As the first sunbeams peeked over the rugged mountains, Ezra threw on a raggedy T-shirt, black workout shorts, and light running shoes. Then he headed across his hilly back yard, jogging strong, breathing strong, soon sweating despite the biting chill that left his breath visible. He went all the way to his woods and didn’t stop there. With a wolf’s unerring sense of place and balance, he kept going, dodging low branches and twigs without thinking about it, without altering his pace. He loved moving like this, soaking in the scents and sounds around him, tasting the richness of the brisk air, of the soil under his feet, of the sparse greenery left as autumn waned toward winter. Wildlife fled him in a radius of a mile or so, which made him grin.That’s right. Apex here. Top of the natural world.
For a couple hours he stopped thinking. He absorbed, tuned in, used his body, felt his body. He breathed easily, and he reveled in the physical reminders of his own strength.
When he reached the property line between himself and his folks’ place, he slowed. Tradition prohibited stepping onto another wolf’s property without explicit permission, but among his pack, the permission was an unspoken thing. Not that Dad would mind one of his sons showing up on his land, in any case.
About five hundred feet over the property line, Dad and Mom had a natural pond. Over the years Dad had encircled it with rocks, big and small, as he came across them. A few were true boulders. Ezra loved to cross over and sit on the largest boulder, smooth with centuries of weathering. He did so now, and as he sat, his thoughts pushed back in.
Just get to know her today. That’s all he had to do. Don’t tell her everything.
Well, he didn’t want to tell her every last thing about himself today. That would be…creepy. It was just the one thing.
The one thing that would send her running. The thing he had never cared one way or another to tell anybody else. He fidgeted on the boulder. Until Willow knew his true nature, wasn’t he lying to her?
The morning crept by. Ezra loped back to the house, showered, dressed in his nicest jeans and a shirt with green-and-white checks. He hoped he looked all right for a date.
“It is a date,” he said aloud in the cab of his truck, driving toward the red tent and Willow. “It wasn’t when I said okay, though. So she doesn’t know it is.”
That itched at him too. Maybe he should tell her the minute he saw her.You should know that in my head this is…
This is what? A wolf pursuing his mate?
He growled and flexed his hands on the wheel. “This is too hard.”
An image leaped into his head, sweeping Willow into his arms and bending to kiss her until no words were needed to convey what she was to him. And then…
He had to chill out.
He managed to. Until, under the shade of the red tent, Willow stood before him. She wore a cute dress, cherry red with big splashes of white and black flowers. She was an artist’s adaptation of an hourglass, extra fullness at the hips, and the dress flattered every sweet curve. Her brown eyes sparkled when she caught sight of him, and she hurried over, no hint of coyness. Her scent filled his senses and calmed him—lime and vanilla, tangy nervousness, bright pleasure at seeing him.
“Hi,” she said with a smile. Her red lipstick matched her dress.
“Hi,” he said.
She was ogling him. He blinked as he realized it. Well, he was ogling back.
He cleared his throat. “Um, shall we?”
“Yeah. Let’s.”
They were quiet at first, walking side by side through the wide gate and onto the fairgrounds, turning down the first dusty aisle lined with vendors. The fair was a flood for his wolf senses, so many voices and so many scents. The air tasted like cinnamon sugar, so the truck that sold elephant ears wasn’t far away. Distantly he could hear traffic passing on the highway, new arrivals parking in the giant dirt lot and getting out of their cars. Someone was bringing a picnic lunch of roast beef on rye. Someone was carrying a recently bathed and powdered infant. And someone…someone within the fairgrounds was a vampire.
Sour and salty. They all smelled the same. He grimaced. Worst smell on earth. But there was only one here. No big deal. A few deep breaths helped. There. Good. Sensory firehose didn’t have to mean sensory overload, even with a vampire in proximity.
Another scent made him smile: the good gamey odor of a fellow wolf. He recognized the signature eucalyptus scent. Of course he wasn’t surprised to smell Nathan Corrigan. The pup—well, no longer a pup, though Ezra still thought of him that way—had exhibited his art here last year too.
About halfway down the aisle, Willow pointed. “Look, flowers.”
She scampered in her shiny black sandals, their heels hardly practical for a day of walking on soft dry dirt. She did fine in them though. Ezra followed, unable not to be impressed with her effortless balance.
“I can always tell when flowers are fake, but these look really great. Realistic specimens in realistic colors. See, here’s a peony, hydrangea, chrysanthemums… Wow, even the orchids could fool you from a distance. And this greenery…”
It all looked pretty enough. And yeah, it would have fooled him from a distance except for the giveaway smell of plastic. He ran a thumb over a convincing pot of tall grass.
“You like flowers?” he said.
“Do you remember the florist in town? They moved; Harmony Ridge doesn’t have a florist anymore. But I worked for them for almost a year, and I learned a ton of stuff.”
“And you like flowers.”
