Four Weddings and a Werewolf

Chapter Thirteen

Dog breath. There was a seriously bad, gagging amount of dog breath fanning over her face.

Peeling her eyes open, Veronica shrieked and jerked away from the golden retriever staring at her from the edge of the bed. The dog’s disgusting tongue was lolling out of its mouth, hanging mere inches over the mattress. Its breath was rancid. As if it’d been eating dead fish and took second helpings.

“Go!” Veronica cringed. “Shoo!”

The dog clamped its mouth shut and made a cute little meeping noise. Kinking its head to the side, staring at her with sweet brown eyes.

“Okay, so you’re kinda cute,” she said. “But you’re drooling. Go!”

She fanned it away and shrank deeper into the bed. It barked, and Veronica covered her now-busted eardrums.

Wait…

Logan’s dog. Logan’s…bed?

Clutching the covers to her chest, Veronica glanced around, half expecting to see leashes, dog bones, and rubbery chew toys lying around. Okay, so she’d hadn’t ever seen a werewolf with any of those things, but she hadn’t seen someone in wolf form before last night, so who knew what they enjoyed in the privacy of their own homes?

She was pleasantly surprised to find none of those things. The king-size bed was in the center of the room, and two dressers flanked an open door that led to a bathroom with an oversized mirror hanging above a single sink. The walls were painted a cool shade of gray, and a black-and-white picture of Seattle’s skyline hung over the bed in a chunky black frame. It was surprisingly…nice.

“Veronica?” Logan knocked on the door and started opening before she answered. “I’m coming in.”

She sat up quickly, her dress from the wedding catching on her backside. She yanked it up and checked her neckline as Logan pushed the door open wide.

“What am I doing here?” she asked. “What happened after…?”

She couldn’t finish. God, she couldn’t even say what she really wanted to say. What if she made him angry? Would he lose control and turn into a werewolf? She was in his house, on his territory. She needed out.

Logan leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms over his chest. “It kills me to say it, but he got away.”

“So he’s still out there.” She brushed her hands up and down her arms.

“Not for long. I swear to you I’ll find him.”

He’d use his super wolfie senses, no doubt about it.

“It sucks that he got away, but I shouldn’t be here.” The dog whimpered and licked for her hand. Its tongue caught the edge of her pinky and slimed her up. She swiped her hand across the sheet. “Could you take him out?”

“Fang?”

The dog turned around.

“Outside.” Logan patted his leg one time. The dog flew past him. Deep in the house, a dog door flapped opened and closed.

“Your dog’s name is Fang?”

“What would you have named him? Old Yeller?”

Aww. She’d cried her eyes out when that poor dog was put down. Now that Logan mentioned it, his dog did resemble the one from the film. “Can you speak canine? Is that why he listens so well to you?”

“No.” Logan smirked. “Dogs bark, werewolves howl. Two different languages. He listens because I paid a shit-ton of money to take him to dog training classes. He finished top in his class.”

She didn’t have time for this, but she had to tread carefully. “Listen, that’s great and all, but why did you bring me here?”

“You passed out.”

“I live across the street.” She squelched the anger rising in her belly. She needed to keep calm, so that he would keep calm. “Why didn’t you take me home and put me in my own bed?”

“I wanted to be able to watch over you,” he said simply. “Believe it or not, I care about your safety.”

“Believe it or not,” she mimicked.

“I made you a reservation at Hotel Monaco in the Financial District.”

“Fancy.”

“It’s under my name,” he said, “so if anyone calls to see if you’ve checked in, your name won’t pop up. They already have my card on file. All you have to do is show them your ID and request a key.”

“You’re not paying for my room.” Veronica popped out of bed, dragging the sheets with her. She kicked them aside and brushed past him. “I need to get out of here so I can think straight.”

“So that’s it?” he said, following her out the front door. “You’re not going to say anything?”

“What’s there to say?” As Veronica walked across his lawn, Fang started barking from somewhere behind his house. “You’re clearly a…dog person. And I’m clearly not. That’s all there is to it.”

Glad to be putting space between them, Veronica marched across the street, spotted her car parked in her driveway, and stopped. “Where’s my stuff? My purse, keys?” She whirled around and found him right behind her. “What happened to the Sanchez wedding? I wasn’t there to close everything down and to—”

His hands found her shoulders. “I took care of everything. Heather and Susan broke everything down and made sure the hall was cleaned up before they left. I checked in with Susan about an hour ago. The bride and groom had no idea what went down outside. Susan said things are good.”

She shrugged away from his touch, from the warmth it gave. She remembered Desperately Seeking Susan Reinhart and her overenthusiastic interest in Logan. “Of course they’re good. If you’re asking Susan anything, the answer is going to be sunshine and rainbows.” Another flare of anger hit her hard. “She’s just your type. You should call her. I’m sure you saved her number in your phone. You might even luck out—I bet she likes rugged wolf men who are in desperate need of a shave.”

“What are you talking about?” His brow puzzled. “Why would I call her and—wait, what makes you think you know my type at all?”

Closing her eyes so she’d stop staring at him didn’t work. She only pictured him in the elevator instead. She’d gotten freaky with a werewolf. A werewolf! What the hell was happening? She needed to talk to her sister.

“I guess I don’t, Logan. Where are my keys?”

He dug around in his pocket and came out with them. “Are you jealous?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She reached out for them but he jerked his arm back so the keys were out of reach. “Give ’em to me.”

“Why are you so worried about Susan and her number being logged in to my phone?”

“I’ve got a stalker out there somewhere who’s probably really irked that I threw a wine bottle at him last night.” She reached for the keys and was denied. Again. “I’m not worried about Susan.”

“It’s not, by the way,” he said.

“I don’t care about you or Susan or whatever you decide to do together.” She put her hands on her hips. Being out in the open, where anyone could see if he got angry, shifted, and tried to hurt her, gave Veronica a surge of boldness. “Give me the keys, or I give you a nut shot. How’s that for caring?”

“Your things are on the couch.” He dropped the keys into her hand.

When she was finally alone in the safety of her own house, Veronica realized this was the last place she wanted to be.

As soon as she wrapped her mind around what just happened, she’d pack a bag, head to Hotel Monaco, and insist they charge the room to her credit card. Damn Logan and his pushiness.

Damn him.

Flattening her back to the door, Veronica slid slowly to the hardwood. She put her elbows on her knees and let her tears fall.

…

Hotel Monaco was extravagant, beautiful, and luxuriously over the top. So she’d let Logan foot the bill.

It was the least he could do.

Anger did, in fact, taste of bitterness.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Leah? You should’ve told me!” Veronica was practically screaming into the phone. The more she paced through the hotel room, the more infuriated she became. Cocoa curled into her bed in the corner, completely satisfied with her new room. Good thing the hotel had an awesome pet policy; she wouldn’t have left Cocoa behind.

“Jake said Logan was the best,” Leah said. “He said if he was going to trust me to someone, it’d be Logan, so I couldn’t ask for someone better to watch over you.”

“You should’ve said something!”

“If you knew he was a wolf, if I’d told you from the start, would you have let him follow you around this week?”

Veronica fiddled through her bag and tossed her clothes into one of the drawers beneath the television. “No, probably not, but you could’ve tried. You could’ve been here to tell me. Why do you have to be gone?”

Leah groaned. “You know why I can’t leave. My publicist set this whole thing up six months ago and my book releases next month. If I bail out now, I’ll lose this promo opportunity and lose face with my publisher. My flight gets in on Friday, so I’ll only be gone another five days. It’ll go by fast, I promise.”

“You’ve already done a few stops,” Veronica pleaded, pulling back the floor-to-ceiling curtains. The Seattle skyline took her breath away. It wasn’t often she got to see it from this angle. “Can’t you come home early? Tell them you got sick or something.”

“I could, but dang it Veronica, I’ve worked hard for this.”

“My life’s fucking in danger and you’ve left me in the hands of a psychotic werewolf!”

“Keep your voice down,” Leah said, her tone flat. “You’ll wake the people in the room next door.”

“The werewolf lives next door, Leah! He lives right across the damn street!” She was really steaming now, charging from bathroom to windows. Cocoa gave a good stretch and coiled her feet around the front of her. Oh, to not have a care in the world! “You know how I feel about them, and you lied to me! I asked you point-blank whether Logan was one of you and you said no.”

“Hold the phone, bratty little sister. First of all, careful how you throw around those pronouns. I’m one of them now, so try to talk about them with a little less disdain. Second, I didn’t lie to you. You asked me if he was a werewolf and I said, and I quote, ‘No, Logan’s not a werewolf.’ It’s a double negative and totally not my fault that you didn’t catch it.”

Veronica chucked her cell onto the bed and kicked her bag to the corner of the room.

“That’s not even a double negative,” Veronica said, her entire body tightening as she clutched her phone once more. “You didn’t say Logan isn’t not a—ugh, whatever.” Totally irrelevant. “The point is, you knew what he was, and you didn’t say a damn thing to warn me.”

Leah sighed. “I guess I didn’t think you were going to take it this hard. I mean, so he’s escorting you to things and following you around. As long as he’s not getting angry with you or crossing some sort of line, I don’t see the problem.”

Words sat unspoken on Veronica’s tongue and silence stretched between them. She dead-bolted the door and put on a pair of flannel pj’s buttoned to the top. The mere thought of the stalker watching her while she was out cold the other night made her want to sleep in granny pajamas for the rest of her life.

“V?” Leah’s voice was soft. Questioning. “Did you…? Tell me you and Logan didn’t…”

Veronica nodded and smacked her hand against her forehead.

“Noooooo, Veronica!” Leah hadn’t even seen Veronica’s reaction, but she knew the truth. “You never do things like that! What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know!” Veronica jumped into bed and buried herself far beneath the covers. “I told you that you should’ve said something!”

“Well, I didn’t think you were going to hop in the sack with Logan! That’s so not like you!”

“Veronica and Logan?” Jake’s voice blared from the background. “And we’re paying him? While he sleeps around with your sister? Tell him I want my money back.”

“Jake!” Leah hollered.

“Okay, then tell him that he should be paying us!” he hollered back. “What the hell was your sister thinking?”

God, Veronica couldn’t disappear fast enough.

“My sister?” Leah turned on him, hollering over the line. “What the hell was your boy doing? Isn’t that what you call him? Your boy? You better get your boy in check.”

“Leah, I’m hanging up,” Veronica said, barely repressing an embarrassed groan. “I can’t listen to this anymore. I’m in room 1312 if you need me.”

“We’ll talk more when I get back. Jake has been in touch with Logan every day about what’s been going on with the stalker business, but I’d like to talk to you about other things, too. My plane lands Friday, right before the rehearsal dinner, and that’s only five days from now. Just lie low until then. But don’t forget to pick up my wedding dress for the final fitting. You’re close enough to my size that I told the people at the salon to do the final check with you in the dress.”

Veronica was drained. Completely worn-out. “I’m not even close to your size. You’ve got way bigger boobs than me.”

“Boobs aside, we’re so close to that same size that it won’t really matter. The fitting is more to make sure the dress is seamed correctly with no showing threads or beads falling off. They know what they’re looking for and it’ll be fine. Like I was saying, lie low and get my dress, and the week will be over before we know it.”

“Uh-huh. Sure thing.” Veronica started as Cocoa jumped onto the bed and nestled into the crook behind her legs. “See you then.”

“V?” she said softly.

“Yeah?”

“Not all werewolves are bad. I was attacked by a bad one, and a bad one is following you, but Jake and Logan have a pack full of werewolves who are just the sweetest people if you’d get to know them.”

“Do you even hear yourself anymore?” Veronica mumbled.

“If you gave Logan a chance before you found out he was a wolf, what’s changed so much between then and now?”

“Everything,” Veronica said, and ended the call.