Page 9 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

“Yes, he will,” I said, already packing up the cleaning gear. “You have a good day, sir.”

I cleared out of the bathroom and bristled for the rest of my shift. I reallycould have used my vacation to destress from all the stupid people I had to deal with, but no, that was postponed, yet again.

Naturally, I wasn’t exactly feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed when my manager approached me at the end of my shift.

“Got a complaint about you.”

I sighed. “He was a pleasant one, wasn’t he?”

“A real piece of work, for sure. But listen, Vanessa, you gotta start standing up for yourself. Nobody likes a doormat.”

A doormat?

I stared at him, trying to calculate exactly how to reply tothat, but he was already sauntering off.

I wasn’t a doormat. Was I? Yeah, I’d ended up cleaning the bathroom when it was Tiffany’s responsibility, but it needed to be done. And, yeah, I’d let Chuck move my approved time off, but that also needed to be done. Was I supposed to be a team player or not?

God, I hated my job.

My thoughts were so stormy on my bike ride home that I somehow forgot about the wolf. All I wanted was to be in my greenhouse with my plants. Belatedly, I remembered the space might be occupied.

I hoped not. While the wolf situation was as cool as it was mindboggling, I had shit to do, and I wanted to decompress in a space that had always been wonderful to me.

Hard to do with an apex predator in it.

Once I was home, I fed the cats and changed out of my uniform. Apparently, the drama from that morning was continuing, because Fork’s bowl had been pushed all the way into the far corner of the kitchen and had a crumpled paper towel in it. That had Mudpie written all over it. She was a real sweetheart most of the time, but if she felt that anyone had crossed her, well… she could be a little bit of a drama queen.

I hadnoidea where she got that trait from.

Once the cats were settled and eating dinner, I put some ground burger out to thaw in the sink, then headed outside.

The wolf was sitting in front of my greenhouse, his paws crossed politely.

What the fuck?

I blinked at him, which was probably a stupid thing to do, but it was so surreal to see him sitting so patiently, his amber eyes boring into me.

We stayed like that for several beats until his stomach audibly growled, and he whined.

Was… was he asking for food?

5

VANESSA

Ifinallyhad a day off.

When I woke, happy not to have to schlep my ass all the way to the grocery store, I ardently wished that the wolf was finally gone. He was cool, of course, and I did like looking at him out of my kitchen window as he lounged and slept, which he did a lot. Not that I could blame him. If I had a bear wound in my side, all I’d want to do was rest, too. And all of that taking it easy really seemed to be working, since the wound was nearly closed already. Part of me whispered that it was impossible, but the rest of me was pleased that the food, water, and deadnettle poultice was doing right by him.

Still, I was worried about my plants. When I’d originally helped the beast in the middle of the woods, I hadn’t expected a repeat performance. Who would? That kind of stuff simply didn’t happen in real life.

Yet they did in mine.

Unfortunately, my slow, easy-going morning could only be so leisurely before my cats started to getreallyinsistent about being fed. None of them were starving, but one would think they were by how they wound around my feet—Goober—or yowled like they were dying—Fork. Mudpie was a certified lady, however, and waited patiently at her bowl.

I didn’t know if they sensed I’d had a bad day at work the day before, or if peace had been achieved, but there was no drama with any food bowls. Then I went through my usual pattern of changing and trekking out to my greenhouse.

I wanted to transplant some things out into the garden. If I left them in their small pots any longer, I was afraid my greenhouse would stunt their growth. Soil, peat moss, and seeds weren’t cheap, so I’d rather not waste all the energy I’d put into getting them to this point.

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