Three Shifters for Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Dani April

  Sarah hugged her boss back. “I agree with you, Kathy. This is my time to be in love, and as they say out west I’m going to seize the bull by both horns.”

  Kathy had her close her door and kept Sarah on for over an hour discussing work and reminiscing about old times at the office. In light of Sarah’s years of exemplary work at the firm, Kathy called up payroll and arranged for a bonus to be deposited along with Sarah’s last paycheck. When it was all over Sarah wanted to cry, too. This office had been like a home away from home and the people in it an extended family, and she would miss them all. In many ways she felt like she was about to start her life over, and the feeling was exciting and scary all at the same time.

  When she left Kathy’s office, Sarah had never felt better about her decision to take this chance on her love for her three shape-shifters. The men had taken a chance on her when they dropped everything on their ranch and flew up to New York. They had pursued her hot and heavy and left her with no doubt but that they loved her deeply and wanted a future with only her in their lives.

  Now it was Sarah’s turn to show them that she loved them with every bit as much passion. She would be turning her life upside down, but for them it was worth it. Her future was no longer in New York. It was out west with her men. The good life she had dreamed of with the nice home, the family, and lots of her own children running around was still in the cards for her. She would embrace her future with every ounce of energy she had.

  Back in the row of cubes where Sarah’s peers toiled through another workday Sarah made her announcement to all her friends. There were a lot of tears and a lot of hugs. The male employees shook her hand and told her congratulations. Ruth hugged her and told her she was making the right decision. For her part Sarah told them all she loved them.

  Sarah had given the firm two weeks’ notice, and Ruth began making preparations for a party on her last day. In the meantime Sarah knew she was going to be swamped with work trying to finish up all her final reports and last-minute ledgers for the big bosses upstairs, and she fully expected the next two weeks to fly by.

  * * * *

  Sarah worked late that night, not leaving the office until after seven. Finally getting free of her workstation, she took the elevator down to the city and stepped outside. She looked at the skyscrapers and the mad rush of people differently now. They had become so much a part of her everyday life that she had gotten used to them.

  In two weeks this landscape would all be gone for good, left behind for the majestic beauty and soul-satisfying peace of the Great Plains. Life up here in The Big Apple had a lot of pitfalls, but she knew them all. What her life would turn into out in Montana was still an unknown.

  She had not told the men yet. Her correspondence with them had been very little. Mostly it consisted of her answering their many emails and telling them she was well. If something happened and she wasn’t able to make the move, if an alter-ego personality took control of her and gave her a change of heart, it would be too painful for the guys. She didn’t want to disappoint them like that. So she had decided to keep the move to herself. Besides, it would be a nice surprise to see the looks on their faces when she walked into the corral at the Circle T.

  Riding home on the subway that night the second thoughts she’d worried about were starting to blast away at her resolve. Out there in the wilds she would be alone and the only person around who didn’t have special abilities. How would the other members of the wolf pack take to her since she was not and could never be one of them?

  Her men were great, and she loved all three of them dearly. Yet about many things they thought differently than she did. Their boundaries for what was and was not acceptable were set in a different place than hers.

  What if she got out there and other males of the wolf pack became interested in her? TJ told her that few female shifters were living out there with them. That meant the pack probably had a lot of horny males.

  The men were into sharing her. Lance even told her he would have gladly shared his wife with other men. Jealousy seemed to be an unknown feeling with them. How would she handle it if they wanted to share her with other males in the pack? To her it would be a betrayal of the worst kind, but to the men it might seem like a part of the natural way of things. If she fully embraced this life would she end up feeling like a piece of property to be used at will? How many men could she handle before the relationships became impersonal and devoid of love and meaning?

  Stepping off the train at her station that night, Sarah’s demons had come out full force. She pulled her bag over her shoulder and tried telling herself to be strong and keep her chin up. Her men were special. They wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

  Still there was a quiver in her stomach. She walked the few blocks south from the station and arrived at her building. Tonight the elevator was working and she took it up to her floor.

  The shadow of a man inside her apartment startled her as she entered her door.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you, honey,” her father said, coming to greet her and give her a big hug.

  “Hey, Dad, what are you doing here?” she asked, hugging him back.

  Sometimes her father came into the city and looked after her apartment for her. She had given him a spare key when she first moved in, and it was always a good surprise to see him.

  “Finally got all those long fire drills out of the way back home. This is the first night I’ve had free in weeks so I thought I’d drive into the city and see my girl.” He walked out to the kitchen area. “And I bought some groceries down at the market and am making us pasta for dinner.”

  Sarah set her bag aside and flopped down in her comfortable chair. “You’re the best, Dad.” She hadn’t told him yet, and this would be the perfect time. “Actually I was going to call you tonight and have a talk.”

  “Well I’m glad I came by. I had something I wanted to talk with you about, too.” He was stirring the pasta and adding garlic to the pot. “You go first. What news do you have for your old man?”

  “Mine is pretty major. You might want to go first.”

  “Actually, sweetheart, mine is kind of major, too.”

  Sarah cast a suspicious glance over the back of her chair at her father, but decided to just go for it and hope her dad would understand. “I’m moving to Montana, Dad.”

  Her father set aside the stirring spoon and came around from the kitchen. “That is big news. I take it this sudden decision has to do with Ryan?”

  “Ryan and the other people I know out there.”

  “Have you really thought this through?”

  Sarah sighed and got up from her chair, suddenly not feeling like relaxing any longer. “I know I’m taking a big chance,” she admitted. “But my life here wasn’t going anywhere, and I’ve never felt like this before.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Very much.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “I know he does.” Sarah smiled. “I love him totally, but somehow I think he loves me even more.”

  Her father leaned against the kitchen counter, tapping his chin with a finger. He was nervous and apprehensive for her, and Sarah couldn’t blame him.

  “Everything seems perfect. But I sense a ‘but’ in there somewhere?” he probed her.

  “Ryan and two of his friends came out here from New York to convince me to go back to Montana and live. That’s what Ryan was doing here the day you met him. Even though I thought they were great and felt myself falling in love, I still wasn’t buying it at first.”

  “Why not, honey?”

  “You see there are a lot of differences between Ryan and me and well frankly everyone who lives in Ryan’s hometown.”

  “Is that all?” Her father seemed to think it was nothing. “Remember I used to live out west when I was a boy? They’ve got good people out there. This whole big-city-versus-small-town thing is way overblown. People are people wherever you go. Some of them you’ll like and others you won’t. It�
��s the same all over.”

  Sarah brushed her hair back behind an ear and wrinkled her nose in frustration. She wished it was as simple as her father made it out to be. “I appreciate you saying that.” She gave him a smile. Never in a million years could she tell him the truth. This was just something she would have to deal with on her own. “Hey, dinner is starting to smell really good.”

  “You’re not entirely convinced things will work out, are you?” Her dad wasn’t going to be sidetracked by her attempt at discussing his cooking. He saw right through her.

  “No, I’m not,” she told him truthfully. “But I’m going to be strong and make things work out. Now enough of my silly problems. What did you have to tell me?”

  He had the second-biggest surprise of her life in store for her.

  The biggest being when she saw the three men turn into wolves out in Montana, but right there in her own apartment her father gave her the second-biggest surprise.

  “Are Ryan and his friends shape-shifters?” he asked her.

  “What did you say?” Sarah thought surely she had not heard him right.

  “I liked Ryan when I first met him because I thought he was a good man.” He froze Sarah with his look. “But also because I scented that he was probably a shifter.”

  Sarah’s world turned upside down. “How did you know that about him?”

  “Have a seat, honey.”

  Feeling like a chastened child, Sarah returned to her chair and sat.

  “When you first met Ryan and his buddies, did you feel drawn to them as if by magic, like you couldn’t take your eyes off them?”

  “They were cowboys, and they were attractive men. I was really interested in them.”

  “And did they tell you that they think you are their mate?”

  Sarah nodded.

  He pointed to her shoulder. “I noticed Ryan already put his mating mark on you.”

  “I got very angry with him for doing that, but then later forgave him.”

  “And the other two men? Do they want to mark you, too?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  He sat down on the arm of her chair, and his voice was kind when he spoke. “You see the reason for all of that is because you’re a shape-shifter, too, Sarah.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Her father had become very logical as he explained things to her, but occasionally there was a reference to his past life, and he became whimsical. Clearly he had kept a lot bottled up inside him for a number of years and was now letting it out.

  “I didn’t know if I would ever have this talk with you. I wasn’t for sure it was a burden a young girl would want to carry in her life.”

  It was all starting to hit Sarah like a ton of falling bricks. “Dad!” she stopped him. “You mean you turn into a wolf, too?”

  He gave a laugh and shook his head. “No. But there were plenty of times in my life I wished I could have.” The floorboards of the old building squeaked as he paced in front of her chair. “It’s a latent gene passed down from my mother’s side of the family. Now your great-uncle Albert—he was a full-blooded shifter. I watched him change form out in the mountains many times when I was growing up as a boy.”

  “So you knew what Ryan was when I brought him by your house? And you knew about my mark?”

  “I can’t change into a wolf, but my sense of smell is better than any regular person I’ve ever met. It’s been years since I scented another one of us. Back here in the east we don’t have too many of them. But when I shook Ryan’s hand, I was pretty sure I had just met one of our own kind.”

  “One of our own kind?” Sarah repeated his words. There was a tidal wave of emotion that was about to break in her, but she had to hold it back until her father told her more.

  “Honey, you’re my daughter,” he told her proudly. “You inherited my genes. That makes you a shifter just like Ryan and his men. Hell, just like everyone in his wolf pack.”

  “I’m one of them?” Sarah couldn’t believe it and wanted to keep hearing her father say the words.

  “Now you’re not full blooded,” he warned her. “Your mother was a regular, ordinary human being just like everyone else. My father was human, too. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Shifters don’t care any for bloodlines.”

  “That’s why the mating mark stayed on me,” Sarah said, remembering the night she ordered TJ to try and get rid of it. “That’s why Ryan was able to come inside of my dreams.” The images of them making love in her dream world came to mind.

  “If these men are what you want, then I’m happy for you, honey.”

  Sarah didn’t even have to think twice. She jumped up from the chair and threw her arms around her father, giving him a big hug. “I want them more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, Dad. Thank you so much for telling me this.”

  “I’m sorry I kept it from you as long as I did.”

  Sarah wanted to shout for joy. Her world had just come full circle. All of her problems that had started that terrible night she had seen the men change into wolves now made sense. Everything suddenly had fallen into place in her life.

  “You are the best dad in the world.” She couldn’t restrain herself and shouted for joy. The neighbors in the next apartment surely heard, but she didn’t care.

  Suddenly Sarah had a future to look forward to.

  “Aren’t you going to call your fellows and let them in on the little secret?” her dad asked her.

  Sarah shook her head, knowing she was going to take devilish delight in the surprise she had planned for her three shifter cowboys. For the first time since she had met them, she felt like they really belonged to her, and it was the best feeling in the world.

  They were her men, and she was one of them. She never would have guessed that she was a shifter, too. Now all she had to do is go out there to Montana and claim what was hers.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was Lance’s turn to ride the wild Appaloosa that day. The crowd loved this free-spirited beast. As yet untamed, it bucked, and it pitched, and ended by throwing every cowboy who tried to ride him.

  A healthy-sized crowd was gathered around the corral to watch the three cowboys. Ryan and TJ were riding their gentle bays along the side, ready to back Lance up with the Appaloosa should he need it.

  Lance stayed on top of the bronco and refused to be bucked off its back. The audience became enthusiastic and cheered him on. He was well on his way to showing the wild stallion who was boss when disaster struck.

  The flank cinch broke. The saddle was rendered useless, and Lance was thrown high in the air. Sailing a good ten feet, he hit the dirt with a heavy thud.

  “Are you all right?” Ryan called down from on top of his bay.

  Lance groaned but was still in one piece when he rolled over. “Just got the wind knocked out of me.”

  “We’ll handle it from here!” TJ shouted and rode off to best the out-of-control Appaloosa.

  Ryan galloped after him, and together they got the stallion lassoed and escorted into a feeder corral where a half dozen of their hands took control.

  When Lance stood up and dusted himself off the shout of the crowd could be heard halfway across the prairie. Ryan and TJ dismounted and came up to check him out.

  “Sure you’re all right, Brother?” TJ inquired.

  “Just embarrassed and angry. I had that bad boy right where I wanted him.”

  “Better take inventory of our bronc saddles,” Ryan told them. “We might need to buy some new ones.”

  Together the three cowboys walked from the corral, dusty and tired. Popular as ever on the ranch, the guests gathered around them and asked for autographs. Ryan patted TJ on the back because everyone knew how he liked to ham it up with the crowd.

  “You take it from here,” he told his young Beta. “I’m taking Lance over to the pack doctor to make sure he didn’t bust something.”

  Happy to comply, TJ tipped his Stetson to the crowd, got centered among
their number, and reached for the first pen and paper to sign.

  “I didn’t break anything,” Lance assured Ryan.

  “I’d still feel better if we let the doc take a look at you. Besides, you’re in no condition to ride anymore today.”

  Lance was limping and moving slow. He felt like he had just been down a waterfall in a barrel. He was about to make some argument as to why he didn’t need to see the doctor.

  Then he stopped dead in his tracks. In the blink of an eye his life had changed for all time. No longer did he feel the pain of his fall, far from being stiff and sore, his body felt vibrant and alive.

  He didn’t wait for Ryan or holler TJ back out of the corral. They would have their moments later. All he did was run, his boots kicking up prairie dust in the wind as he made his way across the west pasture.

  * * * *

  Sarah had stepped off her flight at the backwater airport and looked for a ride. Loaded down with luggage which contained all her worldly belongings, she was in no position to venture too far on her own until she got settled.

  A cowboy at the airport knew exactly where she was going when she mentioned the Circle T. He told her to hop in his truck because he was headed in that direction. Polite as a cowhand should be, he helped her with her bags and got them loaded in the back of his truck.

  An hour later she was back where it had all started on the Circle T. Leaving her luggage at the front desk of the main cabin she hustled across the pasture. She knew she would find her men out in the corral.

  Lance was the first to see her. He looked dusty and disheveled, just like a hard-riding cowboy. She couldn’t hold back the smile that lit her face as he started to run across the prairie grass to her.

  Sarah took off at a run, too. In a moment they were in each other’s arms. He picked her up off the ground and spun her around in the air as she held on for the ride.

  “Could you use an extra cowhand?” she asked him breathlessly when he finally set her back down.