by Cara Adams
Both men moved under the overhanging dune, and then—they were simply gone. If she’d had blinked her eyes she’d have missed it the change was so fast. Fergus’s fur was red, the same color as his hair. Cam was a fraction shorter to the shoulder than Fergus but clearly stockier and stronger than him.
She stood still as the wolves approached her and gently she patted each one from their shoulder down along their spine. They even felt different, Fergus’s fur softer and silkier than Cam’s, but Cam was more affectionate, nuzzling her leg with his muzzle, licking her bare skin with his rough tongue.
When he stayed by her leg she understood. “You want me to climb on your back now?”
He seemed to nod so she swung one leg over his back and settled herself there, leaning forward over his spine and wrapping her arms around his neck. Very slowly he walked along the edge of the lake, only moving faster as she gained more confidence and sat up more to look around. By the end of the lake he was loping at a steady, though not fast speed. And she was grinning. Being on his back was amazing. So very different from walking or riding a bicycle, or anything she’d ever done before. Her legs could feel the muscles in his body moving and shifting as he walked and ran. It was an incredibly exciting feeling to be sharing such an experience with this wonderful animal.
At the end of the lake Cam stopped and Fergus moved up beside her. She climbed off saying, “This is the end of the bus route. All passengers must change here.” Then she thought likely they wouldn’t understand her and she said, “That’s what they used to say on the bus from town to where I lived. There used not to be a direct bus route home and we always had to change buses for the last two miles home.”
Once again she thought she saw Cam nod, and she stepped over to climb onto Fergus. She’d gained in confidence now and didn’t lie flat on his back but sat up almost straight, burying her hands in the thick scruff of fat and fur around his neck.
Fergus must have been convinced she was more relaxed as he took the time to roam across the sand, dashing to the water’s edge then running back to the dune, as he moved back toward the rocks where the men’s clothes and shoes still were.
She laughed at his antics and held her legs up out of the water seeing as she was dressed again. Not that her clothes and shoes were completely dry, but they weren’t uncomfortable either. Just a little damp, and she had no intention of getting wringing wet again.
As soon as they arrived back at the beach and she got off his back Fergus transformed. “You enjoyed yourself.” It was a statement, not a question, and she nodded.
“Yes. Thank you both. It was enormous fun.”
“So, do you want to ride us back to the parking lot?” asked Cam.
“I don’t think it’ll be practical unfortunately. I’m not yet confident enough not to hold on, and I’d have to carry all your clothing. But I did enjoy it and I’m glad I’ve seen you in your werewolf forms. It was a privilege. I know that, and I’m thankful you entrusted it to me.”
And she was. All her ambivalence had disappeared. She’d loved seeing them as wolves and knew she could trust them in that form just as she could in their human form. The better she came to know them the more she appreciated them as deeply caring and considerate people, yet men who challenged her on so many levels. But even when they challenged her, and expected her to live up to their high standards, they were still thoughtful and kind and they still looked out for her. Fergus had said he’d jump with her if she hadn’t been willing to jump by herself. That was a very telling comment. It meant he expected she’d be willing to jump alone, but that he was willing to rearrange his plans of she wasn’t.
“Do you mind walking? You’re not too tired?” asked Fergus.
“No, I’m not tired. I’ll enjoy walking with you even if the scenery won’t be so spectacular this time.” And she meant it. She was really coming to enjoy time spent talking with the men. She could never predict what topic they’d tackle next, but she knew they’d converse intelligently and interestingly on whatever it was.
It was just a damn fucking shame, she needed to devote so much of her time to earning her partnership, but she had to. If she wasn’t made partner by age thirty her chances of ever being made partner would start going downhill so fast she’d become a has-been by the time she reached forty. And that was without considering the fact that coming out about being in a ménage relationship would kill her future stone dead. Too many men would take the moral high ground and castigate her as some kind of uncontrolled nymphomaniac. Her career would be dead in the water five minutes after she announced she was seeing two men.
Her decisions were obvious. She could keep seeing the men as she wanted to, but not publically appear to be in a relationship with them. And not so often her work was left undone.
* * * *
“Sierra, it’s Oscar. I’ve received another letter from George’s attorney. Since it’s just as confusing as usual I’m sending you the scan of it right now.”
“What’s the key point in it this time, Oscar? Could you decipher that much?”
“He said there were deed restrictions on my property put there by the home association, but I don’t actually know what that means. I’m much better at figuring out whether or not to remove a dodgy appendix than dealing with a dodgy cousin.”
That goatish, fly-bitten maggot pie of an attorney! What’s he doing now?
Even though she was angered by his cousin’s antics, she had to smile at Oscar’s good attitude to the hassles he was facing. “Thanks, Oscar. The e-mail is coming through now. I’ll look into it and get back to you.”
“He’s not going to give up, is he?”
Sierra thought Oscar sounded a little stressed despite his light-hearted comment just a sentence previously. Immediately she hid her own annoyance and replied gently, “The law is on your side, Oscar. We’ve won each battle so far and we’re not going to give up this time either. He may well be grasping at straws.”
“Thanks, Sierra. If anyone can defeat him, it’ll be you.”
“Us.”
Sierra clicked open the document and began wading through the endlessly long and convoluted sentences. The legal fraternity wasn’t known for using simple English, but this man was worse than most.
Well damn and double damn. George’s attorney had convinced the local authorities there were restrictions against having a clinic in the area. She knew that was incorrect, but proving it could be tricky, especially if George had paid them off to get them on his side.
Fuck. This battle just got a whole lot harder and potentially a whole lot dirtier. Now she needed to find some precedents in law that supported her side of the argument as well as disproving George’s.
Well, if you want a fight, my friend, you’re going to get one. I’m not giving up any time soon. I always win my cases and this one is more important than most. It’s not just about being seen as a rainmaker. It’s about the clinic and all the people who need it. And right now they’re relying on me to ensure Oscar stays in charge and that the clinic survives!
First I need to get Harry to check out which of the local councilors are known to have flexible morals and see if George has suborned them. Meanwhile my clerk can start researching the deed restrictions for the area for me. Damn, this is going to be a hell of a job. But I will succeed. Failure is not an option.
* * * *
Thanks to all the time she’d spent on the Thorne House Clinic case, Sierra was buried under a mountain of work and refused to even talk to Fergus and Cam, so they offered their Saturday to help Danny Davies. The clinic’s carpenter, and the man he’d recently hired as a general maintenance man and handyman, Quinn Johnson, wanted to move everything out of one side of the barn which they were going to use for storage. Danny wanted a lockup area so tools could be kept safe and for chemicals, gasoline, and other flammable substances to be out of sight. It all seemed reasonable to Cam so he and Fergus had arrived in old jeans and work boots, ready to lend their muscles to the program.<
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Cam liked Danny, and as always he had a complete plan for what needed to be done, including what would move where to minimize double handling.
Cam was also happy to spend time with, and learn more about, Quinn. The man had only started work at the clinic a couple of weeks previously, and he was a human, which was interesting as so many of the original staff were shape-shifters. After all, the clinic had been founded to help shape-shifters so it was only to be expected many of the staff would be paranormals. But Quinn was human.
“How do you feel about working for a pack of wolves?” he asked Quinn as they were waiting for Danny to move his truck and Oscar’s car out of the barn.
“Didn’t your friend tell you?” asked Quinn, nodding at Fergus.
“What? Did they try that cute puppy dog trick on you, too?”
Quinn laughed. “Yeah, after I was hired Ambrielle told me they’d done it to her. I’m sitting in the reception area waiting to be called into my interview and the biggest dog I’ve ever seen in my life walks into the room and its fur is red. I said to myself, ‘Either this mutt has had a can of red paint sprayed all over it, or it’s a shape-shifter.’”
“I’ve been meaning to ask. How did you know about shape-shifters?” asked Fergus.
“I love animals and get on really well with them. I’ve got an old property well out of town and have eleven dogs, four cats, two horses, a goat, rabbits, chickens, fish, pretty much everything you can name. I like them all and we understand each other. It wasn’t much of a leap to know that some animals were really people.”
“Does that mean some of your animals are shape-shifters?” asked Cam curiously.
“I couldn’t rightly say,” said Quinn as Danny walked back into the barn.
Cam was kept busy shifting boxes and cans of equipment for the next hour, but he continued to think about Quinn’s answer. Did he mean he wasn’t going to tell them? Or did it mean he wasn’t sure himself about some of his roommates? That was an interesting little puzzle indeed. It also showed that Quinn himself was much deeper and more complicated than he appeared on the surface. At first glance he was very open and chatty. The friendliest person Cam had met in a long time. Yet it would appear the man still kept some things close to his vest.
Cam enjoyed the day’s hard physical labor and sheer delight of seeing, at the end of it, things neatly stacked on the brand-new shelves they’d all built, and the door of the new storeroom securely locked to keep things safe.
Besides, with Oscar’s cousin George still an unknown entity, keeping chemicals and flammable liquids out of sight sounded good to him, as well as locking away the sharp tools. He certainly didn’t want to meet an enraged cousin holding an ax or a nail gun any time soon. It was good to know so many of the staff were thinking about protecting the clinic, making it a safer place and more difficult for George to attack if he decided to get physical about wanting to take it away from Oscar.
“Quinn and I will be changing the rest of the locks on Monday. You’ll all get new keycards to the areas you need access to, but there’ll only be two doors everyone can open—the main front entry to reception and the back door in from the parking lot,” said Danny.
“That sounds very sensible. Now there’s more staff and more patients, we don’t all need to be able to go everywhere,” said Fergus.
“Besides, Ambrielle usually knows where we are and she can get us to fetch things for you if you can’t get them yourselves,” added Danny.
“It was something Harry Harrison suggested and it’s been a smart move,” said Cam. The more protection they had in place the better, just in case George proved to be a problem. If he didn’t, no worries, they’d tidied up their act anyway. And if he did cause trouble, at least there was some hope of stopping him before he did anything too bad. Cam really didn’t trust him. Between what Oscar had told them all, and the few things he’d heard from Sierra, the man seemed fixated on getting the clinic. There was no understanding the motivations of some people.
Once again Cam felt fear deep inside himself. It was very good, a smart idea, to make things much more difficult for a physical attack against the clinic to succeed. He really appreciated the way so many people were working together to provide a safe place for the shape-shifters. But what if George was actually telling the truth? What if the property really did belong to him? What if no matter how good an attorney Sierra was, it was out of her control to save the clinic for Oscar? What if everything they were doing was going to be for nothing because George would take the land back and there’d be no clinic, no place for shape-shifters to be healed, and no job and livelihood for them all? It was a terrible thought, running through his heart and making his belly clench with fear. Oh God! How could they cope if everything they’d dreamed about and worked for came to an end?
* * * *
Sierra turned the invitation over and stared at it. Now what do I do?
It was after ten at night and she was still seated at her office desk. The late hour was demonstrated clearly by her overflowing out-tray, her almost empty in-tray, and the row of empty containers pushed to the far corner of the desk—three empty coffee cups, one empty noodle bowl, a muffin wrapper decorated with crumbs, and a half-empty yoghurt tub, the spoon still resting inside it.
It’d been a long Saturday, but a productive one. One of the things she’d done was check and double-check all the paperwork about Thorne House Clinic. She’d searched every avenue she could think of and there were no signs of deed restrictions on that land. The city authorities had no grounds to genuinely believe there were. All she could assume was that they’d been given inaccurate information, or someone had been bribed. Well, she had strategies in place now to deal with either—or both—of those possibilities.
She couldn’t see anything left out or handled wrongly, but she wanted to let the case simmer at the back of her mind some more. Sometimes letting her subconscious work on a problem helped her think of something new to check and George’s absolute belief the property belonged to him was a little disturbing to her. Not just to her reputation, but also because she cared about the clinic and the people there. She’d hate to have missed some important point.
Now, what the fuck do I do about this?
“This” was the invitation to the Gala Celebration, an event she’d agreed to attend weeks ago. An event she’d considered bringing Fergus and Cam to as well. She’d decided that because she absolutely needed to use the evening to network and find more clients, to prove to all the male attorneys out there that she was just as comfortable and successful at high-end social events as in the courtroom, she would go alone. Going alone meant all her time and energy was directed at working the event, meeting and greeting, getting her name and face known.
If she took the men with her she’d have to explain things to them, talk to them, dance with them. Yes, she’d completely enjoy being held in their arms and dancing the night away with them both, but this event was work. Time was running out and she needed to keep climbing the career ladder. She couldn’t risk any of the aggressive young attorneys at the firm catching up to her level. She couldn’t let them steal her clients or potential clients. If she lost her rainmaking ability she’d be out on her ass faster than she could blink.
There was also the whole ménage issue to consider. While she was reasonably certain most people would merely think she was trying to outplay the opposition at their own game by bringing two escorts, it was possible someone would decide she was involved in a ménage and set out to ruin her career on sexual grounds. She’d been careful and had never so much as touched either Fergus or Cam in public, but who knew what people might say out of jealousy and spite.
But this event was designed for people to be partnered, for the top guests to bring their wives and kids to prove what awesome family men they were, as well as supreme in their various fields. So if she turned up alone that would be a black mark against her. It would imply she was too lazy, too ugly, too socially inept to have a partner.
In the past Sierra’d had a mutually satisfactory arrangement with a young attorney who specialized in criminal law, an area she tried to avoid. He wanted to meet the right people but wasn’t high enough up the legal tree yet to be invited himself. She needed a man to dance attendance on her and treat her like a precious jewel for a night. Their system had worked well. He’d deferentially stood at her shoulder, handing her drinks—always water but only the two of them knew that—touching her arm gently, smiling at her, hanging on every word she uttered, and she’d introduced him to everyone who mattered in his chosen area of specialization.
She could ask him again. She knew he’d jump at the chance to attend a black-tie event such as this celebration. But it felt like cheating on Fergus and Cam. Hell, she was fucking the men now. She needed to be faithful to them in all spheres of her life. But could she trust them to further her career? To put her first all night long? Yes, she could. They’d never deliberately hurt her or her career, she knew that. The other, more important question was, could she concentrate on her job when their lovely bodies were pressed against hers? Now that would be the real challenge. And again would any onlookers sense the chemistry between them? Would any of the competition guess they were sexually involved and use that against her? It was such a complicated decision. Whatever she decided could be wrong.
She had to trust them. She had to invite them. They’d trusted her by showing her their wolf forms. The very least she could do was to return that trust and invite them to the gala. But then she’d have to be strong to concentrate on work, not on them. She’d need to talk to them and explain all this though. She couldn’t just invite them and expect them to follow her around all night as the young attorney did. At least if she was concentrating on work, not them, no one should sense a deeper connection between them. She would just have to ensure that was the way it was.