"Yeah, I'm getting a condescending he-man who sniffs me."
And attempts to bite me while sleep-snuggling.
"Well, you smell nice," he said, shrugging as if that excused the scratch-and-sniffery. When I didn't respond to his "charm" with the expected giggling and swooning, he sighed. "Just let me make sure you're safe, OK? I have to do some driving for work. You might find another town you like, find someplace to stay. Until then, I can keep an eye on you, repay you for saving my life. Do you think you're going to get a better offer from a random trucker?"
I glared up at him and didn't answer.
"Besides, who knows what could happen to me with this nearly mortal wound I've suffered?" he said, gesturing dramatically to his bandage.
I leveled a disbelieving gaze at him through my eyelashes. "The mortal wound that was ‘no big deal' just a little while ago?"
"I could lose consciousness or develop an infection, maybe even get shot again without someone watching my back. You don't want that on your conscience, do you?" Caleb's beatific smile was too well rehearsed to be genuine.
I pursed my lips, considering the pros and cons of this insane situation. Maybe I was being unfair to Caleb. Other than their astronomical caloric intake and their propensity for public nudity, werewolves were just regular people. They were nice, for the most part, with the exception of the psychotic, power-hungry assholes who occasionally staged coups to take over neighboring packs.
Happened more often than you might think.
Caleb didn't strike me as a psychotic asshole. So far, he hadn't lied to me. He hadn't hurt me, intentionally. And even when he'd invaded my personal space, I hadn't panicked or felt threatened, and that was saying something. I had the distinct impression that if Caleb told me he would keep me safe, I would be safe. And safety was tempting, too tempting, as I considered how long it would take me to come up with a plan to get to Anchorage with no money and no car.
"OK. But if we're going to do this, you're going to have to stop that," I told him.
"What?"
"That!" I said, shrugging off his hands, which had been absently running up and down my arms. "The touching and the sniffing and the . . . nuzzling. That stops, right now."
"But what if you want me to nuzzle you?" he asked, his voice returning to that gruff, husky tenor from the night before. And I felt my knees sag a little bit.
Damn it. "I won't."
He stepped a little closer. I pressed back against the door. "What if you ask me to?"
"If I say the words, ‘Caleb, please nuzzle me,' you can do your worst."
"All right, then." He grinned at me again in a way that can only be described as "happy puppy" and loped away toward the bathroom. I wandered to the bed and dropped to it, dazed.
What the hell just happened?
Now that I could get a good look at Caleb's truck in the daylight, I could appreciate the serviceable vehicle. While the exterior red paint was pristine, the inside showed the wear and tear of a lot of time on the road. The passenger-side floorboard was littered with meat snack packets and foam coffee cups. And while Caleb had managed not to bleed on the cushy gray upholstery, the dash was covered in gas receipts and dust. I hadn't noticed any of that the night before, but it's amazing what you can overlook when someone has a bleeding gut wound.
After my nuzzle embargo, Caleb gave me a pretty roomy space bubble on the ride into town. The only time he even reached across the center line dividing the front seat was to hand me some peanut butter crackers he had stashed in the console.
"So, no bullshit, what's your real name?"
I frowned at him and repeated myself. "Anne McCaffrey."
"I said no bullshit." My mouth dropped open, and he smirked. "Trust me, I'm familiar with faked names. Besides, you think you're the only person who's stepped inside a bookstore? Now, what's your name?"
I sighed. There was no sense in trying to continue the lie. Frankly, it was embarrassing to be caught. Just my luck to have found the only male werewolf to have read The Dragonriders of Pern. It was worth a shot, but I'd gotten used to answering to Anna, anyway. "It is Anna."
He pressed a little bit more. "Anna what?"
"All you need to know is that you should call me Anna," I told him.
He frowned, looking more hurt than irritated, but obviously decided to drop the subject. "So you didn't answer my questions before. Where you from?" he asked as I tried hard to refrain from shoving the crackers into my mouth like a carb-lover on her cheat day.
"Around," I said, barely containing the cracker bits from spewing out of my mouth. I was, as Maggie was prone to saying, a delicate flower.
"Where?" he persisted.
"Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, Texas, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon." Let's just say it was a long and winding road from leaving my marriage to arriving in Alaska. "I don't like to be tied down to one place for too long. I like to explore my options."
"As a grocery checker?" He snorted.
I stared up at him. That was the second time he'd referred to my job at Emerson's. How the hell did he know about that? It wasn't as if I'd introduced myself to him as a grocery checker/impromptu medical professional. My hand crept along the door, fingers curling around the handle. Because doing a Charlie's Angels roll out of a truck onto the highway was an awesome idea. And just then, my bloodied Emerson's Dry Goods apron caught my eye.
Oh. Right. He was capable of picking up visual cues.
Feeling very foolish for my paranoia, I countered, "Grocery checker, dog shampooer, waitress. You got a problem with that?"
"I have no problem with grocery checkers or waitresses," he assured me, smiling cheekily. "As long as they remember the ketchup."
"I'm guessing you get your food spit in a lot."
"I guess you were getting off of work last night, and that's why you happened by my, uh, discussion with Marty?"
I nodded and glanced sideways at him. "So what are you?" His brow creased, and he stared at me, as if he was trying to find some hidden meaning in the question. "What do you do for a living? Given the number of jerky wrappers and to-go cups on the floorboards, I'm guessing you spend a lot of time in this truck."
"Have you met any other people like me?" he asked, still eyeing me carefully.
"Is there a reason you're answering my questions with completely unrelated questions?" I asked.
"I'm trying to keep some mystery about me," he said, his tone flat.
I crossed my arms over my chest, harrumphing as we reached the main drag of Sharpton. Caleb's big red truck caught the attention of the handful of shopkeepers opening their doors for the day, making them stop and stare after us as we drove by. Everyone knew everyone in little settlements like these. New people attracted a lot of attention. And longtime locals weren't particularly friendly to "outsiders." But for the most part, they were strong little communities. Neighbors relied on one another for resources and entertainment, particularly during the long winters. Beyond my medical skills, I had been highly valuable to the pack for my ability to make homemade caramel corn. Werewolves loved caramel corn. It was the only way to make the Gilbert boys take their flu shots without biting me.
We pulled into the parking lot of a diner that looked halfway reputable. As the truck slowed, I heard something, probably one of the dozen or so ChapSticks I kept in my bag, roll under the seat into the back of the cab.
"I'll get us a booth," Caleb told me as I shoved the seat forward. Peering under the front seat, I felt along the hard plastic edge for my errant lip balm, but instead, my fingers closed over a strange metallic curved object tucked into a groove under the seat.
"What the-?" I pulled it out into the light. Handcuffs. I felt under the seat again and found plastic zip ties, a collapsible metal police baton, duct tape, and rope, all Velcroed to the bottom of the seat. And now that I looked at the back of the front seat, I realized that there was a collapsible metal grate attached to it, the kind that cops had in their squad cars to keep suspects contained in the back.
I dropped my bag, backing away. This guy had a serial killer's tool kit in the back of his truck.
A strange sense of betrayal bloomed, astringent and bitter, in my chest. For a moment, I'd let myself believe in this guy. I'd wanted to trust in that promise of safety, in the prospect of being able to relax into familiar wolfy territory for just a few days, to feel that I wasn't alone. The fact that I'd wanted it so badly, so quickly, scared me even more than the possible uses for three sets of adjustable bungee cords.
I scanned the front window of the diner. Caleb was already sitting in a booth. If I just slipped away, he probably wouldn't notice for a while that I hadn't followed him in. There was a bar up the main street. Maybe I could hitch a ride with someone there. I hadn't done that in a while, and obviously, my self-preservation skills were pretty rusty. But I guessed the devil you didn't know would likely be safer than the devil you knew had freaking duct tape and cuffs in his truck.