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“You’ve checked the driveway seventeen times.”

“I haven’t.”

“I counted.” She grinned. “You like her.”

“I’ve never even met her.”

She pointed at me. “That’s not a denial.”

Before I could answer, Trevor yelled from across the lawn. “HUDSON!”

“What?”

“I forgot where we put the ice.”

I spent the next twenty minutes locating coolers that had somehow already disappeared. Then Grandma Ruth needed help hanging the reunion banner. Then Mason couldn’t find the cornhole bags. Then one of the littles scraped a knee.

Maybe she’d changed her mind. Maybe she’d realized seeing everyone again was too much. Maybe⁠—

A dusty, gray Honda Civic turned slowly onto the gravel road, then rolled to a stop under the trees. The driver’s door opened. A woman climbed out, balancing a large bakery box carefully against her hip. She paused beside the car.

Even from this distance, I could tell she was taking everything in. The hall. The lights. The families. The laughter.

She was dressed in light-wash jeans, white sneakers, and a sage-green knit top tucked loosely at the front. Her sandy-blonde hair fell past her shoulders in loose waves. She wasn’t dressed to impress anyone. She looked… comfortable. Real.

She smiled uncertainly, and it transformed her face.

Every image my imagination had invented disappeared instantly. Nothing I’d pictured came close.

Holy shit.

She was gorgeous.

8

SLOANE

YOU SMELL LIKE A HARDWARE STORE

By the time I parked my car, I’d already considered turning around six times.

The first was before I left my apartment, when I looked at my reflection and convinced myself everyone would immediately identify me as human based on my posture. The second happened at a stoplight fifteen minutes later, after I remembered I had no idea whether wolf shifters greeted one another differently than I was used to. The remaining four occurred after I turned onto the private gravel road and drove past houses full of people who could transform into predators.

I kept driving anyway. My car was old enough that sudden decisions put unnecessary strain on the transmission.

The community hall came into view through the trees, and for one irrational second, I forgot to be afraid.

The building was larger than it had looked in the photographs, constructed from heavy timber and native stone, with a wide porch wrapping around the front and both sides. Tall windows reflected the pale afternoon sky. Strings of lights stretched over the broad lawn, and long tables filled the covered pavilion beside the building.

The space was absolutely overrun with people.

Children chased each other between picnic tables while adults carried casserole dishes, coolers, folding chairs, and enough food to withstand a moderate siege. Smoke rose from several grills. Music drifted from somewhere near the porch. Every few seconds, another car pulled into the gravel lot and unleashed more members of the family.

I stayed in my car with both hands on the wheel.

This was a terrible idea. A spectacularly terrible idea.

There were probably laws against what I was doing. What I was doing was practically identity theft. I had lied to these people for weeks, inserted myself into their private conversations, learned protected information, and accepted an invitation intended for someone else.