The Howling

by Kimberly Zant

  * * *

  New Concepts Publishing

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  Copyright ©2003 by Kimberly Zant

  First published by New Concepts Publishing, September 2003

  * * *

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  THE SEX PHILES:

  THE HOWLING

  by

  Kimberly Zant

  ©copyright by Kimberly Zant, September 2003

  ISBN 1-58608-329-5

  Cover Art by Jenny Dixon

  New Concepts Publishing

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  Chapter One

  It was hazy inside the tavern. Apparently, this was one of the last strongholds of the smoker, Diana Skelley thought wryly, narrowing her eyes against the fumes as she scanned the room for the man she sought. It was possible it was also the last stronghold of a werewolf.

  The room, like most bars, was dim and filled to bursting since it was a Saturday night. The men outnumbered the women in the room by almost two to one. It looked like cowgirl heaven.

  Western wear seemed to be the theme of the night, but then her preliminary investigations had indicated that. In actual fact, it was less cowboy and more farm boy. There were more than one or two well worn Stetsons in the room, but it did not look like a convention of Texans. Most of the men wore jeans. A few had topped them with work shirts in a western style. The rest wore everything from plain white T-shirts, to polos, to dress shirts, to plaid ‘lumber jacks'.

  Near the back of the bar, she spotted a lonesome cowboy wearing a spotless white Stetson. He was dressed like a country and western singer—or a city boy laboring under the misapprehension that his elaborate rendition of western wear made him fit in. Her gaze swept past him and returned, her vision slowly penetrating the shadows and the thin layer of smoke that lay like a fog bank above the rough hewn plank floor.

  She was right. It was her partner, Sly Muellin. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at his idea of blending in, she continued to scan the room. Finally, she moved to the bar and hoisted herself onto a vacant wooden barstool.

  There were two bartenders, filling glasses of tapped beer in a methodical stream, walking up and down the bar collecting empty glasses and stacking them in pans behind the bar that were already overflowing.

  A tall man stood propped against the business side of the bar at the far end from where she'd sat, talking to a man on the opposite side that was shrouded in shadows. As if he'd felt her gaze on him, his head turned fractionally and he made a slow sweep of the patrons bellied up to the bar. Diana made a pretense of searching her purse for her wallet before his gaze reached her, but she was well aware of the fact that his gaze paused on her for several moments before continuing down the length of the bar.

  He finished, or cut short, his dialogue, straightened, and moved in her direction with a leisurely, loose limbed gait that made her think of silver screen cowboys and sent an adrenaline rush of potent attraction through her system. She abandoned her pretense and studied him with open interest.

  He was tall—probably well over six foot—with a build somewhere between a linebacker and a baseball player—neither bulky with muscle nor lean, in short—big. He was swarthy, his hair probably about the shade of a raven's wing and long, as long her own, at a guess, though it was braided into two plaits that hung across each broad shoulder and could've been longer than it looked. His face was—fascinating, all harsh angles and planes and looked like it could've been used as a model for the flip side of the buffalo nickel. She would've gauged his age to be around thirty five, which, in fact, it was according to DMV.

  When he stopped in front of her, she discovered her eyes were level with the wedge of chest revealed by the open neck of his western style shirt. She looked up at him, coolly questioning, ignoring the fact that her heart was thundering in her chest like a jackhammer, resisting the asinine urge to hold up her hand and say, ‘How? Chief.'

  "What's your pleasure?"

  His voice, deep, mellow, raised tingling goose bumps all over her. She ignored that, too, lifting her brows. “You're a bar tender?"

  He shrugged, tilted his head. His eyes were virtually black, dilated naturally because of the dimness in the room, but the irises were nearly as dark, making his eyes unreadable. It also made his eyes unnerving. Diana felt a chill chase the goose bumps into abeyance.

  "I'll have a screwdriver."

  He moved away. She watched him mix her drink. In a moment, he returned with it. She opened her wallet. “How much?"

  A slow smile curled his lips.

  Diana felt her stomach clench. She wasn't sure whether it was nerves or attraction that time but decided it was probably a combination of the two.

  "It's on the house."

  She lifted her brows. “You won't get into trouble with the owner?"

  "First drink's free for the ladies."

  "Well, that puts me in my place, doesn't it?” Diana said wryly.

  His smile widened to a grin. Leaning over, he propped his elbows onto the bar, studying her with an open thoroughness that was more than a little disconcerting. “I haven't seen you in here before."

  "Probably because I haven't been here before."

  "Claws,” he said succinctly, something glittering in his eyes.

  Diana would've been happier if she could have discerned whether that something was amusement or annoyance.

  "I'm a redhead,” she said flippantly. “I have an image to protect."

  He chuckled. “You just passing through?"

  "That depends."

  He lifted his brows.

  "I'm looking for a job. Somebody told me there might be an opening here."

  "You know how to mix drinks?"

  "No. Doesn't look like there's a lot of mixing going on though. Pretty much everything passing across the bar since I've been here has been beer—bottle or on tap."

  His eyes narrowed—with interest, she hoped. He pushed away from the bar, pointed toward the ‘dark’ end of the tavern. “Step into my office. We'll talk."

  She climbed down off the barstool and started in that direction. Muellin, she saw, had glanced her way. She met his gaze for a long moment, then ignored him. The man, who hadn't identified himself as yet, pushed a short swinging door open at the end of the bar and met her. Placing a hand on the back of her waist, he pointed to a door she could barely discern in the rear, urging her toward it.

  She resisted the urge to shrug off the intimate touch, thinking, wryly, that sexual harassment was obviously alive and well in this part of the world. In truth, all over it, but rarely did men behave anymore with such a blatant disregard for a woman's right to personal space—the right not to be touched, at all, unless she invited a man to do so.

  She would've made at attempt to outdistance him and evade the condescending ‘guidance’ he offered, except that that wasn't in her game plan.

  She resolutely ignored the fact that she also happened to enjoy it, but his hand riding on her waist, just above her hip, felt like a firebrand. She was relieved when he removed it—until he placed it in the middle of her back—right about the point where her bra would've fastened if she'd been wearing one—as he opened the door.

  Resisting the urge to ask him if he'd discovered what he was looking for in the ‘pat down’ she moved to the chair across from his desk as he flipped the light switch and an obl
ong florescent in the ceiling flickered on.

  He sprawled in the chair behind the desk, dragging one leg up and propping it on the corner of the desk while he scanned her from the top of her head to her feet with a gaze that missed nothing.

  Diana was obviously made of sterner stuff than he was accustomed to dealing with. She gazed back at him unwaveringly, unruffled by his blatantly sexual perusal.

  It occurred to her, however, that she could completely understand why some women succumbed to such obvious sexists. He looked, and acted, like the sort of figure women generally encountered only in romance novels.

  "I'm Travis Blackhawk.” His thin, hard mouth curled faintly. “But you can call me chief."

  "Sadie,” Diana lied promptly, rising and offering her hand to shake at the introduction. “Sadie Williams."

  He looked at her hand for a moment and finally leaned forward, grasping it with his own. His hand engulfed hers, gripping it firmly for a hair longer than was strictly professional before he released her hand and sat back.

  She supposed his lack of courtesy was his answer to women's liberation. The archaic alpha male had a tendency to translate equality with rudeness.

  "What brings you to the backside of nowhere?"

  Diana shrugged. “Just looking for a change."

  His brows lifted. “It's an odd place to go for that. Most people stampede for the city so they can lose themselves in the ‘urban jungle'."

  "I'm stampeding away,” Diana responded, smiling faintly.

  "Man trouble?"

  She said nothing.

  "None of my business, huh? Fair enough. I just wanted to be sure there wasn't some berserker on your tail. We like to keep it quiet around here."

  "Why would you think that?” Diana asked curiously.

  He shrugged. “A woman like you wouldn't be floating free unless them city fellas are blind from spending nine tenths of their lives in their ‘caves'. You're not wearing a ring. No tell tale white mark either. Seemed possible your interest in looking for a change might have something to do with the fact that you don't seem to have a male in tow."

  He didn't miss much. She'd grant him that. “I'm not in the habit of allowing my private life to interfere with my ... work."

  "You ever work in a bar before?"

  "No, but it doesn't look like anything I can't handle."

  "You don't look like there's much you can't handle."

  She decided to take that as a compliment. “Not much."

  "You'd be startin’ out at minimum wage."

  She tried to look disappointed, but the truth was, she didn't give a damn about the money. “I'll get by."

  "Not well,” he said flatly. “But I start everybody at minimum. If it works out, I'll bump it up a dollar at the end of your first month. The tips are pretty good, at least on the weekends. You got a place to stay?"

  "Not yet. I'm staying at a motel over near the highway right now."

  He nodded. “I can let you have a room at the Cherokee Lodge for a couple a hundred a month until you have time to get settled in and find something better. It's off season. Most of the rooms are empty anyway."

  Diana smiled. This was going better than she'd hoped. “Thanks! I'll take you up on that!"

  He dragged his leg off the desk and stood. Diana took it as a signal that the interview was over and rose as well, heading for the door. “When should I report for work?” she asked, holding out her hand once more.

  He took the hand and shook it, but he didn't stop until he was standing less than a foot from her. Diana looked up and met his gaze. It wasn't easy given the fact that he was so close, and more than a head taller than she was even in her heels. She resisted the urge to take a step back when he invaded her ‘space'.

  "You can start Tuesday. The bar's only open Tuesday through Saturday, but it's pretty dead during the week. That'll give you a couple of days to learn everything before the weekend rush."

  "I'll see you Tuesday, then,” Diana responded, moving toward the door, relieved that she could do so at last without looking as if she was in full retreat.

  * * * *

  "What'd you think of him?"

  Diana continued to stare out the window of her motel room for several moments before she answered. She saw nothing to indicate anyone might be up and about to have noticed Muellin's arrival.

  The first thought that popped in her mind at his question was that Chief Travis Blackhawk was, quite possibly, the sexiest man she'd met in a very long time, but she didn't think her partner would be particularly interested in hearing her view point as a woman.

  "He doesn't miss much."

  Sly lifted a brow. “From what I could see he took the time to thoroughly check you out. I'd say he could probably quote your bra and panty size,” he said dryly.

  "Really? I'll have to ask him. I wouldn't know if he was right though. I don't wear them."

  "Bra?"

  "Either.” She chuckled at the expression on Muellin's face. “I was joking."

  "Ha Ha.” Muellin faked a laugh. “You get anything out of him besides the surreptitious touchy feelly?"

  Skelley gave him a look. “You don't miss much either.... Not really. He seemed like an O.K. guy. But I get the sense that he could be one of those dark, dangerous types. I don't think we can rule him out."

  Muellin shrugged. “He tops my list."

  "He invited me to stay up at the lodge, until I could get ‘settled’ in...."

  "So you figure he's ‘nice'? Guys like that are always ‘nice’ to women who look like you do. Show me some evidence that he's been nice to a fat woman with bad skin, and then I'll agree with you."

  Skelley shrugged. “I don't think it was just a come on. And I'm not saying he couldn't be behind the problems at the construction site—you're right. He's got a lot to lose if a new resort comes in.—I'm just saying we don't want to ignore other possibilities. We might run into a dead end with this guy."

  Muellin smiled sourly. “What? He doesn't strike you as werewolf material?"

  Skelley crossed her arms, giving him a look. “I never said this had anything to do with a werewolf. It's probably just a simple, old fashioned case of greed. The client—Colson only said there were rumors to that effect. After I heard all of the facts, I agreed that there was a possibility. But there's also the possibility that it's nothing more than fear feeding a vivid imagination, or somebody is making it look like something supernatural is going on. Or it could even be that there's no conspiracy at all, but rather some wild animal is roaming the woods and has picked the construction site as its territory."

  "We wouldn't be here unless Skinard thought there was a pretty good chance some kind of whodo voodoo was going on."

  Skelley smiled faintly. “If it was a werewolf, that's got nothing to do with voodoo."

  "You know what I mean. If there's any possibility that its weird and unexplainable, they always call on you."

  Skelley waved a hand, dismissing it. “Instead of worrying about that right now, why don't we figure out a game plan? Chief Blackhawk invited me to move into the lodge. I accepted. It'll get me a lot closer and make it easier to check things out from this angle. But it could present problems, too. This is a small community, which means strangers are noticed and probably that they've got an information grapevine better than the CIA. We can't be seen together or we're going to blow our cover, and I don't think our original idea is going to work if I'm staying at the lodge ... too much chance somebody will spot you going in or out of my room in the dead of night and put two and two together."

  Muellin shrugged. “I'm open to suggestion."

  Skelley thought about it. “I think I'm going to have to check out the situation at the lodge before I can come up with anything. Why don't we meet at the construction site tomorrow night, around 1:00 AM? It's Sunday. There probably won't be much stirring around on Sunday night. Where are you staying?"

  "At a bed and breakfast. I think I'll relocate to the motel, though, once you
leave. I can't go in or out of the B&B without half a dozen people watching me."

  Skelley took a stroll down to the ice machine to check the area out thoroughly before Muellin left. When he'd gone, she dressed for bed then went to her suitcase to retrieve the file her boss, Lee Skinard, had given her containing the details of the case they were investigating.

  Colson construction had been hired to build a new ski resort in the mountains of North Carolina by a group of investors. The trouble had started almost from the day they'd broken ground on the site, but Colson had put that down to the usual headaches of new construction. Equipment broke down. The situation had grown progressively worse, however, until the construction company had gotten further and further behind schedule.

  The job foreman, who'd stayed behind to check on the work progress after the crew left one day, had been found dead the next morning. It had been ruled an accident. Local police had said that the welding machines, which were hoisted up with the crane each night and left suspended twenty feet or so above the ground to prevent theft or tampering, had fallen on the man and crushed him.

  Over the next couple of weeks, three crew members had gone missing. Colson had put that down to walk offs. It wasn't uncommon for construction workers to quit without notice and leave without saying a word. It was unusual, however, when they didn't pick up their pay, or call to have it mailed, but that suspicious circumstance hadn't been immediately apparent.

  It was only after a crewman was attacked near the site and fatally mauled that Colson began to wonder if the men who'd disappeared had not been walk offs. The man had gone off into the woods for a nature call—apparently a lot of the men had a problem using the portopotties—they'd heard screams and when everyone rushed to the area where the screams had emanated, they'd found him, barely coherent, barely alive.

  He'd been rushed to the hospital but died shortly afterward. The local law enforcement had put that down to a fall. They hadn't been able to get much out of the injured man, but he'd babbled about some huge animal, claiming one minute that it was a wolf, the next that it was a bear, and the next that it was a man. Their conclusion was that he'd stumbled onto a wild animal and it had scared him so badly, he'd run from it, maybe been attacked, but that most of his injuries had been sustained from his fall down a small ravine.