Page 48 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Iwouldn’t have time for a run anymore, but as I leaned back to look at my handiwork, I smiled. Having limited friends growing up and being an only child, I followed my Dad around like a barnacle on his haul.

Bike needed a tune up? I was there, passing him the ratchet.

Dinner caught fire on the stove? I was there, pulling the pin out of the fire extinguisher.

Busted door? I was there, holding it steady while he screwed in the new hinge-plate.

Jared and Clay’s door wouldn’t lock anymore.

Not since the hard bar of metal broke through the wall and the door frame when Clay kicked it in.

I couldn’t even reuse the locking mechanism and bore out a new hole because he’d bent it beyond recognition.

But with some stolen tools from his shop around back, I was able to make it at least close for now.

I’d stop by the hardware store and get a new lock later today. I’d install it before bed.

Placing the tools and extra screws back into the box at my feet, I rose and went to the sink to wash up.

A stair creaked behind me. I didn’t turn. I knew it was Clay. How the hell he’d made it out of his room and down the hall without my hearing was a mystery. I swore he must be hollow inside. There was no way a two-hundred-plus pound giant could be so goddamned quiet otherwise.

One of these days he’d be the reason I dropped dead from a heart attack.

I finished getting the rest of the grit from beneath my fingernails and turned off the water, turning to lean against the countertop with unease rumbling in my belly.

I hadn’t exactly asked to borrow his tools, but I was hoping he would be happy to have one less thing to do today when he saw the fixed door.

When I gathered the courage to look him in the eye, my lips tightened into a frown. Maybe I’d been wrong.

Clay stood, with a shirt on for once, at the bottom of the stairs.

The light blue color of the tee was so different from his usual all black and denim look that it caught me off guard.

It made his eyes seem impossibly blue and his hair even richer in color.

The way it offset his tan didn’t hurt either.

But as ridiculously good looking as Clay Armstrong was, right now he looked like he was priming to kick the door down all over again. His fists were white knuckles at his sides. Veins coiled up to the creases in his elbows. His wide jaw was set, and his lips pressed into a firm line.

“Did you do this?”

His icy stare flicked to the toolbox and up to meet my stare before flitting away, his face reddening.

“I-I’m sorry for touching your tools, I just couldn’t go back to sleep, and it was something to do—”

“You didn’t have to—”

“I did.”

Clay clamped his mouth shut and some of the tension in his expression eased. The redness in his cheeks faded.

“I’ll grab a new lock from the hardware store later. Do you have a spade bit to drill out a new hole for the latch? Or do you just want to get a whole new—”

“You’ve done enough,” Clay snapped and then unclenched his fists, wiping a hand over the stubble on his chin. “Let me worry about it.”

“But—”

He gave me a hard look and I knew it was time to shut up and stop arguing.

I nodded once to tell him I understood and dried my hands on the dish towel next to the sink.

My hair was still a ratty mess from not brushing it after last night and I thought I should probably put some concealer under my eyes today if I looked as exhausted as I felt.

Clay went over to inspect the door and grunted his approval as he ran a finger over the hinges, including the new one I’d installed in the middle to give it a little more support.

I’d also found some leftover weatherstripping and used it to repair the piece that’d come loose at the bottom of the door.

He lifted Jared’s keys from their hook by the door and tossed them to me. I almost dropped them but managed to catch the ring on my pinkie finger.

I cocked my head at him.

“You can drive, today,” he said without looking at me.

“But I don’t have my license.”

The fact that I also couldn’t drive was implied.

He shrugged. “Drive us to the edge of town. I’ll take it from there. How are you going to learn if you don’t practice?”

I chewed my lower lip, picturing all the different ways I could damage Jared’s Jeep from here to the edge of town.

“You working today?” he asked. “No. Not until tomorrow.”

He grunted. “Good. Then we’ll go get your learner’s permit after school.”

Confused, all I could do was stand there with my mouth slightly ajar and my eyes wide as I stared at him.

Clay craned his neck to one side to raise a brow at me. “Is there something on my face?” he asked gruffly, but I could see the hint of a self-assured smirk on the corner of his mouth.

Prick.

“Fine,” I said finally, heading for the stairs. He wanted to put me behind the wheel of a car as jacked up and muscled as Jared’s Jeep, then fine. It was his funeral.

I hid my smile as I bounded up the steps and called back, “But I hope you’re as durable as you look.”

After a quick crash course on which pedal did what and how to properly ease up on the clutch while alternately pressing on the gas, we were off.

I stalled it four times trying to reverse before Clay offered to back us out of the parking area and point us forward onto the road. Strangely, he didn’t seem at all flustered or annoyed that I couldn’t seem to get it like I thought he would be.

He gave me clear instructions and repeated himself each time I failed.

The only reason he took over for a second was because if he didn’t, I was going to be late for my first class.

But how well he was handling my complete inability to figure it out was at completely odds with how I was handling it.

My teeth ground together as I rolled to a stop at the entrance to the trail, flicking the blinker to go right, toward town.

I cursed when the Jeep stalled again, shaking as it rumbled to a sputtering stop.

The fact that Clay was squished into the cab beside me, sending warning bells blaring and little fluttery sensations skittering beneath my skin wasn’t fucking helping.

How the hell was I supposed to focus?

A lick of heat snaked up my neck, warming my cheeks.

“You did use to ride bikes, right? That wasn’t bullshit?”

I glared at Clay.

“It’s not the same,” I bit out.

He put his hands up in mock surrender.

“Besides,” I added, trying to get control of my anger. My wolf was starting to get edgy from my frustration and I doubted Jared’s Jeep would survive me shifting while buckled into his drivers’ seat. “It’s been a while.”

I started the Jeep for what felt like the millionth time, trying hard to focus on putting just the right amount of pressure on the pedals as I looked both ways and made the sharp turn onto the road.

I smoothly shifted from first to second and then from second to third, sighing as the Jeep cruised down the long and straight back road leading toward town.

Now it was just a matter of staying inside the lines.

I wouldn’t worry about downshifting for another few miles until we were closer to the last turn before the tree-covered Forest Grove population sign came into view on the shoulder.

“I have an older bike,” Clay said, his eyes fixed on the road. “It’s about your size.”

My heart gave a little pang and the Jeep slowed before I realized I’d eased up on the pedal and gave it a more insistent push.

“You could use it,” he said. “If you wanted.” My throat went dry. I wanted to.

I really wanted to.

I missed riding more than I could say, but… “I only ever rode with my Dad,” I found myself saying, the words trailing off, leaving Clay to take from them what he would.

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye and saw his head bow. “Well, when you’re ready then. I’ll hold on to the bike in case you change your mind.”

My brain cramped trying to make sense of Clayton Armstrong. How could he be such an asshole and so…kind at the same time? How could he be so intimidating but also so…not.

How is it that I can want to punch him while also wondering what his stubble would feel like beneath my fingers?

“Allie,” Clay’s shout brought me back to the present and I swerved back between the lines, pulling the tires away from the crunch of gravel that almost led us into the ditch.

“Shit,” I cursed, hands tightening on the wheel. “Sorry.”

“Allie, speed up.”

“What?”

I was still on edge from almost putting us in the ditch, but something in Clay’s tone made my wolf stir and a stone drop in my belly.

His eyes were glowing like blue flame, fixed on something out the window. A blur of light gray blinked in and out between the trees at the side of the road. An animal.

A wolf.

“Clay,” I croaked nervously. “Who is that?”

I struggled to keep my eyes on the road, watching for the wolf blur into and out of focus and worried Clay might burst out of his skin at any second.

“Clay!”

“I don’t know. Drive faster.”

I did as he said, panic lodging like a cork in my throat as I pushed the Jeep from thirty to sixty.

“Don’t move your foot off the gas,” Clay barked and before I realized what he was doing, he had the center console pushed up and out of the way and was sliding toward me.

My seat belt came undone and his hands lifted me at the waist. I yelped, accidently letting off the gas.

“Don’t stop.”

The seat fell back as he adjusted its position for him to fit. If he wasn’t holding me up, my foot would’ve completely come off the pedal.

Spice and engine grease filled my senses as Clay positioned himself under me in the driver’s seat and reached for the wheel with his left hand.

I felt his foot nudge mine on the gas pedal. “Move over,” he ordered.

Using the dash to stabilize myself, I shifted from his lap and into the passenger seat and Clay punched the gas, shooting us down the road at a speed that had my stomach pressing flat against my spine as I fumbled to buckle myself back in.

“What’s going on?” I demanded, peering outside to try to find the gray shape in the trees again. I couldn’t see it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

When Clay didn’t answer, I shoved his arm, trying to get his attention. “What do they want?”

“They aren’t pack,” he hissed. “They’re trespassing.”

And they were following us.

Following me.

My wolf ached to chase. To bite. To maim.

I bent and put my head between my knees, getting control of my breaths and fisting the hair at my scalp so I had something to focus on other than the urge to shift. “It’s okay, Allie,” Clay said, surprising me with the tenderness of his tone. “We’re almost there.”

The Jeep jerked to one side and I sat up, thinking something had hit us, but Clay had just taken the corner too sharply and the tires bumped to get a grip on the blacktop.

He visibly relaxed once we were off the mostly barren back road and onto the main roads of town. There were people here. Kids walking to school. Their parents rushing to work. A post woman stuffing a mailbox with junk fliers and bills.

“Sorry,” Clay said. “Didn’t mean to freak you out.” My heart was still hammering behind my ribcage,

but watching the normal people go about their normal morning routines outside the windows, like an animal looking through plate glass, brought me a measure of calm.

I wanted to laugh.

Him freak me out. No, it was the goddamned bear- sized wolf chasing us down the road that freaked me out.

A short bubble of laughter escaped my mouth, and another followed it.

“Allie, are you okay?”

“I don’t know, am I?” I managed between fits of laughter that were starting to turn into something dangerously close to tears.

I’m going insane.

And the look on Clay’s face told me he thought so, too.

By the time we pulled into the school lot, I had control of myself—for the most part, anyway. The adrenaline had dissipated, leaving me bone-weary and a little shaky. I wondered if I could get away with napping in class if I set my textbook at just the right angle.

When I jumped out of the Jeep, Clay was already there, waiting outside the door for me.

I surveyed the lot, finding more than one set of eyes peering curiously at the massive former student. Thankfully, their curious looks hadn’t extended to me yet. “Clay,” I warned between clenched teeth, trying to keep my voice low. “Get back in the Jeep.”

I shouldered my pack and headed for the door. Clay followed on my heels.

I spun. “What are you doing?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I’m walking you inside.”

“No, you’re not.”

He tilted his head, a challenge in his gaze.

I stared right back. The whispers about me and Jared Stone were enough to deal with. I didn’t need people asking questions or making up gossipy stories about why Clayton fucking Armstrong was walking me to class.

“Not a fucking chance,” I hissed.

Clay scowled, but when I took a backward step, he didn’t immediately follow. “Fine,” he said. “Go straight inside and stay there until I pick you up. I’ll find out who that was… Got it?”

An inner light flared beneath his irises for an instant before it faded.

Both me and my inner wolf agreed that we didn’t like him trying to tell us what to do. Both of us had our lips curled back, a rumble vibrating behind our breastbone.

“Got it,” I begrudgingly replied, eager to end the conversation so I could escape before the lot filled with even more students rushing to make the first bell.

When I looked back over my shoulder as the heavy steel door shut on my heels, I found the Jeep still parked in the same space and the parking lot. Short one tall, broad shouldered guy.

Where the fuck did he go?

Something blue caught the wind at the edge of the lot that backed onto the cross-country running trail. Clay’s t-shirt caught in a low branch, flapping like a flag in the chilly autumn breeze.

My breath caught as I remembered the lithe animal matching our pace through the trees at the side of the road. There had only been one, right?

But it was a big fucker.

And if it wasn’t part of the Forest Grove pack. “Idiot,” I hissed.

Why would he go out there after it alone?

My wolf itched to follow. The flapping blue swath of fabric like a matador’s red cape, drawing her to charge.

I tore my eyes away and dug out my phone, sloppily thumbing through contacts until I found Jared’s name.

I punched it and brought the phone to my ear, wordlessly grumbling to myself as I cursed Clay for making me be the one to rat him out.

It was either this or go after him myself and I doubted I’d survive the latter.

If the wolf chasing us didn’t kill me, I was sure Clay would.

Jared answered on the third ring. “Allie? Is everything okay?”

“Define okay.”