A Girl and Her Wolf (Howl, #7) Read online

  A Girl and Her Wolf (Howl #7)

  Copyright © 2014 Jody Morse and Jayme Morse

  A Girl and Her Wolf is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and events in this book are products of the author’s imaginations or have been used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons is coincidental and not intended by the authors.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical (except by a reviewer quoting a short excerpt), without permission in writing from Jody Morse and Jayme Morse.

  Connect with the authors at:

  http://www.jodymorse.com/

  http://www.jaymemorse.com/

  Chapter 1: Colby

  “Colby, can you watch Davenport for a few minutes while I take a shower?” Emma asked, handing the baby off to him. A second in Colby’s arms, and Daven was already screaming his head off. Emma quickly took him back, soothing him.

  It surprised Colby. Emma had never seemed like the motherly type to him before, but ever since Davenport was born, there had been a change in her. It made Colby feel even more in love with her than ever before.

  And oddly enough, Colby was the one who wasn’t so good with him. He’d read all the baby books he could find at the local library, but they didn’t seem to help any. He liked to think that it was just because wolf babies were harder to handle than human babies were. They were more energetic and more determined to get their way.

  But Emma somehow managed to calm him down—and in record-breaking time, as usual—and handed him back to Colby. He cradled Daven awkwardly in his arms in front of him, hoping that the baby wouldn’t start crying again.

  “Read him a story or play him some music,” Emma advised, when she noticed how nervous Colby looked. “He likes that.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and scampered off into the hallway, leaving him all alone with the baby for the first time. Samara and Declan were away on their honeymoon, which left Emma and Colby in charge of watching Daven for two weeks.

  Colby decided to read to Davenport. He’d had enough of Emma’s playlist of Adele, Rihanna, and Maroon 5. It wasn’t that he thought any of those musicians were untalented; it was just that he was sick of listening to them on repeat, and he didn’t want to make little Daven have to suffer through those songs any more than he already had to.

  Crouching down with the baby in tow, Colby examined the huge selection of books. One thing was for certain: even though they were mates, they had very different tastes in reading material. Colby was more of a Tolkien and Stephen King fan, whereas Emma usually stuck with the romance genre—classic romance, in particular.

  So, what to read? The Scarlett Letter? No, way too boring, even for Colby. He skimmed over all the other old-timey romances. There was a huge stack of Cosmopolitan magazines, but he knew that he’d probably already read most of the interesting articles (and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it). Besides, he didn’t want to read to Davenport about the 25 best ways to turn a guy on or how to dress for Emma’s body type. Then there was 50 Shades of Grey. That was definitely out of the question.

  Davenport reached out for one of the books on the shelf. It was an unmarked pink leather book, which he pulled out and handed to Colby. It looked vaguely familiar. Even though he didn’t know for sure what it was, Colby had a feeling that it was probably the safest—and hopefully the least boring—option on the shelf.

  Settling down on the rocking chair in the living room, Colby made a mental note to get more kid-friendly stuff if they were going to continue babysitting so often. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought about it before Samara and Declan left. All he’d worried about was baby-proofing the house.

  As he opened the book, Colby had his suspicions confirmed. A smile crossed his face. “Pay attention, Davie. I think this is going to be good,” he said with a chuckle. “Ahem,” he cleared his throat, more out of habit than necessity, and began to read out loud. “Dear Diary . . . I know I said I didn’t want a honeymoon, but that didn’t mean I didn’t actually want one.”

  Colby smiled. It had been over a year ago, but Emma’s diary entry made the memory of the honeymoon talk they’d had the day after they secretly eloped come rushing back to him like it was only yesterday. . .

  *

  Emma sighed loudly, flopping down onto the bed and next to Colby in their hotel room. She peered over at him and then quickly turned over so that she was facing the wall.

  When he didn’t say anything return, she hmphed. It was clear that she was trying to get his attention.

  “What is it, Emma bear?” He placed the book that he’d been reading on his chest so that he could give her his full and undivided attention.

  She sat up, wrapping her arms around her legs, and glanced over at him. “It’s just that we’ve been married for a whole day, and we haven’t even done anything fun to celebrate it yet. We’re just doing nothing in this boring hotel room. Meanwhile, Sam and Luke, who got married, like, five hours before us, are already on their honeymoon.” She crossed her arms over her chest and made a pouty face. Their marriage technically wasn’t legal, but they still marked as mates.

  Colby tried to suppress his smile. He had known that it was killing his mate that their best friends were on a honeymoon and they weren’t.

  “Emma, you’re the one who decided that you didn’t want us to go on a honeymoon,” he pointed out, sitting up and putting the book on the nightstand. It wasn’t that he’d wanted to read; he’d been trying to bore her to death so that she would actually admit that she wanted a honeymoon.

  “I know, but that was before I knew how much I really wanted one.” Emma sighed, glancing over at him. “And now it’s just too late for us to go. We’ve officially missed our honeymoon window.”

  “You can go on a honeymoon whenever you want to go,” Colby disagreed with her. “Nothing says that you need to leave for your honeymoon on the same day you get married.”

  “I know, but it’s just not the same.” She sighed.

  “So, no honeymoon for us . . . ever?” he asked with wide eyes.

  “No.” Emma sniffed sadly. “I guess not.”

  “Even if I already had our trip booked?” He shot her a sly smile.

  “You did?!” She squealed, her light blue eyes lighting back up. “Where are we going? I can’t believe you hid something like this from me! I’ve been bummed out about it all night.”

  “I wanted it to be a surprise.” He grinned. “I’m not telling you where we’re going yet, though. It’s a surprise. I’ll tell you after we get home and pack.”

  “That’s not fair, Colby!” She threw ones of the pillows from the bed at him playfully. “I hate surprises.”

  “No, you don’t.” He winked at her, pulling her towards him and throwing the blankets over their heads.

  *

  “Ahem.” Emma cleared her throat loudly. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked with a tone of annoyance in her voice.

  He’d gotten so lost in reading her diary entry (don’t worry, it was the PG-13 version) and his own thoughts about that day that he hadn’t even noticed when the shower had stopped running.

  “Hey, Em,” he said, grinning up at her in an attempt to mask his guilt, even though he knew he was already in deep shit with his mate.

  Chapter 2: Emma

  “Colby!” Emma put her hands on her hips, feeling the anger rise to her cheeks. “I thought we had an agreement that you wouldn’t go through my diary. And I leave you alone for, like, two seconds and what are you doing? Reading it to our Godson!”

  Colby looked up at her sheepishly. “Well, uh . . . Davie really wanted to read it. He’s actually the one who chose it.
You didn’t want me to read him one of your trashy romance novels, did you?”

  “Well . . . no,” Emma agreed.

  “Besides, I figured that since you didn’t leave it in that secret compartment in your nightstand that it meant you were okay with the idea of me reading it now.”

  Emma’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “I didn’t think that anyone knew that my nightstand had a secret compartment besides me.” She shook her head frustratedly. “And now I’m going to need to find a new hiding spot! How did you even find it? It was so well hidden behind my stack of books!”

  “A-ha! I knew you put them there deliberately to hide the compartment from me!” Colby seemed proud to know that he had put two and two together. “For the record, I didn’t actually go snooping around in your nightstand for anything, but . . . you hid Reese’s peanut butter cups in there once, Em. I can’t help it that I’m a werewolf and my nose has a mind of its own when it comes to candy.”

  “Ugh! So that’s where all my candy went! I thought I ate it one night in my sleep or something.” She shook my head frustratedly. “Sometimes I really hate being a werewolf, you know. I can’t even keep candy in a drawer without you finding it. And not only did you eat my candy, but you also read my diary.”

  “If you didn’t want even me to read your diary, why did you leave it out in the living room where the whole pack would be able to find it if they were home?” he questioned.

  Emma was slightly relieved that the other members of their pack weren’t around. They’d been so jealous of Samara and Declan going on their honeymoon to Jamaica that they all booked a trip to Australia. Meanwhile, Colby’s mom had joined Joe McKinley and his girlfriend during their trip to visit his home town in Alaska.

  Emma and Colby had stayed home not just to babysit, but also to have some alone time for once. And Colby was right; it would have been much worse if Chris and Steve had found her diary, but . . . still. “I don’t know why it’s out here. It’s not like I put it here.”

  Out of thin air, Bennett, the werewolf spirit who lived in their house, appeared—well, technically Grandpa Joe’s old house and now Samara’s house, but the whole pack was staying in it with the exception of Sam and Declan. Emma had tried to convince them to move in, but they wanted their own space because of Davenport. As for Colby, he’d always wanted to move back home, but he just couldn’t bear the thought of moving back to the house he lived in with Darren. There were just too many sour memories, ones that he wanted to forget. His translucent-looking lips were twisted into a sly grin. “I think I might have an idea of how it got in here.”

  “Ugh! You’re so annoying,” Emma hissed at him, careful not to raise her voice too much and upset the baby. “Please tell me you didn’t read my diary, too.”

  Bennett chuckled. “You’ll never know.” With that, he made himself completely invisible again.

  “He so read it,” Emma replied, shaking her head. “Except the difference is that he didn’t promise me he wouldn’t read it.” She glared at Colby.

  “I’m sorry, Emma Bear. I swear I didn’t mean anything bad by it. It’s just fun to see everything that we’ve been through from your point of view. I never really knew how you felt about certain things, but now, I’m able to read everything that was going on in your head when I couldn’t actually hear what was going on inside of your head because you blocked me from listening.” He shrugged and ran a hand over his short, blonde curly hair. “Reading your diary helps me feel more connected to you. And I think I might know a way to make this seem a lot fairer for both of us.”

  “How?” she asked, lifting her blonde brows questioningly. She wasn’t sure how any part of him reading her diary could possibly be fair, but she was curious to see what he had to say.

  “I’ll be right back in just a sec,” Colby said, rising to his feet and bounding out of the room, leaving Emma alone with the baby and her diary.

  Cradling Daven in her arms, she sat down on the couch and began to flip through the pages of her diary, making sure that there wasn’t anything in there that could possibly offend him. As much as she wanted to think that her thoughts towards him had always been nice, the truth was . . . they hadn’t. When she first found out that Colby was her mate, she’d sort of freaked. But nothing in her diary seemed to stick out as offensive.

  When Colby came back into the room, he was carrying a stack of books with him. He set them down in front of her. “Since I’ve been reading your diary, I thought you might want to read some of my personal thoughts, too. I found my journals for you.” He picked up the journal that was sitting on top of the pile and flipped through the pages until he came across one that he pointed to. “Here, you’ve got to read this one. It’s especially embarrassing for me.”

  Emma eyed him curiously. Colby wasn’t usually the type to get embarrassed. If it was embarrassing for him, it was probably something she wanted to know about it. She had to read it.

  “Okay,” she agreed, taking the journal from him. “I’ll read it.”

  She scanned through the words on the page.

  Dear Journal,

  Do you know how embarrassing it is to sleep walk outside in the middle of the night when you’re wearing your rubber ducky boxers, and change into a wolf?

  I do.

  Somehow, I ended up in our neighbor Mr. Gold’s rose bushes . . . except my boxers were no longer around my waist like they’re supposed to be. They somehow ended up over my head and when I woke up, Mr. Gold was hovering over me, trying to wake me up with the hose that he was about to water his roses with.

  Laughing, Emma glanced up at Colby. “Okay, that is really embarrassing,” she agreed. Glancing up at him, she added, “I want to read more.”

  “So, does that mean I get to read the rest of your diary, too?” Colby asked, hopefulness flickering through his blue eyes.

  She nodded. “Yeah, you can read it. You just can’t get mad at anything you read.”

  “I won’t,” he promised. “But the same goes to you.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “I think I’m going to go to our room so I can read some more in private, if you don’t mind.”

  “Can you put Davie to sleep first?” Colby asked. “It’s his bedtime, and I would do it, but you know how much he hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you,” Emma replied, glancing over at him sympathetically. It bothered her that her mate thought the baby hated him. Choosing her words carefully, she added, “He just finds you to be really annoying sometimes.”

  Colby frowned. “But I’m not annoying.”

  “Daven seems to think so,” she replied with a shrug before scooping the baby up into her arms and taking him into their bedroom. She laid him down in the crib they’d set up for him to use while Samara and Declan went on their honeymoon and sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” until he dozed off to sleep.

  Once he was settled, she opened Colby’s journal again and began to read one of his entries:

  I’m pretty sure the guy at the party store thought I was a cross-dresser today. Most guys might have felt offended by the looks he gave me, but it didn’t bother me at all. I had something much too exciting to share with Emma—something that I really needed the right props for—to worry about what other people thought of me.

  Emma smiled. She didn’t even need to read on to need to know what Colby’s journal entry was referring to.

  *

  “Okay, you can open your eyes now,” Colby told Emma, untying the blindfold he’d put on her. “Go ahead and guess where we’re going.”

  He’d placed beached-themed decorations all around the dining room and was sporting a grass skirt, coconut bra, and a pair of sunglasses on top of his head. Plastic leis in vibrant shades of pink, blue, and green were scattered on the table, surrounding a framed outline of Hawaii.

  All of it was a dead giveaway as to where they were going, of course, and Emma couldn’t have been more excited, but she decided to play along with him. It seemed like it would be much more
fun that way.

  “Hmm,” she said, inspecting the room and tapping her chin. “I know! We’re going to Jamaica.”

  “Nope!” Colby grinned, beaming at the elaborate display he’d put together.

  Emma pretended to frown. “The Bahamas?”

  Colby raised an eyebrow, and one corner of his smile faded. He looked around the room, questioning how good a job he’d done at giving her hints.

  She burst into laughter. “I’m just kidding, Colby! I know that we’re going to Hawaii.” She finally allowed herself to do a happy dance. She’d always wanted to honeymoon in Hawaii. Maybe that was why she’d been so jealous over Samara getting to go first.

  A smile touched his lips again. “Oh, you . . . I was starting to think we were going to need to sit you down for a geography lesson.”

  Emma shook her head. “No, I totally got it, and I’m totally happy. Thank you.” She stepped on her tiptoes and kissed him, remembering that his sweetness was why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. Well, the fact that they were mated probably helped, too.

  *

  Emma flipped to the next page of Colby’s journal where he’d written:

  It felt like our honeymoon was off to a bad start already and we hadn’t even left yet. First, Emma had that weird psychic feeling about Joe McKinley’s talisman disappearing, and we checked the storage unit where we’d left it. Sure enough, it was gone.

  Then, I was afraid that Emma wasn’t going to like the resort I’d chosen for us to stay at. It was the only place I’d been lucky to find vacancy at on such short notice, but it was also her dream resort. She didn’t seem too happy about the idea of staying at the same resort as Samara and Luke. Luckily, though, she seemed to come around to the idea . . .

  “Colby, we can’t go to the same exact resort that Sam and Luke are staying at,” Emma whined as she stared out at the fluffy white clouds from the window of the plane. “Don’t you want us to have our own, you know . . . private vacation? Just the two of us, far away from everyone else we know? This is our honeymoon!”