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

  “Fine. I’m an ungrateful bitch. You hate me. This town hates me and now, probably Will hates me too!” I wailed and I broke down and began to cry.

  My sister stared at me like I’d grown another head. I never cried. I was the tomboy. I was the scrapper. I was…I was, I was a big ol’ mess.

  My sister sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at me with concern. J.R. and Elle both poked their heads into the room and she waved them away.

  “So…do you want to talk about it?”

  “Do I look like I want to talk about it?” I sobbed.

  Amber patted my foot through the down comforter. She was not making this easy on me.

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” I promised. “Right now, I’d just like to sleep a little.”

  Amber looked at me with kindness and brushed my hair from off my face. Then, she kissed my forehead like Mom used to do and I about lost it. That is, until she said, “Tomorrow, we’ll go get mani-pedis. Just the two of us.”

  As if that would make it all better. I laughed between sobs as she shut the door.

  I was such a schizoid.

  “Ashlee Marie Scott!” Mom’s voice came out of the woodwork and her disembodied head floated into the room.

  Oh, dear mother of God, I thought. Now I’d done it. It wasn’t enough to be humiliated and have a nervous breakdown in front of my identical twin, but now Mother had to get involved and I knew that she wasn’t going to be put off so easily.

  “Stop that sniveling at once,” my dead mother said as she halfway materialized into the room.

  I say halfway, because the lower half of her body seemed to be having trouble catching up to the rest and was banging its shins against the door. She whistled and her stocking feet finally found their home. “There. That’s better. Now what’s this all about, young lady?” she intoned and sat down into the bed.

  I would have said “on the bed” but it seemed like holding a visual pattern of molecules against the solidity of the real world was a process she hadn’t fully mastered.

  I opened my mouth, but before I spoke, she plucked the thought from my mind.

  “So, Will’s in love with you.”

  I growled, “I really hate it when you do that.”

  Mom ignored my outburst. “So, why does that bother you?” she asked.

  I knew she was referring to Will, but I deliberately called up a brick wall in my head and said, “Because my thoughts should be my own and I’d like to think that there’s such a thing as respecting my privacy.” If I wouldn’t let her read my diary when she was alive, I was sure as hell not going to give her the opportunity to read my mind after she was dead.

  “Talk to me, Ashlee,” she said. “You know I’m not very good at this.”

  “Yeah, well that makes two of us.”

  “So, why does Will loving you bother you so?” she badgered me.

  I sighed and threw the covers over my head. “Because I don’t even know how I feel! How can he say he still loves me after how many years has it been now?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that, Ash. Time doesn’t work the same for me as it does for you.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, suddenly curious. I was always trying to trick Mother into telling me what’s on the other side, but she usually saw through my subterfuges.

  “Hmm. How can I say it?” Her eyes closed and her head got denser, and the rest of her tea-length gown went diaphanous as if all her energy was centered in her noggin as she thought long and hard about what she could or would say.

  “I know.” She opened her eyes and the color washed out of her cranium and she got all ghostly again. “See. Time is a continuum, a mental construct created for physical bodies. As I no longer have the same type of physical body that you do and am not bound by time, I see you as a complete entity. You are all ages at once to me. Maybe Will sees you the same way. You’re still the girl he fell in love with in high school, and even more so now.”

  “But people change,” I told her.

  “Not as much as you would think.”

  “I’m not sure if that makes me feel bad or good.”

  “Then don’t let it make you feel either,” she said. “Feel what you decide to feel. Will loves the Ashlee Scott you were and there’s something in him, that metaphysical something that is timeless, which loves the Ashlee that you are today.”

  “But I’m a werewolf, Mother,” I let out in exasperation.

  “Only temporarily, dear.”

  “You mean there’s a cure?” I said, sitting up so quickly I got a little dizzy from the meds.

  “No, I mean, temporarily the rest of your life.”

  “Oh.” What a letdown.

  I heard a scratching at the door. Mom turned to look. “That would be Spanky,” I said.

  “I know that.” Mother waved her hand and the door cracked open to let him in. The dog sat at the foot of the bed, looked up at her, and cocked his head.

  “He can see you, can’t he?” I said, amazed. Even Amber couldn’t see our mother.

  Mom looked at me before I could get my mental shield up, and we both said what I was thinking. “Must be a dog thing.” We laughed as Spanky pawed at the bed. I lifted him up and he curled into my arms and suddenly I got really, really tired.

  “Can we talk later?” I asked, and Mother nodded. Spanky and I drifted off to sleep as she floated slowly away.

  Chapter 8

  “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT!” I pounded on the keyboard in frustration.

  “Hey! Hey! HEY! HEY!” My sister called from the living room as I swore at my outdated computer with the sticking H key. “I hope that’s your own laptop you’re abusing and not mine this time!”

  “Yes, it’s mine. And my scumbag of an editor has reassigned my upcoming trip to Cancun. He’s giving it to one of his golfing buddies who’s been twisting his arm to do the western Caribbean. Listen to this. ‘Considering your current physical challenges, we’re concerned about your ability to fulfill your obligations at this time.’ That shithead word pimp.”

  “Ashlee. Language,” my sister complained as she passed my doorway putting fresh linens into the guest bathroom.

  “Is J.R. home?”

  “It doesn’t matter if J.R.’s home or not. We don’t talk that way in this house,” she said, obviously forgetting the F-bombs she had dropped the other night in between cosmos with Sheri and Renee. My sister has an inflated sense of propriety until she’s had a few and then she can swear like a sailor.

  “Sorry. But, if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t even have that assignment. I brought that contact with me and now he’s going to try to pull it right out from under my bullet-ridden ass! I don’t think so!” I shot off an email to my contact in Cancun. “Let’s see him try to fu-, I mean, screw with me,” I snarled.

  “You’re such a lady, Ash,” my sister remarked. “And could you please remember to rinse and wipe the tub after you bathe. We have hard water here and it’s not easy to get the stains out once they’ve set in.”

  “I thought I did,” I said, looking up at my perky-nosed sis from where I lay.

  She gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me.

  “Obviously not well enough,” I said as she went back down the hall and into her bedroom. “You know, the way you run this house, I’m surprised you don’t ask for military corners on all the beds,” I muttered.

  “I heard that!” Her voice floated back toward me.

  “Bite me.”

  “I heard that, too!”

  “Love you.”

  This time, nothing. Yeah, sure. See? Selective hearing.

  I got up and ran myself a bleach bath, then peeled out of my clothes and stared at myself in the mirror. Like my sister I bordered on petite, but I was much more athletic and she hung somewhere around model thin. I’d gotten soft not being able to work out and I was determined that within the next week, I was going to actively pursue some kind of toning regimen.


  I turned around and tore off the bandage, wincing as the tape peeled another layer of skin. The wound, which started larger than an everlasting gobstopper, had finally shrunk to the size of a quarter and filled in quite nicely. There was still discoloration and would probably be a slight scar, but surprisingly, it wouldn’t be unsightly. Not that anyone that mattered had seen my ass lately.

  Which made me think about Will.

  I stepped into the bath and settled in, taking the latest Nora Roberts with me. I loved to read in the tub and since baths instead of showers were now a regular part of my routine, it gave me time to catch up.

  I had just cracked the spine when Mother materialized in the toilet. Again, I would say “on the toilet,” but as usual, her aim just wasn’t that good.

  “Mother!” I hissed. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I just thought I’d check in and see how you’re doing.” She had that gleam in her eye that told me she was up to something.

  There came a scratching and whining at the door and I looked at her, exasperated. “How come he always knows you’re here?” I asked.

  “Animals are more sensitive to energies and emotion than we give them credit for,” she replied. “Or it could be the dog thing again.”

  Hmph. I laughed. Maybe I should get my own miniature Schnauzer. Use him as an early warning system. Warning. Dead Mother Approaching.

  “So, Mommy dearest, tell me again how I managed to get lycanthropy and Amber only got allergies?” I settled back for a bath-time story.

  “Once upon a time, your great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother Louisa Scott was visiting relatives in Scotland,” Mom began.

  “Hence, the Scott in our name.”

  “Am I telling this or you?” She sank deeper into the porcelain bowl.

  I bit my tongue and smiled as she continued with her obviously fractured fairy tale. Never tells it the same way twice, no matter how many times it’s been. I keep hoping she’ll slip and tell me something that sounds true, but hell, how would I know? Nah, I’d know. I’d feel it, right?

  That’s what I keep hoping.

  Mom continued, “The story goes that she was out picking wolfsbane and moonflowers in a fairy circle one starlit night in the Highlands when Titania took umbrage and caused her to fall into a deep sleep. While asleep, Titania enchanted a passing wolf into the circle and turned it into a man, who lay with Louise and on that night she conceived. Upon returning to America, much to her husband’s delight, who thought that they couldn’t have children, she gave birth to twin girls, the first of many sets down through the generations. One twin is always a lupine, the other, an oracle of some kind: a seer or a prophetess. I don’t know what happened this time around to your sister, except for the nightmares and migraines, and the fact that she always seems to win when they go to Vegas, and she has a keen eye for fashion trends…anyway. You’re the one with the more demonstrable powers. Which reminds me of the reason I’m here.” She pointed at the ceiling. “Full moon’s coming up soon and you’re going to have to make a shift.”

  “I know I have to, but I don’t wanna,” I whined. “It’s such a pain in the ass. Hurts like a son of a bitch. And it’s totally disgusting.”

  “Yes, well. Either you choose the time and the place, or the change will choose it for you. And you know what happened the last time you let that happen.”

  “I know. I know. I went through a whole herd of sheep before I tired out and changed back. Thank God I didn’t hurt anyone. The only good thing about the shift is that I seem to lose most of my body fat when I turn back.”

  “It’s a metabolism thing,” my mother said. “And you should be grateful. Some women would kill to have your bone structure.” She floated over to caress my face with icy digits.

  “So, how many days have I got?” I asked, as if I didn’t know. Believe me, I always knew. I sighed and tapped the hot water faucet with my foot to heat up the by-now-lukewarm bath.

  “Ten days before the next cycle,” my mother said.

  “Bummer,” I mumbled.

  “Oops, gotta run.” She apologized and condensed to a small drop of water that plinked into the bowl.

  “Aunt Ash?” came J.R.’s voice through the door. “Who are you talking to?”

  I cringed. Great. Now even my nephew thinks I’m a freak.

  “No one, honey. Just to myself. Do you need something?” I asked sweetly, testing the air.

  “No. I was passing by and Spanky was sitting here listening to you talk and I thought it was really weird. I almost thought there was somebody else in there with you. Anyways, I need to brush my teeth and my toothbrush is in there.”

  “Nope. Nobody but me, myself and I. I’ll be out in a sec.” I said and stood up, dried off and let the kid have his space, retiring to my room and puttering on my laptop while I thought.

  Ten days. Cripes. First the dog, now the kid. And a full moon coming up. I really needed to figure out how I should handle the next change. I supposed I could just do what I used to when I lived in town, which was to leave the basement window unlatched and set so I could enter in whatever form I happened to be at the time.

  Only this house had no basement, unlike the one I’d grown up in. You know, the one where Will was now. The one where, if I could just get my head screwed on straight, I could probably stay over and do the same thing. Only, how was I supposed to sneak out of Will’s bed without him noticing?

  I thought about drugging him. Hey, it was a plan, but there had to be a better way. Maybe I should just go home to my place in the City and take my usual laps around Golden Gate Park.

  I was still thinking about this when my email beeped, and I brought it up without even reading the subject line.

  Oh, great. Another one.

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  I AM STILL WARNING YOU ABOUT WHAT MY EMPLOYER WANTS TO DO TO YOU FOR SOME REASON. LIKE I SAID BEFORE I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU ARE WHAT IS SAID ABOUT YOU BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER SO JUST BEWARE. THERE IS CERTAINLY A CONSPIRACY SURROUNDING THIS SO TRUST NO ONE NOT EVEN THOSE CLOSEST TO YOU AND DO NOT DO WHAT ANYONE WANTS EVEN IF THEY WANT YOU TO.

  SINCERELY,

  A FRIEND

  I felt like I was back in first-year creative writing class, willing to drive icepicks into my eyeballs rather than suffer through another round of insufferably sophomoric prose. Yeah, I know here in my diary I take liberties with the language but holy freaking Grammar Girl, what are they teaching kids these days in English class?

  Then I forced myself to focus on the meaning and ignore the execrable delivery.

  It seemed as if he, if it was a he, was trying to give me a friendly warning that someone was trying to force him to do something to me, along with the implication that someone close to me was not to be trusted.

  Master of the obvious, right? But I was no detective, and besides, nothing other than these emails themselves had appeared to threaten me since I had returned to Knightsbridge. Also, there was a kind of lunatic, conspiracy-nut quality to the messages that made me think the sender wasn’t really all there.

  So.

  I had to figure out whether or not to tell anyone. After a moment’s thought, I moved the email to my saved file and decided not to say anything. It would just get everyone spun up again and worried about nothing. I would just have to keep my eyes open and stay away from animal control officers, biker chicks, local hunters or old flames trying to entice me to crawl back into the cozy shell of my former life.

  Chapter 9

  Busted. I was busted.

  The next morning when I opened the front door, I ran into Will Stenfield camped out on the porch, and he wouldn’t leave until I talked to him. I guess I could have slammed the door and not come out, or tried to run out the back, but…he was right, in a John Cusack, Say Anything sort of way. I had to deal with him sometime.

  “Hi,” he said tentatively, waving a sack of sweet-smelling custard-filled chocolate donuts like a peace offering.


  “Hi,” I replied, not really sure how to feel about anything at this point, but I decided I was not about to pass up a mouthful of Bavarian crème.

  “Figured since you weren’t returning my calls, I’d need something to get me in the door.”

  “Well, since you’re here, you might as well come all the way in,” I told him, motioning from the foyer.

  “Where’s the rest of the gang?”

  “Hell if I know.” I went to the fridge. “Milk? Amber only buys the nonfat crap.”

  “That’s okay.” He whisked out a couple cartons from the bag he was carrying. “I know how you like whole milk, so I brought some.”

  “Humph,” I said skeptically. “I don’t know if that screams stalker or sweet.” But inside, I was getting all gooey again, like the donut. I shook it off. “Let’s go sit outside on the patio.”

  Will followed me and Spanky followed him, sniffing.

  Amber and Elle had the best backyard. An awning-covered patio with a glass table that seated six comfortably, eight in a pinch, and a black-bottomed swimming pool with an attached hot tub that spilled water over the beveled edge in sheeted columns at just the right height to dip your head under – oh, and at least four chaise lounges for sunning, which I had yet to use. The sound of the water soothed me, and we sat in silence as we ate. The not speaking was kind of nice, until it got awkward.

  “So, are we going to talk about it?” Will asked.

  “Talk about what?” I replied, dreading the answer. He was going for the RDT, the Relationship Defining Talk, and I had no idea what I was going to tell him.

  Sitting there staring at me, all muscly and stuff.

  “Fine. Let’s talk about it,” I finally said.

  “I said I loved you.”

  “I heard you.”

  “So, how do you feel about me?”

  “God, Will. I don’t know!” I sat back, exasperated.

  “Ouch.”

  “Give me a minute. I’m not good at this stuff.” Now where had I heard that before? “And why is I don’t know so bad? It just means I don’t know.”