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Dinner with Mary, Amber, and their mates was straight-up torture.
They all knew that Graham was Alice’s mate, and that she had slept with him, and if they didn’t know the details of their parting, they at least knew that it hadn’t exactly ended with pledges of devotion.
I love you, he’d said.
Well, she hadn’t ended it with pledges of devotion.
If her dinner partners didn’t say anything directly, their careful choice of topics and thoughtful sideways glances sent the message quite clearly: they thought she was being crazy.
She felt crazy.
She felt as loony as the gazelle shifter, and she desperately wished she could get away with shifting and running away to escape the awkward dinner and her own awkward self.
But being shy and eccentric as a small, delicate antelope was a lot different than it was as a giant, clumsy brown bear, and Alice knew it would only be ridiculous if she tried. To say nothing of destructive.
So she plowed through the meal and the conversation with bullish cheer, praising the food, making observations about the weather, and expressing gratitude that Mary had chosen not to put the bridesmaids in heels—in part because of Amber’s advancing pregnancy and in part because Alice already towered over most of the wedding party.
It occurred to her rather suddenly that Tony had been investigating Scarlet when he first came to the resort; she had been near the top of his list of suspects for the disappearing shifters that Beehag had been kidnapping. Had he figured out what her animal shift form was in that time?
It was far preferable to think about the uncomfortable topic of her real mission on the island than it was to think about Graham.
Alice steered the conversation to ask about their original visits to the island.
Mary and Neal laughed about his attempts to avoid her.
“I couldn’t figure it out,” Mary chuckled. “I’d catch sight of him, and it was like I was wearing roadkill perfume—he was suddenly fleeing in the opposite direction.”
“Not my finest hour,” Neal agreed, smiling fondly at her. “But sometimes, it’s a rocky path to true love.”
Everyone very carefully did not quite look at Alice.
“What about you, Tony?” Alice asked brightly. “You were actually here investigating Scarlet, weren’t you? Did you find out any juicy secrets about her before you got distracted by meeting Amber and breaking up Beehag’s zoo? Everyone’s dying to know what her shift form is.”
She did her best to sound casual, but the looks she got suggested she had not moved past crazy in their minds.
“Most of what came up in the investigation is classified,” Tony said apologetically. “But no, we never did find out what she is.”
Then the dessert tray was brought by Chef himself, the cook with arms like barrels and a warm, friendly smile in his handsome, graying face.
“Strawberry cheesecake,” Alice selected from the tray.
“An excellent choice,” Chef said, as he set the artful little plate in front of her. They were small strawberries, but a generous portion of them, deep red and drizzled with a matching sauce. “These strawberries are grown here on the island by our very own Graham and were picked this morning. He’s a masterful gardener, and we’re lucky to have a selection of his fresh fruit and produce.”
Of course Graham had grown the strawberries. Alice gave the chef a suspicious sideways look, not sure if the mention of Graham was deliberate or not. Probably everyone knew about them by now. It wasn’t that big an island.
It was too late to change her mind, so Alice smiled. “Sounds great!” she squeaked.
“That looks amazing!” Amber agreed with a sly sideways look. “I’ll have one, too.”
“I couldn’t eat another bite,” Mary groaned, while their mates picked out their own desserts.
“Eating for two,” Amber said merrily.
Alice didn’t want to start eating before they were all served, so while the others talked about pregnancy and joked about having to roll Amber to their cottage, she stared at her strawberries—strawberries that Graham had planted, nurtured... plucked with those big, strong hands...
Damn it.
Her bear’s fire had only been dampened, and now it rose again in her, swamping logical thought.
Amber’s cheesecake was swiftly brought out, and Alice finally took a tentative bite: creamy cake of a perfect consistency, just the right amount of sweet and deliciously cool in the hot tropical evening... and one flawless strawberry.
It was an amazing flavor combination, and Alice closed her eyes and savored it, until she realized she was remembering the taste of Graham’s kiss.
She ate the rest with mechanical efficiency, trying to keep up with the dinner small talk and not sound like she was thinking about a splendidly shirtless Graham feeding her strawberries.
As they gathered up to leave the restaurant at last, Amber said firmly, “You boys go on ahead! We’ll catch up!”
Alice knew what they were planning, and was not surprised when Amber and Mary each took an arm and steered her to the bar rather than to the paths that led to the rental cottages.
She could have shaken them off; despite being shifters, both of them together did not have the strength to make her do anything she didn’t really want to. But they were her friends, and she knew that if she didn’t have this conversation now, it would be an even more awkward one later.
She shoved images of Graham and strawberries firmly from her head as Mary ordered drinks for all of them, and met their appraising gazes with her chin up.
“So, what’s going on with you and Graham?” Amber finally asked.
Mary added, “We didn’t actually expect you to join us for dinner tonight. Or to see you much at all the next few days, to be honest.”
“We’ve got a wedding to get ready for,” Alice said innocently. “I couldn’t just leave you guys hanging.”
Mary and Amber exchanged looks that could only be described as deeply skeptical.
“That doesn’t answer the question,” Mary said firmly.
Alice sighed, noisy and unladylike. “Look, I’m really happy for both of you. But that’s not how mates always work out. The sex was great, and that’s all there was. We both have our own lives already. He doesn’t fit into mine, and I’m not going to give up my job to move here. You know how much I love my job! I took our team to state three years running! Anyway, a mate isn’t true love or any nonsense like that.”
Mary and Amber looked confused.
“You like him, don’t you?” Mary asked.
“What’s to like?” Alice said as carelessly as she could. “He’s hot, and he’s built, but he’s said maybe two complete sentences to me, under duress. That’s not much to build a friendship on, let alone a relationship.”
One of the sentences had been I love you, she remembered, and she was painfully grateful when the cowboy bartender brought them drinks: a fancy fruit thing with an umbrella for Mary, a virgin version of the same for Amber, and a stout glass of whiskey on the rocks for Alice.
Real girly, she thought with a grimace. A catch like me, it’s a wonder I’m not beating off the men. She toasted Amber and Mary and downed half of it in a swallow.
She was rewarded with a burn down her throat that held no candle to the burning in her belly.