Chapter Six
Maybe whatever was making her have dizzy spells was affecting her mind somehow. But she’d worry about that later; she needed to get help for the wolf cub.
She ran inside the nearest building – the Brew-Ha-Ha coffee shop. It had curtains made of burlap and a heavenly smell of ground beans, and most of the booths and round wooden tables were full. She pushed her way past several people in line at the counter.
“Oh my God, I hit a puppy,” she cried out, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “A wolf cub. It’s lying in the road. It’s still breathing; it’s sitting up. Can someone please help?”
A woman who’d been sitting at the table with several children looked around frantically. “Robbie?” she said. She leaped to her feet and yelled, “Watch them!” at the waitress, gesturing to her children. Then she shot out the door.
Was Robbie the wolf cub’s name?
When she got back to her car, she saw that the woman was kneeling next to a little boy in a striped shirt and denim shorts. It was the boy Taylor had thought she’d hit before she stopped and got out of the car. She was sure of it.
Taylor looked closely at him. He was standing up, rubbing his hip and crying. But to her enormous relief, he didn’t seem too badly hurt. The woman was tearfully yelling at him. “You know better than to run into the street!”
Boy. Wolf cub. Boy.
Cliff’s strange amber eyes. The weird things he’d said to her at the office. The weirder things Truman had said when he’d come to her house.
A strange suspicion was starting to buzz in Taylor’s brain. It was so ridiculous that she didn’t even dare let the thought fully form in her head, or give it a name. It would sort of make sense of all the bizarre things that had happened in the past couple of days, but it was also impossible and crazy.
Because there was no such thing as werewolves.
And she could not possibly have been lured to a small town that looked like Mayberry R.F.D. but was peopled by werewolves.
She waited until everyone moved away from the car, with the woman carrying Robbie in her arms, heading for the sidewalk.
Then she quickly walked towards her car, shoulders stiff with tension.
“Hold on a minute!” a man’s voice yelled. She didn’t look back, and she didn’t answer. Panic choked her.
She could leap into her car and drive off, but how far would she get? She had a feeling that those iron gates wouldn’t open for her.
“Taylor,” a stern voice said behind her.
She froze at the sound of Cliff’s voice and slowly turned around.
Cliff stood there, wearing a light blue polo shirt and jeans. It was a change from the beautifully tailored suits he wore for business, but one thing was the same. Wearing a well-cut Armani and with a silk tie cinched tight at his throat, Cliff still looked powerful. Primal. And nor did his casual clothes do anything to hide his strength and the predatory way he moved. Taylor felt a rush of arousal shooting through her veins. It was like a whole-body blush, leaving her feeling hot and breathless and tingling with awareness.
Truman came trotting up, elbowing his way through the crowd that had gathered, and before Taylor could say a word, he climbed into the driver’s seat of Taylor’s car. Taylor was too stunned to argue.
The little boy wiggled out of his mother’s arms.
“Robbie!” she yelled angrily, but he ignored her and ran over to Cliff. “Uncle Cliff, Uncle Cliff, I got hit by a car and then I turned and it’s not even a full moon. I think I can do it again. Want to see?”
“Don’t,” Cliff said in an urgent voice. He glanced over at Taylor. It was obvious this was something he didn’t want her to see.
But it was too late. The boy closed his eyes, and gray fur rippled over his skin like a carpet. His ears turned pointy and the bones in his face shifted, and he groaned with effort. Then the fur sank back into his skin, his ears rounded and his face smoothed out.
“I almost did it. Paul couldn’t do it ‘til third grade! I got Dominus genes in me for sure!” he said happily. Before his mother grabbed him again, she gave Taylor a very strange look and hurried back into the store.
Taylor felt a wave of dizziness rolling over her, and the last thing she remembered was Cliff’s strong arms catching her as she swayed and fell.
* * * * *
Taylor woke up on a cloud. A soft, puffy cloud. She lay still for a moment, trying to get her bearings. Her heart was pounding, and when she opened her eyes she couldn’t see much because a curtain of hair had fallen over her face. She pushed the hair away and began feeling around her, and realized that she was actually lying on an exquisitely soft, comfortable couch.
An angry male voice rang through the air. “The important question is, how the hell did this happen?”
