Sometimes, when I’m feeling down and missing you, I think God is punishing me for stopping in Canyon Springs. That’s ridiculous, of course, but you know how I can get all up in my head.
I’ll write you again when I have something interesting to say.
Love, Marge
Layla’s attention was on Elena as she took the stool next to her sister. She had been worried Elena would kill her for leaving her alone as long as she had, but Elena didn’t look angry. Hell, she looked flustered. That was a new look for Elena.
Layla lifted both brows. “How’s it going?” she asked under her breath, her gaze going to the arm reaching under the table, clearly settled on Elena’s thigh. It was attached to Hunter’s friend Caleb. Interesting.
“Fine.” Elena took a sip of her clear soda.
“Vodka soda?” Layla joked.
“Hardly.”
It wasn’t that Elena didn’t drink. She did sometimes, especially when she was with Layla, but she didn’t like to feel out of control, so she rarely drank in excess. Layla wasn’t surprised she wasn’t drinking with this stranger hitting on her.
Caleb cleared his throat. “Hunter, did you realize these are Marge’s nieces? They’re here in town to settle her estate.”
Hunter nodded, rubbing his hand up and down Layla’s back. “That’s what I hear.”
If Layla wasn’t mistaken, the two men stared at each other for several seconds as if secretly communicating. The two of them definitely had some sort of weird extra sense. She hoped Hunter hadn’t been lying when he said they couldn’t communicate telepathically. That would be more than she could handle. Her grandmother certainly believed shifters had some sort of mojo that made her nervous. Mabel thought Marge’s husband had brainwashed her. But no one had ever suggested shifters had the ability to actually speak to each other telepathically.
Finally, the connection broke, and Hunter turned to smile at Layla. “I hope you intend to stay in Canyon Springs a while.”
Layla took another sip of her beer. They’d already covered this topic, and Layla didn’t want to discuss her future plans. Not without talking to Elena alone. Not that she intended to stay in Canyon Springs. That wasn’t on the table.
Rolling around between the sheets with this hot shifter was on the table, however. Time to change the subject. “So how does it work? The shifting, I mean. Do you need a full moon or something?”
Hunter laughed. “No. Nothing like that. We aren’t werewolves. We don’t shift into a furry human figure with big teeth like you see in the movies. That’s fiction.”
Layla cocked her head to one side. “That’s fiction? You do realize either way it’s still foreign to us.”
Hunter smiled. “Well, we shift into actual wolves. You can’t tell we’re part human when we’re in wolf form. And we do it whenever we want. No time restrictions.”
“Do you do this often?” She squirmed a bit on her seat. It was one thing to visualize a fantasy of having sex with such a powerful virulent man for the sake of knowing what it might be like, but when she paused to consider what he really was, the idea made her nervous.
Hunter brought his hand to the table and grabbed hers, threading their fingers together. “Sometimes. It just depends. We don’t have to shift for any particular reason these days. In ancient times, shifters often exercised their ability in order to easily hunt. It’s so much faster than finding food and cooking it by human methods.”
Caleb followed up with more explanation. “Now that food is so easily obtained from grocery stores and we don’t need to go out and kill it with a bow and arrow, the ability is no longer used as often for survival.”
Layla soaked all this information in, admittedly tongue tied.
“However”—Hunter continued—“we really enjoy shifting and running hard through the forest. It’s like the ultimate stress relief. We can run so much faster in wolf form than in human form.”
“You were running in human form when I saw you earlier,” she pointed out.
He nodded. “True. I enjoy jogging. Some days it’s more satisfying. Plus, we don’t always have time to drive out of town. And, we don’t often shift close to humans. It has a tendency to scare them.”
“I’m sure,” Elena murmured. Her back was straighter. She was tense.
Caleb looked concerned…and frustrated?
Time to change the subject. Layla would process it more later. “You two seem like good friends.”
“We are,” Hunter agreed. “We’ve known each other since birth. Our parents were friends. We never really had a choice. In fact, our younger siblings are mated.”
Layla flinched. “Mated?”
“That’s what we call two people committed to each other. By human standards, our siblings, Cory and Michelle, are married. But it’s more than that for shifters.”
Layla shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around all this surreal information. She would have asked more questions if she’d been able to formulate them, but she didn’t even know where to begin.
A waitress appeared in the lull and set three large plates down in the middle of the table before handing out smaller plates and napkins. She smiled at Layla. “I’m Serena, by the way. Let me know if you need anything. Enjoy your food.” She left just as quickly, her long dark hair swaying as she moved.
The food looked and smelled delicious. Potato skins, chicken fingers, and a large plate of nachos.
Hunter scooted the plate with the skins closer to her. “Dig in. I know you’re hungry.” He released her hand, which oddly left her feeling sort of lost.
Layla took a little of everything while everyone else at the table did the same. After she popped a nacho in her mouth and washed it down with another drink of her beer, she looked at Hunter again. “If you two are lifelong friends, why were you fighting out front when we arrived?”
“I was wondering that myself,” Elena added, glancing at Caleb.
Both men winced.
Hunter wiped his lips on his napkin. “We were fighting over you two actually.”
“What?” Layla nearly knocked her beer over, and she would have if Hunter hadn’t grabbed it.
Elena’s back went straight again. “That makes no sense. You hadn’t met us.”
Caleb chuckled. “No, but we had each seen you separately, and we didn’t realize there were two of you.”
It took Layla a moment to process that. “So wait. Let me get this straight. You both saw a blond woman at different times today and then convened and decided to throw punches over which one of you would get to have her?”
Hunter nodded. “Basically, yes. Caleb had a photo.”
Caleb winced and turned his head toward Elena. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. I took a picture of you in Morton’s parking lot.”
Her eyes bugged out. “After you saw me in the store, you waited in the parking lot for me to leave?”
His face scrunched up even more in chagrin. “Yes.”
“You sound like a stalker. Do you realize that?”
Now Caleb actually shifted his weight several times. “It’s complicated. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy.”