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BERKLEY
I gripped the smooth edge of the counter in the employees-only kitchen. If I didn’t get control of my temper soon, I was going to leave claw marks in the laminate. I inhaled several deep breaths and stared out the window overlooking the forest on the backside of the lodge. The leaves on my favorite group of aspen trees were slowly fading from green to a vibrant array of oranges and yellows. Fall had officially arrived, and it wouldn’t be long before the weather got colder.
I’d already decided that this was going to be the longest week of my life, and even the breathtaking view wasn’t helping ease my stress. Maris had only been here one day, and I was ready to rip out those bright red locks she kept coated with too much gel. The front desk had already received three complaints from the irritating woman. There weren’t enough towels for bathing. Why didn’t they have a salon in the lodge?
And then there was the final complaint, the one that was personally insulting and had me fighting the urge to help her pack and drive her to Hanford myself. After eating lunch in the resort’s restaurant, the bitch had the nerve to ask if she could get a better selection of dining cuisine elsewhere.
I’d worked hard to create the perfect menu, spent hours in the kitchen preparing every item from scratch, then testing them on family members, friends, and employees. Maris had to know what she’d eaten came from my recipes. My penchant for cooking wasn’t a secret. Even when I was in college, shuffling a busy schedule between classes, studies, and working, I managed to find time to prepare special dishes for my roommates.
“Stop thinking about what that witch said and hand me the pliers with the blue handle.” Mandy’s voice echoed from inside the cabinet, where she’d wedged the upper half of her body to work on the leaking pipe beneath the kitchen sink.
I couldn’t have asked for a better best friend, but at the moment, it annoyed me that she knew me so well. “What makes you think I’d waste my time thinking about anything Maris had to say?” Since I couldn’t glare at her face, I spoke to the half of her body sprawled on the floor next to me. During the summer months, she usually wore cutoff overalls and ankle boots when she worked. Today she opted for an old pair of jeans and an oversized blue T-shirt that smelled a lot like my brother Nick.
When my siblings and I inherited the old resort, we discovered that some of the plumbing was outdated. At the time, Mandy worked at her father’s plumbing company, so we’d hired her to do the repairs and help with the renovations. It was how Nick met her. Even though she no longer worked for her father, Mandy still insisted she be the one to handle any of the resort’s plumbing problems.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mandy replied. “Maybe because you’ve done nothing but make wolfy growls since I crawled under the sink.” Her arm shot out, and she snapped her fingers in expectation of receiving the tool she’d asked for.
I hadn’t realized I’d been making the noises out loud until she brought it to my attention. I groaned and pushed away from the counter, then walked over to the tool box sitting on the floor, and sifted through the contents.
“Here.” I placed the wrench in her hand.
“Is she the reason you don’t like cats?” Mandy’s question made me twitch uncomfortably. I knew my friend too well, knew it was more than a simple question, knew she was searching for the answer to something about me that was much more personal.
I refused to take the bait. “Other than the fact that they’re devious and can’t be trusted not to claw your back, I like cats just fine.”
“I wasn’t talking about the pet variety, I was talking about shifters.” Mandy turned on her side to peek her head out at me. She flipped her honey-blonde braid over her shoulder and frowned. “Nick told me Maris was a cougar like Preston.”
Damn my brother and his big mouth. If he thought I was going to make him Danishes any time soon, he could think again.
Mandy was one of the few humans I knew who was aware that shifters existed. She’d gotten an accelerated lesson when we were in our early teens. It was during one of the summer vacations Reese and I spent at the resort with our grandfather. She’d been camping with some of her local friends and gotten separated from the group.
I’d been out running in my wolf form and came across her shortly after some teenage boys who’d been staying at the lodge had cornered her in the woods. Mandy had been terrified, and I didn’t blame her. I’d arrived in time to overhear the male shifters, still in their human forms, graphically boast about what they planned to do to her. Even thinking about the horrible things members of my own species were capable of still formed a knot in my stomach. The little bastards had been lucky I hadn’t shredded them on the spot.
Three against one wasn’t the greatest odds, but I’d been angry and didn’t care when I shifted into my human form, then threatened to tell my grandfather what they’d been planning to do. Back then, James Reynolds wasn’t someone you wanted to mess with, and neither was my brother Reese. He’d been circling close by, making noise and spreading his scent. It hadn’t taken long for the males to change their minds, back down, and disappear into the woods.
Later, when I’d introduced Mandy to my brother, I didn’t mention he’d gotten the scratches on his arms from following the miscreants and making sure they never messed with another female—human or shifter—again.
Mandy had promised never to reveal our secret, and we’d been friends ever since. Even though she’d die before revealing our existence to anyone, it didn’t stop her from being curious or asking questions about us when no one else was around.
Now that she’d mated Nick, she was even worse. She wanted me to be happy too, to find someone special and settle down. And, being the tenacious person I knew her to be, it translated into meddling in my personal life and trying to play matchmaker.
“I know what you meant,” I snapped and crossed my arms, not happy with the direction the conversation was going.
“I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it, but Maris is the reason you stopped seeing what’s his face, isn’t she? You never told me what happened with that guy. Wasn’t his name Darren, Dennis...” She clicked her fingers together. “Oh, yeah, Drew.”
At the time, Drew had betrayed me with Maris, I’d been too hurt and too ashamed that I hadn’t seen what was happening with them until it was too late. My breakup with Drew had happened shortly after Mandy dumped her old boyfriend. She’d been so devastated, and I couldn’t bring myself to heap my troubles on her too.
I did what any good friend would do. I pushed aside my own problems and offered to neuter Craig for her. It was lucky for him that Mandy didn’t have my wicked side; otherwise, the guy would be missing his male parts.
Later, after I’d returned home, I’d told Mandy about the breakup, told her I caught Drew with someone else, but hadn’t given her any details. Since she’d been through something similar with Craig, she’d been understanding, didn’t push, didn’t ask me to share any of the horrible details.
“Yes.” I drew out the word, knowing I wouldn’t be able to lie to her. Mandy and I were close, and she knew me better than anyone. I should have known she’d eventually figure it out once she learned Maris was staying in one of the cabins.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mandy stuck her head back under the sink, banged it on the frame, and growled. She’d always been accident prone, but the growling thing was new, and I was curious if she’d picked it up from Nick.
“No, not really.”
“You can tell me it’s none of my business, but I’m guessing Drew was in the cat family too, wasn’t he?” Mandy asked.
“You’re right, it’s none of your business.” I was talking to her legs again.
“I knew it.” Mandy’s response was too enthusiastic and made me nervous.
“You did hear the part where I said it wasn’t any of your business, didn’t you?” I asked.
She banged her wrench against something I assumed was metal by the clinking noise it made, then continued talking as if I hadn’t said anything. “So because of what those two did, you’ve decided all cats are bad.” She slid out from under the counter, plopped her ass on the floor, and glared up at me. “Or have you lumped all guys, specifically cats, in the same avoid-having-relationships-with-men category because of your dad?”
Did I? I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but I guess she had a point. Clayton Reynolds was the complete opposite of his father and definitely not someone I would classify as being a good role model. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with his children, had never been around or had time for us. After he’d left my mother for another woman, our strained relationship got worse, pretty much to the point of nonexistent. The only time I heard from him was when he wanted something.
He hadn’t been great at providing financial support either, which left my mother with two growing kids and having to work long hours to keep our home. My grandfather did his best to help her out, which was one of many reasons Reese and I ended up spending most of our summer vacations with him. I had a lot of good memories of the resort. It had been my home then and it was my home now. Someday, I’d have to thank my father for being such a selfish jerk.
“Hey.” Mandy waved her hand to get my attention and also have me help her off the floor.
Once she got to her feet, she immediately pulled me into a hug. “You know I think of you as more than a friend, right? You’re the sister I never had.” For a human, she could squeeze pretty hard. Luckily, my enhanced strength enabled me to keep breathing.
“I know,” I said, preparing myself for the rest of the lecture I knew was coming.
“Good.” She released my neck, then closed the lower cabinet doors before turning on the hot and cold faucet handles. “Awesome, it looks like they’re working.” She squirted some liquid soap from a nearby dispenser in her hand and proceeded to scrub off the grime. She grabbed a towel, dried her hands, then flashed me one of her insightful smiles. “Promise me you won’t let what happened with those two pieces of dog crap ruin things for the right guy.”
I always found Mandy’s non-use of curse words amusing, especially when I could tell by the way she wrinkled her nose that she desperately wanted to use them. Even now, I couldn’t stop from grinning. “I don’t need to promise, because the right guy hasn’t come along yet.” An image of Preston popped into my mind, along with the massive wave of guilt I felt for knowingly fibbing to my friend.
“Uh-huh. What about...”
No matter how covert Mandy thought she was, continually bringing up Preston’s name in our conversations gave me a good clue to what she was going to say next. Luckily, I didn’t get a chance to argue because Nina strolled into the room carrying a stack of books, each one covered with silk and lace in varying pastel shades. “Hey, guys. Is now a good time?” Her words bubbled with enthusiasm.
Nina had to be one of the happiest people I’d ever met. Even when she was dealing with customer complaints, the smile rarely left her face.
“I got the samples for the wedding gowns from my sister.” She plopped the books on the rectangular table on the opposite side of the room. The loud thunk woke Nick’s dog, Bear, who’d been quietly sleeping underneath one of the chairs. He made a noise similar to a whimper and wagged his short tail but didn’t give up his spot.
“Hey there, boy.” Nina squatted in front of Bear and scratched his ears.
Other than the color of his fur, the scrawny little guy didn’t resemble anything close to a bear, and no matter how many times I asked, Nick wouldn’t tell me how he came up with the name.
The dog had become a member of our family by way of rescue. Mandy found him under the porch of one of the cabins earlier in the summer and conveniently persuaded Nick to adopt him. She’d assumed the dog was abandoned because he’d been covered in dirt and the thin layer of fur clinging to his ribs suggested he hadn’t had anything decent to eat in days, maybe even weeks.
“Now is perfect.” My head hurt from lack of sleep, and I was ready to take a break. More importantly, I was ready to be done with my interrogation from Mandy. I knew she wasn’t finished, but I’d take whatever reprieve I could get.
“It was great of you to do this for me.” Mandy pulled out a chair and took a seat next to Nina.
“It’s no problem. Cassie said to call when you’re ready to go to the shop to try on gowns.”
Mandy glanced at me and patted the seat on her other side. “Aren’t you going to join us?”
“Why don’t you two get started while I make us some sandwiches?” I was happy for Nick and Mandy, and had gladly volunteered to help with the plans for their wedding. Now that I was actively participating, I felt a little envious of the happiness she’d found with my brother.
