Free How to Howl at the Moon by Eli Easton Page A

You don’t, all right? You don’t need to.”
    What? “Um, I’m not….”
    “And you can come to me. Here’s my card.” Beaufort pulled a card out of a pocket and handed it to Tim. Yup. It had his phone number on it and everything. “If you need help. If you’re running from something, or you need to talk to someone, or maybe you’ve gotten into something you shouldn’t have, you can call me.”
    Tim blinked. “Thanks?”
    Sheriff Beaufort looked away and straightened his back into a semblance of an ironing board. “Enjoy the fruit basket. That’s all I have to say at this juncture.” Without another glance, he turned and marched away.
    Tim was still blinking when he heard the sheriff’s car pull out and drive away.
    At this juncture?
    Huh. It was just possible Tim had finally met someone as bad with people as he was himself.

~ 6 ~
    Playing Games
     
    LANCE TALKED himself into going back to Tim ’s, and then out of it, then in—all day long.
    On the one hand, he wanted to keep an ‘insider status’ until those seedlings came up, and until Roman had verified that they weren’t cannabis. Once that was done, assuming Tim was cleared, Lance would have no reason to go back there.
    On the other hand, going back felt… dangerous. Tim Weston, like most humans, didn’t even know quickened existed, so it was unlikely he’d ever guess ‘Chance’ was more than a dog. But that wasn’t what worried Lance. He was worried that it felt too comfortable to be with Tim like that. He’d always enjoyed being in dog form, even though he hadn’t had much time to indulge it lately, so that was no surprise. But he was alarmed at how good it felt to be with Tim as a dog . He didn’t want to encourage that feeling because there was no place healthy to go with that.
    On the theoretical third hand, something niggled inside Lance relentlessly. The best word he had for that niggle was ‘worried’. Tim appeared to be broke and friendless—digging an entire field by himself, with an old shovel. Honestly! There was just something sad about him. And that picture Lance had seen of Tim beaten-up as a child. That was the last thing he’d needed to see. Lance’s dog instinct was already insisting Tim was pack and wanted to herd him into the fold, make sure he was safe. The photo made it ten times worse.
    In the end, the dog won out. Lance didn’t fight his instinct very hard. He respected and valued it too much to ignore it. So after he’d gone home for the day, he showered quickly and shifted. Then he ran the five miles through the woods to the Fitzgibbons property.
     
    *                          *                         *
     
    Tim was making himself mac and cheese when there was a scratch on the back door and a bark. He flung the door open.
    “Chance! You came back!”
    In an instant, the storm clouds that had been hanging over Tim all day cleared. He felt himself grinning. The dog looked up at Tim calmly, panting as if he’d been running hard. But he didn’t resist when Tim sank to his knees and hugged him. He licked the side of Tim’s neck and wagged his tail in a burst of doggy pleasure.
    “Where’d you go? I didn’t think you were coming back, so I didn’t go out and buy you food.”
    Chance didn’t look overly concerned.
    “I have a can of tuna. Will that do?”
    Chance brushed by Tim and sat on the kitchen floor. It was getting nippy out, and Tim closed the door on the dark with a shiver. He put down a clean bowl of water for Chance, which he drank.
    “Where’s your bandage, huh? Doc said you needed that.” Chance ignored him. The leg didn’t look swollen or anything.
    Tim went back to making his mac and cheese, though he couldn’t stop smiling.
    “You’re kind of a jerk running out on me like that,” Tim scolded him lightly. “I thought you must have gone back to your owners. Maybe you’re just a free spirit, huh? He Who Shall Not Be Leashed. No