How to Flirt With a Naked Werewolf - Molly Harper [89]
He countered, “Within six months of moving here, you were robbed at knifepoint and stumbled into the path of an angry bear.”
I shrugged. “So if the laws of probability hold, the chance of anything else happening to me is pretty low.”
He growled, a low rumble that started deep in his chest. “Mo.”
“Honey, I know this is all part of that instinctual protective alpha-male thing, but you’re pissing me off. You’re the one who’s going to be stuck in the woods with a bunch of drunk, armed attorneys. Frankly, I’m more concerned for your safety.” I snickered, kissing his chin where I’d swiped flour across his skin. “But I promise, I will not go out alone, tell unknown callers I’m home by myself, or accept candy from men driving unmarked vans.”
“That’s all I ask,” he said, his lips quirking.
IT TOOK ME practically dragging Cooper to his truck to get him to leave, but I managed to get through the afternoon relatively unscathed. Lynette gave me the wrong orders, called me by the wrong name, or just slung dirty dishes at me through the pass. It was kind of nice to return to that normalcy.
Evie had agreed to come over to my place for a Sandra Bullock chick-flick marathon. She was going to make something she called “Melt Your Face” margaritas, which had my stomach lining quivering in fear. I’d just popped While You Were Sleeping into the DVD player when Evie was called away from whatever the hell she was pouring into my blender by an obnoxious pop tune from her cell phone.
“Aren’t you a little old for Britney Spears?” I asked dryly.
“Buzz?” she snickered into the phone. “I told you, we’re getting drunk and watching people being obnoxiously likable. Serious girly business—What? What’s going on?”
I sat down on the couch with a heavy thud. Oh, God, who is missing now? Which one of my friends was missing or hurt or worse? I thought of Alan, who had been able to venture out into the woods more often as the weather warmed up. What if he’d been attacked? Abner had been going on his prospecting trips into the preserve lately. Walt had been fishing. Hell, Gertie had been planning to dig a garden in her backyard. None of them was safe. I buried my face in my hands and waited for Evie to get off the phone and give me the bad news.
She snapped her cell phone shut and returned to the blender, measuring and pouring with a chemist’s precision. I stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Well?” I asked.
“Alan found the hikers, what was left of them,” she said, sounding oddly resigned. “Buzz wanted to let me know that Alan asked him to contact the state medical examiner’s office to handle the remains. Buzz is heading up the mountain now.”
I took the tequila and poured us each a shot. “Where were they?”
She tossed back the liquor and winced. “A mile or so from their campsite. They were just . . . bones, scattered around a ravine. Alan was finally able to see them now that the snow has cleared. Buzz said they’d been gnawed on . . . by a lot of different animals. Alan doesn’t want to leave the scene until they can get them somewhere decent.”
I didn’t know why this news was such a blow, when I’d known there was little chance of those boys being alive, that it was only a matter of time until their bodies were found. Knowing that they’d been found made the situation seem so final but at the same time opened up the same old questions. What happened to them? Who had attacked them? Would there be more attacks? Thinking of Alan, sitting on the dark mountain, keeping watch over bones, made my stomach hurt.
“How about we put this off until another night?” I suggested, reaching for my Tums. “Buzz is probably going to want to see you.”
“Buzz is going to help Alan,” she said. “And you and I have a date with too-good-to-be-true romantic comedy.”
“Evie.”
“Moonflower,” Evie shot back. “What else can we do? They’re up on the mountain, and we’re here. It will be hours before they’re home. Do you think there’s anything you could do to help Alan?”
I shrugged. “What if I told Alan, ‘Hey, I know where you can find a huge population of wolves. How about we