Page 11 of The Way We Were(wolf)

And because he was still holding the skeleton and couldn’t help it—and also because he apparently now lived to see her smile—he bent down the bony guy’s four fingers, giving Lucy the cheesiest thumbs-up in the history of thumbs-upping.

And it worked. Her head tipped back, a laugh bursting from her mouth so loudly that the kids and their mom at the end of the aisle looked in their direction.

“You’re…you’re just—” she said between lingering laughs and tiny gasps for air. Placing a hand on her chest and standing as still as the laughter that still bubbled out of her would allow, she finished her thought. “You have no idea how much I needed that. I haven’t laughed like that since…I don’t really know when.”

Eric figured as much, remembering the way she’d walked about town like the shell of a person he assumed she was—head down, shoulders hunched. But then he’d caught glimpses of the beautiful woman beneath whatever was dragging her down, like when she’d shared a pastry with that man on the bench and her eyes twinkled brighter than the skeleton-shaped lights that draped across the aisle. He was truly enjoying all the layers of Lucy he was discovering. “Well, I won’t let you go that long ever again.”

Wait…what?

What was he doing, making that kind of promise? Those words were reserved for people who were staying in someone’s life. Not for people—er, werewolves—who were leaving town in a couple of weeks. He toyed with the hand of the skeleton, watching its smooth bony fingers roll across his. Anything to keep from looking up at the rounded eyes and parted lips of a woman he hardly knew and yet wanted to know so much more of. He worried he might do something really stupid and say that he’d stay in this town forever.

But why couldn’t he?

A dark-haired man briskly walked past the end of their aisle, and Eric knew right away it was Nathan. And since his brother was always spying on him, not trusting Eric to keep their cover, it was probably the safest bet he could have made. A lot safer than extending his stay in this small town.

It was time to get this excursion back on track. His eyes pinged around the aisle. “Okay, so what if we got some foam curlers? We could definitely glue them to this lady’s head. And this one here…” he began as he grabbed the bony hand of the skeleton next to it. He twisted it back and forth at the wrist, noticing how the fingers made a perfectCshape. “This one could hold a cup of something from Mountain Brew, like just about everyone who comes into the salon.”

A smile crept up Lucy’s face as she took one step and then another toward him. If coming up with ideas to bring hers to life made her smile like that, he was willing to stand in the middle of Crafty Cathy’s for the rest of the night, spouting off as many as he could.

“I think that’s perfect. I’m sure Stella has some hair supplies we could use. Maybe even one of those hair dryers people sit under.” Her eyes rounded even more as she lunged for something. “Now, you know this guy has to be the one under the dryer.”

Eric knew these decorations weren’t real. And that there was nothing actually frightening under the buzzing fluorescent lights at Crafty Cathy’s, but that didn’t stop his breath from catching at the sight of what Lucy pulled off the shelf.

“A werewolf skeleton,” she said as she did a little dance with it. If Eric wasn’t momentarily stunned at the likeness of something he wasn’t expecting to see tonight, he would have found it amusing. Oh, who was he kidding? Only Lucy could make jiggling with werewolf remains look cute.

“I see that. And yeah...” he began, rubbing the back of his neck because, for some reason, this made him as comfortable as sitting on a cactus. Which made no sense since he was half human and was unbothered by the other skeletons they’d seen tonight. Maybe it had something to do with blowing his cover. Like if Lucy was standing here with a werewolf skeleton, she must have known he was one. He shook his head, hoping the ridiculous thought might fall out. Of course she didn’t know he was a werewolf. How could she? “That’ll definitely work. Throw it in.”

As she tossed the werewolf, now bent and mangled in the bright-red shopping cart, he reached over and grabbed the two skeletons he’d noticed before. He threw them on top, but the werewolf’s face was still visible through the pile of bones. Giving the cart a wiggle, the top skeleton shifted, and the werewolf’s face was no longer staring Eric down. Not that it ever was, because it didn’t exactly have eyeballs. Also, why did he feel like he was still being watched?

“Is that okay?”

He blinked in rapid succession, unaware that Lucy had been talking to him as he played shopping cart Twister with his new friends. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Do you think some of these lights might look nice in the window? Maybe wrapped around some of this?” In one hand, she held a spool of gauzy black garland and, in the other, a strand of lights with orange bulbs. He looked around at the floral stems and garland he now stood beside, wondering where she’d grabbed these things. He needed to pay more attention. Wasn’t that Nathan’s only rule: to pay attention and not blow their cover? Well, Nathan had a lot more rules than that, but that one was his biggest.

“I think that’ll look really nice. Have you done this kind of thing before?”

“What? Decorate for Halloween? A time or two,” she responded with a glint of something he couldn’t quite decipher twinkling in her eye. Whatever it was, it made his already warm body heat even more.

“No. I mean, you seem really good at this. Like, your ideas…they’re great.”

“What can I say…” she began, and his racing heart nearly stopped as she winked. “I know a thing or two about monsters.”

Huh?

The dusting of hair on Eric’s arms stood at attention as pinpricks of sweat formed at the base of his neck. She knew about monsters. Did that include werewolves? That didn’t bother him. Or at least that was what he told himself. And he almost believed it…until the aisle started swaying.

“Whoa there. Are you okay?” Lucy asked, looping her arm through his, and the warmth of her skin coursed through his whole body.

“Yeah. I’m fine now. Just, uh…got a little off balanced.” And if she kept holding onto him like that, looking up at him like she cared way more than she should, it was going to happen again.

“Okay, then,” she replied before quickly removing her hand from his arm, like she’d realized she’d done something forbidden and wanted to stop before anyone noticed.

But Eric had noticed. He noticed the softness of her hands, like silk lining the edge of a blanket. He noticed the glint in her eyes as she looked at him, twin pools of amber glass glinting in the light. He noticed the need to control his breathing because someone looking at him like this—in a way no one ever had before—was pushing him toward the brink of hyperventilation. As he watched her walk down the aisle, bringing to life ideas with each item she threw into the cart, Eric decided it didn’t really matter if he was playing with fire. If Nathan got his way, this might be his last chance.

ChapterSix

“Lucy, put that fire out!” Stella shouted from behind a huge, shiny firetruck.

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