Free Werewolf in the North Woods by Vicki Lewis Thompson Page A

purse. “I have pictures. I took them with Grandpa Earl’s very powerful zoom lens. They’re not fuzzy.”

Chapter 6
     
    The situation was serious, and not without risk, but still Abby felt giddy with triumph. Judging from Roarke’s expression, she’d shocked him with her mention of the pictures. She’d never blackmailed anyone before, let alone a werewolf, and apparently she had a flair for it.
    “Pictures.” His green eyes narrowed. “Of everything ?”
    “Everything.”
    His face turned a dull red. “I see.”
    “Just so you know, I erased them from Grandpa Earl’s camera, but I loaded them all on a flash drive first. I’ve hidden it, but if anything should happen to me, that hiding place would be the first spot Grandpa Earl would look for clues.”
    He nodded, as if finally realizing she’d thought this through. She could thank her logical parents for that ability, plus several years at a job that required her to use her analytical skills. She might be a dreamer at heart, but she’d had plenty of practice using the left side of her brain, too.
    She’d put the flash drive in a small cedar box with Portland, Oregon burned into the lid. Grandpa Earl sold those boxes in his store, and he’d given her one when she was a little girl. The box had a hidden compartment, and he’d told her she could keep her secrets in it.
    She’d been thrilled with the box, but she’d left it on a shelf in the spare bedroom at her grandparents’ house because she’d been afraid her brother, Pete, would try to mess with it if she took it back to Arizona. The box was still there, and she and Grandpa Earl had joked about it just the other day.
    She glanced at Roarke, whose blush was fading. She’d thought that blush was cute. “Would you like to see the pictures, so that you know I’m not bluffing?”
    “Oh, I know you’re not bluffing. But yes, I’d like to see them.”
    Opening her purse, she pulled out a five-by-seven manila envelope and passed it across the console. “I printed them last night after Grandpa Earl was asleep. I really don’t want him to know about this. If he realized that you were . . . different, he’d never let me go with you.”
    Roarke unfastened the envelope’s metal clasp. “He wouldn’t have let you meet me for lunch, either, I’ll bet.”
    “Not without him.”
    He glanced at her. “You did take quite a chance, meeting me today.”
    Her pulse quickened. It had seemed like a grand adventure when she’d planned coming here, but maybe she had been a little naive, a little foolhardy. Cars came and went in the garage, but would anyone hear her if she yelled for help? Would anyone respond?
    Roarke pulled out the pictures and glanced at the first few, which were of him fully clothed. Then he came to one of him in his birthday suit. He flipped through the rest quickly and shoved them back in the envelope.
    Then he sighed. “Yes, I’ll be taking you with me.”
    But now she wasn’t so sure she wanted to go. She’d be all alone out there in the woods . . . with a werewolf. What had she been thinking?
    “This whole situation is unfortunate,” he continued, “but I’m going to do my best to see you through it safely. Please don’t ask too many questions along the way, because if I give you the answers, then—”
    “Then you’ll have to kill me?” She said it lightly, trying to make it into a joke, but still her chest tightened with fear. She’d thought she was so smart; yet if Roarke didn’t want anyone to know he was a werewolf, he had one way to guarantee that she wouldn’t tell.
    But his expression softened. “Abby, it’s not your fault that you saw me shift. It’s mine. Because of that . . .” He paused and when he spoke again, his tone was resolute. “Because of that, I will protect you with my life.”
    That knocked the breath right out of her. Her hand to her chest, she struggled for air. “You . . . sound as if that might be necessary.”
    “Not if we’re careful.