Werewolf in the North Woods

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  Apparently he expected to put his clothes on again, though, because he was stuffing them into a nylon backpack as if he wanted to keep them dry. Through the zoom lens, Abby could see…everything. Too bad he was a total nut-job, because he was one of the most beautiful men she’d ever had the privilege of viewing naked.

  Michelangelo would have loved to sculpt this guy. A girl didn’t usually see this kind of muscle definition in a college professor. True, Abby had only dated one of those in her life, but he’d been sort of soft in the middle.

  Roarke was the exact opposite of soft. He turned his back to her, and her mouth went dry. She hadn’t meant to take a picture, but her finger had a mind of its own. It pushed the button. Now, whether she wanted it or not, she had a shot of his powerful back, narrow hips, and tight buns. Oh, darn.

  Hey, what the hell. She’d make sure her grandfather never saw these pictures. But his legs were concealed behind some foliage, so she still didn’t have the complete man preserved for later viewing.

  Then he moved away from the foliage and she snapped another shot of his muscled thighs and strong calves. Yes, she was acting like a voyeur, but no woman in America would blame her. She willed him to turn around. She wasn’t planning to take a full-frontal picture, but she wasn’t above using the zoom to get a better look.

  Then he turned, but he’d shifted his position so that a fern became a very effective fig leaf. Damn. She held her breath and waited. Step away from the fern. Step away from the fern.

  Which he eventually did. Omigod. Now that was a package. If she’d been shivery and cold before, she imagined steam coming off her now. What a shame that such a well-endowed man was several slices shy of a loaf.

  As she congratulated herself on making the best of what had previously been a boring afternoon, Roarke surprised her once again. Zipping the backpack containing his clothes, he got to his knees and then stretched out on the carpet of wet leaves and pine needles.

  Whew. Anybody who would decide to sleep naked in the woods in the rain was seriously in need of a shrink. Maybe she should call 911. A loony appeared to be on the loose.

  Except Roarke wasn’t sleeping. Something was happening to him. When she began to understand what that something might be, she pinched herself hard. The pinch hurt, but that might not mean anything. She could still be in the middle of a nightmare.

  She had one way to know for sure. She’d keep taking pictures. If she was dreaming, she’d wake up. If she wasn’t, she’d have proof of what her eyes couldn’t believe was happening—Roarke, esteemed NYU professor of anthropology, was becoming a wolf.

  And not just any wolf, either. She’d seen this animal from the granite outcropping yesterday, its pale blond coat glowing in the early morning light as it prowled the Gentry estate. She’d known then it was no dog.

  She began to shiver and had to concentrate on holding the camera still. Assuming she was awake, the pictures she was taking now would change everything.

  Belatedly she realized that she could be in danger, assuming this was real. If she remembered her mythology correctly, a man who could change into a wolf was called a werewolf. Werewolves didn’t have a very good reputation. In movies they ran around biting people and generally causing problems.

  She had her pictures, and she might want to leave, now, before the wolf caught her scent. In fact, it was strange that it hadn’t done that yet. The breeze might have something to do with that. She could feel it on her face, which meant it was blowing toward her, carrying her scent away from the wolf.

  She was downwind of the wolf. The term hadn’t been anything she’d needed to use before, but it was important in this case because it might give her a brief reprieve.

  She’d been standing partially hidden behind a large pine. Slowly she backed away, stepping carefully so she didn’t trip and make noise. Inch by torturous inch, she put distance between herself and the wolf.

  Oddly enough, it didn’t seem to be aware of her. In fact, it turned in the other direction. She paused to see what it would do.

  Fortune smiled on her as the wolf sniffed the air and began trotting away. Apparently it had caught the scent of something upwind. Or rather he had caught the scent of something. She needed to remember that the wolf was Roarke. And Roarke was a wolf. A werewolf.

  At least she needed to remember it for the length of this dream. She still wondered if she was sound asleep in the spare room at Grandpa Earl’s place. The smell of coffee brewing would rouse her and she’d laugh about her overactive imagination.

  Turning, she started for home, pausing every few yards to glance over her shoulder and make sure a wolf wasn’t stalking her. Any minute now she might wake up, but even in dreams she liked to make it home safely.

  The trip home seemed to take forever, but finally she could see the back door of Dooley’s General Store. Grandpa Earl’s pickup was parked under the overhang beside the store, and smoke from the potbellied stove curled into the evening sky.

  Everything looked perfectly normal and not the least bit dreamlike. She stood gazing at the familiar scene and thought about Grandpa Earl waiting inside for a report on her adventures. Of all the people she knew, he might be the only one who would believe her if she described what she’d encountered.

  And yet…now that she was in sight of a safe haven and was beginning to accept that what she’d seen was real, the ramifications became clear. A werewolf was as much of a mythical creature as Bigfoot. Therefore if a werewolf had just appeared in front of her eyes, the other was no longer in doubt.

  And Roarke was out there looking. If that was the scent he’d picked up, he might have already found the mated pair that Grandpa Earl had seen. But why would he want to find them? Did the Gentrys know they’d hired a werewolf or was she the only person in Portland with that information?

  Come to think of it, she might be one of the few adults in Portland who could accept the fact that a man had transformed himself into a wolf. Someone else might offer a rational explanation having to do with shadows and poor eyesight. But she’d believed in fantastical creatures as a child, and judging from her instant recognition of a werewolf, she still believed in them.

  Still, she had no idea what she’d stumbled into. Maybe she should find out before involving Grandpa Earl. For one thing, he’d never allow her to confront a werewolf alone, and yet she didn’t want to expose him to potential danger, either.

  She clutched his camera, protected under her jacket. The camera was old, but not so old that it used film. Her grandfather had loved the idea of digital cameras and had bought one soon after they’d come out. When her grandfather went to bed she’d be able to download the pictures and print them on his aging printer.

  Then she could arrange to meet Roarke in broad daylight in a public place. Lunch at Flannigan’s would be perfect. She’d take it slow and rely on her instincts as to whether he would harm her if she revealed what she knew.

  He didn’t strike her as a violent kind of person, but he wasn’t a person, exactly. She wasn’t sure how he’d react when he found out she wanted him to take her on the hunt for the Bigfoot pair. She’d use her pictures as leverage. It was the one sure way to prove her grandfather was right, so he’d move to Arizona.

  The plan wasn’t without risk, which was why she had to do it without telling Grandpa Earl. But she hadn’t been this excited about anything in years. Essentially, she hoped to blackmail a werewolf into giving her the evidence she needed to vindicate her grandfather. Cool.

  Chapter Five

  Roarke had hoped finding the Sasquatch pair would be easier, but they must have been spooked by the large number of hikers in the area recently searching for them. If they’d simply leave the area permanently, that would solve the Gentrys’ problem. But Roarke wasn’t convinced they’d leave.

  Assuming the female was pregnant, she might be returning to her place of birth to have her baby. That theory had been advanced many times, although the evidence was scanty. Roarke couldn’t ignore the po
ssibility that the pair could move in the other direction for awhile and then turn around and come back.

  They hadn’t done so yet, however. Roarke had followed several faint trails that led nowhere and had finally given up for the night, shifted back to human form, and dressed in the clothes he’d left stashed in his backpack.

  Shifting out in the woods wasn’t his idea of fun, but he’d been in a hurry to leave the Gentry mansion and hadn’t wanted to linger even long enough to shift. Cameron Gentry was fast becoming a pain in the ass. He’d discovered late in the day that Roarke had cancelled out of his last two talks, and Cameron had taken that as a slap in the face.

  The Gentry alpha’s ego knew no bounds. Roarke had tried to explain, without revealing anything Abby had confided in him, that the talks were having the opposite effect from the one Cameron hoped for. After being attacked, Earl Dooley wasn’t cowed at all. He was more determined to stand his ground and prove his case.

  Cameron didn’t get it. He’d launched a campaign to humiliate Dooley and he intended to keep up the pressure until he succeeded. He had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

  The discussion had eventually turned into a heated argument, and Roarke had decided to leave before he said something he’d regret. After all, his parents were good friends with Cameron’s parents. He was supposed to be out here on a goodwill mission, not to stir up controversy.

  If he could find the Sasquatch pair, then he could relocate them and leave Cameron to stew in his juice. Roarke hadn’t promised to deliver Earl Dooley’s head on a platter, and he’d be damned if he’d continue that campaign. But the Sasquatch needed protection, maybe even from Cameron Gentry.

  Too bad he hadn’t found them tonight. But they were large and able to cover quite a bit of ground in a day. These two seemed to be diurnal instead of nocturnal. That was another misconception about Sasquatch—that they were all nocturnal. Like humans, some were night owls and some were larks. These two apparently moved around during the day, which was why Earl had spotted them in the first place.

  Hungry and frustrated by his lack of success, Roarke didn’t notice the message on his BlackBerry until he was back in his room at the mansion. Abby. She wanted to meet him for lunch at noon at Flannigan’s.

  Despite knowing that he shouldn’t have anything more to do with her, he texted an acceptance. Lunch in the city would break up his day and cut down on the number of hours he could spend looking for the Sasquatch pair, but Abby was the only bright spot so far on his Portland trip. A simple little lunch wouldn’t compromise the whole program.

  It was a testament to his eagerness that he arrived at Flannigan’s early the next day. But that meant he could watch her walk toward the booth where he was sitting. He soaked up every second of that experience.

  Her outfit was urban chic—gray slacks with those strappy high-heeled sandals guaranteed to drive men crazy, and a roomy black jacket worn over a tight white T-shirt. She’d piled her red hair on top of her head and added some large silver hoop earrings to the mix. He wanted to eat her up.

  Her color was high as she slid into the booth opposite him. “Thanks for meeting me on short notice.”

  “Happy to.” In fact, happy was too mild for the emotion he was feeling at seeing her. And smelling her. Once again, her scent grabbed him by the gonads. The two of them were meant to be lovers, but when?

  That sort of thing took time to develop, at least in his estimation. He couldn’t just invite her to join him in one of the hotel rooms conveniently located above them and expect her to go along with that. Any woman worth having was worth the trouble of wooing with a long, slow seduction. But he didn’t have that luxury.

  She asked how he’d been as they both consulted the menu. He gave the automatic response that he’d been fine, but busy. Then he continued the conversational tennis match by asking how she’d been. Fine, but busy. He smiled at her response.

  Eventually she’d tell him why she asked him to lunch. He wouldn’t push. His ego wanted to believe that she was as intrigued by him as he was by her. She was aware they didn’t have much time together in Portland, but maybe she wanted to make the most of what time they had. He wasn’t free to do that, but it would be nice to have her say it.

  After they ordered—steak sandwich for him and a bowl of vegetable soup for her—she leaned forward, as if not wanting to be overheard. He took that as a sign that she had something intimate to discuss. He mirrored her by leaning forward, too.

  Her eyes really were incredibly blue. He could gaze into them for hours. Her scent surrounded him, and his groin tightened.

  She moistened her full lips with her tongue. “I saw you in the woods late yesterday afternoon.”

  For a brief moment he didn’t get it. Then he did. But maybe it wasn’t as bad as he feared. “I went for a short hike.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Uh-oh. It was bad. “Abby, I don’t know what you thought you saw, but—”

  “Professor Wallace, you are a hypocrite.” Her blue eyes lost their friendly sparkle and bored into him like twin lasers. “Not only do you believe a Sasquatch pair is out there, you’re looking for them.”

  So maybe she hadn’t seen him shift. Maybe she’d just noticed him walking in the woods. He’d take the lesser charge, any day. “You found me out, Abby. Your grandfather’s story was so convincing that I decided to check out the situation for myself.”

  “You have an interesting method for doing that.”

  His heart pounded. Looking into her eyes, he saw what he’d been afraid he’d find there. She knew. Worse yet, hours had passed since then, hours when she could have spread the word about him to half of Portland. Any second a pitchfork-wielding mob could descend on Flannigan’s.

  But that wasn’t the worst part. He’d compromised werewolves everywhere. He’d failed not only the Gentrys, but every werewolf in the world. If he’d shifted at the mansion, which would have been the sensible thing to do…but no, he’d let his temper rule. And now this.

  He could tell by her determined expression that trying to convince her that she hadn’t seen him shift into wolf form was pointless. “All right,” he said quietly. “Where do we go from here?”

  She took a deep breath. “First of all, did you find anything last night?”

  “No.”

  “Why were you looking in the first place?”

  “I’m here to contact and relocate them. But before I say anything more, please tell me if people will be arriving soon to take me away. For all I know, you invited me here so I could be captured, studied, put on display.”

  She cringed. “No.”

  He relaxed a little. She’d seemed genuinely dismayed by that idea. But she still could have told her grandfather. Or maybe not. If she’d told Earl, he would be sitting here with her, both to protect her and to satisfy his scientific curiosity.

  Slowly the hope grew that she’d told no one. If that was the case, he still had a problem, but it wasn’t a global one, at least not yet. They were involved in a very delicate dance. He had to step carefully.

  “I know you have no reason to trust me,” he said.

  “None whatsoever. But I might have to take my chances and trust you, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Despite everything, I think we have the same goal, to find that Sasquatch pair. My motivation is to validate my grandfather’s claim. What’s yours?”

  He glanced around the restaurant. It was crowded and nobody seemed to be paying much attention to them, but that could change if someone happened to catch part of this conversation. “Look, you’ve said you may have to trust me, and if so, that needs to start now. We can’t have this discussion here. I’m too much at risk.”

  She hesitated. “Where would you like to have it?”

  “In my car would be good.”

  She looked nervous about that.

  “Okay, how about this. My car’s in a public garage. We can go sit in the car and talk. I won’t drive anywhere.”
<
br />   “And you’ll give me the keys.”

  “All right.” He fished in his pocket and handed over the keys to the Corvette. Then he took out his wallet and put enough money on the table to cover lunch. “Let’s go.”

  They didn’t talk on the way to the parking garage. Roarke spent most of the time beating himself up for having shifted in the woods where Abby had been able to see him. The rest of the time he listened to the sexy click, click, click of her high heels on the sidewalk. And here he’d thought she’d asked him to lunch because she was hot for his body. Too bad he’d been wrong.

  She clicked the locks open as they approached the red car and waved him away when he started to help her in the passenger side. “I’ve got it. Thanks.”

  He climbed behind the wheel and scooted the seat back as far as it would go so he could stretch his legs. They closed their doors in a perfectly synchronized move, and then they were alone in the small cockpit of the sports car.

  It could have been an erotic moment, considering how the tiny space was instantly filled with her compelling scent. But he was too worried about what this would mean to him and the Were community to be turned on.

  He cleared his throat. “First let me explain something to you regarding my…kind. We don’t have the best of reputations among humans.” He glanced at her to see how she reacted to that.

  She paled slightly, the first sign that she might not be as brave and confident as she appeared. “So you’re not human?”

  “Not in the strictest sense.”

  “But right now you look like it.”

  “Right now there’s not a single thing about me that isn’t human. My eyesight and sense of smell are better than the average person’s, but no one realizes that besides me. To the casual observer, I’m just a man.”

  Color bloomed in her cheeks. Then she glanced away.

  That’s when it hit him that she’d not only watched him transform into a wolf, she’d also seen him take off his clothes before the shift. “I guess you know exactly how human I am,” he said.