by Anya Nowlan
“She’s in Ohio.”
“We’re good at driving!” Rhett called, banging his fist against the hood of his Ford.
“True,” Rhett agreed, smiling to himself.
Sure, they were good drivers. And even though they’d spent a lot of time apart in the last ten years, having lived in opposite ends of the country for most of their adult lives, they were still close as ever. But Rhett knew that they hadn’t postponed their search just because it was disadvantageous to their life of drinking and partying.
What woman could fit perfectly between him and his even wilder brother Rush, filling all their nooks and crannies and making them into a cohesive whole? And why should she be in Idaho? Hell, she might just as well have been in Los Angeles… Or maybe she was a dragon shifter in Tokyo or a bunny shifter in France, or just a nice girl in Vancouver. Wherever she was, Rhett wasn’t going to believe she existed before he saw her, and he was running out of time to find out.
So far, he’d only seen forests and mountains and a brother as unsure of everything as he was – not quite the winning combination.
But Deans never quit, and Rhett wasn’t going to.
Trust the process, he told himself.
With that, he jumped off the hood and dusted himself off.
“We ride?” Rush asked, always ready for adventure.
“We ride!” Rhett hollered, and both of the billionaire werebears scrambled into their cars to see who could peel out onto the road first.
Boys will be boys.
CHAPTER THREE
Danni
Danni idly thumbed through her contacts, picking and choosing who to delete and who to keep. It had taken just a few weeks in Shifter Grove to really show her who her true friends were – the people who still called and still cared about how she was doing even if she wasn’t in immediate coffee and chatting distance. To her somewhat painful surprise, she’d found that it didn’t leave all that many people on her list.
Who would have known that moving and shunning her former life brought such negative consequences?
Grimly, she smiled and set the phone down.
She grabbed her cup of warm chamomile tea and sipped it, looking out the window. Like most nights, Danni was spending this one in the sanctuary that was the Sunrise Diner. It had been raining most of the day – not exactly a rarity in early summer – and Danni enjoyed the view. The tiny droplets of water formed great big puddles and, in true small town fashion, she could even see a few kids playing in the rain, sloshing around in the puddles with their little rain boots.
It sent a sharp pain through her heart. She wasn’t too old to have kids, not by a long shot. In every possible way, she still had plenty of time to have a family and settle down. But that was just rationality talking – her heart knew that she’d fully expected to be married by now (to Taylor, of course) and maybe even have a child on the way.
Danni had often tried to ignore the fact that her fiancée was in no rush to marry, telling herself that the day would come. But it hadn’t, and now there was no more fiancée to talk about. She glanced at her ring finger, and the tan line left by her engagement ring. It still stung.
How could I have been so naïve, she asked herself, shaking her head.
“What are we depressed about now?” Cerise’s happy voice queried, pulling Danni from her thoughts.
“Nothing!” she responded automatically, doing her best to hide the glumness within.
It wasn’t too hard. Cerise’s curious green eyes and oft-smiling face was really enough to shake even the grouchiest of bears from their reverie, and it certainly was plenty for Danni. And even if it hadn’t been, that piece of coconut lime pie Cerise pushed in front of her patched all the leftover misery. Another thing to love about Shifter Grove – the locals just wouldn’t let you get all down and out. Not as long as they could help it.
“Don’t you lie to me, Danni. I’ll have you know that I am the town psychiatrist as well as the town barkeep – at least until we get someone better. But, I intend to take both of my jobs super seriously until then, and I can tell that you’re not as peachy keen as you’d like me to believe!”
Cerise scooped some meringue on her spoon and popped it into her mouth. Her eyes rolled back a bit and Danni snickered at the overly expressive shifter she was sharing the table with. Nobody knew what kind of shifter Cerise was, but the big cats maintained that she had to be one of them – they just didn’t know which one. But Cerise wasn’t the kind of woman anyone would want to push into revealing things she wasn’t comfortable with. After all, everybody needed their dose of spiritual healing, and if Cerise cut them off from the cake and the booze, what would they do!?
“No, honestly, Cerise. It’s nothing. Maybe I’m just a little homesick,” Danni said, taking a bite of the pie.
It was ridiculously good. Just like everything Cerise cooked or baked. The woman was a saint, no matter what kind of shifter she was.
“Bullshit,” Cerise said, slamming her palm on the table.
She waggled her spoon in Danni’s direction and Danni backed away a little, retreating into the plush seat.
“No human girl who comes to Shifter Grove ‘gets homesick’. You’re here because you’re running from something. I bet that something is a piece of shit man who didn’t know how to treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”
Danni’s eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open a bit. She closed it with a snap and poked at the pie again.
“How’d you know?”
“I’m a mind reader,” Cerise offered with a wicked grin.
For a fraction of a second, Danni honestly considered the option. Weren’t there all sorts of odd shifters out there? She’d heard that dolphin and dragon shifters actually were sort of telepathic, so it wasn’t entirely impossible. But if Cerise was telepathic, then…
Danni’s eyes narrowed. There was that naiveté of hers again. The one that she had promised she’d work on and was so far certainly not succeeding at doing so.
“You’re not.”
“You’re right! But it doesn’t take one to realize that homegirl here is all sorts of sad when she keeps staring at the rain and looking like someone just ran over her cat. And I can tell that you left some asshat because I can see that tan line on your finger. Real Hardy brothers kind of snooping here.”
Cerise cocked a brow at Danni and Danni groaned a little, a half-smile spreading over her lips.
“You got me there,” she admitted, taking another mouthful of that heavenly pie.
“So, you going to tell me what’s it all about?” Cerise snooped.
Danni shrugged slightly, wriggling in her seat.
“It is what you thought it was. I was engaged to marry a werelion. He turned out to be a real bastard, screwing one of the girls from my office. I walked in on them once and that was that. I packed my bags and left. I didn’t want to be one of those women who ended up with a guy she knew would cheat on her, you know? And my job sucked anyway, so I figured, why not! Chase the dream! Live like you were dying… and so on.”
“And now you’re in Shifter Grove, eating pie and feeling sorry for yourself. Anything wrong with this picture?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Danni said, laughing. “Both the pie and the company are just fantastic!”
Cerise grinned and fell back in her seat, her curious eyes scanning Danni with newfound interest. Her gaze was intense, and Danni had to lower her eyes, almost blushing. She’d been together with a werelion for years, and she still hadn’t got quite accustomed to the intensity they exuded when they were really, truly interested in something or someone.
“You know, I am a bit of a matchmaker around Shifter Grove. And I think you need to get over that bastard of an ex by finding someone, less of a bastard, but with a nicer body. How does that sound?” Cerise asked, a playful smile on her lips.
Now Danni blushed in earnest.
“Mama Dean just said the same thing. That I should get out t
here again.”
“Mama Dean is a smart woman. You should listen to her,” Cerise agreed fervently, scooping the last remnants of the pie they’d been sharing off the plate.
“I don’t even know if I remember how to. Like, how to date. How to get to know someone again. It feels like such a long time ago.”
The wounds were pretty fresh and Danni had to admit that for all the posturing she did, she didn’t feel supremely comfortable with the idea of putting herself out there – even if her body screamed at her to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. Her relationship with Taylor had been waning for a while, but she’d certainly learned one thing when they’d been together – once you go shifter, you can never go back. There was just something, ahem, rather pleasing about what a shifter could do to a curvy woman… And what he did it with, if you know what I mean.
“You don’t have to marry him. Just go out. Have some fun. Flirt! Fuck someone! Or several someones! New life, new start, all that jazz. Shifters love sex and can really respect a good fuck. I think you need to get on that train,” Cerise said, grabbing her phone.
“Hey!” Danni protested, but her hand fell limp as Cerise expertly found SassyDate and pulled it up.
“Ooh, he’s cute,” Cerise said, turning the screen towards Danni.
Danni hid her face in her hands. It was the profile picture of a bear that had caught her eye a few times, and she’d been checking if he had any new pictures on his profile earlier in the day. Luckily for her, he was all the way in New York or somewhere, so she hadn’t even felt the urge to message him. No need to uselessly get her hopes up and then be disappointed again.
But Cerise didn’t quite seem to agree with her reasoning.
“GoneWithTheBear. What a screen name! Let’s hope his real name isn’t Bob or Rod or something silly. I like him. Those dimples – yum! And he’s far, so I think he’s the perfect first step. Baby steps.”
Next thing Danni heard was Cerise’s fingers quickly tapping the screen, and before Danni could figure out what the hell the shifty shifter was up to, Cerise slid the phone back to her across the table.
“What did you do?” Danni asked, mortified.
“I took you by the scruff like the insolent pup you are and threw you right in the deep end. Swim! More pie?” Cerise asked, getting up to retrieve another slice.
Hey handsome. Would you save me from the Civil War, if I asked really nicely?
Danni stared at the words, just a tiny little groan escaping her lips. Cerise had sent a note to the cute werebear and now all Danni could do was deal with the aftermath, and the aftermath was going to need more cake. Or pie. Or both.
At least the Gone With The Wind reference was clever. And maybe he doesn’t even use this profile! Maybe he’ll never see it!
“Cerise, can I get a Cosmopolitan?” Danni called weakly, re-reading the words for the tenth time.
“A rum and coke, coming up!” Cerise yelled back, making Danni laugh.
Okay, so maybe she needed someone to tell her to get out there again. At least she was getting a good laugh out of it.
It’s just one message to a guy living on the other side of the country! You’re fine! Stop worrying about it.
But of course, Rhett Dean was a lot closer than she could have imagined. And he wasn’t alone.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rush
Rush had always liked the countryside. It was natural for a shifter to be drawn to the wilderness, but each generation was more and more detached from the primal call of the wild. Knowing that, Rush took any opportunity he could to go and breathe in the fresh air and stretch his legs a bit.
Spirits above, he needed it after last night’s dinner. Not only had Mama stuffed him so full of food that he could barely move after dessert, she’d also treated both him and Rhett to the earful of the century. The words still rang in his ears a little. But he knew he deserved it – he and Rhett both.
“What do you two mean you don’t have a girl yet?! I thought you were comin’ home so I could look her over and tell her how glad I am that she’s knocked some sense into you two. But you show up in Shifter Grove lookin’ like some bad advertisement for urbanite shifters, and neither of you is even dating anyone. You two wanna put Mama in an early grave or is this some kind of a joke!?”
Ouch.
Rush shook his head a little, picking up his pace. He’d opted out of the usual heavy rock blasting in his earphones as he ran, preferring to listen to the sounds of the surrounding forest instead. He barely noticed it though – his thoughts were too preoccupied with trying to figure a way out of the mess he and Rhett had got themselves into.
He wasn’t really the kind of guy to go off and get married, and neither was Rhett. His calmer, collected and always professional older twin had been the one to make all the big decisions when they were younger. Now, Rush was no longer the kid ready to follow anyone’s lead, and he was more than capable of taking control of his own destiny. The only problem was, he couldn’t really argue with Mama’s logic, or his father’s.
Rush knew he’d be better with the triad completed. He didn’t mind the idea of having someone that complemented both him and his brother, and they had shared partners plenty of times. It hadn’t meant much then, but Rush knew that the next woman he shared with Rhett would have to be the one. Otherwise, what was the point of it all?
Losing the money didn’t bother him. He could always make more. The Deans had a knack for finding gold, literal and figurative, so the threat of losing their fortune was one he didn’t take all that seriously. However, the underlying implication was the one that really got him. If he and Rhett didn’t marry now, he knew they never would. The Alpha Triad would never be complete and the best-case scenario was that they’d nod through the rest of their lives, being just half of what they could be.
Mind you, the last decade or so had been fucking fantastic for the brothers. Rush had been a top-level extreme sports athlete and lived the life that came with it. On the side, he built up businesses, both with and without Rhett, and saw everything that the world had to offer. And yet, the idea of returning to a nice, loving home and sharing all he’d learned on his journeys and all he wished he hadn’t learned was still something that got his heart pounding louder than any mountainside or trick jump ever had.
Rush was just busy considering the pros and cons of moving to Idaho – if for no other reason than to silence Mama – when he rounded a corner on the forest path and ran straight into someone lovely and soft.
“Shit,” he managed to utter, his hands locking around her curvy frame as they both tumbled to the forest floor, her yelp echoing through the treetops.
His fast reflexes allowed him to switch positions with her and have her tumble down on top of him instead of under. For a moment, everything stood still. He stared into her big, deep blue eyes and his heart must have skipped a beat.
She looked impossibly cute. Honey blonde hair and a fair complexion, along with those sexy curves he felt against his hard abs – she was a treat made for shifters. Rush had to keep himself from licking his lips. Had he seen her in a club in Los Angeles, there would have been no way in hell that he wouldn’t have been leaving with her as soon as possible.
She blushed and scrambled up, and Rush was sorry to see the still frame disturbed. He would have been perfectly happy just keeping her in his arms a bit longer. In fact, he seemed to be tingling a bit all over, and he had no doubt that it was because she had been so unceremoniously removed from his arms.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she said breathlessly, patting the dust off her clothes.
Rush jumped up easily, not caring about the light coating of dust and the possible bruise or two he might have got. Werebears looked good with scars, right? They were damn hard to get, though, what with the accelerated healing.
Those big blue eyes looked up at him again and his bear grumbled its approval. She was shifter-bait, alright. Yum. Rush bet she tasted just as good as she looked – there w
as no other way!
Apparently, he’d fallen silent for a bit too long. A small frown marked her features and snapped him out of his happy reverie.
Right! Speaking! You’ve got this!
Rush put on his best bad boy grin and tilted his head to the side a little. He gave her a long look that went from the top of her head, down to her legs and back up again. She was dressed in a teal sundress and a crème jacket, and he wanted to rip both of them right off of her. Those tits of hers looked far too magnificent to be hidden away under layers of clothes!
“Hey, I’m the one who ran into you. Though I think we got lucky. I think I would have been doing a lot more apologizing had I been in bear form. I won’t lie – if I could, I would mow down beauties like you all the time.”
He winked and reached his hand out to her. The small double meaning in his words was completely intended. Rush would happily go to town on a curvy gem like her any day of the week. His body was all game to just ravish her in the forest, if that was her thing – but his heart did something he had never known before. Did it… twinge?
What? Dude. Focus. No funky business!
Easier said than done.
“I’m Rush.”
Hesitantly, she took his hand and her little palm disappeared in his. He hadn’t even thought about it when he said it, but he’d told her he was a werebear in the first few sentences he shared with her. Must have been the Shifter Grove air getting to him, making him feel loose and comfortable.
Her hand was warm, and holding it sent a pleasant shock through him, his bear murmuring happily at the touch. Another first – his bear never liked anyone, unless they were a shifter and provided a good challenge. She, though, was most decidedly a human, and a sexy as fuck one at that.
“Danni,” she said, smiling meekly.
That blush on her cheeks was maddening. He had to wonder if it would stay just there or travel further if he spread her out on the ground and found out what her honeypot of a pussy tasted like.