Blood of a Werewolf

By

T. Lynne Tolles

Troll Publishing

Version 8.0BN

Copyright © 2010 BLOOD OF A WEREWOLF
 

by T. Lynne Tolles

ISBN
294-0-0118538-0-7

Website

All Rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews, is illegal and punishable by law

Publisher’s Note:

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, locals or events is coincidental.

T. Lynne Tolles

Edited by Erin Potter of Shamrock Editing

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to my beautiful daughter.
 
Life isn’t always what you expect it to be, but some of the surprises it hands you make it all worthwhile. If asked, most adults will tell you, their teen years were mostly awkward and humiliating.
 
As I watch my daughter make her way through her teens I am amazed and bewildered by her grace and compassion.
 
She maneuvers through the trials and tribulations as if carefully stepping over hand-blown glass statues, always lending a helping hand to another stumbling teen whether they deserve it or not. I am in awe of all that you do, Kayla. Thank you for blessing my life with your presence. I love you.

Chapter 1

Darby O’Rielly had to peel her sweaty legs from the seat, feeling much like a fruit roll-up when she got out of her car. It had been one hundred and one degrees that day, which is unusually hot for being so close to the coast in the San Francisco bay area. The great thing about living in the bay area on hot days such as this, is that nine times out of ten, the breeze off the bay will kick up in the evenings and cool everything down.
 
This evening was no exception.

The sun had not set just yet, as Darby went up the porch steps of the cute little bungalow, pulling out her keys. It was an older craftsman style house with a deep porch for sitting away the long summer evenings. It was painted a deep gray-blue, trimmed in white, with a deep burgundy colored door and river rock wainscoting. She and her sister, Rowan, had inherited the house from their parents when they died a few years before.
 
Darby unlocked the door, went into the house, and put her keys and purse down on a little table that housed a lamp and the answering machine. She hit the blinking button on the machine and headed down the hallway, shedding clothes as she headed to her bedroom.
 

The first message was from Rowan, begging Darby to meet her at Paddy’s, a local pub a few blocks away.
 
As if the voice on the recording could hear her, Darby replied to it, “Sure, meet you at Paddy’s so you can stand me up again, as usual. HA!”

She pulled a pair of cut-offs out of the laundry basket when the second message started.
 
It, too, was from Rowan who seemed to have anticipated Darby’s reluctance. “I promise I’ll be there this time. Please! Please! Please!”

Darby yelled down the hall at the voice on the machine, “Yeah! Yeah!”
 

She came back out to the living room dressed in cut-offs and a tank top.
 
She hit the ‘on’ button of the stereo, and grabbed its remote, which she shoved into her back pocket as she headed for the front yard.
 
It had been awfully hot that day and she felt a couple of the plants could use an extra drink of water.
 
A commercial was playing on the stereo as she unwound the hose and turned on the water. Once the water was on, she headed for some droopy plants. The water felt great on her toes in the grass.
 
If she made a puddle around her feet, she could even squish a little mud through her toes. She stood there watering, enjoying the coolness, when the Modern English song “I’ll Stop The World and Melt With You” came on.
 
It was such a great song and so appropriate for a hot day.
 

As she stood there watering, feet in the cool grass, the song just took over her.
 
She started humming as she continued to water the poor, neglected hydrangeas.
 
As the song progressed, her head started bouncing to the beat.
 
Before long, her hips started getting in on the tune.
 
By the time the bridge of the song came around, she was dancing full out right there on the lawn.
 
She sprayed the water straight up and started twirling.
 
The sparkle of the water against the purple and orange sky was stunning.
 
The cool water raining down on her was such a relief from the heat and stress of the day.
 
She even tried to spell her name out in water like you would with a sparkler on the 4
^th
of July. The feeling was glorious, a sense of sweet release.
 
She felt like a little girl, singing and dancing and spinning with water falling down all around her.
 

Exhilarated and smiling as the song started to come to an end, she spun towards the house next door, only to notice someone on the front porch watching her display of adolescence.
 
She stopped immediately, pulled the remote out of her pocket, and turned down the music.
 
She had gotten so caught up in the music and the rapture of the moment that she hadn’t noticed anyone or anything.
 
How long had he been standing there?
 
That house hasn’t been rented for months
, she thought to herself, yet there he had been with his hands folded across his chest, watching. To make things worse, now he was clapping.

Horribly embarrassed, she spun on her heels, ran to the spigot, and turned off the water.
 
Without winding up the hose, she ran up the porch steps and into the house and shut the door. She stood there with her back against the door for a second and shook her head, as if to shake off the embarrassment.
 
It seemed to work a bit, so she headed for the shower.

She set the water to be refreshingly chilly.
 
She stood there under the cool water as it sheeted down on her and she thought of the man on the porch again.
 
It had started to get dark and she did not get a very good look at him.
 
All she could tell was that he was rather tall, dark haired, with a handsome, almost devilish, smile. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans, but aside from that, she could not tell much more. After thinking about it, she realized that the clapping was not at all condescending or rude; it seemed as if he had genuinely enjoyed her performance.

I wonder when he moved in?
she thought to herself.
 
He’s probably married to some gorgeous woman and has three kids, or he’s a flake, who can’t commit or keep a job
.
 

With that, she pushed him out of her mind and thought of Rowan’s messages.
 
I should probably go to meet her.
 
I haven’t seen her in days; besides, it’s Friday and it’s too hot to cook.
So it was decided, she would go to Paddy’s and probably get stood up again, but at least she’d get a meal out of it.

As she started to dress, a huge black and white fur ball did a figure eight around her legs. He jumped on the bed hoping for some more attention.
 

“Hey, Harry, how was your day?” Darby asked. With a very loud purr, he answered. He arched his back to meet her hand as she stroked him. All of a sudden, he fell to his side for some belly rubs.
 
When she attempted to finish dressing, Harry reached out his huge paw and snagged the spaghetti straps of her top, as she tried to put it on.
 

Harry was an unusually large cat, with beautiful long black fur and a white undercarriage with socks. He weighed in at about 25+ lbs, maybe more. When Rowan teased Harry about his rather large belly, Darby always defended him by saying,
he’s just large boned
.
 
Sometimes, when he lay on his back, she could see his pink tummy under the fur and couldn’t help but want to give his tummy a pet. He was extremely talkative, a very loud purring machine, and a bit of a wide load, but absolutely adorable to Darby.
 

Darby finished dressing and headed to the kitchen to fill Harry’s bowl.
 
Harry knew this routine and followed her dutifully.
 
He rubbed on her arm as she set the bowl down and purred with delight. When she finished refilling Harry’s water bowl, she grabbed her keys, her license, a credit card, and all the cash she had in her wallet, locked the door, and headed out.

Paddy’s was a local haunt of young and old in Oljone.
 
In this small town, everybody knew everybody and their business.
 
Paddy’s was a comfortable place even for a single gal.
 
There was a fireplace, a few comfy chairs, and a love seat to watch the mesmerizing flames of blue, green, orange, yellow, and white lick the log eagerly. Of course, there was a big wooden bar, lots of beer on tap, dartboards, and a fairly clean women’s bathroom.
 
No gal likes an icky bathroom, especially if she’s drinking beer, because once you go the first time, you’re in there every 20 minutes thereafter.
 

Paddy’s wife, Kate, made the best burgers around and her fries, well, Darby felt “Yummy” covered it. Kyle worked most nights behind the bar.
 
Darby had gone to high school with him.
 
He was a firefighter full time, but after his wife, Jenn, had been diagnosed with breast cancer last spring, he had picked up this job to help pay for the piling medical bills.
 
Darby walked into Paddy’s and went to the bar.