Shifter Starter Set

by Candace Ayers

  “I don’t mean the color. Not the color. I want it straight like that. And shiny. It’s so shiny.” Oh, kill me now! Then she threw sod on my coffin. “With bangs. You can give me bangs, right?”

  Mary Beth was in for her routine monthly trim. It was a thirty-minute ordeal from start to finish, including a shampoo and a blowout. She always wanted the same thing. A trim. Always a trim. She’d never even gone for the layers I’d tried for years to give her. Suddenly, she decided to go straight and have bangs cut in? I wanted to cry. It would take hours to transform Shirley Temple circa 1936 to Cher circa 1976.

  To be fair, my mood wasn’t only in response to Mary Beth. I hated leaving Parker. Her new baby, Stella, was a beautiful little baby girl, my goddaughter, and basically my niece—not by blood, but by heart. My heart was with the two of them right now. I wanted my body to be there, too, but I had a laundry list of things to do. Unfortunately, one of them was showing up for work and setting a good example of adulting for my new goddaughter.

  “Well, Laila? Can you do it?”

  It was at that moment I noticed the entire salon had gone silent. Completely. You could hear a pin drop. Jammie had even stopped working on Carolina Montgomery’s perm. Eyes went from Mary Beth’s corkscrew curls to me and back again. I took a deep breath and was just about to tick off all the reasons on my fingers and toes that it was a bad idea when October spoke.

  “It’s a wig. No one’s hair is this straight.”

  “Oh.” Mary Beth deflated and her shoulders slumped in the chair. “I was just hoping for something…different. To spice things up in the…well, you know where.” She winked at me. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she couldn’t even say the word bedroom.

  Margie’s snort from across the salon echoed through the room. “You want to spice things up? C’mon over here, sweetheart, and I’ll make you a redhead, the undercarriage, too. Pastor Steve won’t know what hit him.”

  Cheeks aflame, Mary Beth stuck her nose back in her Women’s Week magazine and acted like the whole thing had never happened. Feeling guilty, I completed her trim and blowout, and when I was done, I leaned down and took her hand. “I’ll tell you what, Mary Beth. Go home and think this over. If you decide you truly want to make a drastic change, give me a call and I’ll carve out a block of time and straighten your hair with a flat iron. That way, you can test it out first and see how you like it. No charge.”

  October shook her head at me when the preacher’s wife left the salon. “The look on your face for a second… I thought you were going to go all Sweeny Todd on sweet Mary Beth.”

  I let my head fall back as I sank into my empty chair. “It wasn’t her. Although, I was terrified for a second that I was going to have to try to straighten her ringlets, one by one, in the fifteen minutes we had left.”

  Jammie, having set Carolina Montgomery under the dryer, shuffled over. “What’s wrong, honey? You don’t seem yourself today.”

  “Parker had her baby last night—Stella. I hate that I can’t be with her twenty-four hours a day. I have to go straight over to her house after work to finish her nursery, too.” I forced myself to stop pouting and shook out my hands. “I’m just in a funk.”

  “You know what I do when I’m in a funk?” Kitty piped up. “I like to have a big bottle of wine and remember what a goddamn good time I am.”

  Margie nodded. “She’s not lying. It’s one of those Costco-sized bottles.”

  I laughed. “Maybe I’ll try that. After I finish the nursery and meet with the computer guy. And stop by Gray Lowe’s house to get him to fill out some questionnaire for Parker’s new dating service.”

  October fanned herself. “Gray Lowe? Holy hotness. And you’re complaining? The teachers at my high school used to go on and on about him. I thought it was all old-lady hormones until I saw him with my own eyes. It was at the beach one day last summer. Oh my god, Adonis in the flesh!”

  I scrunched my face up. “He’s old enough to be your…I don’t know…older uncle?”

  Jammie just giggled. “Old-lady hormones. I’ve got those in spades, and I can tell you, it’s not just hormones with Gray Lowe. He’s a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and a cherry on top—and extra HOT fudge, if you know what I mean.” She winked. “That man can take my cherry any time he wants.”

  “Your cherry’s been gone for half a century.” Frannie stuck her head out of her room in the back. “Who the hell you tryin’ to kid?” Even though she and Jammie had been friends since grade school, Frannie had only just started working at Jammie’s Salon. As our newest team member, she fit right in with the rest of us.

  “Gray Lowe is the hottest prospect on this island. Every girl wants a piece of Sunkissed Key’s most eligible bachelor. I heard he doesn’t date, though. Although that doesn’t stop women from trying.” October patted her client on the shoulder and winked at her through her mirror. “Am I right, Lucille?”

  Lucille, a ninety-something with a sparse, wispy white cloud of hair that slightly resembled a cotton ball, nodded emphatically. “Oh yes. I know that young man. He’s dreamy, alright. With a tight butt, too.”

  My next client shuffled in and I stood to greet him with a smile. “Mr. Mathews, how are you today?”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting any juicy gossip, ladies.” Grinning at each of us, the elderly man slowly made his way to my chair and sank into it. “Don’t stop the tittle-tattle on my account.”

  Anyone who had lived on Sunkissed Key more than a month knew not to gossip about anything private in front of Mr. Mathews. Not unless you wanted it spread across the entire state of Florida. He was the mouth of the south.

  “We were just talking desserts, Mr. Mathews. Got any secret family recipes you’d care to share?”

  Clearly disappointed, he sank into his napping position and grunted. “Secrets aren’t meant to be shared, honey.”

  Carolina Montgomery, who was still sore at him for flapping his gums about her and the high school gym teacher being seen leaving the Bogart & Bacall Inn on Toucan Boulevard only minutes apart even though neither of them had any discernible reason to be checking in or out of a hotel at midday on a Tuesday, nearly snapped the hood off the dryer trying to get out from under it fast enough to respond to the old man’s comments. Jammie saw an argument coming and used herself as a physical barrier between the two clients.

  “Now, now, Carolina, don’t mess up your perm. Sit back and relax.”

  I slipped into the back room on the pretense of needing to grab a warm towel for Mr. Mathews, but really, I needed to breathe for a moment. I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the promises I’d made to Parker to tie up her loose ends. Before I even got started on the nursery, I was going back to the hospital to plant another kiss on sweet little Stella’s head and congratulate her mommy.

  4

  Gray

  “There’s my big bro!” Grace threw open her front door like we hadn’t just seen each other the day before yesterday. The smiles—both mine and hers—were genuine, as was the warmth we shared and the joy that filled my heart at seeing my baby sister finally settled and happy.

  “Look at this place.” I hugged her and peeked over her shoulder, marveling at the home she’d made. I’d helped her mate, Konstantin, with the building of the home, but it was Grace’s touch that had turned the house into a home.

  “You didn’t say anything about my new haircut, but you ooh and ahh over the house.” Rolling her eyes, she turned and waved me on to the rest of the space. “Go on, get your fill, then.”

  “Nice ‘do.” I ruffled the new hairdo, which I had noticed, and stepped inside to inspect the place. She’d filled bookshelves, added stylish knickknacks and put down throw rugs. There were even coasters on the coffee table. “Looks like you’ve already lived here for years.”

  “Just because we didn’t learn how to settle down when we were kids doesn’t mean we can’t learn to do it now. Kon and I just found stuff that we loved on Amazon and put it together over the last mon
th or two.”

  Saying that we hadn’t learned to settle down was a huge understatement. We’d never stayed in one place for longer than six months, and there’d never been any effort put into any dwelling we’d lived in. There had been many different dwellings, too—apartments, trailers, rental homes, even tents. We’d once lived in a bus, until it broke down on the side of the road and Dad didn’t have the money to have it fixed. He hitched us a ride to the next town, and we stayed in a homeless shelter for a few weeks until it was time to move on again. Dad was an anarchist but also a conspiracy theorist. He’d been less focused on providing us with a stable home than on teaching Grace survival skills and teaching me how to swindle, pickpocket, and perform other illegal activities to procure the money we needed to live. “Screw the Government” was the motto on our family crest.

  In some ways, it probably seemed paradoxical that I’d worked collecting intelligence for a government I’d been raised to despise and distrust, but in other ways, our upbringing had been a perfect precursor to joining the organization—never staying in one place for too long, never settling down, never making friends, and fabricating background stories on the fly.

  I’d owned the house on Sunkissed Key for a few years and had never met a single neighbor until Grace showed up on my doorstep worried when I hadn’t responded to our monthly keep-in-touch email. At the time, I’d been pumped full of lead and was holed up in Cuban waters recovering.

  My sister had always been the most important person in my life, even though before she moved here, we rarely saw each other. The way she responded when she came to Sunkissed Key and found me missing and my house ransacked, told me that I was as important to her as she was to me. We were the only family we had—until Grace mated Kon. As her mate, he was family now.

  “Gray?”

  I snapped out of my mental trip to the past and turned to face my sister. “Yeah? Where’s Kon?”

  She pointed to the back and led the way out onto a big deck that overlooked the ocean. Kon was sprawled on a beach chair with his feet in the sand. He looked back at us and waved.

  “Water’s nice.”

  Grace shivered. “That water’s frigid right now. He’s crazy.”

  “I heard that.”

  “Of course you did, polar bear.” She rolled her eyes and pushed me back toward the living room. “Come on, I want to talk to you.”

  I cringed. I wasn’t looking forward to receiving a lecture, and from the look on her face, that was exactly what she intended.

  “Oh, don’t look like the world’s about to end. It’s not that serious.”

  I didn’t relax any. I knew Grace. She was a master manipulator when she wanted to be. Our dad had taught us all sorts of nifty but psychologically damaging tricks. I sat on their plush, new couch and sighed. The aches in my body settled nicely on the thick cushions. “Hmm, nice couch.”

  “Are you still using that secondhand thing the girls and I picked up at the thrift shop on Main? You still haven’t gotten a better couch for your house, have you?”

  I stretched my legs out. “Not yet.”

  “Why not, Gray? You should fix the place up a bit, get some new furniture, maybe some knickknacks. We didn’t exactly do a Martha Stewart on it. We were just trying to get it somewhat presentable.” She grunted. “It was all we could do to get the broken stuff bagged up and hauled out to the trash.”

  After my house had been ransacked by the same criminals who’d later kidnapped Grace, she and her friends had come in and cleaned it up while I was still healing and hiding away off the coast. “The shit I’ve got is perfectly fine for hugging asses. Why does it bother you so much?”

  “Because you’re still living like you’re going to be leaving everything behind any day.” She said it quietly with a slight quiver that told me she might shed tears at any moment.

  “I’m not.”

  She sat down next to me and pulled her feet under her. “Gray… Are you happy? I mean, it doesn’t seem as though you’re putting down roots. It’s like you’re just living day by day…and you’re diving back into the same dangerous lifestyle.”

  I shifted, uncomfortable. “I’m doing the same job as your mate, Grace.”

  “Yeah, but he’s a great big polar bear.”

  “Wow. I’m fragile and weak, is that it? Thanks for the vote of confidence, sis.”

  “You’re my brother and you almost died. I finally get to have you in my life, Gray, and I don’t want to lose you. I know that maybe I’m being selfish asking you to stay here in Sunkissed Key when your urge is to roam, but I want you in my life. I don’t want you getting hurt.” She hesitated. “Maybe you could work in the office—do paperwork?”

  “Grace, come on. I’m a wolf shifter. I’m just as safe as your mate. Even polar bears can’t stop six bullets and come out unscathed.”

  “Six? You were shot six times! I thought it was only once. You never told me it was six. What the hell, Gray!?”

  Crap. “Look, I’m not going to hide away in an office. That will kill me faster than any bullet could.” I stood and shook my head at her. “You need to stop worrying so much.”

  “Why haven’t you filled out that paperwork for Parker?”

  I threw my hands up. “A little overbearing, aren’t we?”

  “S’up Gray?” Kon came in, stomping his feet on the mat just inside the door.

  “He thinks I’m a nag, but you know it’s ‘cause I care, right? I want you to have what Kon and I have. Parker could find you a mate. Don’t you want a mate?”

  I was careful not to shake my head. I knew that would just set Grace off all the more. “I just haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve had other things on my plate.”

  “Well, I have a copy of the Cybermates application right here. We could do it now.”

  Kon laughed and I turned toward the front door. “I love you, Grace. I’ll see you two later.”

  She hurried after me and wrapped her arms around me. “I just don’t want to wake up and find that you’ve snuck out. If you had a mate, you’d be settled, and there wouldn’t be any threat of you up and leaving in the middle of the night.”

  “I have a sister, and I’m one of the owners of a new startup security firm. That’s good enough to keep me here.” Even as I said it, I didn’t know if it was completely true. I was feeling restless. I had been for weeks. I’d been on Sunkissed Key now longer than I’d ever stayed anywhere in my life.

  “I love you, Gray.”

  I turned and hugged her fully. “I love you, too, Grace. Stop worrying about me.”

  Kon grunted from the couch. “You can worry about me.”

  Grace’s face relaxed as she turned to her mate. “I always do, big daddy bear.”

  “Ugh, on that note, I’m outta here before I have to do a Van Gogh and lose my ears altogether.”

  “Van Gogh got rid of only one ear, and he was mentally ill. Don’t forget to fill out the pa—”

  I shut the door before she could finish and headed down the beach, back toward my house. Cutting across Parrot Cove, I got to my house on Bluefin Boulevard in no time. I’d never expected to live so close to Grace as an adult. It was strange, but in a good way. Neither of us had ever experienced the traditional family life, and I was still learning how to adapt to it all. Climbing the stairs to my house, I cursed the steady throb of pain from beneath my ribcage. Nothing was as easy as it should’ve been after the shooting. Frustration didn’t help, but I had more of it than I knew what to do with.

  5

  Laila

  My workday at the salon had just ended when my phone chimed letting me know that Dylan was in the parking lot waiting on me. He was the tech guy from Miami who was going to help Parker…uh, me, I guess, really get the Cybermates site off the ground.

  I waved goodbye to everyone and headed to my car. I spotted Dylan the moment I pulled into the parking area for Latte Love. He was hard to miss standing next to a perfectly polished, gleaming, cherry-red Mustang converti
ble. His sandy-blonde, sun-streaked hair was a wild mane around his head. He’d obviously driven from Miami with the top down.

  The moment I stepped out of my Honda to greet him, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and a chill snaked up my spine. He flashed a bright, white smile and held a hand out in greeting. I pretended not to notice. Avoiding a handshake, as well as eye contact, I popped the trunk of my car and removed the small file folder of paperwork that Maxim had dropped off from Parker this morning.

  Dylan kept that easy smile on his face, but there was something about his eyes that made me wary. He made me think of a predator stalking its prey. “You’re Laila, right? Dylan.”

  “I…um…nice to meet you.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just the look on your face says you’d rather be sitting under a dentist’s drill than meeting me.” He took a half-step closer and lowered his voice. “It’s the feline-lupine thing, right?”

  I frowned. “Excuse me.”

  “Wolf-lion. Dog-cat. You know?”

  Still frowning, I shook my head.

  “You’re a wolf shifter. I’m a lion shifter. There’s always some sort of natural wariness there, right?”

  Realization dawned on me, and I felt my cheeks heat. “I am so sorry. I’m… It’s… Oh, gosh, sorry.” Duh. I was a little clueless sometimes about shifter things. I had only just found out I was a wolf shifter a little over a year ago, and while I sometimes had some enhanced senses from it, they came and went, I’d never actually shifted into my animal form.

  His brow wrinkled and he looked like he wanted to question me, but to his credit, he didn’t pry. Instead, he seemed intent on trying to make me feel at ease. He dug his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “That file there looks pretty sparse.”

  I looked down at it, taking the chance to regroup. It wasn’t every day that someone brought up the fact that I was a shifter. Most days, I never thought about it at all. I supposed that other shifters were accustomed to the shifter world and the other side of things. I’d never get used to it. “This is all I was given.”