Her Perilous Wolf by Julie Steimle (free e books to read .txt) 📖

was a vegetarian striving to be vegan. He would have to say something about it. However, he asked, “Have any of you seen Audry?”

They shook their heads.

“She was looking for you earlier,” Vicky said, gently stroking more red over her pinky toenail, keeping her eyes on that for a steady hand.

He nodded. “She found us, but then she left again. Do you have any idea where she’d go?”

They shook their heads.

“Check the beach,” his uncle Zachary said.

Nodding, Vincent sighed. It was most likely she was at the beach somewhere. Or out shopping for vegetables. She could have known about the excess of chopped meat in the kitchen and just wanted to be away from it.

He went back outside, thinking on what to do.

Maris ran in with the cat when he walked out.

“Hey! Where did that come from?” Vicky called out. “I don’t want cat hair on my toenails!”

“He followed me home!” Maris declared. “He’s really friendly. Can I keep him?”

“He probably belongs to somebody, Maris.”

“So, you like cats now?”

“He’s not a cougar,” Maris protested. “He’s a little kitty. By the way. I saw our wolf on the beach today.”

Vincent halted. He was about to step off to the sand to go look for Audry, but Maris’s words anchored him there.

“Our wolf? You mean Audry’s wolf?” Aunt Clover asked, sounding mildly surprised.

Maris must have nodded because she tagged on, “He was playing frisbee with a dog and a Chinese guy and this other guy. Vincent and I were watching, and they have a lot of dogs over there. And do you know what else? That guy, that friend of Audry’s, you know the husband of the witch? He was there. We talked with him and this other guy with a crazy smile and white hair—”

“Crazy smile?” Doug piped up. “And white hair?”

“Doug, it’s your turn,” Jean said watching him rise from his seat.

Maris turned around and walked back to the door as her father waved her mother away to pause the game. “Yeah, Dad. He was wearing sunglasses. And is smile was like—” She demonstrated by pulling up her own mouth at the corners. “I can’t even do it. And he hardly had a shadow. I swear. The sun just went right through him.”

Doug leaned back then looked at Vincent. “Did you see this guy?”

Vincent nodded. “I… I’ve never seen a guy quite like him before. Tall man. Pale. He just seemed like, I don’t know, the embodiment of mischief.”

He watched Doug nod to himself. “That sounds like Tom Brown.”

The cat perked up and meowed to be let out. Doug pulled on the door to open it.

Maris followed the cat. “Where are you going kitty?”

The cat rubbed up against Doug’s legs. Doug reached down and scratched between its ears. “So Tom Brown and Randon Spade are here on the beach? What are the chances of that?”

Vincent shrugged getting shivers. “No clue. But, uh, I think maybe now I know why Audry left so fast. She recognized them.”

“And she didn’t want to say ‘hi’?” Doug angled his head back. “They’re her friends.”

Yet Vincent shrugged again. “What can I say? Something else is going on with those people. They—”

Up walked an absolutely beautiful woman, Mediterranean coloring, making Vincent think of Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, and Julia Ormond all at the same time. She had blue green eyes that reminded him of the ocean and a smile so gorgeous he would have done anything for her if she asked.

“There’s my cat,” she said, reaching down to it. Her voice was mesmerizing, resonating hypnotically into his chest and head.

But the cat stuck up its tail and rubbed up against Vincent’s leg again.

The woman smiled at Vincent. That’s when he noticed standing with her was that Chinese guy who had been playing frisbee-toss with the dogs. The guy was glancing around, curious-like.

The woman said, “Hi! We’re beach neighbors.” She thumbed down to where Vincent and Maris had just been. “And we’re having party tonight—for adults. Sorry, no kids.”

Maris hung her shoulders. She glared sullenly at the woman too, decidedly not liking her for some reason. Jean stared at her also, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. Perhaps it was because Doug was gazing at her, utterly stunned. In fact, Vincent noticed that all the men in earshot had paused and were listening intently to her.

And why not? Her voice was like music. And she was beautiful.

Yet she said, “So, if any of you are free this evening, we’d like to invite you!”

“Selena!” Audry drew in a breath.

Vincent turned, seeing his cousin. Heaving a breath of relief, he rushed up to her. “There you are! Where did you go?”

“I needed to take a walk,” Audry said, her eyes fixed on the woman. She walked up to her. “You’re here too?”

Meeting her gaze more kindly, the Mediterranean woman whom Audry called Selena said, “Yes. We’re having a reunion down the beach. Tom said you were here.”

Audry stiffened.

But Selena gently rested her hand on Audry’s shoulder, and said, “Come on. We’d like you to come to our party. It will be fun, and… we can answer questions which I am sure you have.”

Audry nodded slowly. “Ok.”

“Oh!” Selena shook her head. “Where are my manners? Audry, this is our good friend, Chen. Bai Nian Chen, actually.”

Chen extended a hand, which Audry shook. He also shook Vincent’s and Doug’s hands as well—and even Maris’s who grinned up at him.

“He’s an old friend who’s been in China for a while, and he just came back,” Selena declared. “Working, right?”

“Genealogical research,” Chen said with a perfect American accent, proving he was not an import, but a local boy. He smiled most kindly to Vincent and then Audry. “Pleasure to meet you all.”

“Did I hear the word party earlier?” Vicky made her way to the door on her painted-toed feet.

Selena nodded to her. “Yes.”

“I am dying of boredom. That would be great.” Vicky grinned at them. She hopped back into the room. “Yippee! Real people!” Then she looked to her parents and cousins. “No offense, you guys. I just gotta get out.”

Selena waved to Audry with a wink then smiled once more at Vincent before turning with Chen and leaving.

Audry and Vincent exchanged looks. They had a lot to talk about.

Jerking with his head, Vincent directed Audry toward the beach so they could have that talk. The cat followed them.

Maris grabbed for the cat, but it got away. She made chase. “Come on kitty!”

It darted into the grasses going out of sight.

“Maris! Leave it alone!” Doug called after her. “It belongs to that lady. You can’t keep it.”

Vincent glanced back to the cabin, watching. Once they were out of earshot of the cabin he broached the subject that was on both of their minds. “So… they are why you left so fast?”

Audry nodded. But then she shook her head. “I didn’t want to spy on them. But… Vincent, remember all the stuff I told you about Silvia, about Randon and Rick?”

He nodded.

“Rick was down there,” she said.

He blinked at her. “Huh?”

“The guy in the green swim trunks with all the scars?” She watched his face, waiting for him to acknowledge he saw what she had seen. “He was playing frisbee with the Chinese guy and all those dogs… and the wolf.”

Vincent slowly nodded. “I… I didn’t recognize—the Frankenstein man was Rick?”

Audry nodded more heavily. “Yes. Don’t you remember? His trip to Germany?”

He shook his head.

“Don’t you read the news?” Audry huffed. “He was attacked by wolves in Germany last summer. And in the beginning of this summer he was in a car accident. The guy was badly hurt both times.”

But she was pale, shaking her head. Logic was screaming at her that what she saw was what she saw. There was no other explanation for it.

“Ok…” Vincent nodded. “So, you don’t want to talk to him.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that. You saw the wolf.”

He nodded.

“That was my wolf,” she said.

He leaned away from her. “Are you—?”

“I would know my wolf anywhere,” she said. “I rescued him at the beginning of this summer. I know what his scars look like. The color of his eyes and the color of his fur are forever etched in my mind.”

Vincent nodded. “Ok…”

“And Rhett said he saw the wolf in Germany,” Audry murmured aloud, her mind going over the past few years. “But Rick insisted that he did not own a wolf. And neither of them were lying.”

“You’re not exactly the best judge of liars, Audry,” Vincent remarked.

She shook her head. “Not if it involves a man I’m in love with, no. Love blinds me. I get it. But this is not that. Also, when I first met the wolf—” She swallowed, thinking as her hands shook, “—Rick had just showed up at the ski lodge, full moon—just like this last time—and the very morning after I dug a bullet out of the wolf’s leg, he, Rick, was limping on the same leg. He claimed he has slipped on ice and twisted his ankle. I mean, what are the chances of that?”

Vincent stared at her.

“And he’s allergic to garlic and silver and aconite and—why was I so blind to that?”

“Are you saying those stories about him being a werewolf are true?” Vincent stared dryly at her. He set a hand to her forehead. “Maybe we’d better go back. You could be getting heat stroke.”

She shook her head, pushing his hands off her. “Vincent…” She closed her eyes. “I know it sounds insane. But… they were wearing the same shorts. Him and the wolf. On the beach. They have the same scars. Come on! You saw that, didn’t you?”

He swayed there, thinking on that. The wolf was in green shorts. The dogs were also wearing shorts. Blue, though.

“Maybe it was a joke,” Vincent murmured. “Something that blonde guy did.”

“Look, I don’t want to believe it, but…” She shook her head, “What if… What if magic is real?”

He rolled his eyes, looking to her again. “Come on. This? From you?”

She moaned, putting her head in her hands. “I know!  This is insane. But Silvia….” She shook her head. “Vincent. I never told you about some things. Silvia…” she shook her head harder, closing her eyes. “She actually did use magic.”

Vincent’s eyes widened on her, but it was in concern for her mental health, not in shock.

“I know it sounds lunatic, but remember when those crazy ladies went after her? That that that girl that showed up with the knife?”

He nodded, though she did not see, her eyes still closed. So he said carefully, “Yeah? You shot her with your trank gun.”

Audry nodded. “Yeah. Um. I didn’t tell you about this, uh, spell Silvia made before then.”

“Spell?” Vincent felt ill.

Cringing, Audry nodded. “I didn’t exactly believe in it at the time, though she asked me to suspend my disbelief. Um, her brother was there, and, uh, she called it a shadow spell.”

“A shadow spell…” He looked back to the cabin, thinking about steering Audry in that direction.

“I know it sounds hokey, but the thing is, it actually worked,” she said.

Vincent shook his head, looking to the ground.

Audry inched closer to him. “What it did was make it so those women could not find us. They could not even see us unless we presented ourselves to them.”

“But she found you,” Vincent objected. “That one—”

“That was after I had left to Africa and came back. The spell was broken by me leaving,” she said.

He groaned. What was he going to do? Audry was having a mental breakdown.

“Look. I know this sounds nuts,” she declared, pale.

He nodded. It did.

“Grandma Bruchenhaus was with me and Hogan shopping for a florist for the wedding at the time. We were being followed by one of them—who saw Hogan and Grandma, but not me.” Audry recalled that moment too well, as she had been calling Matthew Calamori in panic for police help.

“You don’t know that,” Vincent said, shaking his head.

“Yes, I do,” Audry retorted. “I stepped to the side, went to where she ought to see me, and I