Chapter 7

I was all smiles as I took a quick shower and did my hair. If it was really Sweater Guy, I wanted to make a desirable impression. I found a low-cut, cream blouse to pair with a black skirt and my red heels. The blouse accentuated all my assets. I wore my oval, solitaire ruby necklace, which was my birthstone. My dad had bought it for me for my eighteenth birthday, and it was my absolute favorite. It hung on a sterling silver chain and added a hint of color. I finished off the ensemble with my red, wool jacket. The red highlights in my chestnut brown hair brightened in the mirror as I shrugged it on. I applied some make-up and a touch of red lipstick.

"Not too bad." I smiled as I commented at my reflection. "Not too bad at all."

Grabbing the storage box with my clock inside, I headed for my car. I hummed Adele's 'Don't You Remember' as I programmed my GPS with the address. It wasn't too far away, but there were a few twists and turns. Once I reached Southwest Barbur Street, the rest was easy.

I turned on Southwest Hamilton Street and followed it to the fork in the road. The left of the fork had a row of houses while the right was a wooded area. Staying left, I kept watch of the house numbers. A gray mailbox with the number 418 on its side came into view. The house was smaller than the others surrounding it. It was bluish-gray with a wide porch and two large windows on the front. Wild, bare-limbed bushes sprang out on either side of the porch, which were hauntingly creepy. A pale yellow VW was parked in the driveway, and my heart skipped in my chest. It was Sweater Guy! The back left bumper was missing its yellow paint and was as gray as the mailbox. Poor little bug! I hadn't noticed it last time, but it was dark outside… And I was incredibly drunk. I couldn't forget about that, now could I?

I pulled in behind the VW and turned off the ignition. "Well, here goes nothing," I said aloud, checking myself in the visor mirror one last time before getting out of the car.

Taking my time, I walked up the porch steps and set down my cuckoo clock beside the bicycle that was propped up by the left window. While knocking on the white door, I admired the stained glass panel on the front. Was it a wolf? That was different. It looked more like a family crest than a…

The lock turned and the door opened, startling me out of my thoughts. Sweater Guy was on the other side, wearing a white shirt under a gray sweater. At least he'd stayed true to his nickname. He seemed taken aback, and then the woge occurred.

Monroe's face contorted as hair spouted all over his face and hands, big ears and sharp teeth emerged, followed by big eyes that fixated on my red jacket. Blutbad! Holy crap! My heart sank as I froze. His eyes met mine, burning red, but I didn't look away. The stained glass was more like a warning sign. It should've read, 'Beware of the Big Bad Wolf.'

"It is you!" I forced a smile, using the recognition to mask my shock of the woge. "How have you been, Sweater Guy?"

While I was very good at not reacting to Wesen changes, this one was the hardest yet. How did I not know he was Wesen, let alone a Blutbad? I should've been more aware that night, instead of downing tequila with a stranger. But instead of paying attention like I should've been, I'd stupidly gotten drunk once the Bluebeard had left. If only I'd realized there were far worse things in that bar. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Keeping my fear tampered down, I held my smile, although running and not looking back was at the forefront of my mind. Not that it would've mattered anyway if I did. He'd catch and kill me before I even got to the driveway. I tugged on the red jacket. Why did I have to wear red to a Blutbad's house? What a stupid decision!

Monroe retracted after what seemed like forever. "R-Renée…?" he stammered out my name, finally replying. His deep, brown eyes replaced the red; those soulful eyes I remembered so well from the bar.

"Oh, good you remember me!" I forced myself to smile wider. He had some abrasions above his eye and along his jawline. What had happened to him? Better yet, what had tried to get away from him? Maybe it was his last victim's attempt to escape before he'd eaten them. "Are you all right?" I asked, pointing to his face. "Did you get in a fight saving another damsel in a bar?" I chuckled a bit more nervously than I wanted to let on.

"Oh, this?" Monroe touched the cut by his chin. "Nah, just an accident on a job." Who knew clock repair was dangerous work? "So, umm, how did you find me?" he asked, smiling between the twitching.

"I was the one who called you about the cuckoo clock earlier today." I pointed down to the brown storage box beside me. "The shelf cuckoo clock," I corrected myself.

"Oh, right." He scratched his head and let out a breath. "The shelf cuckoo."

"It was a twist of fate that your name came up when I searched online for clock repair." And what a twist it had turned out to be. I held my smile, keeping my face smooth as I concealed my inner thoughts. "When I saw the name 'Monroe' in the phonebook I was pleasantly surprised." Not as surprised as when I found out he was a monster. "If it wasn't you, then I was beginning to think that all Portland guys were named Monroe."

Monroe laughed, but the red was making him twitch again, and his eyes flashed red. "Yeah, there's like two or three of us repair guys in Portland." He rested his hand on the doorframe. "You know, you had good odds on finding me."

"I wouldn't have guessed you were a clock repairman." Monster, monster, monster. "I'd pegged you for a psychiatrist with how you let me ramble on that night at the bar."

"Psychiatrist?" He snorted. "Well, I've been called worse, I suppose. And, I'm a clockmaker, actually."

"Clockmaker. Wow, sorry," I replied, taking a small step back. Hopefully I hadn't offended him. He didn't need any more reasons to gobble me up.

"It's fine." He laughed again, but he was still twitching. "So, you, umm, don't know what's wrong with it?" he asked. "The clock, I mean?"

"Well, that's why I'm here," I answered, forcing myself to look back into his eyes. "I kind of need an expert."

Now I was invested in staying. Just great. It would be suspicious if I came all this way and then changed my mind. I reached in my jacket pocket for my keys, positioning my thumb over the panic button. Maybe if a neighbor heard the alarm they'd come find me… or what was left of me.

He looked at me again and idly shook his head. "Right, umm, of course." He seemed out of sorts. Out of sorts could be really bad.

We were still hovering on the porch. Monroe kept shifting his eyes back and forth from me to the jacket. This was not the impression I'd planned on making. I was so uncomfortable and vulnerable like this. Taking in a breath, I allowed a peaceful calm to wash over me. I had to do that from time to time. It was something I'd practiced over the years to get through the stresses of life and of what I knew. It helped today, but not very much.

"Please come inside," Monroe said finally, but he didn't sound too welcoming.

I held the keys tightly in my pocket as he lifted the box from the porch, and we walked inside his home. My breathing settled down, but my heart was still racing.

'Stay calm, Renée, just stay calm,' I chanted internally.

My eyes darted around the corners of the hallway, trying to associate my surroundings. To the left was the living room with a green tiled fireplace, directly in front of me were a set of stairs that led to the second floor, and to the right had to be the workroom, which was where Monroe was carrying my cuckoo clock. It seemed like he lived alone. Hopefully there wasn't a pack of Blutbaden living here with him. My heart beat madly at the thought.

"I was surprised you took clients on such short notice," I commented, removing my jacket with quick precision and folding it along my arm. Maybe that would ease the situation.

He let out a short chuckle. "The perks of working from home." Monroe set my box on his workbench. He turned again and gave a slight sigh at the jacket. Even folded away it was still in plain sight. I wanted to toss it right out the nearest window.

"It must be nice setting your own hours," I said, making idle chatter. It was hard not to follow his eyes to my arm.

"May I take your… jacket?" he asked hesitantly.

I nodded silently, removing the keys from my pocket and handing it over. Monroe took it from me, holding it out in front of him like it was going to bite. He set it down in the living room on a cedar chest by the window. Turning back, he rubbed his hands vigorously as if the color had bled onto them. Okay, perhaps the term 'bled' was a poor choice of words.

I swallowed hard as he walked back toward me, my thumb still on the panic button. Oh, no… my red shoes and necklace! Well, I couldn't get rid of those. The blouse was too low to hide the necklace, so I tucked the ruby off to the side of my collar to cover it up. Maybe he wouldn't look down at the shoes. How much red was too much? I pursed my lips together. Oh, no… red lipstick.

"So, let's see what you've brought me," Monroe said, seeming a bit calmer. He walked back to the workbench, put on his glasses, and opened the contents of the box.

His glasses gave him an air of sophistication that I hadn't seen in Sweater Guy before. I rather liked it. I tried to shake off the feelings as soon as they came about. He's a Blutbad, not Sweater Guy. Don't even think about it, Renée!

Monroe carefully lifted my cuckoo clock out of its box. "Dude, this is a beauty! An Emilian Wehrle Singing Bird! I haven't seen one of these in ages!" He seemed in his element now as his face lit up while he examined it. "You know, this isn't your run of the mill cuckoo clock."

Since my cuckoo was a shelf clock, it didn't have that bird house shape to it or those pine cones that were normally considered the cuckoo clock style. The square case was made of dark walnut, with ebony trim and gold accents. Perched in an archway on the top of the case was a realistic looking songbird with dark feathers except for a small plume of royal blue around its neck. On the hour the bird would come alive as it moved its head, beak, and tail, tweeting out its sweet, little song.

"So, is an Emilian Wehrle a good thing?" I asked. I didn't know the history of the clock or who made it. It was just a part of home to me.

"Really, you don't know?" He looked up from the clock and moved his glasses down the bridge of his nose, staring at me above the rims. "You've got something rare here. This is a nineteenth century, Black Forest clock. Wehrle was a highly reputable clockmaker of these types of time pieces in Furtwangen, Germany. Now this one has a very robust, brass plate, three train movement, which is the largest Emilian Wehrle ever made, actually. It's wound by a key with an eight day run, but you probably already knew that part." He grinned up at me. "You find these in, you know, collectors museums, but rarely do you get to see one up close." He was admiring it again, looking like a kid at Christmas. "You just don't get craftsmanship like this anymore, man." He shook his head as he went back to surveying the wood carvings, making little noises here and there.

"I just hope it's fixable." While being here this close to a Blutbad still had me on edge, watching him admire my clock was intriguing.

"So, you said this belonged to your great-grandfather?" he asked, recalling our earlier conversation on the phone.

"Yeah, it's been in my family for a while. I inherited it from my grandmother. The story goes that my great-grandfather was given this as a gift for saving a small child in Germany during WWI. The little boy's family took it off their wall and gave it to him as a token of their gratitude."

My grandmother loved to tell the story of her heroic father, but like with any family tale, you never knew how much truth there was to it. I liked to think it was one-hundred percent accurate.

Monroe smiled at the story. "Well, I'll do everything I can to fix it."

I relaxed a little, but it was against my better judgment. Out of all Wesen, Blutbaden scared me the most. Only a few lived to tell the tale of a Blutbad encounter. Back when Chloe and I were teenagers, she had pointed one out while we were shopping at the mall. The poor girl had almost had a heart attack right in the middle of the store. The Blutbad she'd spotted was in the firearms department of one of the stores. With his arms laden with tattoos and wearing camouflage dungarees, he'd reminded me of Rambo meets Full Metal Jacket. Full Metal Rambo had picked up on Chloe's scent almost immediately, since she was a rabbit Wesen, and he'd had a woge right in front of us. There was no soul in those red, crazy eyes of his, and the evil vibe he'd emitted had sent a cold chill down my spine. He'd practically chased us through the mall as we'd made a mad dash to get away. The guy hadn't seemed to care that he was in public; he was just deadlocked on Chloe. We had to get one of the mall cops involved before Full Metal Rambo had finally backed off, vanishing before he'd been caught.

After that I'd avoided any Blutbaden I came across, which thank goodness had only been a couple. I'd avoided them at least until now. I was in a Blutbad's home. Chloe would kill me if this guy didn't beat her to it.

Monroe turned to the back of the clock to inspect the mechanism. "The movement looks like it's all intact… Bellow system is in order," he continued. "But it looks like the cam wheel is jammed," he said as if I would understand what he meant.

"Umm, can it be un-jammed?" I asked reluctantly. All this clock jargon was going over my head.

"Eh, not exactly." Monroe gave me an amused smile. "The wheel itself seems fine; it's the lever that needs to be replaced. I know a dealer I can get the part from. You said you were driving it cross country? It probably wedged itself in during the shuffle of the drive." As Monroe described the mechanics, he gestured with his hands to demonstrate it wedging in. Just watching his hands move so animatedly was cute. I tried to shake the feelings aside, but I couldn't. Why did he have to be so darn cute?

"But you can fix it?" I asked, and he nodded assuredly. "I'm so relieved! I miss the chirping at home already. I feel kind of empty without it."

He smiled back at me. "I should be able to have it fixed within a week... or so."

I leaned in closer. "How much do you estimate the cost?"

"Hmm... It'll be like one-fifty for the lever," He touched his fingers as he spoke like he was calculating the totals together, "and around a hundred for the labor. So, around two-fifty maybe?"

"That's fine with me," I replied, smiling. "Money is no object when it comes to this clock."

I was finally calming down. Monroe was becoming the guy I'd found so appealing in the Blue Moon Bar all over again. He'd stayed human most of our conversation, and I'd put my fear to rest, at least temporarily. I'd even let go of my panic button on my key ring.

Monroe continued to examine the back of my cuckoo. While he was engaged, I looked around his workroom. It was overflowing with gears, tools, and what-cha-ma-call-its. Who knew what they were all used for? His work bench had a large magnifying lens and various tools and parts piled here and there. How did he find what he needed in this disorder?

Clocks of all shapes and sizes hung on the bold, dark green, orange, and gold striped walls of the workroom. One was even shaped like a steering wheel of a boat. I remembered seeing even more clocks in the living room when I'd first arrived. I had to suspect with being a clockmaker it came with the job. How many of these had he built? Down the hall, more clocks came into view. They were definitely all over the place. One in particular caught my eye.

"You have a cuckoo, too?" I asked, pointing down the hallway to the clock with the hanging pine cones.

"Ah, so you noticed. I have a few others, you know, here and there. But that one's also a Black Forest cuckoo. It was made by Anton Schneider. Back in 1848 he started making clocks at his farm house in Schonach, Germany. It's nowhere near as awesome as yours, but it's a rare one, too. My Uncle Jurgen got it at an estate sale for thirty bucks. It's worth thousands. When I was a kid I used to watch it for hours, trying to figure out how it worked. He'd let me, you know, look at the movements and I was just mesmerized by it. Probably one of the reasons I got into Horology." He chuckled. "Well, one of many." Monroe seemed lost in thought as he paused. "Sorry, I'm rambling. You know, most people stop me before I get to tell this much of a story." He scowled slightly. When he said 'most people' it sounded like he was referring to someone in particular.

"No, please. I find it interesting the information you know on clocks," I replied, my eyes looking into his. "You've taught me more about mine today than I've ever known since I inherited it."

Monroe seemed grateful that someone wanted to listen. "So, how did your U.S. tour go?" he asked with a smile, changing the subject.

"Oh, it went well. I just finished my second tour, moving everything here on Friday."

"Whoa, dude." Monroe's eyes widened. "So you drove it twice?"

"Yeah." I nodded. Wow, I'd driven almost five-thousand miles over those trips. "The second time was a little worse with the U-Haul and my car attached."

"That's a whole lot of driving," he commented, putting his glasses away.

"Good for the soul, but unfortunately not so good for the clock." I frowned as I glanced back at my cuckoo.

He nodded. "Yeah, they're complex pieces, so you gotta be careful." You've also got to be careful who you choose as your clock repair guy. I sighed inwardly.

"Are you a native Portlandian?" I asked Monroe, shielding my thoughts.

"More or less." Monroe chuckled. "I mean, it feels like it sometimes."

"I hear that overcast is pretty much the norm around here," I said, trying to understand his last cryptic response. "Not much sunshine, huh?"

"Sunshine is a rarity," he replied while shaking his head, "but you can always count on rain."

I sighed. "Note to self: invest in an umbrella." I was going to miss sunny days.

"Oh, there's no need for that," Monroe replied with a smirk. "Most of the rain is, you know, like, a light drizzle. I mean, only tourists carry umbrellas, so you may as well start acting like you belong here."

No umbrellas? My grandma used to always remind me to grab an umbrella on rainy days. 'Sugar melts, so don't get wet,' she would say. Would drizzle have been an exception to her rule?

"I'm still pretty lost around here to feel like I belong," I replied. "And I don't really know anyone yet. I need to invest in a tour guide or at least someone who can tell me the best coffee shops around." Crap, I was practically asking him to show me around town with a comment like that.

"Oh, I can tell you some great coffee shops, but my kitchen is one of the best," Monroe said, with a bit of pride in his voice.

"Is that so?" I asked curiously.

"I'm a coffee aficionado, myself. I do it all by hand. No instant coffee or pre-ground for me," he said, looking disgusted just mentioning it. "Starbucks is not real coffee, man. It's gotta be brewed just right. There's, like, an art to it, you know?" Apparently I'd found another interest of Monroe's. He went on for another few minutes about the art of coffee until he stopped mid-sentence, scratching his head. "There I go again, rambling away. You don't want to hear all that." Oh, but I did.

"No, you're not rambling," I assured him. "I'm definitely interested, and I agree with you. Sadly, I don't always get coffee that's made well. I've had to make do with Starbucks a time or two."

"There's nothing better than grinding your own," Monroe said, slapping his knee. "The taste just can't compare, man." Now I wanted coffee. Really good, Monroe-made coffee. Crap!

"Oh, look at the time." The clock on the boat steering wheel displayed quarter till noon. Had I really been here over an hour? Time flies when you're... Well, I wouldn't have described it as having fun. Honestly, I wasn't sure how to describe it. "I should probably go. I have some more errands I need to take care of today."

"I have your number on my cell, so I'll call you when your clock is ready." Monroe gave me a warm, genuine, I'm-not-a-monster smile as he stood from the workbench chair to see me out. He walked up close toward me. Real close. My panic returned, but I bit back the fear, feigning a smile instead.

"I want to thank you again for taking care of this for me," I said as I inched toward the front door. "Since you're a cuckoo clock enthusiast yourself, I know it'll be in good hands."

"I'll take good care of it." He reached for my shoulder, patting it a few times before resting his hand there. "I can promise you that."

"Good." I forced the practiced calm to wash me over so I wouldn't panic, but it was all I could do not to scream.

"You all right?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as he let go of my shoulder. "You look kinda tense."

"Oh, just the stress of moving here," I blurted out. "I still have so much to do."

Monroe chuckled. "Yeah, well, I haven't had to deal with that in a long time."

"I'm really glad our paths crossed again," I said, smiling at him as I slowly backed up closer to the door. I was also glad he hadn't killed me, but I wasn't out of the house to celebrate just yet.

"Yeah, funny how the universe works," he replied. I perked up at his use of the term, 'universe.' I'd used that term far too often, but rarely had I heard it from anyone else.

"Oh, I need to grab my jacket," I said while opening the door. The chill was a quick reminder.

"Right." Monroe turned pale as he walked toward his workroom and sat back down. "It's over there in the living room." He blindly pointed across the hall, averting his gaze.

I walked over to retrieve my jacket, putting it on swiftly. A small growl came from behind me, and I turned slowly. Monroe's eyes flashed a deep red, watching my jacket and twitching once more as he gripped the edge of his work table. I swallowed hard, but kept my face smooth as I clutched my keys, thumb positioned over the panic button. I had to get out. There was no way I could stay in here with this much red on. He was trying to control it, and I gave him credit for that, but he was a Blutbad, and that would win out eventually.

"Have a great day!" I cast him short wave while backing out the front door.

Monroe's eyes were as red as the devil's as he held his hand up, motioning a silent goodbye while remaining seated.

With controlled steps, I paced myself to the car without it looking abnormal. Running would've been better, but that might have set him off. Once in my car, I locked the doors and took in a deep breath. Why, oh why did he have to be a Blutbad? I started the car and pulled out of the driveway, just trying to breathe normally again. Some romantic comedy this had turned out to be. It was more like a nightmare on Southwest Hamilton Street.

A/N: You'll notice the streets I use are real, so feel free to pull up Google maps and follow along. (:

I have a photo and YouTube of Renee's clock on my profile. Go take a look! (: