How to Run with a Naked Werewolf (31 page)

I woke up
in my own clinic, the late-morning light filtering through the window and directly into my sticky, tired eyes. I immediately clapped them shut, groaning. I tried to press my good hand to them, but the IV lead pulled painfully, and I stopped. I tried to raise myself slowly on the crisp white cotton sheets, my head too swimmy to manage it. I smacked my dry, sandpapery mouth, wincing.

Just lying there in the clinic’s lone hospital bed, I could tell I had a concussion, a few busted ribs, and a reset shoulder. My lip was split, and I had a few lacerations. Considering what had happened, I got through relatively unscathed.

Maggie was sitting at the side of my bed, leafing
through a Carol Higgins Clark paperback. I blinked at her, fighting to keep both eyes focused on her face. “Morphine, huh?”

“I sure hope so. That’s what the label said.”

“Sorry, right now, I can’t think much beyond, ‘Morphine, yay!’ ” I giggled.

“Caleb wouldn’t let us reset your shoulder without it.”

I nodded, hissing as my fingers found the bruises on my neck. “Thank you.”

“Thank my mom. She was the only one who knew how to do it or the IV.”

I smiled. Gracie Graham had spent the better part of her life patching up her hooligan children, so she was a natural to assist me in the clinic during the occasional emergency. She would have made an excellent nurse if she could have left the valley long enough for college. The fact that she’d set my shoulder, kept me hydrated, used the monitoring equipment correctly, and not killed me with a morphine overdose was testament to her competence.

“You’ve been out for more than twenty-four hours. It’s weird watching someone take so long to heal. I don’t know how you humans stand it. I’ve told Nick he’s not allowed to get seriously hurt, ever.”

Maggie held a glass of water to my lips, allowing me to gulp it down. The sensation sliding down my parched throat was absolute bliss. She saw me glancing around the room. “Caleb is practically pawing down the door to get in here, but he kept wolfing out every time you twitched or your pulse spiked. Destroyed three chairs and an IV pole, not to mention all those
shirts. So we sent him on a run . . . which lasted about five minutes before he was right back at the door, trying to get back in. So we tricked him into going to your house for some extra socks and locked him out.”

I laughed, wincing at the dulled pain radiating through my injured ribs. “Ow.”

“He’s had his face pressed against the glass like one of those freaky cling-film families people stick on their car windows.”

I laughed again, repeating the wincing process. “Stop making me laugh.”

“Well, I have to keep myself entertained somehow,” she said dryly.

“Where did they take him?” I asked, and because Maggie was occasionally intuitive to the point of freakiness, she knew exactly whom I was talking about.

“To the village jail,” she said. “It’s actually a holding cell for younger pack members having difficulty adjusting to their transition, which means they can get out of control. Disciplinary actions are always handled within the pack, no legal system required. But we dress it up as a jail because outsiders would ask too many questions otherwise. We’ll hand him over to the state police once he’s healed up a bit—before you get out of here, anyway. Don’t want the cops wondering how the hell he got so beat up.”

“Pack worked him over pretty good, huh?”

Maggie shook her head. “No, slugger,
you
worked him over with the baton. I will say that Mom is treating him just as carefully as she did you, but he’s not getting any of the tender, loving care. I think she enjoys ripping off his bandages a little too much.”

“But he knows about the wolves,” I said. “He’ll tell everybody.”

“Tell them what?” Maggie snorted. “That while he was beating and kidnapping his ex-wife, a pack of wolves surrounded him while another woman smacked him with a fire extinguisher? They’ll send him to prison by way of the loony bin, which would suit me just fine. Besides, he didn’t see any of us phase. And in my official capacity as what passes for law enforcement in this village, I can inform you that he messed up big-time. Violating the restraining order before the ink was even dry, assault, attempted kidnapping. You’ll have to testify, but he’s going to face real jail time, Doc.”

I expected some twinge of guilt, thinking of the man I’d loved enough to marry sitting in a tiny cell for years. But he’d hurt me in so many ways. He was a criminal. He belonged in jail.

“Now, before Caleb batters down the door, I am about to say something you’ll probably never hear from me again.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You chose to do this when I’m on serious drugs?”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

The other eyebrow went up. “Why are you sorry?”

“We’d been watching your ex for three days. He’d been circling the perimeter, trying to get a look at you. The restraining order was pretty specific about distances, and he was staying outside the limits. I wanted to wait until he did something stupid so we could call the state police and press charges that would stick. We
had someone watching you every second of the day. But with the party and all, everybody in one spot, we figured you were covered. By the time we figured out that he got past our boundaries . . . I was really scared for you, Doc.” She cleared her throat, her big brown eyes shimmering with tears. “We only just got you back, and I was afraid . . . oh, shit, here I go again.” She sobbed softly.

I tried to reach up to pat her shoulder, but one arm was immobile and the other was hooked up to an IV. Nick and Caleb appeared at the door. Nick barely suppressed a smile as he hauled his hormonal mate to her feet. “This happens about once a day,” he said.

“It does not.” She sniffled.

Behind her back, he nodded and mouthed, “Yes, it does.”

Caleb pounced on the chair at my bedside as his cousin was spirited away with promises of steak wrapped in bacon. He pressed his face against my good arm, wallowing there a bit before leaning up to gently kiss my damaged lips. He tilted his forehead against mine and sighed, as if he’d been holding his breath for days. “Please don’t ever do that again,” he whispered.

Taking some small measure of glee in picturing Glenn in an orange jumpsuit, I kissed the bridge of Caleb’s nose and told him, “I can almost guarantee it.”

“No more secrets.”

“That works both ways, you know,” I told him dryly.

“No more secrets,” he repeated.

“No more secrets,” I promised.

“OK, then I can give you this.” He opened a small
black velvet box to show me a respectable solitaire set in platinum, with scrollwork designs on the band. Well, it looked like scrollwork at first. Upon closer examination, it was—

“Are those bunnies?” I asked, squinting at the engraving.

“Just one on one side,” he said, holding the other side of the band closer so I could see the stylized wolf loping along the opposite side from the bunny. “I did a little reading. Did you know that rabbits can survive in just about any climate? Desert, tundra, forest. And in most cultures, they’re the symbol of renewal, because you can count on them, every spring, to crank out a whole new generation of little rabbits.”

“I don’t think I like where this is going, Caleb. Land your plane,” I told him.

He continued as if I hadn’t rudely interrupted his nature rant. “So I called you Rabbit at first because you ran, which wasn’t all that nice of me. But you’re also adaptable, resourceful, and no matter how hard you’re knocked down, you just keep coming back. Renewal, Tina. Starting over.”

“I get it,” I told him. “Just leave the fertility stuff out of it when you tell your family our proposal story. M’kay?”

He grinned and tried to press his case one step further. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on unlimited shared showers and naked Saturdays.”

“Every day of the week is Naked Day with you.”

“Just humor me, woman.”

“Naked breakfast on Saturdays,” I counteroffered.
He groaned. “I might have to go to work or something!”

“I love you,” he told me, kissing the undamaged corner of my mouth.

I tugged at his sleeve, slowly scooting over so he could cram his large frame into the narrow hospital bed with me. “I love you, too, which is why I am also willing to offer naked Sunday brunch.”

He carefully arranged his body around mine and sighed into my hair. “You’re the best mate ever.”

“I’m working on it.”

The practically balmy
March wind blew gently over my cheeks as I sat on the porch of our house and sipped my tea.

I didn’t know what Gracie put in it, and I chose not to ask. But it was a nice, calming blend that helped me unwind at the end of a long day. I was still training my nerves to wind down to a nonpanic state. When someone called me Tina, it still took me a moment to realize they were talking to me and respond. It would be a long time before I would be able to walk into a room without scouting out the exits. And I would always have a problem sitting with my back to a door. But I was slowly and steadily beginning to accept the fact that my ex couldn’t hurt me anymore, that my life was my own again.

I started talk therapy with a specialized counselor who worked out of Portland. Samantha Farraday was
willing to do sessions via video chat, and we were focusing on linear discussions of “trauma,” since my experience was considered “prolonged” by my going into hiding. I liked Samantha. She didn’t accept nonsense, bullshit, or rationalizations, which was something I needed.

Caleb was supportive of the endeavor, especially if it meant I felt more comfortable getting married within the next year or so. The claiming bite could come at any time, as far as I was concerned, but Caleb wanted to make sure I was ready. For my part, I was settled. I wasn’t afraid. I knew where and with whom I would be spending my future.

I stood on the front porch, watching the sun go down over the lip of the valley. Caleb was on a patrol with the pack and would be home any minute. I finally had a home to call my own, where I was safe and loved. It would take a while to straighten out the official paperwork that would allow me to make life with Caleb permanent. Thanks to Glenn’s cyber-antics, there were a lot of debts and criminal charges in my name that needed to be cleared up. Not to mention the fact that I was still legally married.

But as far as the pack was concerned, Caleb was my mate. I was a permanent part of the pack, and I was their own. We weren’t thinking about children, but we knew it would happen eventually. We were going to let ourselves be caught off-guard by a
good
surprise for once.

A black SUV with heavily tinted windows crunched down Main Street, drawing stares from my neighbors.
A few of the males tracked the vehicle’s progress as it approached the clinic and seemed to be stopping. I arched my eyebrows.

We didn’t get strangers here. We certainly didn’t advertise the clinic’s services outside the valley, so it was unlikely that this was a drop-in patient. I stuck my hand into my pocket, to assure myself that the special sparkly canister of pepper spray Mo had given me was still there.

A tall, willowy woman with red hair and pale skin opened the passenger-side door. She was strikingly beautiful, a sort of redheaded Grace Kelly, in her dark pea coat and celery-green turtleneck. The man who stepped out of the driver’s side didn’t quite match her elegance. He was tall and lanky, with shaggy dark blond hair and equally pale, Puckish features. His eyes were bright, full of mirth, but it was a naughty sort of humor, which had me checking my other pocket to keep a hand on my wallet. He was wearing frayed jeans and a sweatshirt that said, “It’s a bit nippley out.”

The woman watched my eyes widen, then followed my line of sight to the man’s shirt and sighed. “Damn it, Dick. I told you not to wear that! It’s off-putting!”

“It’s hilarious!” the man insisted.

“Please excuse my husband. It’s a lot warmer in Kentucky. The cold is doing strange things to his mind,” the woman said. “I’m assuming this is the clinic? We were looking for a Dr. Tina Campbell.”

My jaw dropped open, but I recovered quickly. “Who’s asking for her?”

“An old friend,” the woman said, grinning, her
sharp-looking white teeth glinting against the porch light. “I recognize your voice, Doctor. I’m so glad to meet you!”

She reached out and pumped my hand vigorously, making me wince at the strength of her grip. The pained expression on my face brought more than a few growls from the werewolves circling ever closer to the clinic. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“I’m Andrea Cheney,” she said. “You know me as Red-burn.”

Though the revelation of my mysterious visitor’s identity was a shock, several other mental tumblers fell into place and my mouth dropped open in a more humorous parody of
The Scream
. Suddenly, Red-burn’s occasional daytime crankiness and availability for late-night conversations made so much more sense—as did the fact that neither she nor her husband seemed at all surprised by the presence of enormous wolves.

We didn’t get many vampires in these parts—or any, really—something about the cold temperatures and weird seasonal daylight patterns. Grundy werewolves, while not particularly surprised when the vampires emerged from their coffins, reserved full belief in another supernatural species until they met one in person. Even Nick, as mad as he was for all things supernatural, was downright dubious about the existence of vampires for years after the Coming Out. He simply didn’t believe a creature could hide under the radar for so long without being documented by nosy human scholars like him. Short of being bitten, he held on to some
skepticism. And then he met a bunch of werewolves and his mind opened up that much more.

Andrea and her husband’s arrival was going to be the talk of the pack all winter.

I squealed and threw my arms around her, drawing giggles from her and the man behind her. The werewolves relaxed but stayed close. “It’s OK!” I called. “It’s OK. This is my old friend Andrea . . . and . . . ?” I looked to the man with the naughty smile.