Wolf Around the Corner Read online

  Praise for

  Wolf Around The Corner

  “I love Beauty and the Beast stories! Of course, you all already know I love wolf shifter stories too. When I saw the blurb for Wolf Around the Corner, my heart skipped a beat. A combination of both? YES!! I was not disappointed. This was a lovely book with lovable characters (except that dick…Dick), a plausible plot…ok maybe that whole shifting into a wolf thing…but I can certainly see a town coming together to save an historical building, and a sweet and sexy romance.” - Kenna, Joyfully Jay Reviews

  “This was a very cute love story.” - Tara Fox Hall, Author

  “I liked the characters Frank and Tom. The author conveyed the different personalities well, and the changes they both went through as the story progressed.” - Penumbra, Goodreads

  “Wow, now this was something refreshingly different from the (entirely too many shut up quit looking at me like that) werewolf books that I have read.” - Duncan Husky, Tom Brady's Blog

  “Frank. I adored him. He’s shy, introverted, socially anxious, part of which is likely his personality and part of which is his experience living with Galen’s syndrome. His parents kicked him out because of the syndrome and he has a lifetime of rejection due to his condition. Very few people know about it and a fewer number of those accept it. Frank is so very relatable as he handles his awkward meetings with Tom, someone Frank has a crush on...” - Issa, Goodreads

  “I loved seeing these two find the love they have been missing but also a place where they could build a life together.” - Ali, Goodreads

  “I’ve been reading paranormals for many years and thought there were no new twists on werewolves or vampires. I’m happy to say Aidee Ladnier proved me wrong. In Wolf Around the Corner, we meet Tom, a less-than-successful actor on Broadway, and Frank, who meets the definition of werewolf. They come together on a play, but what elevates the story is two things. The first is Tom’s initial natural response to meeting a werewolf and then overcoming that response. The second is the author’s very clever explanation for the existence of werewolves in the modern world. (Hint: the reason is not modern at all.) These two are surrounded by some fun secondary characters who make the small town of Waycroft Falls come alive. An enjoyable read of redemption for several of the characters.” - Susan, Goodreads

  “This is a great twist on a beloved fairy tale and a nice blend of science and fantasy. I have only read a few stories written by this talented author, but each one has impressed me with her imagination and talent for creating a compelling tale and I look forward to reading even more of her titles.” - Elf, The Reading Addict Blog

  “This story is unexpected for me. It takes a sensitive topic in a plausible manner, that is if being a werewolf was real, and creates a lovely solution.” - La Crimson Femme Blog

  Wolf Around The Corner

  Copyright © June 2018 by Aidee Ladnier

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Aidee Ladnier Books

  www.aideeladnier.com

  Editor: Kierstin Cherry

  Cover Artist: Natasha Snow

  Published in the United States of America

  Publisher’s Note: This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  2nd Edition

  Previously published by Loose Id, 2017

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Clay B. and Steven R., who both generously shared their knowledge of the theater. My gratitude is not an act.

  Chapter One

  The dust rose in a swirl around Tom, disturbed by his footsteps. A few stray boxes were clustered on the floor at the far end of the room. Tom fingered a curl of faded paper on the wall beside him. As he studied the scuffed hardwood floor, the musty smell of disuse tickled his nose, and he held back a sneeze.

  “So? It’s a great space, right?”

  Tom jerked, startled by the voice behind him. His sister, Annie, stood at the top of the stairs, gazing at the bare third floor of the bookstore. She hugged her arms around herself before giving him a pleading look. He’d never been able to say no to that face. Not even when she stole the last Oreo in the sleeve.

  “Are you envisioning concerts? Recitals?” The hardwood echoed under his feet as Tom walked to the center of the room.

  Annie followed and spun in a circle, her arms floating wide. “I was thinking about a play.”

  Tom’s mouth pinched. Just as he suspected. Why else would his big sister drag him into the bookstore’s storage area? A part of him wanted to dash back down the stairs and onto the next plane for New York. He’d come home to get away from the theater, take a break from acting, settle into his own skin again instead of a fictional shell. Not that playing chorus parts in sketchy off-Broadway musicals taxed his acting skills much.

  He considered the weathered walls and the antique floral pattern on the peeling paper. Starting a production from the ground up would be costly, time-consuming, and it would require commitment and enthusiasm—it was daunting.

  Tom glanced back at his sister, watching her run a hand along the windowsill. He swallowed the uncertainty that burned at the back of his throat. He wasn’t ready to dash her dreams like his had been.

  The floor creaked as Tom strode across it, measuring it upstage and downstage, left to right. He imagined all the eager faces crowded up to the edge of the performance space.

  If Annie could build a small thrust stage with a tiny backstage and wings, the bulk of the action would take place right there with the audience. Tom exhaled. Blocking would be tricky, but on the plus side, set design would be minimal.

  “It’ll be tight.”

  “You’ll do it then?” Annie’s grin gleamed predatory.

  Tom held up his hands. “Whoa. I said nothing about me doing a play. Who’s your director? What play are you doing?”

  Annie tilted her head to the side. “You’re the Broadway actor. I know you’re living the glamorous life in New York, but this would be good experience. John, Marcie, and I would love to spend a little time with you since you’re in between shows. Haven’t you ever thought of directing?”

  Tom’s stomach sank to his knees at her words. He thought about his wonderful life in New York, squatting on the couch at his friend Micah’s apartment after breaking his lease on the nightmare loft with no hot water and a hole in the bathroom ceiling the size of a refrigerator. He thought about the dead-end email marketing job he took to pay the bills because callbacks were few, never on Broadway, and sometimes unpaid.

  Annie didn’t know about that. He’d been too ashamed to tell her.

  Tom eyeballed the scuffed hardwood blanched by the bare bulbs dotting the ceiling. Creating this theater space was important to Annie. It meant something to her. And this could be his opportunity to regroup, to fill himself up again with home and family, real life, before he attacked New York again. Only an idiot wouldn’t take it.

  He flashed his casting call smile.

  “Yeah, sure. I can do something with this. A good director can use a parking lot to stage a play in if they need to.”

  Annie’s wrinkled forehead smoothed at his words.

  “As long as it can b
ring in a few more dollars to keep us out of arrears. Dick Majors is twirling his mustache at the thought of our mortgage foreclosure so he can put a strip mall on this spot.”

  Tom rolled his eyes. Dick Majors had been a dick ever since kindergarten. In retaliation for his parents saddling him with the moniker Richard Majors, Dick had gone out of his way to live up to it. It was a shame that being a dick had gotten him as far as it had.

  Tom grabbed Annie in a one-arm hug.

  “Don’t worry. I can whip up something that will draw the crowds. You’ll be out of the red by opening night.”

  Annie sighed. “We don’t have to pay all the mortgage on the first night. We just need enough to keep the store and to help save this old place.” She looked up at the rafters. “It’s such a beautiful example of mid-nineteenth-century Greek revival architecture.”

  “You’ve been practicing your historic preservation speech again?” Tom hip checked her playfully.

  “Maybe.” Annie smoothed down her skirt. “If the town council declared the building a historic site, it would be a no-brainer. But since that’s not a given, if we can establish the upper floor as a performance venue, we might have a chance at saving her. We don’t have enough people in town to support the shop on author signings alone.” She craned up to kiss his cheek.

  “You’re the best little brother ever, you know.” She pulled out of his embrace and straightened her shirttails over the long crinkly skirt that brushed her ankles. “I need to get back downstairs. Here’s the key to the upper floor.”

  Annie handed him a heavy old-fashioned key with a heart-shaped bow welded above the shank. Tom chuffed a laugh.

  “Is this the original key?”

  Annie’s eyes twinkled, and the deep divots in the sides of her cheeks framed her smiling mouth. “The one and only. When Jedidiah Banks and his investors built the first public library, he symbolically gave it to his wife as a present and used this key. They became the first librarians of Waycroft Falls.”

  Tom whistled. “I bet he could never top that gift.”

  “I think Jedidiah was happy here. He lost an arm in battle and fell in love with one of his nurses. He said what he thought was misfortune turned out to be his salvation.”

  “I never knew that.” Tom paced to the center of the room again, his footsteps echoing.

  Annie sighed. “Me neither. It wasn’t until I bought the building and renovated it for the bookstore that I found out the history of it. After all this place has been through, it would be a shame if Dick just tore it down.” Annie gazed out the windows into the inky evening. “I need to get home.” She lingered in the doorway. “I’m not doing your laundry just because you’re helping me out with this.”

  Tom chuckled, getting the hint. “Yeah. If I’m staying the summer, I need to find my own place.”

  “I hear Mrs. Anderson has an opening for someone willing to do maintenance and repairs for a furnished room.” Annie’s voice rose in a singsong.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Tom scrunched up his face as he remembered the sour woman and her quiet husband who sat behind them in church every Sunday of his childhood.

  “She’s not that bad. I know one of her other tenants, and she watches over him like an old biddy tending one of her chicks.” Annie turned, her skirt swirling around her. “You could use a little mothering after being on your own in New York.” She skipped back down the stairs.

  Tom crossed to one of the vertical beams in the large room. He thunked his forehead against it. He’d only be here for a few months. Waycroft Falls, Alabama held nothing for him anymore. He’d direct Annie’s play and be back in New York before August.

  Tom sighed. So why did that prospect not fill him with the giddy anticipation it had a few years ago? He shook off his melancholy and gripped the key tighter. Its smooth metal warmed in his fingers.

  The change would do him good. A few months in small-town America, and he could go back to the city refreshed and rejuvenated. And God knew it would be heaven having a room to himself again after sharing a tiny sublet with two other people.

  He hadn’t expected this opportunity to land in his lap when he visited, but now that it had, he would make it unforgettable.

  Chapter Two

  Frank rubbed at a spot of pain on his forehead. Why did he even try? This was the fourth month in a row he’d called and gotten a recorded message. His dad didn’t want to talk to him. The tone to prompt for a voice mail message rang in his ear.

  “Hey, Dad. It’s my monthly call.” Frank scrubbed a hand through his spiky hair. “I’m doing okay. No real change.” He picked at the paint on the windowsill. He should offer to repaint these for Mrs. Anderson.

  “I, um, watched a new documentary online last week. It was about early sport fishing in America. I…” Frank sighed. “I remember our fishing trips when I was younger. It was a lot of fun.”

  Frank touched the window glass as he gazed at the woods behind the apartments. In his mind’s eye, his instinctual, more animal side—his inner wolf—whined, wanting out. To run. To forget his pain and disappointment.

  It had been years since he’d left home. Months since he’d had more than a one-sided conversation with his dad’s voice mail. Frank’s family had moved on without him. His dad had tried early on to be there for Frank, but as time pushed forward, he’d drifted away. Dad had his hands full with his family at home. A new family. Frank was just a reminder of a wife who died and a son who didn’t fit in with his nice, normal household. Who reminded his father of the imperfection that lurked in his familial line.

  “Anyway, I hope you and Shirley are doing well. And tell Robbie and Joseph I miss them. I miss you all.” Frank’s voice came out husky, so he cleared it. “Call if you need anything. Bye.”

  He thumbed off the phone and threw it on the couch, where it bounced twice before it stilled. Frank ran his hands over his face and around to his neck, his gaze drawn again to the midafternoon sun swallowed up in the darkness of the tiny wood.

  His inner wolf whimpered again, and Frank caved. He reached for his backpack at the door and halted.

  Frank had always been cautious, folding up his clothes, carrying them on his back. He’d never been caught out naked. Just this once he wanted to run free, nothing strapped down, cinched tight around him, reminding him of his humanity. For once he wanted to be the wolf and pretend he belonged. The drainpipe at the back of the building. He could hide his things in there.

  Shoving his keys in his pocket, Frank bounded down the stairs, excited at the prospect of a good run, a chance to stretch his muscles, anything to salvage the day.

  Just as he reached the apartment house main door, a drill-sergeant-like voice called out.

  “No running down the stairs.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Anderson.” Frank turned to see his landlady in her faded floral housecoat standing in the doorway of her own apartment.

  Mrs. Anderson peered through the Coke-bottle-thick glasses on her nose. Her wispy white hair framed her wrinkled face like a cotton ball stuck on a piece of driftwood.

  Frank itched to get outside but was respectful enough not to turn his back on the old woman.

  “Humph.” No doubt satisfied that he’d been chastened, she returned to her rooms, shutting the door on the pink rickrack hem of her housecoat. A muffled “dammit” sounded from inside, and the flash of color disappeared from the crack in the doorway.

  Frank stifled a chuckle and walked outside.

  The first thing he always did was take a large lungful of air. It reoriented him to the outside. His wolf cataloged the smells—car exhaust, grass, tree pollen, and wait, a mouse skittering in the Dumpster out back. Frank’s urge to run built. He circled the apartments, looking for the storm drain near the landscaping wall. Inside him, his wolf wiggled in excitement at the prospect of being freed. Frank shucked his clothes behind the wall and tucked them into the pipe, out of view. Then he shifted, his hands lengthening, hair sprouting, and muzzle growing. His poin
t of view shortened, now three feet from the ground as he blinked through the eyes of his wolf-like self. Frank couldn’t stand still any longer. He sprang into the woods.

  Frank ran, crashing through the underbrush and into the darkening shelter of the trees. He leaped over a shrub, felt the give of a sapling as he plowed through the brushwood. The animals and birds quieted at his loud, headlong dash, knowing he wasn’t of the forest, only disguised and playing at being a creature of the wood.

  His paws skidded on a pile of old leaves. Frank almost lost his balance as he skipped up and over a fallen log. Around him, the scents of the forest all pushed in on him. Here a whiff of mold, there an astringent sniff of decay, everywhere the menthol of evergreen sap and wild herbs growing scattered on the forest floor.

  Dry twigs snapped beneath his paws. His tongue lolled from his mouth, the fresh taste of the woods painting the back of his throat. The sun dipped below the horizon, the sky inking the tops of the trees. And Frank ran on until his limbs stopped, shaky and trembling. He collapsed onto a blanket of pine needles and leaves, moss and fungi cradling him as he panted.

  As he caught his breath, the sounds of the woods lapped back around him. Insects and birds first. A harsh caw from a crow shrieked a hundred yards to his right. The chirp of a cricket sawed a few feet away. The rat-a-tat of a woodpecker echoed above. And the still of twilight calmed him.

  When he’d rested enough that his legs would support him again, Frank began the slow jog back to the apartments, letting his nose guide him through the darkening visibility of the woods. He could smell Mrs. Reynolds’s nighttime cocoa, and Mr. Reynolds’s liniment that stank of capsaicin. The lighted windows of the apartment building led him the last few feet, and he scurried up to the storm drain.