Dreaming of the Wolf (15 page)

“Yes, I wonder if you could tell me about Jake Silver. He was leaving something off at the art gallery a few weeks back. I need to get in touch with him. It’s important.”

“J.S.” The woman smiled brightly. “Oh yes, he’s…” She sighed and didn’t have to say what was on her mind. The guy was a virile, hunky stud. The woman motioned to the photos. “The photographs you’re admiring are his.”

“J.S.?” Alicia looked down at the extremely small print. Modest, or embarrassed to proclaim they were his? They were beautiful.

“Yes. That’s his autograph. We just started carrying his work. I hope we sell a lot and he makes more trips up here.”

“Up here?”

“Yes, he’s not from around here. I don’t recall where he’s from exactly, but it’s not Breckenridge. He did come in a few times in the past several weeks, looking for a dark-haired woman, who—” The woman’s eyes widened. “Who looked like you, from his description. Are you Alicia Greiston?”

“Yes, I am.” Hope stirred anew that Jake had left contact information for her, yet the knowledge he was looking for her saddened her, too. He had to have been angry with her for running out on him the way she had. She wanted so badly to see him, but…

She swallowed hard. How could she see him, knowing what she’d now become?

The woman’s mouth pursed a little. “Oh. Well, he left something for you.” The woman didn’t look pleased and stalked off to a desk near the entrance.

So it wasn’t Alicia’s imagination that the woman was interested in Jake. Feeling bone-deep sadness that she couldn’t see Jake further and that she had to cut any ties with him, Alicia watched as the woman pulled an envelope out of a desk drawer, then returned. But a streak of jealousy raced through Alicia’s veins, too, as she considered how the woman would most likely ply her feminine wiles on Jake every time he chanced to visit the gallery when Alicia wished she could be with him instead.

Alicia’s hand trembled as she took the envelope, dying to see what he had said to her. Afraid also.

She tucked it into her purse and said, “Thank you.”

She glanced back at the photographs. Although she knew she shouldn’t buy one, that taking one with her would remind her of the time they had spent together and what she had lost, she reasoned that her mother would have loved having one of them. With that thought firmly in mind, Alicia decided on the tangerine spotted wood lilies. Although she wanted the fuchsia fairy slipper orchids, the picture was too big and cost too much. “I’ll take that one.”

Alicia handed her a credit card, and the woman feigned a polite smile. “I’ll just wrap this up for you.”

As soon as the woman had taken the photo down and walked off, Alicia pulled the envelope out of her purse and ripped it open. In bold strokes, Jake had written:
Call
me!
And left his phone number where she could reach him.

Her stomach tightened. She sensed from his note that he was angry and frustrated with her for having taken off without a word. And she didn’t blame him. He seemed the kind of man who wouldn’t have given in to threats by Constantino or his men. If Jake had known why she had left him, he would have been furious, wanting to deal with them in his own way. But he didn’t know what the men were capable of. And his wonderfully macho nature wouldn’t have kept him from being murdered. On the contrary, his protectiveness for her would have gotten him killed faster.

She pulled out her phone and opened it. The battery was dead. She’d have to call Jake when she got to her hotel room.

Then she noticed the suited man moving his hands down the arms of the woman he’d been talking to in a solicitous manner while she adoringly looked up at him. He glanced back at the other two employees, saw they were occupied, and then with a smile, he motioned to a little room, led the woman inside, and shut the door.

At the same instant, Alicia felt sudden heat penetrate every inch of her body. The heat.
Oh
God, no
.

The urge to shift hit her fast and furious. Heat shimmered through every cell, through every tissue. She glanced around the gallery, looking for a way out of this nightmare.

The woman with Alicia’s photo had disappeared into a back room. She had Alicia’s credit card, and Alicia
had
to have it to survive. The other saleswoman was walking outside with the art students and their teacher, blocking the doorway.

Looking for the restroom, Alicia spied a sign directing her down a hall and rushed to make her way there before she had an “accident.”

As soon as she entered the ladies’ restroom and found no one in there, she hurried into the handicapped stall. Normally, she avoided using the handicapped stall if another stall was available, leaving it to women who truly needed it, but tonight she was as handicapped as anyone.

Slipping out of the short-sleeved dress she wore, she hung it on the hook on the door, then kicked off her pumps. Barely free of her bra and panties, she shifted, the heat fusing every inch of her body until her bones felt as if they were liquefying and remolding, but in a flash. The next thing she knew, she was dropping down on all four feet—furry, long legged, with long a bushy tail—a small gray
wolf.

Once again she cursed Ferdinand Massaro for having bitten her and leaving her to face this dilemma on her own. Although she wouldn’t have wanted to see what he’d had in mind to do with her if he’d lived. And she would have been in a lot more danger if she’d remained with him because of his connections.

As if she wasn’t in danger now.

Pacing, she stalked back and forth in the stall—still too small for a highly agitated wolf. It was nearly closing time. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in the restroom, trying to will herself back into her human form, when someone knocked on the restroom door and opened it.

She froze in place inside the stall. Could they see her wolf legs beneath the door of the stall? She backed up against the tile wall. Her heart was pumping even more rapidly, if that were possible, as she barely breathed.

“Closing in two minutes,” a woman said, sounding impatient. It was the woman who’d been talking to the students.

Instinctively, Alicia knew she couldn’t be caught in a wolf’s form. She’d discarded her bra, panties, and heels on the restroom floor. With the shift hitting her so quickly, she couldn’t do anything else but drop them. What would people think? That she’d eaten Little Red Riding Hood? Or that she
was
Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf all wrapped up in one?

Oh God, what was she going to do? Since being turned, she’d never been in this bad a fix. As her grandfather used to say,
this
would
learn
her.
She could never,
ever
be out in public again during the phase of any moon—waxing, waning, or full. So much for not having to shift all last week. She was making up for it now. It seemed she’d never get rid of this condition or learn to control it.

At least she hadn’t wanted to rip out people’s throats, like the old werewolf tales portrayed. And she had her human conscience, so she wasn’t totally a feral animal. And she was a beautiful wolf, not some hideous beastly creature. Not that any of it mattered while she was stuck in a restroom stall as a wolf with women’s garments strewn about her paws.

Concentrate!
She tried again to will herself to shift.

Another minute went by, and knocking sounded on the door. Yes, all right. She knew. It was nearly closing time. She’d worked on the clock before. She knew how employees wanted to go home when it was time to go, and how rude customers were to expect employees to stay all hours at their convenience.

“Ma’am?” a woman said, then heels clicked across the floor toward the stall.

Wolves couldn’t sweat, or Alicia would have been perspiring up a storm. They panted when they were overheated, but she didn’t want to even do that, afraid the woman would hear her. Instead, she stood frozen like a furry wolf statue in the corner of the stall, as far away from the door as she could get, her mouth shut tight, her ears focused on the woman’s approaching footfalls. The slight tremor in the floor reverberated through Alicia’s paws as she kept her eyes riveted on the door.

Two choices. She instinctually knew she had only two choices. Bite the woman and turn her into what Alicia was. Heaven forbid. She wouldn’t want to wish this condition on anyone ever! But then the woman would scream bloody murder. The other two employees would come running or call the cops, or both. Then she’d have to bite all of them, too. Or kill the woman. Which would be the same scenario. In the end, they’d put her down like a vicious wild animal.

A rough knocking on the stall door nearly gave Alicia a heart attack.

“Ma’am? Are you all right?”

No, no she wasn’t all right.
Please… don’t… come… in!

“Ma’am?”

When Alicia still didn’t respond, the woman hurried out of the restroom.

She was going for the authorities. Probably worried a dead body was in the stall. Would be, too, if they caught Alicia like this—and killed her.

She paced some more.
Shift, damn it! Change! Turn
! What were the magic words?

“A woman’s in the stall. She was the one who bought Mr. Silver’s photograph. She looked to be late twenties or so, not all that old, but I think she’s died or something. She’s not responding,” the woman said frantically to someone outside the restroom door.

“Did you look under the stall?” a man asked, his voice darkly controlled.

Alicia glanced at the bottom of the stall door. If anyone peered underneath, they’d see her. And that would be the beginning of the end. Shrieks would ensue. Her heart would fail.

“No. I… I didn’t.” The woman sounded a bit shaken.

The door opened, and heavier footfalls approached. A man’s footfalls.
Oh, God, oh God, please, please help me.

She felt the heat race through her bones and muscles, her nerves and blood. And prayed it was the change. And not caused by the frantic panic filling her blood. That she would once again be her normal self.
Normal
self
. She laughed at herself over that. This proved she’d never be her normal self again.

Just as the footfalls ended abruptly at the stall door, the shift swiftly overtook her. She stood naked on the tile floor, the cool air conditioning sweeping across her bare skin, and she quickly squeaked out, “Sorry, I fainted. I’m pregnant. I’m sorry. I’ll be right out.”

It had been the only thing she could think of in her haste, remembering the time her mother had said she’d passed out when she was pregnant with Alicia.

As quickly as Alicia could, she jerked her panties off the floor and yanked them on. She fumbled with her bra after that, realizing the man was still standing outside the stall door, waiting for her to open up—probably in case she “fainted” once more. Heat again shimmered through her, but it was more of a skin-deep heat from embarrassment. If he opened the door now while she was half-naked, what in the world would he think she’d been up to?

She tugged the dress over her head and decided she didn’t look pregnant in the least, but she was extremely flushed and now perspiring. She was sure she looked overcome. Just like she felt.

After slipping her bare feet into her pumps, she wrenched open the stall door and smiled a diminutive, weary smile—at least that’s how she tried to make her expression look. Although she knew she had to look overwrought in any event.

“I’m sorry. I must have fainted again. Not enough electrolytes. My mother had warned me.” She rattled off the words, feeling truly light-headed and still worried her furry wolf half might try to take over again.

Then she headed for the sink and washed her hands, just like she would have done after using the facilities, if she’d used them.

The man still watched her warily, but she wasn’t sure whether he thought she was lying—he did look at her flat belly beneath the dress—or worried she’d faint again. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t look to see his expression. But then a horrible thought occurred to her. What if he’d thought she was doing drugs?

She took a couple of steps forward, then grabbed his arm as if she might pass out again, and this time the expression on his face was one of pure horror. Not that she was faking much of anything. Her head wouldn’t quit spinning.

He grabbed her around the waist and sputtered, “D-do you need an ambulance?”

“No, thank you. I haven’t been eating enough. Or drinking enough fluids. I’ll… I’ll be all right.”

Still, he didn’t let her go, and for the first time in her life, she really wished she had a hero type like him—like Jake, rather—in her life. Practical, no nonsense, she’d never really felt she’d needed anyone. But now?

“Get her something to drink,” the man said quickly to the woman hovering near the door.

Alicia sighed. She really needed help. Then she felt a wave of depression hit all at once. How could she see Jake or
anyone
when she was a damn werewolf? Wouldn’t she want to do to him what Ferdinand did to her? Bite him? Change him? Make him live like she had to live? Her heart sinking into a pit of despair, she knew she couldn’t get in touch with Jake directly. Not now, not ever.