Finnegan growled at Jacks maintaining his hold on Piety's arm and she wrenched free. Jack’s wolf should have been agitated, but it was placid inside of him as if this was normal.  His wolf seemed to view this as being a part of the pack.

Jack tried to keep his tone neutral as he said, “ Piety the boys guts were draped on a fallen tree like fucking garland , I know the officers on the scene made you reroute  so thank God you didn't see it. Just please trust me something is prowling  way to near you."

At that moment there was a sound like a stream of water splattering and Jack saw Finnegan liberally anointing his trucks tires with urine. Piety snorted and the tension broke.

 Jack said, “stupid husky mutt” and knew that this was the dog trying to assert dominance by claiming Jacks truck. His wolf only sent an image of chasing the dog, nipping at its heels like a wayward puppy and holding Finnegan down till he stopped wriggling and surrendered dominance. Yet he grinned, only a husky would thumb his nose at a wolf. 

Piety eyed the off-duty cop and said surrendering, “You can drive, and I will give Glenda my car keys.” She continued, “You can come to my house since you insist on mother henning me. Just make extra taco’s since Glenda will stay for dinner.” with that she ran back into the store to drop off her keys.

Jack seeing her return held the truck door open with a sweep of his arm and Finnegan jumped ahead of Piety. The dog proceeded to sit between them. Jack pulled a face eyeing the dog, “ I thought you would go in the back.”

The dog chuffed and Piety intervened, “Get in the back Finn, you can bite him just as well from the back of the extended cab seats.”

“Thanks” he said sarcastically as the dog hopped in the back and Piety replied, “Don’t mention it.”

Piety was not sure how to deal with a man taking over her kitchen. She discovered shopping with him that he was not just the serious state trooper. On the drive Jack was funny and descriptive on cooking with good ingredients vs great ones. He waxed philosophic on shopping the farmers market and getting his meat from a farm co-op. Piety admitted that she felt challenged making a grilled cheese sandwich. He promised to make her one of his grilled cheese with a real kosher dill on the side.

With Peabody showing up after the shop closed Jack just announced they would need and few things and stopped at the Tops market and the liquor store. Piety raised her eyebrow at the last stop, but he informed her that you cannot make tequila lime chicken taco’s unless you have tequila. Jack also pronounced every knife she owned as dull ad dangerous and spent a good hour sharping them. Piety sat at the kitchen table and just watched him as he prepped and worked on dinner. Who knew that werewolf cops made great chiefs too? Jack moved in fluid graceful motion he had dishes of cut vegetables, chicken and spices around him.

Jack looked over at Piety, “How is it you’re a hereditary witch and have no clue you’re a witch?”

“How are you a werewolf?”

“I asked you first.” He said cutting some limes

“My mother decided to ride the first man out of town that would have her and they became militant fundies together. You know the type, they dress like 50 years out of date, grow your hair to your butt and no earrings, make up or jewelry.”

He nodded selecting a fat jalapeno pepper. The kitchen was smelling of cut limes and garlic. Piety seeing him done the blue vinyl gloves smiled, this guy knew how to cook, he was not going to have burning fingers as he took the seeds out of the peppers. Jack said realizing the pause in the conversation mean he should say something, “Yeah, I have met those types, more interested in the next life than living here in this one.”

“Yeah, hours of hearing about sin and the lake of fire, being taken to Sunday school, church services, evening church and then Wednesday night bible study, then the rip off of the girl scouts on Mondays called AWANA . It was tedious how much time you had to be surrounded by these church members who went from self-righteous smug ,with their moral superiority, to frozen emotionless people, who would decide to turn on anyone who didn’t fit into their strict standards. I knew I had relatives on the east coast and New York state, but my parents flatly refused to interact with them. If my parent’s church discovered, for example, you had a gay kid and you didn’t disavow your child and throw them out of the house. You could find yourself being the only family in a pew and no one talking to you after church. Pretty soon they would ask you to leave.”

“How every Christ like.” He replied with an eyeroll.

Jack looked around to see where Piety might have put the wine he had purchased. He spotted a zinfandel wine on top of her refrigerator sitting next to a bottle of Captain Morgan. Plucking  down the wine he opened a drawer where he had seen forks and knives. With a little rooting around Jack spied a corkscrew and opened it. Piety raised an eyebrow and Jack said “I find talking about assholes goes better with booze. You don’t look like a Tequila drinker or I could be wrong.” She made a double thumbs up  in agreement and he chuckled. 

She took the wine “Does this go with lime chicken?”

“Australian Shiraz would be my favorite but make do with what you can get. I can see how your mom would want to keep you safe from the evils of the paranormal world, how did you get to meet your aunt?”

Piety rolled her eyes and thought “safe? More like oppressed”. She said evenly “When my Aunt Charity decided to come find us, I was in the 4th. Grade and it was not a happy meeting.” She sipped the wine and wondered why Jack was being so…nice. He made eye contact and with a motion of the knife indicated she should go on.

“So, Charity knocked on our door and I opened it to a woman who looked like she had robbed Stevie Nicks closet. She had a van in our driveway that was electric blue and had running mustangs airbrushed on its side. My mom came up behind me and seeing her she almost dropped my baby brother and yelled at me to shut the door.” Jack refilled her glass and Piety said, “is it even five o’clock?”

“4:58 according to the microwave. Now finish up the story.” He urged

“Aunt Charity wouldn’t let her shut the door and she did the one thing no one has ever done to my mom; she pushed her way in announced she was staying for dinner and proceeded to become a nuisance. At the end of a week my father informed my aunt her welcome was done and to pack up and go.”

“Why?”

“Oh, she refused to go to church, she told them there was no hell except the ones they create for themselves.” Piety ticked off the infractions on her hand, “ Charity informed them she was born ok the first time. She also told my parents their striking me was out of line and the spare the rod and spoil the child was horseshit and medieval. Then the “pi`ce de résistance ” was informing them Christ was not a white guy.”

“Holy crap that’s sure to make a fundies head explode” Jack said pulling out the dusty cast iron skillet, “You should use this more it will need to be re seasoned.”

“The other ones work just fine.” She pointed at the Teflon pans

Jack sighed, “You are a philistine , back to the story.”

“Basically yes, my father lost it. So, my aunt who I had fallen in love with for being fresh air in a gloomy stale world had to leave. I was crying and begging her to not go and when she said goodbye to me, Aunt Charity slipped me her phone number on a store business card. She told me when the time was right to call her, and she would be there for me. Day or night she loved me and would help me.”

“You called her a day later? Right?” he said with a voice that revealed he knew the answer.

“No, the brain washing resumed. My parents talked shit about Charity being a godless dope smoking hippy and I was told what god-fearing church boy I could date, and I even married one right out of high school. That fell apart horribly and when I walked out on him, I had my purse and hidden in my wallet was the business card. Sort of like a talisman. “she said sadly inhaling the wine and drinking slower. No sense in be tipsy before dinner.

“Then you called!” he said drinking his wine

“No, of course not, I married a second time to an even worse result.”

“Then you called! Right ..”

“Yes, Jack I called. I didn’t even think the number worked after all those years, but it did. She had a land line at the store with an answering machine. She told me to load up my dog and come home to her.”

“I take it either marriage any good?”

“The first lasted two years and I grew to hate him for being what and who he really was. Husband number two was about the same thing only no religion.” Piety fell quiet it was not a good time of her life and Jack sensing this silence was her retreating into bad memories he said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make think about things you didn’t want to.”

“It was a good question. Up until a few days ago I would have said there’s no such thing as werewolves or witches. Yes, my aunt had witchy shit in the house and the store, but I never saw anything that I couldn’t explain away.”

Pulling our gallon size zipper bags, Jack poured in the liquid marinade and then added the chicken breasts slipping them into the fridge to soak he started on making pico di gallo and rice. “I take it you never had kids?”

“Tried to, it never worked out.”

“Sorry” he said simply.

“So, what about you?”

“What about me?” he quipped knowing what she wanted

“Oh come on you’re a stranger in my house cooking and asking me stuff, so your turn how did you get fur coat once a month?”

“No, gee how is you a police officer or are you from around here?” Jack replied with a grin.

Piety sipped at her wine and looking over the rim and he started back. Jack shrugged, “fine I guess we can start with how I acquired a wolf.”

“I was in the army and was an MP. I was called out to a domestic disturbance on base and when I got there I though the wife was having the DT’s or maybe drug withdrawal. She was shaking, the smell of booze was everyplace and then I saw the ripple of skin and her eyes change to amber. I remember backing from the room I knew this was more that DTs.”

My partner had the husband on the porch interviewing him. Her husband said she had been angry all day and closer to night fall she got worse. Then there was a crash from the bedroom, and she had gone through a window. I raced out the back door to follow and She went like a streak through yards and then suddenly I wasn’t chasing a woman, it was the biggest damn dog I had ever seen, and the bitch bit me.”

He cleaned the cutting board with lemon juice and running water and returned to prepping more vegetables she assumed it was for the Pico di Gallo or maybe he was making salsa too.

“Hold up, that’s it? You suck at story telling Jack.”

“I gave you the information you needed. What else is there to say?”

“Like what became of her? How did you deal with becoming a werewolf? Did it get you tossed out of the army? You ever been married and how did they deal with it?

“Well, it turns out that there was a pack on base and in the town. Word spreads and I was contacted that next full moon I needed to be with other wolves in the middle of nowhere. I of course told the alphas sent to talk to me they were insane, and it was a dog bite. They dragged me off and one of them shifted into a wolf. I saw the process and decided I had been slipped some acid or something. I still lived in denial until I got closer and closer to the full moon and they hijacked me from my apartment. I made my first change kidnapped and it was terrifying and painful I hated every second of that night. Yet, the pack was there and they helped me through it.

The woman who bit me had cheated on her husband with a man she had picked up at a bar. He had changed while they were having sex and bit her. I believe he had no intention of letting her live, he just was too stupid to know that from the second the wolf saliva enters the blood stream it starts changing the physiology of the human to lupine. We heal faster and take more damage than an ordinary human can endure. He didn’t check and make sure she was dead when he left her in that motel room.

He didn’t stick around to make sure she was dead. She was in the pack assigned an alpha to help her transition and she did apologize. The rest of the pack went after the lone wolf to teach him to not just leave his mistakes behind.

I however, was a huge asshole about the change. I was angry that my life was fucked up. In the end the pack located the rogue and killed him. I finished my stint in the army got an honorable discharge and went to school for criminal justice. I had a short marriage for all the wrong reasons, had a horrible divorce and became a cop. There how about that? Did I do better? “

“Any kids?”

“We practiced a lot but nothing came of it. Somewhat of a blessing really. at the end we really hated one another at the end.”

“Where did you learn to cook?” Piety leaned in and asked him while observing his nimble fingers cutting tomatoes. She wondered how such big hands could work so fast and accurate. Piety had little scars on her index fingers from slipping with a knife.

“My mom had a Tex Mex diner in Chicago where I grew up and all of us including my dad worked there. I was a prep cook and my sisters would waitress and help cook. I was not allowed to be a waiter I mixed up orders and dropped trays.”

“Really?”

“Let’s say I learned early how to make myself useful at what I wanted to do vs. a job I hated. I liked cutting vegetables and cooking as opposed to dealing with customers directly. “

“Why aren’t you having some more wine?”Piety interjected smiling more freely. 

“It’s pointless for me. Lycanthropy makes getting drunk damn near impossible. We metabolize liquor and drugs too fast so we drink for taste and show mostly. It makes dental work and surgery a real bitch.”

“Are there any positives?”

“ I can bench press 300 pounds with little effort and track like a bloodhound if I want too. I also have a wolf ” he tapped his head “ Whos best interest is in keeping us alive. So, I have a real edge in my job."

She raised her glass to him, “ Here’s to better living through werewolf spit.”

He laughed and Piety found it odd that she was comfortable with Jack. Piety had never made friends easily she was relaxed and laughed with Jack.

"So, if spit makes the change, how is it your ex isn’t a wolf? I assume."

“ It’s a bite and we secrete though glands under our tongue. The actual changing saliva occurs when I am a wolf.  So, if I don’t have wolf teeth you’re fairly safe.”

“ Fairly”

“ You sound worried , were you planning to kiss me?” Piety was still smiling and yet in his head he wished he hadn’t said it. Jack hardly knew her and he worried she was going to think he was putting the moves on her. 

Piety snorted, “ You wish.” And she blushed just a little. Sneaking a glance over the rim of her glass seeing that his grin was still there.