The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf (Naked Werewolf 2)

You would think it would be weird to see your male relatives running around naked all the time, but really, you stop noticing. It’s sort of sad, really. You’ve seen one penis, you’ve seen them all.

I had to stop saying that in front of my mother, because she said it was something a hooker would put on a business card.

Cooper flopped down on the couch, throwing his arm over his eyes. Mo slumped next to him and buried her face in his shoulder. There was a fond little twitch to his lips as he nuzzled his nose along her brow line.

Gag me.

“It’s seven-thirty!” I exclaimed.

“Maggie, as much as I appreciate your dropping by to call us lame, please get to the point,” he muttered. “Keeping in mind that if you raise your voice above a whisper—” He stopped and gave a jaw-cracking yawn while waving his right palm at me. “Hand of God.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, showing my big brother exactly how much he intimidated me. “I thought you should know that Nick doesn’t think you’re a werewolf.”

Cooper sat up, his brow furrowed. “But that’s a good thing, right? Problem solved, you can go home now.”

“He thinks Mo is a werewolf,” I said, biting my lip and waiting for the reaction that would, indeed, wake up my niece.

Cooper locked eyes with me, looked over at his wife, grinned at me again, and then laughed so hard he nearly toppled off the couch.

“Bwahahahaahaha!” Cooper guffawed. “He thinks . . . he thinks . . . Mo?”>“My mom doesn’t count,” I spat.

He objected, “Your mom should count twice. She loves me.”

“No shit,” I deadpanned. “Why are you here, Dr. Thatcher? Why are you so hell-bent on spending time around me?”

“I like you,” he said, shrugging. “You’re funny and prickly, which works for me. You know you’re beautiful, but you don’t seem to care about it all that much. And your bullshit tolerance is low—”

“Then you should realize that I’m not buying your answer.”

“Fine.” He lowered his voice and leaned ever so slightly toward me. We were at eye level and so close I could feel his warm, frosting-scented breath fanning over my cheek, making my mouth water. I could almost feel the burnt-gold strands of his hair brushing against my skin. “Besides hoping to charm you into a date, which is obviously not working, you know exactly why I’m here, Maggie. Your family can’t expect to protect Mo forever.”

Insert awkward pause in which I stare at Nick as if he’s whistling “O Canada” out of his left nostril.

“Wait . . . what?”

“Your sister-in-law has been sweet, polite, downright hospitable. But she has an uncanny way of wiggling out of answering questions.”

Hmm. Mo was way smarter than I gave her credit for. But I would never, ever tell her that to her face. I scoffed. “Why would you even talk to Mo?”

“Because I studied the reports for the wolf attacks last year. Do you realize that besides the occasional bar fight, there’s nothing in the state police reports even mentioning Grundy for the last two years until Mo reported being attacked by a trucker named John Teague?” he asked. I gave a noncommittal nod, so he just barreled on. “And then, all of a sudden, there’s a rash of wolf attacks around town. And wolf attacks are pretty rare. Wolves don’t normally come close enough to humans to attack them.”

“Unless they’re sick, which was Alan Dahling’s theory about the timber wolf Walt and Hank shot last year,” I told him.

“That wolf wasn’t nearly big enough to leave the bite marks left on Abner Golightly. And it certainly wasn’t big enough to kill two fully grown hikers,” he said. “Look, everything seemed to start with Mo. And she was connected to each of the attacks thereafter. She took in Susan Quinn’s dog. The missing hikers ate at the saloon just before they disappeared. She found Abner in the woods. Everything comes back to her. I think that Mo could be something more than human. And I think you and your family are helping her cover it up.”

If he was trying to imply that Mo was a werewolf, I was going to pee myself laughing. Wait, I think I was going to do that anyway. I had propped myself against the siding and was trying to contain the loud, hiccupping guffaws. “So, you think my sister-in-law, the shorthand cook, loving wife, and mother, is a werewolf?”

Somehow he managed to say with a straight face, “I think it’s possible that John Teague was a werewolf and that somehow, when he attacked Mo, he changed her.”

And now I was back to laughing. “That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard!”

“Why? There are shape-shifting legends found in almost every civilization. The Central Asian stories about snakes that could assume human form and the Japanese kitsune, fox spirits that were able to become beautiful women. When you go westward, you find the Wendigo, the Deer Woman, skinwalkers—”

“What does this have to do my with my sister-in-law supposedly wolfing out and terrorizing the townsfolk?”

“Why won’t Mo talk to me about the attack, Maggie?”

My laughter died as if he’d flipped a switch. From what I understood, Mo had been closing up the saloon last year, alone, and John Teague decided she was a prime target for robbery and possibly way more disturbing activities. He’d knocked her around when she wouldn’t cooperate, leaving her with bruises and scrapes across her face. She’d managed to get a few good licks in before my brother swooped in on four paws and saved the day. Mo didn’t connect human-shaped Cooper to the wolf at the time and thought maybe her furry savior had eaten Teague. However, Teague had managed to make it to his truck, then passed out from his injuries and died in a fiery crash outside town.