Buck Naked Read online

  “What? Not before you look at my books, surely,” Fiona protested. “You promised you would, you know,” she added reproachfully.

  Sadie sighed. “Yes, I guess I did. It’s just been a long day. But all right—I’ll take a quick peek. Where do you keep them?”

  “Back here, my dear.” Fiona motioned for her to come around the counter.

  Sadie followed her around into a back storeroom of sorts. If she’d thought the front of the pharmacy was cluttered, it was nothing compared to the back, which looked like a hoarder of epic proportions and very strange tastes lived there.

  Shelves and cabinets were overflowing with all kinds of dried herbs, jars, and bottles filled with colorful liquids. There were piles of animal bones, hooves, claws, and antlers in different heaps and large, dusty books stacked on almost every available surface.

  The room looked like the mind of a mad alchemist but Fiona seemed completely at home in it, weaving around the different piles and leaving Sadie to trail after her.

  “Back here.” Fiona led her to a small, surprisingly neat desk at the very back corner of the large room. “I try to keep my workspace uncluttered,” she remarked, obviously seeing the surprise on Sadie’s face. “Even though all my different materials take up a lot of space.” She sighed. “I wish I had a young person to help me catalog all of it—I’m kept so busy mixing and compounding medicines I barely have time for anything else.”

  “That must be . . . difficult.” Sadie settled herself at the desk. “Your books?”

  “Here they are.” Fiona produced a tiny silver key hung on a long chain around her neck and unlocked one of the desk drawers. Then she took out a large black ledger and laid it on the desk. “See what you can make of that. I do my best but come tax time, nothing seems to add up.”

  Indeed, it didn’t. Just looking at the straggling columns of numbers with multiple blotches and scribbles made Sadie’s aching head hurt even worse. It appeared that Fiona ordered her exotic ingredients from around the world and many of the amounts in the book were listed in yuan, dinars, pounds, euros, pesos, lire, kronor, and rupees, not to mention a few currencies Sadie didn’t even recognize.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at last, after paging through the book and trying to make heads or tails of it. “But this is going to take some time, and it’s getting late. Do you mind if I start fresh tomorrow?”

  “Of course dear, just come over and get the books first thing tomorrow morning, and you can work on them in your office.” Fiona smiled brightly at her.

  “Thank you.” Sadie smiled back gratefully. Despite the crazy state of Fiona’s books, at least she now had one client. It made her day seem less terrible, even if only by a little. She stood up from the small desk and her head throbbed.

  Sadie put a hand to her temple and swayed on her feet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a bad headache.

  “Oh my—are you all right?” Fiona looked concerned.

  “I just have the worst headache right now,” Sadie rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Do you think I could get some ibuprofen before I go?”

  “Oh my dear—ibuprofen won’t help with that headache.” Fiona shook her head and made a tsking sound. “But I know just what will—come with me.”

  She led Sadie back up to the front of the pharmacy and handed her a plain plastic bottle filled with green-and-brown pills.

  “Are these some kind of, um, new headache cure?” Sadie looked at them uncertainly. No matter how grateful she was to Fiona for being her one and only client, she still wasn’t sure she trusted the eccentric woman enough to take medicine she’d made up out of all the strange ingredients she’d seen in the back room of the Cougarville Chemist.

  “Oh my no—they aren’t for you to take!” Fiona looked shocked at the idea. “No, my dear—these are for your neighbor, Mathis.”

  “What?” Sadie stared at the green-and-brown pills blankly. “But . . . if they’re his medicine, why did you give them to me?”

  “Why, so you could bring them to him of course. You will, won’t you? Please do a favor for an old lady.” As she spoke the words, Fiona suddenly seemed elderly and frail, though Sadie would have sworn she was ageless just a moment ago.

  “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I mean Mathis . . . he doesn’t seem to like me very much.” Although at least he hadn’t attacked her or eyed her like she was a prime cut of beef, like nearly every other adult male she’d met in town so far.

  Fiona looked up at her with those large, dark eyes.

  “Please, Sadie dear. I promised him I’d bring them to him myself but my lumbago is acting up terribly.” She put a hand to her lower back. “A storm must be coming soon—my spine always lets me know when there’s a big one on the way.”

  “Well . . .” Sadie really didn’t want to do this particular errand—confronting her huge, menacing next-door neighbor so wasn’t on her wish list right now, especially with her head pounding and her stomach growling.

  But when Fiona looked at her like that, somehow she felt she couldn’t say no.

  “All right,” she said reluctantly. “If you’re sure he won’t get upset at me for handling his meds. I mean, isn’t it a breach of privacy or something like that?”

  “Oh, everybody knows everybody else’s business in Cougarville.” Fiona made a shooing gesture with one bangled and beringed hand. Now that Sadie had agreed to do the errand, she had straightened up and was looking as ageless as ever. “Go on—it’ll be okay.”

  Sadie sighed unhappily.

  “All right. I’ll drop them off on my way home and see you tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, dear. I knew I could count on you.” Fiona smiled. “And now if you don’t mind, I need to do a little tidying up before I leave for the night.”

  She ushered Sadie out of the shop. It wasn’t until the door was shut and locked behind her that Sadie realized she still hadn’t gotten anything for her headache.

  Mathis frowned as he turned the thick rib eye he was cooking for his supper on the indoor gas grill built into his stove. Some people thought herbivores only ate rabbit food and that was true—when they were in their Shifted forms. But as a man, he liked a good steak and baked potato as much as the carnivore Shifters did.

  Everything was almost done but his mind wasn’t really on eating. Mostly because he couldn’t get the curvy little Juvie from next door out of his head.

  You gave her location to the worst male in town, a small, accusing voice whispered in the back of his head. Hell, you practically handed her to Keller on a silver platter.

  She’ll be all right, he argued with the voice uneasily. I told Keller to back off and I put her under my protection.

  Right—and look how great you’re doing protecting her, the voice pointed out. She’s back there alone in town, just down the street from the fucking Cougar’s Den. For all you know, Keller’s already got her and you’re just cooking supper like it’s no big deal.

  The little voice made a compelling case. What was he doing here, going about his normal business when Sadie might be hurt or in trouble? Of course he still didn’t like her, but he had a moral obligation to follow up on his vow of protection.

  With a muffled curse, he plated the steak and turned off the grill and the oven, where he had a large potato baking. He was just going to have to go check on her—his conscience wouldn’t let him rest until he did.

  He headed for the door, grabbing his jacket along the way—it was getting chilly at night now that autumn was really setting in. Normally that was a good thing—Shifting in cold weather hurt less than Shifting in the heat, although it was pretty damn painful no matter when you did it. But this year the colder temperature marked the beginning of his rut and if those damn pills Fiona gave him didn’t help anymore—

  His thought was interrupted when he opened the carved oak panel of his front door and saw Sadie standing there, her hand raised as if to knock.

  She looked awful.