I whispered kisses across the hollow of his throat. He splayed his hand across my stomach, rubbing slow, tentative circles down until he reached the nest of curls covering my waitingDamn it.
Outside, I heard paws thumping against the damp ground, jarring me out of whatever spell we’d woven in that warm little space. My brothers had tracked me down.
My eyes widened as I looked down at my own naked skin, Nick’s half-undone pants. I’d almost—we’d almost—I shrank back from him. He frowned as I eased out from under him.
“Stay here,” I told him. He leaned forward to kiss me, but I ducked, reaching into the bag to pull the extra, extra sweatpants out. I climbed out over the tailgate.
The rain had stopped, leaving the woods with that cold, smoky-clean smell. The horse-sized russet-colored male was Samson. Cooper was the large black specimen. I tossed the sweatpants at them. “Hey, guys. Took you long enough to find me.”
They phased simultaneously. Cooper looked furious. Samson looked as if his head was about to explode.
Awesome.
“What were you thinking?” Cooper demanded. “Mom’s worried sick. She called last night freaking out because you hadn’t shown up. Samson and I have searched every run path between here and the valley. Why didn’t we think of looking in ditches for some improvised truck treehouse? And I just realized you couldn’t call because you had a wreck. Sorry, it’s taking me a little bit to work through the mind-numbing terror.” Cooper threw his arms around me. “Are you OK?”
Samson joined the group hug by nearly knocking us both over.
“Midget, you reek of . . . guy.” His eyes narrowed as he caught Nick’s scent. “Dr. Girlie Face? You spent the night ‘stranded’ with Dr. Girlie Face?”
“I’ll kill him,” Cooper growled
“Not until after I kill him,” Samson countered.
They both lunged toward the truck. I caught them by the scruffs of their necks and pulled them back.
“You’re not killing anybody. We got into a wreck. He’s injured. I whacked my head. I couldn’t phase to run home and leave him alone. He was a perfect gentleman.”
Samson and Cooper locked eyes. “We kill him anyway,” Cooper said. Samson nodded.
“Come on!” Cooper exclaimed when I shoved him back. “This is a time-honored tradition! Older brothers hurting and/or scaring the crap out of their sisters’ boyfriends. It’s the whole point of having a little sister!”
“Cut it out, Coop! And he’s not my boyfriend!”
“But—but!” Samson sputtered.
“Fine, fine,” Cooper conceded. “We won’t kill him because he’s interested in you. We’ll kill him because judging by the way your clothes are clearly thrown on, I’m assuming that he saw you naked or saw you phase. Either offense warrants me knocking the crap out of him.”
“I phased while I was asleep.” I cringed. “I whacked my head pretty hard and must have needed the beauty sleep.”
Cooper nodded. “Damned inconvenient.”
“So, he knows our secret? Much better reason to kill him,” Samson said, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
I snapped at him, “Samson, shut it. We just have to think this whole thing through. Now is not the time for one of the nasty, bloody overreactions you end up apologizing for.”
“Not this time, Maggie. This time, I have a well-thought-out three-step plan.”
“Hi, guys,” Nick said, limping around the side of the truck. “Look, there’s no reason we can’t—” Crack.
Nick made a startled “uhf” noise. His eyes rolled back, and he sank to his knees. Samson was standing behind him with a tree branch in his hands.
“Did I knock him out?” Samson asked, raising the tree branch over his head to strike Nick again.
“Are you crazy?” I yelled, dropping to the ground next to Nick to check the wound on the top of his head. “You could have killed him! This is your plan? What are steps two and three? ‘Find a shovel’ and ‘Dig a hole’?”
Nick was well and truly unconscious. But his pulse was strong, and his breathing was even. I sprang up to my feet and punched Samson in the nose, knocking him flat on his ass.
“Told you she liked him,” Cooper said.
“Ow! What the hell, Maggie!” Samson grunted, cupping a hand around his bleeding nose. “That really hurt!”
“It was supposed to hurt, dumb-ass!” I yelled, flexing my bruised fingers. “What is wrong with you?”
Samson swiped at his nose. “This is just step one. Step two is we take him to the clinic in Grundy. We call Buzz to report the accident. And then we tell Nick that he hit his head really hard during the crash, and if he saw anything, like Maggie turning into a werewolf, it was probably just a bad dream. You know, the result of his concussion.”
“Have you been watching soap operas again?” I demanded.
“It’s actually not that bad of a plan,” Cooper said. “And if he goes around telling everybody he saw you turn into a wolf, he’ll just get laughed at. It will discredit him. People will think he’s loony.”
My chest ached a little at the thought of Nick being mocked by locals. But I had to admit it wasn’t totally misguided, as plans went. It was far better than Samson’s idea for getting us out of trouble when we knocked over Mom’s china cabinet, which centered on faking a robbery by carnies. “There are four steps in your three-step plan,” I muttered.
Samson brightened, and tossed Nick over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Would you be careful with him?” I yelled.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to save your truck, Mags,” Cooper said, trying to distract me from fluttering around Nick’s unconscious form like an overwrought soccer mom.
I sighed, prying the tailgate open, knowing that my scent, mixed with Nick’s, was now billowing out of the truck full-force. My face flushed hot, and Cooper pretended to be fascinated by some moss on a nearby tree.
“I don’t think there’s a wrecker on earth that will be able to haul it out of here,” I said, grabbing my bag. I rescued the necessary paperwork from the glovebox and claimed a couple of CDs from the floorboards. I took my dad’s Saint Edmund medal from its honorary spot on the rearview mirror. The lot was stuffed in my emergency bag. I slid my still-damp boots onto my feet, as it seemed we would be walking home human. I stood at the edge of the ravine and stared at my former transportation. It felt as if I was losing my last connection to my dad.
“It’s OK, Maggie,” Cooper said, wrapping his arms around me. “I’ll get you an older, shittier truck when we get back to town.”
“Ass.” I coughed to cover the sniffle caught in my throat and punched his arm.
“Can we get going?” Samson demanded, shifting Nick’s weight. “I’ve got things to do.”
“No, you don’t,” I scoffed.
“We’ve got to get Samson a girlfriend,” Cooper said. “Speaking of which, what exactly happened between you and Dr. Girlie Face last night?”
“Nice attempt at a segue, but it’s none of your business.”
“But you’re, you know, being all careful with him. Being protective. You don’t do that.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not a monster, Coop.”