THE WEREWOLF
DATES THE DEPUTY
Nocturne Falls, Book Twelve
Kristen Painter
Welcome to Nocturne Falls, the town that celebrates Halloween 365 days a year. The tourists think it’s all a show: the vampires, the werewolves, the witches, the occasional gargoyle flying through the sky. But the supernaturals populating the town know better.
Living in Nocturne Falls means being yourself. Fangs, fur, and all.
Fire chief and werewolf, Titus Merrow, has a pretty good life. Great family, great job, great friends. No love interest, sure, but he’s got too much going on to worry about that. Like the 10k race for charity that he’s helping to plan. Too bad the woman he’s planning it with is so hot. No, wait. He meant annoying.
Sheriff’s deputy and valkyrie, Jenna Blythe, has somehow gotten stuck working on a charity event with her boss’s brother. Not only is Titus Merrow full of himself, but he challenges every suggestion she makes about the race. Why are the handsome ones always so smug? She can’t wait to beat him in the competition and bring home the trophy for the sheriff’s department. Again.
But when they answer a call together and things explode, dangerous magic is unleashed. They’re suddenly forced to work together. Literally. And the magic only gets more treacherous as time ticks forward. Not even Jenna’s good friend seems to be able to help them as shady forces lurk in every shadow.
Swords and sorcery abound, and Jenna’s past comes back to haunt her. She and Titus are left with no choice but to question everything—and everyone. Who’s targeting them? Is what they’re feeling real? Can love survive against darkness? Can a valkyrie learn to run with the pack?
THE WEREWOLF DATES THE DEPUTY:
Nocturne Falls, Book Twelve
Copyright © 2020 Kristen Painter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-1-941695-56-2
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NEWSLETTER
Table of Contents
THE WEREWOLF DATES THE DEPUTY
About the Book
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Author
Other books by Kristen Painter
Many Thanks
For my husband, who may or may not have inspired a few lines of dialogue in this book.
Being the sheriff of a town where Halloween was celebrated three hundred and sixty-five days a year had its ups and downs. Today wasn’t an up.
Hank Merrow stared across the conference table at the two stubbornest people on the face of the earth. His brother, Titus, who was also the fire chief, and one of his best deputies, Jenna Blythe, a valkyrie.
The only other person who might be more stubborn than these two was his sister, Bridget, who owned the local watering hole, Howler’s. No, wait. Make that their aunt, Birdie Caruthers, the woman he’d foolishly hired in a weak moment of nepotism to work as the sheriff department’s receptionist.
Okay, maybe stubbornness ran in the family. But that didn’t explain Jenna.
She and Titus stared back at him, waiting on an answer.
He growled softly. “Look, I forgot. It happens. I have a three-year-old at home. I’m lucky I remember to eat breakfast. Can’t one of you just step aside?”
Titus shook his head. “Kind of dirty pool using my niece as an excuse. But I’m not stepping aside. It’s high time the fire department got to organize the charity relay 10K. The sheriff’s department always does it.”
“That’s because we do it right,” Jenna said.
Titus glared at her. “And you think we wouldn’t?”
She raised her brows. “I think you’d make it all about the fire department, and it’s supposed to benefit all first responders. Plus, you’d probably make people carry hoses or buckets of water.”
Titus snorted. “That’s quite an assumption, and I don’t like—”
“Enough,” Hank said. “Since neither of you wants to step down, you can co-chair the project.”
Jenna scowled. “What?”
Titus looked fit to chew nails. “Hank, that is not—”
Hank stood. “I’m going back to my office and back to work. The matter is settled. Unless one of you wants to quit.” He almost cringed. He shouldn’t have said quit. There was no way either one of them would do that.
The two of them, the werewolf and the valkyrie, went back to arguing. With him or with each other, he wasn’t entirely sure, but he wasn’t sticking around to find out. He left and shut the door behind him. Their bickering carried through the door—although to be fair, he was a werewolf, so his hearing picked up a lot more than most people’s.
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
Birdie, seated behind the reception desk, snickered. “How’d that go?”
He gave her a look. “You can hear as well as I can. You already know.”
“Yes, I do.” She sipped her caramel-and-cinnamon-scented coffee, if you could even call such a froufrou drink coffee. Ripples of white foam remained on the surface, all that was left of the whipped cream that had once topped it. “But I still want to talk about it.”
“I don’t.” He went straight to his office, which necessitated continuing past her desk. “Next year, the sheriff’s department is out of that race entirely.”
Birdie frowned. “You mean you aren’t going to let the deputies enter?”
“They can enter. But we aren’t planning it. Not a single kilometer. We’ll provide security. That’s it.” He opened his office door. “Hold my calls. And no visitors unless a serial killer comes to confess.”
“That reminds me. Ivy called.” Birdie grinned.
He frowned. “Serial killers remind you of Ivy?” Not the most flattering comparison to his wife.
“No, you ninny.” Birdie frowned right back at him. “The hold-my-calls part.” She smiled again. “Hannah Rose said her first full sentence.”
Hank’s heart clenched at the mention of his little girl. “What did she say?”
Birdie’s grin widened. “Check your phone. Ivy sent a video.”
“Will do.” Now he had a real reason to hide away in his office. “Thanks.”
He went in, shut the door, and picked up his phone off the charger on his desk. He pu
lled up Ivy’s text and hit play.
Hannah Rose appeared on the screen. She was at the side of the couch. Off-camera, he could hear Ivy saying, “Go ahead, tell Daddy.”
Hannah Rose laughed and lifted her chubby arm in the air. “I love you, Daddy.”
The words were clear and distinct, and Hank had to swallow against the knot of emotion suddenly clogging his throat. The sweet words of his baby girl wiped away all the stress of the last few minutes.
Ivy turned the camera around, her beautiful face filling the screen. He smiled. Was there a more perfect woman than his wife? She blew him a kiss. “I love you too. See you for dinner, honey.”
The video ended. With a full heart, Hank sent a text back, telling Ivy he loved her, too, and would definitely see her for dinner and did she need him to pick up anything at the store.
And just like that, Titus and Jenna and the race were forgotten.
* Six months later *
Titus had better things to do than sit down for yet another meeting with Jenna Blythe. She might be a great deputy and one of the tougher supernaturals in Nocturne Falls, but she was also a royal pain in his—
A knock on his open office door made him look up.
“Chief?” Sam Kincaid, Bridget’s boyfriend and a fellow pack member, stood in the door. “Jenna’s here.”
Six minutes early too. He sighed and nodded. “Send her in.”
Sam grinned. “Don’t you think she makes that uniform look good?”
Titus narrowed his eyes and decided to torture the younger man a little. “I’m sure Bridget would love to hear that.”
Sam’s smile faltered. “I wasn’t saying that I… I was wondering if you’d noticed. I’m all in for Bridget.”
“Good to know.” Titus had noticed. But Jenna’s ability to fill out a deputy’s uniform didn’t negate that she argued with him over every detail of this race. Just like the way she smelled like lemons and sunshine didn’t change how she’d double-checked all the flyers and posters to make sure the sheriff’s department had equal billing. Oh, sure, she’d claimed it was to look for typos, but he knew better.
What kind of valkyrie smelled like lemons and sunshine, anyway? Shouldn’t they smell like…brimstone and sadness?
Jenna walked in. Her dirty-blond hair was back in its usual knot, up off her collar as per regs, but a narrow strand had escaped and now hung down over her right eyebrow. It seemed to point to her lush mouth. He swallowed and made himself stop staring. Thankfully, she tucked the wayward lock back behind her ear. “I brought you the updated sponsor list.”
He leaned back in his chair a bit. She did look good in her uniform. Any man would notice that. But he was a red-blooded werewolf. He couldn’t be expected to ignore an attractive female. Even if she was annoying. “You could have emailed that to me.”
Her crystal-blue eyes narrowed. “This is easier. I’m on patrol today. Not sitting at a desk.”
Like some people. Like him. That’s what she seemed to be implying. He frowned.
“Besides,” she went on, “I wanted to tell you about the two new ones I just firmed up. Big Daddy Bones is donating two seventy-five-dollar gift cards. And—”
“Have you eaten there? I hear the barbecue is pretty good.”
She looked up from her notes. “Yes, I eat there every once in a while. Not enough to be a regular, but they seemed to remember me. Probably the uniform. You?”
“No.” He knew he should change up his routine a little, but most nights he ate at Howler’s, seeing as how his sister owned the place. Okay, almost every night. “I should check them out.”
“You should. Especially because they’re sponsoring.”
Maybe he’d ask her if she wanted to go with him, just to see the look of shock and horror on her face. He snickered at the very idea. Then wondered what she’d look like out of uniform. Well, not out of her uniform altogether. But in something different. Although, now the first image was kind of stuck.
She frowned. “Why is that funny? Why are you smiling like that?”
“It isn’t, sorry, just remembering something someone said earlier.” He realized he was still smiling. He tried to clear his head and focus.
“Good to know I’ve got your full attention,” she snarked.
He sighed. If only she knew what he was thinking about. “You do. Go on.”
With a rather stern look, she did. “I also got the DIY Depot to donate a room of flooring.”
“Hey,” he said. “That’s pretty good.”
She lifted her gaze to look at him. “I’m very persuasive.”
He could see that. Maybe it was a valkyrie thing. She probably ground people down until they gave in. Except, her sister didn’t seem that way. But then, Tessa was a librarian and not quite so…direct. “I’ve been talking to people too.”
“And?”
“Guildman’s is donating a two-hundred-dollar gift card and two hours of wardrobe styling.”
Jenna’s mouth bunched to one side. “Nice. I can think of a lot of guys who could use some of that.”
“Really? What do you think ‘wardrobe styling’ is, exactly? I didn’t want to ask.” As a man who spent every day in a uniform, Titus’s nonwork wardrobe didn’t go much beyond jeans and T-shirts, with the occasional flannel button-down thrown in for cold weather.
Jenna shrugged. “I suppose Dexter Guildman would help the winner decide what works for them and what doesn’t. Or maybe he’ll select a few outfits for them to show them how they could dress.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s probably it.”
She laughed and shook her head.
“What?” Titus said. “You don’t like a nicely dressed man? You know what that song says. Every girl’s crazy for a sharp-dressed man.”
She looked at him, clearly unimpressed with his ZZ Top reference. What did valkyries listen to? Swedish death metal?
“I’m all for a nicely dressed man,” she said, “but I care more about what a guy’s like on the inside. Who he is, not how he’s dressed. Clothes are optional.”
He choked a little. “Optional?”
She went slightly pink in the cheeks. “That’s not what I meant. I meant character matters. Clothes don’t.”
He decided to let her off easy. “Well, I agree with that.”
But he also thought her head would be turned like every other woman’s at the sight of a man in a great suit. Wasn’t that what women liked? He wasn’t really sure anymore. Since his fiancée, Zoe, had broken things off a few years ago, he’d pretty much given up on having a relationship, deciding to throw himself into work instead.
Work was dependable. And he wasn’t interested in getting his heart broken again, no matter how well things had turned out for Hank and Bridget and their significant others. Titus recognized that he’d had his chance at love, and it had gone belly up.
Jenna handed over the paper she was holding. “You can put that in your race file, or wherever you’re keeping things.”
“Will do.” As he accepted the paper, her radio crackled.
Birdie’s voice came over. “There’s been a report of a suspicious person loitering at 2310 Batwing. House is for sale and currently unoccupied. Could just be a lookie-loo.”
Jenna grabbed her handset and answered. “I’m on my way.”
Titus put the sponsor list off to one side to be filed later. “That’s only two blocks away.”
Birdie’s voice came on again. “Hang on. There’s also a report of the smell of gas in the same area. I need to call the fire station.”
Jenna clicked the handset again. “No need to call. I’m at the fire station right now.” She looked at Titus.
He nodded, answering her unspoken question.
Jenna squeezed the handset. “Chief Merrow will accompany me to check for a gas leak. We’ll be there in two minutes.”
“Roger,” Birdie said. “Over and out.”
Jenna stood, pushing her chair back.
“I’ll kit up and be right
behind you.”
“See you there.” She left his office, going toward the front of the building.
He went right and headed for the back, where his truck was parked. Along the way, he stopped, put on his protective gear, and grabbed his gas meter.
He arrived at the house just as Jenna was walking toward the front door. He joined her, meter in hand. “What’s the plan?”
She looked surprised he’d asked, but this was her call since she was the law. “I’m going to check the doors, see if any of them are unlocked or have been forced open. You want to keep an eye on the front while I circle around?”
“Sure.” He inhaled, his wolf senses working overtime. “I do smell traces of what might be gas. It’s very faint, though, so if there’s a leak, it’s not a major one.” He pulled the meter out and took a look. “Not enough to register.”
“Well,” she said, “I’d trust a werewolf’s sense of smell over a piece of equipment. I’ll be quick, then we’ll go in.”
He almost rocked back on his heels. That was the closest she’d ever come to complimenting him. “Okay.”
With her weapon drawn but at her side, she went up the steps of the front porch and checked the door. It was locked, as was the real estate agent’s lockbox secured around the knob. From there, she headed around the side of the house.
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