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

Chapter 4

Four

I don’t care for werewolves. They’re all right, I guess, if you go for the shedding, savaging the country-side thing. But they’re not very scary nor very sexy and so what’s the point?

— MAGGIE STIEFVATER

I’d never been a risk taker. Plans were best as I hated unknowns. I was not bold, I loathed being first in line, and I would have totally remained onboard if I’d been part of an explorer’s crew. That had to be why my sympathetic nervous system was in overdrive, urging me to run away as I stared at the enormous waterslide and the Boone brother who expected me to climb onto his lap and ride him like a sexy toboggan.

Wanting Ford Boone was not part of my plan, but he was a force of nature. He’d sauntered into my life, introducing previously unknown sexual stimuli, and I’d responded.

And it wasn’t only the delicious effects of his touch, his kisses, his body taking up my space, or even the sexy alpha male smirk he deployed my way. No, his sexy stimuli only accounted for a fraction of what consumed me. Forty percent. Maybe twenty. The rest of it was me remembering how we’d never gotten along on any of my previous visits to Moonlight Valley.

Thoughts of Ford so consumed my brain that I had no room for Atticus. My neural system had removed my romantic (if one-sided) memories of Ford’s twin. He’d been erased along with other useless, outdated memories like how to fix a music cassette stuck in a Walkman or to replace the batteries in a pager.

Maybe I’d make new Atticus memories. Maybe this could be a good thing. On the one hand, I’d always known that my feelings for Atticus were one-sided, not fact-based, and of the fantasy sort.

On the other hand, Atticus had always been nice to me. He didn’t smirk or argue—he was all smiles with a side of reserve, honest, solid, and as reliable as math or my beloved science. He was Grade-A hero material, and we all knew how love stories ended when a hero got involved. I secretly wanted the fairytale wedding, the castle, and the prince.

But now when I daydreamed, my prince didn’t come. Instead, I’d switched to fantasizing about the ogre. When Atticus had caught me, halting my downhill plummet, and had told me who he was, I’d been disappointed. The romantic scene I’d been directing in my head—fate had literally cast me into his manly arms!—had cut to black. I hadn’t been attracted to him at all.

He hadn’t been Ford.

Which was disappointing.

I’d fantasized about Atticus for years, so this sudden switch in my romantic focus should have been cause for concern. Was I shallow? Incapable of committing to one fantasy man? Would this cause problems when it was time to fantasy-commit in my dream fantasy wedding?

Right now, there was no room in my head for fantasy because I was surrounded by a lumberjack-sized, flesh-and-blood man. Half man. I wasn’t sure whether werewolves qualified as Homo sapiens. Did they share DNA with us?

I’d read once that the average wolf penis was seven to ten inches long, and from what I could feel, Ford was superhuman in that department. The lake water that had rapidly and unpleasantly transferred from his boxer briefs to my shorts did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm for each other.

Ford had also given Deelie Sue the first ride tonight and, frankly, that was both upsetting and gross. My fantasy men were monogamous and fiercely loyal, so the reality of Ford did not make me happy.

Did I want to be a jealous, angry, petty person because Ford had spent time with a gorgeous and smart woman I admired, who also happened to be his on-again/off-again girlfriend and a terrifying business success?

No, I did not. I firmly believed women should build each other up, not tear each other down. Plus, Ford hadn’t made me any promises and I didn’t want to have feelings for him. But I did. True, those feelings were mostly unpleasant, akin to having cracked open my ribs and performed open heart surgery on myself. I also wanted to shove Deelie Sue down the slide again.

He’d held her. He’d wrapped his arms around her like he was doing now to me. Obviously Ford was an expert and prolific dater. He’d had lots of practice at it, while I was paddling around in the kiddie pool.

I’d probably overestimated his kissing ability, especially since I’d believed I’d been kissing Atticus. I’d likely projected all of Atticus’s wonderful personal qualities onto Ford’s mouth. I snuck a peek at his mouth now, to refresh my memory. It was beautiful, in a sensuous, masculine kind of way.

Prior to tonight, I’d never been a big fan of kissing. Kissing required the kind of preparation I put into my dental cleanings with not much more reward. But Ford’s mouth had felt right. Hard and gentle at the same time, and I’d leaned into that oxymoron. I’d wanted to eat him up and then have seconds.

I’d thought our audience on the waterslide was bad, but the worst part was yet to come. While I’d been lost in my thoughts, Atticus had stepped up to the side of the slide-chute-deathtrap that Ford and I were sitting in. I half expected him to demand I sign a waiver, but instead he said something to Ford and they shared a moment of twin ESP, secret messages bouncing between them.

Then Ford’s arms tightened around me and his mouth brushed my ear. My insides tightened and stood at attention.

“Hold on, baby.”

“Wait—”

Staking a claim on my not-man and rising to a challenge were fine, bold acts, but I was also a big fan of living, and I definitely wanted said living to take place outside of the emergency room at the hospital. But Atticus gave Ford an enormous shove and sent us hurtling down the slide.

I screamed like a mashed cat, and Ford chuckled behind me. I had enough oxygen feeding my brain cells to note that if I’d been falling to my death with Atticus, he would have checked in on my mental health and offered statistically based reassurances that all would be well.

As my fantasy Atticus was a superhero, he could have managed all that on our rapid descent down the Waterslide of Death. Ford was simply irritating, even if his arms did pull me closer.

I appreciated that because, oh my GOD, we were flying, shooting off the end of the slide, and for one unforgettable moment we were up in the sky, like E.T. riding his bike or a spaceship hurtling out of a docking bay right as the massive, metal doors closed. It was me, Ford, and the stars. It was magical.

The next moment, of course, gravity took over, and we were plummeting toward the lake, which was going to be full of mud and fish, that slimy weed that always seemed to grow in overabundance, and aquatic salamanders. I yelled louder, wishing there was a way to yell CUT! to stop this particular scene. Unladylike cursing might have been involved.

“Hold your breath,” Ford ordered.

I wanted to argue with him, but there was no time. Ford hit the water first, pulling me into his body, and then we were under and sinking fast. The world went topsy-turvy, and I had two seconds to regret my poor life choices before Ford propelled us toward the surface.

He hollered happily when we broke through and into wonderful, breathable air. I wrapped myself around him like a baby monkey, my legs crossed behind his back, my arms strangling his neck.

My arms had the right idea.

“We’re not dead,” I babbled. “This is like in the movies.”

“Alice…”

Ford rested his forehead against mine. We were so close that I had no problem hearing his whisper despite the hooting and hollering coming from the bonfire. He treaded water effortlessly. His powerful, bare thighs brushed my legs and my backside as he kept us afloat. His boxer briefs were not enough fabric to keep my hotter thoughts at bay.

“What?” I whispered, then shot a wary glance at the slide. “Are we in the landing zone?”

Instead of answering, he backstroked us toward the edge of the lake with lazy, coordinated grace. I cursed myself for the husky moan that came out of my mouth, even though who could blame me? There was a whole lot of wet, muscled Ford stretched out beneath me, and I wanted to explore his big body with my hands.

He stopped short of the shore, though, his feet bumping against the muddy, weed-slick bottom as he stood up. When I tried to wriggle free, his hands caught me gently by the waist.

He blurted, “Alice, can we… I’d like to…?”

He always seemed so together, so sure of himself and his next move. This discombobulated version sounded frustrated and possibly as off-balance as I was.

Or maybe that was the aftereffects of launching ourselves into midair off a homemade waterslide. I couldn’t be sure with a sample set of one, but I had no plan to repeat the experiment. I waited for him to add a verb or two to his questions.

Another gleeful pair of adventurers hurtled down the slide, their hollers filling up the silence. They landed with an enormous splash and then swam for the other side of the little beach.

The ripples were still washing against us when Ford shifted beneath me. A moment later I felt him gather me closer. As much as I’d enjoyed using him as my own personal saddle and transportation device, this was also a fine position.

The muscled planes of his stomach were a fingertip away, the delicious warmth of his lake-wet skin warming me up. The heat in me only grew when the hard, beautiful, red-bearded lines of his face bent over mine like we were the stars in a romantic cinematic closeup. It was almost too much, and I flinched away.

Ford let go of me, his hand steadying me as I floundered for a moment, trying to find my footing. I’d forgotten how much I hated the slimy, rock-pitted bottom of a Tennessee lake.

I shrieked, pulling my feet up. My face burned. Partly, I didn’t want to be seen as someone who couldn’t handle a little alligator weed or milfoil. Mostly, though, I wanted to wrap myself around Ford again and hang onto him.

This was stupid. Doomed to failure. A romantic apocalypse. I wasn’t the first girl he’d taken for a ride tonight, and I likely wouldn’t be the last. We’d kissed, we’d touched, and he’d put his hand inside my panties, bless my heart.

He’d also made it clear that I argued too much for him, and because I was feeling like a brat, I gave myself permission to be one. Temporarily. Before I returned to my responsible, mature adult life.

I smacked the surface of the lake with the flat of my hand, sending a tidal wave of water over Ford’s beautiful, arrogant face. It served him right.

“Come here,” he growled.

I shivered, mostly because I was cold. The lakes in this part of Tennessee never had gotten the memo that it was summer.

“Get lost.” I shoved away, trying not to let my feet touch the bottom. There was pond scum and bacteria invading my body. Gross. Worse, it was so dark that I couldn’t see below the surface of the lake. Even my hands were almost invisible shadows beneath the water.

“This was a terrible idea,” I told him, swallowing lake water.

“I know. You don’t like lakes. I’ll get you right out, but stop talking for a minute because I need to tell you something.”

This was one of the many problems with Ford. He liked to give orders. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Sorry—I shouldn’t. It’s a habit. I do it too much.”

If I hadn’t been trying to stay afloat in a disgusting pool of weeds and water, I’d have given some thought to who he ordered around on a regular basis. Was this a boyfriend/girlfriend/Fifty Shades of Grey kind of ordering? Or was he alluding to his business practices? Or maybe he had a secret dog-training business that I was unaware of and his commands were all of the canine variety.

“Alice.” He caught me firmly around the waist, tucking my back against his front. “Deelie Sue and I aren’t seeing each other. We haven’t seen each other for months.”

I nodded awkwardly, refusing to admit how much his words pleased my inner cavegirl.

He continued, “You and I, we’ve known each other since we were teenagers.”

“This isn’t a scene from a reunion movie,” I informed him, rather suspiciously.

“What?”

“Sometimes, I like to pretend that I’m on a movie set. That all this”—I waved a hand, accidentally splashing Ford in the process—“is a scene.”

“What’s your favorite scene?” He sounded genuinely interested.

“It changes.” I shrugged. “Tonight, when we went flying off the end of the waterslide, I had myself an E.T. moment—you know the scene where he’s riding that bicycle across the night sky? It felt like that. But that’s not usually my favorite.”

Should I tell him? Confess? I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.

“And when you’re not airborne? What’s your favorite then?”

Reluctantly, I admitted, “I’m a sucker for that Mr. Darcy scene where he comes tramping over the field, his coat billowing all around him. He’s so big and stern and kinda grumpy.”

“You’re not Team Bingley?” His voice tickled my ear and warmed up parts of me that hadn’t finished cooling down from our first encounter today.

I shrugged. “He’s a sweetheart, and I’m sure Jane will be very happy.”

He inhaled. “Alice?—”

Resting against him seemed like a weakness, but he felt so good that I decided I’d tolerate it until he’d finished his speech.

His next words came out fast, as if he’d decided to say everything quickly before he lost his chance. “You didn’t like me much when we first met, and I get that I was an ass. But I’ve grown up. We both have.

“You left Moonlight Valley and you got a college degree. I know you’ve got a business plan, that you’re on your way to doing amazing things. And you’re not the same person you were then, any more than I am. I don’t want to fight with you.”

I blinked lake water from my eyes, trying to discern where he was going with this speech, and noticing—now that we weren’t plummeting through the air—how the water reflected the sky overhead. It was dark and beautiful, tiny sparks of ancient starlight dotting the lake’s surface. With Ford holding me up, I could see it all.

He kept on doing it, his arms wrapped around me securely, not making a joke out of this or threatening to dunk me. When I didn’t say anything, he settled his face against mine. His beard tickled my cheek.

“I’m gonna take your silence as agreement,” he whispered, apparently interpreting my stationary, non-swimming status as a sign that I was onboard with his plan to stop fighting. His lips moved against my cheek as he spoke, his beard brushing my skin. The warm sensations that evoked in me made me want to happy laugh—and squirm.

Here I was, treading water in a Tennessee lake with Ford Boone, and we weren’t arguing.

I didn’t understand what had changed for him. Why he seemed to be choosing…me. Not that there was anything wrong with me, of course, but where I’d always opted for a satisfying fantasy life over dating real people, he’d gone for quantity over quality.

“Ford, you remember our high school days? We disagreed about everything. If I said it was Monday, you insisted it was Tuesday. You didn’t pay any attention to facts. You always have to be right, and I don’t know if we can get along. We always argue.”

“Arguing’s not such a bad thing.”

See? He was arguing with me. I forbore to point that out, although I really wanted to.

“It absolutely is. You argue about every little thing, even the boring things like what I ate for breakfast and what I read in an online fan forum for Tulum.”

“Alice,” he whispered, “when we argue, that’s me listening to you and you listening right back. I’d never not pay attention to you. I like to know about your day, about what’s going on in your head. There’s nothing you could think about that I’m not interested in. You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met and I love the way you think.”

If I’d been a firefly, I’d have been flashing a million times a minute. It wasn’t so much his insistence that I was a deeply interesting person as the utter sincerity in his voice. Ford didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t funny or a good storyteller.

In fact, he seemed to like me—geeky, awkward, argumentative science nerd—exactly as I was. An embarrassing moisture that had nothing to do with the lake water all around us collected in my eyes.

“You love to argue with me? You mean like telling me I’m wrong all the time? Why would I think that was a positive?”

His beard brushed my cheek again, the corners of his mouth tugging up with his grin. “You like telling me how wrong I am. Admit it.”

The man had a point. I contemplated it while Ford floated us in a lazy circle. Somehow my head had found its way to his shoulder. He was harder than my favorite bath pillow, but also sexier. Warmer.

It occurred to me that while I’d never be convinced that arguing was a relationship feature, it didn’t mean that Ford had hated me. Maybe he had been respecting my opinions.

“They weren’t all bad,” I blurted out.

“What weren’t?”

“Our fights. You stuck around. You didn’t storm away or give me the silent treatment.” And now that I realized he hadn’t been mad—that his arguing with me had been respect and a weird version of romantic foreplay—I didn’t know what to think. “The werewolf thing was unexpected, though.”

“I bet it was.” The smirk in his voice came through loud and clear.

“How does it work?”

He shrugged. “I can shift when I want, although if I don’t shift at full moon, I’ll be itchy, break out in hives. My wolf likes to talk my ear off, too.”

“He talks to you?”

“All the time.”

“What’s he saying now?”

“Nothing polite. He likes the way you smell.”

I decided not to explore that idea any further. “So you don’t eat people.”

“Nope.”

“Or turn into an inhuman beast that rampages about the countryside?”

“Not yet. Are you disappointed?”

“Can I see?”

He laughed. “Not in the middle of a lake with witnesses, baby girl.”

“So it is a secret.” I frowned. He’d yelled at Atticus for public shifting earlier today, so it made sense that not all of their party guests were in on it. “Do you have to kill me now that I know?”

His arms tightened. “You’re safe. The Wolf Council will never know unless you go making T-shirts or talking to Oprah. It’s just something I am.”

“Okay, then.”

“So we’re good?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive you yet for pretending to be Atticus.”

“I’m not sorry.” His voice was deep and rich—and apparently connected to my vagina. “I’m not sorry we kissed. I’m not sorry we’re here.”

“But you are sorry for pretending to be your twin brother?”

Ford snorted and strode for the shore. Water sheeted off him like he was a medieval Viking warrior coming ashore to plunder. And while I fully recognized that the historical reality of that scenario was not okay, a small part of me enjoyed the fantasy and directed a brief movie in my head where he strode and plundered and I more than met him halfway.

I was so caught up in this fantasy that it took me longer than it should have to realize that Ford hadn’t answered my question. “Ford?”

His feet hit the shore and he tossed me gently over his big shoulder, butt up, hanging down over his back with absolutely no dignity at all. His arms curved around my legs, and my wet hair flopped over my face. The spectacular view of his butt almost but not quite made up for the indignity of his patting my backside with his big palm.

“Brat,” he growled.

I pinched his butt. He’d started it.

“You assumed I was Atticus. You didn’t ask and I never said.”

“You knew,” I insisted. “I can’t believe you.”

He sighed and strode toward the hill. “Alice, I need you to listen to me.”

“Why should I?”

“I want a chance.”

“For what?”

“To start over,” he growled. “To see you. To see what we could be together.”

Was I surprised? Yes.

But it was a chemical reaction, surprise priming me to pay extra attention by releasing norepinephrine in my brain.

It would pass.

I’d stop being surprised and move on to blasé.

Then I realized Ford had paused and set me down.

Then I realized he was waiting for me to give him an answer.

Not that he’d actually asked a question. He’d done that alpha wolf thing of barking out a command-slash-desire. Presumably I was supposed to agree.

My gaze bounced down his legs, which were wet and muscled. He had an intriguing dusting of hair that merited exploring. “I’m sorry, you what?”

“I want for us to start over. We’re suited for each other.”

“You think we’re suited?”

“I promise that we’re suited.” He made it sound dirty. “We can do whatever you want. Talk about whatever you want. But I’m taking you out on a date.”

“A date.”

Awesome. I’d turned into a parrot.

“Friday night football and barbecue, hunting for fireflies along the creek, watch a movie cozied up in the bed of my truck—a date.”

“You cuddle?” I needed details about this alleged cuddling agenda.

When he frowned and nodded, I had my first inkling that this could work. Not that I could honestly imagine cuddling with Ford—my imagination was great, but not that great.

Okay, so us dating didn’t sound entirely unpleasant. A tingle of excitement built in me. Or maybe that was the blood rushing into my lower extremities after being submerged in the lake?

Regardless, I did not know how to answer his demand (because it had not been a request). I definitely wanted to make Ford work for it. And I needed to think.

Far too many things had happened to me tonight. I’d kissed Atticus, discovered he was Ford, discovered my trailer squashed beneath a massive tree, rescued the cats, and been rescued in turn by Ranger. Then I’d gone for a near-naked waterslide ride in Ford’s lap—and I’d liked it.

I needed time to process these new data points. I wasn’t planning on staying in Moonlight Valley, not longer than it took to sort out the trailer and save up the money I needed to launch my pet emporium business.

Suitingwith Ford Boone wasn’t going to move any part of my master plan forward. It would keep me stuck here because there would be one more reason not to go.

“We need to go back,” I said, focusing on the practical next step instead of answering him. I stumbled on the rocky shore. This was no Maldivian beach with soft, silky sand.

Ford caught me effortlessly, mostly because I crash-landed against his bare, wet chest. His muscles held me up and I let them. His thumb caressed the corner of my mouth.

I liked it far too much.

“I’m not kissing you.” My breathless delivery left the accuracy of that statement open to debate.

He regarded me steadily. “Why not?”

“Because you lied to me. You pretended to be Atticus.”

“And you want my twin,” he snapped. From the iceberg in his voice, he didn’t like that thought at all. He looked frustrated.

I grabbed his muscled bicep and tugged him to a stop. “I don’t want Atticus. But I don’t like that you lied to me, or that you were giving rides to the Queen of Used Cars. We kissed each other and then?—”

My feelings were not logical. Ford and I were not a couple. We were not dating. Until tonight, I hadn’t known that he’d had thoughts of kissing me. We were both commitment free. Yet my brain kept replaying the scene where Deelie Sue had straddled Ford’s lap in her itty-bitty bikini and ridden him. I didn’t like that memory.

It wasn’t a logic thing, I realized with no small degree of horror. It was a feelings thing.

Feelings were the worst.

I shifted uncomfortably. There were sharp, stabby rocks underfoot. The staircase built into the side of the hill felt like it was a million rocky miles away.

Ford picked me up. Again. It was becoming a most unfortunate habit. I snuck a peek at his face. Was it…hopeful?

A boyfriend had once tried to pick me up. He’d been two inches shorter than me, and I’d worried that I was too heavy. My being taller had made us off-balance and he’d quickly aborted. The ease with which Ford did the heavy lifting for us was seductive, and it needed to stop.

Us dating was as useless as tits on a bull because Ford would never leave Moonlight Valley. He was a Boone and a werewolf. That was two strikes right there. The third was that I had to leave.

I was headed to Nashville, to open my pet business. I had plans, and I would execute those plans. If I stayed here, I wouldn’t be a small business owner—I’d be a microscopic business owner. Cell-sized, minuscule, and impossibly limited. Vanity Fur Salon had already cornered my market.

Ford broke our silence first. “There’s nothing between me and Deelie Sue. Our ride was a joke, a friends thing.”

I didn’t sit on my friends’ laps.

“I don’t know if I can believe that,” I admitted.

“I’m asking you to trust me, Alice. She and I, we don’t suit. The only thing we have in common is being a werewolf. I wish you had known it was me in the woods, because…” His voice lost its roughness, the growl softening to a sweet burr. “Go out with me, Alice. Please. I’d like that second chance with you.”