Little Wolf (14 page)

“That’s it?” Tim’s demand stopped him and made him turn part of the way around. “That isn’t very helpful. I don’t know what I want to know, so I can’t ask. That doesn’t make sense.” He sounded like Carl at his grumpiest.

Nathaniel’s smile was unexpected, though he kept his eyes on the door and didn’t look at Tim. “There’s no expiration date, Tim, not if you stay. You’re staying, aren’t you?”

Tim hung on to his caution. “For a while.”

Nathaniel gave a sideways look. It was almost shy, except Tim doubted someone like Nathaniel had ever been shy. “When you figure out what you want, I’ll be waiting.”

“Really?” Tim scooted to the edge of the bench when Nathaniel nodded. “This wasn’t how I expected this talk to go.”

“I gathered that.” Nathaniel stopped smiling and opened the door. “But we have ways of doing things around here in this ‘flea-bitten, sex-obsessed town,’ and terrorizing people who don’t deserve it isn’t one of them.” At that, he went inside.

Tim slid to his feet. He was still frowning as he followed Nathaniel into the house. “You really mean that.” He stuck out his lower lip while he considered how understanding Nathaniel was being. “You
must
have a flaw, and I am going to find it if it kills me.”

Nathaniel glanced at Tim again. “I look forward to getting to know you too. You might turn out to have a soft side.”

“Nope. I’m all sarcasm and pointy edges.” Tim shut the door with a snap while watching Nathaniel head to the kitchen. The stupidest things made Nathaniel happy. Tim couldn’t figure it out. But he wrinkled his nose and followed slowly after him. “You must be hungry. Did you, um, want some bacon?” He brushed past Nathaniel to get to the fridge. “I ate yours, and I promised Zoe I’d make you some more.” It was true enough, even if his heart starting pounding again. Tim resisted the urge to scuff his shoe on the floor and only demanded, “What?” when Nathaniel’s expression seemed to grow more pleased by the second.

Nathaniel didn’t wipe the smile off his face, but he did clear his throat before grabbing some bread from a breadbox. “How about sandwiches? It’s one thing I
can
manage in a kitchen.”

Huh?
Tim wanted to demand again. He made the mistake of meeting Nathaniel’s eyes and felt his face get hot. “Nice try, Neri, but an inability to cook doesn’t count as a real flaw,” he mumbled, hoping he sounded sarcastic but knowing he was a touch too breathless.

“Really?” Nathaniel looked down as he untwisted the bread bag. “I guess you’ll have to dig deeper, then.”

Tim didn’t know what it meant that Nathaniel was daring him to look for his flaws. It was like he wanted Tim to see his weaknesses, but at the same time he wasn’t exactly rolling over to show Tim his belly. Tim studied his back, with anxious butterflies in his stomach that he decided to blame on hunger.

He got the bacon from the fridge and then stood there helplessly until Nathaniel pointed at one cabinet. Tim scooted over and found it full of pots and pans.

“To be clear.” Tim used the kind of phrase Nathaniel would. “You want me to ask you things, but you aren’t going to”—it seemed wrong to say it now, but he made himself do it—“force me into anything.” He could see Nathaniel needlessly futzing with the toaster out of the corner of his eye. Nathaniel nodded. “You’re giving me a lot of power here.” Tim had the realization out loud. He frowned at the package of bacon—one of about six in the fridge, because someone else here loved bacon as much as he did. He had a feeling it was Nathaniel. He bit his lip and became aware of the mingled sounds of their heartbeats. “What if my questions are stupid? Or rude?”

“You? Rude? I don’t believe it.” Nathaniel’s tone was dry as he came around Tim to turn on the stove. Tim could have figured it out and forgot his uncertainty long enough to scowl. Nathaniel was anything but intimidated. He made eye contact for another moment and then continued casually counting out pieces of bread as if he wasn’t blowing Tim’s mind. “Little Wolf, maybe the reason you don’t take anyone’s shit is that you were never meant to.”

Tim’s throat tightened to the point that only a squeak emerged. He quickly turned his attention to cooking so Nathaniel wouldn’t see how confused he was.

“I
HAVE
a question,” Tim interrupted both Carl and the customer trying to get his attention. After a night and a morning spent struggling to think of a safe question to ask Nathaniel, one decided to pop into his mind the moment Nathaniel walked through the gift shop entrance.

Nathaniel stopped in the doorway, and the customer bobbing around at the edge of Tim’s peripheral vision let out a long, slow whistle that would have rubbed Tim the wrong way if he hadn’t sympathized with the impulse.

“Hel
lo
,” she greeted Nathaniel, in a much warmer voice than she’d used on Tim. She was tall and were, with reddish hair and skin like ebony. Tim gave her a sharp look and then pointed at the different brands of lube he’d arranged on a nearby shelf. “The brand you were looking for is over there, but they also sell it at the drugstore down the street.”

He put a lot of emphasis into the words, but he didn’t think that was why she gave him a disgruntled sniff before finally turning away. She didn’t bother looking at the lube before she went into the café. Nathaniel came forward to stand in her spot by the counter.

“She’ll find someone else,” Nathaniel assured him, as if Tim was concerned about one lonely, horny were. Okay, he was, but only in the sense that she find someone other than Nathaniel to ease her horny loneliness. Tim was pathetic. He accepted that. He’d accepted that the night before while sitting cross-legged on his bed in Nathaniel’s house and casting a spell over the entire house. It wasn’t much against the might of Silas Dirus, but it was the least Tim could do to protect Nathaniel if they were found out.

“This is nothing. Once the season really gets going you’ll be bombarded.” Nathaniel frowned at his own words.

“She wasn’t interested in me. If she was, she forgot about me the second you came in,” Tim corrected. Despite what he was saying, he had to wipe the smile off his face. “See, Carl? Your precious sheriff is alive,” he yelled at Carl, but his eyes remained on Nathaniel, who was watching Tim’s every move as though he couldn’t give a fuck about Carl. Now that he didn’t have to worry about Tim anymore, he must have really gotten a good night’s sleep. He seemed content, if mildly confused.

“From the looks I got when I walked in this morning, I think people were afraid I was going to murder you in your sleep,” Tim explained. Everyone had seen Nathaniel drop Tim off directly outside the café and watch until Tim was safely through the door, as if the three feet of sidewalk was the prime spot for someone to pounce on Tim.

Since that might actually be true, Tim hadn’t commented at the time, only kept his head down and gone inside. It was strange enough having someone defend him; he didn’t need to talk about it.

Tim looked at Nathaniel. “I don’t think that was their concern,” Nathaniel announced carefully, after sending a glare Carl’s way. Then he shook his head and leaned against the counter. “What was your question?”

“Question?” Tim forgot words. Nathaniel was all heat and proximity and interest. Tim had now seen him first thing in the morning and, as expected, Nathaniel looked about the same when he was half-awake. Tim’s hair had been going in every direction, and he’d had a chubby that he’d been too embarrassed to get rid of with Nathaniel in the house. Nathaniel had taken one look at Tim fresh out of bed and headed outside, not bothering to put on shoes or a shirt first.

“To ask me,” Nathaniel filled him in. He had bright eyes after a full night’s sleep. They’d been bright when he’d looked Tim over that morning too.

“This is going to take all day,” Carl commented from the sidelines.

Tim landed on the stool out of luck more than grace or skill. “Oh right.” He really had to remember not to get lost in Nathaniel’s eyes so much. “Carl was reading the crime beat from the paper.” Wolf’s Paw’s paper still reported nuisance calls and domestic disturbances. “There was more crime here than I thought. Tourists mostly, he says, and park visitors, but plenty of, uh, regular crimes?” Tim wasn’t sure what to call horrible things that were probably mundane to cops. “I thought, I don’t know, that weres wouldn’t call the police for that kind of thing.”

“I’m not sure what your question is.” Nathaniel nodded to show he was listening, and then moved along the counter so they weren’t as separated anymore. “You thought the weres in town would take care of everything themselves? Or that I’d take care of it for them like a Mafia don?”

“No. Yes.” Tim sent his gaze up. Nathaniel was amused. Tim wrinkled his nose at him. “I wouldn’t have said Mafia don, but come on, we both know that we have other ways of handling problems.”

Nathaniel at least didn’t deny it. But he did let his smile fade away before he spoke again. “Nobody goes around mauling humans in my town.”

Humans
. Tim caught the word the way he noticed how Nathaniel had called it
his
town, but he shut his mouth because Nathaniel’s expression was serious. Tim hadn’t forgotten that they weren’t alone, or that there were other beings around with good hearing who were watching the two of them as if they were better than
Diedre’s Secret
. How weres interacted with humans was subject to human law. How weres interacted with other weres was a different matter. “I suppose my question is, how did you become sheriff?”

“I was elected.” Nathaniel didn’t hesitate.

Tim blinked. “You didn’t”—he gestured—”fight the last sheriff to the death or anything?”

“He retired.” Nathaniel’s smile was starting to reappear. At least he wasn’t laughing. Carl was chortling to himself, but Carl could suck it.

Tim scrubbed at his cheeks. “But you’re young, right? To be a sheriff?”

“I’m thirty-one.” Nathaniel straightened. Tim really hoped he wasn’t going to be butthurt about the age thing. Maybe Tim wasn’t the first one who had said something about it.

“You seem like a really good sheriff, and people would probably listen to you even if you weren’t wearing a badge, because you’re definitely the top wolf.” Tim narrowed his eyes to reconsider Nathaniel, as well as some of what he’d thought an alpha wolf was. “Oh. They voted for you because you’re the one in charge anyway.”

“The last sheriff was a friend and recommended me. That helped.” Nathaniel eased down a little. “And there were some events I felt responsible for. I had to step up.”

“My uncle….” Tim licked his lips. “My uncle said that wolves and humans alike respond to authority, and that if you were born to it….” Tim didn’t finish, because he hadn’t been born to give people orders. “An alpha is just a leader. Some people would be in charge no matter where they were.”

Nathaniel nodded, but Tim was already considering something else.

“You’re like the local lord, aren’t you?” It was a title his uncle would have been comfortable with. “Did you have to prove yourself?”

“Of course.” Nathaniel didn’t say how. He was waiting for the next question.

Tim had one. “So you weren’t born a leader?” His uncle had trained Tim in a lot of things, but always with the implication that heritage was a better indicator of leadership than education.

Nathaniel seemed thoughtful. “It isn’t always about that. The old sheriff used to say, if someone is born to lead, then they will, through circumstance or choice.”

“Sometimes the situation makes you a leader,” Carl remarked, evidently still listening.

“This entire town is up in your business a lot, aren’t they?” Tim didn’t bother looking at Carl, so Carl would snort at him.

Nathaniel squared his shoulders. “I get a lot of attention. It’s partly a small-town thing and partly a pack thing.”

“You’re their lord, and it’s in their interest to make sure you are happy,” Tim finished, understanding completely now that he put it in those terms. He was shocked the townsfolk hadn’t come after him with torches and pitchforks like in a human monster movie for annoying their alpha wolf. He looked back up at Nathaniel. “I’m surprised they aren’t throwing mate candidates at you.” He’d been thinking about mates, and about why Blake didn’t forget Carolyn and choose Nurse Valerie.

Nathaniel’s eyes widened. He stared at Tim for a moment longer, then rubbed his neck. “That isn’t how mating works.”

Carl, nosy old man that he was, coughed, not quite disguising what he was really saying. “Pair of dumbasses.”

Tim glowered at him the same moment that Nathaniel did, then turned back at the same time. Tim quickly glanced down at the shot glass display. “Well, whatever, I guess you wouldn’t need a mate with the way everyone looks at you. Even the baby wolves.”

“Baby wolves?” Nathaniel repeated blankly. Tim waved toward the café, though it was early and the kids were either in school or off doing whatever the older ones did during the day.

“It’s what I call them and any other high schoolers around.” Tim scowled. “They look at you, a
lot
. It must get irritating.” Tim was well aware that he was one of those baby wolves, staring at the sheriff and imagining the things he wanted to do to him, things he wished Nathaniel would do to him.