hadn’t understood. “And I have to go.” She started walking again, stupidly putting the predator at her back. Stupidly not telling him no.
And why wasn’t she?
If she were honest with herself, she’d admit she wasn’t saying no because she was curious about him, and she wanted to be pursued. Pursuing meant interest, and she was running short on people available to show her any.
“I can help you,” he said, and she stopped again. Turned.
Ben closed the distance between them, clearing his throat. Blinking too many times for normal. “You going thieving? I can help.”
“It’s not theft,” she argued quietly. “Trespassing, maybe.”
Maybe a little bit of theft, depending on who one asked. Those damned hobby botanists took the greatest umbrage over “capitalist dilettantes” like her collecting seeds. Sometimes, Alex wondered if they went to the fields nightly and counted every flower on the stems.
“Animals can’t trespass,” he said matter-of-factly. “Wouldn’t be breaking no laws if I’m on four legs.”
True.
Alex pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and worried at a dry patch. She was appalled at the very idea of being tempted to accept his offer. The last thing she needed was a coconspirator who likely thought helping her out was advance payment for later seduction.
She didn’t want the favor if that was why he was offering.
“Nothing to lose, sugar,” he urged. “Thieving’s faster with two.”
“Not thieving. Foraging.”
“Call it whatever you want, don’t matter to me. Both look the same.”
“I’m stupid to even be considering this.”
But he’d made a good point. With his help, she might even be able to get back to Maria in time to snatch her fruitcake and settle in front of the television in time to watch Miracle on 34th Street. She might even be able to paint her nails before falling asleep. She’d bought that red-and-green sparkle polish out of the drug store clearance bin a year ago, and she was going to use it before it clumped past the point of no return.
The idea of pretty, sparkly nails did it for her.
“How good are you at following instructions?” she asked him.
A corner of his mouth quirked up, and he rocked back on his heels. “’Pends on who’s giving them, I guess.”
“That doesn’t bode well for this outing.”
“If you tell me what to do, I might listen.”
“Might.” She sighed.
He shrugged. “Wolf gets distracted. Clarissa’s used to it. Knows what to do.”
“Yeah, and she also has hush-hush elf magic, so I’m not sure if that’s a fair comparison. What are the odds of you getting distracted?”
“Depends on how close you’re standing to me.”
“Is closer better or worse?”
The other side of his mouth arced up, and his gaze raked lasciviously down her body. “That depends on which part of my brain is doin’ the thinkin’.”
Oh boy.
Chapter Four
Apparently, whoever was in charge of the gate at the county-managed public lands had called it quits early. The gatehouse was empty, and they’d left the barrier up.
Didn’t make good sense to Ben. Back home, leaving property unguarded like that was a tacit invitation of vandalism.
Alex tossed some change into the donation bucket and edged her rickety truck into the parking lot.
“This truck yours?” Ben asked in an exasperated rush. He’d been wondering for the entirety of the drive, but had been too distracted by the other shit in his head to ever get the question out.
She backed the truck into a space near the picnic tables and bathrooms and killed the lights. “Yep.” She gave the steering wheel a loving pat and grinned at him. “Got it last month. Paid cash.”
“Hope you didn’t pay much,” he murmured.
“Rude.”
“Naw. I’m a mechanic, and I’ve got a supernatural sense of hearing. I reckon I’m obligated to tell you that something under that hood’s about to blow.”
“You’re saying that to scare me.”
“For what?”
“Guys do that.”
“No the hell they don’t, unless they’re either twelve or dipshits. Which are they?”
Her quickly averted gave him all the answer he needed.
“I wouldn’t waste my breath telling you something that wasn’t true. If you bought this bucket of bolts recently, you got ripped off.” He let his gaze track from the sticking gear shifter up to the speedometer that still read forty-five in spite of the vehicle being parked. Then he flicked at the air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. “Makes sense that you picked the lemon scent.”
“Hey, you’re speaking in longer sentences.”
“Tryin’.” Ben flicked the air freshener again. He’d had no idea people still used those things. He preferred the organic method of sweetening up the inside of his ride: kicking Scott out of it. “Talking with sense is easier when the damn animal part of me ain’t waging a nonstop hissy fit at being cooped up inside this body.”
The animal part of Ben was actually resting for the time being—perhaps too curious about the lady behind the wheel to act up. He didn’t want to think about what that might have meant.
“Do your sentences have to be mean ones?” She pouted. “And I’ll have you know I only paid five thousand dollars for this thing. That’s what the Blue Book website said was fair.”
“The Blue Book website ain’t got eyes and common sense. You paid about two thousand dollars too much.”
“I really do think you’re trying to ruffle my feathers. Is that fun for you?”
“Nope.” Ben folded his arms over his chest and fixed his stare on th
e ceiling’s stained and loose fabric. “My memory ain’t what you’d call encyclopedic—”
“That’s a big word.”
He cut her a look. Scott was right. The lady had some sass to her. “I know words. No reason I gotta use ’em all at once.”
“Fair.”
“Listen, some vehicles were more common than others. This here thing is a fifteen-year-old domestic, base model pickup with a faulty automatic transmission that was known to cause issues at the ten-year mark. Most folks let the trucks die in dignity or trade them in before it’s too late.”
“You saying I’m on the wrong side of ‘too late’?”
“I’m sayin’ you got had.”
And that made him mad.
More than anything, he hated a cheat. Vehicles were too freaking expensive of an investment for folks to be playing around with each other like that. That was why, when he and Scott had opened their shop, they’d made sure to establish from the get-go that they were going to do right by folks, and they’d try to help out with the cost when they could. A busted transmission shouldn’t keep a lady from being able to get to work and her kids to daycare.
He worried at the dirt on the underside of his thumbnail and glanced at her through the corners of his eyes.
Her skepticism was evident. Of course she thought he was bullshitting her. He didn’t blame her. Mechanics were notoriously untrustworthy. Being a Wolf probably made him doubly so, in her mind.
“I don’t get nothin’ out of lyin’ to you, sugar.”
The sigh she heaved could have launched an aircraft carrier. She stabbed the catch of her seatbelt and unlocked the doors. “I guess I believe you. My brother, Chet, insisted that he should go with me to look at it, but I wanted to make the purchase on my own. I thought I was getting a good deal. Other trucks the same size were much more expensive.”
“For good reason. A lot of metal goes into a vehicle this size.” Usually, anyway. That particular model seemed to be as much plastic as steel. “Why’d you need a truck, anyway? Living out here where everything’s far apart, you’d get better gas mileage in a little coupe.”
“I need the hauling capacity for my business.”
He furrowed his brow. “The diner?”
“No,” she said emphatically. “The one I’m trying to start with the seeds. I always need dirt and pots and stuff.”