by Michele Hauf
And she had the sweetest curves on that tiny package topped with red curls and a Kewpie doll smile.
Now as he took the steps up to the door, he inspected the flowers he’d picked up at a gas station on the way here. Blue daisies. He liked blue. Her eyes were blue. But the flowers didn’t have a scent and now he studied them closer, they actually looked...dyed.
“I can’t even do flowers right.” Thinking to toss them aside in the little flower garden that hugged the front of the redbrick house, he paused. “She’ll see them there.”
For once he would like to get it right with a woman. It would be a bright spot in his life. And he really needed one. But his nervousness around the female sex could never be allayed by his usual confident alpha surety. Women made him go all stiff and fumble for his words. And hiding the stiff part could sometimes prove a problem, as well.
Smirking at that thought, he grabbed the door knocker and muttered, “Please let her like me. Give me this one, okay?”
Who he was asking, he wasn’t sure. He believed in the possibility of God, so if there existed a higher power, he hoped his words would, at the very least, be noted by some force.
Rapping the knocker a few times, he then waited. After ten seconds the door swung open to reveal the flour-dusted face of a witch who sported a surprised look on her face. Hell, he should have called first. But she had told him to stop by for lunch. He must have misunderstood. Par for the course with him.
“Uh...?” Thick black lashes blinking over her blue eyes, she glanced to the flowers in his hand. “Oh! Right! Lunch! I forgot.”
“I should have called.”
“No, that’s fine.”
“You weren’t expecting me. I can leave and—”
“Don’t be silly.” She grabbed him by the wrist and coaxed him over the threshold. “Come in! I was baking some bread.”
“It smells great.” He followed the scent toward the kitchen more than he followed her. Yeast and warmth and crisp browned crust. Mmm... He scanned the many loaves on the kitchen counter. He counted eight but also noted the oven light was on and there was another loaf inside. “That’s...a lot of bread.”
“I know, it’s crazy!” She flung up her hands in surrender, then noted the flour on her fingers and wiped them across her pink frilled apron, which was covered with a white dusting of flour. “Whenever I get the urge to bake homemade bread I always go overboard. I really like the kneading process.” She punched the air with a tiny fist. “Gets out some of my frustrations.”
Lars wasn’t sure if he should sit on one of the stools before the kitchen counter—that might seem too presumptuous—so he stood there holding the bouquet with both hands. Feeling out of his element and, as usual, awkward. “You’re frustrated?”
“It’s because of a decision I’ve been mulling over recently. A witch thing. A spell, actually. So, you brought some pretty flowers for me? I love blue.”
“I do too. I can’t smell them, though. It’s kind of strange.”
He handed her the bouquet and she pressed the oddly colored blooms to her nose, then sneezed. “Whew! Nope, no smell, but I think I got a petal up my nose. Ha! Sit down. Oh, we were supposed to go out for lunch, right?” She glanced to the oven.
“We can do it some other time. I can see you’re busy. It was nice to see you again today. I thought I freaked you out last night. I know I handled things wrong.”
“Don’t worry about it. Today’s a new day. And I have an idea. Because I certainly need to do something with all this bread. How about sandwiches and lemonade out on my patio?”
Spend time with the sexiest woman he’d met in a long time? “I’m in.”
* * *
The opportunity to have lunch with the sexy werewolf was just the thing to knock Mireio out of her incessant worrying over how to locate a vampire for the immortality spell. It would also complement the fruitful results of her bread-making endeavors. Sure, she would hand out loaves to her girlfriends, and freeze a couple, but seriously, what witch needed that much bread?
So she sliced up a loaf of oatmeal rye, making the slices extra thick. The steam rose with a seductive invitation as she spread on some cucumber yogurt sauce, covered that with spinach, pickled onions, peppers and some slivered carrots and radishes. Top that all with broccoli sprouts and finely shredded red cabbage, and voilà!
With a glance and a wink to the candle she kept above the stove, she felt as if her mother was watching over her. She lit the beeswax candle once a year on her mother’s birthday. It was her way of keeping her memory close.
Ten minutes later, the werewolf didn’t seem to mind that there was no meat in the sandwiches. He was on his third half when Mireio returned to the patio with a refill on the blueberry lemonade for both of them.
“This is really good,” he said. He sat on the wide-backed white wicker chair before the tiny wrought iron table. His big form seemed to suck up the chair and his knees kept hitting his elbows. It was doll furniture for the man. “What’s that sour tangy stuff in the middle?”
“Pickled red onions.”
“Love them. Thanks,” he said as she poured him more lemonade.
“I’ll send you home with a loaf of bread too, if you don’t mind. I obviously have some to spare.”
“I’d like that.” He met her gaze only briefly over the sandwich.
He was a shy one, which surprised Mireio after his bold approach last night. But she’d sensed his nervousness then, as well. And knowing what he’d known about her, it had to have been tough to get up the courage to approach her. Especially when she could have reacted badly—and did.
She noticed his distraction as he looked over the small backyard, framed in on one side by ten-foot-high lilac hedges and low boxwood on the other. As he narrowed his eyes she suspected he was remembering. Merciful moons, she might as well rip off the Band-Aid and get all the painful stuff over with.
“Yes,” she offered, “I was standing right there—” she pointed over her shoulder “—by the door that enters into the bathroom.”
“Sorry. I didn’t want to ask. It’s the lilacs. They are what brought me to your doorstep today, and to the brewery last night. The scent is heady.”
“You wolves have good sniffers. Did you happen to remember an old lady screaming from that night?”
“I, uh...” He set the remaining quarter of sandwich on the plate. “Yes?”
Mireio chuckled at his obvious confusion. “It’s okay. Mrs. Henderson is a drama queen. She stopped over the next morning. Wanted to talk about the monster.”
“Monster?”
“Yes. And get this—she’d changed her mind from her original assessment that it was Bigfoot. Now she’s sure it was a Sasquatch.”
“A—really?” His mouth dropped at the corners and his big brown eyes saddened.
“You’re not a monster.” She felt the need to reach over and pat his knee in reassurance. “But it’s a good thing she thinks that, isn’t it? If she was telling everyone she’d seen a werewolf, that could cause trouble for you. How many people actually believe in Sasquatches?”
“About as many as believe in werewolves?” He rubbed his palms on his thighs.
“Right. But don’t worry about it.” She sipped the lemonade. “So you said something like it wasn’t normal for you to tromp through yards in werewolf form. Why were you in my yard the other night? Were you lost? Had you come through the cornfield that backs up to the yard?”
He picked up the lemonade and drank half of it. The man seemed nervous again. Yet much as she shouldn’t push, curiosity was a witch’s best tool when it came to making good choices and weeding out the wrong.
“Well, I mean, aren’t werewolves much more cautious about shifting near humans? And it wasn’t even a full moon.”
“I don’t know why it ha
ppened,” he blurted out. “It’s something I’m looking into.”
“Really? Like, something is wrong with you?”
He shrugged. “I went to a doctor a few days ago and he checked me out. Said it was probably nothing to worry about. Might have been sleep shifting.”
“Sleep shifting? I can’t imagine.”
“Neither can I. The doc took a bunch of blood and did some other tests.”
“And?”
“And? Uh, he hasn’t called with the results yet. It’s nothing. I don’t think you have to worry about finding me in your backyard in werewolf shape anytime in the future.”
“Well, I’d rather you in my backyard than Mrs. Henderson’s. You have to be careful.”
“I am,” he said forcefully.
And Mireio took that as a warning to curb the conversation topic. She did love an alpha, but she wasn’t stupid. When you poke a wolf with a stick, it’ll bite.
She prodded the bread crust on her plate. “So you said you’re some kind of security guy?”
“That was just my roundabout way of saying I’m scion of the Northern Pack without actually telling anyone I’m a werewolf.”
“Right. Gotta be careful. But since I know... What does being a scion entail?”
“At the moment? Not much.” He chuckled and his shoulders relaxed. The wicker chair creaked as he settled into it. And those sexy dimples returned. “The pack I grew up in has been shrinking every year. A few years ago, Ridge Addison handed over the principal reins to Dean Maverick, which bumped me up to scion, his second-in-command. But there are only two other pack members at present, and the only one who lives on the compound is Maverick and his woman, Sunday.”
“I know Sunday. She’s good friends with one of The Decadent Dames owners, Valor Hearst.”
“I know Valor. I’ve sold her queen bees for her hives. I’m also a beekeeper. I think I mentioned that last night?”
“That’s so cool. I love bees. They’re so fluffy.”
“And industrious. They fascinate me. And Sunday is awesome. Lately she’s been helping me with...a project.”
Mireio leaned across the table and caught her chin in hand. “What sort of project?”
“Just something—” he held his hands in the air to suggest something bread-basket sized “—small.”
A small project that he obviously didn’t want to talk about. The man was either shy or shifty. Mireio would stick with shy. And he was a cute shy, so that made his reluctance to expound easier to accept. On with the next topic. “You said you’ve been remodeling a house?”
“Yes, my cabin. I’m fixing it up. I intend to add on two rooms to the back before winter. I live about a run away from the pack compound.”
“A run?”
“I can jog back and forth from the cabin to the compound in about five minutes, or take a leisurely stroll in fifteen minutes. I moved into the old, single-room cabin years ago. I’ve got the outhouse all finished, but now—”
“Wait.” Mireio set down her lemonade and sat up straight. “You have an outhouse? Like...no indoor bathroom?”
He laughed, and the sound of it felt like rough water rushing over river stones to Mireio. And for a water witch that was a very sexy sound. “It’s how the place was when I moved in,” he said. “But thanks to my remodeling it’s all modern and has running water with good quality plumbing in the outhouse. Not a hole in a board.”
“Whew! For a second there you had me worried. I’ll have you know the bathroom is the most important room in my house. There are not too many nights I miss my bath.”
“You were taking a bath the night I saw you standing outside the door. Uh, sorry.” He rubbed a palm over his face and swiped across his beard nervously. “I have to stop bringing that up. It’s rude of me.”
“Not rude, just...” Mireio sighed. “So you’ve seen me naked. Just gives you something to desire, doesn’t it?” And she sat back, satisfied that she’d stepped beyond the weirdness of the event and made it something she could control. If not a little weirder. Ha! Go, Mireio! “Anyway, my bathtub is huge. It’s because I’m a mermaid.”
Lars’s jaw dropped open. “You are? So you’re like a mermaid witch?”
“I mean, figuratively I’m a mermaid. I love water. I work water magic. I think I was probably a real mermaid in a past life. You know?”
“I can imagine you swishing around in the sea. But would your hair have been green?”
“Maybe.” She twirled the ends of her hair around a fingertip and fluttered her lashes at him.
And Lars fell into that puppy-dog, lovestruck expression again. Oh, dear, but he had it bad for her. And she wasn’t beyond encouraging him, because now that she was getting to know him, she really liked the strong silent alpha.
Had she intentions to avoid a relationship? Silly witch.
“Mireio!”
At the shrieking female yell, Lars sat up abruptly, kicking the table and upsetting the plates. Mireio made a grab to keep them from falling onto the stone patio. “It’s just Mrs. Henderson,” she said quickly, as if to calm a spooked dog.
The old woman popped around the back corner of the house with a notebook in hand. She wore an olive green pencil skirt that Mireio imagined she’d probably worn in her heyday back in, well...whenever the skirt had been in style. Her black-and-gray hair was piled into a messy bundle atop her narrow skull and on her feet were the ever-present and quite beaten pink bunny slippers.
“Oh.” Mrs. Henderson eyed up Lars. “I didn’t realize you had a guest, Mireio.”
“Mrs. Henderson, this is Lars Gunderson. Lars, Mrs. Henderson, my next-door neighbor. We were just finishing lunch. And I have a loaf of oatmeal rye for you that I’ll bring over once it’s cooled, Mrs. Henderson.”
“Oh, that’s lovely. You’re always so generous with the baked goods. And quite a talent too.” She still couldn’t drag her assessing gaze from Lars as she held out the notebook before her. “I don’t mean to interrupt but I wanted to show you the sketch I made of the—” she dropped her voice to a whisper “—you-know-what we saw the other night.”
Mireio glanced to Lars, who, no doubt, had figured what the woman was talking about, but he didn’t show that he had.
“Lars, was it?” Mrs. Henderson asked him. She tilted her head, taking him in with a discerning gaze. “Have we met before? You seem very familiar.”
“Never,” Mireio blurt out. “I mean, we’ve only just met, so of course you’ve never seen him here or in my yard before. Let me see what you’ve drawn, Mrs. Henderson. It’s okay. I mentioned the, uh, incident to Lars. So he’s in on it.”
“Oh?” The woman’s eyes brightened, pleased to have another conspirator present. “She told you about the Sasquatch?”
“That she did.” He leaned his elbows onto his knees, giving her his full attention. “You must have been frightened something fierce.”
“Who me? Oh, gosh, no. I may have been initially surprised to see such a big, ugly, hulking beast tromping through my prized tulips, but that didn’t stop me from getting a very good look at the monster.”
Lars’s jaw tensed. It was a good thing he wasn’t holding the glass of lemonade because Mireio guessed his clenched fingers might have sent shards flying.
Mrs. Henderson laid the notebook down on the table and Mireio turned it so both she and Lars could look at the—quite talented—sketch of what looked similar to an ape-like man with long hairy fingers and a hunched back and shoulders. The head was all wrong, not matching the werewolf’s actual wolf head and long toothy maw, but instead more resembling a man with large ears and a flat monkeylike snout.
“Remarkable,” Mireio said with a secret glance and smile to Lars.
“Is it how you remembered the beast too?” Mrs. Henderson asked eagerly. “I intend to bring
this sketch in to the police, but I’m still not so sure I got the nose right.”
“Oh. Well...” Mireio shrugged. “I didn’t get a very good look at it. I had initially thought it was a moose...but I’m sure what you’ve drawn here is very close.”
“But you said it stopped and stared at you for a moment. Surely you must have seen details? Did you look into its big glowing yellow eyes?”
Mireio met Lars’s lift of his brows. He was smirking now, thank the goddess. He obviously understood there was no fear of him being found out with such a drastically wrong drawing, no matter who the woman showed it to.
“Maybe a little longer,” she said, tapping the nose. “And did you get the tail?”
“The tail?” Mrs. Henderson picked up the sketch and studied it. “I’m not sure I remember...oh. Sure. A tail. Of course, Sasquatches have tails.”
“Do they?” Lars asked.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Henderson replied with knowing authority. “I’ll have to add that. Thank you, Mireio. Oh.” She placed a hand on Lars’s shoulder. “Will you be around more often? To, you know, keep an eye on our sweet Mireio?”
“Uh...”
“I think I hear the oven timer for the last loaf of bread,” Mireio interrupted. “We’ll talk later, Mrs. Henderson. Lars, would you help me bring in the dishes?”
“It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Henderson,” he offered as he dutifully and quickly followed Mireio’s escape route into the kitchen.
The two of them watched out the window until Mrs. Henderson had turned the corner at the back of the house, then they both started laughing.
“That was the most awful rendition of—” she made air quotes “—‘the monster,’ I’ve seen. You don’t look anything like that.”
“Yes, I’m relieved. Must be interesting having that woman living next door, eh?”
