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“He isn’t dying, Richard.”
“You, my dear, are in denial.”
“He’s been better lately. He won’t heal if you don’t believe in him.”
“He won’t heal if the cancer eats him from the inside out.”
The marital conflict exploded around us. Clipboard lady slunk out the door, murmuring something about cleaners needing supervision. Which left me and Luke, knee-to-knee, staring into each other’s eyes.
After a long moment of silence, he skipped past previously shelved topics and stated the obvious. “They’re only going to hire one of us.”
He was right. And that someone was going to be me.
To that end, I filled my mental eye with the image of Bastion as he’d been this morning. Full of enthusiasm. Vibrant. Alive.
“The job is mine.”
I tried to stare Luke down, but he just shook his head. “You’re not here for a job. You need a ‘physical item.’”
His air quotes were wince worthy. But, I nodded anyway. There was no point in denying it. “And...?”
“And I intend to be here for Clarence.”
Again, something about him softened and sharpened at the same moment. This was Luke’s weakness.
But I didn’t press. Instead, I nodded, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The metaphorical footwear didn’t take long to fall.
Luke pierced me with eyes so blue I couldn’t so much as glance sideways. “I propose a partnership.”
This time I did wince. Bastion and I were partners. Grace and I—when our history didn’t tear us apart—were partners.
This stranger and I? We weren’t partners. At best, we were—
“Partners of convenience,” I clarified.
Luke’s eyes smiled, but his mouth remained rigid. He was amused by me, but just as intent upon getting his way. “If you wish.”
“You’ll help me find my item...”
“And you’ll help me protect Clarence.”
I eyed him, considering. Tested him with the obvious roadblock. “But that still doesn’t solve the issue of there being only one job available.”
“Not a problem.” This time Luke did smile. “I work pro bono. After all, I am a friend of the family.”
I raised my eyebrows in question. Luke hadn’t seemed like a friend of the family when he snuck around outside the residence two nights earlier.
Then I realized how he intended to twist the truth. Blue eyes sparkled with mischief as Luke laid out his game plan.
“How could I charge the Smythewhites money when Mrs. Smythewhite thinks she and my mother joined the Daughters of the American Revolution at the exact same time?”
***
FEIGNED FAMILY CONNECTIONS weren’t his only in, as I discovered once the married couple stopped bickering. Luke told the Smythewhites straight up that hiring two employees rather than one would allow us to take shifts rather than leaving Clarence to his own devices after hours. He touched ever so lightly on his hefty donation to the leukemia-research foundation, then used that to segue into his own pro-bono status...contingent upon me being hired also, of course.
Basically, by the time Luke was finished, the Smythewhites were falling all over themselves to invite us both into their family. We were less employees than we were long-term house guests. Within the hour, we’d been moved into adjoining guest rooms.
But we didn’t start working immediately. Our official job was delayed by Clarence’s ill health—he was too sick to see us. And my unofficial job was derailed by the fact that the halls were full of cleaning staff dismantling the previous evening’s event.
Snooping now would get me tossed out on my ear. So I retreated to my room, put Justice on speaker phone, then paced back and forth like a wolf stuck in a cage.
“Is Bastion any better?” I demanded while eying the space around me. There was no reason to stash a stolen pelt in an empty guest room. But I’d feel pretty stupid if it did turn out to have been hidden here all along.
“No.”
I winced, and not just because I’d caught my finger in a closing drawer. Justice’s tone was gritty, growly. And full of the unspoken question—why was I bothering him instead of finding my cousin’s skin?
I hurried to explain. “I’m hoping to sneak Bastion in. Tonight. To find his pelt. Do you think that will be possible?”
To my surprise, Grace’s voice was the one that emerged through my phone’s speaker now. “Possible? Yes. But highly unlikely. He can’t stop vomiting....”
The last word wobbled, and I wished I was there so I could hug her. Wished she would have let me even if we were in the same room.
Justice saved us both from a doomed twin moment. He’d regained his equanimity and was all business. “Bastion only has to be conscious. I can carry him. Charge your pelt and tell us when you’re ready. We’ll come.”
I hummed assent even as I dragged the bed away from the wall and noted the lack of dust in the spot vacuum cleaners would have a hard time reaching. The Smythewhite’s cleaning crew was impressive. Would the thief really leave Bastion’s pelt somewhere the staff could find it during the course of their usual duties?
“It’ll be awhile,” I warned them. “Maybe after midnight. This house is a hornet’s nest at the moment.”
Justice’s voice didn’t wobble, but it might as well have. “We have nothing better to do than wait.”
***
I PLANNED TO SNEAK out and charge my pelt. To shift beneath the neighbors’ ungated shrubbery. To pretend to be a dog while running until my toenails bled.
I wasn’t counting on Luke trailing behind me, invisible and silent. I didn’t realize he was present until I’d toed off one shoe and started on the next.
“Really? Here? In broad daylight?”
It was like the first time we’d met, only somehow very different. I hopped around to face him, realizing as I did so how absurd it was to care whether I got my sock coated in mulch.
I’d planned for this scenario, of course. The spot was secluded and rarely visited, but there was a chance the neighbor kids would be outside playing. That’s why I’d spread my pelt on the ground beside me, skin up so I could dive atop it and shift if caught in the act.
But what do you do when interrupted by a werewolf instead of by a human? Stand there like an idiot for far longer than necessary, apparently, then spit out an entirely unbelievable lie.
“I had a pebble in my shoe.”
“Both shoes?”
“Magical pebble.”
“Don’t turn into a rock, Sylvester.”
I cocked my head, having no idea what he was talking about. And Luke was the one who reddened. “It’s a children’s story. About a talking donkey.”
“Oh, so now you’re saying I’m an ass?”
Luke’s eyes smiled, and I couldn’t resist smiling back at him. Then, so fast I barely saw him move, he was sitting cross-legged atop my pelt, patting the spot beside him with a welcoming hand.
“Let’s talk.”
The weight on my belly should have been heartening. It meant Luke had no clue I was a woelfin. Even one of the skinless wouldn’t be so bold as to plunk himself down on a woelfin’s pelt if he knew what it was.
My secret identity was secure...and I needed to keep it that way. So I countered: “Let’s not.”
Luke’s gaze left mine and the sun went behind a cloud at the exact same moment. The air was still. Our minds were not.
“I know that was you last night, Honor. In the rain. As a wolf.”
He spoke to a bird perched on a treetop. It didn’t answer and neither did I.
“You don’t seem as inexperienced as Clarence. But...”
“Clarence?” I’m not sure how I ended up sitting beside him. But I did. I only hoped Luke didn’t notice when the pelt curled up around me, pushing us in close.
“He hasn’t shifted yet. Still....”
From six inches away, Luke’s eyes were like super magnets. I broke free of their pull long enough to interrupt. “You’re saying Clarence is a werewolf?”
“Surely you can smell the fur on him?”
And the difference between woelfin and skinless was coming back around to bite me. “Sinus trouble,” I mumbled. Maybe if my pelt wasn’t a dead giveaway, lack of lupine senses while human wouldn’t be either?
Luke seemed to accept my evasion. “I plan to help him with the transition. I can help you also. Take my car. There’s a park a few miles away. Much safer to run there than down city streets.”
He was offering assistance to what he thought was a packless werewolf. Keys sat in his palm like a poisoned apple. If I accepted the offering, we’d become more than partners of convenience. Luke would have questions. As a woelfin, any answers I gave would be lies.
And did it really matter when I intended to swipe Bastion’s pelt tonight then make tracks out of town in short order? Did it matter when Luke was both skinless and lacking a twin?
“I was thinking I’d take the night shift,” I suggested, trying to make the idea sound like a spur-of-the-moment decision.
“I’ll take day then. Not a problem.”
My arm brushed against Luke’s as I knelt in preparation for standing. The point of contact was like a minor sunburn, tempting me to press the spot with my hand to see if it stung.
Instead, I lurched upright and bent to retrieve my shoe from where it sat inches from his left knee. Tying the laces, I knew without looking that Luke had risen also. Knew the instant he began brushing off my fur.
Invisible hands skimmed across my torso like the prelude to a full-body massage. I leaned into the pressure...then nearly fell as my pelt was lifted to lie between me and Luke.
I snatched it up. Found, underneath, keys waiting in one open palm.
Luke didn’t mention them. Just waited, oozing sex appeal.
I ignored the tantalizing suggestion. Both tantalizing suggestions.
“I’ll spell you at eight.” That gave me plenty of time to charge my pelt. Gave Luke plenty of time to talk Clarence into, what, a recuperative transition into lupine form?
Was being a werewolf likely to cure leukemia? Did the kid even have leukemia, or were the doctors confused by his imminent transition?
Two skinless in one house. I shivered. That was the relevant part. Two skinless getting in the way of retrieving Bastion’s pelt.
I grabbed Luke’s keys one second before turning and walking away from the temptation he represented.