Free How to Run with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper Page B

would stall them, giving credence to Glenn’sclaims of my mental instability and “cruelty.” But it had to be done.
    I’d learned my lesson. I checked myself out of the hospital against doctors’ orders and ran. I sold everything I had, which wasn’t much after Glenn’s playing Russian roulette with my credit rating. I bought fake IDs and a junker car and drove in jagged lines across the country, until anyone Glenn used to find me would be so confused they wouldn’t know where I was heading. I figured Alaska was as far as I could go without having to switch citizenships.
    Most people try to use abandonment as a reason to dissolve a marriage. Glenn had used it as a reason to stall the divorce decree, stating that I should be present for the decision. He used the fact that I couldn’t return home to keep me tied to him.
    And now, all these years later, Glenn was looking for me again. And I was running. Again.
    How long was I going to live this strange, untethered half life? Would I be an eighty-year-old woman working under an assumed name in a bowling alley in Saskatoon, dreading that day my geriatric ex wobbled up to my door on his walker? Would I ever have a home again? Would I ever have a family? I was lucky to have escaped my marriage without a child. At this point in my life, a child, particularly Glenn’s child, would be a liability, a beautiful burden I couldn’t protect or move without worry. But the idea of never having one of my own put a cold, insistent pressure on my heart. I’d delivered so many children to the valley werewolves. Then again, having a baby would mean trusting someone enough tolet him see me naked, perhaps even telling him my real name. If I had to wait until I was eighty to do that, it was going to be disappointing on several levels.
    Shaking off those depressing thoughts, I shuffled into the bathroom, whacking my ankle against the bed frame. I showered in the surprisingly clean bathtub, hoping the hot water would help unwind the muscles in my back and neck.
    After stepping out of the shower onto an improvised washcloth bath mat, I mopped the water from my skin with the thinnest towel this side of cheesecloth. I carefully sorted through Caleb’s bag, praying I wouldn’t find anything else that would set off my weirdo alarm. The gray boxer shorts swamped me, but they kept me from wandering around a strange motel room bottomless.
    I shrugged into an old flannel shirt of his, curled back under the covers for warmth, and buried my face in the sleeve of the shirt. I may have looked like I was wearing the latest in refugee chic, but Caleb’s mossy, spicy smell made me feel . . . safe. As safe as I’d felt in a long time, which, considering how little I knew of him, was disconcerting at best.
    I glanced down at the soft, well-worn plaid I was wearing. You will not steal this man’s shirt and shorts , I told myself. There are limits .
    I was totally stealing Caleb’s shirt and shorts. I’d never slept more comfortably in my life. No dreams of screaming ex-husbands, confusion, and bruises. Nodreams of running down the winding halls of the hospital, looking for coding alarms in a patient room, only to find that battered, flatlining patient was me. I didn’t dream at all, and it was lovely.
    I woke up hours later to find Caleb reading through a case file from a plastic mobile drawer I’d seen earlier in the back of the truck. Each file was tagged with its own color-coded label and contained newspaper clippings, police reports, and carefully typed notes. Caleb was sitting on the uncomfortable wooden chair, stretching his long legs against the little wood-laminate dinette table. It would have been more comfortable to sit on the bed, but I appreciated that he gave me the space. He’d taken the time to change into a soft blue-and-gray plaid flannel shirt and jeans. I’d seen men in three-thousand-dollar tailored suits who didn’t make their clothes look that good. The lamp behind his