Truth or Wolf: A Small Town Shifter Romantic Comedy (Wolf Brothers Book 1)

Chapter 2

Two

Werewolves? Oh please, just plain stupid. Who wants to get it on with a man ruled by his inner dog?

— KAREN MARIE MONING

“You’re—”

I got the first half of my accusation out, but the direct object stumped me. A werewolf. Not Atticus.

One of those conditions was more important than the other, but which?

Ford met my eyes, I’d give him that. But then, none of the Boone brothers were the kind of men who backed down.

He was… He was… I got lost in eyes the warm amber-brown of Toblerone. The feeling was sweet and delicious right now, but, like any candy bar in my possession, I was sure it would be a short-lived kind of pleasure.

I was certain my own eyes were billboards for my emotions. Frustrated lust, horror, and—last, but absolutely not least—incredulity as my scientist brain slowly took over from lust brain and began processing the existence of wolfmen despite all biological evidence and scientific facts to the contrary.

Naked Boone brothers seemed almost as unlikely as werewolves to make an appearance in my life, and yet I’d seen not one but two and a half Boones without so much as a stitch of clothing on them.

Ford frowned and then winced—almost as if he felt my mental withdrawal—and moved away. The muscles in his back flexed and bunched as he reached for the T-shirt he’d discarded at my command and pulled it on.

Atticus strode toward us, and I ducked down to hide. The truck’s open door blocked my view of him from the waist down, but I resolutely kept my eyes on his face anyhow. I’d be a gentlelady even if my curiosity killed me.

“Who are you kissing in the truck? Is it Deelie Sue?” Atticus’s smooth voice, deep and comforting, flowed over me. A hint of Southern seasoned each syllable, and my heart ached hearing him.

Atticus was the man I wanted. The one I’d dreamed about and yearned for. My rib cage tightened on my internal organs, heralding either a heart attack or a panic attack.

I’d kissed the wrong brother.

While this was not the most humiliating thing that had happened to me, it ranked top three, so I allowed myself ninety seconds to wallow. I squeezed my eyes shut, letting my head sink into the headrest. My stomach lurched.

I did not make mistakes like this. It was like misclassifying a firefly as a crocodile rather than a beetle.

For a brief moment, I fantasized about stealing Ford’s truck and driving south. Through Texas, over the border, down Mexico, and along Argentina until I reached the tip of the continent where it was just me and the very treacherous Cape Horn.

If I ran out of gas, I’d detour and take up residence in the Galapagos. Be an island hermit with my ignominy.

Because not only had I kissed the wrong brother, I’d kissed Deelie Sue’s man. Ford’s on-again/off-again girlfriend. She was his hookup buddy and the person who’d dated Ford the most in our small town.

I wasn’t sure what the current state of their relationship was, although to give Ford credit, he’d never seemed like the kind of man who’d run around behind a woman’s back.

He was blunt, so he knew how to use his words. If he’d wanted to move on, he’d tell you. So almost certainly he and Deelie Sue were broken up (again), but I still hated thinking about it.

Kissing Ford was like impulsively choosing that weird ice cream flavor in the frozen aisle of the grocery store because why not switch things up, getting home, and realizing it would be a week of avocado banana when you could have had chocolate.

I could screw my eyes shut, but there was nothing I could do about my ears, which meant I heard Ford’s next words clearly.

“It doesn’t matter who I’m kissing, blockhead. Go away.” Ford’s voice was husky and rough, and his last few words got louder. He must have turned back around to look at me. I did not open my eyes to check.

“Does too matter.” The sound Atticus made was neither snort nor growl. More of a polished cluck, I decided. The kind of elegant, concerned noise I’d have expected him to make when he discovered a math error in someone’s income taxes.

“Go away,” Ford suggested again to his brother.

“Why are you angry about me shifting in front of Deelie Sue? She’s one of us.”

My citizen scientist brain suggested I should add wolf counting to my firefly tracking. Newsflash: I was up to three. Possibly, four.

“It’s not Deelie Sue in the truck,” Ford snapped.

Atticus muttered a word I’d never heard him say before. He did not sound happy.

I leaned around the man mountain that was Ford. “Hi.”

Atticus’s eyes narrowed. “You’re kissing Alice Aymes?”

Unfortunately for my lifetime of Atticus fantasies, he did not sound jealous. This was the kind of voice you used when your younger brother reversed your pickup truck into a fire hydrant, leaving visible paint damage.

Mortified heat prickled my face. Gritting my teeth, I acknowledged that Atticus had not been fantasizing about me, but that didn’t mean I was a romantic failure. It was a marketing failure.

Feeling incrementally better, I glared at the two Boone brothers in front of me, my gaze swinging between them. “What is wrong with you?”

They’re werewolves, my brain hypothesized again.

Which was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

Werewolves were an unknown species. Did it involve the full moon? Did they get hormonal on certain calendar dates? Was I about to become a human-flavored Lunchable for a wolf pack?

Ford made a less smooth, rougher sound. It was so remarkably similar to the other wolfish growls I’d been subjected to tonight that I updated my hypothesis. Because if I was almost certain sure my first wolf of the night had turned into the pantsless Rebel Boone, I knew for certain that Atticus Boone had arrived on four furry legs and shifted into a naked man.

Anger spread through me. I didn’t like being made a game of, and someone hadn’t been entirely truthful tonight. I glared at Ford Boone.

“Ford Boone, you are a liar.”

The man in question swung around and braced one strong arm on the open door of his truck. This produced a stab of heat that I ignored to the best of my abilities. He might have had pretty forearms, but he was an asshole. I’d hated him for years, and one good kiss wouldn’t change that.

“Am I?” He sounded pissed.

“I answered that question. Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t Atticus?”

Where Atticus was smooth and deliberate, Ford was all rough edges and sharp bits. Hateful, rude Ford.

“You assumed I was Atticus. You never asked. Not when I showed up, not when I caught you, not when I put you in my truck, not when I had your mouth underneath mine. Now you want to say I’m not who you wanted.”

I hated him. So much.

“You are a liar!” I repeated, louder and more emphatically as I tried to drown out the liquid heat swirling in my belly. He didn’t get to receive that desire. He didn’t deserve that desire.

“Welcome home, Alice. You may have learned to kiss while you were gone, but you’re as uptight as ever.”

I hopped down from his monster truck and slapped a hand against his chest. “You knew I thought you were Atticus.”

Atticus sidled off. Negative-thought balloons dive-bombed toward me.

Ford caught my wrists, pulling them over my head as if we were posing for one of those old-school romance covers. All I needed was the big ballgown with an unlaced bodice. Mentally, I might have dressed him in a pirate shirt and a pair of skintight breeches.

His big hands wrapped around mine, making his point clear. He was in charge here, not me. I wriggled anyhow, because manhandling was not actually on my list of sexual fantasies, but he held me firmly in place.

“Things not go according to plan, darling?”

I wriggled more pointedly, but Ford stepped into me, and since he was at least twice as large as me, this meant that his massive trouser snake pressed against my stomach and my breasts rubbed up against him. The pleasant heat swirling around in my belly exploded into an inferno, and I swallowed a moan.

I was not making sexy sounds for Ford Boone. No way, no how. I tilted my head back so I could stare him in the eye.

The effect was less angry than I’d have liked because the man was built like a lumberjack. Or an orc. A big, ugly, rampaging monster who had trampled all over my boundaries. He stared at me, the heat in his eyes less desirous and more contemptuous.

“Why would I kiss you if I could kiss Atticus?”

That particular Boone brother emitted a muffled sound. If he’d been one hundred percent the gentleman I’d mentally imagined him to be, he’d have made himself scarce.

“I’ve got a secret for you, baby girl.” The drawled words made me see red. A sea of anger drowned my flutter of sexy desire. I wasn’t a get-mad kind of person, but for Ford I’d make an exception. He’d lied. About two things, now that I thought about it.

“Are you a werewolf?”

“Why?”

“Because it matters?!” I’d had a long night where nothing had gone right. I had no plan to regroup. I might never regroup. I might spend the rest of my life fulminating about the ways the last hour had gone wrong. Mentally I drew a thick, black line through today’s entry in my bullet journal.

Ford dropped a match on the gas can of my wrath. “It doesn’t matter.”

“ARE YOU A WEREWOLF?” I shouted up at him.

“YES!” he shouted down.

I’d read about people shooting daggers at other people with their eyes. Tonight it made sense. I hated Ford, and if I could have eviscerated him with my eyeballs, I would have. Ford Boone was a werewolf.

Atticuswas a werewolf. My brain could not wrap itself around that.

Ford was easier to comprehend. Ford had never been a gentleman or made me daydream about romantic dates with lattes and a shared plate of cinnamon buns. Ford growled and glared. He wasn’t a romantic hero—he was an asshole. I’d never once idealized him.

Sure, he was objectively as handsome as his suave twin, but all those good looks were eclipsed by his personality. A moon’s worth of rudeness blocked any sexy thoughts his rugged face and muscled form might beam my way.

Mostly blocked. Okay, so my whole lunar eclipse analogy was as scientifically unsound as tonight’s firefly count was turning out to be.

Because I was under the influence of sex pheromones or something, and I really wanted him to kiss me again. Push me up against his truck, devour my mouth and touch me, and magic away our clothes so that we could get a whole lot closer. I wanted his fingers and penis inside me.

I wanted him.

His blue eyes, now fully amber, glared down at me. They might have glowed in the rapidly gathering dark, focused on me with an almost predatory intensity. Which I guess made sense if he were really a part-time wolf. Or maybe he was a part-time man?

I wondered whether sex between a human girl and a werewolf man was even possible. I wondered whether he had an extra-special expandable penis like I’d read about in an article on wolves and weird animal penises. Plus, I might have fallen down one or two interesting (and sexy) wormholes on Aunt Sally’s Kindle where supernatural heroes came with bonus penis accessories.

A girl could hope.

Ford might be an asshole, but his assholery was accessorized by those gorgeous eyes and a pair of shoulders a girl could hang on to. Those shoulders promised he’d block out all the bad things the world tossed my way…and I was horribly tempted to discover whether it was just another empty promise.

“I hate you.” I hoped I was as sure as I sounded. It certainly had been a night for challenging my beliefs. “How long have you been a werewolf? Is this a bitten or a born kind of thing?”

My inner scientist was as interested in this man as my inner hussy.

His grip gentled on my wrists. His fingers brushed against mine, his thumb stroking over my palm. I imagined other places he could touch me like that.

He rested his forehead against mine, his eyes staring into mine, and whispered, “Always. I was born this way, and I hate you too, Alice. I hate you most.”

His mouth was much closer in this new position. When he exhaled roughly, I felt it; it made me think unfortunately romantic things about how that air had been a piece of him mere seconds before and now I was inhaling him, making him a part of me. Simple respiration and a lack of personal boundaries became sexy times.

I blew out a breath. He could take it back. Ford’s eyes might be devastatingly gorgeous, but I didn’t need them. Or him. Or anything.

Then he stepped away. His hands let go of mine, and his monster dick no longer made its presence felt against my belly. This was good. I even remembered to bring my arms down and shake them out, as if I hadn’t liked being stretched out like a virginal sacrifice. He watched me intently, his mouth twisting into a mocking sneer.

“Do you want to discuss all the ways I’m not like Atticus, or do you want to focus on the one thing we have in common?”

I needed my planner. And my colored pens. This merited a new list. “Obviously, all you two have in common is a last name and werewolfism. He doesn’t have to trick me into kissing him.”

Ford frowned, a tiny flinch in his facial muscles that was there and gone faster than a firefly flicker. His mouth tightened, his forehead wrinkling with angry lines.

I figured he wasn’t about to compliment me on my interest in citizen science, so I marched back to the tree where the blind was, prepared to climb up the ladder and retrieve my bookbag. I’d get my things and leave in a righteous huff.

Except that apparently Atticus had already done that for me while I’d been pressed up against his brother. He held out my bookbag to me. I took it silently. What was there to say?

Atticus must have disagreed because what he said was, “We need to talk.”

This was not Alice, I’ve made a mistake in not noticing you heretofore or Alice, you kissed the wrong brother and the right brother would be me.

I couldn’t help but notice that talk really meant tell Alice what to do.

There was a beat while we all considered Atticus’s words and came to that conclusion.

Ford huffed, a sound better suited to an angry hippopotamus than to a wolf-man. “People can’t know about werewolves, Alice. We’re a secret.”

Did he not consider himself human? Was he part of a whole different species?

“And?” I studied them. It made sense that the Boone brothers had those thick, lush beards. It wasn’t a great hair-care routine or a secret fascination with lumberjacks—they were wolves and they had pelts. I hypothesized that the color of a Boone beard matched the color of the wolf’s fur. I needed more data points. “Are there other werewolves in Moonlight Valley? Am I living in a town full of werewolves?”

Atticus sighed. “There are a few werewolves in Moonlight Valley.”

I couldn’t help but notice that last bit: in Moonlight Valley. So, were there other werewolves in the state? The country? Was there a werewolf planet?

“Shifting is a secret,” Ford told me pointedly. “And we vowed to keep it that way.”

Atticus nodded. There was a gentle sternness in the way his gaze held mine, although the dominant emotion seemed to be disappointment. He hadn’t wanted me to find out his big werewolf secret, and now I wasn’t handling the great reveal in the way he wanted.

I hesitated, but I had questions. “Is this like a werewolf cult? I’m really good at keeping secrets and my middle name is tolerance. You don’t have to worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

I mean, obviously I wanted to. Counting fireflies was important, but proving the existence of werewolves and shape-changing humans was game changing. It unlocked a whole new bonus level in the game of science. I could write a paper. Run studies. I had so many questions that could be answered by a well-designed experiment or six.

And yet… secrecy. Shoot. I mean I could understand why the Boone brothers didn’t want the whole world to know about their wolfish abilities. They’d have every trophy hunter and government agency banging on their door even if they could also be cover stars for National Geographic.

For one weak moment, I let myself fall into old habits and fantasize. Maybe Atticus would offer to marry me in exchange for my silence or, better yet, he’d fall madly in love with me thanks to my gold-medal-level discretion and super team loyalty. We’d exchange vows, have amazing sex, and live happily ever after.

Except…

Except that story felt off. It was like I’d found the pages from a sci-fi romance stuck inside a book about a sexy duke. All I could see was Ford’s face. And his mouth. His shoulders. Some parts more south of those amazing cheekbones and collarbones. It was Ford Central inside my brain.

“I won’t tell anyone,” I assured them both. And then to Ford, because fair was fair: “Send me your bill for taking care of my wolf problem tonight.”

And with that I marched off into the woods. I was going to my auntie’s trailer, I was going to bed (sadly, alone), and I was going to embrace the thought that tomorrow was another day.

The universe had other plans for me. My first clue was the enormous tree on top of the trailer. It was nice that the air was full of delicious pine tree scent, but there was so much tree everywhere that I could barely make out the algae-stained metal sides of my temporary abode. There did not appear to be a functional roof beneath all that wood.

Think positive, Alice.

For example, Even though there’s a tree on top of my trailer, I accept myself and my anxiety deeply and completely. The cats have miraculously survived.

Perhaps it was a hallucination. Or I’d taken a wrong turn on my self-righteous march through the Boone brothers’ woods and reached the wrong trailer. I liked this theory, but the familiar piles of junk dotting the yard disproved it. Plus, I recognized my car.

“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” I made the obligatory psps psps noises.

No fabulously evil and dictatorial cat horde appeared.

Please GOD let them not be cat pancakes.

I moved closer as fast as I could. The enormous pine seemed stuck firm to the trailer, but I knew how gravity worked. Plus, shit always rolled downhill. A delicate branch tiara decorated my yellow Beetle. On the other side of my car, I identified the root cause of my problem. Literal tree roots fanned out above a gaping hole in the ground where the tree had uprooted itself and fallen over.

Last week’s rainloosened the soil, my brain suggested, because there sure hadn’t been any tornadoes today. I’d once fallen down the Yahoo black hole and read about a guy who vindictively chainsawed trees so they landed on new construction, but this didn’t fit what I saw here, either.

“Saturated soil,” announced a voice behind me.

I shrieked and whirled around. Rebel Boone’s big, capable hands steadied me then let go as quickly as they’d arrived. He’d discovered his pants since I’d last seen him, which was a silver lining. There had been enough naked Boone brothers in my life already.

“Saturated soil. You have a tree problem.”

“I have a cat problem.”

“And a roof problem.” Rebel had sobered up miraculously fast. I wondered if that was attributable to his werewolf metabolism.

“Grade-A problems all around.” I started a mental list of things to do. It was long and I was only halfway through when I swallowed a jaw-cracking yawn. With the sun finally fully down, the welcome chill of a Southern summer night promised that at least I wouldn’t spend the next eight hours sweating profusely.

I made more frantic kissy noises, wishing I had the bag of cat treats to shake. The cats required more bribes than a biker gang. Eventually, Emperor Meowpatine popped out from nowhere and wreathed himself around my ankles. The volume and enthusiasm of his greeting confirmed that his food dish had been one of tonight’s casualties.

Rebel bent over and said something to Emperor Meowpatine. I’d swear the cat nodded before flouncing off to disappear into the mess of branches.

“Can you talk to them?” I tried not to cry. Tonight had been a series of disasters.

Rebel shrugged, assessing my tree house once more before he disappeared into the woods. Like all the men in my life, he wasn’t interested enough to stick around.

I sat down on one of the twenty toilets that decorated the yard. I’d counted fireflies, I’d put Ford in his place, and I’d almost completely forgotten his kiss. Liar.

Rather than speculate how my belly went hot and molten from the memories of Ford’s mouth devouring mine, I pulled my planner out of my book bag. I’d need to find a tree service and make alternative living arrangements.

Aunt Sally hadn’t carried insurance, which was something I was sad/glad about. Sad because I would have welcomed a tree-sized check and glad because that meant one less phone call I had to make.

Recover from natural disaster, I wrote. Step One: Do not cry hysterically. You cannot afford the tissues.

Emperor Meowpatine trotted out of the carnage, followed by his posse. I did a quick head count and was relieved to learn that all four cats had survived.

The header on my planner page mocked me. Recovery was the plan, but how? I added a second bullet and waited for inspiration to strike.

I was tired and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, but that bed was under a tree. Maybe I could buy a tent? But where would I pitch it? The small clearing was chock full of Aunt Sally’s stuff, and the tree had only spread the mess around.

It was summer, so it was just starting to get on for pitch black, but I liked to be inside and locked up tight before it got dark. I carefully redirected my thoughts away from the reasons why I disliked the dark so much.

I removed the branch and reversed my car, as far as I could get it from the treetastrophe. The Beetle seemed unscathed, if full of pine needles. It smelled better than it ever had, to be honest, like Christmas or a really amazing candle.

On the downside, my fuel-efficient car was small. If I’d known I’d end up sleeping in it, I would’ve bought a monster SUV.

I debated the tiny backseat versus putting the front passenger seat down. This was a case where inches mattered, and I felt too much like the last piece of pie under a cloche. Car-sleeping was an invitation to be visited by the local wildlife.

Which, apparently, included werewolves.

Engine sounds returned me to my present dilemma and I looked over to see Ranger driving his ATV around Aunt Sally’s toilet decorations. The third Boone brother had hazel eyes that regarded me seriously from beneath his mop of shaggy brown hair.

He jerked a thumb at the trailer attached to the ATV. It held a cooler, an empty dog kennel, and a bag of dried cat kibble. “We’ll use this.”

He got busy removing the kennel and the cat food, setting it all up in a sheltered corner of the yard as an impromptu kitty condo with in-house restaurant. Emperor Meowpatine would approve.

“What?” This was not on my list.

“We’ll put the stuff you want to take with you on the trailer. You can’t stay here. There’s a tree on your bed,” he said patiently, as if maybe I hadn’t figured out that I had a tree emergency.

I looked around the yard, not sure where to start. I had no front door, thanks to the tree, so I couldn’t pop inside and fill up an overnight bag.

Plus, it was high-handed of Ranger to assume he got to make my plans. I’d spent the last few years being independent, and while I might fantasize occasionally about a billionaire sweeping into my life, I understood the value of that independence.

“You don’t need to take me anywhere.” My anxiety levels rose. “I’ve got this. I just need a minute.”

Ranger grunted, neither confirming nor denying my ambitious statement. Instead, he walked past me with a polite “Excuse me” and confidently inserted himself under the branches. Shifting sounds ensued.

“Is your third cousin twice removed out of town?” he yelled.

“Alessandro is away for the night.”

“Aunt Sally’s family? Your momma?” Ranger was clearly taking the roll call of my family connections. He expected there to be someone to help me. It was no secret that the Boone brothers were close.

My family, on the other hand, did better apart. We were loners, independent. Asking for help was a sign of terminal weakness. My parents both worked hundred-hour work weeks, and I hadn’t even known that Aunt Sally was sick until I’d received a call from the hospital.

I missed Aunt Sally, even though we’d had a minimal relationship. She’d been soft and tall, with long hair that was half gray, half brown, and she’d worn lots of floral cardigans.

These were superficial details to know about a person, but Aunt Sally had preferred to live alone. She did better with cats than people. I was ashamed I hadn’t tried harder to get to know her, although she certainly liked her space.

She and my momma had texted almost daily, mostly cat photos and Minion memes. During the summers I’d spent with her (and my parents upgraded to 120-hour work weeks), we’d been two ships passing in the night, our communication limited to brief nods and smiles like warning lights flashing on the bow.

Ranger grunted again and pulled himself out of the tree. He held out a handful of underwear. A pink flush crawled up his cheeks. “That’s all I can reach. Might need to go to Walmart, or you can borrow something up at the house. Do you have a bag?”

“There’s no way I can impose like that.”

Ranger’s pretty face hardened. He’d made up his mind to rescue me and that was that.

Sure enough, he reached around me to tuck my underwear into my book bag. He’d folded it into origami squares.

“It’s not imposing. It’s neighborly. Plus, we’ve got plenty of space and you need a roof.” He examined the mess that was my trailer. “And four walls and a new door.”

I tried not to panic at the mental arithmetic that list sparked. I couldn’t afford even the door.

I’d been broke and unemployed before slinking back to Moonlight Valley, and even though I was now gainfully employed, I was still mostly broke. Starting over again would delay my plans to move to Nashville and open my own business.

The tree might have knocked the stuffing out of my trailer, but it hadn’t done anything helpful like push my suitcase out into the yard.

I looked halfheartedly through the debris in the yard while Ranger held an animated pspspsps conversation with Oedipuss, Barack Obameow, Genghis Khat, and Emperor Meowpatine. I could see how the Boone brothers had earned their reputation as animal whisperers.

Eventually, Ranger slung a denim-covered leg over the ATV, tapping the seat behind him. “You climb on now.”

“I can figure something out.” I clutched my bookbag closer. “I’ll camp. Get a motel.”

Ranger stared at me. I could practically hear his thoughts: But that’s impractical. Why would you waste good money when we have an empty bed? Plus, you don’t have any money, good or bad. And there’s no motel in Moonlight Valley anyhow, only that closed-up BB. I guess you could camp on the porch there?

Eventually, he settled for changing the topic. “Aunt Sally was good people.”

He said that as if she’d been more than one person. On the one hand, I liked the idea of a plethora of Aunt Sallys, a mysterious, older woman with a hidden side. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure how I felt that he’d known her better than I had.

“I don’t want to be a bother.”

This time his seat pat was downright irritated. “It’s not a problem.”

When he put it that way… Oh, who was I kidding? My options were car camping, spending the money I’d saved to start my business on an overpriced hotel, or staying with the Boones. Awkwardness ensued as I fit myself into the tiny space behind Ranger. He’d definitely misjudged the size of my behind relative to his own. Eventually, though, I was on.

“You hold tight now.”

Ranger Boone was a bossy one, that was for sure. I wanted to ask him if he was an alpha wolf, or if that honor went to Maverick because he was the oldest Boone. Or maybe they took turns?

Were American wolves more democratic than the admittedly fictional wolves I’d read about in books? Maybe they voted or got along and nobody bossed anybody about. I slid my arms around Ranger’s stocky frame, examining the possibilities in my head.

Ranger took off more sedately than he’d arrived.

“Wait.” I glanced over my shoulder at my feline entourage, who had gathered to see us off. “You think they’re okay?”

They’d already had a shock, what with the tree coming down on them. Leaving them seemed wrong, even if they were indoor/outdoor cats and I no longer had an indoors to offer them.

Ranger nodded. “Cats have a righting reflex.”

“What?”

“Righting reflex. Means they’ll turn in the air if they fall. Land on their feet.”

Not for the first time, I wished I were a cat.

It was a good thing that I knew for a fact that the Boone brothers weren’t serial killers or criminals.

Ranger took us down yet another tree-lined, dirt trail that was seriously lacking in natural light. The ATV was too loud for easy conversation, plus I was talked out for the night. I wanted to lie down on clean sheets, with a good pillow and a roof.

Ranger’s solicitude for my cat clan was surprising. Here was a guy who changed into a wolf (presumably) and who dealt with other people’s animal problems for a living. A surprising number of people paid them well to run off a raccoon that had moved into their attic or to relocate moles and mice from their yards.

According to Alessandro, the Boone brothers got called to deal with whatever local animal control couldn’t get to. He’d made it sound like the Boones got his leftover business, but I wondered.

I spent the first ninety seconds of the ride failing to solve my housing dilemma. The rest of the time, I wasted on trying and failing to forget what it had felt like to kiss Ford Boone.

Unlike the men I had kissed before—an admittedly small sample set—he not only knew what to do with his mouth and his tongue, but he was into it in the best of ways. I almost felt bad that I’d compared him to his brother.

I had not yet succeeded in forgetting Ford when we pulled up in front of the Boone place. The sheer size of the Gothic-looking Southern mansion always surprised me. The number of Boone brothers seemed directly proportional to its immensity, and I wouldn’t have put it past their daddy, Darrell Boone, to keep making boys until he’d had enough for a landscaping crew.

Ranger turned the ATV off and I stared up at the house. Each of the three floors had a covered balcony or veranda, outlined with fancy white railings. Baskets of pink begonias and green ferns hung from the porch ceilings. The Boone brothers did not shy from high maintenance.

Outbuildings for All-Purpose Animal Services clustered behind the main house, along with a number of small cottages and cabins. A live oak alley stretched away from the front of the main house, forming a tunnel of silvery leaves in the moonlight.

“I thought you might like the guesthouse.” Ranger nodded his head in the direction of one of the small cabins tucked into the trees.

There was really only one thing to say. “Okay.”

I thought of a second thing, an awkward moment later, although Ranger had already hopped off the ATV, grabbed my things, and started toward the nearest cabin. “Thank you.”

I followed close on his heels because it was really, really dark now. I had hated the dark ever since an unfortunate incident when I’d been five, when my parents had miscommunicated about who was on childcare duty and left me alone overnight. It was not a childhood memory I cared to recall, although it had made an impact on me.

Therefore, I accidentally trod on Ranger’s heels when he came to a sudden stop in front of one of the cottages. He grunted.

“I use this when I need some space, but you can have it. I’ll let my brothers know you’re staying with us. There’s a party down at the lake.”

He set my things on the cottage’s tiny porch and strode off downhill toward the aforementioned lake, leaving me alone in the dark.

My heartbeat promptly escalated like popcorn popping in a pan. This was graduate-level social skills, but I needed the remedial class. If I followed Ranger down there, would it seem like stalking? Or trying to crash their party?

And was I worried about Atticus’s good opinion…or Ford’s?

An animal howled nearby, followed by rustling sounds. It might have been a wolf. Or a rabid opossum. That bear I’d been so worried about running into while camping in my car.

An unpleasant sound jumped out of my mouth, half curse, half fright. A screech owl yodeled overhead, dipping low enough that the wings stirred the air near my head.

It was at this point that I remembered that no one had answered my questions yet about werewolves. I was pretty sure wolves were carnivorous, so was I even safe?

I did not want to be alone in the dark in the woods in the middle of nowhere. Were there other werewolves running around Moonlight Valley? What if I was the only human here?

I tried to remember what Ford had told me about his lycanthropy problem, but I’d been shocked and he’d been stingy with the details. He’d been born this way, but he hadn’t explicitly said that one good bite (or bad, depending on your point of view) could transform you into a wolf. What if the woods were full of hungry, bitey werewolves?

Somehow the fear in my head transmitted its panicked feeling to my feet and then I was launching myself down the grassy slope toward the waiting lake. Those traitorous chicken feet picked up speed, ignoring my brain’s commands to stop it, right now. No. No no nooooo.

That scream ricocheting off the dark trees was mine, but I had no time to be embarrassed about that undignified loss of control because if I missed my footing now I’d slide downhill on my face. The lake rose up to meet me, or possibly it was the bowels of hell.

I could actually see flames dancing on the black surface, and a second scream built in me. But right before I launched into the watery depths, something hard snaked out and wrapped around my middle.

I bucked like a wild thing, trying to smash my head backward. My head was hard; it would do as a weapon. I clawed at the steel band squeezing my waist and realized my captor was human.

“Stop it.” I half recognized that husky, male voice. It belonged to a Boone all right, although I wasn’t sure if the speaker was Atticus or Ford. This did not reflect well on me. When I ignored his order in favor of continued wriggling, he hoisted me off my feet.

I hung there in the air, back pressed to his front, his arm squeezing my middle gently. It was not a dignified position, which helped enormously with my Boone identification?—

“Ford?”

My captor froze, and then he lowered his arm, carefully setting me on my feet. His big hands found my shoulders, turning me around to face him. He was a dark shadow in the moonlight, shaggy hair spilling around the hard planes of his face.

“Alice?” His thumb brushed over my skin where my T-shirt had slipped to the side. “Alice Aymes?”

“We meet again.” Relief rushed through my body. Ford might be a wolf, but he was the wolf I knew, and despite his tricking me into kissing him earlier, I somehow knew he was safe. He wouldn’t hurt me. The only thing I was in danger of was dying from unrequited lust.

“Are you okay? Did someone scare you?” Concern flooded his voice.

His sympathy melted the stubborn plug I was keeping on my emotions and I panic-freaked, lunging forward to bury my face against his throat.

Huffing the man like a perfume sample in Macy’s was poor manners, but my prior plan to avoid him was scuttled now anyhow. I’d been thinking about him since we’d parted ways earlier and now I needed him to hold me. Did I care if he wasn’t really into me or if I’d been merely a convenient mouth to kiss? No, no, I did not.

“There’s a tree on top of Aunt Sally’s trailer and now I have so much to do that I’m not sure where to start.” Fall-running down his stupid hill was an excellent analogy for everything else I was feeling. My life was out of control and the odds of a catastrophic landing were high.

Ford gave good comfort. He rubbed my T-shirt–covered spine with one big hand, while the other threaded through my hair and cupped the back of my head. He made the best human-sized anchor ever. “You’re gonna be okay, Alice. I promise.”

I sagged against him. My muscles had done enough work for today and they deserved a break. “Thank you, Ford.”

The hand rubbing me stopped. “Alice, I’m not Ford, darling girl. I’m Atticus.”

I didn’t know if I was disappointed or relieved.