Alpha Wolf

“I’d never have expected so many reporters here in Mary Glen.” Melanie’s tone sounded both baffled and disgusted.

“Yeah, the tourists like to get word out there if any hint of shapeshifter stuff happens around here,” Jonas said. “They’ve lots of contacts at the D.C. and Baltimore newspapers and TV and radio stations.”

“So I figured.” Melanie shook her head.

“How’s Grunge doing now?” Drew interrupted, more abruptly than he’d intended. “You’re sure it’s okay to take him home?”

He ignored the annoyance and curiosity in the vet’s bright blue eyes. She seemed to be scoping him out, trying to read why he’d snapped at her. Damned if he knew. But that conversation with Jonas had gone on long enough.

“He’s doing well,” she finally said. “And, yes, he can leave.” She led them into the building, closing the door behind Carla, who followed them. She locked it.

The place smelled like a hospital—clean and medicinal—even with the overlay of multiple animal scents.

“It’s after six o’clock, at least,” Melanie said. “No more appointments today, right, Carla?”

The receptionist nodded. “Right. I checked the voice-mail at my phone extension just in case, but no one’s called, so our next appointment’s tomorrow morning at nine.”

“Good. This way, gentlemen. Oh, that’s right, Major Connell. You know the way.” Melanie shot him a look full of irony, then turned and preceded them down the hall. Her hips swayed gently, causing her white lab coat to swing in an enticing manner. They passed a guy wearing a turquoise medical top. “All the dogs okay, Brendan?” Melanie asked.

“Sure are, Doc. I’m outta here now, okay?”

“As long as you’ve fed everyone and made sure their crates are clean.”

“Always.” The young man grinned and hurried past them.

Melanie’s dark hair, clipped at the nape of her neck, flicked around as she stopped and looked back at Drew and Jonas. “You’ll need to keep Grunge on antibiotics for the next ten days. I’ll give you pills for him to be taken with food. A painkiller, too, if he needs it, poor dog. I’m sure silver bullets are just as painful as lead or whatever they’re made from these days.”

“Join me for dinner and you can tell me more about how you saved him,” Drew said. “And your suggestions for his continued care.”

He had decided that this vet could be a useful resource. But only if he could learn what she knew.

They’d had access to her predecessor, of course, but Dr. Worley had known the truth about what was going on. Although he had always passed along anything he heard, he had lived here all his life. No one would have attempted to update him with anything supposedly new, sway his opinion.

Could be very different with Dr. Melanie Harding, fresh to the area. What had she heard about the alleged Mary Glen shapeshifters? This wasn’t likely to be the new vet’s only encounter with the legends, maybe not even the first. And his unit’s gathering of knowledge, even of rumors, could make the difference between life and death.

More important, she might hear something about whoever shot Grunge. And how the tourist was attacked. Drew wanted answers to both—fast.

“Well, I don’t—” she began.

“I’ll take Grunge back to the base,” Jonas said.

“Good,” Drew said. “Let’s see Jonas off with Grunge, and then we’ll eat.”

Why had she agreed to this? Or at least not given Drew an unequivocal no?

They stood outside the Mary Glen Diner. “Would you like to eat out here, on the sidewalk?” he asked.

Although half a dozen tables sat there, only a couple were occupied. It was still early enough in spring that the air was brisk. She had traded her lab jacket for a navy cardigan, but Melanie shivered anyway at the idea of staying outside.

Or maybe it was the idea of staying longer in Drew Connell’s company that made her tremble—in suppressed irritation at his continued arrogance. Yet there was something about him that chiseled away at her decision to swear off men. And it wasn’t his sparkling personality.

“Let’s go inside,” she said, as much to take control of the situation as anything.

They were met at the door by Angie Fishbach, who owned the diner. She was a short, slightly chubby woman with laugh lines crinkling the edges of her small eyes. Only she wasn’t smiling now. And deep lines were gouged into her forehead by her frown.

She wore thick-soled athletic shoes that made her yellow uniform-like shirtwaist look even dowdier. “Two?” she grumbled, then turned her back, leading them down the aisle between the rows of booths.

Odd. Angie had always been cordial to Melanie before.

The diner was one of only a couple eating establishments in town that weren’t a pizza parlor or fast food joint. Melanie dined here now and then, mostly at breakfast before the clinic opened. Alone, with her copy of the Baltimore Sun, delivered each morning to her door.

Angie often stopped at her table and chatted, unless the place was too crowded or the staff too thin.

This evening, competing aromas of grilling meat and baking pastries also filled the air. Most booths and tables were occupied, and the acoustics turned the atmosphere into a loud hum of conversation. Melanie recognized a lot of people, some from prior visits here and many who brought their pets to the clinic.

Angie showed them to a booth near the windows. “Here.” She slammed the laminated menus down on the stone-look Formica table. “Crystal will be with you soon.”

Melanie shot a glance toward Drew. He slid into the booth and opened the menu, without seeming to notice Angie’s abruptness. Maybe he hadn’t been here often enough to expect anything else. Melanie sat down, too.

“Hope you’re hungry.” He lowered the menu and looked at her. “They charbroil a mean steak here.”

“I know,” she said. “But not for me.”

“Are you a vegetarian, Doc?”

“No,” Melanie said. “I believe in the natural order of things, and of course animals devour each other to survive. We’re theoretically more advanced, but as much as I love the taste of red meat it’s not healthy for humans to eat a lot of it.”

“Could be. But it’s okay to live dangerously now and then, don’t you think?”

One corner of his full lips quirked up in an almost-smile. Melanie’s insides ignited. Was that last sentence intended to be a double entendre?

Well, sure, she found the guy hot. Who wouldn’t? And here they were, out for dinner, on the first date she’d had since arriving in Mary Glen. The idea of sex with this man had crossed her mind more than once since she’d caught him in the clinic. In fact, it had flowed down from her brain and now sizzled in her body as if her blood had turned into lava.

It had been ages since she had thought about sex, longer still since she had indulged.

Which was, of course, the problem, she realized as she pretended to study the menu without responding to his provocative question. Not only was she rusty at the whole dating thing, but she was also horny. She would read innuendo into the most innocent of statements.

He was simply teasing her, right? Only, he didn’t seem to be the teasing type. Her deprived, conservative nature was undoubtedly obvious to this man who had to live dangerously more than the now and then he’d suggested. He was in the military, wasn’t he?

The most daring thing she had done in her life was to leave everything and everyone she knew in her hometown of Los Angeles and buy the veterinary practice here.

But she’d had to make a change, a drastic one, after all she had gone through at the time. Her parents were dead, and her sister lived with her husband and kids in Seattle. There had been much more reason to leave than to stay, once she had learned what her former fiancé had been pulling.

Well, she could take care of herself. And that meant flirting. Why not? It wouldn’t hurt to practice, even if she had no intention of anything more.

“You convinced me,” she said to Drew. “I’ll go for the small sirloin. And a salad on the side. Need to have something that’s arguably good for me.”

“T-bone for me,” he said. “Large. If I have any leftovers, Grunge will be willing to take them on. Without the bone, in case it’s the kind that’ll splinter. Right, Doc?”