How to Run with a Naked Werewol(18)

Nice.

"Yes, thank you, my moral quandary is completely resolved," I retorted in a saccharine-sweet voice that had him laughing.

"Well, I know what will make you feel better," he said. When I arched my eyebrows, he waved "our" pay envelope. "Fresh underwear."

"Jerry's captors gave you fresh underwear that fits in an envelope?"





6


Feminine-Hygiene Products: The Ultimate in Werewolf Repellent





To celebrate our big win, Caleb took me to the exotic destination of  Wall-Mart.

Please note that was Wall-Mart, with two Ls.

Given the faded sign lettering still evident on the storefront, I assumed the building had been an actual licensed Wal-Mart at some point, back before they changed their official name to Walmart. When the store closed, it appeared, some enterprising souls had just added an extra L to the sign and opened up their own discount megagrocery. The color scheme, façade, and layout were the same, but all of the employees seemed careful to emphasize the extra L when they said, "Welcome to Wallllllll-Mart." I assumed this was done on the advice of legal counsel.

Caleb seemed nearly giddy about this shopping spree, cart-surfing toward the ladies' clothing section. The selection wasn't exactly diverse, but I was able to find several long-sleeved T-shirts, thermals, and hoodies that I could use. I didn't want to swerve into mom-jeans territory, so I picked some yoga pants. I tossed some plain white cotton undies into the cart without comment from my werewolf shopping partner, for which I was grateful.

I hoped that the identity Red-burn created would involve living in an area with more retail opportunities. I was sincerely looking forward to wearing clothes that were not purchased in a store where you could also buy motor oil and bagged salad. As shallow as it was, I missed open-toed shoes. I missed designer labels. Heck, I missed clothes I could wear just because they were cute, not because they would protect me from frigid winds. I wanted to wear makeup again and not worry that I was attracting too much attention.

As we passed the men's section, I saw a triple-extra-large black T-shirt featuring a Field & Stream – style illustration of a wolf howling at the moon. I briefly considered buying it to sleep in, but I figured Caleb might find it suspiciously coincidental.

"You don't seem to be getting a lot," he noted, as we wandered toward the health and beauty section. He nodded toward the cartload of blues, grays, and blacks.

"I don't like someone else paying my way," I told him.

"Well, you helped me snag Jerry, so part of the fee is yours, OK?"

As gratifying as that was, it didn't lessen the humiliation of buying tampons in front of him. I wouldn't have to worry about it for a while, but I definitely didn't want to be unprepared when it happened, particularly if it happened far from civilization. As I stood, considering the various absorbencies, Caleb seemed torn between some need to stay close to me and his excruciating embarrassment.

He cleared his throat. "I'm just going to wait at the end of the aisle."

"I think that would be best," I said as he moved toward the end display.

His eyes widened when he realized that display happened to contain a decorative array of Summer's Eve products. "Maybe even in the sporting-goods section."

"Even better."

He practically left one of those little cartoon puffs of dust in his wake as he ran away. Apparently, protective instincts only extended so far when feminine-hygiene products were involved.

When he was far out of sight, I pondered my options. This was my opportunity to escape. I could walk right out of the store and find a ride with some willing trucker, taking the risk of being assaulted or worse. Kindly, beer-hauling, grandfatherly types willing to give favors, no questions or reciprocity required, were a rarity in the transportation community. But walking any distance in the dark, even in this relatively mild cold, was lunacy.

OK, so Caleb's job was a little-a lot-disturbing. And he had some strange werewolfy instincts when it came to boundaries between relative strangers. But there was something so inherently good in the way he interacted with me. He was so calm and patient and seemed to delight in even my more irritating qualities. I could handle spending time with someone who treated me like that. I doubted I would get better offers.

Right, no more getting blown around by the belches of fate. No more decisions based on panic and circumstance. I was choosing to stay with Caleb until I could make it to Anchorage.

I took a deliberate step out of the lady-maintenance aisle and toward the snack section. Caleb had snagged another cart and was filling it with pretzels, nacho chips, and, of course, venison jerky.

"So your arteries are pretty much fossilized under the weight of salt and preservatives at this point, huh?" I said, eyeing the "Around the World Jerky" megavariety pack he dropped into the cart.

"I have a strong metabolism," he said.

"That really doesn't affect the probability of a stroke," I told him.

He rolled his eyes. "Well, you're just a big pot of sunshine, aren't ya?"

"Humor me," I said as I added granola bars to the pile and swapped the nacho chips for pita chips. Caleb bent his mouth into a disdainful frown while making a gagging sound. "Just wait until we get to the produce section."


Caleb slowly but surely integrated me into his life on the road. Although I disliked how he made his living, I could see why he enjoyed it. He got all the fun of being a detective, without the pesky paperwork and professional accountability. He got to see new places, meet new people . . . and handcuff them. It was like an Easter-egg hunt for people, trying to trace their routes and figure out where they were stashed. But his job was scary, too. He was all alone out here. I was his only backup, which, given my pitiful upper-body strength, was a terrifying thought. If he got hurt, there might not be someone to help him. And while he could heal himself from most injuries, the thought of him lying alone and bleeding in a parking lot made me a little ill.

We drove for what felt like days, stopping in saloons and motels along the way, talking to Caleb's contacts, and picking up information-all while I needled him to drive a little faster, to move along so we could get to Anchorage.

Caleb's ability to use his werewolf nature to pick up on his targets' scents made him seem like a human bloodhound. Knowing about his heightened senses helped me figure out how they helped him to see the minute details that the average person would miss, from trash left behind in a motel room to the depth and age of tire and shoe prints outside a target's house. And when he was interviewing people, I knew he could smell changes in their body chemistry, hormonal shifts that indicated stress or deception; he could see their eyes dilate and hear changes in their heart rates. He was a walking lie detector, which made me nervous as hell.

But he had just as many secrets to protect as I did. Caleb did his best to cover his otherworldly traits. He found reasons to be out on full-moon nights, when the urge to shift-while not obligatory for werewolves-was strong. He occasionally came back to the motel with dried blood on his clothes or a few feathers in his hair. I pretended not to notice, because there was no possible explanation for the feathers that wouldn't send a reasonable girl running.                       
       
           



       

He might have fooled a newbie with an untrained eye. But to someone who had lived with a pack for four years, he might as well have worn a big blinking neon sign: "I'm a werewolf, ask me how."

Mealtimes with Caleb were an adventure. Like any werewolf, he ate as if it was his job. Bacon, eggs, bacon, steak, more bacon. But he seemed anxious unless he saw that I was eating, too. Clearly, I could never put away as many calories as he was taking in, but unless he saw me consuming a steady stream of nutritious foods, he would nudge them onto my plate. He stopped short of doing airplane noises and trying to feed me, for which I was grateful. As much as I appreciated his concern, my jeans were getting tight, and I was running out of Tums.

Beyond the food issues, he was protective to the extreme, keeping an eye on me at all times. And while it made me uncomfortable-especially when he attempted to follow me into a ladies' room-part of me was reassured that he cared. He wasn't trying to keep me from leaving or keep me from meeting someone who might replace him. He was honestly concerned that there might be someone lurking around a corner, which turned out to be a reasonable anxiety at a rest stop in Layton. OK, so it was a porcupine trying to take a nap, but I doubted I could have fought it off on my own.

We drove and drove through the ever-changing landscape, through mountains and valleys, rolling flatlands. Radio stations were a matter of contention. He preferred country (country!), while I stuck to the classic-rock side of the dial. We finally found a Crosby, Stills, and Nash greatest-hits CD at a truck stop in Hanover, which satisfied us both for a while.

We would wake up reasonably early, pack up the truck, and drive to a location where Caleb would either check us into a motel or I would wait in the nearest diner while Caleb met with contacts or snooped around. In the afternoons, we would hit the road again for whatever new trail we were following. At night, we shared a bed. There seemed to be a terrible rash of motels with (a) no double rooms and (b) only one available room, meaning we had to share. I found this highly suspicious, but since Caleb never tried anything untoward, I stopped worrying about it. It got to the point where I doubted I could sleep without the warmth and weight of his body on the bed with me. The Glenn nightmares tapered off to nothing, and for the first time in years, I slept deeply and dreamlessly.