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

“Well, what are they like?”

“They’re just people, Kare. I mean, they’re a little eccentric and independent. But no weirder than anybody we knew in Mississippi. Some of our classmates’ parents were carnies, for God’s sake. For the most part, they’ve been really kind, and I’ve been welcomed with open arms. Of course, I think it’s because they want me to enter some sort of contract marriage and breeding program . . .”

“I knew it.” Kara hissed in mock triumph. “You drank the Kool-Aid. Thirty years of resisting your parents’ indoctrination, and you fall victim to a breeding mill. I’m just going to have to move up there and scope out the prospects for myself.”

I broke down laughing and told Kara about the Glacier and Buzz’s accident, about Evie, Alan, Nate, and Abner, about my marketability as a marriage prospect in Grundy, about my little house, which was becoming ever more habitable. I left out descriptions of Cooper’s surly hotness. I didn’t want Kara to seize on hostile locals as a reason for me to come home.

“So no close encounters with bears yet?” she asked. Kara had a secret phobia of bears, particularly grizzlies, which was sort of ironic, as the only specimens within a thousand miles of her lived in zoos. She was the only person I’ve ever known who was creeped out by the Snuggle the Fabric Softener Bear.

I sighed, knowing that what I was about to say might keep Kara from ever visiting my new home. “The closest I’ve come is a wolf chasing down an elk right outside my door the first night I was here.”

“Oh, my God!”

“It was nothing,” I assured her. “I haven’t seen it since.”

“Well, just remember that yeah, the animals are majestic, beautiful, and noble and all that crap, but they’re still dangerous. Look at what happened to that grizzly guy. He spent his whole life trying to protect the bears and ended up feeding them. Literally.”

“I will not try to live among the wolves,” I promised.

“I have to admit I’m just the teensiest bit disappointed. I was sort of hoping you might not like it there. And move, I don’t know, back into the same hemisphere as me.”

“I think I’m happy here, Kara.”

“I know, I can tell by your voice.” She sighed. “Damn it.”

IT TOOK TWO more Tums, an hour of yoga, and a chocolate chess square before I felt mentally prepared to call my mother. I’d put it off for too long, and now that she had a general search area, I needed to take preemptive action before she did something drastic. I dialed my parents’ number and prayed that they were outside in the garden or that maybe my dad would pick up. Ash wasn’t exactly the reasonable parent, but he was a rank amateur when it came to lecturing and guilting.

“How could you just run away like this?” my mother demanded the moment she picked up the phone.

“Mom.”

“Do you have any idea what this is doing to your father? Or how we felt when we came to your house and found it empty?”

I’d noticed that my mother did manage to sound a lot like a “normal” parent when she was upset with me. But that sort of observation, or commenting on the fact that they’d gone to my house unannounced to find it empty, wouldn’t be helpful at this juncture. “Mom.”

“You know how important it is for us to be able to visit you. You know we need to spend time with you. How could you move in the dead of night without a word?” She sniffled, her voice thickening with tears.

“Mom.”

“I don’t understand what would make you do this!” she cried. “What did we do to make you hate us this badly? All we ever did was love you too much.”

“You’re right, Mom. You do love me too much!” I exploded. “You love me so much that you go through my kitchen and throw away half of my food because you’ve decided it’s bad for me. You called my boss to discuss me taking days off for Burning Man, which I never agreed to attend. And I had to explain to my boss what Burning Man was, which was a humiliation all its own. You tried to get the receptionist at my doctor’s office to give you the results of my annual gyno exam—”

“I’m just a concerned parent. I never mean to get information I’m not supposed to have. If they aren’t supposed to tell me something, how is it my fault if they tell me anyway?”>“He’s like that with everybody,” Darby assured me. “Don’t take it personally. Some people were just born with a pinecone shoved up their butts. In Cooper’s case, it’s lodged sideways.”

“Well, that is an entertaining mental picture, so thanks.”

“You know what would really make him mad?” she asked, her eyes a-twinkle. “Dating Leonard Tremblay.”

“Nice try, Darby.”

“Well, you can’t blame a girl.”

I TEND TO bake when I’m upset. Or bored . . . or premenstrual . . . or if it’s a Tuesday. I’ll use any excuse.

When I got home, I unpacked my groceries and baked six dozen chocolate chess squares to take into work the next morning. Chess squares are a Southern delicacy, derived from chess pie, a custard pie that uses cornmeal instead of flour for thickening. And when I used Reba Reynolds’s secret recipe, they turned out a sort of combination of brownie and cheesecake. Grown men have wept upon tasting my chess squares.

I’m a little cocky about my kitchen skills.