Page 11 of What a Wolf Wants
She was glad he liked the door, but the owners had the final say. She glanced at the clock on the living room wall. She was ten minutes late to the restaurant, and it would takeher ten minutes to get there.
Then the rental manager sent pictures of the new door to the owners and got a text back. “I told them it looked great to me. They said it looked fine and they were sorry you had to go through all that.”
“Boy, me too.” Charlene thanked the manager. She’d already packed her bags, and they were in her car. She gave him the keys to the new door. “I had a pleasant stay here. Tell the owners that I thought their place was lovely. Thanks.”
“I will. You were a great tenant.”
They said their goodbyes and she got in her car to drive over to the restaurant to meet up with the ladies. She was looking forward to this as her last hurrah in Portland. She just wished she had known there were other she-wolves in the area that she could have socialized with while she had been there for the month.
She parked at the restaurant and went inside. The three ladies were waiting for her and smiled brightly to see her. “Sorry if I’m a little late to the party. The manager had to inspect the replacement door and he got it okayed with the owners, so it’s all good.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Cassie said. “Breakfast is my treat. You can order from the menu or serve up your own meal from the buffet. They have everything you could want, even special omelets made to order.”
They all took their seats at one of the tables and the server brought them menus. “What would you all like to drink?”
“Hmm, this maple espresso black tea sounds good,”Charlene said.
“Lavender Earl Grey tea for me.” Cassie started looking over the menu.
Tori said, “Apple blossom tea for me.”
“I’ll have the lavender tea also,” Sierra said.
Then they all had a chance to look at their menus.
“I’m getting the breakfast bar,” Charlene said. “It looks scrumptious.”
The others all wanted to get the same thing. They headed to the breakfast bar and began serving up their food—fruit, hash browns, ham or sausage, and everyone ordered omelets, grabbed glasses of apple juice or orange juice, and then headed back to their table.
“Okay, so now that we’re sitting down, I have to ask if the DEA special agent is all right after he was shot,” Charlene said, concerned for Ethan, then took a sip of her espresso.
“Yeah, Ethan is doing great. We stopped by his place to check on him before we came to the restaurant,” Cassie said.
“I guess he has some time off from work now.” Charlene forked up some of her cheesy omelet. Hmm, sharp cheese just like she liked it.
“He has retired. He’s going to be relocating to Oyster Bay, so at least you’ll know one red wolf out there,” Tori said, with a twinkle in her green eyes. She was wearing a light-gray suit, like she would be heading into work right after their lady wolves’ breakfast.
Charlene couldn’t have been more shocked to hear the news. She thought Tori was amused that she and Ethan might have a chance to get to know each other better aftertheir initial fiasco of a meeting. “What? Why in the world would he do that? I mean, when all his friends live here and he’s a member of the wolf pack.” Charlene couldn’t understand why a wolf would move so far away from a working pack that he belonged to.
“He said he has had to deal with so much crime that he just wanted to get away from it all. Most of our wolves work out in the country or live out there. A few are in the city,” Cassie said. “But as they retire, I think more of our wolves will move out of the city. It’s easier if we want to run as wolves.”
Okay, so Charlene could understand that, but why would Ethan move specifically to Oyster Bay? Whereshewas moving to?
The lights sparkled overhead and pictures of different kinds of fancy chickens—from silkies to frizzles—decorated the walls, while the tables were covered with red-and-white-checkered cloths. So cute.
The ladies had sure picked out a great restaurant. The food was delicious. “So I guess as a pack leader, you’re busy with that all the time,” Charlene said to Cassie.
“I’m actually also a wolf biologist and teach groups about the importance and habits of wolves,” Cassie said.
Charlene smiled. “When you got your degree, that must have been easy.”
Cassie laughed. “Yeah, I could tell the professors a lot that they didn’t know about with regard to wild wolves.”
“I bet.” Why hadn’t Charlene thought of an occupation like that when she was trying to figure out what to do with her life? Because a police officer had rescued her family fromtheir crashed car when she was five, and she’d wanted to be a police officer. She enjoyed taking care of the rental properties in Florida, though, after she changed careers.
“We’re sorry we didn’t know about you beforehand,” Sierra said. “In addition to being a police sketch artist, I also teach art classes to the kids in the pack and adult classes for pack members.”
“That sounds like fun.”
