Timber Wolf (Virtue Shifters Book 1)

by Zoe Chant

"I heard about your troubles with the contractor," Cole said. "I was hoping if I came up here in person, you could see the sense in selling now, before you've put any time or eff..." His tone changed entirely as the door opened and closed again behind Mabs. "...Jake?"

  "Preston." Jacob Rowly came down the steps to stand just behind Mabs. "Long time no see."

  "I hadn't heard you were back in town." Cole didn't sound particularly delighted about it.

  "Just blew in," Jake said easily. "Congrats on the real estate business."

  "Oh..." Cole looked over his shoulder, eyebrows furrowing as if he hadn't realized his car would tell anybody anything, then frowned back at Jake. "Thanks. What're you doing here?"

  "Ms. Brannigan has hired me to help restore her place." Jake produced a card from his back pocket and walked it up to Cole while Mabs watched, certain she was witnessing some kind of old high school rivalry playing out decades after the fact. Both men had that air about them, as if re-establishing old marks in a pissing contest.

  Cole took Jake's card and read it like he couldn't help himself. "Jacob Rowly, Carpentry & Restorations, huh? This old place isn't worth the effort, Jake, you know that."

  To Mabs'ssurprise, Jake stepped back until he was behind her again. "Obviously I disagree, Preston, but even if I didn't, it's Ms. Brannigan's house and Ms. Brannigan's choice."

  "I appreciate your interest, Mr. Cole," Mabs said, recognizing when she'd been tagged back in. "And I won't lie, the price you quoted is life-changing. But so is this old farmstead," she said a little more quietly. "In a whole different way, maybe, but it's what I want."

  "Ms. Brannigan, I don't understand. You could buy a whole new turnkey farm for what you're being offered." Cole hadn't come any farther down the walk since Jake had joined Mabs in front of the porch, but she was certain he'd be up close and trying to intimidate her if she was alone.

  And even though knowing that made her mad, she also still couldn't help but smile a little bit, kind of incredulously. "A new farmstead wouldn't have belonged to my family for two hundred years, Mr. Cole. People wouldn't give directions by it, or mention its name like an old baronial title. It wouldn't be 'the Old Brannigan Place'."

  "Six months ago you didn't even know anyone in your family owned an old farmstead!"

  Mabs gave him the best edged smile she had at her disposal. "I know. Funny how emotion works, isn't it? Six months ago I didn't know it even existed, and now I want very much for it to keep existing, as a home for me and my son. So I won't be selling. But thank you for your interest, Mr. Cole." She turned her back on the realtor, catching Jake's eye, and didn't quite let herself exhale a sigh of relief as the carpenter followed her like a liege lord's sworn man.

  The front door closed behind them, and a few seconds later, the front gate banged shut and the hollow thud of a car door closing echoed up the walk before Cole drove away.

  Only then did Mabs sag against the door, her heart rate suddenly soaring. Nausea boiled in her belly and she muttered, "Crackers," before pushing past Jake into the kitchen, where she pulled a packet of Saltines off a cupboard shelf and ate two in a single bite.

  Then her mouth was too dry to eat anything, or talk, or even breathe, so, coughing, she went to the sink and sucked a handful of water straight from the faucet without getting a glass. After a moment Jake appeared with a glass, offered it to her, and stepped back once she'd taken it.

  He really did need to write a How to be a Better Boyfriend book, she thought. Men were always trying to fix things. Noah's father had always made her feel like she couldn't possibly fix anything. But Jake just gave her what she needed and got out of the way. She'd never liked any guy in her entire life more than she liked Jake Rowly, right then. Not even in a jump-his-bones kind of way, although that too, but just...appreciating him.

  Her stomach settled as she drank the water and turned the faucet off. Only then did she finally dare to try speaking, and the first words out of her mouth were, "Thanks. That kind of guy only listens a woman if there's a man around to back her up."

  "Funny, that's exactly what he was like in high school, too. I didn't mean to butt in."

  Mabs turned toward him, shaking her head. "No, seriously, you were great. He knew I wasn't alone so he wasn't gonna get pushy, but you weren't pushy either. I really appreciate it."

  "I think you'd have rousted him on your own."

  "Probably, but it was easier with backup." A zing of longing shot through Mabs. Not for Jake specifically, although—again—that too, but for a partner. For somebody who would be there like Jake had just been. It wasn't fair to count on him in particular. He'd been there now, but she was certain he wasn't planning on becoming the man-around-the-house for a single mom and her kid. Still, it made her realize how much she'd like to have someone.

  Either way, it wasn't something she could deal with right now. "Okay. That's over. Let's move on, huh? I need another drink of water and then we can get back to the insulation."

  "Sounds like a plan. And look, Mabs? If he comes back and you need backup again, just say the word. I'll follow your lead, but don't be shy about asking. I'd like to help."

  A real smile blossomed in her, and she looked over her shoulder at Jake as she reached to turn the water on again. "Thank you. I hope I don't have to take you up on it, but I will if he comes sniffing around again."

  She filled her glass, turned the faucet back off, and the whole thing came apart in her hands, spraying water everywhere.

  * * *

  To Mabs's never-ending gratification, she was not the only person in the room who screamed like an overwrought four-year-old. Jake shrieked and kicked the insulation blower—which was not meant for kicking—toward the door. Mabs shrieked and shoved her hands over the spraying faucet, which made things much, much worse until she managed to push her way through the pressure to clamp her palms against the pipe.

  "Turn the water off! Turn it off turn it off turn it off!"

  Jake rushed toward her, scrambling at the pieces of dissolved faucet, trying to find a place to crank it back off again. Mabs howled, "Beneath the sink!" She sucked her gut in and stuck her butt out, trying to make room between herself and the edge of the sink for Jake to open a cupboard door beneath her. He pulled at one of the doors, scraping her thighs, and she yelled, "Or at the shut-off valve! If I take my hands off this the whole kitchen's gonna be ruined!"

  Jake blurted, "I'm sorry," lifted her up at the hips, opened the cupboard, and put her back down again before ducking down to check the pipes. A bubble of laughter pushed up inside her chest. He'd lifted her so easily, with such strength and confidence, and she could think of all sorts of much more wonderful things he could be doing with that strength than getting her out of the way of a burst faucet.

  The bubbling laughter exploded as Jake, frustrated, cried, " Shit, there's no stopcock!"

  Mabs shrieked, "That's what she said!" and began absolutely weeping with laughter, which made it incredibly hard to hold the water down. A bellow of laughter escaped Jake, too, and he climbed up from his knees to put his hands over hers on the burst faucet.

  "Do you kn—stop that! Stop that!" Giggles overtook them both and he ducked his head, trying to control himself. "Do you know where the shut-off valve is?"

  "Yeah, yeah, of course, it's—"

  "No, no, just go, I'll hold this, go go go!"

  Mabs pulled her hands out from under Jake's, wiped them—pointlessly—on her soaking wet jeans, and ran from the kitchen to throw herself into the cellar, where the pipes ran. She clobbered her head on a floor joist, but got the water shut off with a few hard twists of the wrench that Aunt Doris had obviously left down there for exactly that purpose. Mabs had intended to move it, but now she understood why it was there, and it would never, ever be 'put away'. A moment later she crawled back out, holding her head, crying now with both pain and laughter, and staggered back into the kitchen. "It's gonna splash everywhere when you take your hands off, but the water's off. Oh, let me get
towels..."

  She ran from the room again and grabbed a pile of them from the basket she needed to take to the local laundromat, then ran back in to thrust them over Jake's hands before he withdrew them from the broken faucet. He put his hands back on top of hers, on top of the faucet, as soon as he'd extracted them from below the towels.

  Water soaked through the towels instantly, spilling into the sink and over its edges, down the back kitchen wall, before the pressure in the pipes subsided. They stared at each other, wide-eyed, and at the towels, for long seconds before either of them dared take their hands away.

  The towels shifted with the changing weight and both Mabs and Jake flinched like a chest-burster was about to jump out at them. Nothing more exciting happened, though, and as one, they slid down the sink front to the kitchen floor, gasping and giggling with relief. Jake, surveying the floor and far wall, said, "There's hardly any damage. It missed the insulation, and the walls are just damp."

  Mabs wiped her eyes, giggling. "Thank goodness, because look at us." Her t-shirt stuck to her body and her jeans had that awful gritty feeling denim got when it was wet, and Jake...

  She'd know he had a strong build, but a wet t-shirt really made the definition of his muscles clear. Water dribbled down his jaw and into the hollow of his throat, where it tangled in the first hints of chest hair, and she could follow that line of darkness all the way down to his navel, where the wet shirt rumpled over the top of his jeans. Dark blue jeans, almost black with water, that clung to his thighs and knees. Mabs would have said he couldn't be any more beautiful than he'd been when she first saw him, but it turned out wet t-shirts were even better.

  A sigh escaped her, and she tore her gaze away from the handsome carpenter to thump the back of her head lightly against the cupboard they both leaned against. "Well, that's twice in a row today that I'm really glad you were here. That would've been a total disaster without a second person—a second grown-up —here."

  "On the other hand, you probably wouldn't have had the walls exposed and an insulation blower in the middle of the room if I hadn't been here, so it wouldn't have been as bad?"

  Mabs pushed her shoulder against his. "I'm trying to say thank you."

  "You're welcome." Jake bumped his head against the cupboard, too, and studied the ceiling. "So...faucets next?"

  A high unhappy laugh escaped Mabs. "I guess so. It was supposed to be the walls and ceiling first. You said plumbing's not your specialty."

  "And it's not, but needs must, and besides..." He nudged his shoulder against hers in return, smiling when she looked at him. "Besides, I'm good at following instructions, and the internet is full of instructions for this kind of thing. We might as well put our amateur-hour expert construction hats on and go for it."

  "Is it worth it?" The smallness of her voice surprised Mabs. "Preston Cole's offering half a million dollars for this old place. He's right. I could buy a new place and have money left over."

  "Half a...whew." Jake exhaled and fell silent a few long moments, like he was really thinking about what she'd said. "That's a lot of money. But, Mabs...everything you said to Preston was true. Money can't buy the history in this house. That's worth a lot. More than money, in its way."

  "Yeah, but..." Mabs closed her eyes. "History can't buy new faucets."

  "Ah, well, we got those on credit along with the insulation blower." Jake stood, offering Mabs a hand, and she took it with a rueful smile.

  "I've made some friends since we moved here, but not 'local-hardware-credit-line' friends. What'd you do, lean on old high school prom dates?"

  "Something like that, yeah. Anyway, we'll need to find a plumber to check out all the pipes before we start adding interior insulation, but we ought to be able to handle a new faucet, anyway. Deal?" Although he'd pulled her to her feet and released her hand, Jake offered his hand again, this time to shake.

  "Deal, but how about I get us some dry towels first so we can, uh, dry off, oh, God, I'm so good with the language...." Mabs shook Jake's hand, but then put her face in her hands and sighed. She honestly hadn't been so verbally inept around a guy since like 9th grade. She'd ask what was wrong with her, but: hot wet guy doing handiwork in her kitchen. That pretty much covered it.

  At least Jake didn't sound like he noticed, or minded. "Good idea. I was thinking I'd have to go hang my shirt on the line."

  Mabs, imagining hot wet half-naked guy doing handiwork in her kitchen, kicked herself all the way to the towels.

  EIGHT

  Noah Brannigan came running back in, dirtier than before but drawn by the commotion. Jake, surprised, realized how little time had actually passed between Noah's departure and the faucet explosion. "Were you guys screeching? You shouldn't screech, Mama, it's very annoying. Oh no! Did you spill? A big spill," he said in wonder as he took in the mess in the kitchen.

  Mabs agreed, "A big spill," and scooped her son up to bury her face in his hair. Jake had a little pang of—not envy, exactly. He wasn't jealous of a four-year-old. He just kinda wished Mabs could turn to him for comfort, too.

  Although at the moment he was damp and probably smelled faintly of wet dog, so maybe not.

  Wet wolf, his wolf said, offended. And you do not.

  No, I know. Jake smiled at himself a little, and more at the wolf, and most of all, at Mabs and Noah. But it was funny.

  The wolf reluctantly conceded it might have been funny, and Jake went out to the truck to get parts for the faucet while Mabs finished explaining to Noah what had happened in the kitchen. The little boy hung around to watch them fix it, and the kitchen floor had mostly dried out by the time they had, a little while later.

  Both adults stared nervously at it, though, instead of turning it on. "The thing is," Mabs said, "I'm afraid the faucet was the same age as the pipes, and if we turn it all back on, the whole water system is just going to explode. We could...leave it off until I can get a plumber in..." She made a face that wrinkled her nose. Jake was taken with the nearly overwhelming urge to kiss that nose in response.

  I would!

  You, Jake pointed out, are a canine. People expect dogs they've just met might give them kisses. Not so much humans. Aloud, he said, "You can't just be without water until you get a plumber in."

  A little smile crept across Mabs's lips. "Did you know this place is on well water? The old hand pump out back still works. It's not ideal, but we're not going to die of thirst."

  Childhood memory swept Jake in a rush that left him almost laughing. "I remember that thing. We used to run around to the back for water and Ms. Brannigan would make a fuss, yelling about kids on her land, and then she'd give us cookies."

  "Oh!" Mabs pressed a hand to her heart, which was tricky, since she hadn't put Noah down yet. "Oh, that's wonderful. I really don't know anything about her at all. Thank you." Her eyes shone as she smiled at Jake. "Thank you for giving me a little part of her."

  Noah, less sentimental, squirmed down and grabbed Jake's hand. "C'mon, I'll show you the pump, it's AWESOOOOOME!" He bodily dragged Jake toward the back of the house. Mabs, laughing, followed along behind them, but it wasn't the old water pump that made Jake slow in astonishment as they exited the back door.

  Old Ms. Brannigan had kept a patch of the land clear out there, but Mabs had taken the whole thing down to topsoil and grown a quarter-acre garden on it. She'd reclaimed stones from somewhere and laid out paths through the vegetable patches, and a path of pale pebbles led in a pretty curve toward the water pump. Behind him, sheepishly, Mabs said, "I always wanted to garden."

  "This is amazing." Jake turned to her with genuine awe. "This is amazing, Mabs. You've done a huge amount of work out here. I mean, I haven't seen it in years, but..."

  She smiled shyly, which made him want to scoop her up and spin her around. "It was a lot of work, but it was quieter than banging around in the house, so I could do it after Noah went to sleep."

  "Like a garden fairy," Noah informed Jake.

  "Only because I'm short,"
Mabs replied, and Noah laughed as he ran to hug her.

  "You're not short! You're mommy-sized!"

  Mabs laughed, too, and hugged him. Jake, smiling, went to discover an old, well-sealed wooden bucket behind the pump. He rinsed it, primed the pump, and grinned as Noah ran over to put his hands into the sudden rush of well water. Jake washed his own hands in it, then cupped them and drank the teeth-achingly cold water and shook himself all over when he'd finished. "Best water on earth."

  "I don't know what it is about the pump's water, when it's all the same, but...yeah." Mabs came over for a drink, too, before giving a rueful little sigh. "I guess I'd better go call around for a plumber. Friggin' Chad was supposed to be taking care of all of that." She made strangling motions with her hands, and Noah stepped up, his blue eyes worried.

  "Are you mad, Mommy? I know we're supposed to use our words, but I thought of something better to make you feel better."

  Mabs's hands relaxed as her eyebrows elevated at her son's guileless expression. "Oh yeah? What's that?"

  "A puppy."

  Mabs threw her head back and laughed out loud. It made a beautiful line of her throat, and the creases around her mouth and eyes as she laughed and laughed and laughed were the most kissable, wonderful things Jake had ever seen. She finally wiped her eyes, still giggling, and said, "A puppy, huh?" to Noah, who nodded vigorously. "I'm not sure a puppy will help me get the pipes fixed, honey, but I'll keep it in mind."

  Noah squinted suspiciously, but then nodded as if satisfied the seed had been planted. He ran off to play, and Mabs was still grinning when she turned to Jake. "Know any puppies who are handy with plumbing?"

  His wolf's tail drooped. We're only good with wood.

  Jake croaked, "Ask Sarah. She'll know who to talk to," and said 'We're only good with wood'?!? to his wolf.

  What ? the wolf asked, baffled. What?

  Explaining double-entendres to a wolf proved beyond him. Jake, still hoarsely, said, "And look, if Sarah's contact turns out to be an old high school buddy, let me call them for you?", and tried to keep his mind far, far out of the gutter. It didn't work, but he tried.