Page 3 of Loan Wolf
“My whole family watched you in the Nutcracker on PBS,” Aaron said.
“Clara, dancing as Clara!” Trevor crowed. “Everyone talked about it afterwards.”
Clara kept a smile on her face out of practice and knew that it would be perfectly convincing. She didn’t want to talk about dancing. She didn’t want to be Clara Montgomery, daughter of an Angel, here. She wanted to be just Clara, Miss Patricia’s daughter, and no one special. “Did they ever rebuild the auto shop that burned down?”
“Yeah,” Trevor said, like he was grateful for the distraction. “But it’s a bike shop now.”
“Motorcycles?” That seemed out of character for the little town.
“Mountain bikes,” Aaron said. “Gabe’s got a sales, repair, and rental place. The county did a big upgrade of the trails around here and Green Valley is one of the jumping off places for a twenty-mile loop, so we get a bunch of ecotourists through the town in their tight bike shorts.”
“Supporting the six local restaurants,” Trevor added.
“Three in the winter,” Aaron said sharply.
Were they jostling over her, or was this just the usual amount of rivalry? Was Clara imagining their lingering gazes or giving too much credit to the way they appraised her? Certainly, she was probably doing the same, trying not to stare, but curious about how much they’d grown up, how their voices were different, how they were the same best friends…and so very not.
3
GABE
“Whoa, where’s the fire?”
Gabe, having nearly knocked over the tuba player and drawn the attention of everyone at the funeral, managed to compound his clumsiness by bowling out of the door into Linda Turner, who was carrying a platter of cookies.
“Sorry,” he murmured, catching the tray as she nearly dropped it. “No fire.”
Just failure.
His wolf was howling in his head.
“You okay?” Linda peered into his eyes. She was married to Fire Chief Turner, and a volunteer with the department herself, and also certified as an EMT. “I warned you about…”
“I’m not on drugs!” Gabe knew that he stood out in Green Valley, with his tattoos, pierced ear, and penchant for wearing black, but he’d never even smoked in school. Loud music and being a misfit were his only real sins.
“Okay, then,” Linda said skeptically. “Thank you for saving the cookies. Do you want one before you go?”
Gabe was already stalking away. There was only one cookie he wanted, and it wasn’t Linda’s.
Our mate is not a cookie, his wolf said in confusion. Does she have a cookie?
I don’t want to talk about it, Gabe answered. At least his wolf wasn’t still howling.
We waaaaaant her! his wolf insisted.
Well, we can’t have her!
Why did it have to be Clara Montgomery?
Gabe kicked at the garbage can at the curb and overestimated his swing so that it tumbled over instead of just making some noise. Even that wasn’t satisfying. Gabe only got two steps away before he was back to set it upright and pick up the trash that had spilled out.
Why couldn’t it have been someone more his speed? Gabe couldn’t have said what his speed really was, but he knew it wasn’t classy, rich, beautiful, graceful, sexy…
He threw the last crumpled can back in the trash bin and yanked his thoughts away from the last image of her, with her long legs, standing up to give Trevor Powell a big, warm hug.
She should be hugging us, his wolf said jealously.
No, she shouldn’t. Did she even remember him?
