The Witch And The Werewolf

“And? Uh, he hasn’t called with the results yet. It’s nothing. I don’t think you have to worry about finding me in your backyard in werewolf shape anytime in the future.”

“Well, I’d rather you in my backyard than Mrs. Henderson’s. You have to be careful.”

“I am,” he said forcefully.

And Mireio took that as a warning to curb the conversation topic. She did love an alpha, but she wasn’t stupid. When you poke a wolf with a stick, it’ll bite.

She prodded the bread crust on her plate. “So you said you’re some kind of security guy?”

“That was just my roundabout way of saying I’m scion of the Northern Pack without actually telling anyone I’m a werewolf.”

“Right. Gotta be careful. But since I know... What does being a scion entail?”

“At the moment? Not much.” He chuckled and his shoulders relaxed. The wicker chair creaked as he settled into it. And those sexy dimples returned. “The pack I grew up in has been shrinking every year. A few years ago, Ridge Addison handed over the principal reins to Dean Maverick, which bumped me up to scion, his second-in-command. But there are only two other pack members at present, and the only one who lives on the compound is Maverick and his woman, Sunday.”

“I know Sunday. She’s good friends with one of The Decadent Dames owners, Valor Hearst.”

“I know Valor. I’ve sold her queen bees for her hives. I’m also a beekeeper. I think I mentioned that last night?”

“That’s so cool. I love bees. They’re so fluffy.”

“And industrious. They fascinate me. And Sunday is awesome. Lately she’s been helping me with...a project.”

Mireio leaned across the table and caught her chin in hand. “What sort of project?”

“Just something—” he held his hands in the air to suggest something bread-basket sized “—small.”

A small project that he obviously didn’t want to talk about. The man was either shy or shifty. Mireio would stick with shy. And he was a cute shy, so that made his reluctance to expound easier to accept. On with the next topic. “You said you’ve been remodeling a house?”

“Yes, my cabin. I’m fixing it up. I intend to add on two rooms to the back before winter. I live about a run away from the pack compound.”

“A run?”

“I can jog back and forth from the cabin to the compound in about five minutes, or take a leisurely stroll in fifteen minutes. I moved into the old, single-room cabin years ago. I’ve got the outhouse all finished, but now—”

“Wait.” Mireio set down her lemonade and sat up straight. “You have an outhouse? Like...no indoor bathroom?”

He laughed, and the sound of it felt like rough water rushing over river stones to Mireio. And for a water witch that was a very sexy sound. “It’s how the place was when I moved in,” he said. “But thanks to my remodeling it’s all modern and has running water with good quality plumbing in the outhouse. Not a hole in a board.”

“Whew! For a second there you had me worried. I’ll have you know the bathroom is the most important room in my house. There are not too many nights I miss my bath.”

“You were taking a bath the night I saw you standing outside the door. Uh, sorry.” He rubbed a palm over his face and swiped across his beard nervously. “I have to stop bringing that up. It’s rude of me.”

“Not rude, just...” Mireio sighed. “So you’ve seen me naked. Just gives you something to desire, doesn’t it?” And she sat back, satisfied that she’d stepped beyond the weirdness of the event and made it something she could control. If not a little weirder. Ha! Go, Mireio! “Anyway, my bathtub is huge. It’s because I’m a mermaid.”

Lars’s jaw dropped open. “You are? So you’re like a mermaid witch?”

“I mean, figuratively I’m a mermaid. I love water. I work water magic. I think I was probably a real mermaid in a past life. You know?”

“I can imagine you swishing around in the sea. But would your hair have been green?”

“Maybe.” She twirled the ends of her hair around a fingertip and fluttered her lashes at him.

And Lars fell into that puppy-dog, lovestruck expression again. Oh, dear, but he had it bad for her. And she wasn’t beyond encouraging him, because now that she was getting to know him, she really liked the strong silent alpha.

Had she intentions to avoid a relationship? Silly witch.

“Mireio!”

At the shrieking female yell, Lars sat up abruptly, kicking the table and upsetting the plates. Mireio made a grab to keep them from falling onto the stone patio. “It’s just Mrs. Henderson,” she said quickly, as if to calm a spooked dog.

The old woman popped around the back corner of the house with a notebook in hand. She wore an olive green pencil skirt that Mireio imagined she’d probably worn in her heyday back in, well...whenever the skirt had been in style. Her black-and-gray hair was piled into a messy bundle atop her narrow skull and on her feet were the ever-present and quite beaten pink bunny slippers.

“Oh.” Mrs. Henderson eyed up Lars. “I didn’t realize you had a guest, Mireio.”

“Mrs. Henderson, this is Lars Gunderson. Lars, Mrs. Henderson, my next-door neighbor. We were just finishing lunch. And I have a loaf of oatmeal rye for you that I’ll bring over once it’s cooled, Mrs. Henderson.”

“Oh, that’s lovely. You’re always so generous with the baked goods. And quite a talent too.” She still couldn’t drag her assessing gaze from Lars as she held out the notebook before her. “I don’t mean to interrupt but I wanted to show you the sketch I made of the—” she dropped her voice to a whisper “—you-know-what we saw the other night.”

Mireio glanced to Lars, who, no doubt, had figured what the woman was talking about, but he didn’t show that he had.

“Lars, was it?” Mrs. Henderson asked him. She tilted her head, taking him in with a discerning gaze. “Have we met before? You seem very familiar.”

“Never,” Mireio blurt out. “I mean, we’ve only just met, so of course you’ve never seen him here or in my yard before. Let me see what you’ve drawn, Mrs. Henderson. It’s okay. I mentioned the, uh, incident to Lars. So he’s in on it.”

“Oh?” The woman’s eyes brightened, pleased to have another conspirator present. “She told you about the Sasquatch?”

“That she did.” He leaned his elbows onto his knees, giving her his full attention. “You must have been frightened something fierce.”

“Who me? Oh, gosh, no. I may have been initially surprised to see such a big, ugly, hulking beast tromping through my prized tulips, but that didn’t stop me from getting a very good look at the monster.”

Lars’s jaw tensed. It was a good thing he wasn’t holding the glass of lemonade because Mireio guessed his clenched fingers might have sent shards flying.

Mrs. Henderson laid the notebook down on the table and Mireio turned it so both she and Lars could look at the—quite talented—sketch of what looked similar to an ape-like man with long hairy fingers and a hunched back and shoulders. The head was all wrong, not matching the werewolf’s actual wolf head and long toothy maw, but instead more resembling a man with large ears and a flat monkeylike snout.

“Remarkable,” Mireio said with a secret glance and smile to Lars.

“Is it how you remembered the beast too?” Mrs. Henderson asked eagerly. “I intend to bring this sketch in to the police, but I’m still not so sure I got the nose right.”

“Oh. Well...” Mireio shrugged. “I didn’t get a very good look at it. I had initially thought it was a moose...but I’m sure what you’ve drawn here is very close.”

“But you said it stopped and stared at you for a moment. Surely you must have seen details? Did you look into its big glowing yellow eyes?”

Mireio met Lars’s lift of his brows. He was smirking now, thank the goddess. He obviously understood there was no fear of him being found out with such a drastically wrong drawing, no matter who the woman showed it to.

“Maybe a little longer,” she said, tapping the nose. “And did you get the tail?”

“The tail?” Mrs. Henderson picked up the sketch and studied it. “I’m not sure I remember...oh. Sure. A tail. Of course, Sasquatches have tails.”