Chapter 12
Twelve
Some people will tell you werewolves can only shape-change under a full moon, but people also say there’s no such things as ghosts.
— PATRICIA brIGGS
Yesterday we’d sealed our twelve-month deal by kissing the heck out of each other behind the band gazebo, and this morning the cute howling of baby wolf pups woke me up.
This was the ringtone I’d picked for texts from Ford, and I took a moment to stare up through the skylight (that he’d made! for me!) at the pretty blue of the morning sky and compare it to Ford’s eyes in poetry that would never, ever be spoken aloud. Only then, after he’d been properly appreciated, did I read my text.
Ford:We’re going out tonight.
Me:Where?
Ford:Someplace with fireflies where we can run around.
Me:So this is a Twilight sort of date? Are we going to chase deer? Are you a VAMPIRE too?
Ford:There will be no sparkling. 5 ok?
It was absolutely okay, and I was ready when Ford’s pickup stopped in front of my tiny house. Ford might not have been a sparkly ancient vampire, but his truck gleamed in the early evening sunlight. He’d washed it for our date.
Based on Ford’s cryptic description of our date-night activities (which sadly did not specify sex, kissing, or bedroom-adjacent activities), I’d donned soft, high-waisted leggings that made a sexy detour below my belly button. I also wore a matching crop top and an unbuttoned long-sleeved cotton shirt I could deploy if the temperature dropped in the woods.
Most importantly, my workout gear hugged my curves and would, hopefully, draw Ford’s attention to key areas of my anatomy. I was advertising discreetly.
Ford was early, which was good as he’d have to make it past Alessandro, who’d taken up residence on my front porch. Alessandro had come over specifically to harass Ford. As this appeared to be their love language, I’d stopped demanding they knock it off.
After much arguing, I had, however, convinced Alessandro that buying a rocking chair solely in order to sit on it holding his shotgun was unnecessary. He could torture Ford about Ford’s intentions without investing in props.
Alessandro invited Ford into my house, offered him a diet soda (that Alessandro had bought to be mean) and grilled him about his opinions on the local sports team, preferred flavor of barbecue, and belief in God. When he’d acquired enough inside information to write a position paper, he slapped Ford on the back, gave me a quick hug, and glared at both of us as we trooped out of the house.
Even though we’d already gone out together once, that date had not ended well. This time felt easier already. More comfortable.
I wasn’t misleading Ford about my intentions, and we’d both been honest with each other. We had a twelve-month deal and a relationship plan. I could relax and enjoy his company because we were on the same page of my planner.
Once he’d helped me into the truck, opening and closing my door for me exactly as he’d threatened-promised, he settled into the driver’s seat. We grinned at each other. We’d made it.
“So, what are we doing tonight? Are we really hunting fireflies?”
“I’ve got a plan,” he answered mysteriously, his eyes roving over my body with heated appreciation.
Ford loved looking at me, and I loved that he loved it.
He was all stern intent and focus, as if he were making a plan of all the places he would kiss me next and how. I wondered whether he’d ever considered writing those things down because, boy howdy, would that beat dirty sexting.
We drove for a couple minutes, sneaking peeks at each other from the corners of our eyes. I felt like a teenager again.
I was also bubbling over with questions, because I needed to know everything about this man, but I didn’t want to kill the conversation before it started either. I’d written down a list of possible questions earlier, rank ordering them, and now I started at the top.
“Anything surprising happen today?”
The corner of Ford’s mouth tilted up. “I got a beautiful, smart woman to go out with me.”
His tone was light and flirty. I wanted to fast-forward through the night so I could find out what would happen and then go back and live it all again in slow motion.
Ford told me a funny story about helping a peacock cross the road. He’d also had Elmer Johnson’s hog climb into the cab of his truck.
When I looked down—not wanting to be sitting in pig leavings for obvious reasons—Ford chuckled. “I detailed my truck.”
That explained the truck sparkle.
“Why would a pig even do that?”
Ford shrugged. “Guess it wanted to get out and see the world some.
“Not as bad as the time I came home to find Momma and two of her church lady friends standing on the furniture. Darrell had put down some rat poison, and this big ole rat had eaten it and come inside to die.
“I cleared up the clutter outside and put some peppermint down, which was a tried-and-true nonlethal way of convincing rats that they would prefer to change directions and go somewhere else. Momma made me check out the living room for a month after that anyhow.”
I was tempted to reach over and kiss him.
“You’re a good person, Ford Boone.”
“That’s due to Momma.” Ford frowned fiercely at his steering wheel, shifting uncomfortably. I guess it was one thing to tell him he had a mighty fine penis or a spectacular backside—and it was a whole other thing to opine on his character. “I reckon most of Moonlight Valley looks at us Boone boys and dismisses us as a bunch of rednecks, Darrell Boone’s no-account kids who were like to take after his backwoods, broke-ass self.
“We do like our trucks and our barbecue, and we’re all about independence and family. And that goes double for our wolves. Nobody messes with a Boone without all of us coming for him. But our momma always encouraged us to be smart and have manners.”
“She sounds like she was an amazing woman.”
His hand pressed against my knee briefly, as if he needed that connection. I laid my hand on top of his.
“She is—was. She had a whole pack of us to raise, and she did it alone. She got us to church, to school, and to anywhere else she thought we should be. If she knew how to do it, she taught us. Anything we didn’t know, we headed over to the library to look it up in a book. Momma believed there was a book for every problem in the world.
“She was real entrepreneurial, too. Even though she came from money, she didn’t believe in sitting on your laurels or your bank account. She thought you should be out there, doing things.”
I felt an unexpected kinship with Ford’s momma. “She was a real smart lady. I have all these ideas and plans, but it feels like the days keep slipping through my fingers, one after another, and I want to do things, not merely read about business strategy in yet another book or take another college class.”
Ford nodded as if he did get it, but then he surprised me by asking, “So what have you done to get your business up and running?”
This kind of question made me squirm.
“I’ve got checklists and a business plan. I’ve got the application for a business license, and I’ve been researching what I’d want to stock, foot traffic patterns, real estate costs. But it’s all stuff in my head, thinking and not doing.” I sighed. “I guess I’m not living up to the whole if not now, then when? thing.”
Ford slowed, signaled, and turned off the main road and onto a gravel offshoot. The baby road was a bumpy, dusty slice of space barely wide enough for a vehicle to pass through all the trees.
He looked thoughtful, but not because he was trying to remember the directions or something equally mundane. He was considering what I’d said.
“You don’t have to wait until you’ve got your storefront leased in Nashville to go into business. There’s the internet. And mail order. Farmers’ markets, the state fair, and those holiday bazaars they hold at the church.”
“Those are small potatoes. I’m not going to get a business loan to run a stall at the local flea market.”
“Sure, but it’s an opportunity to sell. To test the waters. There are customers here.”
“There are like five hundred people here. Plus, I’m betting werewolves would be offended by my selling cute little T-shirts for cats and dogs.”
His mouth curled up. “We have dogs. You might be surprised. You should sell us hard.”
“Are you volunteering to model for me?”
He squeezed my hand gently. “It would be no hardship at all. I’m happy to model for you any time.”
I leaned forward, adopting an ostentatiously meditative look. Rodin’s The Thinker had nothing on me. “Do you do naked modeling?”
“For you, yes.”
“Hot damn.”
We both laughed. He was so amazing, funny, and playful. I tried my best to forget that he was mine for only twelve months.
He’d be an incredible partner.
It was impossible not to fall a bit more for him. Falling for him felt safe, because he was a good guy.
We went on a woodsman date. After hiking in to yet another secret waterfall (if All-Purpose Animal Services ever failed, the Boones could go into the tour guide or mapmaking business), we splashed around in the pool at the base of the cascade.
Then we devoured the four-foot-long hoagie Ford had brought from You’re Great In Bread, the only sandwich shop in town. Pimiento cheese—sharp cheddar mixed with spicy pimiento peppers—was slathered on one side of the roll, while cream cheese and mayonnaise covered the other side.
Following that, Ford produced a box of fried chicken and biscuits with hot honey. The meal was delicious, and I ate far too much.
The river raced next to us, the rippling reflection of the evening sky shot through with silvery flashes from the fish hanging out near the bottom.
The cicadas buzzed and then the frogs joined in. They were all calling for a mate, but despite being surrounded by horny insect life, I felt calm.
It was only seven, so we had a good two hours left before it even considered getting dark out, but it was hard to be completely easy knowing the light was going. Lying flat on your back in the woods was supposed to be the ultimate in outdoor relaxation (I’d read that in an Ilona Andrews book so it had to be true), but my muscles were slowly knotting themselves into a boccie ball of tension.
Ford laced his fingers through mine and tugged gently, calling my attention back to the here and now. “You seem tense.”
I leaned into his solid frame and frowned up at the sky. I had no cell phone reception this far out, so I couldn’t check my weather app to determine exactly when the sun would set tonight. I’d meant to do it before we’d left, but the delicious sight of Ford in his blue jeans had distracted me.
“Did you hear that?” Something rustled in the bushes. It was followed by a spooky hooting that probably came from an owl but that could also have been a deranged serial killer signaling to his serial killer buddy. “It’ll be dark before long.”
“I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Ford sounded confident, but no one was invincible.
“There could be wild animals out here. Wolverines, or maybe a fisher cat. There was a confirmed mountain lion sighting two months ago, and we have black bears up in the mountains.”
“We do have those.” He said it the way you’d admit to having ketchup or hot relish in your fridge. Ho-hum. No big deal!
“So it’s dangerous out here.”
He snorted. “Honey, you’ve got me.”
And then I felt both a little scared and a little naive. “Because you’re a part-time wolf.”
It must be nice to stride through life as a scary apex predator. When God had passed out balls and bravado, I had not been in that line. I’d been queued up for logic and reason, thank you very much.
Ford cleared his throat. “I’d like to…”
My mind went wild, imagining what he could possibly want that he wouldn’t up and ask for. Demand. Coax. Ford was very, very good at coaxing. I sure hoped he wasn’t about to try to convert me to a Jesus cult or anal sex.
“…shift,” he finished. “I’d like you to meet my wolf.”
“Your wolf?”
He gave me a crooked grin. “He’d like to say hello.”
My frown deepened.
“You talk like you’ve got someone else living inside you.”
“Not exactly.” He moved restlessly, his shoulder brushing mine. “He’s got some opinions, though.”
I bet. If the wolf had a few opinions, Ford had even more. I wondered what his wolf could possibly think about me.
“How does it work?” I couldn’t help being curious. This was all new to me. “Are you there, inside the wolf? Are you in control? Would it be safe?”
His grin deepened. “As much in control as I ever am around you.”
“Is this the lust myth?” Excuse me for sounding suspicious, but I knew bullshit when I heard it. “Because I know you’re in control of your penis, just like I’m in control of my vagina. We don’t go around ravaging other people without permission because we’re out of control.”
I made air quotes because this was an important point.
Ford looked offended. “Make no mistake about it. I want you, Alice Aymes. But if you don’t want me or aren’t in the mood?—”
“Or are flat-out mad at you,” I added to be helpful.
He gave a little laugh. “Or are flat-out mad at me, what we do or don’t do in bed is up to you. I was talking about my feelings.”
“I agree.” I turned my head so I could look at him. His handsome face made my heart beat fast and then faster. At this rate, I’d have the cardiovascular system of a twenty-year-old Olympian before I turned thirty.
“So may I? Shift?”
I was nervous, to tell the truth. And curious. I was a werewolf newbie, and I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which my date turning into a werewolf was a feature and not a bug. But he’d asked, and he was right that the wolf was a part of him. “Okay.”
He dropped a kiss on my forehead and disentangled our hands.
“I’ll still be me,” he offered. “Just with fur.”
And teeth and vicious predator claws, but he already knew that and did not need to hear it from me.
“I’m gonna undress,” he said. “Because if I shift fully clothed, you’ll be driving into town with a naked man.”
“Huh,” I said, my witty rejoinder drowning in a sea of lust. Now that was a feature.
Instead of arguing with him about the benefits (or drawbacks) of shifting, however, I curled up on our picnic blanket and watched him methodically strip down. This was an unexpected bonus, even if he did turn around, presenting me with his backside, when he shucked his boxer briefs.
Ford’s big body was a miracle. He had a light dusting of hair on his legs and chest, like frosting for his muscles. He was even more impressive naked than he was fully dressed.
And his butt… Sweet baby Jesus, I wished I had the words to describe it. It was firm and rounded, taut and muscled. I itched to take a photo in case my memory ever went and I needed a reminder.
“Your clothing should be illegal,” I blurted out. Missing out on an opportunity to drive to Moonlight Valley next to a big, naked Ford was like being one number off on the Tennessee Daily Jackpot.
The bastard laughed.
Then he shifted.
One minute, I had Ford Boone standing in front of me, naked as a jaybird, hands on his hips, and then Ford became a wolf. It was the strangest thing I’d ever witnessed. His human skin melted away, fur flowing in to take its place. There was a horrible crunching sound, as his insides remade themselves in some kind of supernatural origami.
It took almost no time at all, but there was no doubting the results: I was alone in the Tennessee woods with a wolf who had been a man and was still my date.
“Wow.” I reached forward and cautiously touched his shoulder.
His fur was a dark auburn, slightly coarse and shaggier on his shoulders. He looked almost as if he was wearing a darling little fur cape, except that he was preternaturally huge. Naturally, I’d done some googling when I’d discovered werewolves existed outside the pages of a book, and he was at least twice as large as your average Canis lupus.
Ford shook himself and padded around our picnic blanket. He was giving me a chance to look at him, I realized.
“And you’re really in there?”
Ford yipped. I interpreted that as a yes. I wasn’t sure how I’d expected us to communicate once he’d shifted, but it stood to reason that wolf jaws were different from people jaws and he wouldn’t have the physical ability to speak English.
It was amazing.
Hewas amazing.
Rationally, I knew there must be a logical explanation for why he had this ability while most of the world did not, but something about the casual power with which he prowled about the clearing was one of the hottest things I’d ever seen. He was all dominant, sexy alpha.
I wasn’t entirely sure I was down with the werewolf thing.
In fact, I worried that his transformation might be contagious like a bad virus.
…or at least I thought I should worry.
A thrill shot through me as he loped toward me, muscles bunching as he moved. In this form, his eyes were all amber but shot through with swirls of blue. Was that his human side peeking through?
He fit, I realized. He was an integral part of this place, these mountains, this part of Tennessee. He’d always belong here and therefore he would never leave. He’d found his place.
He butted his head against my hand. I narrowed my eyes. Was he?—
“Ford Boone, you had better not be marking me.”
I was not a tree or a piece of property, and I got quite enough of that behavior from Aunt Sally’s cats. They had decided that as the very last human, I could be of use to them, so there was much head-butting, scratching, and rubbing when I was around them.
This time Ford howled. It was a growl-bark that grew louder, deeper, echoing through the clearing. His wolf sounded like him, or maybe it was the other way round. I was trying to decide which it was when he shifted, grabbing the picnic blanket to cover a very impressive portion of his anatomy.
He nuzzled my neck like his wolf had, dropping a kiss on it. “You okay?”
I was sure my eyes were huge. So was my smile, however, so it evened things out. It was hard to believe that the wolf had come from inside him like that. I had so many questions.
“What happens if someone gets scratched or bitten by your wolf? If you shift with clothes on, do they get ripped apart? Does it hurt?”
“Nothing unless it’s a mating bite, public indecency, and not really.”
“Fascinating. Can I ask follow-up questions?” Mostly, I wanted to ask him to do it again, but he wasn’t a movie at the two-dollar cinema for me to be watching.
Laughing, he wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and leaned in to give me a kiss. Seeing as how my mouth was open—about to ask yet another question—this had our kiss going from zero to sixty in no time at all.
Ford’s kiss made me feel seen and appreciated, safe and desired. Or maybe he was tired of talking about science and wanted to do something different.
Either way, I kissed him back.