Page 27 of What a Wolf Wants
“He wanted me to check out Shelby Bay.”
“Just down the coast from us.”
“Yes. Oakley has been known to be there and there’s a house that he might be working out of, but my boss didn’t want me to be living that close to where the perps could be.”
“So you haven’t moved to Oyster Bay permanently.” Charlene sounded like she was still trying to come to grips with the fact that Ethan wasn’t really retired. “That makes sense because you truly wouldn’t leave your friends and the wolf pack behind.” She appeared disappointed as she pushed her windswept hair out of her face.
“Yeah, but that was before I met you.”
She frowned at him. “I’m sorry, but this is a lot to take in. I’m a red wolf too. You could have confided in me from the beginning.”
“I wasn’t supposed to, and I thought you would be safer if you didn’t know.”
“I was a homicide detective out of the sheriff’s department where I lived before.”
His jaw dropped. “Seriously?” Now it was his turn to be shocked at the news.
“Yeah, for ten years. After my family died, I had to take care of my parents’ rental properties and the funerals and all, and I just couldn’t focus on going back to my job. I left the force to take care of everything. Then my boyfriend and I broke up, and I was ready for a big change in my life, which is a lot of the reason why I came out here. It was always a happy place for me when I visited my grandfather. My twin sister actually preferred the crystal-clear aqua waters of Destin to the wildness of the Oregon coast. The last few times, I was theonly one to visit my grandfather. I always felt…revitalized, joyful, when I came here. The Destin beaches are crowded with tourists in the summer. Here…it’s so peaceful.”
Ethan understood how she felt, but he also looked at her with a new sense of awe. She wasn’t just a civilian any longer. Well, she was now, but she had been trained in police techniques so she would be better equipped to deal with someone who might be a danger to her. Not that he wanted her to have to protect herself from these men. “I’m glad you’re here. But why didn’t you tell me you had been with the sheriff’s department when you were in Florida?”
“Would it have made any difference?”
“Yeah. As a former police officer, you would know better how to manage someone who was trouble.”
“So that means you don’t have to protect me any longer?”
He smiled. “Of course I want to protect you. But…well, I would have felt like I could share what my mission is, that as a former homicide detective, you would understand. Believe me, I’ve dated women who hated that I worked as a DEA special agent. They just felt it was too stressful, not knowing if I would return from a raid in one piece. Once I was shot in the leg and ended up in surgery and off the job for a month. Instead of being there for me, the woman I was dating ended up dumping me. She said she couldn’t deal with it. She left Portland for good, so she is no longer with the pack.”
“Oh, that’s awful. I guess not everyone can handle it.” Charlene cleared her throat. “When I was shot—”
Hell. “I hope the guy who shot you is dead.”
She smiled.
“What happened?” He felt awful that he knew so little about Charlene and thought he had been the only one who had suffered an attack from a perp while on the job.
“The shooter was a woman, actually. Noah was dating her, but she wasn’t a wolf. Then he met me, and he was at once interested in me because I was a wolf. He’s a gray wolf, not a red wolf, by the way. When he broke up with his short-term girlfriend, she went ballistic. They’d only been together for a couple of weeks, but she had decided he was hers forever and ever. He later explained to me she’d told all her friends that she and Noah would be married before long. She found out that he was seeing me, and she started stalking me. This crazed blond came out of the dark when I was returning home from a trip to the funeral home and started screaming obscenities about me stealing Noah from her. I tried to reason with her with my police training, to talk her down. But it was of no use.
“I couldn’t avoid being shot but I yelled out, trying to get anyone’s attention so they could call the police. But it was a dark night, full moon, with just some light from a streetlamp. I could see, but others probably couldn’t tell what was happening if they’d heard me. She shot me in the shoulder, and I was afraid she would keep shooting until I was dead, as angry as she was. I ran at her and shoved her down. She whacked her head hard on the pavement and that knocked her out temporarily, long enough for me to grab her gun and call the police.
“They were there within minutes and took her into custody. At the same time, an ambulance transported me to the hospital. We didn’t have a wolf doctor to take care of ourinjuries like you have here. I ended up in the hospital for a week and finally got out. But the doctor put me on two months’ leave to recover, physical therapy, the whole thing. Noah had been laughing his ass off because I should have been back to work after a month.”
“What an ass.”
“Yeah, I know. I was still having to deal with my family’s death, so it was a lot to manage. As a DEA special agent, Noah was busy working his cases and I swear he was staying away more because of all I had to deal with.”
“I wouldn’t have.” Ethan rose from his chair and went to Charlene’s. He pulled her from it, then hugged her. “I would have been there for you.”
“Yeah, I think you would have been.”
They moved to the living room, more relaxed now, and he felt a real shift in their relationship, not so superficial, better, deeper. “What happened to Noah’s ex-girlfriend?”
“She was sent to prison for attempted premeditated murder. She had done it before when she was sixteen and her boyfriend started seeing another girl behind her back in high school, but the court records had been sealed. So Noah hadn’t known about it. Anyway, she ended up with thirty years in prison.”
“Good for that.”
“So you said you were shot another time?” she asked.
