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He made an alarmingly human helpless-man face, complete with flailing outstretched hands. “Any guy would hesitate in response to that question!”
“So no more surprises.”
He raised his hand in a mockery of the Boy Scout salute. “Not so much as a surprise birthday party. If you ever decide to tell me your real birthdate. I’m assuming the one I found on your ID is fake.”
I gasped. “You looked through my wallet?”
“While you were asleep that night at the motel, when we went after Jerry,” he said, wincing when I smacked him. “You didn’t think I was going to do some checking up on the woman riding in my truck and sleeping in my bed?”
“I’m not the one who’s cagey,” I muttered into his skin.
He tucked my head under his chin and hugged me tight. “Glenn—that was his name?”
I blinked, tensing up against him. Caleb rubbed circles on the small of my back to try to get me back into a relaxed state. Glenn was such an enormous part of my head space. Avoiding him was the motivation for so many aspects of my life, and I hadn’t shared anything about him with Caleb, someone who had so recently taken up another considerable chunk of my thoughts. While I didn’t want them to meet under any circumstances, it seemed unfair to shut such a big part of my life away from Caleb—especially when Glenn could be the reason I eventually left.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and resolved to tell Caleb everything.
“Have you ever had one of those moments in your life where you wish you had a time-traveling DeLorean?” I asked Caleb as he settled against my side to listen to my tale.
11
Foxy Boxing Is Way More Difficult Than It Looks on Those Questionable Cable Channels
Caleb listened to every word, stopping me to ask a question here or there but never judging, never demanding answers. I poured out the whole sorry story and felt better for getting it off my chest. I explained about the e-mails and how Glenn claimed to have found me. And while he still wasn’t happy with me for sneaking away instead of telling him, he dropped the subject. Exhausted by relating the sad story of my marriage, I fell asleep balanced on Caleb’s chest and woke up just before noon. Caleb had left a note by the door (as far away from the lampshade as possible) stating that he’d gone for a “run.”
I felt very sorry for the woodland creatures that might have crossed his path.
Unfortunately, this honesty seemed to have put another space bubble between us. Caleb suddenly seemed worried about rushing me physically or crowding me. He didn’t sniff me or touch me casually as much as he did before. I had to initiate kissing or any other fun-time activities. I made it a point to become even more affectionate with him, to try to snap him out of it. But the stubborn wolf was going all noble on me.
Caleb managed to get Glenn’s basic information out of me: name, last known address, birthdate. He seemed determined to find some solution for my situation, which was sort of sweet and at the same time a little insulting, as if he was going to magically find some easy fix I hadn’t thought of yet. A nearly impossible-to-file restraining order, restarting my stalled divorce proceedings, even a legal name change—all of that paperwork could be tracked and could lead Glenn right to my door. Living a little less legitimately was inconvenient, but it kept me off of Glenn’s radar. It was my choice, and it made me feel safer. So I rebuffed these suggestions—and any attempts to get personal information about Glenn—with indifference and subject changes, making Caleb restless and snappish.
We didn’t talk about my running away because we had new subjects to discuss, namely Glenn and my history with the werewolf pack. Caleb did, however, spend a lot of time talking to Suds, taking several calls out on the porch of the motel, despite temperatures dipping near the single digits. He was worried and agitated, and part of me wished I hadn’t told him about my past. He knew everything now. He knew how damaged I was, and I couldn’t be that quirky, mysterious girl who had saved him from a half-assed bullet wound.
One morning, he strode into our room and tossed me a case file. “We’re going to Goose Creek. You have twenty minutes to pack.”
“Now?”
“Yes,” he said. “Or at least, in twenty minutes.”
I harrumphed at this sudden change in demeanor, as if he hadn’t spent the last week in a state of grumpy old werewolf-ness. Phasing issues or no, I didn’t appreciate mood swings that left me feeling gaslighted. I flipped through the file, reading the summary. “We’re looking for a stripper named Trixie?”
Caleb cast me another smirk. “I think they prefer ‘exotic dancer.’â??”
“Why are we looking for a stripper named Trixie?”
“See, that’s a question a man would never ask.”
I gave him my best stink-eye, but he only grinned impishly at me. Holding his gator jerky over the garbage can got his attention.
“Hey!” he howled. “Trixie is the errant girlfriend of Lolo Kardakian, medium-sized hood out of Anchorage. They’ve had a disagreement.”
I inadvertently dropped the bag of jerky, more out of surprise than revenge. “We’re chasing down a woman to drag her back to her angry criminal boyfriend?”
“Do you know how hard it is to find that brand of gator jerky?” he asked, peering into the garbage can to see if the bag was salvageable.
“You have a jerky problem. Suds and I are going to have an intervention.”
“I had to order it over the Internet!” he exclaimed.
