Little Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page B

the back of his hand that didn’t raise his hackles.
    “No such thing as privacy around here, but there’s no such thing as judgment either. You get used to it,” Carl commented without looking up from his reading. “You’d better, anyway.”
    Robin’s Egg gave a delicate shrug. “Privacy is more of a human notion,” she added, then patted Tim again before pointedly withdrawing her hand. “Wouldn’t do to upset him any more.” She smiled and took Tim’s empty plate with her when she left.
    He didn’t remember cleaning it, but he must have. He licked his lips, feeling full and confused and not any less tired than he’d felt before.
    “Big news day.” Carl shook his paper again. “Everybody and their mama was out last night, causing all kinds of mischief. There wasn’t a were in town that didn’t have to be, except you and maybe the sheriff, from the sound of it.”
    “From the—” Tim started to ask but caught himself before he could make Carl’s day by admitting yet another aspect of were life that he didn’t understand. “The sheriff was working last night?” He scowled. “He worked all day yesterday. He shouldn’t have worked last night too.” Tim was more agitated than he needed to be. A few people in the café glanced at him. Tim couldn’t see much of Carl’s face because of the hat Carl usually wore, a baseball hat with gold leaves and numbers embroidered on it, but he assumed Carl was keeping his head down because Tim was embarrassing himself. “I mean, that’s his business.”
    Tim was the world’s smallest werewolf and the world’s biggest loser, fact. But Carl didn’t jump all over the chance to make fun of him. He was still pretending to read the paper.
    “The man takes on too much.” Carl made an old man noise. “Between his job and the strays like you, it’s no wonder he had nothing planned. Damn shame if you ask me. If I looked like that, I wouldn’t have so much free time.”
    Tim was actually hearing this. “Carl, are you trying to tell me that if you looked like the sheriff, you’d be knee-deep in pussy? And you a happily married man.” He couldn’t believe he said that out loud, but anything was better than imagining the sheriff thinking of Tim as just another stray, or the sheriff picking up the dozens of men and/or women who hit on him daily.
    Carl ignored Tim’s feigned shock and looked right into Tim’s eyes. “But the sheriff isn’t like me. He isn’t like most everyone.”
    “He is considerably hotter,” Tim agreed, too tired to argue.
    Carl’s fierce eyebrows got even fiercer as he frowned. “Boy, I am starting to wonder if you’re worth it. Stop pretending to be slow.”
    “Hey.” Tim huffed at him, more offended than he probably should have been for something Carl was saying to bug him. But Carl kept on frowning, as if he was waiting for Tim to get a clue or grow a pair, until Tim finally scratched his nose and tried to sniff out what it was Carl was trying to tell him.
    All he got was coffee and newspaper and irritation , with a mix of old man smells. He finally rolled his eyes. “You’re very interested in his love life, Carl. Got a crush I should know about?” It wasn’t as much of a joke as Tim wanted it to be, not when he was fighting off a snarl, as if some part of him was pissed about the possibility of anyone else chasing after the sheriff, even an old man with a wedding ring on his finger.
    Not that Tim was chasing after the sheriff; he wasn’t stupid.
    Carl harrumphed , distinctly unamused. “That smart mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble someday.”
    Tim hummed in agreement. “You are not the first one to tell me that.”
    “Good for deflecting things you don’t want to talk about, I bet.” Carl went back to staring at the paper. Tim was about to call him on his whole “pretending to read the paper while harassing Tim” act when Carl took a noisy sip of his coffee and glanced at him again. “The sheriff is