Timber Wolf (Virtue Shifters Book 1)

by Zoe Chant

  Including, apparently, carpentry. Mabs yanked her gaze to the house, reminding herself that that was what they were talking about, even if she kept being...distracted...by Jake's gorgeousness and his calm presence. It was completely insane to even consider having a stranger move onto the land, even if he was going to live in the barn, which was also insane. But Jake Rowly felt safe in a way Mabs couldn't remember ever encountering before. Like he would take care of her, Noah, and the house, all without ever asking anything in return.

  Without knowing she'd made the decision, she returned her gaze to Jake. "Want to check out your room in the barn?"

  FOUR

  An explosion of pure joy shattered through Jake's chest. Mary Anne Brannigan was looking up at him with the sweetest, most hopeful expression imaginable, and he thought he could probably die happy right then and there.

  Faaaaaa-aaaaaate, said his wolf in a sing-song howl.

  Jake said, oh, shut up, without rancor and the wolf laughed, which was fine, because Jake was afraid he had a kind of idiotic smile anyway, so at least they were on the same page. "I'd love to see the barn," he said, "but tell you what. Sarah's getting us into this in the first place, so how about I crash on her couch over the weekend and come over here to work, and we can see if it really works out before committing to anything more serious?"

  Mabs's green eyes widened and she stuck out a hand to shake. "Yeah, that's a deal, but you also have to write a book called How to be a Better Boyfriend or something, because wow, that's like top-notch consideration there."

  The wolf said, Boyfriend! in smug delight. Jake stuffed that down and shook both Mabs's hand and his head. "I'm not sure about a book. I'm better with my hands than words."

  A blush started somewhere below Mabs's ankh necklace and worked its way up. Jake wondered, with great interest, whether it was working its way down, too, and how far, and decided he'd better not ask. It was enough that making a comment about being good with his hands got a blush out of this exceptionally perfect woman.

  Even if he absolutely, definitely, 100% was not interested in a relationship right now.

  He was still holding Mabs's hand. He thought he should probably let go, but he didn't really want to. She had small hands, like the rest of her. Most of the rest of her: the figure-hugging t-shirt, and the way those crazy golden horns expanded across her chest, made it pretty clear that some parts of her were proportionately generous, and...

  ...and he really couldn't just kneel, bury his face in her breasts, wrap his arms around her hips, and hold on like he'd found a lifeline he hadn't even known he was looking for.

  Faaaaaa-aaaated maaaa-aaate, his wolf sang, and anybody who could hear it would be able to tell that it was teasing him. It was too bad for Jake that he was the only one who could hear it. Or maybe it was good, because that way nobody else knew he was being teased.

  Finally, reluctantly, he released Mabs's hand, trying to think of something to say after I'm good with my hands that wouldn't sound hopelessly double-entendre-y.

  To his huge relief, Sarah came to his rescue, calling, "Did I hear somebody taking my name in vain?" from the porch.

  Mabs curled her hand against her chest like she was clinging to the memory of holding his hand, and turned toward Sarah. "Yeah, Jake's going to crash on your couch over the weekend."

  "Oh, he is, is he?"

  Noah piped, "Can I crash on your couch?" and slammed about five cars together demonstratively.

  All three of the adults laughed. Sarah said, "Not that kind of crashing," to him, and nodded toward Jake. "All right, sounds good. Look, Mabs, I thought I might take Noah into town for dinner at the restaurant, if that's okay?"

  Mabs cast Jake a quick look. "That'd be great? We could maybe try to get some work started?" At his nod, she smiled toward Sarah. "Yeah, that'd be great. His bedtime is 8, so have him back before then?"

  "Oh my God, you expect me to be able to feed a ravenous four-year-old in only five hours? Whatever shall I do? C'mon, kiddo." Sarah scooped Noah under her arm like a sack of potatoes and carried him, shrieking with laughter, to give his mother a hug around the waist, and then to her truck. She stuck Noah in the front seat, pulled a safety seat from the truck's bed, and got them both arranged in an appropriate manner while Jake looked on with admiration. He'd never gotten the hang of lacing the seat belts through the safety seats properly, but then, he hadn't had much opportunity to practice, either.

  Maybe he would now, though.

  His wolf sang, You wiiiiiiillll!

  Jake tried to hush it again, mumbling, even if I wanted to, and I don't know that I do, this isn't the time to even think about it.

  The wolf, exasperated, said, Of course it is, but subsided as Sarah called out to Jake.

  "I'll be back to pick you up later, Jake. Behave, or I'll put you in this seat yourself." A moment later they drove off to the sound of Noah's gales of laughter. Apparently the idea of Jake in a child's safety seat was pretty funny.

  To be fair, both he and Mabs were grinning about it, too. She said, "I wouldn't put it past her," and Jake lifted his hands as if in surrender.

  "I wouldn't even try to fight her. She's a pistol."

  His wolf conveyed horror in the way that only canine faces could, a mix of betrayal and shock filling the inside of Jake's head. I would fight her!

  Jake chuckled silently and shot back an image of Sarah, as a teenager, breaking up a dog fight with a long stick and an overwhelming amount of bravery. Don't bet you'd win.

  The wolf's ears flattened in dismay. Oh yeah.

  "So you've known her a long time?" Mabs gestured at the house, inviting him back in. They went into the kitchen, which still had the remnants of the house's original fireplace against the wall closest to the entry hall. Piecemeal counters of different lengths and heights, each a separate component that could be moved around. It felt, Jake thought with quiet astonishment, like home.

  He hadn't felt that way about anywhere he'd lived in...longer than he cared to imagine. And he knew, whether his wolf put a voice to it or not, that it had less to do with the old house than the small, determined woman in it.

  The wolf, satisfied that it didn't have to comment, gave one of those contented huffs that canines excelled in, and left Jake to his own devices. "Yeah, Sarah and I have been friends since we were about six, but I left Virtue after high school and hadn't really seen her since. My folks downsized and moved to Montana a couple years ago, which is why I don't have anywhere to stay. I'm over-explaining things, aren't I?"

  Mabs smiled. "Saves me asking nosy questions. So. Here we have a kitchen." Her smile fell away as she looked up and down the length of the room. "Chad spent all summer working up plans, pricing things, and getting ready to work once we had all the material on hand, and then just took off with the money, so now I'm...screwed. I've insulated the floor—"

  As soon as she said that, Jake crouched, examining one of the wider gaps between the venerable floorboards. Darkness looked back up at him, so he took his phone out, turning its flashlight on and shining it into the gap. A dull reflection shone back, and he looked up with a smile. "You've already got draft strips in? As well as insulation from below?"

  Mabs gave him a weak smile in return. "Draft strips were one of the things I could do with Noah. His little fingers were great for stuffing them in there. And there's a cellar, so putting insulation between the joists wasn't too hard. I've got ambitions of putting up a barrier on the bottom side of the joists to add a little more insulation, but..." She spread her hands. "Money."

  Jake's own bank account wasn't exactly overflowing, but he still bit back the offer to simply pay for it himself, knowing instinctively that Mabs wouldn't appreciate it. Instead he said, "Well, you've done a good job already. What about the walls?"

  "I'm terrified of wrecking them," she confessed. "All this wood..." She gestured at the kitchen, which was lined by rich old planks top, side, and bottom. "I'd like to insulate the upstairs floors, too. We already did
the draft strips up there, but if I could get insulation between the floors..."

  "Well, that's where I'm your man."

  You should be her man.

  Wolves, Jake thought, were not particularly subtle creatures. Not that he could completely disagree with the wolf, but...this wasn't the time. It might be the place, though. He could all but feel Mabs's love for it, and knew he was half in love himself.

  With the idea of restoring the old house, he told himself firmly. That was all he could afford, or want, to be in love with. "I have a lot of practice at taking old boards down without damaging them, and in most cases we only need to take a couple down anyway. Then we blow insulation in and board it up again, and voila." He snapped, and Mabs's hope shone through.

  "Really? That's amazing. I thought we had to take them all down and I couldn't figure out how I was going to do that and still keep the historical society's permission to renova...no, they don't like calling it renovation. Re...habilitate..." She laughed, a deeper, richer sound than Jake had expected. "Reformat," she went on cheerfully. "Refurbish. Remodel. Restore! I have a terrible time remembering that word."

  "You've talked to the historical society already?" Jake's admiration, already considerable, grew more. Or maybe that wasn't his admiration, but he'd just keep thinking of it that way, and hope his jeans didn't tell a different story. "Did you have any problems with them?"

  "Honestly I think they were thrilled somebody wanted to fix the place up instead of rip it down. And I just want..." To Jake's surprise and a little to his dismay, her eyes filled with tears and her voice grew hoarse. "I just want it to be a place somebody loves. A safe home for Noah to grow up in."

  His wolf whined, trying to push its way forward. Jake resisted, not ready to drop I'm a shapeshifter on Mabs just yet, but he empathized with the wolf's desire to shift and offer its furry shoulders to hug and cry on. Hardly anybody could keep crying when a wolf's long warm tongue was there to lick up the tears, but...yeah, that would be a little much right now.

  Mabs pushed at her cheekbones with the heels of her hands, just below her eyes. "Sorry," she said, still hoarsely. "It's been kind of a day."

  "I understand," he said as gently and warmly as he could. "Tell you what. It sounds like the kitchen is our priority? And then the bedrooms, to winterize the whole place, if nothing else?"

  "Yeah." Mabs gave him a watery smile that was, at least, stronger than her last one. "I've spent an awful lot of the last few months just trying to clean up, if you want to know the truth. I don't think the old Ms. Brannigan was a hoarder, exactly. The house wasn't gross with old food or cat urine or anything, but it was...full. Like she didn't get out much for a long time, and didn't have any way to get rid of the not-gross stuff that built up. I've made about a thousand dumpster runs. Between that and work and Noah it hasn't left a lot of time for even trying to get the bigger stuff done around here. Even if I had the skills. Wow. Hi, I'm just going to dump all my feels on you. Sorry."

  "I don't mind at all." Jake was surprised at how much he meant that, although his wolf wasn't. "Feel free to dump your feels any time. I'll keep them safe."

  Mabs gave a startled, wet laugh. "Okay. Great. Thanks. But yes. Kitchen first, I think, then the two bedrooms above us, then...everything else."

  "'Everything else' is probably too much to do at once, but..." Jake pointed his chin toward the boarded ceiling. "Why don't we get a couple of those panels down and see how much insulation we can blow in? Same with the walls? And then tomorrow I'll rent a blower—?"

  "I can't pay for that," Mabs blurted.

  "Not now," he agreed. "But eventually you'll find a way, and in the meantime we can't insulate the place without a blower, so I'll rent one and you can really hate that while also recognizing its grim necessity."

  Mabs stared at him, her jaw working as if she couldn't decide between a wry grin and a horrendous scowl. She landed, narrowly, on the side of the grin, although if a grin could scowl, hers did. "Yeah, that's...dammit. What, do I have pages, or something? Because you're reading me like a book."

  Jake, after a long silence, said, "No, but I feel like that ought to have been my line, somehow...."

  She finally laughed again, a real laugh. "It kind of sounded like it, didn't it? Okay, well, I think we can move everything but the Aga, if we need to. There's room in the buttery for most of the counters, I bet."

  "Are you sure?" Jake glanced dubiously at the smaller room on the kitchen's far end, but Mabs cracked her knuckles and grinned.

  "I'm a master at real-life Tetris. I can fit anything anywhere." She clamped her mouth shut and went crimson.

  Jake couldn't help it. He laughed out loud. Mabs, still crimson, turned toward the nearest counter and put her head down on it, hiding her face in her arms. "I'm sorry," she said, muffled. "I'm not usually like this."

  "You're the...single?...mother of an energetic four-year-old," Jake said, still grinning, but with genuine admiration and sympathy. "I think you're supposed to say and think adult thoughts when you get a break from parenting."

  Mabs turned her head to peek at him from the corner of her elbow, eyes shining with what looked like tears of laughter. He hoped that's what they were, anyway, but given how the skin crinkled, he was pretty sure she was smiling. Mabs Brannigan giving him a hidden smile was wonderful. It felt like a secret between them, like it belonged in a comfortable space they'd already somehow built.

  "I'm obviously out of practice thinking adult thoughts," she said, still into the corner of her elbow. "They didn't use to make me blush."

  "I'll overlook it this time," Jake promised.

  Aw.

  Shush, he told the wolf. I just met her. She doesn't need me coming on like a freight train. Even if I was looking for a relationship,which I'm not .

  Wolves weren't quite as good at rolling their eyes as dogs were, due to the eyebrow muscle dogs had developed to wrap humans around their paws. Jake's wolf still managed a pretty convincing eye roll. Jake said, Shush, again, as Mabs, still pink-cheeked, straightened up and rubbed her hand over her face. "Thanks. I'd usually drop that kind of thought on a girlfriend, not a nice guy I just met. And yeah, single mom. Noah's dad knows he exists, but that's about the sum total of their relationship."

  "He's obviously an idiot," Jake said with feeling.

  "No argument here. So," Mabs said emphatically, "are we moving counters or what?"

  "How about..." Jake went along the wall, a hand extended to run his fingertips over the boards, rapping on them occasionally. The sound changed as he hit a support column, and he tapped the counter in front of it. "How about we start by moving this one and taking the board out, and see how much space it looks like we can fill with just one board removed? If it turns out we need to move everything, you can display your Tetris skills later."

  Mabs put a hand over her face, laughed, nodded, and started moving crockery.

  FIVE

  Mabs was prepared to kick herself for the rest of the night—possibly the rest of her life—over the I can fit anything anywhere comment, just like any normal, functioning adult would. Jake Rowly was really nice about it, though, and hadn't made her feel any more idiotic than she did on her own.

  Which made her all the more inclined to see where he would fit with her, but that was not part of her game plan for the next...forever. Roughly forever. She might have time for a boyfriend at the end of forever. Until then, there was the house and Noah and her job and...and it was interesting that she'd reminded herself more of that in the past four hours than she had in the past two years combined.

  Jake Rowly didn't criticize the tools she had on hand, although she could practically see him mentally comparing their quality to what he had. He didn't once assume she couldn't do something, which, after Noah's dad, was...mind-boggling, really. Jake took her lead in moving counters and shelving into the buttery. When they'd emptied out pretty well everything but the Aga, he stood back to look at the smaller room and said, "Wow," with evident sin
cerity. "It's not that I didn't believe you, but I couldn't have made it fit."

  "I used to rearrange the contents of our freezer, when I was a kid. You know how stuff just ends up shoved in and piled up? I always thought it was really satisfying to make it fit neatly and my mom was always amazed at how much room there was when I was done." Mabs grinned up at Jake, whose return smile made her toes curl.

  Furthermore, it made other parts of her tingle, which hadn't happened in a long time, and which led right back into I can fit anything anywhere, a thought which Mabs absolutely refused to pursue. She refused to pursue it vividly, and with detail that lingered on those long, strong fingers, and how the size of a man's hands were said to reflect the size of his...gloves....

  "You could probably make a living out of organizing freezers," Jake said with admiration. "People like people who can arrange their lives for them."

  "I wouldn't know how to market myself," Mabs admitted. "Otherwise I might. I bet I could charge a lot."

  "You probably could. We'll go into business," he suggested lightly. "I'll restore and renovate, you'll organize what they have into the new spaces."

  "Deal," Mabs said just as lightly, and tried not to think about how the idea actually sounded kind of wonderful.

  Not that she knew Jake Rowly well enough to go into business with him, but still, at first blush, she really liked him. Liked him so much it was kind of alarming, in fact. But even if she didn't like-like him, it would be good to have more friends. She'd done pretty well for herself in that department, in the months they'd been in Virtue, but more friends was always good.

  And of course there were friends, and then there were... friends.

  Mabs did not need any friends, gosh darn it. Not right now. For now, Jake showing her how to remove boards without damaging the walls was enough. He said, "It's almost impossible to do this without some damage, but I've got a lot of practice," while doing it, and nodded at the ancient, not-quite-rusted nails. "Sometimes they're screwed in instead of nailed and that's easier."