“Oh, hello,” the woman said. She smiled, looking between him and Violet. “I’m Wendy. Wendy Bertram.”
“Ron,” the man said, extending his hand. Wolf shook it, because he might have the name of a feral creature, but he’d been taught how to behave. Didn’t mean he did it as a matter of course, but he knew how.
“Wolf Garrett,” he said.
“I’m Violet,” his pretty innkeeper said, and he found it interesting that she didn’t give her last name as she had done for him. “I’m the innkeeper. If you need anything, I am at your service twenty-four hours a day.”
And while he could see that they were the kind of people who didn’t intend to make a fuss, he could also see that they were the kind of people with whom it was dangerous to make such an offer.
They would probably end up making a request for Violet at a very strange time. Likely for linens.
Probably for the aftermath of the sex game. They had a look about them, too. That very khaki suburban sort of look that suggested they went to bed-and-breakfasts to do one of two things. Bird-watch, or get freaky. Well, hell. Maybe not one thing. Maybe both.
It was entirely possible it was both.
“Thank you, dear,” Wendy said, making her way over to the cookies and beginning to help herself to the coffee, indicating that she had been to bed-and-breakfasts many a time.
Thus confirming Wolf’s assumption.
The door opened again, and in came another couple. This one slightly younger, the man wearing a baseball hat and Carhartt pants, the woman in a flannel and black leggings. It took him all of two minutes to hear that the man was an air traffic controller, who began extolling the virtues of his work and the many benefits of the job without being asked.
The entryway was starting to feel crowded. “I’m just going to take my things upstairs. Do I get the key from you?” he asked Violet.
“Oh.” She turned to address the other guests. “A cheese tray will be out shortly,” she said. “Along with wine. Just another thirty minutes or so. I’m going to show Mr. Garrett to his room now, and I will be back for the rest of you.”
She took a key off the peg and started to lead him up the narrow staircase and down the hall. “Do you want wine and cheese?” she asked, looking at him out of the corner of one of her eyes.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I’m more of a beer and pretzels kind of guy. Or potato chips. Or a steak.”
She laughed. “I bet I could get you to enjoy my cheese platter.” He looked at her for a long moment, and her cheeks went crimson. “It’s a real cheese platter,” she said.
He held up his hands and smiled. “Oh, I have no doubt that it is.”
“Well, you looked at me likethat,” she said.
“Ma’am,” he said, “I just met you. I wouldn’t look at you like anything.”
He grinned at her. She blushed again.
Oh, hell yeah.
“This is your room,” she said, stopping at the door in the center of the hallway. “Number six.”
“And does the same offer apply to me?”
“What offer?”
“The offer that you will be there for me day and night. Anything I need.”
She shrank away from him, but he could feel excitement vibrating from her. “I suppose that depends on what it is you need.”
He looked at her for a good long moment. “I’ll get back to you.”
“I have to get back downstairs.”
“That’s right. You made grand offers of wine and cheese.”
“Yes,” she said. “There are menus in the room, and you can order from the restaurants in town, and I can pick food up, or...”