CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

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“Trust me, live while you can,” Granny chuckled. “You wouldn’t believe how fast time whizzes by, and then you’re looking back at a grey-haired old wrinkly and wishing you could do it all over again.”

“Well, some people look good on the outside, but they aren’t always what they seem…” Sandy reminded herself more than she informed them.

“Oh, we know…” Granny said with a small nod of her head, and Sandy had to wonder just what they knew.

“But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t partake of the forbidden fruit now – does it?” The other woman offered.

“I…” Sandy got the feeling that those two women knew the shifter’s secret, but could that have been possible? They were human, at least, she wasn’t picking up any sign of magic from either of them. “Umm…”

“Where’s the harm?” Granny said. “Live a little.” She leaned in and whispered, but Sandy bet that big shifter with the even bigger ears heard her just fine.

“Uh-huh,” Sandy said in disbelief as she dropped her chin and bit down on everything that she wanted to say. People were weird – and she needed to get out of dodge before anybody got any ideas about anything. “Just driving on through town.”

“Best thing – no awkwardness,” Granny said.

“No strings,” the other woman said, and sniggers went up around her.

“Not looking for a hookup, but I’ll keep that in mind,” Sandy chuckled. But, she did have to wonder if the world had gone mad when she wasn’t looking. Maybe it was something in the mountain air.

Whatever it was – she intended to hot foot it out of town before she caught that little something-something in the air.

 

 

~

 

 

“Wait up,” Joel snapped out as the little witch shot out of the bakery, turned her head to look at him, and started up the street in the other direction as if Satan’s minions were hard on her heels.

“No time, gotta go,” Sandy called back over her shoulder, but he wasn’t behind her anymore – the man was walking right alongside her. She did a double take but kept on going. “Stop following me.”

“I’m not following you. I’m walking with you…”

“Well … don’t,” she muttered. “People around here are … strange.”

“Strange?” Joel gave a low, deep chuckle that sounded good – like, really good to her ears. “I think you know what I am…”

“Not you, them.” She hooked a thumb from her free hand back over her shoulder, and Joel frowned.

“How?”

“Huh?” Sandy wasn’t exactly prepared to answer that question. Not to him. Telling that story would be like pulling teeth, and she was fond of her teeth, akin to screeching nails down a chalkboard – and who liked that sound?

“Be-cause,” she bit out, at a loss.

“Enlightening,” Joel said and gave a thoughtful nod, and she shot a small sneer in his direction.

“I’d say bite me, but we both know how that would end,” Sandy tossed back, and her words rallied the beast within him once more.

Scent her. She didn’t even have to know – just sniff the air – subtle like. Joel craned his head on his neck in her direction, and she did more than a double take, she practically jumped to the side, stopped in place, and turned a look of disbelief on him.

“Oh you were so not planning to do what I think you were about to do,” Sandy berated him with a scowl that brought her dark eyebrows down low over her eyes, but he could still see the way that she was glaring up at him.

“Me?” He asked as innocently as he could muster even though he had guilty stamped all over him. “Do?” he said as he twisted his head on his neck and narrowed his eyes slightly as if he was considering her words. “You?”

“Do not string those three words together in a sentence,” she warned him, and it took him a moment, but then there was a slow, wolfish grin that spread his lips wide and brought, not only amusement but something a whole lot sexier to his eyes. “Oh my Goddess!” she hissed out.

“Relax, it’s not like I’m going to pounce…”

“But you did just try to sniff…”

“Sniffing and pouncing are two different things…”

“So is life and death, but I think you’ll find they’re on either side of the same blooming coin.”

“Yeah,” Joel gave a small shake of his head and frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Shocker,” she bit out, put her best foot forward and stalked away from him. The only trouble was, he was right by her side again.

Sandy ground to a halt on a huff and turned to look at him when he stopped too. “Are you lost?”

“I don’t think so,” Joel assured her.

“Then can you get lost?” Sandy didn’t want to be mean – until she didn’t have a choice in the matter – but, she also wasn’t happy about the attention he was giving her. It hadn’t helped that she thought he was trying to scent her – in a sneaky kind of a way.

“Harsh, and uncalled for…”

“Look, chatty-with-wolves, I have zero tolerance for men who think women are fair game to be hounded into submission…”

“Hounded into submission – I feel like that’s a slur wrapped up in an insult, mixed with something that just is plainly not true.” 

“If that’s howl you need to take it – go ahead,” Sandy tossed up a hand between them. “But this,” she motioned back and forth between them. “Is not going anywhere – no booty call – no hookup – no spells – no favours – and no sniffing Mac-sniff-face.”

“Can we go back to the booty call and the hookup?” He kind of liked that idea, although, he thought he could get lost for a lot longer than one night in her eyes.

His beast rallied, but then so did she. Her eyes went wide, and her breasts rose as she sucked in the oxygen between them. “Oh, my Goddess! Are you seriously…?”

Joel held his large hands up to his chest in surrender. “Now, hold your demons…”

“Put those hands down – I trust ye not,” she bit out.

She’d seen where his gaze had flicked down to when she’d breathed in, and her girls had become a little perkier, and if he thought for one moment that he could cop a feel … well, he’d be a wolf with a couple of paws missing.