by Kat Turner
“Welcome to Pine Grove, Deputy,” she called as he opened his door and stepped out, moving stiffly. She guessed the long drive was starting to catch up with him. God knew that after the last time she’d driven back from Seattle, she’d shifted into a wolf and gone for a run just to stretch her legs as soon as she’d gotten home.
“Just Leland is fine,” he said, removing his cap long enough to rake his hair away from his face before he settled it back on his head. “Hell of a welcome wagon you rolled out there.” His smile was the barest quirk of his lips, and it did awful, terrible things to her pulse. Dang.
“Oh, we throw wounded kids at every new deputy that comes to town,” she joked with a grimace. “He didn’t tell you where he was from or anything like that, did he?”
He shook his head, and she wondered if it was bad to feel such a wash of relief. Notifying family members would have to wait until they could confirm whether that bite on Diego’s shoulder had done what she thought it had, so she was glad she didn’t have to make excuses for why she was putting it off.
“Nah, he didn’t talk much. Barely got his name out of him. Figure it was the shock.”
The bell over the door jangled as she pulled it open, and the smell of sizzling bacon hit her straight in the nose, drawing an audible growl from her stomach. She sensed the ripple of movement through the dining room as they came in, the curiosity of twenty werewolves and their family members at the sight of a new person in town.
“Haley Fern, what are you doin’ out so early on your day off?” Sally called from where she was pulling down orders from the kitchen window. “And—oh, who’s your friend?”
Well, whoever hadn’t noticed them before sure as heck had now.
“Sally, this is Leland Sommers. He’s the new deputy, just got in this morning. Leland, this is Sally Newcrow. She and her sister, Luann, own the diner.”
“Nice to meet you.” Leland nodded politely. “Sure does smell good in here.”
“Tastes good too.” Sally grinned at him as she loaded her arms up with plates of food to take out to the tables. “Well, sit your butts down, and I’ll get to you in a second.”
Haley led him over to the last empty booth, hoping the high benches would give them some semblance of privacy, and pulled the laminated, handwritten menus out of the holder, handing one to him as he got settled.
“You can’t go wrong with anything here,” she promised, looking at the menu to keep from staring at him, even though the offerings hadn’t changed in twenty years and Haley always got the exact same thing.
Behind Leland, Sally caught her eye and mouthed, He is so hot! It took all Haley’s self-control not to roll her eyes. Sally pulled her pencil out of her ponytail and flipped to a new page on her notepad as she sidled up to their table.
“It sure is exciting to get to meet the new deputy,” she said brightly. “We ain’t had anyone new in town since Jo Pham managed to convince Brooks Carmody to move in with her back when Haley’s momma was still—”
“Sally,” Haley interrupted before Sally could get off track and blurt out incriminating details. “I’m sure he’d rather order his food.”
Sally giggled, waving her hand. “Oh, don’t mind me, Deputy. What’re you havin’ to eat?”
He flipped the menu over, still scanning the list of items. “Uh, Miss Fern says I can’t go wrong with anything here…”
Sally mouthed Miss Fern! at her over his head, and this time Haley did roll her eyes.
“So how about the pancakes and bacon?”
“You got it, sugar. And Haley’s right—everything here’s the best you ever had, includin’ your momma’s cookin’.”
Leland snorted, tucking his menu back into the holder. “Well, that wouldn’t be a hard standard to beat.” There was a faint tension at the corners of his mouth when he said it that made Haley think there might be a story there, and she didn’t realize where Sally was headed with her train of thought until it was too late.
“Well, at least that means your future wife won’t be intimidated in the kitchen,” Sally said cheerfully, and Haley gave her a horrified look that she didn’t bother hiding from Leland. “Or are you already married, Deputy?”
“Give me the steak and eggs, Sally,” Haley blurted, talking over her, desperate to stop the impending disaster of a conversation. “And coffee.”
“Uh, no, I’m not married.” Amusement sparkled in his eyes as he folded his hands on the table, glancing at Haley, and she wanted to slide right off the bench. “And I’ll have a coffee too, please. Black.”
“Comin’ right up, sugar. Y’all just hang tight.”
Haley shook her head as Sally walked off to put their orders in, embarrassed laughter bubbling up in her throat. “Sorry about that. It’s a small town, and like she said, we don’t get new residents often. People get nosy. You can tell ’em to buzz off, I promise.”
Leland chuckled, leaning back in the booth. “It’s all right. Small towns are like that. At least so far everybody’s been friendly, not like where I grew up.”
“Arizona?” Haley guessed, but he shook his head.
“Nah, Idaho.”
She waited, but he didn’t expand on that. “That’s not too far away from here.”
Sally dropped off their cups of coffee, black for Leland and with a pitcher of cream for Haley, and he hummed, noncommittal, as he picked his up and took a sip. Haley poured the whole little pitcher into hers until it turned light tan and added two packs of sugar. He didn’t seem interested in talking about Idaho, and despite her rampant curiosity, she decided it would be rude to pry.
“Are you staying here in town?” she asked instead. There wasn’t much in the way of lodging for visitors, just the twenty-two rooms at the Sundown Motel, the seven empty RV spots at the Timber Trails Trailer Park, and the three suites at the Carmody Bed & Breakfast. “Or did you get a place in Red Horse River?”
The county seat was where most of the rest of the sheriff department employees lived, although it wasn’t a metropolis itself, by any means.
“I’m renting an apartment here, but I don’t know if it’s ready yet.” He smiled, rolling his coffee cup between his palms. It was already half empty, Haley noticed. “I wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow night, so I might have to get a room somewhere.”
Haley blinked. “An apartment?” In Pine Grove? She couldn’t think of a single place. Maybe someone was renting him a room in their house, in which case she was a little peeved that no one had told her that option was on the table. She had an empty room at her place—not that having him underfoot all the time would be a great idea. She kept catching a whiff of him on her inhales, underneath the coffee and breakfast scents of the diner. The full moon being so close meant that the wolf was right at the surface of her consciousness, harder to ignore than usual, and the wolf thought Leland smelled delicious.
Down, girl.
“Yeah, it’s a room over the newspaper office, I think she said? The woman I talked to said it hadn’t been lived in for a while.” He took a sip of his coffee, watching her over the edge of the cup like he was hoping she’d have a clue what he was talking about.
“Oh!” She’d forgotten Jo used to put out a community newsletter before she’d gotten too busy with the bed-and-breakfast and then having a baby. There was a one-bedroom apartment above the old printing office that they used for storage now, and Jo must have decided to clean it up and rent it out. “Yeah, Jo used to live there when she put out the Howler. I forgot about that.”
“The Howler.” Leland smirked. “Sheriff Rylan said you guys have some kind of werewolf thing going on for tourists. What’s that about?”
Haley laughed nervously, clutching her coffee cup. Her mother had always said she was a terrible liar, but when your regional alpha said that the new deputy couldn’t know anything about the pack of werewolves that made up most of the town’s population…well, she’d give it her best shot.
“Yeah, the original town charter has a
ll these provisions for werewolves and werewolf-human cooperation. Nobody’s sure what the founders were thinking, but it gives us a nice little draw for tourist traffic. Gotta pay for the nature preserve somehow.”
“It’s not a federal or state preserve, then?” Leland looked mildly interested at that, fiddling with his coffee cup—empty already, Haley noticed.
“No, it’s private land. One of the town founders owned it and designated it as a preserve about the same time they drew up the charter. It’s officially owned by the town these days. There’s a small American gray wolf family that lives there, so at least there actually is something for the tourists to look at, if they’re lucky enough to get a glimpse.”
Sally’s sudden appearance with the coffeepot as soon as Leland drained his cup meant she was hovering close enough to eavesdrop, but Haley couldn’t really fault her for that. The whole diner was probably listening, putting that wolf hearing to good use. The pack already knew that the new deputy wasn’t being let in on the secret, but it didn’t hurt for them to know what he’d been told. The last time an outsider had accidentally found out about the town’s unusual demographics was still a cautionary tale passed down through generations, and nobody wanted a repeat of that mess.
“Do you think that might have been what attacked Diego?” Leland asked, and Sally almost dropped the coffeepot. So that news hadn’t spread yet, then.
“I hope not,” Haley said, ignoring Sally for the moment. “They’ve never shown aggression toward humans before. We get campers and hikers who try to break the rules and stay overnight in the preserve, but we don’t see many animal attacks. A couple of boys got scared up a tree by a bear last year, but she just ate their food and trashed their campsite before she moved on.”
Leland snorted. “Guess people are the same everywhere. Can’t tell you how many of my calls in Tucson were to rescue people from something that never would have happened if they’d just paid attention to the safety regulations.”
Haley relaxed a little, grateful that he hadn’t pushed her on it. “Yeah, some people are convinced the rules are only there to spoil their fun. In our case, a lot of people think they’re also there to keep the werewolves a secret.” Which was true, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t also for safety purposes.
“So how long have you been the preserve director?” He held eye contact with her as he took a sip of his fresh coffee, and she was struck by how blue his eyes were, even bloodshot and tired.
“Almost a year.” Her smile felt tight and tense even to her, and she tried to relax. “My mom was the preserve director before me. I always expected to take over from her—went to college in Seattle to get a master’s in wildlife conservation, even—but I just didn’t expect it to be yet.” She laughed ruefully, rubbing at her forehead. “It’s been…a lot.”
“What happened?” There was a gentleness to his voice that caught her attention, made her notice the way he leaned in, his face open. “Is she…did she…?”
“Got married,” Haley said flatly, amused by the flash of surprise in his expression. “She met a guy while I was in college, brought him to my graduation with her, and that’s when she told me she was moving to Columbus, Ohio, with him.”
“Damn. That must have been a surprise.”
“You’re tellin’ me.” She shrugged. “Nobody else in town wanted to take over, and everybody figured I was going to do it anyway, so here I am.”
“Funny.” Leland chuckled, but Sally appeared at the table with plates of food, cutting off whatever he’d been about to say.
They got the plates arranged, silverware rolled out, and after Leland had spread butter on his pancakes and started cutting them into pieces, she prompted him.
“Funny?”
“Oh, just…” He popped a giant pancake triangle into his mouth, no syrup, and chewed it thoughtfully. “Sheriff told me nobody wanted the deputy job. You got yours because nobody else wanted it.” He shrugged. “Funny coincidence is all.”
Haley laughed, cutting into her steak, her mouth watering at the deep-red color inside. Perfect. “Well, when you go into town to do your paper work and orientation, you’ll find out why nobody wanted the deputy position. This place has a reputation.”
“Oh yeah?” Leland grinned at her, seeming more relaxed by the moment, and she felt some of the stark loneliness of the past nine months ease away, like a weight lifting. “What, because of the werewolf thing?”
Haley nodded. “That, and by extension, the tourists. You really will have more work to do around the full moon.”
“That’s all right. Just promise me there’s no Bigfoot to contend with, and I’ll cope with the werewolves.” The glint of mischief in his eyes belied his dry tone, and Haley’s heart skipped a beat. Dang it, he’s cute.
“No Bigfoot that I know of,” she promised, holding up three fingers like a Girl Scout.
He laughed, breaking off a piece of bacon and stuffing it into his mouth. “Well, you’re the first person I’m calling if I find him.”
Was he flirting? Don’t I wish.
“That’s fair.” She shoved a bite of steak into her mouth and immediately lost her train of thought, salt and blood flooding across her tongue and soothing the constant itch of hunger at the back of her mind. She groaned, her eyes slipping closed, and let herself get lost in the taste for a moment. When she opened her eyes again, it was to see Leland watching her, one corner of his mouth pulled up in a crooked smile, and she blushed.
“Sorry,” she muttered, laughing, and covered her mouth as she swallowed. “I’m really hungry.”
“No apology necessary,” Leland assured her, and she wondered if she was imagining the extra rasp to his voice. She didn’t have much time to think about it, though, as her phone vibrated in her back pocket, buzzing loudly against the booth seat, the sound nearly making her jump out of her skin.
A glance at the screen showed that the call was coming from the clinic, and she put her fork down and sat back from the table a bit.
“Sorry,” she told Leland. “I need to take this.” She didn’t wait for his nod to accept the call. “Hey, what’s up?”
There was a clatter in the background, and then Karen said, “Haley, I’m so sorry. I know you just left, but I need you to stop back by. The sooner the better.”
Haley’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Of course. I’ll be there in just a minute.” She hung up and gave Leland an apologetic smile. “Sorry to run out on you. Do you need directions to your apartment, or do you know where you’re going?”
“I can figure it out,” he said, polite, giving her an easy smile. “Thanks, though.”
Sally appeared with a to-go box, confirming Haley’s suspicion that she was still eavesdropping, but Haley couldn’t bring herself to care. She packed up the steak and bacon, pushing the plate with the eggs on it over toward Leland.
“Here, as my apology for ditching you. Plus, they won’t reheat very well.”
“I won’t let ’em go to waste,” he promised, and she grabbed her box, headed to the register to pay.
“Put his bill with mine,” she told Sally quietly. “Welcome-to-town breakfast and all.”
“Uh-huh.” Sally grinned at her as she rang up both meals and waited for Haley to count out the cash for the total. “I’d like to eat him for breakfast.”
“Shh!” Haley hissed, glancing toward the booth. She could barely see the back of Leland’s head over the high back of the bench, his blue baseball cap. There was no way to tell if he’d heard, but maybe she’d gotten lucky and he hadn’t. “Just let me pay and leave in peace, for heaven’s sake.”
“If that’s what you want.” Sally took the cash, counted it, and glanced up at Haley. “You need your change?”
“No, of course not.” She tucked her wallet back in her jeans pocket and picked up her box. “Although I should keep the tip as compensation for all the trouble you’re causing, flirting with the deputy.”
Sally snorted. “Please. He’s too
young for me.”
“Plus, you’re married,” Haley noted wryly.
Sally waved her off. “Emmett wouldn’t care. He knows I know what side my bread’s buttered on. But, girl, your toast is dry as a bone.” At Haley’s sharp look, Sally held up her hands, the ancient register dinging as she pushed the drawer shut with her hip. “I’m just sayin’, is all.”
“Have a nice day, Sally,” Haley said pointedly, loudly, and then turned toward Leland. “Have a good one, Deputy.”
Leland lifted his hand in a wave, throwing her a nod over his shoulder, and she felt twenty pairs of eyes on her as she waved back and headed for the doors, her cheeks warm and a tingle in her stomach that she couldn’t entirely blame on her breakfast being interrupted.
The Styrofoam box squeaked loudly as she set it on the passenger’s seat of her Range Rover, and her thoughts shifted to the boy at the clinic and the bite on his shoulder, the clatter she’d heard on the phone, and the restrained urgency in Karen’s voice.
The chance that someone hadn’t illegally turned a human into a werewolf on her preserve was shrinking so rapidly it wasn’t even much of a question anymore. But who the heck would have done such a thing?
She thought—hoped—that none of her pack would, but if it wasn’t one of hers, that meant that there were trespassers in her territory, and that came with its own set of questions. But making sure Diego was all right was her first priority, and the Range Rover kicked up gravel as she gunned it out of the parking lot.
Don’t stop now. Keep reading with your copy of EDGE OF THE WOODS available now, and find more from Kat Turner at katturnerauthor.com