How to Run with a Naked Werewolf (Naked Werewolf 3)

I scanned the front window of the diner. Caleb was already sitting in a booth. If I just slipped away, he probably wouldn’t notice for a while that I hadn’t followed him in. There was a bar up the main street. Maybe I could hitch a ride with someone there. I hadn’t done that in a while, and obviously, my self-preservation skills were pretty rusty. But I guessed the devil you didn’t know would likely be safer than the devil you knew had freaking duct tape and cuffs in his truck.

I had to admit the collapsible baton was cool. I supposed it was much more effective than my slapjack, not to mention having a better reach. And I rationalized that if I took it, he wouldn’t be using it on unsuspecting hitchhikers. I palmed it and dropped it into my bag.

Slinging that bag over my shoulders, I glanced back at the diner window but didn’t see Caleb. I backed away from the truck and—

“Ack!” I shouted, jumping out of my skin and cursing myself for not keeping the baton handy. No matter how much time I’d spent around them, it was always shocking to me that big, bulky werewolves could move so quietly.

While his tone was friendly, his posture was tense. He frowned down at me. “Just wanted to see what was taking so long. You OK?”

“I think this is a mistake,” I said, my fingers frantically searching through my bag for the slapjack. I stepped away from him, putting the open truck door between us. His brow furrowed, and he took a step toward me. I stepped farther away, onto the sidewalk.

“What’s a mistake?” he asked.

“This whole ‘riding together’ idea. I’ll be fine on my own, really. Thanks for getting me this far, though.” I turned, taking brisk, long steps up the sidewalk. He stood, staring at me, perplexed. “Good luck . . . with your whole Ted Bundy thing,” I muttered softly as I rushed away.

In a blink, Caleb was in front of me, holding my arms against my sides. “What did you mean by that?”

Great, I forgot that my new best friend had an advanced serial-killer kit and superhuman hearing. Oh, and healing powers. I was one lucky girl.

“What did you mean?” he demanded. His eyes followed mine back to the open truck door and the cuffs and zip ties lying out on his floorboards.

“What normal person rolls with this sort of thing in his backseat, Caleb?”

“There’s a good explanation for this.”

“I’m sure there is. I just don’t care,” I retorted.

“Look, come inside, have some breakfast with me, and I’ll explain. If you still think I’m a serial killer afterward, I’ll pay the check, and you can stay here at the motel until you figure out what you want to do.”

I shrugged. “OK.”

“Great, let’s go inside,” he said.

“I wasn’t serious!” I exclaimed. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“Look, what’s the harm in having breakfast?” he chided. And he added, “With plenty of witnesses.”

I might have objected that I was fine, not hungry in the slightest. But then my traitorous empty stomach growled, as if on cue.

He smirked at me. “I bet this place has great pancakes.”

I growled in frustration, my shoulders sagged, and I let him nudge me through the front door of the diner. There was a chubby middle-aged man cooking in the kitchen and a bored-looking teenage girl taking orders. Two burly men in plaid flannel sat at the counter, quietly eating steak and eggs. No one, including the teenager, bothered to look up when we walked in.

I might have been embarrassed by my nervous habit of cataloguing each new room’s occupants, but Caleb was equally funny about the seating arrangements. He insisted on a booth by the front window, but he seemed uncomfortable sitting with his back to the door. His safety concerns didn’t exactly increase my trust in him. And despite the fact that I needed the restroom with increasing urgency, I didn’t want to leave him unattended around my food or drink. He was paying for my French toast, but that didn’t entitle him to mickey my OJ.

The food arrived without fanfare from the apathetic teen queen. Caleb’s breakfast consisted of six strips of bacon, sausage, a bloody steak, scrambled eggs, and three pancakes, which I watched him devour with a fascination I used to reserve for Shark Week.

“OK, we’re eating, you’re paying, now spill,” I said around a mouthful of maple-soaked fried bread. “What’s with the hardware?”

He looked a bit sheepish, chewing his pancake thoughtfully while he chose his words. “I’m a sort of bounty hunter,” he said. “I track people down, people who don’t want to be found. I take them in, collect the reward. Generally, they kick and spit and scream on the long drive home, so I have to restrain them. That’s why I have the handcuffs and the bungee cords.”

My fork practically clattered to the table as a cold weight settled into my belly. Well, that certainly explained why I hadn’t seen him around the valley. He was out wandering the roads, ruining the lives of perfectly nice fugitives. A ripple of alarm skittered up my spine. I clutched the table’s edge with my right hand to calm the slight tremor there. I swallowed carefully and wished I could reach for the juice without bobbling the glass. “Show me your ID.”

His eyebrows rose. “What?”

“Bail bondsmen are required to carry ID with them when they make ‘citizen’s arrests.’ Show it to me.”

He cleared his throat and washed down half a pancake with some coffee. “Well, some of my collars are not quite . . .”