How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf (Naked Werewolf 1)

He blinked a few times, as if I’d just posed an incredibly stupid question. “I haven’t really had that many girlfriends, and none I’ve stayed with long enough to tell about the wolf thing.”

“That’s sort of huge. How has this not come up before?”

“You never asked.”

I thought back to all of the conversations we’d had. “Oh, my . . . you’re right. As a girlfriend, I suck.”

“Well, you get bonus points for prying a bear trap off my leg. That can’t be discounted.”

“Ah, thank God, a retroactive points system. It’s really the only way I’ll win.”

It took surprisingly little time to set up camp. Apparently, experiences with my parents, which included hours spent searching outdoor concert venues for campsites that had good feng shui, had colored my perception of camping. With the thick double sleeping bag, a tent wasn’t necessary. As I unfurled it a safe distance from the fire, Cooper set out the rapidly disintegrating toilet paper and a little spade without comment. I chose not to think about that until it was absolutely necessary.

“What now?” I asked, with the fire blazing comfortably near my bare feet.

“Now I’m going to hunt,” he said.

My jaw dropped, but I felt immediately stupid for not realizing that Cooper would have to run down our dinner. What else were we going to eat? He grinned and rooted around in his backpack, producing packages of hot dogs and buns.

“Funny,” I grunted, slapping at his shoulder. Even though I knew something was brewing, it was sort of nice to have glimpses of the old Cooper back. It was as if he struggled with the decision to have this big “talk” more than the dread of my reaction. Now that he’d made his decision, he could relax.

“Keep up that attitude, and there will be no s’mores for you,” he said as I wandered to the edge of the clearing to find some long, thin sticks fit for roasting. I wiped them down as best I could and held my hand out imperiously for a hot dog. “I can do the cooking,” Cooper said, somewhat indignant now.

“Men always think they should be in charge of outdoor cooking.” I took the hot-dog package from him and skewered a few. “But the Y chromosome has been programmed with the ‘the blacker my food is, the more manly I am’ gene. I like my processed meats to be somewhere in the unnatural-nitrate-red range. Ergo I will handle the cooking, thank you.”

Cooper was quiet for a long moment.

“You’re trying to come up with some sort of ‘processed meats’ double entendre, aren’t you?” I accused him as I held the sticks over the fire.

“Yeah, you didn’t leave me a lot to work with,” he grumbled.

We ate an indecent number of hot dogs and s’mores, careful to hang our leftovers and trash in a tree several yards away from our sleeping bag. As the temperatures dropped into the cool range, I changed into thermals and thick wool socks, something Cooper didn’t have to bother with.

“So, what do you think?” Cooper asked, pulling me against his knees and kissing my neck.

“Camping is just like being at home, only much, much more work.”

He grumped, “Well, it’s not easy for me, either, you know. I’m used to sitting around a campfire with a bunch of overdressed, out-of-shape outsiders, swilling imported beer and pretending to laugh at their jokes.”>I went back to the kitchen and returned a short time later with a rare steak, sausage, bacon, four scrambled eggs, and a little sliver of toast. I slid it in front of him with little fanfare. His eyebrows rose. “What’s this?”

“Breakfast. I thought I should serve you something; otherwise, people in here might think we were having an unpleasant conversation. I would just hate that.”

“Think about what I said, Mo.”

I turned on my heel, then whirled back toward Eli. “You’re right, you know. What you told Cooper the other night? You’re not him. You’re not the man he is.”

Eli had the sense to look chagrined as I stalked away. I told Lynnette that Eli and his tip were all hers. It was the first time she smiled at me. I was pretty sure it would be the last.

17

Scary Stories by the Campfire

BY APRIL, MISSISSIPPI WOULD have been green and unbearably muggy. Daffodils would have sprung up in random splashes of yellow in the tiny patch of grass I called a yard. I would be wearing shorts and sandals and getting ready for the Reynoldses’ annual Easter weekend barbecue.

Here, late winter bled into what passed for spring. One morning, I noticed an icicle dripping on my front porch. It was as if the earth had woken up and flexed, releasing all of this energy in the form of rushing water. Tree limbs, no longer burdened by a season’s worth of ice, snapped up and sprang into power lines. There were a few short outages but none lasting so long that people bothered to turn on their generators.

The people of Grundy became exuberant in the “heat wave.” My neighbors flooded back into town. The grocery shelves at the Glacier were swept clean of everything. It was as if people had survived for weeks on gruel all winter and suddenly couldn’t wait to glut themselves on Cap’n Crunch and Cheez-Its.

Everything seemed to burst into bloom at once, which was familiar. Back home, it seemed the foggy, chilled days of February had barely set in before dogwoods and redbuds exploded to life among barely greened trees. Here, there were more exotic colors and textures. Delicate yellow poppies and flamboyant purple irises grew wild by the side of the road.