Loner (Norseton Wolves #2) by Holley Trent Read Free Book Online

no attention.”
    “A suit, though? On a wolf?” He couldn’t tamp down the laugh, and he knew the guys in the pack were going to give him ever so much shit about it. The closest thing any of them had to a suit was matching leather vests and pants. The idea of getting dressed up and having so many people staring at him as if he were a rare zoo animal unsettled his stomach.
    “If it’s too much to ask, I’ll figure out something else.”
    “No, I’ll…I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t want to disappoint her. Shit. He raked his hand through his short hair and forced out a breath. A conversation first thing in the morning, and he hadn’t even had a pot of coffee yet. The scenario was definitely a first for him.
    He strode to the kitchen and found the Norseton community directory beneath a pile of flattened beer cases. He tossed it onto the counter and flipped through the retailer listings, then cross-referenced the merchant name with his personal number. Finally, he grabbed the cordless phone from the wall and pulled in a long inhalation. Shit.
    He hated making phone calls. They seemed even worse than speaking face-to-face with someone. In person, at least he could resort to using crude sign language to get his point across if necessary. On the phone, all he could do was sigh constantly and punctuate every sentence fragment with Um .
    As the phone rang on the other end, he pinched the bridge of his nose, tapped his right foot rapidly against the tile floor, and hoped that the man didn’t answer. At least then he could say that he tried.
    “Hello? There’d better be a fire,” Tim Gimbel said when he answered.
    “Uh, no—” Shit. Hang up and lie.
    Darius shifted his weight and found Stephanie at his elbow, waiting with hopefulness written all over her exquisite face.
    Her faith in him seemed misplaced.
    Fuck. She’s not asking for much. Just do it. Anyone else could do it.
    “S-sorry to call so early. I wouldn’t have, but my mate is, uh, and I—I’m sorry. This is Darius Lucas, one of the pack members.”
    “Huh?”
    Shit. Darius pinched his nose again and willed the knots in his brain that squeezed off the route between intelligence and speech to unravel. He knew what he needed to tell the man, generally speaking, but not necessarily the order that the words needed to come out in, or even which words to choose. There was a reason he didn’t do negotiations for the pack.
    “Give me the phone,” Stephanie whispered, and extended her hand. Reluctantly, he placed the phone into it.
    Damn. Wonderful performance, Einstein. If he were lucky, she wouldn’t be accessorizing his new suit with a dunce cap.
    “Hello. Good morning, sir. Sorry it’s so rudely early, but we hoped you’d take pity on us and open your shop up for a few minutes. We’re getting married in an hour, and Darius doesn’t own any clothing fit to be photographed.”
    Thanks to his superior wolf hearing, Darius could decipher every one of Tim’s words, even with the phone pressed to Stephanie’s ear. “Dear lord. I’d hoped to one day sell him something more than socks,” Tim said.
    Darius sighed. The guy had tried to corner him with a measuring tape more than once, insisting Darius wore his jeans far too loose, but Darius needed them loose. He wouldn’t be able to hide all his weapons if he wore them as tight as the trend seemed to call for.
    “I just need a two-piece suit, and”—she let her gaze track down his body—“I don’t imagine you’d have any Oxfords in his size? He’s got to be a twelve.”
    Twelve-and-a-half. Now she wanted him to break in new shoes at fucking dawn, too? No way . “Stephanie—”
    “I might,” Tim said. “I’m pulling on some pants and heading downstairs now. I live right over the shop.”
    “Yay! Thank you so much. We’ll be there in ten minutes. I promise, I’ll come back in the afternoon and make your broken sleep worth your while. I moved here with just four suitcases. Can you