The Southern Werewolf Chronicles Book One: Were Love Blooms

"Hush, Mabelle knows best," she said clamping him firmly back in the chair. "Hush, Mabelle knows best," she said clamping him firmly back in the chair.

With those famous last words, I settled into my chair, plucked a fairly recent issue of Cosmo from the table and got ready for the fun. The first fifteen minutes or so, were boring as a Sunday sermon with the a/c broke. In other words, I fell straight to sleep. I probably would have dozed the entire afternoon away but somewhere in the middle of a Blake Shelton dream, I heard Miss Mabelle's voice go below the range a human should be able to hear.

"So, Nick, you planning to ask our Maddy to the Satin Rose?" Those simple words were enough to wake me up and leave poor Blake standing sad and alone on the beach.

Being the sneaky girl I am, I cracked my eyelid just a smidgen to catch his answer.

"I'm sure she already has an escort."

I didn't. Not saying I couldn't have gotten one at the drop of a hat, but the pickings were slim and this Deb doesn't settle for just anyone.

Mabelle bent in low, giving me a nod, when she caught me peeking. "I know for a fact she doesn't."

"Can I be quite frank with you, madam?" Oh, that voice had a nervous twitch to it if I ever heard one.

"It's just us chickens, so shoot," Mabelle said, clipping away a extra kinky lock of hair.

"Ms. Lee has already expressed to me in no certain terms, our relationship is purely business."

"When a woman says one thing, you can be assured it ain't always the thing she wants." How dare she match make with me in the same room! If I wasn't pretending to be asleep I'd give her a piece of my mind, or a big tip when Nicholi looked the other way.

"So you're saying I should ask her? Owww!" he screeched, as Mabelle jerked on a tuft of hair. "That hurt! Just because I asked you a simple question, is no reason to snatch me bald."

"Sometimes you got to wake a man up before he'll listen." She smirked, patting his hair back into place.

"I was listening!" he shouted in a squeaky voice.

"Just not close enough. Men rarely do. Now before we continue this confab, be a little more restrained. You're liable to shake Madison loose from them dreams with all that hollering. I think this is something we want to keep this between the two of us." I slammed my eye shut as she tilted her head in my direction.

His voice dropped to a coarse hush. "Ah yes, quite right."

"If it were me, I'd stop thinking with that brain of yours. Seems to be getting in the way, and that other mister you got consulting you, too." I lifted my eye just in time to see her tap the sheet covering him right above the money maker.

"Madison is more than she appears. Old Mabelle knows the truth though." "In what way?" I felt the tension in Nicholi's voice.

"Oh, Madison wants everyone to think she's some airhead who can't tie her own shoes without her Daddy's checkbook to show her how. Between us, Lee Manufacturing would be in big trouble if not for her." She waved her comb around before bringing it to bear on his scalp again. "You ask me, she practically runs the whole operation all by her lonesome."

"Is that all?" I didn't have to open my eye to see the look of relief on his face. For a second there I thought she'd figure out I was…

"Well that and she's a werewolf, just like you." This time my eye went past open and popped right out of my head.

"Er… eee… excuse me?" Nicholi's stutter followed me to the pair.

"Mabelle, what are you talking about?" I asked as politely as possible while trying not to slip on the pile of magazines I'd knocked onto the floor after her revelation.

"Maddy child, you may be able to hide things from your Daddy, your best friend and everyone else in this town, but you can't hide anything from a licensed and bonded cosmetologist. Girl, I've been doing your hair since before you could walk. If you're not a werewolf, how else do you explain how a person can go from having normal slightly oily hair to something so coarse it damn near costs me a pair of shears every time you come in for visit?" She tapped Nicholi across the top of the head with her scissors. "I won't even go into the depilatory issues, she has going."