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

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.

Pete shrugged. “They were supposed to check in with friends today, but the last time anybody heard from them was three days ago. Buzz and a couple of the other guys from town went to help with the search. He asked me to stick around.”

“The far northwest side of the preserve,” I said, doing some distance calculations in my head. “Near my house?”

“Yeah,” Pete said, shrugging.

“We’d better put some coffee on.” Evie sighed. “When they wrap up for the night, they’ll head back here. Alan’s place is too small for a debriefing.”

“That’s a scary, official-sounding word.” I grimaced.

Pete nodded, patting my shoulder. “We take missing people seriously around here. All it takes is a turn in the weather, a minor injury, or a fall, and people can die after just a day’s exposure.”

“They probably just got off the trail and got a little lost,” Evie assured me, though she didn’t sound convinced herself.

I stuck around to help prepare for the search party. The temperatures hovered in the twenties, and I worried about Alan, Buzz, and my friends. I wondered what manner of idiot would want to hike in weather like this and whether it was worth the risk of my friends’ safety to look for people who’d put themselves in such danger.

I made biscuits because I couldn’t think of anything better to do. Folding the dough, rolling it, and punching through the buttered surface with a cup seemed to ease the tension in my head. Long after it turned dark, Buzz led the charge into the saloon, the men coughing and groaning and stomping the icy mud from their boots. Evie and I passed out mugs of coffee as if they were lifelines.

“Are you all right?” I asked as I nudged a mug toward a pale, exhausted Alan. He’d been atypically distant for the last few days. I’d been prepared for him to ramp up his flirting, with Cooper out of town, but he’d hardly spoken to me, keeping his eyes wary and downcast whenever I approached. I worried that he sensed that something had happened between Cooper and me, that he was going to give up any pretense of being friends now. But he seemed happy to see me as I plied him with caffeine and buttery carbs. His tired smile was genuine, if a bit apprehensive.

“I’m better now,” he admitted, drinking deeply and wrapping his hands around the warm mug as I poured a cup for Abner.

“Any sign of them?” I asked, giving him a refill.

Alan grimaced. “The kids who reported them missing gave us directions to where the boys planned to camp. We found their site. The tent was torn to hell. Sleeping bags, food, everything they had was thrown around like a tornado had swept through. There were tracks, big tracks.”

My stomach dropped, and I had a heavy feeling of déjà vu. I tried to concentrate on breathing deeply, on the musical clanking of spoons and cups and male grunts as my neighbors warmed their bellies.

“Wolf tracks?” I asked, not really wanting the answer. Alan nodded. “Like the wolf that attacked Susie Q?”

Alan nodded again, looking stricken. “There were smears of blood all over that campsite. But no bodies, not even, uh, parts. It’s like the kids put up a fight and were dragged out of the site, kicking and screaming. They had rifles with them. There would have to be more than one wolf to surprise and then kill two full-grown boys like that. But you normally don’t see packs behaving this way. Even packs of wolves will shy away from humans if given the opportunity to run. Normally, when a human is attacked, it’s by one sick or scared animal. This seems . . . organized, like the wolf knew how to get in and get what he wanted without getting hurt.” Alan laughed hoarsely, rubbing his eyes. “I’m sorry. I ramble when I’m tired.”

“You need one of us to drive you home?” I asked.

Alan beamed at me. Seriously, his lips parted, and it looked as if heaven had opened up. Sweet, simple, strictly platonic heaven. Please, Lord. “That’s sweet of you. But I have to have my truck at my place. I’m heading out again in the morning. The state Department of Wildlife is sending out reinforcements at first light. We’re going to search a little deeper in the forest than I was comfortable going with volunteers.”

“Can I get anything else for you?”

“Nah.” Alan patted my hand and then seemed to think better of it, pulling away from me. “This has been good, though. Thanks.” He cleared his throat and added, “So, I’ve been meaning to ask . . . We haven’t talked much since the party, and uh, I’ve just wondered, did I do something to offend you?” He lowered his voice. “I know I had a couple of beers the other night, and I might have been a little . . . forward.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, suddenly remembering Alan’s mild case of Roman hands. I laughed, which seemed to startle him. “No, no, don’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve just been a little preoccupied the last few days, that’s all.”

“So we’re OK?” he asked, his brow creasing, as if he still wasn’t hearing exactly what he wanted.

Hmm. How to define “OK” between Alan and myself? Were we still friends? Of course. But now that I’d started some semblance of a relationship with Cooper, whatever I’d been heading toward with Alan was completely derailed. It felt unfair, wrong, to make him think otherwise. But he was exhausted, stressed, and sitting in the middle of a gaggle of his closest manly-man friends. Now was not the time to try to explain anything to him.

I gave him a quick nod. “We’re going to be fine, Alan.”

He seemed to relax, drinking deeply from his mug and sagging against the bar for support. And I felt like an awful, awful person.

AT BREAKFAST THE next morning, the dining room was buzzing about the missing hikers, Craig Ryan and Jacob Bennett, and how they might have met their gruesome end. With the pawprints found at the campsite fueling their paranoia, the locals were getting restless. Walt wanted to organize a “wolf shoot,” which I guessed was similar to the turkey shoots my high school used to fill local food pantries—only, you know, much scarier. One more thing to worry about, my boyfriend getting shot by an angry mob of our neighbors.