Werewolves Don't Wear Cowboy Boots

Chapter 20: Come for the depressing landscapes, stay for the cinnamon rolls

Since she'd already given Bridget a ride home from work, Kenzie insisted on visiting "poor Colum" to "cheer him up."

Despite Bridget's warnings that Kenzie might want to temper her enthusiasm just a bit – she might have compared her brother to a particularly skittish cat who needed to warm up to a person before being picked up – the girl was as effervescent as ever. When she left, Colum said nothing but sent Bridget a look of deep betrayal. O'Neill, for his part, kept himself to himself, but wore a badly disguised look of amusement.

When there was a knock at the door, Colum sighed over-dramatically and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a curse word. Bridget exchanged a glance with O'Neill, who chuckled in a way that confirmed she'd heard correctly.

"Is the entire community planning on a visit?" Colum asked in a rare moment of bad temper. "And did you have to tell them it was a car accident? Couldn't you have said it was some sort of highly contagious plague?"

"We could not," Bridget said, leaning down to kiss his cheek in an even rarer show of affection as she started walking toward the door.

It was James on the other side, holding a dish and looking almost nervous. "From Mrs. Brown," he said by way of explanation when Bridget answered the door. "A casserole."

"Again?" Bridget eyed the dish dubiously.

They certainly hadn't gone hungry since word had gone around the community about Colum's injuries from his "accident," and between the other men working the harvest and little old ladies from Mass, the amount of well-wishers had surprised Bridget. She'd never anticipated her shy brother would become so well-liked in the community in such a short time. O'Neill had been smug about it. "I did send you here for a reason, Bridget," he'd said between bites of a pie someone had sent. "You can't expect your brother to live in a city, not with his condition."

"You do," Bridget had replied simply, maybe a little surly because despite her argument, she knew he was right.

He'd leveled her with a serious look. "That's different. I have control. He doesn't. He needs to be somewhere isolated, and somewhere he has space to roam. And just look. There are good people here who have decided to take care of you when you're in need. If you really want to go, I can arrange something. But I think this place could be good for you."

It was an offer she would have jumped at only a few days before. Even now, taking in James' sheepish shrug as he stood holding that casserole dish in her doorway, she didn't know what to think of her decision to stay.

"How is your brother doing?" James asked as Bridget took the dish from him with a sigh.

She raised an eyebrow and leaned against the door. "Better, I think. But in an impressively awful mood. Do you want to see him?"

"Um. No, thanks?" James rubbed the back of his neck and gave a nervous laugh. "He probably doesn't like all the attention, huh?"

Bridget made an amused noise he took for agreement, and then shot a sour look over her shoulder when O'Neill peeked around her and said, "Bridget, love, I don't think it's your brother he came to see."

Bridget shoved the casserole into his arms, stepped outside, and shut the door behind her before turning to see James looking at her with a startled, if somewhat impressed, expression.

"Should you do that to someone who can turn into a giant wolf?"

"You should when he's being an arse." She glanced at James with a tilt of her head and said, "But you can take me for a drive, if you like. If he was right about why you're here, that is."