Page 5 of Loan Wolf (Green Valley Shifters: Generations #1)

5

GABE

T wo days later, the garage door was open and Gabe had fans running full blast, so he didn’t hear the customer come in until they rang the bell at the counter.

His wolf, who had been sulking in his head because they weren’t licking someone, seemed to rise and start wagging his tail and Gabe knew with a stab of mixed excitement and despair who it would be. He put down the chain he was repairing and wiped the grease from his hands.

Clara was wearing a cute, modest white shirt with puffed sleeves and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. If she was wearing makeup, it was subtle. Gabe approached warily. “Can I help you?” It was weird to see her in his space, surrounded by bikes and hardware. She belonged on the cover of a magazine, on a stage, or in a church.

Somewhere to be worshipped.

Or licked, his wolf said hopefully.

“I wanted to rent a bike,” she said.

“Don’t you have a car?” Gabe growled, before he recognized how unfriendly it sounded.

Clara looked affronted. “So do lots of people. Do you not rent to people with alternate transportation?”

“I’m sorry,” Gabe said quickly. “It’s just…I didn’t expect you.”

“Because…I have a car?”

Because she didn’t belong here. Because she was way too classy and perfect for this nowhere town and Gabe’s nowhere shop.

He couldn’t say that, so he didn’t say anything, which clearly made her uncomfortable.

“Anyway. I’m Clara Montgomery, and I’d like to rent a bike.”

“I know who you are.”

She frowned at him. “Do I know you?”

Gabe shook his head, and then shrugged. “We’ve…met.”

She looked him up and down and Gabe wished he wasn’t wearing his grubbiest jeans and greasiest shirt. He stank of sweat and graphite, and he rubbed the tattoo on his wrist self-consciously.

“Remind me where?” Clara was too sweet to deny.

“The Christmas pageant.” If Gabe hadn’t been watching her face so closely, he might have missed the wince. “I guess you’ve been reminded about that a lot since you got into town.”

“Come back, baby Jesus,” Clara said with a rueful laugh. “It is the line everyone remembers me for!” Then she snapped her fingers. “You were Gabriel!” Her nose did an adorable skeptical wrinkle. “Your name was really Gabe?”

“No. My name is James Smith. In a small town with six other Jameses, five Jims, and a handful of Jakes, not to mention the James family itself. My first notable act as a member of Green Valley was to play Gabriel in an extremely dramatic adaptation of the nativity, and Gabe is what stuck.”

“It is our burden to bear forever,” Clara said sympathetically. Her blue eyes were all crinkled with warm humor and Gabe wanted to roll over at her feet and let her rub his belly.

No, that was just his wolf.

It was sometimes hard to separate the two.

“About a bike?”

Gabe realized that he’d been gazing at her besottedly again and cleared his throat. “Yes, of course. It doesn’t matter that you have a car. You’ll want a light touring bike, I guess? Or an electric bike? There’s a lot of good trails in the area. Nice and flat, not too strenuous.”

Clara was really good at hiding her emotions, Gabe realized, because he saw a flash of annoyance that was smothered in a polite smile so quickly that he doubted his own eyes. “I was thinking of a mountain bike. If I don’t get some real exercise, I’m going to go stir crazy.”

She was a professional dancer, Gabe reminded himself. It was easy to think of her as soft because she was so pretty, but her arms showed muscle, and she must be strong. Ballet dancers were not wimps and he’d probably just managed to insult her thoroughly.

“I’ve got those,” Gabe said. “And I’ve got a trail map here that shows some challenging tracks. Orange trails will get your heartrate up. Red is expert; it’s good to have a guide your first time because it gets a bit dicey in places.”

“Is that a service you offer?” Clara asked.

Gabe swallowed. “Yeah.” He was probably imagining the flirtatious tone she’d used. Or it was just part of her sweet personality. He was reading way too much into her devastating friendly-but-reserved combination of manners.

He came around the counter and found that Clara was wearing shorts. They were not the shortest shorts he’d ever seen—Midwest girls were practically willing to bare their cheeks—but they showed off an awful lot of perfect leg.

Gabe wrenched his eyes off them and led her to the rentals. “This is Daisy. She’s just your size and a sturdy workhorse who can handle being off trail. I’ll raise the seat a notch for you.” He lifted it off the stand and got a wrench from his pocket.

“You name your bikes?”

“I’ve found that people treat them with more respect if they have a name attached to them.” Gabe was able to do the adjustment with one hand.

Daisy was light blue, with a few white daisies painted on it. Watching Clara straddle it to test the fit made Gabe’s breath catch in his chest.

“I suppose you don’t rent this one to very many guys.” Clara found the pedal with her free foot and gave it a test spin backwards to check the extension of her knee. Her white sneakers were completely free of scuffs.

“I have a few painted with flames and sportsballs for dudes with masculinity issues,” Gabe scoffed.

Clara gave a surprised and unladylike snort, her foot nearly slipping from the pedal. “Sportsball?!”

Gabe shrugged. “I went to private school. Never got swept up in football fever or whatever, but I can google an image with the best of them.”

“You painted these yourself?” Clara touched the daisy on the crossbar.

Gabe grunted. Should he be ashamed to admit it? It was his favorite part of a bike rebuild, doing the finishing touches that took it from a machine to a member of his family.

He looked over to catch Clara looking quickly away. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with that porcelain skin and deep blonde hair. Her cheeks were slightly flushed in the heat, and her lashes were impossibly long.

“How much?”

How much did he want her? How much was he already hopelessly in love with her? Gabe wrenched himself back to the matter at hand. “Twenty for three hours, fifty for twenty-four hours.”

“Do you have a weekly rate?” Clara walked the bike forward a few steps and then back.

“Two hundred.” It was hard to resist his desire to get down on his knees and just give it to her, but Gabe had sworn a long time ago that he wasn’t going to budge on his pricing once he set it. That way was ruin, and he wanted to be out of debt and independent.

“I could almost buy a bike for that.”

“Not this bike.”

Gabe said it sharply enough that Clara met his eyes in surprise. “I’ll do three hours.”

“If you decide to do more, I’ll apply your payment to the total,” he said.

It was just a business transaction, Gabe reminded himself. He was only loaning her a bike.