She met his gaze. “I suppose I do.” During a moment of silence, her eyes revealed the fascination she wouldn’t acknowledge. She cleared her throat as if struggling to remain aloof. “You mentioned a brother, and parents. Are they also—”
“No, just me.”
“Do they realize you’re a werewolf?”
“Abby, you already know more than it’s safe for you to know. Don’t make me tell you things that will only make this worse for both of us.”
“Can you explain that?”
He studied her, weighing the risks. “I can try. The usual reaction to my kind over the course of history has been fear. Fear makes people dangerous.”
She tucked the car keys in her oversized black purse and zipped it closed before settling it on her lap. “I managed to sneak in a little Google time this morning. It sounds as if your kind, as you call it, can be dangerous, too.”
He noted her choice of words—I managed to sneak in a little Google time. That reinforced his belief that she hadn’t told Earl yet. “I won’t lie to you. We—”
“Too late. You’ve been lying to me, and a bunch of other folks, ever since you arrived in Portland.”
“Out of necessity.”
She traced the stitching on her purse with one finger. “I guess I can understand that, but I still don’t see how you could stand up there at those service club meetings and trash Grandpa Earl’s sighting.” Her glance was accusing. “He saw them, didn’t he?”
“I’m sure he did.”
Her fingers tightened over the strap of her purse. “Damn it, Roarke, he needs to know that. He’s dreamed about making contact his entire life, and although he clings to the belief that the sighting was legitimate, I know you’ve made him doubt himself. That’s not right.”
Roarke sighed. “There are bigger issues than fulfilling your grandfather’s lifelong dream. Unusual creatures like Bigfoot need to be protected, not exploited.”
“He wouldn’t exploit them!”
“Wouldn’t he? The minute he printed that picture, he was down at Flannigan’s telling the world about it.”
“He was just excited. He didn’t mean any harm.”
Roarke sat in silence and waited for her to realize that excuse didn’t cut it.
Finally she rolled her eyes. “Of course you’re right. He didn’t stop to think about the repercussions of broadcasting his discovery. I’ll admit that waving the picture around wasn’t a very good idea.”
“No, it wasn’t. Luckily the search parties weren’t well-funded or well-organized. If they had been, that Sasquatch pair would be on its way to a zoo somewhere, or worse, a laboratory.”
Abby shuddered. “That makes me sick to my stomach.”
“As well it should. They’re very sweet animals, but they’re not particularly smart. They wouldn’t have understood what was happening to them, and if the people in charge decided to separate them…they mate for life, and I’m afraid they both would have died of a broken heart.”
“I don’t want any of that. And neither would my grandfather, if he realized the problems he could cause. He didn’t stop to think, but he’s not totally insensitive. I just wish he could know that he really did see them.”
Tension coiled in Roarke’s gut. She held his fate in the palm of her hand and he wondered if she knew that. “Are you considering telling him…about me?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” He held his breath as he waited for her answer.
“Because then I’d be putting you in the same danger as the Sasquatch.”
The tension in his stomach eased. “I’m not quite as vulnerable as a Sasquatch.”
She smiled. “And I’m sure you’re a whole lot smarter. But as you talked about what could happen to them, I couldn’t help thinking that most of it applies to you, too.”
He was so fortunate that compassion was part of her personality. If he had to accidentally show himself to a human, at least it had been someone he might be able to work with.
“Some of it applies to me,” he said, “but my ability to shift back to human form makes a huge difference. And I don’t have a mate to be separated from, so that’s not an issue.” He didn’t know why he’d felt compelled to add that piece of information.
She picked up on it, too. “Nobody’s waiting at home?”
“No.”
“Confirmed bachelor?”
“Not that, either. I just haven’t met anyone who inspires me to settle down. It’s a big deal with us, because we also mate for life. I know humans say they do, but when you get right down to it…”
She nodded. “Yeah, it’s more like mating for the time being, to see if it works out or not. I suppose knowing that you’re signing on for life would make you more cautious about making that commitment.”
“It does.” He wasn’t about to tell her that she smelled the way he imagined his mate would smell, or that the very sight of her brought him joy. That didn’t matter, because she was not Were, and he had no interest in a mixed marriage. Let Aidan be the trailblazer in that regard.
“Naturally you’ll choose another…of your kind.”
“Yes, I will.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
He watched the silver hoops in her ears sway as she moved. “Why did you arrange this meeting, Abby? What is it you want from me?”
“With all those degrees, I would think you’d have it figured out by now.”
“I have some ideas, but unless you want to play guessing games, why don’t you tell me and save some time?”
“All right.” She turned to gaze at him. “If you didn’t find the Sasquatch pair yesterday, I’ll assume you plan to keep looking.”
“I do. The female may have picked this area because she was born here and wants her baby to be born here, but they need to change the plan. I hope to find them and convince them that another spot would be far better.”
“Take me with you.”
He’d expected this, but it was impossible. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but that wouldn’t work. I’ll be moving quickly.” And in wolf form.
“But if I go with you and I see them, then I can report back to Grandpa Earl.”
“Who is liable to sound the alarm.”
“Not if I tell him what you just told me about their vulnerability. He’s a good man, Roarke. He wouldn’t knowingly cause them harm, not after all these years of studying them.”
“Abby, I really can’t take you. You’d slow me down and potentially spook the Sasquatch. I can come back and report what happened, but—”
“You have to take me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I have the goods on you, Roarke.”
“Nobody will believe you. They’ll think you’ve spent too much time listening to your grandfather.”
“They might, at that, except for one thing.” She patted the black leather purse. “I have pictures. I took them with Grandpa Earl’s very powerful zoom lens. They’re not fuzzy.”
Chapter Six
The situation was serious, and not without risk, but still Abby felt giddy with triumph. Judging from Roarke’s expression, she’d shocked him with her mention of the pictures. She’d never blackmailed anyone before, let alone a werewolf, and apparently she had a flair for it.
“Pictures.” His green eyes narrowed. “Of everything?”
“Everything.”
His face turned a dull red. “I see.”
“Just so you know, I erased them from Grandpa Earl’s camera, but I loaded them all on a flash drive first. I’ve hidden it, but if anything should happen to me, that hiding place would be the first spot Grandpa Earl would look for clues.”
He nodded, as if finally realizing she’d thought this through. She could thank her logical parents for that ability, plus several years at a job that required her to use her analytical skills. She might be a dreamer at heart, but she’d had plenty of practice using the left side of her brain, too.
She’d put
the flash drive in a small cedar box with Portland, Oregon burned into the lid. Grandpa Earl sold those boxes in his store, and he’d given her one when she was a little girl. The box had a hidden compartment, and he’d told her she could keep her secrets in it.
She’d been thrilled with the box, but she’d left it on a shelf in the spare bedroom at her grandparents’ house because she’d been afraid her brother Pete would try to mess with it if she took it back to Arizona. The box was still there, and she and Grandpa Earl had joked about it just the other day.
She glanced at Roarke, whose blush was fading. She’d thought that blush was cute. “Would you like to see the pictures, so that you know I’m not bluffing?”
“Oh, I know you’re not bluffing. But yes, I’d like to see them.”
Opening her purse, she pulled out a five-by-seven manila envelope and handed it across the console. “I printed them last night after Grandpa Earl was asleep. I really don’t want him to know about this. If he realized that you were…different, he’d never let me go with you.”
Roarke unfastened the envelope’s metal clasp. “He wouldn’t have let you meet me for lunch, either, I’ll bet.”
“Not without him.”
He glanced at her. “You did take quite a chance, meeting me today.”
Her pulse rate quickened. It had seemed like a grand adventure when she’d planned coming here, but maybe she had been a little naïve, a little foolhardy. Cars came and went in the garage, but would anyone hear her if she yelled for help? Would anyone respond?
Roarke pulled out the pictures and glanced at the first few which were of him fully clothed. Then he came to one of him in his birthday suit. He flipped through the rest quickly and shoved them back in the envelope.
Then he sighed and glanced at her. “Yes, I’ll be taking you with me.”
And now she wasn’t so sure she wanted to go. She’d be all alone out there in the woods…with a werewolf. What had she been thinking?
“This whole situation is unfortunate,” he continued, “but I’m going to do my best to see you through it safely. Please don’t ask too many questions along the way, because if I give you the answers, then—”
“Then you’ll have to kill me?” She said it lightly, trying to make it into a joke, but still her chest tightened with fear. She’d thought she was so smart, yet if Roarke didn’t want anyone to know he was a werewolf, he had one way to guarantee that she wouldn’t tell.
But his expression softened. “Abby, it’s not your fault that you saw me shift. It’s mine. Because of that…” He paused and when he spoke again, his tone was resolute. “Because of that, I will protect you with my life.”
That knocked the breath right out of her. Her hand to her chest, she struggled for air. “You…sound as if that might be necessary.”
“Not if we’re careful. I don’t want to frighten you, but you’ve stumbled into something you don’t understand.”
“Then I need to understand.”
He shook his head. “The less you know the better. Your best bet is to destroy these pictures, wipe that flash drive clean, and stay out of the woods while I take care of business.”
“Unless you have one of those gizmos from Men in Black that wipes out my memory, I just can’t do that. I’d feel that I’d let down Grandpa Earl.”
“That was a handy little item Tommy Lee Jones had.” Roarke gave her a wry smile. “Believe me, if I had one, I would have used it on you by now.”
“Lucky for you I can be trusted not to blab.”
His gaze intensified. “Everything depends on that, Abby.”
In for a penny, in for a pound. She’d come this far, so she might as well see this through. “But in return for not blabbing, you have to take me on your Sasquatch hunt.”
“Looks like I do.”
“Then let’s get going.” She reached for the door handle. “We could make some progress this afternoon. Where should we meet?”
“At Dooley’s General Store. I want to accept your grandfather’s offer of camping supplies so we can stay out there. That would increase the chance of finding the Sasquatch pair and decrease the chance that the Gentrys will know you’re with me.”
“You don’t want them to know?”
“I think it’s better if they don’t. They’d think I was fraternizing with the enemy by taking Earl’s granddaughter along on a Sasquatch hunt.”
“Sure. Okay.” She squashed the uneasy feeling in her tummy. Better not to think about the fact that she’d just agreed to spend at least one night in the woods with a werewolf. “Small matter, but do you…ah…shift every night? I mean, it’s okay if you do. I’m totally cool with that. Don’t worry about me freaking out or anything, but it might be good for me to know what—”
“I only shift when I choose to.”
“Oh.” What a surreal discussion. “So that whole full moon thing is not an issue?”
“Not anymore. We’ve…I’ve evolved to the point where the phase of the moon or time of day doesn’t matter.”
“Good to know.” But she’d caught his little slip with the we part of that sentence. He wasn’t the only werewolf in the world.
“So in other words, I’m in full control of my shift, so you don’t have to worry about…” He smiled. “Spontaneous fur.”
“I do believe you just made a joke.” She lowered her voice. “A werewolf joke.”
“You were looking a little tense.”
“I think that’s perfectly understandable, under the circumstances, don’t you?”
“Yes. In fact, I think you’re handling this amazingly well.”
“Thank you. I do have one question.” A car with the sound system blaring drove past and she waited until the noise died down. “Let’s say we’re out in the woods, and you feel the need to shift. And then let’s say you bite me, either by accident or on purpose.”
“I won’t, either by accident or on purpose.”
“Pretend that you did, for the sake of argument. Would I become one of your kind?”
“No. That’s a myth.”
“Yes, but you’re a myth. If you’re real, then anything is possible, including the stories about bites turning the human into…you know. Those stories must be based on something.”
“They’re based on fear and superstition.”
“So if you don’t make new werewolves by biting people, then how to you become one?”
“Born that way.”
She knew a little something about genetics. If Roarke had been born a werewolf, then he had others in his family tree. And she suspected that the Gentrys did, too. It was a lot to assimilate. She took a shaky breath and told herself to stay calm.
Roarke crossed his forearms over the steering wheel and glanced at her. “You don’t have to go with me. I can come back and tell you what I saw. Wouldn’t that be enough evidence for you to relay to your grandfather?”
She shook her head. “Not if I can be an eye-witness.” Obviously he’d picked up on her nervousness. “I was just trying to get an idea of what to expect.”
“No biting.”
Taking another deep breath, she studied him. “I believe you because your eyes didn’t flicker.”
“What?”
“When you were giving your talks and you insisted Bigfoot was an imaginary creature, your eyes flickered. I’ve learned at work that people do that when they’re falsifying a claim.”
“Are you saying that I need some practice at lying?”
“No, I’m saying that you might as well tell me the truth, because I’ll know when you don’t.”
He met her gaze. “Fair enough. So how did you get here?”
“In my grandfather’s old truck. It’s parked on the next level.”
“If you’ll give me the keys, I’ll drive you there.”
She unzipped her purse and took them out. “I suppose if you’d really wanted to harm me this little ploy wouldn’t have mattered.” She handed him the keys.
“No.”
He took the keys, put them in the ignition, and started the car. “Confronting me today was a reckless thing to do.”
As the truth of that sank in, she leaned back with a sigh. “Guess I’m lucky you decided to be nice about this, huh?”
“Yes.” He checked the rearview mirror and backed out of the parking space. “Yes, you are.”
Roarke texted Cameron that he was heading out into the woods and wouldn’t be back until he’d located the Sasquatch pair. Cameron’s return text was short and to the point. C that U do.
After gathering up a change of clothes and some toiletry items, Roarke tossed them in a backpack and set out for the general store. He would have loved to drive the red Corvette, but he couldn’t risk parking it anywhere near the store, so he walked the two miles separating the Gentrys’ front gate from Earl’s place. The ever-present light rain settled on his shoulders, but he wore a waterproof jacket and an NYU ball cap, so he didn’t get very wet.
The mechanical bird noise twittered when he opened the door, and Earl came to greet him, all smiles. “Abby’s in the back getting her stuff together. This is terrific, Roarke, just terrific. When Abby told me you wanted to mount an expedition to hunt for Bigfoot, I felt like dancing a jig, although I decided against it because I might fall down.”
“That story of yours was very persuasive, Earl.”
“But you had to take time to let it sink in.” Earl’s blue eyes were bright behind his glasses. “I understand that. I’m the same. Don’t like to jump on the bandwagon until I’ve had a chance to assimilate the information. I admire that kind of caution in a man.”
“Maybe I’m just dense.” Roarke slipped off his backpack and left it by the front door.
“I don’t think so.” Earl clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go pick out some camping gear. And before you even offer to pay, I want you to know the supplies are on the house.”
“That’s not right.”
“Of course it is. I feel as if I’m mounting an expedition, sort of like when Queen Isabella sent Christopher Columbus out to find the New World. She couldn’t go herself, but she provided the wherewithal. That’s my position right now, and the least I can do is finance this trip.”
Werewolf in the North Woods Page 6
