Wolf on Board (Wolves of Willow Bend Book 14) by Heather Long Read Free Book Online Page B

of beach, however, didn’t beckon to her the way the more public beaches did—likely due to the lack of proximity to food and coffee.
    Just a guess.
    Still, her tummy fluttered madly each time she caught sight of Jake’s van behind her in the rearview mirror. Should she have simply told him off or not invited him at all? Shaking her head, Mimi fought the urge to growl. First the strange wolf in the book shop then…wait… Goddamit. She slapped her hand against the steering wheel. Even more annoyed with herself than earlier, she hit the wireless control for her phone.
    “Call Mitch Jackson.” The sound of ringing replaced the pop music she preferred to listen to while driving.
    “Mitch,” the wolf answered on the third ring. “Hey, baby girl, how you doing?” His Jersey accent was atrocious, but it made her laugh. His intent most likely.
    “I’m letting a stray follow me home,” she admitted. While most other wolves didn’t care for the Enforcers, Mimi had a different experience. Maybe it was all the time she spent with her father or Owen, but the Hunters engaged with the Enforcers regularly, exchanging information, education, and occasionally online poker. The last, however, wasn’t advertised widely.
    “What kind of stray, hmm?” The playfulness in his voice seemed mildly deceptive, but Mitch didn’t fool her. She talked to Mitch enough since arriving in California, almost daily at first, then every two to three days once she settled in, that she got his laid back attitude masked severe predatory instincts.
    “Jake Danes, but he’s not why I called.” No sense in pretending he didn’t know Jake. Mitch was the Enforcer for the region. He knew them all.
    “No? Damn, and I was looking for a reason to kick his beach bum ass.”
    “Pretty please with sugar on top?” Yep, she grinned and it helped neuter the pervasive sense of frustration welling in her gut.
    “Only if you really want me to.” Mitch kept it light. “So, what’s the problem?”
    “I ran into a wolf I didn’t know today in the bookstore .” It was more than that, though. More than a stranger . “She was…not from around here. I didn’t recognize her scent at all.” Switching lanes carefully, she kept one eye on Jake to make sure he’d tracked her motion. As soon as he slid in behind her little coop, she hit her indicator to take the next exit off the highway. Weird how she had to exit it, follow it down, then around and across to get to the road that would wind back to her place. Fortunately, they’d hit enough of a lull in the traffic that she didn’t have to fight to access the off ramp.
    “Hmm…describe her to me?”
    Mimi summoned an image of the woman to mind, scent markers and all. “She carried a hint of brine on her, not like the sea but like something closed up too close to the sea with a touch of tar and wood oils. For some reason, I kept thinking about a fishing boat.” She hated fishing vessels. They reeked. “Mid-thirties…which doesn’t mean much, but she didn’t seem too much older than Owen.” Sorting through the sensory detail, she tried to draw a verbal picture. “Dark eyes. Brown, I think, but she started to let her wolf show, so they were edged in gold. Dark hair, also a dirty brown, a little lanky. I think it was oily, but she had it pulled back into a severe ponytail. Full jaw, a little squared, and blunted nose. Her lips were pale, not pink but not really red, either. She had an olive skin tone, not tanned, and her eyebrows were bushy.”
    “Bushy?” Mitch seemed sketchy on that detail.
    “Trust me, she could have used a pluck or three…a wax would probably have left her weeping. She wasn’t unattractive, but she did not like being noticed. At all.” Everything about her had gotten Mimi’s hackles up.
    “Have you seen her anywhere else?”
    “No.” She would have remembered her scent, if not her face. “I started to go after her, but she vanished in the crowd.”
    “Go after