Between a Wolf and a Hard Place Read online

  She rolled onto her back and stared up at the dark ceiling. She hadn’t been able to do anything about Chrissy. Had she lost her touch? Or was Chrissy just happy where she was? Maybe she wouldn’t haunt the guests when they began arriving. The only one who had stayed in the attic room was Deputy Sheriff Trevor Osgood, and he said nothing had happened. So maybe Chrissy had left the light switch alone while he was there at night. What if she got upset when they had someone staying in both her bedroom and the attic?

  Ellie didn’t think she would ever get to sleep, so she tried to envision hunky Brett standing in front of her, pulling off his shirt while the rest of him was naked, his erection jutting out proud and ready. She hadn’t seen him naked when he was aroused like that before. Except in her dreams, when she’d seen a hazier version of him. What a gorgeous hunk of wolf man! Then she recalled the amused gleam in his eyes, the way his oh-so-appealing mouth had turned up because he was tickled that she was gawking at his beauty.

  Then somehow, between the images burned into her memory, the lateness of the hour, and the tiredness she was feeling, that image of Brett turned into something more—hotter, sexier, a fantastical dream.

  Approaching her in the bed, he moved like a wolf on the hunt, slowly, focused, his dark gaze on hers, a predatory gleam in his eyes, the soft moonlight giving them a greenish tinge. Her heartbeat sped up in anticipation. She pulled her long, brown T-shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. He climbed over her in one smooth move, pressing all that hard muscle against her body, telling her he wanted her, now, tonight, right this moment.

  He was kissing her, his mouth so perfect for hers, warm and sweet and passionate. His tongue stroked hers, and she writhed against him, wanting more than just his tongue in her mouth. Tendrils of pleasure coiled around inside her, making her eager to feel his cock penetrating her. In the dreamlike fog, she felt his fingers stroking her, pleasuring her, tantalizing her. How could this be so real? He seemed to know just what she needed to make her come.

  He moved his mouth down to her breast and suckled a nipple, and that was all it took. She cried out, clutching his shoulders, reveling in the way he made her rocket to the moon.

  He slid inside her then, thrusting, and he felt good there—huge, but good. She stroked his back as he began to kiss her again, and she fell completely under his spell. He truly was the wolf of her dreams. “Brett,” she whispered, stroking his waist and loving the feel of his soft skin stretched over hard muscles.

  “Ellie,” Brett whispered in her ear, and she came again, her heart pounding, her breath short as she woke…to find she was alone.

  She groaned.

  * * *

  “Ellie,” Brett whispered, feeling her beneath him and around him, hugging his cock deep inside her, stroking him as he stroked her. He felt the end coming, the stage of near-completion, so real, and then he growled and released.

  He opened his eyes, expecting to be with Ellie. To wrap his arms around her and hold her tight the rest of the night until they made love again. But she wasn’t there, and he growled in his frustration.

  He rolled over on the bed and ran his hand through his hair. He’d been having these dreams more frequently the more often he saw Ellie. It wasn’t dream mating. At least not the same as it had been for Jake and Darien. Maybe that was because everyone was so different. The experience had been so incredibly real, not dreamlike at all. Brett felt like he’d really had sex with her. Which meant she was his, in the way a wolf claims his mate. He’d never had such strong dreams before where he couldn’t separate fantasy from reality.

  He groaned and stared at his phone sitting on the bedside table. Then he grabbed it and called Ellie. “Are you still awake?”

  She answered on the first ring. “If I weren’t, could you tell?”

  He smiled, got out of bed, and began changing the sheets. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “No wild and sexy dreams?”

  Her voice was drowsy and sexy, and he envisioned her in bed wearing the moose T-shirt she’d had on before she tossed it and was completely naked.

  “Yeah, actually, I was having this really hot dream about this incredibly hot and sexy she-wolf.”

  Silence.

  He was afraid he’d shocked her. “Are you still there?”

  “With me?” she asked, sounding startled.

  Who else would he be dreaming of? He laughed though. “Yeah. I didn’t embarrass you, did I?” He finished changing the sheets on his bed, then climbed back into it.

  “Hmm, what if I said I was dreaming about you?”

  He paused. “Really.”

  “Yeah, but you know everyone fantasizes about people they’re dating, right?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He pulled the covers over his waist. “So what was I wearing?”

  “No shirt, no boxer briefs, just your jeans. What was I wearing?”

  “A brown T-shirt with a moose on the front of it.”

  “No.”

  “Yeah. It’s weird what you’ll envision in a dream, right? So what were you really wearing?” Brett asked.

  “That’s what I was really wearing.”

  Both were silent for a few seconds, then Brett said, “Okay, so tell me exactly what happened in your dream.”

  After she gave him an abbreviated version, he whistled. “I know you can see ghosts, but are you…psychic?”

  “No.”

  “Hell, Ellie. You know what this means?”

  “We are not dream mated.”

  “Okay, so if you went out with someone else, you’d see that you wouldn’t dream about him in the same way we dream about each other—and you’ll know we’re meant to be together.” He couldn’t imagine a better way to prove it, not that he really meant for her to do so, nor would he suggest it in a million years. But he assumed that’s what would happen.

  “Are you serious? What if I start dating a wolf, and he thinks I’m really interested in him? What if I am? Okay, fine. I’ll ask Sarandon on a date.”

  “No, wait. I didn’t mean for you to do that. It was just a hypothetical comment.” No way did he want Ellie asking Sarandon out. What if his brother was interested in her? Besides, the news would spread through the pack like wildfire.

  “No, I think it’s a good idea. A great social experiment. If we’re meant to be together, then we will be. Listen, it’s really late and I’ve got to get up early tomorrow. I’ll talk to you later. Night, Brett.” Ellie hung up on him.

  “Wait!” Ah hell, he’d just been talking off the top of his head. If they were dream mated, it was a done deal and they needed to make the fantasy come true. He was certainly ready. He called her back, but she didn’t answer.

  Brett let out his breath in a growl. He didn’t want her to date anyone else. What if she was angry with him over suggesting that and she called it off between them completely?

  Then he smiled. She couldn’t. Not if they were dream mated. She would want him back no matter what. Then again, what if they weren’t? No way. Though there were a couple of minor discrepancies in what she had seen and what he had witnessed during their heated dreams, any two people experiencing the same dream would surely each see things a little differently. He had to try to convince her once and for all that they were meant for each other.

  * * *

  Ellie couldn’t sleep after she hung up on Brett. She wasn’t an unreasonable person, but she didn’t plan to date just anyone as an experiment to see if she felt the same with him as with Brett. He had a good point, but what if she didn’t have any feelings for whatever other guy she dated? Just because she went out with someone didn’t mean she’d automatically begin fantasizing about him. That only happened when she really got to know the person. Like Fred Pippin, the wolf who had stuck her with the bill at the restaurant—though not for long.

  That had happened only a couple of months before she
and her sisters sold their last renovated Victorian inn and found this one. Which meant she hadn’t seen Fred for more than a year. She hadn’t dated anyone else when she arrived in Silver Town because she and her sisters were renovating the inn. Once that was done, they’d begun to join in pack activities, and Brett had made his interest in her abundantly clear. And she’d loved him for it.

  She had other things to deal with right now though.

  * * *

  Up super early the next morning, Ellie paced across the living room floor, waiting for Laurel to arrive so she could tell her about the other ghost. She suspected CJ was working a later shift today, or Laurel would have already been there. When Meghan woke, she headed straight for the kitchen and the coffeepot, glancing in Ellie’s direction with a look that said, Really? How long have you been up?

  “CJ must be working later.” Ellie couldn’t help being annoyed. Not that she wasn’t glad that Laurel and CJ could spend some extra time together, but she really wanted Laurel at the inn so they could deal with this ghostly business.

  “So how long have you been up?” Meghan took a sip of her favorite mocha.

  “Three hours.” But that was because Ellie was always an early riser. Meghan could sleep until noon with no trouble at all.

  “Any more piano playing?”

  “No. Maybe she got the message last night that if she doesn’t behave, she’ll be out of our place and back at Brett’s.” Ellie fixed herself another mug of lavender green tea.

  “I hear Laurel pulling up now,” Meghan said, but she’d let Ellie be the one to tell Laurel what was going on.

  Ellie put her mug on the marble kitchen counter and hurried out the door. “Laurel, we have a real problem.”

  Her older sister frowned when she learned what the trouble was. “Why didn’t you call me last night and tell me?”

  “We didn’t want to upset CJ about this if we could take care of it ourselves.” Ellie walked back into the house with Laurel. “What if it isn’t even their great-aunt?”

  Laurel gave her a get-real look.

  “I don’t believe it could be anyone else,” Ellie said. “Still, I need that photo from Brett to verify that’s who the ghost is.”

  “I can’t keep this from CJ if it is his great-aunt.”

  “Well, if she died of natural causes and the brothers don’t see the ghost, what difference does it make? We could send her on her way without the guys ever being aware of her.”

  “And if the piano starts playing when one of them is here and we have to explain we already knew about it?” Laurel walked with Ellie into the kitchen and made herself a peppermint mocha.

  Meghan nodded sagely.

  “Can we just hold off until I see the photo of their great-aunt?” Ellie asked. “If it’s not her—”

  “All right. If it is, I’m talking to CJ about it.”

  “Fine.” Ellie understood where her sister was coming from, but she really wished she could send the ghost on her merry way and not involve any of the brothers.

  Laurel shared the information CJ had given her about Jake’s dream-mating experience.

  “So he was obsessed with his mate before he saw her again.”

  “Yeah, he couldn’t eat or sleep and dropped out of pack activities. He was a mess. He kept searching for her, desperate to find her. They were really worried about him,” Laurel said.

  Ellie wasn’t feeling like that, but then again, she was dating Brett, not absent from his life. It made her wonder if what Brett suggested would really work. She wasn’t sure what was going on between the two of them. Maybe he’d just guessed what she was wearing last night. Tonight, she’d wear something different. Wouldn’t that tell her something was really up between them if they discussed their dreams and he got her outfit right again? Wouldn’t that indicate something more than just normal dreaming about each other?

  She swept her hair back into a tail and tied it off.

  After finishing their drinks, she and her sisters headed to the inn to add decorative touches to the basement rooms and then finish with the Halloween lights. Ellie knew Laurel and Meghan were just as wary as she was, listening and watching for any sign of ghosts.

  Ellie let out her breath in an exasperated way, unable to keep her secret from her sisters. Especially since she decided to go through with the plan. “Brett suggested that the way to figure out if we’re dream mated for sure is for me to date others. And that’s just what I’m going to do.”

  * * *

  Brett had tried to get ahold of Ellie this morning, but she wouldn’t answer her phone or return his calls. He had to turn in a news story on Silver Town Ski Resort’s new trails and new ski lodge, both opening with the first good snowfall. Otherwise, he would have run over to the house or inn to see her in person. Because his brother Eric’s new pack and a couple of other wolf packs liked to come to the ski resort in winter and run on the closed trails at night, Silver Town had needed more accommodations. Brett had worried that the added rooms at the lodge would impact the MacTire sisters’ Victorian inn and the Hastings’ bed-and-breakfast, but all the places were booked for the coming season and for Victorian Days. So it looked like that was no problem.

  After Ellie had hung up on him last night, Brett had left the bed and stayed up way too late searching through old photos, looking for one of his great-aunt Matilda. He finally found one he really liked where she was seated at the piano with him and his brothers gathered around her. He liked it best because it showed her at her piano, displaying the importance that her playing had to the family. He hadn’t stopped there but had made up a little blurb about her and put it in a glass-covered picture frame—one that matched the Victorian style of the inn. He hoped the sisters appreciated it, but he would be sure to tell them they could display it differently if they wanted to.

  He couldn’t wait to see Ellie tonight. Hopefully, she wasn’t serious about seeing anyone else, though the fact that she didn’t answer the phone didn’t bode well. Maybe she was really busy. He sighed. If she went out with a couple of different wolves, she would realize Brett was the one for her. Then they could get on with what was meant to be—the mating between the two of them. He thought her dating could still be a sound idea. If he could just let go of the notion she was dating anyone else but him.

  For now, he was having lunch with CJ at the Silver Town Tavern, hoping to learn more about the ghost named Chrissy.

  Like most of the town’s business establishments, the tavern was all decorated for Halloween. Everyone had fun with that. Silva, Sam’s mate, had probably done all the decoration both here at the tavern and at her tea shop, but Brett hadn’t visited the tea shop yet, so he couldn’t say for sure. Here, everything was skeletons and special bottles of liquor: Spider Cider, Bewitching Brew, and Haunted Ale, which suited the tavern. Sam was making special Halloween drinks for the adult crowd, while Silva planned to give away treats at the tavern door Halloween night since her tea shop was closed in the evenings.

  When Brett saw CJ enter the tavern, he waved and his brother smiled and headed his way. “Did you order us Sam’s famous roast-beef sandwiches?”

  “Sure did,” Brett said.

  Sam brought them bottles of water. Towering over them, he narrowed his eyes, looking like an unhappy grizzly. “Hope Darien’s not going to approve of much more building in the area. I like the quaint feel of the town.”

  Sam always seemed like a rugged mountain man, but he was really a big teddy bear—unless anyone messed with Silva. He’d also been concerned about the town drawing too much of a human crowd. His tavern was open only to wolves so they could visit without worrying about what they might say.

  “Nope,” Brett said. “We all voted on the new trails and the ski lodge. No other plans in the works.”

  “Well, maybe a movie theater and an ice cream shop.” CJ twisted off the cap of his chilled bottled wate
r. “That’s what all the teens have been pushing for.”

  “The kids want a drive-in. Darien and Lelandi aren’t going for it,” Brett said.

  “Ice cream and a theater, no problem. Just don’t need any other taverns or anyone to compete against my mate’s tea room,” Sam growled.

  “No problem. Everyone wants to have variety. So if anything else moves in, it has to be something that doesn’t compete with existing businesses. And it has to be wolf run.” Brett loved the way Darien and Lelandi ran the town. They were good about ensuring that everyone’s vote counted. Even the teens’. They also let the younger kids participate as a learning experience for when they had a real say in pack politics.

  Sam nodded and returned to the counter to finish making their sandwiches.

  “So, CJ, have you ever spied the ghost named Chrissy at the inn?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ellie told me about her. She said she and her sisters thought you’d seen her.”

  Sam delivered their sandwiches, fries, and pickles, then returned to the bar.

  “Have you?” CJ asked.

  “Nope. And I have to admit I have a hard time believing in a ghost. I’ve seen lights going on and off in the attic room. I still feel that has something to do with the old wiring.”

  “Could be.”

  “What about that letter C that kept appearing on the wall in the lobby?” Brett figured that could be easily explained away too. Some oil-based paint that had bled into the wall and couldn’t be covered up.

  “Not sure about it. It comes and goes. So the ladies covered it up with one of Jake’s floral photos of the mountains and purple daisies in spring.”

  Brett had never actually seen the letter, but he felt there had to be a viable explanation for it. “So you’ve really never seen a ghost at the inn.”

  CJ leaned back against his chair. “I’ve seen…something. Or thought I’d seen something. Don’t tell Sarandon or Eric, all right? Just a shadow, and then it’s gone. I’m sure it’s just car headlights casting shadows through the front windows or something.”