Page 16 of What a Wolf Wants
Then Ethan told his boss goodbye and he’d keep in touch. He headed out to his car and drove off. After working at the agency for so long, it seemed unreal that he no longer had a desk he would work at there.
He was barely out of the suburbs of Portland when he got a flat tire, then a second and a third one. What the hell? That’s when he saw a bunch of cars pulling over with flat tires both behind and in front of him. Then he saw the culprit. A big construction truck in front of the cars had accidentally dropped a bunch of nails on the highway. Ethan counted about thirty cars with flats on the shoulder by the time thetruck ran out of nails.
He immediately called Leidolf. That was the thing about a pack. They could provide better services than anyone, but boy, if Ethan missed his date with the she-wolf tonight because of this mishap? He was going to be royally pissed.
The problem was that though one of the men in his pack was getting the replacement tires for his car, the city had to send out a highway maintenance vehicle to clean up the road or they would all just be driving over the same area where the nails were located.
He decided he’d better call Charlene to tell her he was on his way but experiencing some trouble, just in case this took longer than he planned. He pulled out his phone and called her number. “Hey, Charlene, this is Ethan. I’m on my way, but I barely made it out of the suburbs when a construction vehicle dropped a payload of nails all over the road.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah, they still need to clean up the road before someone can come with three more tires that I need to change out.”
“Oh, wow. And you called me because?” Charlene sounded amused as he heard running water in the background, and he immediately thought of her being in the shower.
But he knew she couldn’t be in the shower while she was on the phone. “I just wanted to let you know I’m picking you up for dinner, but I’m having a roadblock that might take a while to clear out.”
“Okay. Well, we still have time. You have a three-hourdrive to get to Oyster Bay, and if you are delayed as much as by an hour and a half, you’ll still be here on time for a date.”
He smiled. She didn’t tell him that if he ended up reaching her place later than the allotted time, she would give him some leeway. “All right. Well, I’ll be there when I get there.”
“I’ll see you in a little while.” Then they ended the call. He waited and waited and waited for the county maintenance truck to come to clear the road. He felt like he was on a stakeout. Police cars had arrived to block off the road until it was cleared of nails.
A half hour passed, which seemed like hours, and then a maintenance truck swept the area with a magnetic metal collector. Ethan was grateful it had arrived. Then the truck finally drove off and Ethan was hopeful that his new tires wouldn’t get any new nails.
Ethan called George. “Hey, if you can get here now with the tires—”
“I’m just on the other side of the police barricade that they’re now taking down, sitting with all the other vehicles bringing tires to their customers.”
“Thanks, George.”
“Sure thing.” George finally parked behind Ethan, then helped Ethan change out his tires. “I’ll let Leidolf know you’re taken care of.”
“Thanks.” Ethan was so glad to get on the road again. He wanted to call Charlene and tell her he was on his way, but he figured she would think he sounded way too needy.
***
Charlene had gotten a kick out of Ethan calling her to make sure she knew he was held up not because he was still having a good time at his retirement party but because he had some real trouble. She appreciated it, but she also was certain he could get there on time, despite the problems he was dealing with for now.
She finished making a tuna salad and sat down on the patio to eat it at the table where she had a view of the bay. The deck was a little bigger than at her grandfather’s cottage, but it had the same pretty views of the water, the seagulls, the waves striking the rocky shoreline. Steps led down to a private beach like at his place, which made it just as special. Trees along the cliff provided a woodland setting.
It was a hotter June day than usual at seventy-eight degrees, but a breeze swept off the water and made it feel cooler. Normally it would have been only a high of seventy and a low of fifty, perfect for running as wolves tonight. She loved this place. She hoped Ethan would want to go for a run later with her tonight. The sun would set around nine so she figured they would have dinner, and he could return home and then meet up with her later. She assumed he would want to get settled into his own place.
She finished her lunch and put her empty dish in the dishwasher. After that, she checked the tidal schedule to ensure that she didn’t get caught when the tide came in and made sure she had a good two hours to explore.
She wore jeans and a pair of waterproof hiking boots suitable for rock climbing and her windbreaker, tucking a bottleof water and a first aid kit in a backpack and her cell phone into her windbreaker pocket. Then she locked up her place and left her deck to take a walk down to the beach. At first, the beach was sandy, but she wanted to make her way to a hidden cove—a small, sheltered bay that tourists couldn’t see from the cliffs and most locals didn’t know about. It was tucked away between rocky structures that formed a jagged semicircle. That was part of the reason she had bought the house.
Little tidal pools were filled with sea life, looking like tiny sea aquariums. She knew never to turn her back on the ocean because sneaky waves and the undertow could be a real danger. Then she got a call on her phone and fumbled to pull it out of her windbreaker pocket, nearly dropping it in the tidal pool, She saw it was Ethan on the caller ID and chuckled. She guessed he really needed a friend in Oyster Bay.
“Hey, I wanted to call you to tell you that I’m on my way again.”
“Good. I hate it when I get a nail in my tire, but three tires at once? That’s awful.”
“The wolf pack members are great. They helped me take care of it.”
“That’s great.”
“Is that the ocean I hear in the background?”
