How to Flirt With a Naked Werewolf - Molly Harper [47]
At the moment, Oscar was wearing a seafoam-green doggie sweater with a turtleneck. When I opened the utility-room door to look for his food, I saw that this was just one of many sassy ensembles for Oscar. There were little doggie sweaters, a doggie parka, even a little dog-sized bumblebee Halloween costume.
Yikes.
I let Oscar run for a few minutes while I filled his food and water dishes. I walked along the perimeter of Susie’s yard, looking for . . . something, some proof that Cooper was innocent of postmaster mauling. Near the edge of the driveway, I found tracks, huge paw prints in the mud. They were big enough to be Cooper’s, but for all I knew, they could be bear prints.
“What are you looking for?”
“Shit!” I yelped, turning to find Cooper standing behind me, his hands shoved into his pockets. He looked so upset—scared and upset and pretty pissed off to see me crouching over wolf footprints as if I was some cross between Nancy Drew and Steve freaking Irwin.
“Have we talked about your tendency to sneak up behind me?” I growled.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I’m checking on Oscar.”
“Oscar’s over there.” He jerked his head toward the driveway. Oscar was on his belly, crouched down near the spot where Susie must have been found. He looked miserable and confused, peering up at me with those brown-black eyes. “What are you looking at?”
I stepped out of his way. “You tell me.”
He looked down at the ground and, with a pained expression, said, “It’s a wolf print. A big one.”
“What do you think of that?”
“What do you think I should think of it?”
“Look, let’s just cut through the bullshit, OK?” I cried. “You show up at my house after being caught in a bear trap as a wolf, and the next day we find out that one of our neighbors was mauled by a wolf. The timing, to me, seems a little weird. So I’m curious, Cooper. What do you make of that?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed, his face downcast. “I don’t remember being here last night. I don’t smell my scent here. I just smell . . . blood. Susie’s blood. I don’t know what to think.”
The hollow anguish in his voice let all of the steam out of my good old-fashioned storm cloud of mad. I was deflated and helpless, which seemed to be how he felt as well. I took a deep breath and stepped closer to him. He mirrored my movement, backing away. “For right now—just for right now—I’m going to choose to believe you didn’t have anything to do with this. You can be a real jerk sometimes, but I don’t think you could hurt a defenseless woman—even knowing what you did to John Teague.”
Much to my frustration, Cooper looked away and shoved his hands into his pockets. His mouth was set in a thin, unyielding line to keep any errant words from escaping. I lowered my voice and stepped closer, almost close enough to touch him. I kept my hands at my sides. “You’ve had plenty of chances to hurt me, in human and in wolf form, and you haven’t. So I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. I’m not going to tell a soul what happened at my house. I’m not going to behave any differently toward you. But so help me, Cooper Graham, if I find out that you’re taking advantage of that trust, if you’re the one who hurt Susie Q, I’ll tranque-dart your ass myself and deliver you to Alan’s front porch wrapped up with a little pink bow.”
His lips quirked. “You’ve got a dark streak, Mo Wenstein.”
I jabbed my finger into his shoulder. “Don’t you forget it.”
Oscar let out a long, plaintive howl. I turned to him and called, “Hold on just a second, Oscar.” I continued with Cooper, “I have a couple of questions, though, about being a werewolf. Now, what do you mean—” I turned back to where Cooper was standing.
He was gone. He’d managed to disappear into the woods without making a sound.
I grumbled, “And now I’m talking to myself. Damn werewolves.”
I ambled toward Oscar, muttering to myself about Cooper