The saloon was unnaturally still and quiet without customers. All I could hear was the faint echo of the jukebox playing some old Waylon Jennings song.
Evie called, “Buzz, there are two ladies in need of assistance out here!”
Pete popped his head around the corner from the bar. “Hey, Evie, let me take those.”
Evie quirked her lips. “What are you doing here, sweetie?”
“Buzz asked me to wait for you. Alan got a call from the state police,” he said. “Some hikers went missing on the far northwest edge of the preserve. You remember those kids from ASU who came in the other day, tried to show fake ID for beer? They were planning to go up the mountain and play Survivor Man before the big weather hit.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t remember a specific pair of hikers over the last couple of days. So many tourists filtered through town that I’d stopped paying attention. The guilt of not being able to remember their faces gnawed at me. I’d started to see the world the way most people in town did. People who were from Grundy and people who weren’t.>I yawned and stretched, enjoying the new twinges and aches. My muscles screamed, We had sex, lots and lots of athletic sex!
Cooper snuffled in his sleep and threw an arm around me when he felt me move. I chuckled, inhaling the sleepy scent of his skin. He drew my back against his chest and tucked his chin over my shoulder, which was quickly becoming my favorite way to be held. “Morning,” he grumbled, his voice just as gruff as you’d expect a werewolf’s to be first thing in the morning.
“Hi,” I said, enjoying the way his stubble gently scratched at my neck. “Hungry?”
“Always,” he said, yawning as I clambered out of bed.
I shrugged into my robe. Cooper wrapped a sheet around his waist, as he’d apparently abandoned his pants somewhere in the woods. We raided my fridge for a breakfast of French toast and bacon. I laid out two full packages of bacon to fry, more than I could eat in weeks. But I’d seen the way Cooper could throw down the pork products at the saloon. I was going to have to spend a lot more on groceries if he hung around often.
I tamped that thought down. Making plans for Cooper was dangerous. As far as I knew, this was a one-time thing. Still, I was already certain that I wouldn’t sleep with another man while I was here. What was the point now? Brad Pitt could be stranded outside my door in a blizzard, begging me to use my body heat to prevent him from getting hypothermia, and any number of tricks he could come up with would not compare to Cooper and the Mighty Morphin Power Penis. Alert the male population of Grundy: I was ruined for all other men.
Of course, the number of orgasms I’d had in the last nine hours would probably keep me for the next year, so I was grateful either way.
So, instead of calculating my sexual schedule or lack thereof over the next few months, I mixed the French toast batter and thought of Evie, of how smug she would be if she knew how completely her Cooper-related predictions had come true. And how absolutely unnerved I was by Cooper’s intent interest in my movements around the kitchen, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Cooper.
“So I guess I make you a little nervous, huh?” he asked, smirking.
“No,” I said, huffing out a laugh. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re putting garlic in the French toast,” he said, nodding toward the bowl, where I was indeed sprinkling garlic salt with beaten eggs, vanilla, and brown sugar. I smiled, rolled my eyes, and dumped the bowl into the sink to start over.
“That was not because of you, that was because I don’t have my glasses on,” I told him primly.
“Yeah, yeah, futile denials of my animal magnetism don’t put French toast in my belly. Hurry up, woman.”
“Nice.” I snorted, cracking more eggs. “So, you realize that we can never tell Evie about this, because she will gloat for all time.”
“I’m willing to enter the sexual witness-relocation program as long as they place us in the same city.”
“Agreed.”
“So, what do you want to do today?” he asked, watching as I slid the first slices of battered bread into the frying pan. I tried to hide the trill of happy nerves. He wanted to stay. The proud intellectual portion of my brain made well-organized, thoughtful arguments for us to get to know each other better, while the hornier, dumber cranial lobes screamed, Sex! More sex! Let’s hear more of Cooper’s orgasm noises! Naked Cooper, now!
I tried to be more eloquent than my id.
“Well, pardon me for pointing this out, but you don’t have any clothes here,” I said, trying to look innocent. “It kind of limits our options.”
He grinned. “I was hoping you’d notice.”
“You know, you don’t have to put up a ‘dating guy’ front with me. If you want to spend the day having sex, that’s all you have to say.”
“We may have to call in the National Guard to airlift us more condoms,” Cooper said, snickering and pulling me into his lap.
“I bought the economy pack at Bulk Wonderland,” I told him. “I think we’re covered.” Cooper’s expression flip-flopped from paralyzed fear to outright joy. I shrugged. “I like to be prepared.”
WHEN I WOKE on Monday morning, Cooper was gone. He’d left a note on his pillow saying he had to meet an elk-hunting party at Becker Ridge. The weather was stable, if a bit cold, and as long as it held, he would be gone for three or four days. He promised to come back as soon as possible. “Do me a favor,” he wrote. “Don’t wash me away. Wash your hair, your face, anything but the scent of me from your body. It’s a wolf thing. I’ll explain when I get back.”
“Ew,” I said, wrinkling my nose. Cooper was going to have to deal with my indifference to “wolf things,” because I was not taking a three-day bathing break. “Surely, this is some sort of practical joke at my expense,” I said to myself.