Little Red and the Wolf Read online

  Who said being eaten by the big bad wolf was a bad thing?

  Maizie Hood struggles to keep her bakery turning a profit, her landlord from evicting her, and her dear Granny in a nursing facility. Wrestling with the decision to sell Gran’s cottage is hard enough. The last thing she needs is her childhood big-bad-wolf nightmares turning into real-life adult fantasies. Sexy businessman Gray Lupo’s sudden interest just makes matters worse. Is he the answer to her problems, or just a wolf in gentleman’s Armani?

  Since his wife was killed twenty-one years ago, Gray’s life has been focused on two things: protecting the pack and avoiding the grown daughter of his wife’s killers. When it becomes clear he can’t do one without compromising the other, Gray finds playing “big bad wolf” to Maizie Hood’s “Little Red” is a role he enjoys far more than he expected.

  A real bad wolf’s attack on Maizie changes everything. Gray can’t deny the pull she has on his instincts—and his heart. Suddenly he finds himself taking on a role he never thought he’d want, as her protector and mate. Until the truth about his connection to her nightmarish past comes to light…

  Warning: This book contains cookies, pastries, pies, hot-guy-on-girl sex and animalistic passion, all for zero calories. Enjoy!

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520

  Macon GA 31201

  Little Red and the Wolf

  Copyright © 2010 by Alison Paige

  ISBN: 978-1-60504-902-1

  Edited by Anne Scott

  Cover by Kanaxa

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: February 2010

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  Little Red and the Wolf

  Alison Paige

  Dedication

  A special thanks to the wonderful people at Samhain who make their authors feel like part of a great family. Thanks to Anne Scott for all her hard work and patience, and thanks to my family who understand it’s not a competition between them and my writing, it’s proof of a deep love of both.

  Chapter One

  “Wolf.” Granny leaned into the table, her liver-spotted hand resting on Maizie’s. “You hear me, Little Red? The man’s a beast.”

  “I hear ya, Gran.” Maizie glanced over her shoulder at the Armani suit strolling toward the front doors of the Green Acres Nursing Home. “He’s a wolf. Got it.”

  The word iced through her brain. Maizie didn’t like wolves or dogs or pretty much anything four legged and furry. But pushing the nightmare images of fur and fangs from her mind wasn’t hard when her brain had better things to entertain it.

  Salt-and-pepper hair curling over his collar had Maizie guessing Granny’s wolf-in-an-Italian-suit was about forty-five, maybe fifty. No rings or tan lines on his fingers, and the sprinkle of dark hair over sun-kissed skin contrasted nicely with the stark white of his shirt cuffs.

  Smoother, taut skin on his hands bounced his age down to forty-five, maybe forty-two. The expensive suit jacket hid the details of his ass—not that she was checking him out, strictly diagnostic. Although if she were checking him out, she’d be intrigued by the way his slacks cut a fine line down to the gray shine of his shoes.

  He stretched a hand toward the push-bar on the door, looked back as though he felt her watching.

  “Whoof.” Her reaction was purely chemical, instinct, no higher brain function needed. Heat flushed through her, burning her cheeks, wetting her panties.

  The man couldn’t be a day over thirty-five with ice-blue eyes that found hers as though he’d known exactly where to look before he’d turned. He paused, his hand resting on the push-bar, and stared at her.

  Reflex nagged her to break the eye contact. She didn’t. There was something about the way he stared at her, as though daring her to shy away. Shy was so not Maizie’s thing. She lifted her chin, feeling her expression turn hard, confident.

  Nostrils flared, making the trim shape of his nose seem more delicate. His face was all sharp angles and hard lines, a squarish jaw and a gently rounded chin to match his nose. His brows were black, thick, just like his lashes, and set off the contrast with those pale blue eyes.

  He was clean-shaven, although he’d probably look just as good with day-old beard stubble. From this angle his hair appeared more silvery-gray than speckled, with thick waves that rolled back from a scowl-wrinkled forehead.

  Just when she thought she might have pushed her bold stare a second too long, his brow smoothed and a faint, lopsided smile dimpled his right cheek.

  Great googly-moogly, his mouth was too perfect. If he was a wolf, she’d let him gobble her up. Maizie stiffened, worrying her thoughts might show on her face. She turned around, ending the sex-charged staring contest. The back of her neck tingled like thrumming fingers rippling across her shoulders and down her back.

  He was still watching her, she knew it, but she’d had enough. No sense toying with the idea of something she didn’t have the time to finish. There were only so many hours in a day and she’d already wasted more seconds than she could spare on Gran’s sexy silver-haired wolf-man.

  Every minute was accounted for, a half-hour visit with Gran then back to the shop. And her neglected libido would not steal another second of it.

  Maizie knew the moment he left, the warm tingle of his stare vanishing from her skin. Good. What’d a man like that even want with her grandmother? “So why’s he a wolf?”

  She hated eating up their time together discussing him, but Gran was getting up there in age and it wouldn’t take much to confuse her, take advantage. Maizie wouldn’t let that happen, no matter how sexy the guy was.

  “Because he’s after the cottage, of course.” Granny nudged Maizie’s plate closer. She’d been feeding her peanut butter sandwiches since she was seven. Now she made sure the nursing home staff had one ready the moment Maizie walked in the door.

  Didn’t matter that she wasn’t hungry and the things were like a gazillion calories. Gran said eat, she ate. Old habit from an obedient childhood. Maizie picked up a triangle half and took a bite. Besides, peanut butter sandwiches had always been her comfort food.

  “No one wants the cottage, Gran.” The two-bedroom hovel had only been one good storm away from being a pile of rubble when she was a kid. It hadn’t gotten any better since they’d both moved out.

  “Bah, course not. It’s the land. He wants the dang land. Gonna tear down all my trees and build one of them malls. You hear me?”

  “Uh, sure, Gran. I hear you. The big bad wolf is after your land.” Maizie swallowed the knot of emotion in her throat and shifted her attention to the wicker basket she’d set on the table beside her, pretending to sift through its contents. She didn’t want Granny to see the tears welling in her eyes. The cottage was in the middle of nowhere. No one would want to build a mall there.

  As good days and bad days went, this was still one of the better days for Granny. She called them “spells” when she described them to Maizie. Days when the world was a whole different place where everyday things got twisted in her head and memories, real or imagined, mixed with the reality
of present day. The worst part was when the spells passed and Granny remembered—everything.

  “I brought you some of my chocolate-chip cookies,” Maizie said, hoping to pull Granny out of her fantasy world. “The ones mixed with white chocolate and almonds. You still bribing Nurse Ron for extra time on the back veranda?”

  Granny’s face wrinkled, her bright eyes wider, confused. She nodded. Did she know she was locked inside one of her spells right then? Maizie didn’t want to think about it. She owed this woman everything. Making her feel as comfortable as possible was the least she could do.

  “I brought some of those cinnamon sugar twists Clare at the front desk likes. And two boxes of the gingerbread cookies so you have something to offer your room guests.” Maizie busied herself unloading everything she’d brought from her Pittsburgh bakery onto the table.

  “He said I should sell him the land. I remember…” Granny’s voice wobbled. “He said I was being selfish holding on to it. That you needed the money.”

  Maizie snapped her attention to Granny. “Who said that?”

  “I…I’m not sure. Riddly? I think it was my Riddly.”

  “No, Gran. It wasn’t Dad. Riddly Hood’s been dead for twenty-one years. He died in a car accident when I was seven. Both him and Mom. You remember that, don’t you?”

  Granny blinked, the droopy skin of her eyelids making her confused expression painfully adorable.

  “It’s okay, Gran. I forget things sometimes too.” Maizie reached over and smoothed the white wisps of hair framing Granny’s face toward the neat little bun at the top of her head. She straightened the edges of her cardigan and fastened the top pearl button.

  Everything about Granny seemed so fragile, so unlike the woman who’d taken her in, raised her, given her everything. Granny should’ve had the last twenty-one years to focus on herself. She’d raised her son. But she’d set her own needs aside and raised Maizie anyway. By the time Maizie could fend for herself, age had begun toying with Granny’s mind. It wasn’t fair.

  Confusion vanished, Granny’s bright-blue eyes turned steely with determination. “You need money, dear? Tell Granny. I’ve got a little something in the coffee can on top of the fridge. Take what you need, Little Red. That’s why it’s there.”

  Maizie squeezed Granny’s hand, gently, careful not to harm her brittle bones or bruise the velvet soft skin. “No, Gran. I’m good. The bakery’s finally turning a profit this year.”

  It was half true. The bakery she’d opened two years ago, Red Hood Bakery, a play on her flaming hair color and nickname, was in the black for the first time, mostly. Maizie’s personal finances, however, were a brighter red than her hair. Nursing homes, good ones, weren’t cheap.

  In a perfect world Maizie would’ve kept Granny with her and cared for her on her own. The world is far from perfect though, and Granny’s medical needs, her hatred of the city and the time demands of a new business made a nursing home the best and only option for both of them.

  Of course that didn’t stop Maizie from brutalizing herself with guilt. She’d bankrupt herself, and the bakery if she had to, to make sure Granny had the best care. With any luck, the bank would approve her loan application and none of it would be a concern anymore. The truth was, selling the cottage she’d grown up in and the hundred and three acres it sat on would solve so many problems.

  “When’s the last time anyone checked on the cottage?” Maizie asked.

  “Oh, my handsome silver wolf checked in on it just the other day. Everything’s fine. He said he put fresh violets in the vase on the sill. They’re my favorite, you know?” Granny’s smile bunched the extra skin on her cheeks, a flush of color making her look ten years younger.

  Maizie hissed an oath under her breath. Just like that, Granny was lost to one of her spells again. At least this one Maizie knew. This wolf, Granny’s big silver wolf, had been a part of her childhood, a character in her bedtime stories. Granny seemed to forget he was make-believe sometimes. Maizie could play along though and still have a relatively sane visit with her grandmother.

  “What else did your silver wolf say? He didn’t air out the place by any chance? Maybe check the gutters and the cellar, make sure no critters had moved in.”

  Maizie hadn’t had time to stop by and check on the old place for months. Surrounded by Granny’s hundred acres and the neighbor’s four hundred acres, the little house was nestled chimney deep in dense forest. All manner of wild things tended to take over in no time.

  Granny nodded, her smile never faltering. “Yes, dear. He checked everything. My big silver wolf knows how important that place is to me. Says he’s keeping it just how I left it for when I move back.”

  Maizie swallowed the sudden knot in her throat. She’d had no idea Granny believed she’d return to the cottage one day. “Gran…”

  “Relax, dear. You’ll blow a fuse. We both know living in that cottage is too much for me like this. I can barely take a tinkle on my own. He’s just a tease, is all. Tempting me. I like it. Makes me laugh.”

  “Makes you laugh, huh? You always told me he was a big bad wolf. Gave me nightmares with those stories about how he’d eat me up if I went playing too deep into the forest. Told me all about his great big ears and razor-sharp teeth…”

  “Oh, that. Well I suppose he could’ve mistaken you for a tasty fawn or a fox or something, but mostly I just didn’t want you wandering off too far and pestering the poor thing.”

  “So it was a parenting tactic? Nice.” Maizie squeezed a playful wink at Granny. “Maybe I’ll go out there and see what’s so special about this handsome silver wolf that you’d terrorize my childhood to protect him.”

  “No, no, I don’t think that’s wise. He’s decent and polite, but there’s still a wild beast in him. Don’t ever forget that, Little Red. No. It’s best you just leave him be. Besides, you hardly lived your childhood in terror. You were the most fearless little thing I’d ever seen. Worse than your father. I can’t think of anything that could shake you, except…”

  Maizie’s heart stuttered. The two of them fell silent. She knew where Granny’s thoughts had gone, same as her own. The night of her parents’ death. The car accident. The haunting eyes a luminous green through the windshield. There and then not. It was too dark, too much rain. Her father couldn’t see, couldn’t stop in time. He swerved, but it was too late. The vicious roll down the embankment was inevitable, unstoppable.

  How had she survived? She didn’t know. Couldn’t remember. But she remembered those eyes.

  Maizie still saw them long after the image of the aftermath had faded, the broken body of a wolf pinned beneath the car, her parents in the front seat, their faces and bodies cut and battered beyond recognition, glass everywhere, twisted metal, the smell of burnt rubber and gasoline, the coppery taste of her own blood in her mouth. Wild green eyes had tormented her for years. God, she hated that wolf.

  “Yeah, well. That was a long time ago.” Maizie didn’t want to remember anymore.

  “Yes, it was dear. You’ve come so far since then.”

  Maizie forced a smile and steered the topic away from those dark memories. “And here you are still talking about that mysterious silver wolf coming around here, making you laugh, tempting you. C’mon, Gran, what’s he tempting you with? Is it something that’ll make me blush?”

  Granny didn’t bat an eye. “With becoming one of them, of course. That’s the only way this old body would ever make it back to the cottage, isn’t it?”

  “One of them?”

  “Yes, sweetheart, a lycanthrope. A shape shifter.” She sighed at Maizie’s continued confusion. “A werewolf, child. A werewolf.”

  “Annette, it’s Mr. Lupo.” Gray adjusted the BlackBerry against his ear.

  “Yes, Mr. Lupo?”

  “Get me everything there is on a Maizie Hood. And I mean everything, business and personal. I want it all. We should have her numbers on file with her grandmother Ester’s.” Hell, he’d helped Ester file for the
kid’s social security number when she’d realized Maizie’s parents hadn’t. Back then it hadn’t been automatic.

  “Maizie? The little girl from the—”

  “Everything, Annette.”

  “Yes, Mr. Lupo.”

  Gray punched the disconnect button with his thumb and slipped the wide phone into his breast pocket. He stared out the darkened privacy window of his limo at nothing as they pulled from the driveway of the Green Acres Nursing Home.

  Jeezus, he still couldn’t believe it was her. She’d changed so much, matured…beautifully. But her scent was the same, exactly the same, despite having taken a second to place it. Twenty-one years was a long time, even for him.

  Gray shook his head, rubbed the weariness from his eyes with both hands. Maybe he was imagining it, the smell of broken trees, of sap, of gasoline and burnt rubber. He could still smell the blood in the air around her, the earth and rain. He could still taste the tears, hers, and his.

  He had to be imagining it. His enhanced olfactory sense was good, but not twenty-one years good. Still, seeing Maizie Hood just now proved he’d made the right decision all those years ago. The memories swamped over him like quicksand, pulling him under so he could hardly breathe.

  Back then, it would’ve killed him. He was right to ask her grandmother, Ester, to keep her away, at least keep her from venturing into his part of the forest. He just couldn’t bear her scent, the scent of death. She was told to stick to the paths, and he avoided them. It’d worked. Until today.

  Gray snatched the newspaper from the pocket on the car wall. He leaned back, unfolded and refolded it with noisy crisp snaps. The ink was still moist, not so much that humans could smell, but they felt it on their fingers just as he did. It was a good feeling, a good smell, mundane. Innocuous.

  He turned to the real-estate section first—who’s buying, what’s selling. Business foremost in his thoughts, Maizie Hood would fade away into the dark recesses of his mind where he wanted her. He scanned the listings.