Werewolves & Whiskers: Sawtooth Peaks Wolf Shifter Romance Box Set

by Keira Blackwood

  “I guess it is,” I answered.

  “And I love my man macho. You two will find your balance too,” he said.

  “Thanks, Eric.” I hoped he was right, that Cole and I would figure out a balance that we were both happy with. Cole had said he might have to be away, but he should have talked to me first. I didn’t think that was too much to ask.

  “Anytime, hon, but do me a favor and take your anger out on the soil next time and not the blooms. There’s some dirt out back that I would just love for you to aerate. There’s all kinds of tools in the greenhouse,” Eric said.

  “Fair enough.” I went out back and took my anger out on the ground. After, I watered all the plants and finished my arrangement. The day went by more quickly than I expected it to after the way the morning had gone. At the end of my shift, I didn’t hear the familiar sound of the Harley that I hoped would come by. I wasn’t surprised, since Cole said he wouldn’t be back, but I was still disappointed.

  At least he had left me the truck. If he hadn’t, I couldn’t have made it to work on time in the morning. I would have had to walk or try to get a ride from Liv or Eric. Who knows how long it would have taken a cab to find Cole’s hidden house in the woods.

  I climbed in the pickup and adjusted the mirrors. A goliath caught my eye. I took a second look, thinking I probably didn’t see what I thought I saw. Sure enough, a wide man, thickly muscled like a professional wrestler, was leaving Sawtooth Den and walking across the street in my direction. I couldn’t tell how tall he was, but his arms and legs looked as thick as tree trunks. He wore a black jacket with a red shirt visible through the opening. He had short, dark hair, and a thick beard. I drove the truck two blocks down the street, far enough away that I could tell if he was following me or just happened to want beer and flowers. It could happen. Maybe he needed liquid courage for an apology to the grieving widow of a man he accidentally killed with a handshake. I told myself that was likely the case, more likely than him wanting to bother me.

  The giant’s gaze followed the pickup. Fuck. He kept the same trajectory as he walked. Maybe it was just about the flowers. The man pulled out a pen and notebook from his pocket and jotted something down as he stood in front of Rosebuds and Greenery, his body still turned toward me. After a moment, he went inside.

  Who was he? I started to panic as I drove away. It seemed like he was watching me. What if he was a cop? What if they finally figured out that Frank was dead, and they sent that giant bastard to take Cole away? I couldn’t let that happen. It wasn’t his fault, it was mine.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed my mate.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you,” Cole said.

  “I noticed, and hello to you too,” I answered.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “No. Everything is not okay. Where the hell are you?” How could he think everything would be okay? He had left me alone in the night and didn’t bother to tell me anything about it. We were supposed to be partners.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll try to make it home to you tonight, but if I can’t, come by the bar when you wake and I’ll tell you what I can,” Cole ordered.

  “You just left, Cole. And there’s some giant following me. I’m scared.” I wanted to yell at him, to tell him how hurt I was that he took the time to prepare for being away but didn’t bother to tell me anything. That he still wasn’t telling me anything now. But I didn’t want to fight over the phone. I wanted him to come home safely to me so we could face whatever was going on together.

  He was quiet for a moment, then spoke in a deeper tone, “What does he look like?”

  “Um, like a lumberjack. Angry, dark hair and beard,” I answered.

  “Go back to the house. I’ll send someone. Don’t go anywhere without Harkins. He’ll protect you.” Cole’s tone was harsh, authoritative. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer, which scared me even more. What could make my mate so nervous?

  “What? Why do I need protection? And I’ve never even met Harkins.” It wasn’t fair to expect me to just do whatever he thought was best without giving me a reason. Did he know who this guy was? If he was with the cops, I shouldn’t need protection. Was the Tribunal dangerous? Or was this something else altogether? My head spun with unanswered questions.

  “Just do this for me. I need you safe, and I trust Harkins to keep you that way,” Cole said. “I love you, Hailey.”

  “I love you too,” I answered, and Cole hung up.

  I stared at the phone in my hand while I sat parked down the street from the flower shop. Was I in danger? I drove straight to my sister’s house. There was no way I was going to sit around at Cole’s place without my things. If he wanted me to go right away, he should have given me more information. I trusted that he was looking out for me. There was no question that he loved me. So why the sudden need for secrecy? I thought we had moved past all of this when we made love in the forest, and when he took me as his mate.

  I parked in front of the blue Victorian and used the key my parents had given me to enter my childhood home. I wished Liv was here. I could have used her help, and someone to talk to. But I wasn’t going to bother her while she spent the weekend with Pierce.

  When I entered my bedroom, surrounded by my things, it was strange. It didn’t feel like my room anymore. This wasn’t the bed I slept in. The cherry wood sleigh bed I shared with Cole was my bed now.

  Cole was getting what he wanted. He certainly didn’t plan it this way, but I had to pack my things in the suitcase I brought from Elkston not so long ago. This time I wasn’t going to rush. I took my time collecting all of my clothes. I folded my dresses, my shirts, and my jeans, packing the suitcase full and moving on to the backpack that sat on the closet floor. I slipped the MP3 player from my dresser into my jacket pocket. This time I was going to take everything I wanted. All of my shoes fit in a box that I found in Liv’s recycling.

  I was making the choice to move in with my mate. I could have ignored his warnings, or I could have just hung around his house and left it as his. But I was doing it my way.

  The last things I packed were the two framed pictures from the nightstand. The photographs sat gently on top of my shoes in the box, and I carried my things down the stairs and out to the truck. Packing reminded me of Elkston. I wished it didn’t. I wanted to be excited about moving in with the man of my dreams, but under the circumstances, it was bittersweet.

  Chapter Nine

  Hailey

  As I drove up the driveway to Cole’s house, my house, I spotted a large man leaning against a beat-up, blue pickup truck. I wondered why pickups seemed to be a shifter favorite. Maybe they were good for hauling lots of wolves around in the back, or they just shouted ‘macho.’ At least I figured the man was a wolf. I parked Cole’s shiny black truck next to the old blue one. Just to be safe, I rolled down the window halfway.

  “Are you the person Cole told me to expect?” I asked.

  The stout man gave me a curt nod, keeping his arms crossed as he leaned with his shoulders on his truck. “Name’s Harkins.”

  I rolled up the window, turned off the engine, and hopped out. The man resembled the one I had seen outside the flower shop, but with a smaller build. His freshly shaven face was covered in bruises, and scars crossed its width. His features were hard, but his eyes were kind. I wasn’t sure what to make of him, but Cole had said Harkins would keep me safe.

  I held out my hand in greeting. “Hi, I’m Hailey.”

  “I know,” he answered, without moving. “Where’ve you been?”

  I dropped my rejected hand back down to my side. “Uh, at work,” I answered. “I didn’t realize I had a curfew.”

  “Boss is worried,” Harkins replied, staring at the scar on my neck instead of looking me in the eye. He must not have known Cole had claimed me.

  “So you work for Cole, and he’s staying in contact with you?” I asked.

  The large man answered with another nod.
Quite the talker. Cole really should have been keeping in contact with me, but arguing with my bodyguard wasn’t going to help my situation.

  “Okay, big guy. Help me with my bags? Or do you only move when bossman commands it?” I asked.

  Harkins pulled my box and bag out of the bed of the pickup. I carried my backpack. When I unlocked the front door, Harkins followed me into the house, up the stairs, and stopped in the doorway to the master bedroom.

  “You can come in, or not. If you leave my things, I can take it from here,” I said.

  Harkins put down my belongings and started back toward the steps.

  “Wait,” I said.

  He stopped and turned back to look at me.

  “Please tell me if you hear anything from Cole. I need to know he’s okay, and I want to see him the minute he gets back to town,” I said, allowing him to see my desperation.

  Harkins gave me a nod and headed back down the stairs.

  I pulled the earbuds out of my pocket and turned on my MP3 player. Loud music helped distract me from thinking about the huge man I had seen on the street, the other big man downstairs, my communication issues with Cole, and whatever threat loomed over us. I listened to the songs I had enjoyed in high school. It was nice to sing along and get lost in the music, but it couldn’t distract me from thinking of Cole. It was the same music I had listened to when we had dated before, and it was his closet I was unpacking my clothes into. Well, our closet.

  I pulled out shirts and pants and set them on the side of the closet where the orange dress hung. My side wasn’t as orderly as Cole’s, but I tried to stack everything as neatly as I could. He would have to accept my mess as part of the package.

  Once everything had a place, I went to the next room down the hall. I hadn’t spent a lot of time in my studio yet, but being in the space Cole prepared for me to paint made me feel closer to him. The huge easel in the center of the room held a barely painted canvas. Greens, blues, and browns decorated the center of the space—the start of a landscape. I worked on the scene with oil paints, adding more definition to the skyline. It was starting to look a bit more like a picture and less like color blobs. I continued with tall brown lines for the trunks of lodgepole pines. Before long I switched to black. I listened to my music and let the brush move. After a few strokes, it was obvious what I was thinking about. A black wolf stood in the center of the painting. It needed details, but it was obviously Cole. A sigh escaped me. I was hopelessly, utterly obsessed with my mate.

  I turned off my music and headed down the stairs. The wood boards creaked under my high-heeled boots. Glancing around, I didn’t see Harkins anywhere in the house. I figured he was probably just giving me some space by staying outside, which I appreciated. I didn’t know the man, and he wasn’t particularly good company. In the kitchen, I looked at the freezer meals Cole had prepared for me. Although I didn’t approve of him making when he’d known that he would leave without telling me, I was hungry. I’d enjoy this meal, but he’d still have to talk to me about communication later.

  Chicken marsala was one of my favorites, so I chose a prepackaged portion from the freezer. In small print under the dish name was instructions: Microwave on dinner plate setting for three minutes and forty-five seconds. Sounded easy enough. I did as I was instructed, and it was heated just right. It was hard to stay mad while I savored the flavors—herbs, mushrooms, potatoes. I washed my dishes and started a fire in the great room the way Cole had shown me. It felt like a better place to hang out than alone in our bed, so I slipped off my boots and settled in on the sofa.

  Light tapping on my shoulder woke me before I realized I had dozed off. Harkins’s hard face startled me as I opened my eyes.

  “He’s here,” Harkins said.

  “Where?” I sat up and looked around the room.

  He answered, “Put on your shoes and coat. I’ll drive.”

  Chapter Ten

  Cole

  Sinking into my coffee-colored, cushioned desk chair, I put down the phone and tried to clear my head enough to figure out what I needed to do next. I wanted to rush home to Hailey, to feel her body against mine and forget about the man in the picture. The sooner I had a plan and made my calls, the sooner I could go home.

  I looked at the framed photograph I had taken from the Cook Brothers' bar. Dashiell had most likely taken the picture himself, judging by how close he was to the camera. I could tell why they called him Crazy Eyes, with his eyelids so far open that his eye almost bulged from its socket, though Crazy Eye may have been more apt. I wondered how he had lost the other eye, and who had sliced his wide nose. I wondered where he had come from, and how he had gathered enough willing participants to take over an entire town of humans and wolves. Most shifters followed the laws that we all lived by, the laws that the Therion Tribunal enforced. How could he have swayed shifters to throw away our entire way of life to support him in his madness? And how had the Tribunal let this happen? How could an organization that policed shifter misconduct around the world not know that an entire town had been massacred?

  Stratton Walker hadn't been a weak alpha. He had run a close-knit pack, with formidable men at his side. Had Dashiell received help from within Stratton's pack? It was hard to imagine, but it seemed impossible to take down all that opposition without any inside help.

  I couldn't find any new information about the invasion except that it seemed to have happened overnight. I had talked to a number of people in Greenville, all of whom agreed that no one had entered or left valley territory on their side in days. Reports on my desk told the same story on our side. Once I had something more than rumors about the situation, I would have to contact the Tribunal myself. Not that I had heard back from them after the last phone call I’d placed.

  No one recognized the description of the man Hailey had seen. All I got was answers like ‘sounds like a bear,’ or ‘maybe a lumberjack,’ and ‘sounds like my cousin from North Dakota’—nothing useful. I had more questions than answers.

  Zaria would want to know about my findings, or lack thereof. After Garret's death, I owed it to her to keep her informed. I picked up the phone on my desk and dialed my mother's cell. After three rings it went to voicemail.

  “Hey, Mom. Just got back from Greenville. Not much to share, but give me a call back anyway,” I said, then hung up.

  At this hour, maybe she was sleeping. I tried Lance next. He answered on the first ring.

  “Just a minute,” he said. Music blared through the phone as I waited. After the slam of a door, it was quiet. Then Lance said, “Hey, what can I do for you?”

  “I just got back from Greenville,” I said.

  “How did it go with the Cook brothers?” Lance asked. “Were they able to tell you anything new?”

  “More bad news,” I said. “Dashiell killed them both.”

  “That's too bad. Lowell and Dominic were good men,” Lance replied, voice somber.

  “They were,” I agreed.

  “Everyone's really lost out on something special without that bar,” he reflected.

  “Yeah, I still remember when Dad took us there when we were kids. I've never done so much camping at once,” I said.

  “That was a great trip. I wish he had taken us more than just the one time,” Lance replied.

  “Yeah,” I said. It would have been nice to have had more time with Dad camping, or at all. “One good thing came from my trip to Greenville. I came back with a picture of Dashiell.”

  “So what does Crazy Eyes look like?”

  I answered, “He's big, and blond, and has only one eye.”

  “Maybe they should call him Crazy Eye instead.”

  I smiled at Lance's comment. It was pleasantly light compared to the weight of the day, still heavy on my shoulders.

  “I was thinking the same thing. I didn't find out much else, but I'll keep you in the loop,” I said.

  “Thanks. Later,” Lance said.

  “Bye.” I hung up the phone and rifled throug
h the papers on my desk, making sure I didn't miss anything important.

  I sensed Amy at the doorway. When I looked up she was smiling at me, hip resting on the doorframe. I had known she was still in the building, but I hadn't said anything to her when I’d arrived.

  “Hey, I thought you might be hungry,” Amy said, holding out a plate with a turkey sandwich on it. I was sure she had made it the way I liked, the same as always.

  “Thanks, I need to get home though. I'm just packing up. You should do the same,” I suggested.

  “Soon,” she answered. “But first, spend a little time with me.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Hailey

  As we pulled out of the woods, I could see Cole’s bike parked at Sawtooth Den. Excitement built in me, making it hard to sit still. I twiddled my fingers and considered running into the bar just because I couldn’t wait to see him. I needed to touch him to know that he was really okay, that the ogre hadn’t taken him away from me, and that he wasn’t hurt from whatever danger he was trying to protect me from. Harkins parked his truck next to Cole’s Harley, and I hopped out of the door before he turned the engine off.

  “Thanks, Harkins,” I said over my shoulder as I rushed to the door in a brisk walk.

  Chairs were set up on top of tables in the quiet bar. The building was mostly dark, with just one light on behind the bar and one that lit the hall from Cole’s office. I walked down the hall, wanting to get to him as quickly as I could. Before I reached him, his office door closed, blackening the walkway.

  The small blonde who worked for Cole approached me from the darkness. As she closed the distance between us, I took in her disheveled appearance. Her hair was unkempt, a blonde mess, unlike the pigtails she usually wore. She strutted toward me, hips swaying. She had a cruel look on her face as she pulled down the bottom of her gray t-shirt, smoothing out the fabric over her stomach.