Cunningham, Pat - Coyote Moon (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Read online

  Coopersburg was ringed by a ridge of round hills, and the conifers had had themselves a field day. The earth was cool and damp against his paws, and carpeted with springy needles. Winters would be long and cold out here, summers brief and soggy. Probably why these hills had missed out on the development craze that had swept the rest of the state. Huge swaths of acreage still ran to wilderness. There might be spots out here where you could go for days without running into an ape. Not the Texas Panhandle, but it’d do just fine.

  He spooked a rabbit and ran it down. It died between his jaws. Just for a moment he let the instincts run loose, and buried his teeth in hot, bloody flesh. Nothing beat a meal you caught and killed yourself, outside of prey you and your mate ran to ground together. Twice already he’d cut deer trails. Deer were too big and fast for a lone coyote, but a pair teamed up…

  With his belly full and his spirits high, he sat back on his haunches and opened his muzzle. Time to let the Northwest know a new boy’d come to town.

  Before he could get out a note, however, the night erupted in song. Cody’s jaws clacked shut. What the Sam Hill?

  He pricked his ears, then laid them flat. Chaos take it, wouldn’t you know his new range had tenants already.

  Cody growled under his breath. Every coyote worth his tail knew the voice of the wolf when he heard it. He wasn’t even lucky enough to get the timber variety. This was a definite werewolf pack, at least twenty strong. The song reverbed with the arrogance of a dominant bunch used to holding their land against all comers. If they were anything like the wolves he’d run afoul of down home, they’d be disinclined to share.

  He loosed a sigh. Should’ve figured on this. That wolf blood in Willy’s veins had to come from somewhere.

  And disruption ran in coyote veins. No reason he shouldn’t introduce himself. Lifting his head, he raised a howl of his own, high and feisty, the coyote equivalent of Howdy, neighbors!

  The wolf song stuttered to a halt. Cody wrapped up his intro and waited. Any second now…

  Yep. Predictable as sunrise. One answer, in a voice heavy and black as basalt, chocked full of challenge with a dollop of mean to give it flavor. Nothing else said “alpha male” with such authority. Who the hell are you?

  Cody kept his mouth shut. He listened while the pack howled back and forth and demanded explanations from each other, but he didn’t chime in. No point in showing all his cards on the first hand. Let ‘em wonder.

  Then his ears picked up another voice, a lot higher and a lot closer, just a little warble of uncertainty in it. He doubted the distant wolf pack could pick up on it. He had a powerful notion just who it was doing the singing, too. Eagerly he pelted toward the sound to test his hunch.

  * * * *

  Willy’s dreams always skewed toward the strange during the full moon. This latest, however, surpassed the bizarre. It seemed less like a dream than a repressed memory, desperately clawing its way to the surface to breathe. For the first time since her nightmares started, back when she’d entered her teens, Willy was aware of her dreaming, enough to fear and marvel at the intensity of it.

  She ran barefoot through a moonlit forest, with the wind skimming like a lover’s hands over her naked body. The cornucopia of scents that tantalized her promised a buffet of quarry. Hunger for more than blood and flesh clenched at her belly. She craved the company of others like herself. One, at least. A mate.

  Without a break in stride, she transitioned from two legs to four. Now the wind ruffled long auburn fur and streamed past pointed ears. Her paws glided over bare earth and pine needles. She could hear them up ahead— her companions, her family, her chosen husband. The pack.

  She came out in a circular clearing floodlit by the moon. A smaller, more ragged-edged circle met there, snouts lifted to the pallid globe overhead. She slowed and trotted without fear into their midst. They lowered their tails and made way for her. No snarls, no challenge. Not to an alpha female.

  Then he stepped in front of her—huge, deep-chested, steel-gray fur silvered by the moon. The alpha male, her chosen mate. His eyes were yellow and hard as polished topaz. Not warm and yellow like a Texas sun. Not like Cody’s at all.

  He moved to claim her. She recoiled.

  She awoke to the howling of wolves.

  The jolt confused her. At first she wasn’t completely sure where she lay, home in bed or in the middle of a wolf pack. Her body huddled under a blanket, but her mind remained in the forest. Either way, the wolfsong boomed everywhere.

  Gradually reality filtered back in. She was naked, but safe in her own home. She was human, with two arms and two legs and no fur and no tail. No surrounding pack. Just another nightmare after all.

  Except for the wolves. They’d been singing in the hills around Coopersburg for as long as she could remember. Coopersburg wasn’t a farming community, so no livestock lived in peril, and the wolves never came down into town to threaten people or pets, so no one had ever tried to eradicate them. Even the frequent hikers, campers and backpackers never reported so much as a glimpse of one. If not for the near-nightly songfest, the wolf pack of Coopersburg would be dismissed as just another urban legend.

  When Willy and Beth were little, Mom told them those weren’t wolves at all but werewolves, evil people turned into beasts. If she and her sister weren’t good little girls, Mrs. Alvarez warned, the werewolves would sweep down in the night and snatch them out of their beds. The story hadn’t kept either girl out of the woods growing up, but, Willy reflected, it might account for the dreams that had plagued her since puberty. Thanks a heap, Mom, she thought sourly.

  The wolves sounded a bit put out tonight, to judge by the timbre of their song. Something must have their tails in a kink. On impulse, Willy climbed out of bed and padded to the window, tucking the blanket around her. She’d never seen a live wolf and didn’t expect to tonight, but she could still enjoy the chorus.

  The little house Willy shared with Beth sat at the end of Coopersburg—the wrong end, according to Mom, but Willy didn’t care. It had everything she’d been looking for: two floors, a roomy kitchen, a dining room/den, two bedrooms, a narrow driveway for the Mustang, proximity to work, and— two years later and she still wouldn’t admit out loud this had been the selling point—the woods practically on their back doorstep. What could she say? Sometimes it seemed to her as if she lived through her nose. She didn’t want big city smells; she wanted grass and earth and pine. After a day poking around a car’s engine block, she needed the olfactory equivalent of a good stiff drink, and she’d known right off this house, with the hills sloping up behind it, would provide that on a daily basis. She even let Beth have the larger front bedroom, in order to give herself this view, and the air from a window that opened on the wild.

  She leaned out the window and peered northeast, where the singing came from. In a quiet, low-traffic town like Coopersburg, sound carried easily and far. Especially at this time of night. Willy glanced at the clock on her nightstand: 1:13 a.m. Not so much as a grumble or sigh or creak of the bed from Beth. The girl could sleep through Armageddon, Willy thought enviously.

  Suddenly she grinned, a quick flash of strong white teeth. Again seized by impulse, she leaned out further over the sill and sucked in a full, satisfying lungful of sweet night air. Sleep through this one, sis.

  Willy sent her howl into the night, aimed at the distant pack. Of course they wouldn’t hear her, but it was still fun. Almost like her dream. Singing with the wolves. She waited, but the songs went on without her. Drifting away, even. She chuckled at her own fancy and howled a good-bye after them.

  This time she got a response.

  The howl shot up out of the trees just beyond the McIlhenneys’ back fence, where civilization ended and the wild began. A tenor voice, unlike the baritones of the pack. Close enough to put a shiver in her spine. Willy ducked back inside and clutched at her blanket. It’s one thing to sing along with a wolf pack when they’re off in the distance somewhere. It’s a whole other tune
when they notice you, and answer.

  The voice in the woods called again. Its where are you? was unmistakable. Well … where was the harm? As long as he stayed out there and she stayed in here. Last time she checked, wolves couldn’t break deadbolts, and they didn’t carry ladders around. Bolstered by this knowledge, she returned to the window and replied. Up here, big boy.

  For about five minutes they back and forthed, his howls drawing nearer each time. This is so weird. I can’t believe the neighbors aren’t squawking. I can’t believe Beth’s still asleep. I can’t believe I’m talking to a real live wolf.

  Movement, by the McIlhenneys’ fence. Willy leaned over the sill. She had a sudden, surrealistic flash of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. I have totally lost it, she decided, and peered at the creature below.

  If that was a wolf, she was Scarlett O’Hara. It had the right general shape, the pointed ears and the brushy tail. Other than that, forget it. Too small, too skinny. A coat that looked sandy under the moonlight. She’d anticipated a big, scary brute, with granite-gray fur and a sense of majesty and menace. Somehow reality never measured up to the dream.

  But she’d called in a wolf! That had to count for something.

  “Hey there,” she said. The wolf swung its muzzle up and spotted her. “Yeah. It’s me. The human person. Bet I’m not what you expected either, huh?”

  The “wolf” wagged its tail and yipped, bursting the last of Willy’s illusions. Of course that wasn’t a wolf. She’d lured in somebody’s German shepherd. So much for the romance of the wild. “Sorry, doggie. False alarm.” For both of us. She was struck by how sharply disappointed she felt. “That’s life, I guess. No such thing as a free Milk Bone. You go on home now.”

  Doggie didn’t budge. He just stared up at her with his tail whipping the air to shreds. “You wouldn’t like me,” Willy told it. “I play rough.” The dog barked happily, assuring her that didn’t matter. “Oh, yes, it would,” she said, more to herself than the dog this time. “Eventually it would, and then we’d both be sorry. Trust me, doggie, this is for the best.”

  She withdrew into her bedroom and shut the window behind her. The dog barked a protest. Willy shivered. They always yipped and frisked around her, until she showed her teeth. She crawled back into bed and wondered how long she’d toss and turn before she fell asleep.

  Cody waited, but she didn’t reappear. Finally, tongue out and tail wagging, he trotted back into the woods.

  * * * *

  Cody got distracted by his efforts to get a big ol’ fat ‘chuck to join him for breakfast, and so missed Willy’s arrival at work. By the time he made it to the garage, tired and footsore and empty-bellied, the Mustang was already parked beside the office. She had to be somewhere around. He picked a nice shady tree to get comfy under and settled in to keep an eye peeled.

  Except there wasn’t much to peel for, not with Willy holed up in the bay. Every now and then she’d drive a car in or out. That was pretty much it. As the sun climbed higher, so did Cody’s impatience. He wanted to get through the courtship stage so they could move on to the good stuff. As long as she stayed indoors fixing transmissions, that wasn’t going to happen.

  Time to take a more direct approach.

  The day wasn’t progressing any better for the object of Cody’s affections. Willy dropped her fifth dipstick of the morning and cursed. The clock had read 3:16 a.m. before she finally dropped off to sleep, then shrieked her awake at six. The lack of rest turned her hands into oven mitts and heightened her already hair-trigger temper. She bent over, very carefully—she’d already hit her head on a bumper once this morning— and retrieved the dipstick. Get it together before you drop a muffler on your foot. Then you’ll hear howling, you bet.

  Yeah, right. Blame the wolves. They’d started this by awakening her with their endless singing and stalking around in her dreams. Wolves were always to blame, from the days of the Big Bad on down to the present. Accusing wolves was a fine time-honored tradition.

  She straightened and stretched, from her toes to her tongue, then used that tongue to swear. She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them, scrunched them shut again. Yellow eyes loomed behind her lids. She lifted them and swore again. Still there.

  If only the wolves were the actual culprits. Unfortunately, her concentration had been shattered by a two-legged wolf with a Texas twang who wouldn’t get out of her head.

  Okay, give him major points for cuteness. The big bullfrog grin, the shaggy mop of sandy hair, that lean, wiry frame. He’d be all supple muscle under his clothes, not an ounce of fat. She rested her hands on the fender of the Chevy she was working on. That’s how his body would feel. Smooth and hard, not cold like metal but warm and restless. And the smell of him! Sun-warmed summer grass. She wanted to lie down and roll in it, blend his scent with her own.

  Jeez, girl, will you get a grip? He’s no big deal. Just different. A fresh face in a small town. Something to break the monotony. Every girl in Coopersburg will be panting after him for at least a week. Until the next diversion comes along.

  Willy didn’t have time for diversions. She had her hands full with her job, dealing with Beth and her bad behavior, and those itchy full-moon cravings. There, see? It wasn’t Cody at all, not specifically. Just that he was male, and new, and he and his delicious, intoxicating scent had shown up right at the wrong time of the month. Her hormones had taken it from there.

  Angrily she shook her head to shake his face away. Everything went but the eyes. Those piercing, bizarre yellow eyes. Something bold and uninhibited lurked in their depths, and held out a hand to invite her inside. It sang to the wildness inside her, the part she fought to keep buried. It made her want to howl. But hell, when she got like this, what didn’t?

  Two days. You can stand it for another two days. Which, at this rate, would go down as the longest two days in history.

  She yanked her hands off the fender and slapped them against her thighs, to knock off the dirt and any other lingering tactile sensations. In the process she dropped the dipstick again. “Crap,” she announced, and bent over.

  In this position, peering upside-down between her spread legs with her jeans-clad butt in the air, she spotted the dog.

  If this wasn’t the same dog that had followed her howls out of the woods last night, then there’d been twins in the litter. Long tawny legs, tall ears, brush of a tail, muzzle sharp as a Bowie knife. It sat on its haunches just beyond the bay door, with its tongue hanging out and its topaz eyes fixed on hers. No way it could have followed her from home. How had it ended up here?

  She straightened too quickly and tagged her head on the Chevy’s bumper. She spat out a word a lot stronger than “crap.” The dog hopped up with an anxious whine. “I’m okay,” she told it. She rubbed her forehead. No blood. Thank Heaven for small favors. “I’m just having the mother of all bad days. And how did you get here? How did you find me?”

  Reassured she wasn’t hurt, the dog yipped softly and wagged its tail. Willy felt a smile tug at her lips. She’d always liked dogs, in an indulgent, patronizing sort of way. Okay to pet, but not in her league. Oh jeez, where had that thought come from? The full moon couldn’t wane fast enough.

  No need to take all this out on some poor, defenseless stray, however. She hunkered down and snapped her fingers. “C’mere, boy. Who’s a good boy?”

  The dog practically flew across the garage and into her arms. Willy went over backwards onto her rump, narrowly missing the bumper. The dog took advantage and straddled her. It slopped its rough tongue across her cheeks and nose. She couldn’t keep from laughing, even as she tried to fend it off. “You’re a bit too friendly, Fido. Don’t they treat you right at home?” She caught the dog carefully by its ruff. “Let’s see where that is.”

  The dog allowed her fingers to probe the fur around its neck. No collar, no license. “Another wanderer in off the street,” Willy murmured. “This must be the week for you guys. You even look like him.”

  Dam
ned if he didn’t. Sandy hair, lean build, sharp nose. Brash and grinning. A scent like prairie grass in sunshine. The dog cocked its head and peered at her with yellow eyes that all of a sudden looked eerily familiar.

  No. Come on. Those crazy full-moon notions were spiraling way out of hand.

  “Willy? You all right? I thought I heard you—” Tony Koslinski stuck his badly-toupeed head in from the office. He and the dog spotted each other simultaneously. Both yelped. Koslinski’s had words in it. “The hell!” He snatched up a wrench and flung it at the dog, which dodged expertly. “Get!” Koslinski roared. “Get out of here!”

  The dog got, at top speed. Willy scrambled up. “What are you doing? It’s just a stray dog. A bit pushy, maybe, but–”

  “The hell that’s a dog. That’s a coyote.”

  “A what?” She hurried to the bay door, but the dog, or whatever it was, had disappeared. “No, it was a dog. It came right up to me.”

  “I’ll just bet it did,” Koslinski growled. He crossed the bay and retrieved the wrench. “I know coyotes when I see ‘em. We had ‘em all over, back where I come from.” He glared at the line of houses strung along the road. “Ballsy thing. Bet they been feeding it. Pretty soon it goes into your yard and eats your cat. Then it goes after your kids.” He whirled on Willy in sudden alarm. “It didn’t bite you, did it?”

  “Not bite, no.” Willy forearmed slobber off her cheek. “It just got frisky with me.” Like a certain Texas stranger she could name.

  “Probably thought you had food. You see it around again, you tell me. Wild animal loses its fear of people, there’s only one thing you can do.” He whapped the wrench against his meaty palm. “Otherwise they spread rabies and God knows what else. You better wash up. Plenty of soap and hot water. Jesus, right in the garage. Balls to spare.” He stalked back into his office.

  That struck Willy as sound advice. The washing-up part, anyway. The dog’s tongue had left her face sticky. She slid along the side of the building to the ladies’ room, and kept a wary eye on the woods. Assuming Tony was right, and it hadn’t been a dog after all.