The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 1)

Just before dark, Reuben hit a store for some cheap clothes that actually fit him, clean underwear and socks and such, and stowed all this in a bag that would stay permanently in the Porsche. He was sick of roaming around in the oversized hoodie and trench coat. But he didn,t bother to change now.

As the sun set, he drove into Mill Valley in a thin noiseless rain, and up Panoramic Highway till he found Laura,s house - a small gray-shingled cottage way back from the road, scarcely visible for the trees that surrounded it.

He drove past it and found a small gulley in which to hide the Porsche, and there inside the car, he fell into a fitful uneasy sleep. The change woke him much sooner than he expected.

Chapter Fifteen

THE HOUSE WAS EMPTY when he entered it, the door unlocked and open to the back porch.

He,d come down through the trees. There was no one anywhere near; no stakeout, certainly; no police voices in the vicinity - in fact, there were no voices at all.

The back bedroom was the sweet picture that he remembered. All the same sweet scents were there.

The high-backed oak bed was draped with a soft beautifully crafted patchwork quilt. A small brass lamp burned on the night table, giving a warm light through its parchment shade. And nestled among the pillows in the oak rocking chair was a faded handmade rag doll with a carefully stitched face of almond-shaped button eyes, rose-red lips, and long yellow yarn hair. A small bookshelf held row after row of books by Harper Dennys and Jacob Dennys. And even a book by L. J. Dennys on the wildflowers of Mount Tamalpais and the surrounding area.

The bedroom opened onto the kitchen, divinely rustic with its big black stove and blue-and-white china cups on hooks beneath the open white shelves.

Potato vines grew from glasses on the windowsill above the sink. Bright white and gold daisies filled a blue vase in the center of the small white table. And a bright impressionistic landscape of a walled rose garden hung on the wall. The signature was "Collette D."

Beyond was a spacious bathroom with its own small iron fireplace, a huge shower, and a claw-foot tub. Opposite, a narrow stairs went up to a second floor.

Then came the large dining room with its vintage round oak table and heavy press-back chairs, a hutch filled with more antique blue-and-white china, and a living room of comfortable old chairs, draped with artful quilts and blankets, gathered as if for a tete-a-tete before the fieldstone hearth. A small fire was burning deep in the fireplace, well protected by a screen. A corner floor lamp, old-fashioned brass, gave a soft, agreeable light.

There were large bright garden paintings by Collette D. throughout the house, rather tame and predictable, perhaps, but brilliantly colorful and comforting and sweet. And lots of photographs everywhere - many including the cheerful weathered face of Jacob Dennys, white-haired even as a young man.

There was a flat-screen television in the living room, and even a small one in the kitchen, on the counter. There were recent newspapers by the living room hearth. "Man Wolf Frees Kidnapped Children" screamed the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. The Mill Valley paper had opted for: "Children Found Safe in Mill Valley; Two Dead." Both papers had very similar drawings of the Man Wolf - an anthropoid figure with lupine ears and a ghastly fanged snout.

It was a house full of windows, and everywhere they sparkled with the soft, whispering rain. Walls were carefully painted in deep earth tones, and the woodwork was natural, and gleaming with wax.

He was in the living room by the fire when she came in the back door. He slipped into the hallway. He could see her in the kitchen, setting down a brown paper sack of groceries and what looked like a folded newspaper.

Her hair was tied back by a black ribbon at the nape of her neck. She slipped off her heavy corduroy jacket and threw it aside. She wore a soft gray high-neck sweater and a long dark skirt. There was a weariness, a dissatisfaction, in her gesture. Her sweet scent slowly filled the house. He knew now he,d know this scent anywhere - its unmistakable blend of personal warmth and that subtle citrus perfume.

He was rapt looking at her, at her tapering hands and her smooth forehead, at the soft white hair that framed her face, at her ice-blue eyes sweeping absently over the room.

He drew closer to the kitchen door.

She was anxious, uncertain. She moved dejectedly to the white table and was about to sit down when she saw him standing in the hall.

"Beautiful Laura," he whispered. What do you see? The Man Wolf, the monster, the beast that rips his victims limb from limb?

In shock, she clapped her hands to her face, staring at him through her long fingers. And her eyes filled with tears. Suddenly she began to cry aloud in deep heartrending sobs.

She opened her arms as she ran to him. He stepped forward to embrace her, and he pressed her warmly to his chest.

"Beautiful Laura," he whispered again, and picked her up as he had before, and carried her into the rear bedroom and set her on the bed.

He tore the ribbon from her hair. It came down in waves around her - white, streaked with yellow in the light of the nearby lamp.

He could scarcely keep from stripping off her clothes. It seemed an eternity that she struggled with buttons and clips as she peeled them away. Finally she was naked and pink against him, her ni**les like petals, and the dark hair between her legs the color of smoke. He covered her mouth with kisses, and heard that deep growl come out of his chest, that animalian growl that a man could never make. He couldn,t stop himself from kissing her all over, on her throat and her br**sts and her belly and on the insides of her silky thighs.

He cradled her head in his hands as she ran her fingers over his face, digging deep into the undercoat of soft wolf-fur beneath the long coarser hair.

She was still crying, but in his ears it was like the rain on the windows - like a song.

Chapter Sixteen

WHILE SHE SLEPT, he built up the living room fire. He wasn,t cold, no, not at all, but he wanted the spectacle of it, the flicker against the ceiling and the walls. He wanted the bright blaze itself.

He was standing with one foot on the low hearth when she came into the room.

She,d put on a white flannel nightgown, like the one he,d torn up so greedily the first night. It had thick antique lace at the wrists and around the collar. Little pearl buttons glinted in the dark.

Her hair was brushed and lustrous.

She sat down in the old chair to the left of the fire, and pointed tentatively to the bigger chair, the battered and worn chair to the right, which was large enough for him.

He sat down and gestured for her to come.

She quickly moved to his lap, and he held her shoulders in his right arm and she rested her head on his chest.