Big Bad Wolf: Cougarville Book 4 Read online

  BIG, BAD WOLF

  COUGARVILLE, BOOK 4

  EVANGELINE ANDERSON

  www.evangelineanderson.com

  Big, Bad Wolf, 1st Edition,

  Cougarville, Book 4

  Copyright © 2021 by Evangeline Anderson

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art Design © 2021 by Reese Dante

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writers’ imagination or have been used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to a retailer of your choice or

  evangelineanderson.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only.

  Any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  CONTENTS

  Big, Bad Wolf

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  The End?

  Claimed

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  Also by Evangeline Anderson

  About the Author

  B I G , B A D W O L F

  COUGARVILLE, BOOK 4

  Return to Cougarville for another exciting adventure…

  As a senior in high school, Jase Saunders was a bad boy—the

  kind of kid who’s headed straight to prison by way of suspension. There was only one teacher who understood him

  —only one who cared enough to help him turn his life around. That teacher was Nikki Robinson and not only was she caring and kind, she was beautiful. She was also the only woman Jase ever wanted to claim as his mate—too bad she

  was married and fifteen years his senior.

  Fast forward fifteen years and Nikki has lost her husband

  and moved into middle age. She sees nothing but sorrow ahead of her…and then her life is changed completely. When

  the mysterious Mr. X breaks into her house and injects her with a compound that activates her latent Shifter Gene, she

  finds herself suddenly thrust into Regeneration. Managing to

  escape her attacker, she rushes onto the street…and straight

  into Jase’s muscular arms.

  Now Nikki must deal with the fact that she looks and feels

  twenty years younger and she’s being protected by her old student. She tries to tell herself that Jase is just being nice but she doesn’t realize that the Wolf Shifter has never forgotten her kindness to him…or the fire he felt for her. Can

  she stay away from the nefarious Mr. X, who wants her blood for an evil ritual? And will she let herself fall for the troubled boy who is now a man?

  You’ll have to read Big, Bad Wolf to find out…

  A U T H O R ’ S N O T E

  It's been a long time since I wrote the first three books of the Cougarville series, and I always wanted to continue it. I loved the idea of women in their forties and fifties suddenly

  "Rejuvenating" and growing 20-30 years younger when their Shifter Gene activated, then winding up with sexy Alpha males. (Maybe some wishful thinking on my part!) I had written the first half of this book, Big, Bad Wolf, years before and suddenly got the inspiration to finish it. (This happens to me with books from time to time.) I sincerely hope you enjoy this return to Cougarville and don't worry—

  there's another Kindred book on the way for next month!

  Hugs and Happy Reading!

  Evangeline

  May 2021

  1

  N icole Robinson sighed as she fit her key into the

  lock of the big old Victorian house at the end of the

  block on East Juniper Street. It was a grand old mansion—a

  real fixer-upper project and she and Gil had been going to do just that. They’d had so many plans—from remodeling the kitchen and bathroom to stripping the paint from the

  gorgeous old wooden banister and varnishing it to a high gloss. It was going to be their dream home—a place they could grow old together.

  “Only Gil never got a chance to grow old,” Nikki

  whispered to herself. “Not nearly.”

  Her husband had been struck with lung cancer when he was only thirty eight—an especially fast moving kind that metastasized in the space of weeks. He had gone from having

  a bad cough that wouldn’t go away to lying in a hospital bed

  inside a month. A month after that, he was gone.

  “Stop thinking about it,” Nikki told herself as she turned

  the key. “It’s been seven years already. Stop tormenting yourself.”

  But she knew why Gil was on her mind. It had been seven

  years since his death all right—seven years to the day.

  Though she knew it was morbid, the awful anniversary

  wouldn’t leave her mind. Which was probably why she’d been distracted at school today.

  Nikki taught AP English at Wolverton High and normally

  her job was her solace and her joy. But today she’d barely been able to pay attention to the senior poetry essay presentations. She still had a stack of them to grade in her briefcase, which would probably take her several days to plow through.

  “Well, at least it’s Spring Break all next week,” she muttered to herself. Although what idiot down at the School

  Board had decided to make Spring Break the first week in March she didn’t know. Normally it might have started warming up—at least a little—by now. Wolverton, North

  Carolina sat at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains but it was far enough South that Spring came fairly early.

  This year, however, Winter was hanging on with a death

  grip. Far from warming up, there was snow in the forecast next week. It was enough to make Nikki wish she’d taken her

  sister up on the proposed family trip to Disney World in Orlando. But she hat
ed feeling like a third wheel—or in this

  case, a fifth wheel—when she went with Jenny and Ted and

  their two adorable kids. She loved her niece and nephew but

  being around them reminded her of everything she’d lost…

  everything she would never have.

  She and Gil had tried for kids of their own of course—

  tried for years. But Nikki had a severe kind of endometriosis which had gotten so bad she had to eventually have a partial

  hysterectomy. After that, they’d talked about adopting. But just as they were really getting into the process, Gil had started coughing and then…

  “Stop it,” Nikki told herself in a low, fierce voice, brushing angrily at the tears that had somehow leaked down

  her cheeks. “Does everything have to lead back to that? Just stop it, Nikki!”

  She pushed open the door and was greeted by a joyous bark.

  “Max!” she exclaimed, getting inside and pushing the

  door closed with a foot, while she caught the big bundle of fur in her arms. Max was a rescue—part sheepdog, part Alaskan Malamute, and part horse, as her sister Jenny liked

  to joke. He was one hundred and fifty pounds of pure protective love and he never failed to make Nikki feel better, even on her darkest days.

  As he licked away the tears, she felt her heart melt a little bit.“Oh, Maxie,” she whispered, kneeling down so she could

  put her arms around his thick neck with its shaggy ru . “You

  don’t know how glad I am to see you!”

  He whined softly and licked her cheeks again, as though

  asking what was wrong.

  “Just a rough day,” Nikki told him. “You know how it is.

  This is the seventh year since Gil…since he had to leave me.”

  She sighed and straightened up, stroking her dog’s huge head. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come into my life. I’d be lost without you, boy.”

  Max barked softly and leaned against her legs, nearly knocking her over. Nikki gave a surprised laugh and steadied

  herself against the wall but she knew her dog was just trying to cheer her up. His big dark eyes shone with intelligence and he always seemed to know how she was feeling.

  “Good boy,” Nikki told him, feeling marginally better.

  She gathered her briefcase and purse, which she’d put down

  to hug him, and hung them up on the hooks by the doorway.

  “Come on—into the kitchen. I know you’re hungry.” She picked a curled brown leaf out of his shaggy black and gray

  coat. “You’ve probably be out running in the woods all day,

  huh?”

  Getting a doggy door installed that was big enough for Max to get in and out had been interesting—it took up nearly

  all of her backdoor. But her property was right on the edge of the forest and her big dog loved to run and explore in the trees, especially when it was cold.

  Nikki thought briefly that she ought to go out with him—

  maybe running around in the cold would get her blood pumping and do her some good. But there were all those animal attacks that had been happening lately. A woman in

  her own neighborhood had even been killed. Nikki hadn’t known her personally but the thought still made her shiver

  and of course, she felt terrible for the woman’s family.

  No, better to stay indoors where it was safe. She didn’t worry about Max—the big dog could take care of himself.

  But for herself, well, she was going to stay inside where it was warm and she didn’t have to worry about a hungry bear,

  or mountain lion or whatever it was out there, getting her.

  After feeding Max and pouring a glass of white wine for herself, Nikki decided to take a hot bath. The bathroom had

  been the only room she and Gil had finished restoring before

  he had gotten ill and she loved to spend time in it. The deep, old-fashioned claw-foot tub was especially nice for soaking

  in. She picked up the wine glass, debated, and then brought

  the bottle as well. One glass was usually her limit but tonight felt like a two-glass occasion for sure.

  As she waited for the tub to fill, Nikki looked at herself critically in the mirror. She had to admit, she looked substantially di erent than she had when Gil was still alive.

  She’d chopped her long, lush hair short for one thing.

  Long hair was a bother and she didn’t want to deal with the

  hassle—or so she told herself. Her sister had accused her of

  going into mourning, the way women in the distant past had

  —shaving their heads and wearing sackcloth and ashes when a beloved husband died.

  “Wearing only dark colors, chopping o your hair…

  honestly Nikki, I know how badly you’re hurting but you need to try and move on,” Jenny had told her about a year ago. At her sister’s insistence that she needed a change, Nikki had gone blonde—a color she wasn’t entirely sure suited her. But it made it a hell of a lot easier to cover the gray hair that seemed determined to sprout all over her head

  like weeds in an untended garden.

  The short, blonde bob screamed “middle aged” but that was all right with Nikki—she wasn’t exactly trying to catch a man. That part of her—her sexual desire—had died with Gil.

  It wasn’t like she’d completely let herself go—she still did yoga twice a week and exercised daily. But she no longer watched what she ate quite as much, which had resulted in

  spreading hips and a much bigger behind than she used to have.

  There were wrinkles around the corners of her full lips and her gray-green eyes too—further proof that she was forty-five and staring down the barrel of fifty. As for her full-to-overflowing double D breasts which used to be so high and firm, well…they weren’t anymore.

  Sighing, she admitted that she certainly looked her age.

  Would she have tried to keep up with things better if Gil had lived to reach middle age with her? She honestly couldn’t say. Jenny was always urging her to try a dating site and get matched with some eligible man in her area but Nikki just didn’t have the desire to do that. Gil was the only man she’d ever cared for and she was too old to start over again. She might get a little lonely sometimes but Max was great company and completely loyal, which was more than could be said of most men.

  Nikki looked down the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door and frowned at the twisted white scar on

  her lower abdomen—a reminder of her hysterectomy which

  hadn’t exactly gone smoothly. The scar still itched if she didn’t rub coco butter into it every night, especially in cold weather. She was getting low on coco butter, she reminded herself. Better pick some up the next time she went to the store. But for tonight she should be okay.

  With a moan of pure relief, she sank down into the claw-

  foot tub and took a soothing sip of the white wine. The warm

  water swirling around her felt both calming and healing. It seemed to wash away some of her sorrow and anxiety,

  leaving her in a mood that was more mellow sadness than total bereavement, which was what she’d been feeling for most of the day.

  Or maybe it was the wine working on her, Nikki reflected

  as she took another sip and then another. She really shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach like this, but having a

  glass of wine was better than going into the kitchen and binging on carby comfort food—right?

  “Definitely,” Nikki muttered to herself, emptying the

  glass and pouring another. “This is most definitely better.”

  She sighed and relaxed deeper into the tub, anticipating just another quiet evening at home with her dog.

  She had no idea her house was being watched.

  2

  O ne hungry eye stared at the big Victorian mansion

  with its picket
fence and gingerbread trim. It was

  painted white with green accents and it looked big and ghostly in the rapidly deepening twilight. The kind of house

  that could easily get the reputation of being haunted, especially if a grizzly murder was committed inside it.

  Of course, he wouldn’t kill her inside the house, the one-eyed watcher reminded himself. That would make it too hard

  to cover up as an animal attack. But the grounds around her

  house—those overgrown woods in the back especially—

  would be an ideal place to end things if he had to.

  Not that Mr. X wanted to kill the woman—oh, dear me, no.

  He hoped she would finally turn out to be the one—the answer to all his hopes and prayers. The one who could help

  him change, even without the help of the furry, spotted pelt

  he carried with him at all times.

  The little witch was supposed to have been that one, he reminded himself—she’d had the elusive Shifter Gene in spades and he’d been this close to breeding her. If he had, some of her power would have flowed to him, giving him greater control over his second form. Unfortunately, she had

  ended up with another—with the same Fox Shifter who had

  taken his eye.

  Mr. X rubbed his empty socket irritably. Never mind.

  Soon, if things went as planned, he would have the strength

  and power and skill to do what he wanted—maybe even to take revenge.

  But first things first. He had to find out if the woman he

  was watching was the one. If only that idiot Lounds had kept

  copies of his records and the list of the women he’d found that had the Gene. But when the lab in the Everglades had burned after his death, all his data had been lost. Well, almost all of it. Thank goodness the rejuvenation formula had already been sent to Mr. X in an encrypted email. That, at least, had been saved.

  He’d spent the last month tinkering with the formula, modifying it a bit. His first four kills had been uninformed—

  too haphazard and uncertain and none of them had turned out to have the Shifter gene as he’d hoped.

  Now he’d added a marker—a way to be certain if the one

  he injected would turn out to be not only a Shifter, but the perfect kind of Shifter, once she rejuvenated. That special kind of female who would fulfill the requirements of both science and magic, which he was mixing liberally in order to