Make Me Howl (10 page)

“Knitting?” I yelped. If I’d tried for a year, I could think of
nothing
more boring than knitting. Old ladies and people without a life knit. “No way.”

She pulled several tissues from a box and handed them to the woman while she glared at me. “And why not?”

“I don’t think I’m old enough to knit. You have to be a hundred and fifty, or at least act like it, don’t you?”

That drew a small smile from Bijou’s owner, but a deeper frown from Bella.

“Everyone knits these days. I planned to make Bijou a maternity sweater as soon as I knew she was pregnant. I spent a fortune, and sh-she was part of a test group, taking a new drug, Clomovidine, because she was having so much trouble.” The woman hiccoughed as the tears flowed. “Oh, how rude. I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m Jayne Lafferty, from South Bend.”

Bella had to dig deep to find a smile. “I’m Bella Cannis and this is my sister, Jazzy.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Jayne blew her nose then looked at me again. “As I was saying,
everyone
knits these days. Even famous people knit—Julia Robins and Camera Ditzedge. Even Rooster Crowe knits.”

I was careful to keep from smiling while she mispronounced the names. If I smiled even a little, I’d laugh myself into a coma. Rooster Crowe?

Bella glanced at her watch. “Are you going to be okay, Jayne?”

With a long sniff, Jayne nodded. “Yes, I think so.”

“Well, don’t give up hope. You don’t know that blood belonged to Bijou. It could have been a wild animal or something.” Bella tried to comfort both Jayne and me.

Jayne looked thoughtful for a few moments. “You’re right. Maybe someone will find her and bring her home. I’m going to keep looking for my baby so I’ll have to miss that spinning class. Are you taking it?”

Bella nodded. “We both are.”

Jayne swiped at her eyes one more time then tossed the tissues in the trash. “I’ll have to wait for the next one. I couldn’t concentrate with Bijou lost in the cold.”

Bella told the workman we were leaving then tugged me out the door. “We don’t want to be late for our spinning class.”

“You mean spinning, as on stationary bikes?” I could only hope.

“No.” Bella’s smile just kept growing more evil. “I mean as in yarn. First you have a basic knitting class then we’ll spin.”

“Just like a spider,” I murmured under my breath.

Bella gave me a pointed glance. “Exactly.”

The knitting class wasn’t too hard after I learned the rhymes.
In through the front door, around the back, out through the window, and off jumps jack.
Easy. And to be honest, once I got started, the easy rhythm of stitching relaxed me. But I’d never admit that to Bella.

Next they taught us to purl, or tried to. It’s like trying to pat your head, rub your stomach and dance the
Merengúe
at the same time, at least to me. Even the little poem didn’t help.
Under the fence, catch the sheep, back we come, off we leap.
What sense did that make?

I knotted my perfect yarn into a snarled nest that looked as if it had been made by a bird on crack. After I threw my ball across the room twice, the instructor suggested that for the time being, I stick with the garter stitch—knitting only.

Then came spinning. I honestly thought I’d nap through it when they gave me a hand held spinner. But then I had a turn at the big spinning wheel, and I found bliss. In just a few minutes I was able to even out the speed of the wheel while I stranded exact amounts of wool between my fingers. I loved being in control!

I took to it so naturally, they stopped trying to make me take turns with the big wheel and let me work to my heart’s content. By the end of class, I had a ball of near perfect yarn and blurry vision.

And I’d earned a small smile from Bella. “We don’t have another class scheduled for a while. Why don’t we get our coats, go outside and take a stroll?”

Back in our condo, she got her jacket, hat and gloves, then using her key, unlocked the outside door. We walked to the patch of bloody snow. Her face grew very serious. “Do you think you did it?”

Guilt filled me as I shrugged. “How do I know? I don’t remember anything after I left the room last night until I heard Jayne pounding on the door this morning.”

“Something Jayne said has been nagging at me.” Bella kept her head down, but shot a glance at me. She didn’t do secretive very well.

Figuring she was just trying to make me curious, I adopted a bored look then shrugged. “What?”

“About Bijou being in a test group, trying to get her pregnant.” She took a breath and paused a moment. “I need to find out what it could do to you. You could be affected if that blood puddle is from Bijou, and you’re the, uh, perpetrator.”

I focused on the last word. “Perpetrator? Don’t you mean executioner? Violator of the helpless?
Rabid wolf
?” Anger flaming through me caused my jaw to ache as though I were about to transform. All I needed was to morph right there in plain view of everyone. Bella would never survive the trauma.

Taking a cleansing breath, I bowed my head to ease the muscles tensing in my neck. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s my fault.” Bella’s eyes brimmed with sympathy. “I shouldn’t have said it like that. It’s just that I’m worried. About you. I don’t know what effect Clomovidine would have on your body.”

“On my…” I thought for a moment then shook my head. “Why would drugs a dog that small was given have an effect on me?”

“Well, only if you ingested some of the dog’s flesh. And because it’s so new, just in the testing stages, I don’t know how long it stays in the body. Since we don’t know when Jayne gave Bijou the last dose, there’s no way of knowing if it had been digested yet. Jazzy, I don’t know what it might do to you.”

I gulped a lungful of icy air, but it did little to cool the heat raging inside me. Damn dog. Damn BMW. And
damn
being in heat! “So what do we do?”

“First I have to find out what the effects will be.” With a sudden movement, she turned and started back toward the lodge.

I ran along behind her. “How? Your books are at home. Can you find it online? Do they have that kind of information on the Internet?”

Her brow furrowed into what looked as if it could become a permanent frown. “Leave that to me.”

****

I stayed on the slopes all the next day. Skiing off the lift that afternoon, I blinked hard when a snowflake hit me right in the eye. Most people wear goggles to keep that from happening, but it’s too much like seeing the world through a window while someone else skis. Besides, who wants to ski in an artificially-colored world?

I edged to a stop at the head of the run, checked to be sure no beginners had wandered onto the expert slope then turned my skis downhill. No way was I going to traverse today. I had to drain some of the energy slamming through me, so I put my skis together, aimed the tips at the bottom and took off on a dead-man’s-run.

At first the going was fast and smooth with the air freezing my nose and ears and chilling my lungs. Then I came to a field of moguls—those exciting miniature mountains planted in the middle of a run to give inexperienced or occasional skiers fits. Although most people believe the easiest and safest way to navigate moguls is to curl around each one, I like to go over the top. It’s a rough ride, but the revenge I get from taking a bit off the height is exhilarating.

By the time I’d made it through that mine field, my heart pounded like a timpani. So naturally, I tucked my poles under my arms, flexed my knees and made some real speed.

In the middle of a growth of trees, used as a divider between adjacent runs, several young men were forging a trail. At the end, they cut onto the far slope, where they took a huge jump. Very few of them landed without taking a spill. I couldn’t wait to get to the bottom and jump on a lift back to the top so I could try it.

I rarely skied the trees after some of the tragic accidents I’d read about over the years, but this trip, I was going to.

As I edged to a stop at the bottom, I caught a slightly familiar scent on the breeze, but when I turned to find the source, it disappeared. Unable to let it go, I looked the other way, sniffing the air as I did. I picked up the odor of cedar wood smoke, frying hamburgers, hot ski wax, a doobie bogarted by some boarder and the oil used to keep the lifts mobile, but I couldn’t find that enticing original smell. Brightly clad skiers were everywhere, some dressed as if on an Arctic expedition and others in shirtsleeves, but I saw no one who looked familiar.

Forcing the lingering memory of the aroma from my mind, I got in line and back on the lift.

I tried to take my mind from the odor by remembering Bella’s fright the evening before when she realized I might have attacked Jayne’s little dog. She’d done everything but shovel up some of the bloody snow and take it for analysis. She’d borrowed a laptop and been on it and the phone for hours, trying to find out what might happen to me.

Later that night she’d finally given up. We went to the big room with several other women and sat in front of the fireplace. The staff manicurists were doing their thing for us and several other women when a beaming Jayne came in, carrying something wrapped in a cashmere throw. She’d grinned from ear to ear then set it free on the floor. The puff of white had four legs, curly white hair and looked like a miniature sheep.

But Jayne must have thought it looked like heaven, because she made a dramatic introduction. “This…is Bijou!”

At first Bella paled, then she sagged back in her chair—with relief, I suppose. Who knew my sis had been so worried?

“Wh-where was she?” Bella had asked as the little white fluff made a circuit of the room, sniffing at each person.

“You’ll never believe it,” Jayne answered with a flap of her hand as she took a seat across from us. “Somehow she got into that sweet greenhouse that looks like Grandma’s home. She’s so curious. And when the workers left, they didn’t notice she was there.”

The other women in the room murmured their congratulations, but it was all I could do not to nudge the little troublemaker with my newly painted toes.

The creature growled at me. Jayne had the audacity to say it was Bijou’s way of telling me she liked me, but I knew better. It was simply one bitch, meeting another.

As the top of the mountain approached, I lifted the safety bar and exited the lift. Before I turned my skis downhill, I stopped to look across the countryside. Pine trees, blanketed with snow, crowned the mountains. I wished I’d taken time to pick up a camera before I started out that afternoon.

As I started down the slope, that elusive odor came to me on the wind. Briefly I closed my eyes, trying to catch enough of it to remember, but I had no luck.

Then I came to the tree path. A little limited at this new experience, I did a quick turn and skied up a small rise in the first cluster of pines. The going wasn’t bad until I got to the steep decline. With such a narrow trail, there was little slowing once I was moving.

The thrill of danger flashed through me. I leaned into my skis, picking up more speed before I was forced in another direction.

I knew better than to let my speed get out of hand, but the sun drifted low and much of my human sense was going with it. I zoomed along until I almost flew. The challenge of possible death flashing through me acted like a drug. I wanted more.

A hazardous turn came out of nowhere, catching me off guard. The path made a sudden ninety-degree angle, but at the speed I was traveling, there was no time to navigate it. In front of me the world dropped away. Treacherous boulders loomed below.

At the last possible second before I crashed over the precipice, something dark flew at me, knocking me off my skis. I hit the ground prone, skidding in an uncontrolled spiral until I finally stopped. Snow piled up around me. My arms were fully extended, stretching down slope, my legs up. My face was buried as if I were having an icy facial.

It took me a moment to realize what had happened. The buzz still jolted through me. I wanted to do it again, if I could only get my muscles to synchronize.

When I could finally lift my head, the white stuff blinded me, but the familiar odor was back, stronger than ever.

Before I could clear my eyes, I recognized the scent.

Doc.

Even filled with snow, my mouth went dry. It
couldn’t
be him. We’d left him back in Texas. Knowing what I did to unsuspecting men when I went into heat, Bella had intentionally kept our destination a secret to keep him from following us.

I took another deep breath, which had me melting with desire from the inside out. Even as highly developed as my olfactory senses were—especially at that time—I still had to see him to believe it. I scrubbed at my eyes.

There he was; deep-ocean eyes filled with concern as he knelt next to me. I watched his mouth move as he spoke, but the choir had started humming again. I couldn’t hear anything except the pounding of my heart above the harmony.

His hands spoke volumes as he brushed away the snow. While he helped me sit, I struggled to force air into my lungs.

Then he kissed me. Or maybe I kissed him, I’m not exactly sure. But we came together in an almost violent embrace, his hand tangled in my hair, my tongue tangled in his mouth.