I drove straight home from the diner. I parked in front of the small white trailer next to my house. The trailer was my actual home right now. My two-story farmhouse, a work in progress, sat on ten acres of wooded land. It was going to be early fall before the house would be livable, especially since I was on a budget. The reward for finding the bank’s stolen money had paid off the mortgage, which suited me fine, but there wasn’t anything left over for actual repairs.
The best part of owning my own forest was the thick tree cover that gave Smooshie and me ample privacy to stretch our furry legs. Out here in the middle of nowhere, I could change into my cougar form and explore every inch of the back property with my pretty pittie.
In the morning, I’d head to Walmart for a new cell phone, but tonight, I wanted to run. Smooshie leaped out of the truck when I opened the passenger door. She turned around, her tail stirring the air as she playfully barked a sort of “roo roo roo rooo.” My big girl had a way of sensing when I planned an evening dressed in fur, claws, and sharp teeth.
Smooshie always got excited when I started to undress, even when a nightly run wasn’t in the plan. I’d had to take to changing for work or a night out behind closed doors so she wouldn’t put herself in a happy frenzy. Besides, I couldn’t take the disappointment in her eyes during those times when she would realize we weren’t going for a run. Tonight, however, my girl would get to really stretch her legs.
Finding the body, running into Naomi, her intimations that her and Parker had sex, all of it made my skin itch. I yanked my T-shirt over my head as Smooshie followed me to the trailer. I took off my bra next. At the steps, I opened the door, unzipped my ankle boots, and chucked them inside, along with my other discarded clothes. Smoosh trotted around, prancing with energy.
When I shimmied out of my pants and undies, I gave Smooshie a big smile. “Time to run, baby girl.”
My cougar prowled around inside me. She was almost as excited as the pit bull. I willed her to the surface, embracing the warmth of fur as it sprouted along my skin. The bones in my body cracked and reshaped until I transformed into my animal form. It took mere seconds and, as always, felt like unmitigated bliss. I loved the feel of my claws gripping the grass as we ran into the woods. I found my favorite tree, a great oak with thick branches the size of Parker’s thighs that I could climb up on and perch.
From my roost, I saw headlights coming up the road. I recognized the sound of the engine and the crunch of the heavy tires rolling over the gravel. It was Parker’s dually pickup. I jumped down from the tree, landing on the grass with the light ease of my kind. I didn’t want to see Parker right now, not after my run-in with Naomi at The Cat’s Meow. That woman certainly knew how to push my buttons.
The truck pulled up to the trailer. The engine stopped before the headlamps went out. I wanted to run away. It wasn’t exactly a mature way to behave, but it was better than my first impulse, which was to go all crazy cougar on his butt. I didn’t have the right to hold his past intimacies against him, but Naomi Wells?
I tried not to dwell on the fact that I was the one who had encouraged him to go out with her in the first place.
When Parker got out of the truck, I hid behind a tree. I know, really mature. I wasn’t sure if seeing me in my cougar form would freak him out more, especially since we hadn’t really talked about it since the first time. You know, when I went all Rick Grimes and bit a man’s throat out. I shook my head. Damn Uncle Buzz for getting me hooked on The Walking Dead. I’d marathoned all of the early seasons in less than a month.
Changing into human form didn’t seem like a good option either. I mean, I didn’t relish the idea of trotting up to the trailer completely naked to greet him. Smooshie sat down next to me, her tail whacking slowly against my hind quarter as she whined. I guess she couldn’t understand why we weren’t happy to see Parker. I hissed through my fangs and rubbed my shoulder against the dog. She needed to keep quiet. I didn’t want Parker to know I was out here.
The trailer porch light, the one near the front door, illuminated Parker as he knocked. “Lily?” I heard him ask. He knocked again then stepped off the bottom stair.
Goddess, why did that man have to look so good? What could I possibly say to him right now that wouldn’t screw things up between us? He’d finally made the first move, and I worried that if he saw me in werecougar form again, it would freak him out, and he’d never want anything to do with me again.
So, since I wasn’t ready to push my Shifter luck with Parker, I made like a scaredy-cougar and ran to the back of the property with Smooshie hot on my heels. She barked at our spirited run. If I’d been capable of a fully-furred wince, I would have. There was no way Parker hadn’t heard her. So much for a stealthy getaway.
Once we made it to the edge of my woods, I knew Donnie Doyle’s house was only a couple miles up the road. Investigating on my own was such a bad idea, but it gave me a legitimate reason to avoid my personal drama.
I heard my name bellowed in the distance. Parker was searching for me, but I didn’t want to be found. Stretching my strides to increase my speed, Smooshie by my side, we made our way to the Doyle property. I approached cautiously, making sure there wasn’t any police or any other human presence around. The house was dark. I didn’t see a single light on, and there were no cars or other vehicles in the driveway.
Inhaling deeply, I tasted the air. The earlier acrid smell of death had faded. Smooshie, who was easily distracted, shoved her nose into a nearby clump of grass. More than likely she caught the scent of a mole or a raccoon. Doyle’s rental sat on a wide-open plot. He had two trees, a knotty redbud on the side of the house and a large silver maple in the backyard.
I tried to catch the scent of something that wasn’t a small critter but couldn’t detect any human activity other than what the police and crime scene technicians might’ve left behind. It was stupid to think that after all this time, and with as many people who had been traipsing in and out of the house since I’d called 9-1-1, that I might find some important clue. If there was even a clue to be found.
I scouted the perimeter of the house until I reached the office window. I could still hear the whir of Doyle’s computer. I guess no one had turned off the electricity. Did the police arrange for things like that after someone died? Or was it left to the next of kin or whoever ended up with the place?
I raised up on my hindquarters and put my paws on the window ledge to look inside. A red light flashed on the computer tower. I really wanted to break in and look at what could be making that fan work overtime. I pressed my nose to the pane and caught a faint whiff of cleaner. It smelled like something that would be used in an institution, like a hospital or nursing home, not in someone’s home. He kept his house immaculate, which meant a guy like him might get his cleaner from an industrial source. I padded to the next window and stretched myself up to look in.
The moonlight streaming in from behind me twinkled off something shiny just under the end corner of the bed. I pushed against the glass to get a closer look—but the roar of a dually truck engine made me yikes. Well, not exactly a yikes, but as close as I could approximate in my current body. Parker.
I took off running into the back field, but my traitorous pit bull ran in the opposite direction. Her happy barking alerted me to the fact that she wasn’t following me. Grr.
The engine shut off, and a truck door slammed shut.
“Lily!” Parker shouted. “If you want your dog back, you’ll show yourself.”
Great. No way in Samhain was I shifting back to human. Even so, I wouldn’t run—I mean, I wouldn’t run again—like a coward. I loped back to Doyle’s house with my tail literally between my legs.
By the time I got around to the front, Smooshie, the turncoat, was already in the front seat of his truck next to Elvis, her head out the window, ears perked and tongue hanging three inches past her chin. The giant gray behemoth next to her had a stoic expression of tolerance. Poor Elvis.
I growled.
Smoosh’s ears flattened guiltily, but her tongue remained visible. I shook my head. It was a good thing my pittie was adorable.
“Lily?”
I turned my head. Parker was standing about ten feet away, his eyes wide and his shoulders tightly bunched. I hissed. Why did he have to come looking for me?
“Is that really you?”
Yeah, it’s really me. I hissed again.
Parker raised his hands. A move to show the animal he wasn’t a threat. Gah!
He took a step toward me. My hackles rose reflexively as I took a step back.
“How much of what I’m saying can you understand? Do you know who I am? I won’t hurt you,” he said, his voice soft and soothing. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Too late. I worked on breathing through my irritation. I gave Parker a pointed look then walked to the back of his truck and jumped in the bed.
“What are you doing?” Parker asked.
Isn’t it obvious? I flopped down, regretting my choice when the metal riffles bit into my legs. I snarled at the smell of lawn mower gasoline coming off the push mower he had strapped down near the front of the bed and waited for him to take me home.