by Terry Spear
As soon as Owen thanked the administrative assistant and did an online search for Candice Mayfair, he came face-to-face with a red-haired beauty with piercing green eyes, her curly hair in a short bob. “Clara Hart?” He couldn’t be sure it was her. If it was, the find would prove to be Owen’s lucky day. He’d never solved a case so fast.
Owen quickly searched her biography page, but it didn’t have a phone number, email, or snail mail address listed. He would use the webpage contact note and hope she answered him back pronto.
Thinking about how he could show her some real wolf loving for her wolf stories, he smiled and started typing the message: If you need a real wolf to base your characters on…
Then he deleted the message. Hell, what could he say to get her response? He called Cameron’s mate for some advice. “Hey, Faith, I need to run this by you.”
* * *
Candice had been writing for two days straight, working on her publisher’s book deadline, when she wrote the ending, smiled, and set the book aside. She would start proofing it tomorrow after she’d given her brain a break. Now she’d do what she always did when she finished a book or reached a good stopping point in one. Clean house. Check her backlog of emails. Pick up some more groceries. And take a run on the wolf side.
She finished vacuuming and dusting, swearing every window must let in all the outdoors, and then started a batch of gingerbread cookie cutouts to celebrate the Christmas holiday season and finishing another book. While they were baking, she finally settled down to check her emails. Fan mail always came first, and one from her website got her attention right off. She opened it and read:
Hello, I’m Owen Nottingham, private investigator for White River Investigations, White River Falls, Minnesota. My client, Strom Hart, hired me to locate you. Your parents, John and Cynthia Hart, left you an inheritance, and you need to see the lawyer about it so you can claim it. I need to verify that you are the right woman first. Is there any way we could meet and get this taken care of so you can collect your inheritance? Strom Hart will be the one to receive it by the end of the month otherwise. His assistant, Jim Winchester, said Mr. Hart is your uncle.
Candice reread the message, not believing her eyes, tears filling them. She quickly looked at the date of the message. Two days ago! She knew she shouldn’t have neglected her emails, but when she was into a story, she couldn’t break away.
She ground her teeth, raised her fingers to respond, and heard a knocking at her door. No one came here. Never. Ever. Not even salesmen.
She glanced at her phases-of-the moon calendar. The waxing gibbous was just beginning. She should be fine. Just to be on the safe side, in case the person at the door was trouble, she pulled a can of mace from her desk drawer and headed for the door. She peered through the peephole. Waiting at the door was a handsome black-haired man with rugged features and intense blue eyes. He was dressed in a black suit, a red shirt, and a dark-purple tie covered in red, purple, and gold Christmas balls. She raised her brows.
“I’m Owen Nottingham,” he said to the door, holding up his PI license and driver’s license. He couldn’t know that she was watching him, so he must have hoped she was there, observing him. “I tried getting ahold of you through the contact form on your website about your inheritance. Your contact form might not be working, so I had to locate you in person.”
So this was the man who had sent the message. Was he for real? He had to be. He wouldn’t have come all this way to see her if he wasn’t. But how had he found her?
Candice opened the door, the bells jingling on her Christmas wreath, and the man glanced down at the can of mace in her hand. He smiled, his gaze holding hers with such intensity that it was as though he could see clear through to her soul. “Really, just a PI doing my job.”
A chilly breeze carried his scent to her. Wolf scent. All at once, she felt so light-headed that she grabbed the door to keep herself upright and dropped the can of mace on the tile floor. It clattered, but she couldn’t have reached for it if her life depended on it.
Oh. My. God.
This couldn’t be real. He couldn’t be real. No wonder he’d been talking to the door. He must have heard her footfalls as she’d approached.
He took a deep breath at the same time, and when he smelled her scent, his eyes widened in surprise. His hand shot out to grab her arm and steady her. For a minute, she tried to control her breathing and her heart rate, neither of which she could steady. She felt like she was going to pass out.
“Hell, you’re the wolf I saw across the White River, aren’t you?”
Her jaw dropped, and her knees buckled. He swept her up in his arms and she wanted to object, but he slammed the door behind him with his hip and carried her into the house. He was the wolf she’d seen across the river that day on the camping trip in Minnesota two years ago, sipping from the water? She still remembered it like it was yesterday. Him looking up and seeing her staring at him while she’d believed she was hallucinating.
Until the next night, and then she knew she hadn’t been dreaming at all.
Chapter 2
Owen couldn’t believe his luck. Candice Mayfair was the beautiful white wolf he’d seen that day so long ago. Not that she looked like a wolf now. He only knew for sure she was the wolf because he recognized her scent. After the initial shock of seeing an unfamiliar and intriguing Arctic she-wolf, he’d gone after her that night.
The whole pack had been on a run, but they knew to stay far from any campsite. He and the other guys had swum across the river to explore a bit. Cameron and his mate had stayed on the other side with the kids. Owen had even swum back across the river to find the mysterious female and discovered that her scent led right to one of the tents. Since she had gone into the tent, he knew she had to be one of their shifter kind. He’d even hung around the next day, waiting to catch a glimpse of her, but there were three women, and he had no idea which was her. A blond, a brunette, and a red-haired woman—none of whom looked like the picture he had of Clara Hart.
Being a white wolf in summer had made it difficult to blend in, so he’d had to keep well out of sight.
Candice Mayfair was definitely the author of the books on the website, though she didn’t look like the photo her uncle had of her, if she was Clara Hart. She had the same compelling eyes, different color, but they got Owen’s attention, grabbed hold, and wouldn’t let go.
He carried her to her couch and set her down, staying close, his hand still on her arm until she seemed to regain her equilibrium.
“The wolf pup was yours,” she accused, jerking her arm away from him.
“Wolf pup?”
“Yeah, wolf pup. Don’t pretend you don’t know about your own wolf pup.”
Then all the pieces began to fall into place. Campers. Campfire. Food. Corey, the wolf pup she had to be referring to, hadn’t just found food like they’d thought. Candice must not have been a wolf until that night.
“You fed him? Corey? His mom wondered why he smelled of beef jerky that night. We thought he’d found some at the campsite. Don’t tell me… He bit you.” Which would be the only possible way to have turned her. Owen couldn’t believe it. Boy, would Corey be in trouble now. They were never to bite anyone unless they had no choice. “I’m so sorry, Candice. We’re all newly turned, really. Not as newly turned as you though. It’s been seven years for us.” He waited for that to sink in, for her to give him a chance to speak about the pack and how she needed to be one of them. She was one of them.
She must have had to live with this alone the last couple of years, which had to have been awful. Suddenly, the business of who she was—if she was Clara Hart or not—wasn’t half as important as righting a wrong with a fellow Arctic lupus garou.
She folded her arms. “You should have trained your son better than that.”
“Son? No, he’s Cameron and Faith MacPherson’s son. I don’t hav
e a mate. No kids. I’m single.” Was he making it too obvious he was very available? That happened when you didn’t want to date anyone because your wolfish half might come to the forefront at a really bad time.
She lifted a red brow and gave him a hint of a smile. All he could think of was kissing her. A wolf, she-wolf, Arctic wolf.
Hell, he was rambling. Unless they turned someone, none of the guys who had been turned would ever have a wolf mate. Not a white wolf anyway, unless they were lucky enough to find others like them. He had to convince her to meet the pack. Not that she would want to be anyone’s mate, but she should be part of the pack. She had been turned by one of them. She needed to learn what they knew about all of this. He couldn’t imagine her being on her own and having to deal with it all alone.
Owen noticed the warm fire glowing in the fireplace and the cheery scent warmers wafting ginger-and-cinnamon Christmas fragrances into the air, making him think of home and hearth and spending Christmas with a she-wolf of his own. The place was nice and clean like his home, though he was certain Candice hadn’t expected visitors. Then the smell of burning gingerbread suddenly caught his attention and hers, and she rushed to the kitchen.
When he hurried in after her, he saw a tall Christmas tree sitting in one corner. The tree was covered in gold, red, and purple balls, just like his tie. Lights sparkled all over the tree, and Candice had a collection of reindeer in various sizes, along with nutcrackers, sitting on the fireplace mantel, under the tree, and on a curio cabinet. Really homey and holiday festive. Her decorated home was warm and cheery, not ostentatious like his. But what could he do? All the guys wanted to outdo each other with the decorations.
He wondered if Candice had friends over to enjoy the beautiful decorations. Or had she isolated herself because of the problem with her wolf half? Like they had done. At least he and his pack members had one another to share in the laughter and concerns—the shifts that had happened when they hadn’t had time to strip off their clothes, their near disasters when they were running as wolves and got caught on camera, and other catastrophes.
“I don’t normally feel faint over anything.” She yanked out the cookie sheet covered in gingerbread cookies. Shoving the sheet onto the stove top, she muttered about not taking her eyes off her cooking for anything next time.
“Believe me, I normally don’t either,” he told her. Smelling her beautiful scent had made him feel a little light-headed too.
Her chin tilted down, she gave him a look indicating that she didn’t believe him.
“Hell, if you hadn’t been holding on to the doorjamb and I hadn’t been holding on to you, we might have both ended up sitting on the floor.”
He swore she was fighting a smile as she grabbed a mixing bowl out of the fridge and set it on the counter, then pulled out another cookie sheet and a bag of flour and put them beside the bowl. Then to his surprise, she seized an apron and handed it to him. “Here. You made me burn my cookies, so you can help me make them again.”
He opened up the apron and read the message on it: Dear Santa, I’ve been very naughty… He laughed because that was in a Christmas wolf story she’d written, which he’d been listening to on audiobook on the drive here. Except in that story, the heroine was wearing lacy, red silk panties, a matching bra, and high-heeled shoes after going to a Christmas party. She’d slipped out of her classy gown to keep from making a mess of it. Owen couldn’t help but envision Candice wearing the red slips of silk and lace, the spiked heels, and this apron.
She glanced at the apron and yanked it out of his hands, her face turning as red as her hair. She shoved the apron in the drawer, then pulled out another. This one featured an image of Christmas balls. Safer. He smiled.
She frowned at him. “How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t easy. I first looked for you using your real name, not knowing you’re using your pen name for everything now. Once I knew your pen name, I found you on several social networking sites. No address on any of them. We use a top-notch professional investigative database available only to licensed PIs, and I found your current address in that.”
Owen looked down at the bowl of dough. Now he had to bake cookies, and he had no idea how to do it.
“Tell me what this is all about again. An inheritance? My parents wouldn’t have left me any money. They disowned me because of this little problem of mine.”
For an instant, Owen wondered if he really did have the right woman. “You’re Clara Hart, right?”
“In the past. Not today.”
He took a relieved breath. “Okay. Well, as long as Strom Hart recognizes you as his niece and you have proof of your former identity as Clara, we should be good.”
“We?” Candice sprinkled some of the flour on a cutting board and plopped a ball of dough on top of it. She started kneading.
He frowned at the speckled dots of flour that had somehow managed to end up on his black dress jacket. Here he was, trying to make an impression as a first-class private investigator, though he was usually more comfortable in jeans and a lumberjack shirt. He tried to brush away the flour spots and only managed to streak them all over the black fabric.
“Here, roll out the dough like this.” She took his hand and placed it on the rolling pin handle, and then she offered him the other handle. “Roll it out, and then cut out the cookies with the cutters.” She motioned to the tin cutters.
Owen looked down at the dough and glanced at the cutters.
“The Twelve Days of Christmas,” she said.
“Aren’t you supposed to drink Christmas drinks while you’re baking cookies?” He thought if he had a warm, fuzzy drink, he might even be half good at this. Using the rolling pin, he began trying to smoosh the dough onto the board to make it as thin as he thought it needed to be.
A piece of the buttery dough flipped off the rolling pin and onto his tie. He glanced down at it, not believing he was making such a mess of himself.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. That’s what the apron is for.” Candice frowned at his flour-speckled jacket, took hold of his arm, and moved him away from the counter so she could unbutton his jacket.
Never wearing an apron back home when he cooked, he hadn’t thought he’d make a mess of himself here. He’d been sure of it and had set the apron aside. He sure hadn’t expected her to unbutton his jacket.
Then she removed it and set it aside on a barstool. She began to work on unfastening his tie next, slipping it out of its knot and setting it on the counter next to the barstool.
Hell, all he could think about was her removing the rest of his clothes. His cock was already stirring to life. She smelled good: sweet and spicy, woodsy, and some kind of exotic floral mixture. She-wolf, of course, and gingerbread cookies.
He was waiting for her to remove his shirt when she looked up at him, her green eyes all-knowing. She grabbed the Christmas balls apron and slapped it against his chest. “Wear it so I don’t have to clean all your clothes.”
He wondered just how messy he could get while wearing the apron. His sleeves? Then she’d remove his shirt and…
She proceeded to clean his jacket and set it aside, and then she cleaned his tie while he went back to smooshing the ball of dough into something more manageable. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t make it perfectly level. Some places were fat, some skinny. He took a moment to stare at the dough to figure out what to do with it. He could imagine some of the cookies baking too fast and being way too crisp, and some being thick and doughy and not cooked all the way through.
“Are we having trouble?”
Yeah, that was an understatement. Owen pointed with the rolling pin at the unevenly rolled-out dough. “Some are for those who want fewer calories, and some for those who want a fuller bite.”
Candice laughed, then took the rolling pin from him, saving him from any more humiliation—or maybe she just wanted to make su
re the cookies turned out right and to finish this before the day turned into tomorrow.
She set the rolling pin aside, re-formed the dough into a ball, and rolled it out uniformly. She wasn’t even wearing an apron, but she didn’t have a drop of dough or flour on her.
“You’ve probably been doing this for a long time.” He imagined it would take him years to get it down pat.
“With my mom. We used to make them every Christmas. I always helped her. Until…” She shook her head.
“The camping trip and the unfortunate incident. You need to meet our pack. Talk to Corey about what he did. You’re part of it, you know. One of us.”
She snorted. “It’s hard enough keeping my ‘condition’ secret. How much harder would it be to keep the secret of a whole pack of Arctic wolves?”
“We manage it just fine. We have for seven years. In any event, you’re still one of us. We can help answer any questions you might have.” What he really wanted to do was prove being with another wolf was very different from being a lone wolf. “Would you like to run after this? As wolves?”
She handed him the partridge-in-a-pear-tree cookie cutter and placed her hand over his to show him how to apply pressure on top of the leveled-out dough, keeping it steady to make clean edges. He liked the way she touched him, thinking that if he wanted to learn how to bake cutout cookies right, he would be a really slow learner. She would have to repeat each move, her hand on his, leaning close, moving into his space, rubbing up against him. The oven was heating up, but so was he.
He helped her cut out the rest of the cookies and really was having fun. “So about running tonight?”
Candice turned to look at him, her lips parted in what appeared to be surprise. “How long do you intend to stay here? You know there’s a snowstorm on its way.”
“Which was why I felt compelled to come here to tell you about the inheritance, in case the electricity went out and you didn’t receive my contact email. And now I can try to convince you to come with me to see the pack. If nothing more than to let us know how you feel about being turned. Get it off your chest.” He glanced down at her breasts covered in a soft green sweater, the color matching her eyes. She had one hell of a nice chest.
