Seal Wolf Hunting (9781402293832) (5 page)

The place filled up fast and Lori was glad she and her grandma had come early, if only to show their support for their pack members. When the men walked single file to the stage, the women all whooped and hollered. What really caught Lori's eye was Paul's Hawaiian-style palm-tree shirt. She'd gotten it for him as a joke three years ago.

She'd never expected him to still have it, figuring he'd gotten rid of it right after she gave it to him. At the time, he'd jerked off his T-shirt right in front of her and his SEAL team members, and put on the Hawaiian shirt. Then he'd gotten a whole lot of teasing from the other men. Now to wear it to the auction?

Emma patted her knee. “He's got your shirt on. I told you he cares for you. It's like he's wearing your favor in a jousting match. He's one brave man.”

Lori loved that shirt, but she especially loved it on him. It was all because of a big discussion Hunter's SEAL team members had been having at Allan's family's house. Everyone, except for Paul, agreed that no man in his right mind would wear a flowery pink shirt. Well, she couldn't find a men's shirt that featured just pink flowers, but the Hawaiian shirt had pink palm trees and green flamingos. Even better. She had been surprised when he wore it in front of the other guys to prove to them he would.

Rose and Catherine finally arrived, slipping down the aisle to sit with them. Rose hurried to take a seat next to Lori. Catherine sat on the other side of Emma.

“He's wearing your shirt. I told you he wouldn't give it up, if only to prove a point,” Rose said. “Or because he wants to show you how much he cares for you.”

Lori folded her arms. “I agree he's proving a point. I didn't think he would wear it here. The cowboys are giving him a worse time than his SEAL team did.”

Dusty motioned with his thumb to Paul and shook his head. Dusty was smiling, but it wasn't a friendly smile.

“You're worried about Paul,” Rose said.

“Paul? He can fend for himself just fine, alpha that he is. I just don't like seeing anyone being picked on.”

“Right. Especially after Paul kissed you yesterday.”

Lori knew she'd never hear the end of it.

“You're not going to tell him that the Cooper brothers were up at the lake cottage, are you?” Rose asked, sounding worried.

“I don't plan to. What we do is
our
business. We made a mistake and we handled it. Just like we'd do in any case. Not that Paul or Allan are ever around to help out anyway.”

Rose chewed on her bottom lip. “Paul won't think we handled it well, or that we should have allowed the other wolves to see us.”

“Then he should hang around and not be running off all the time.”

Rose waved at Allan when she caught his eye. “Mom's made a bargain with your grandma. They won't outbid each other for Paul or Allan.”

Lori was afraid that others would. “What if someone else gets them?”

“If the price goes too high, Mom will go for one of the cheaper prospects. She doesn't need that much work done around the place. But she wanted to help out the O'Keefes in any way that she could.”

Lori settled back in her seat, hoping Dusty wouldn't give them any trouble if her grandma did manage to win Allan or Paul's services.

“So…if Emma wins the bid, what is she going to have him do? She just had a bunch of work done on her house. I didn't think she needed anything else fixed.”

“That's what I thought.” Lori wondered again what her grandma was up to. She really couldn't imagine Emma paying a lot of money just so that a SEAL wolf could spend more time with her granddaughter. He wouldn't be anyway while he worked on whatever project her grandma came up with.

Yet, Lori reminded herself her grandma's animal spirit guide was the fox, because a little red fox had shown her how to watch and wait, how to blend in, and then how to take advantage of a situation. When she was young, Emma was called Little Fox because she was wily and able to work around tricky dilemmas, encouraging action and moving quickly to overcome obstacles.

She'd been patient for far too long, and Lori wondered if her grandmother had decided to make her move—to make some changes in the pack dynamics. Even though her grandma wasn't the pack leader, Emma was the eldest member of the pack, and as such, she truly was both adaptable and at times the trickster.

When Paul and Allan arrived at Town Hall, they found the parking lot full. Paul had expected to be standing on stage well before the auction began, but all the seats in the town hall were already filled, which was surprising, considering the size of the town. The audience ranged from sweet, silver-haired grandmas to wide-eyed teenage girls and women more his age, like Lori and Rose, all smiles, with a smattering of men. All of them cheered the bachelors on as they walked across the stage and took their places.

Paul felt like a celebrity and couldn't help being amused, his cheeks burning a little because he wasn't used to all this attention. Allan was grinning and enjoying all the interest.

Paul glanced at his competition.

The bank loan officer was a little stocky and had glasses propped on the bridge of his nose. He probably could give anyone great financial advice, and he might be a real handyman of sorts. The high school teacher taught carpentry—which meant he would be sought after for that reason alone. The three high school seniors could probably do a variety of tasks. They played on the football team and had been promised extra credit in social sciences if they signed up to do this.

The three wolf ranch hands looked like they could rope some steers, break some horses, and haul some hay. The redheaded, green-eyed Cooper twins and black-haired, blue-eyed Jerome Huffman were all wearing typical Western attire—cowboy boots, Western shirts, cowboy hats, blue jeans, and fancy belts.

The trio had been outcasts, causing problems for their own pack—not hunting like they should have been, not guarding the pack when they were supposed to—but that proved to be a mixed blessing for them. When their pack killed a rabid elk and consumed it, the three omega wolves hadn't been allowed to eat any part of it. They were lucky to not have contracted rabies and were able to escape their pack's killing spree.

Allan wore a pair of jeans, combat boots, and a blue button-down shirt that made him look as though he was ready to go on a date. Paul had on his palm-tree shirt. He'd worn it on three different missions, sure that it confused the bad guys into thinking he was just a tourist on vacation. Since all three missions had been successful, he considered it his lucky shirt.

But as to what he and Allan could do for weekend projects? They were well trained to hunt down the bad guys and deal with them with finality, protect the good guys, and survive in any wilderness environment. He wasn't sure what he could do here.

He swore Emma was sitting on the edge of her seat in the front row, eager to get the bidding war started. The way she was eyeing him and smiling, he half suspected this was a matchmaking effort between him and her granddaughter, with Emma getting some work out of him at the same time. Every time he'd visited her over the last couple of years, he'd asked how Lori was, wishing he could see her and knowing she was avoiding him. And every time, Emma shook her head and said she just didn't know what was wrong with her granddaughter. But he was fairly certain Lori didn't make herself scarce because she despised him.

He was damn glad he'd caught up with her at Catherine's house and wondered if the only reason she'd been there was because she hadn't expected him to arrive. That was probably also why she had been braless, wearing such hot shorts, and barefoot. Now that she was around, he had no intention of letting her slip away again.

The bidding began then, and the whole affair was not as sedate as Paul had thought it would be. Women were shouting and laughing and cheering the bidding war on. For one hundred and fifty dollars, Widow Baxter bought one of the ranch hand's services.

All the ladies teased her about what she was going to do with Howard Cooper. Paul wanted to give the omega wolves the benefit of the doubt because they might have straightened out. But the business with the woman at the grocery store this morning—combined with Howard's comment about them getting into a bind with their boss and the barroom brawls Catherine had mentioned—fed into what Paul already knew about them. They were trouble and they hadn't changed.

Allan was next up, and the bidding was going strong as he got into the fun of the auction, flexing his muscles and smiling brightly.

“Way to go, SEAL!” Lori and Rose shouted.

“Take off your shirt!” Emma shouted.

Catherine whooped and whistled. Paul had to smile at Emma and Catherine.

Lori's face reddened a bit, probably because her own grandma had shouted out the recommendation.

Allan began unbuttoning his shirt slowly and the crowd went wild.

Paul laughed. He hadn't thought that a honey-do bachelor auction would be anything like this. Then again, Emma was a wolf and they could change the dynamics of a situation in a heartbeat. The ranch hands made a big deal of jerking their shirts out of their waistbands and then starting to unbutton them.

A woman shouted, “Just the shirts, gentlemen.”

And that had everyone laughing.

Stripper music began to play, and Paul removed his shirt to the beat like the others did.

Clapping hands, wolf whistles, and shouts indicated the women were just as excited to bid for the SEALs as they were for the cowboys.

Paul tossed his shirt to Lori for safekeeping. When she grabbed the shirt and held it close, he smiled at her.

Allan went for two hundred and fifty dollars to a lady wearing a pink cowboy hat—Martha Madison, the only woman in the area who owned and ran a horse ranch. Paul wondered exactly what Allan was going to be doing at Martha's ranch. Mucking out stalls? Or something a little more glamorous?

Catherine shook her head, disappointed she didn't get to buy her son's time, but she was eyeing Paul when the carpentry teacher went for three hundred dollars.

“New kitchen cabinets!” the woman who bought him shouted, in case anyone thought she was buying the teacher's services for something other than his carpentry skills.

A few of the audience's comments—“Yeah, right!” “Sure thing, Eula Mae!” “You just redid the kitchen cabinets last week!”—brought tons of laughter.

“Auction off the other SEAL!” Mike O'Keefe shouted from his wheelchair.

Paul gave him the Navy greeting “Hooyah!” and a thumbs-up as Allan quickly echoed his response.

Mike shouted the Army's greeting back, “Hooah!”

A female Marine in the audience called out, “Oorah!”

Everyone was clapping and cheering.

Emma was waving her paddle, featuring the silhouette of a man and her number in the center of it, as she continued to bid for Paul. Lori was shaking her head, trying to get her to stop. Paul was smiling at the two of them, hoping that Emma wouldn't pay too much for him because he would drop by her place for free to do whatever tasks she needed.

“Three hundred and fifty dollars going once.” The auctioneer paused as everyone became quiet. Emma looked eagerly at him, like she was just about to win the lottery and couldn't wait to claim her winnings. “Going twice.” Another pause. The air sizzled with tension. “Sold to Emma Greypaw!” the auctioneer said, slamming the hammer down at the same time.

Emma whistled and Paul winked at her, making her blush. She was so cute and he dearly loved her. From as early as he could remember, he'd always loved her homemade apple pies and tortillas. Emma swore as soon as she pulled an apple pie out of the cast-iron stove, he was standing on her porch, eager to do a chore for her so she'd offer him a piece. And she had always given him an extra couple of slices because he was a growing boy.

Catherine began bidding for one of the high school seniors and missed getting him for seventy-five dollars. That seemed to be the going rate for the boys. The ranch hand, Jerome Huffman, started strutting his stuff and fetched a bid just fifty short of Paul's highest bid.

The bank loan officer came next, but though he was smiling, he wasn't outgoing and waited while low bids came in. Then he finally said, “I do windows,” as if that might help raise the money a bit, and it did.

Several women started bidding against each other to win the window-washing service for $150.

The last cowboy, Dusty Cooper, received a winning bid seventy-five dollars lower than Paul's and slanted a glance at him, smiling but not in an altogether friendly way. If Dusty gave any of his pack members grief, Paul was dealing with it in a shifter way.

Michael's
Reflections
was being auctioned off last. Paul hurried to get a paddle to bid for the oil painting that featured the lush, green woods and a beautiful gray wolf sitting and watching the river, just like he'd seen Lori do a million times. Lori was smiling at him. He ended up bidding five hundred dollars, way over the last bid of three hundred. He wanted to help the disabled vet, and he definitely did not want anyone else to have that painting of Lori. It wouldn't mean half as much to them as it did to him.

With the bidding over, Lori and Emma joined him, Lori handing his shirt to him. He quickly pulled it on and began to button it.

“I can't believe you paid so much for that painting,” Lori whispered to him. “It's not even my good side.”

“All your sides are good,” Paul said and grinned, making Lori blush. He loved it.

Sales figures were tallied for all the auctioned items, and the women met with their honey-do bachelors to discuss the hours they'd be working that weekend. Lori was still shaking her head at her grandma and Paul.

Emma paid for Paul, then came and took his hand and smiled up at him. She was like the grandma he'd never known. “So, Mrs. Greypaw…”

“Emma, please.”

“Yes, ma'am. What would you like me to do?”

“You don't have to start the job until tomorrow. Our lakeside cabin needs quite a bit of work done on it. Lori offered to show you all that you need to do. I made a list. She'll be up there helping too.”

Pleasantly surprised to hear that, Paul glanced at Lori. She looked flabbergasted, her mouth gaping as she stared at her grandma. Paul smiled a little. This was the perfect way to get to know Lori again in a non-intimate way. Though he had to say she'd seemed very agreeable when he had kissed her.

“She's always such a good granddaughter.” Emma patted Lori's arm.

Lori almost appeared a little panicked. Maybe she was afraid Paul would kiss her again. But he had no intention of doing anything other than fixing the place up as much as he could over the weekend. If it took a little longer, he would be fine with that.

He could work vacation time around it too, if need be. Maybe he and Allan could even come back to fix some things later if he and Lori didn't get it done. Emma had offered to let them stay for a few days at the tail end of their vacation to go scuba diving anyway.

Lori stretched out her hand to her grandma, who promptly handed her the list.

“I've already paid for supplies at the hardware store. The place needs that one wall around the fireplace painted inside for starters, but you choose the color, Lori. I'm not very good at that.”

“Your house is lovely, bright, and cheerful. You are great at color coordinating things,” Lori said, contradicting her. Her chin was tilted down and she was eyeing her grandma with suspicion.

“Yes, dear, but so are you. I spent so much time fixing up my house over the past few weeks that I don't want to try to figure out what to do with the cabin. You'll do a lovely job. Let Paul help you decide, if he's got any decorating sense.”

He smiled. No one had ever asked him if he had any “decorating sense.”

“The hardware store closes in an hour. Let's go get what we need. We can meet over there.” Lori waited for Paul to agree.

“Sure thing. I guess I'll be staying at the cabin for a couple of days,” he said to Emma.

“No sense in you driving every day from the Rappaports' cabin on the other side of the lake. You can use either of the spare bedrooms. Lori always takes the blue room at the end of the cabin.”

Lori sighed dramatically.

“Oh, come on now,” her grandma said. “You don't want to have to drive all that way back and forth to the cabin from our house in the country either. And you told me Carmen would take care of your jujitsu classes if you had to manage the bachelor while he did the work I need done. You know she could always use the extra money. I never saw a woman who could buy so many pairs of shoes a year.

“Besides, as long as Paul doesn't wear face paint and scare you to death again, everything should be just fine. Got to run along. You two have fun while you're at it.” She hugged the pair of them. Paul hugged her right back, making Emma smile. She took a deep breath and patted him on the shoulder. “If only I were a lot younger.” She paused, frowning a bit. “Did Catherine tell you about that doctor who is taking DNA samples of all the wolves he can find to see what's causing the”—she glanced around, and seeing no one nearby, she finished—“change in their longevity?”

“I heard he was making the rounds.”

“Well, he's already tested us, but you and Allan were gone when he came. I called him to let him know you and Allan are here for the next couple of weeks.”

“Thanks.” Paul wasn't worried about it like some of his pack members were. If it was a sign of the times, so be it. As long as they didn't face over-accelerated aging because they had lived so long. That would be the pits.

Then Emma headed for her car. Paul recognized it as the black sedan that had been parked at Catherine's house that morning. So she had gotten a new car too.

“We better get to it,” Lori warned. “I'll pick up some groceries after we go to the hardware store, and then I'll meet you at the cabin.”

At the hardware store, she picked out a vivid, emerald-green paint that was brighter than what Paul would have selected. He was thinking more of a sage green for quiet, cool, and muted forest colors.

When he mentioned that, she considered the color swatch again. “The cabin has a lot of dark oak wood, so I want to go with something a little brighter.”