SwitchBack: A Paranormal Werewolf Romance (Knightsbridge Canyon Series Book 1) Read online

  “You know, when I was younger, we had to cut this damn thing back every Turkey-Day. I spent hours here on the ground, waiting for the branches that fell. Amber would drag them over and I would cut them up into manageable pieces that we’d tie with string and when the bundle got large enough, we’d tie it all up and drag it out back to be hauled away on trash day. I always envied my brother Adam, who got to be up in the tree running the chainsaw.”

  Will laughed. “Well, then. Next Thanksgiving, you can be chainsaw-girl and I’ll handle the ground work.”

  “Aren’t you ever afraid you’re going to fall?”

  “Naw. We strap ourselves in with harnesses nowadays. Too much liability with insurance if we didn’t.” He opened the swinging door to the back porch where the washer and dryer still sat.

  I ran my hands over the cream-colored appliances and experienced a sense of déjà vu all over again.

  “I think that’s the same washer and dryer your mom used when you guys lived here,” Will said.

  “How do you know?”

  “They came with the house.”

  I looked closer at them.

  “I’ve replaced a lot of the parts over the years, but they’re still the same housings.”

  “You’re so – handy!”

  He laughed. “That’s me. Jack of all trades, master of none.”

  “One or two, I bet.”

  He blushed. I liked that.

  Mrs. Stenfield puttered in the kitchen like my mom used to do, rinsing dishes and putting them in the dishwasher as we entered the house. The squared white linoleum floor and the sunny-yellow kitchen were almost like I remembered. Only the trim was different and the countertops had been updated with colored tile and the stove was a new glass-top electric instead of the gas that we’d had years before. Nothing fancy, but I didn’t care.

  My old house. My old home, now Will’s and his mother’s. Wow. I remembered his dad and mom had gotten divorced, and that made it seem a little less idyllic, but still, there was this…glow.

  A tray with a pitcher of lemonade sat on the sunny kitchen table and Will poured us each a glass.

  “Wow. I haven’t had real lemonade in forever.”

  “It’s just from frozen, Ash.” Will laughed. “Not like your mom used to make off those lemons you and Amber brought home.”

  “Oh, you remember that?”

  “Like it was yesterday.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Mrs. Stenfield said. “Well, I’ll just leave you two alone for a bit. I’m headed downtown to meet Joanne at the White Rabbit. Do you need anything while I’m out?”

  “No thanks, Mom.” He rose and gave her a quick hug. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”

  I thought I was going to die. Alone with Will Stenfield, and with his mother’s blessing! In high school, I was always considered the wild one of the “terrible twins” and now I was being left all alone with a man, unchaperoned! What was this world coming to? Of course, objectively I knew we were both in our twenties now, but parents always seem frozen in time, at least in their kids’ minds.

  “See you later, Ashlee?” Mrs. Stenfield said.

  “Um, yeah, sure,” I stammered.

  “Stay out of the cookie jar, Will.” She slapped his hand as he reached for the lid of the Winnie-the-Pooh honeypot on the counter. He cradled his hand in mock injury, but she had looked at me when she said it.

  Now I really thought I was going to die. What did she think, I’d jump her baby boy’s bones on the sofa while she ate dinner with a friend?

  Hm. Not a completely unattractive idea. She breezed out of the house without a word. Will held out the honeypot to me and I grinned.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m watching my figure.”

  “So am I.” His eyes roved me up and down. It felt good, and I loved his laugh.

  On impulse I got up and opened the door to the basement and went down. It seemed they’d turned it into some kind of artsy rumpus room.

  “Well, this is cozy,” I said, as he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. That was getting to be a habit.

  “Yeah it is,” Will said, and I elbowed him gently in the gut.

  “I was talking about the basement, nerdling.” The tiny space contained a La-Z-Boy, a reading lamp, a few shelves of model cars and airplanes and a mysterious work in progress. I walked over to the easel and lifted the tarp from off the canvas that was sitting there.

  “Your mom’s?” I asked, as I viewed the Italian landscape on it.

  “Actually, it’s mine,” he said, and he blushed.

  I turned back to the picture. “It’s good. Your perspective is off a bit, here and here. But overall, it has nice composition and your color palette is very Tuscany.”

  “I didn’t ask for a review, but thanks anyway.”

  Now it was my turn to blush. “Sorry. Force of habit. Travel writer, critic. Goes with the territory.” I bit my lip. In my job I was used to being free with my judgments and opinions of the world and sometimes it was hard to turn it off.

  “That’s okay. I may not always like it, Ash. Like what you have to say. But at least I know where you stand.”

  “That’s rare.” I blew a strand of hair out of my eyes. “Most people aren’t so appreciative and just think I’m a bitch.”

  “I’m not most people.”

  I turned to look at him. Really look at him. He’d grown up since I’d been away and I said so.

  “Naw.” He stuck his tongue out at me. “I’m still the same old guy. Lucky in life, unlucky in love.”

  “Well, at least you’ve got part of the equation.” I touched a finger to the painting. It came away tacky, leaving a fingerprint.

  “Oh no, Will. I thought it was dry.”

  He laughed and dragged me over to the sink.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He took a rag, dabbed a little thinner on it and proceeded to wash my finger.

  Something inside me stirred and I felt lightheaded again. “Must be the fumes,” I whispered. But when he turned me in his arms, my knees wobbled as he pressed his body up against mine.

  “I’ve missed you, Ash.” His voice came out low and purr-fect and he leaned his mouth over mine and caught my lips with his own. Warm. Wet. Probing. The tip of his tongue flicked against mine and my breath came out panting. There was a stirring in my belly as I felt him press against my hips.

  “Too fast,” I said and pushed him away. “Sorry.” My head swam and I forced myself up the stairs and out of his reach.

  Yeah, I know I wanted him, but thinking about something and then actually doing it are two different things.

  Once I was back in the kitchen I relaxed. “You know, when we were kids, we used to have Halloween parties down there. Used blankets to create walkways and strung stringy stuff up for cobwebs, and made things that jumped out to scare each other.” I laughed as I ran water into the kitchen sink and splashed my face with it.

  Will handed me a towel. “I know. I was one of your victims, remember?” He shut the basement door behind him.

  “I remember. We used to blindfold you guys, then make you put your hands into bowls of cold spaghetti and gelatin mixed with fake fur. It was disgusting, but hilarious.”

  “To you, maybe.” He smiled.

  “And this was my brother’s room,” I said as I pushed open the east side door off the kitchen. Apparently Will had turned this into a widescreen TV room. “Adam used to lie on the floor below the turntable with his head between two speakers and blast Coldplay into his ears.”

  “You know I love you so, you know I love you so.” Will sang and strummed an air guitar as we both sounded out the bass line. “Duhdahduhdahduhdah. Duhdahduhdahduhdah. DUN. Dunt DUN. DUn. Dunt DUN!”

  We just looked at each other and laughed.

  “We are such geeks,” I said. “Now, let me see my room.” I turned and lurched out the other door, through the sun-porch, across the dining room, back into the kitchen and flung open the do
or off the west wall.

  “You mean my room now,” he said in my ear as he came up behind me.

  I don’t know why I did it, but all resistance crumbled and I turned and kissed him.

  The next thing I knew we were on his bed and groping each other like two kids drowning. Will had his hand up my shirt and I grabbed his jean-clad buttocks as we kissed like starving children. When the phone began to ring, my addled mind suddenly hit clarity and I laughed.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” I asked as he nibbled on my ear.

  “Ignore it,” he mumbled as he nipped my lobe and sent spasms of pleasure through me. His right hand had found the underwire to my bra and his thumb slid over my breast and I gasped.

  “You like that?”

  “Maybe too much.” I was a good girl, after all. Oh, yeah. Aren’t we all, in our own minds.

  The phone continued to ring, then the machine picked up.

  “You still have an answering machine?” I laughed. He kissed me stupid and I shut up.

  “You have reached…” The rest of the message fuzzed in my brain as he pulled off my shirt and unsnapped my B-cup, his tongue taking the place of his fingers.

  “God, Ashlee. I love you,” he whispered into my navel as he slid down my body.

  Shock woke me right up out of my lust-filled delirium. “WHAT?” I grabbed his shoulders and pushed back. “What did you say?” My left eyebrow went up and I stared him down like a wombat in a cage, whatever that means.

  “Umm…Ashlee, I love you?” He said it as if I hadn’t heard it the first time.

  “Well, that’s just great.” I snapped my bra back together and threw my shirt on over my head. “Here we are getting along all fine and dandy and you have to go and drop the L-bomb.”

  “Ashlee, I’ve loved you since high school. I’ve never stopped loving you. I thought you knew that.” He looked so forlorn, on his knees, on his bed, in my old room.

  So, do you really wonder why I’m a mess?

  “And how, pray tell, was I supposed to know that?” I asked. “I mean, animalistic teenage lust revisited, I get that! But love? Will, you don’t even know me anymore.”

  “I know you.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t.”

  “You know me.”

  “I didn’t mean – never mind.” I growled, “Men are so exasperating!”

  “What?”

  “You all just think you can cat around until the day you decide it’s time to grow up and settle down. Well, I don’t want to!”

  “I didn’t cat around, and I’ve always wanted to settle down. Ashlee, I’m the same guy.”

  “Yeah, maybe too damned much the same. Look at it from my perspective. You’re a guy who lives with his mom and sleeps in my old room!”

  “I thought it would be romantic.”

  “Argh!” I screamed and I marched out of the house with my buttons all askew.

  “Ashlee, where are you going?” he called from the porch as I headed down the dilapidated block into the evening’s slanting light.

  “Anywhere but here!”

  “You know this isn’t the best neighborhood to be walking around in,” he yelled. “Let me at least take you home.”

  “I’d rather have a gang-bang with a bunch of Cholos,” I yelled back, then looked around as a few faces peered out the windows at me. “Ha ha! Just kidding!” I singsonged, but I decided that now was as good a time as any to get back to the jogging I’d missed while my ass was healing.

  I ran.

  I knew it was a mistake, but after the first stabbing pain and the endorphins kicked in I found myself reaching a good steady stride and forgetting about my injury. All I could think about was my breathing and keeping my bag from hitting me right on the wound as I slung it across my back. I cut through a couple of alleys and back onto the Boulevard and then slowed when I hit the tracks and passed into what I felt would be a safer neighborhood.

  Night began to fall and soon I found myself walking alone with a designer handbag and a serious ache in my behind, in the dark next to Piccadilly Park. Don’t ask me why they called it that. If you ask me, if they wanted a classic London reference they should have called it Hyde Park for its high crime rate.

  “Hey! I like your bag,” a voice called out behind me.

  “Why don’t you hand it over,” another voice beside me said.

  “If you do, maybe we’ll let you walk away and keep that pretty face of yours.”

  My heart skipped a beat and I looked up and around, realizing that in my self-righteous anger, I’d walked right into a herd of biker chicks or something. At least, they had a lot of leather and piercings and ink.

  “You know, my twin sister’s a lesbian,” I said, trying to distract them as I slid away from the phalanx they were creating around me.

  “Hey, Arnott. I think she just called you a lesbian,” one of the hard-faced girls spoke up.

  “No, she didn’t. She said your sister is a lesbian,” said another.

  “I already know that. Although what that has to do with giving me her bag, I got no clue,” the more well-spoken leader said. “So, why don’t you just hand me that purse and we can all go on our merry way?” The circle began to close.

  Oh no, this was not going to happen. I looked at the sky and thought about trying to shift. If the moon was up at all I might be able to induce the change, though most times I no more wanted it than the average girl craved a visit from Aunt Rosie Flow.

  “And why don’t you take your big old ass…” I began, but didn’t get any further, as suddenly the sound of a Chevy V-8 roared up behind me and Will threw open the door, scattering the crowd.

  “Get in, Ash,” Will yelled and he grabbed for me as I leaped into the truck.

  “Ow. Ow. Ow.” I yelped as my butt slid across the seat and I could feel skin and stitches tear. “Get me to a hospital.”

  “I’ll do better than that.” He said something vulgar. “I’m taking you to my sister.” His hands gripped the wheel and he put the pedal to the metal.

  Will’s big sister Samantha “Sam” Stenfield was a nurse practitioner at Knightsbridge Hospital and worked the swing shift. Used to work graveyard, but when she got the chance she changed to evenings. Too many crazies on nights, she’d said. About ten years older than Will and I, but she looked at least a decade beyond that. I guess that’s what the ER will do to you, but she had a good bedside manner and didn’t even blink when Will rushed me over.

  “Oh, hi, Ashlee. Nice to see you again,” she said matter-of-factly. “Strip and let’s see what we’ve got.”

  “Get him out of here first,” I told her.

  “Will.” She gave him that older-sister-to-younger-brother look and he retreated behind the curtain she’d pulled in front of his face.

  I dropped trou and laid face down on the examination bed. I was so humiliated.

  “So, you want to tell me what happened?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Oh, you mean with my bullet wound. I mean, it was a staph infection. Hunting. A ricochet. The bullet wound got infected,” I amended.

  She scowled. “Doctors these days. Better safe than sorry, they say. So let’s just get a surgeon in for a consult, they say. And surgeons love to cut stuff anyway. When you got a hammer, everything looks like a goddamn nail.”

  I winced and then bit my lip as Will’s sister went on her rant. I was so not going to complain. It was my fault anyway I was in this predicament, I figured. I may be from here, but it wasn’t my Knightsbridge anymore.

  “Well, you may have set yourself back a few days, but I’ve cleaned the wound and used a little skin seal instead of stitches. What do they got you doin’ for wound care?”

  “Oh, you know. Bleach baths and fresh dressing.”

  “Well. Keep it up. Looks like you’ve got a week or so to go, then you’re out of the woods, but I’d continue the bleach baths until the wound is totally closed. Make sure that all the bacteria stays dead.”

  “Can I
come in now?” Will asked.

  “No,” I warned him.

  “Hey Will. Give me your sweatshirt,” Sam called, and he handed it to her through the gap. She turned it inside out as it still had a few grass stains.

  “Here. Step into this and wrap it around your waist. I’ll put your sweat pants in a bag. There’s bloodstains on them,” she said. “And Will, you take her straight home, you hear? Are you good on pain medication?”

  I nodded. “I’m good.”

  “Cool.” She let me get quasi-presentable before she pulled the curtain open and let in her brother.

  “Good seeing you again, Ash. Take care of yourself,” she said, as if I came in every Friday. Hadn’t seen me in years.

  Nurses. Can’t faze ’em.

  I let Will bundle me off to the truck and back to Amber’s doorstep. “I’ll call you tomorrow. See how you’re doing,” he promised. Then he drove away.

  I kind of hoped he would and I kind of hoped he wouldn’t. I sighed as I let myself in the door and slipped upstairs while the rest of the house slept. I was not going to tell this to my sister. No way, no how, I thought as I brushed my teeth and went straight to bed.

  Chapter 7

  Will called several times the next day but I didn’t answer. I hadn’t given him my cell phone number, so he was stuck leaving messages on the landline until my sister got sick of it and cornered me.

  “Ashlee. Why haven’t you called Will back?”

  “I dunno,” I mumbled. I so did not want to get into this with my sister.

  “You know, you can’t run away from all of your problems,” she said. “Whatever it is, you’re going to have to face it sooner or later. Preferably sooner, ’cause I’m getting sick of making excuses for you.”

  “I never asked you to make excuses for me.” I rounded on her. “So, why don’t you mind your own damn business?” Okay, I must be going crazy, because you do not take that tone with Amber.

  “As long as you’re under my roof, it IS my damn business,” she said. “You know, sometimes you are so ungrateful.” She was right, but I was mad, and when I had my mad on, my stupid mouth got the best of me.