"Wait, you're serious? You mean to tell me you've never been in a car? Ever!?" Caleb couldn't help but laugh once. The idea, though seemingly impossible, was absolutely comical. A werewolf scared of a car. He never would have believed it if he hadn't been driving with her for the last ten minutes. Undoubtedly, she could tear her way through an 18-wheeler if she were in the mood for it. But a mere car scared her because she'd never ridden one before? He shook his head, swallowing back the chuckles, but he couldn't stop smiling.
"Sorry for the laughter," he said, and for once, honestly meaning it. "But it is sort of... out of character for your kind. Either you're one of those really old werewolves that still prefer horses and buggies over Ferrari's and Jaguars, or you're too young to have gone for your driving test yet."
Thoughtfully, he was better on the latter. She didn't have that calm seriousness that most of the other two-hundred-plus-year-old wolves he had met generally had. In fact, if he hadn't known for sure she was a wolf, he would have sworn she was just a geeky teenager fresh out of the ninth grade. Rather than making her look older and more mature, her wolf blood only made her appear more delicate and vulnerable. Child-like.
Which was strange because she actually was fairly delicate and vulnerable. For a werewolf, that is. Caleb's meeting with her over-anxious brother suddenly made a bit more sense. She wasn't exactly someone who could protect or even really take care of herself. That's what she had Royce for.
Of course, that only made Caleb wonder how a supernatural being became so weak and innocent. Sheltered. Enough so that she had grown up in a place where she could get away with not having ever been in a car for however many years she had been alive.
Such a curiosity, this little runt of a wolf.
But one you're not allowed to unravel, McCaffrey, he told himself grudgingly. You've got a job to do. Two, actually. And one involves that #12 special. Focus.
"Give me the box with the green round sticker on it. Should say #12, no dressing." If she wanted to help, then fine, he decided. And if she just so happened to eat one or more of any of his deliveries, all the better. He could finally get her fired, out of his truck, and out of his head. Now wasn't the time for runt-sized little distractions.