Hallow Haven Cozy Mysteries Bundle Books 1-3 by Mara Webb (books to read fiction .txt) 📕

got a sense that I had seen it before. It was familiar, but I wasn’t sure why. As I stood and thought about it, I had seen so many letters recently that it would be hard for me to work out why this one was triggering déjà vu.

“Okay, the guys are gonna come over and have a look around. I didn’t realize the time either, so I can’t stick around for too long,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, glancing past him at the sky and noticing that the sun was lower now. He gave me a look that was intended to tell me something without him having to say the words out loud. “Yeah…” he mumbled.

It was getting close to sunset. He was a werewolf.

“It’s supposed to be a full moon tonight and I don’t know enough about what triggers the shift, or whatever. I don’t even know the terminology,” he laughed. “I’m the worst werewolf in town, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.”

“What if…” I began. “What if I came with you, helped you get sorted for the night. I mean, what is it that you are rushing home to do?”

“Honestly? I had a buddy of mine build a big cage, I told him it was a night crate for a huge puppy I was thinking of getting. I was planning to climb inside and padlock the door, ride out the night in there and then… well I guess I hadn’t thought of an exit strategy. The last time I shifted was when I ran to your house in the middle of the night and scared the life out of you. I’m lucky I didn’t hurt you.”

“I’ll help you get into your cage if you like, talk about sentences we didn’t think we’d say,” I chuckled. “I can lock you in, take the key, then come back for you tomorrow. Deal?”

“I was kinda hoping to take you on a real date before you were forced to chain me up inside a metal night-prison, but I guess this is what’s happening now,” he sighed. We both smiled at each other and then looked back at Mrs. Hall.

“She isn’t going to get any less dead. Once I have made sure you are safe and comfortable, I’ll grab Kate or Effie and try to match this handwriting to something, okay?” I offered. He nodded. “Okay, how do we get to your place from here?”

“It’s not all that far actually, we can probably walk. By walk I obviously mean power-walk, I don’t know how long we have until old furry feet makes an appearance,” he explained as he walked towards the front door.

“Aww, it’s cute you have a nickname for the wolf in you,” I teased.

“I’m open to suggestions for a better name, maybe something with a celebrity name pun?” he said.

“I can think of nothing other than Wolf Blitzer, which isn’t so much a funny pun name and just the name of that guy from CNN,” I answered. “I’ll think of something, I just need more time to think!”

We left the gated community as a patrol car was rolling up to the entrance. Miller gave a nod to the officers as they drove past us and then we turned right to walk down the road back towards town.

“I don’t know if I made it clear, but I didn’t eat Jake,” he said after a few moments of silence.

“I didn’t think that you had, or at least I didn’t until you just said that,” I laughed.

“But Ryder said—”

“Never mind what Ryder said. Call it intuition, or whatever. Someone shot Jake, that is the issue on the table. For some reason, Jake and his wife are dead. Kate and Effie said that the ceremony requires the body of someone brokenhearted and we just found all these explicit love notes around a dead woman. It has a faint resemblance to Romeo & Juliet, only with more guitars and witchcraft in it,” I hummed.

The sea air rolled across the hills and reminded me of beach holidays as a kid. It was calming. I hadn’t even notice that we were approaching a house until Miller coughed to get my attention. It was small, like a cottage almost. As we walked into the house we both had to bow our heads to avoid colliding with the beam above the door.

“I bet this isn’t what you imagined my place looked like,” he laughed. “It’s getting dark. I would love to give you a proper tour and everything, seeing as I have been in your house a dozen times already, but the moon is gonna be doing its thing soon.”

“Sure,” I said, following him through into a room off the hallway that was empty apart from the cage he had described. “Well this sure is a sad sight.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. There was no other furniture in the room, the window was sealed off with a thick black blanket that he had nailed to the wall and he had left a few snacks inside the cage, presumably to ward off any violent hunger than might show up. “I could do with reading about how my werewolf ancestors dealt with it all, but for now it’s this.”

Miller removed his shoes and unbuttoned his shirt. I couldn’t help but stare at the bronzed skin beneath, looking away just as he caught me staring. He dropped onto all fours and crawled in.

“Are you sure about this? Do you have your cellphone to call me in case you need anything?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Thank you for this, Sadie. I promise that I will try and get a handle on things, I just don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I know.” I closed the door behind him and clicked the padlock shut, slipping the key into my shorts pocket. “Do you want me to stay for a while?”

“You’ve got stuff to do, don’t worry about me. I mean, if you see a big dog-looking thing running at you then do worry about that,” he grinned. I