“I need a break.”
“Running away? Look, Brody, I get that I’m your least favorite person. Taylor is dead from his own negligence. I’m sorry. But Theo needs others like himself. I don’t want him growing up feeling like he’s weird or that he doesn’t have a place to belong.”
“You’re not my least favorite person.” I stepped outside to get some fresh air. Those paint fumes were getting to me. That was it. It had nothing to do with being in the same house as Willow. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. And another.
I headed down the back steps toward the mostly mud field behind her house. My mind raced.For fuck’s sake, her kid’s a shifter.
This complicated everything. No wonder Willow came to Sleepy Briar. She couldn’t raise a wolf shifter cub in Ohio.
The boy was three, maybe four—too young to be separated from his mother. If someone were to even suggest it, Willow’s impression of a mother wolf would be formidable.
Willow needed a protector, and so did her son.
It was too hot too soon. I wasn’t used to the sun and warmth being together already. Sweat rolled down my back, making my T-shirt stick to my skin. I headed for a patch of shade over by spindly birch trees. Stripping off my shirt, I balled it up in my fist.
My wolf spirit was rising. The heat combined with the stress of being around Willow made me need to shift. My hands went to my jeans button.
“Hey!” It was Gabe. “Do you mind? There’s a minor here.”
Over to my left, Gabe approached the treed area where I’d paused. His progress was limited by what appeared to be a dingy sack shackled to his leg. The sack wiggled and grunted ever louder as Gabe, carrying a shovel, approached a mangy snow pile.
Theo had attached himself to Gabe’s leg. Gabe ignored the cub gnawing away on him. Once I’d seen a poodle chew off the collar of the lab sitting next to him. The lab barely flicked an ear at the process. Gabe wore that same long-suffering expression.
About six feet tall and half again as wide, the snow pile they approached was no longer a pristine white. It was muddy, with bits of rock, twigs, and pine needles mixed in. Still in cub form, Theo detached himself from Gabe’s ankle and scrambled up one side of the snow hill. He climbed up and rolled back down multiple times. His joy in his wolf spirit made me eager to shift into mine.
Unlike Theo, I could head out of town and roam through the snow-covered mountains in under half an hour if I started now. Although Gabe wasn’t the ideal minder, Theo on his own would be in greater danger. With spring, male wolves would pass through the area, and a lone cub would be good eating to a hungry wolf.
“I didn’t see you.” I approached them, no longer intent on removing my jeans. Theo intrigued me. I hadn’t seen such a young wolf shifter before.
“What is it with you shifters? Always running around half dressed at best. It’s like some wilderness reality show,” Gabe said.
“Speak for yourself.” The ghoul’s khaki pants were four inches too short. He looked as though he’d just escaped a flood. “Why are you limping?”
He ignored my question. Instead, he shoveled more snow onto the hill for Theo. With every slide, the melting hill spread. “Since when do you care?”
Gabe and I had never been great friends, but since I’d arrived here last fall we’d been civil. That’s not to be taken for granted among paranormals of different species.
“What’s your problem?” I asked.
Gabe glanced at me. He stopped shoveling long enough to lean on his shovel and stretch a long arm downward to his push his sock down. Blood trickled along his ankle, revealing tooth marks. “Theo’s teething.”
“He shouldn’t do that.”
“I’m a ghoul. It’s not so bad.”
I gestured to Gabe’s leg. “It’s not you I’m worried about. He starts chewing on his mother, that’s a problem. How’d you wind up babysitting, anyway? You’re a taxidermist.”
“I’m all caught up on my work until the next shipment arrives. Willow promised to supply me with her soap if I help her out.”
I sniffed. I smelled grimy cub, dirty snow, and wet ground. Not a trace of Gabe’s telltale week-old-trash smell.
More complications were exactly what I did not need. But then a thought occurred to me. Something that could make all this go away. If Willow could support herself with this soap venture, she could do that away from Sleepy Briar. It didn’t fix the Theo problem, but getting Willow away would be one major danger removed.
“That’s all her soap?” I asked, unable to keep the hope out of my voice.
“Not entirely. I received a hefty infusion of vampire blood after the succubus shot me. Apparently that jump-started puberty.”
My cousin Evan had mentioned that to me before I’d arrived back in town. Until I saw Gabe myself, though, it was hard to believe the transformation. He’d gone from looking like a gawky pre-adolescent boy to a gawky adolescent boy. Strange, because shifters generally age slowly. He wasn’t due to start puberty for another twenty years.