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“Of course you do,” I said. “I’ll do my best to help you find the answers to those questions. I’m still wrapping my head around it all, but I want you to know that putting your mind at ease is important to me.” I wished somebody had done that for me when I’d found out I was a shifter, so it felt right for me to be there for her.
“Okay,” Lola said, her eyes filling with a mixture of hesitancy and curiosity, but the latter seemed to outweigh the fear. “I need to process all of this on my own for now, but I’ll come to you when I have questions.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, relieved and grateful for her understanding. “Again, I have to reiterate,please, please, pleasekeep this a secret. You cannot breathe a word about shifters to other humans in town.”
Lola stood. “I promise, Tori. I won’t say a word. You can trust me.”
Trust. The hardest thing for me to do. But if I wanted Lola to trust me with her safety, then I needed to trust her with our secret. After all, I’d made it this far in talking to her based on my initial instincts, and it wasn’t a hard stretch for me to keep doing so.
Smiling, I nodded. “I trust you.”
Lola beamed, well-aware of how hard those three words were for me. She was an ace psychiatrist. Her care and devotion to people were to be commended. Who knew? Maybe she’d find her niche counseling shifters.
As I left Lola to her thoughts, I couldn’t help but grasp onto the tiny spark of hope at another budding friendship. I felt a little lighter, as if confessing my secret had lifted a weight that was holding me down. If Lola could learn to accept the existence of shifters and keep our secret safe, then maybe I could accept that we could find some semblance of peace in this chaotic world. Or in Blackwood Creek, at least.
Walking through the town square, I surveyed what remained of the festival. Everything was boxed up, ready to be stored or shipped out by the rental companies. The formerly lively atmosphere was now subdued as the cleanup crews dispersed. The sight of unfamiliar shifters still made me nervous. I no longer viewed them as monsters, but the initial unease hadn’t left me.
“Hey, Tori!” Margo’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. She hurried over, her eyes full of worry. “Are you okay? What happened earlier? I’ve been looking for you all over.”
“Everything’s fine, Margo,” I reassured her, not wanting her to worry more than she already was.
But she wasn’t having any of it. If Margo wanted answers, Margo got them. “Don’t try and fake it with me, Tor. I may not have known you for long, but I know you better than that. Do you want to tell me the truth, or have me nose around till I find out everything?”
She was tenacious—one of the things I admired about her. I took a big breath. “I was over visiting with Lola during the festival when I got a phone call. I heard my brother’s voice on the other line, then gunshots. I panicked and shifted…in front of Lola.” I closed my eyes, ashamed that I’d put everyone at risk because I’d lost control.
As if reading my mind, Margo said, “Tori, don’t. It’s understandable, and you beating yourself up about it isn’t going to change anything. Hell, remember that morning I discoveredMom had been taken and you and Birch were leaving town? I was so incensed, I shifted and ran to the edge of town to wait for his truck.”
“I remember,” I said. “You were glorious, standing in the road, not letting us pass. I didn’t think you were going to let us go.”
“I wasn’t,” Margo admitted. “Nobody was talking about what the hell was going on, and the fear for my mom nearly overtook me. I shifted in the back of the diner, Tori, almost in front of the Magpies after they told me they’d seen you and Birch leaving town together. So, if you shifted out of fear for your brother, it’s understandable. And if you’re going to shift in front of someone, Lola Kipling is a safe bet.”
I rubbed my eyes to stave off the exhaustion. “When I got to Blackwood Manor, Audrey was bleeding out on the floor,” I said. “She’d jumped in front of bullets the hunters aimed at Kyle.”
“Wait, what?” Margo barked. “I thought your brother was a hunter?”
“Was, Margo. Hewasa hunter, so when the hunters who’d come to rescue him realized he’d been compromised—because no way would a hunter actually want to work with shifters—then standard operating procedure dictates they have to kill the hunter. They turned the gun on him, and Audrey took bullets meant for Kyle.”
“Our Audrey? AudreyGreenthorne, Audrey?” Margo asked, incredulous. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her lift a finger to help anyone. Now she’s taking bullets meant for someone else?”
“Yup,” I affirmed. “Audrey Greenthorne jumped in front of bullets coming at my brother. Amazing, right? I think they might be sweet on each other. Not that either of them will admit it.”
It was a lot to unpack, and I decided to leave out Ridge’s fated mate revelation. It wasn’t something I wanted to share just yet.I hadn’t even gotten my own head around it, so I didn’t think I could handle Margo getting all moony over it.
“Wow. I can’t believe all that happened,” Margo said, her eyebrows shooting up. “I’ve never been close with Audrey, never had the gal-pal feels with her. But what she did? Well, she certainly earned some serious respect points from me.”
I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, she came through for us today. If I’d lost my brother…” My voice caught. I didn’t want to cry, so I cleared my throat and changed the topic. “What did you need? You said you were looking for me?”
Margo rubbed my arm and, sensing my discomfort, went along with the abrupt change. “First off, you can’t harp at me too much. I tried talking to Birch, but with all the new wolves in town, we got interrupted. He had to do his job and check everything out.” Margo stared straight into my eyes, as if wanting me to know she wasn’t backing out of talking to the sheriff.
“Were you able to discuss anything?” I wanted the two of them to patch everything up. Ever since Clawson had confided in me that Margo was his fated mate and sworn me to secrecy about it, I’d been trying to get them to talk.
“No,” Margo said. “I mean, I got to say how foolish I felt after finding Phil cheating on me and then sleeping with him the night of the Howl. It didn’t sit right with me, even though it was amazing, but before I could say anything else, he assured me I wasn’t being foolish and he wanted to continue the conversation. I feel better, knowing he still wants to talk, but even I know how important his job is right now.Especiallynow.”
I smiled. “Hey, it’s a start. And I’m happy you got to start the conversation, at least. It will force the conversation to happen sooner, I bet you.” There was no doubt in my mind that the sheriff wanted Margo desperately, and now that she’d initiateda conversation with him, he would be pursuing her. He’d never tried to pressure her, which I thought was very touching.
“Okay, enough about me,” Margo said. “I wanted to talk to you about some wedding ideas, now that you guys have set a date. It’s coming up, and we have so much to do.” She squealed, and I fought the urge to cringe.
The wedding was a significant flaw in the fake engagement arrangement between Ridge and me. I never, for one second, thought our deal would ever have gotten this far, and backing out of it had become more complicated than it should’ve been…or had it? Now that I thought about it, Ridge hadn’t been eager to stop anything. He’d been going with the flow so easily.
