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“Nothing. Nothing that matters. Just shifter stuff.” When he caught her staring him down, he rolled his eyes. “They just…they pulled through for me last winter when things kind of went to shit around here. I owe ’em one night of free booze, if nothing else.”
Tanith pursed her lips. Last winter, the situation around Angel Fire had been tense, to the say the least. People were being attacked by cougars. Tanith had been out of town when “the incident” occurred, but rumor had it something in the water had set the wild animals off.
Not that she believed a word of what the humans thought had happened when she could have the real story out of a shifter’s mouth. She’d been working on Ivo to tell her the truth, but so far he’d been keeping it to himself. Even her human friends who were mated to bears seemed to be keeping everything that had gone down with the cougars close.
The arrest of an environmental activist, Willard Vesper, had also been part of whatever had gone down, but Tanith didn’t mind having that whacko gone. There was no love lost between them because last year he’d often shown up at her studio demanding to know what sort of ingredients she had in her art supplies, and then the guy would plaster all her gallery windows with signs protesting the resort and the mining corporation.
Tanith kept taking the neon flyers down, but Vesper kept putting them up again until finally Tanith invited the local art students at the elementary school to doodle all over said protest signs until the words had become unrecognizable. People had liked the local art so much that it became a bit of a thing, with tourists taking photos in front of it and asking to purchase pieces.
The attention had infuriated Vesper, who didn’t like the fact that his own message wasn’t being spread as he’d hoped, and he had stopped posting his flyers on her windows as a result. He’d been a bit of an asshole, and she was glad to see the back of him to tell the truth.
Tanith flicked a mildly disapproving expression toward the men as they hooted and hollered about something, but found her stare lingering on one of the men in particular. He wasn’t guffawing in his friends’ faces by any means. Rather, he stood at the edge of the group, a beer in hand, and seemed to be chuckling in a good natured kind of way.
And goodness, was he ever stunning. Tall, dark, and handsome had to be an understatement. While he looked like an Angel Fire local with jet black hair, tanned skin, and a one-thousand watt smile that could light up a room, he was dressed too well to be one of them.
There was something classier about his attire. A crisp dress shirt fit snugly across broad shoulders, and unlike the others around him, he hadn’t crumpled it up at his elbows. Instead, it stayed clean and crisp down to his wrists, a flash of cuff catching in the twinkling mood lighting hanging around the makeshift dance floor.
Tanith tipped her head to the side, not listening in the slightest as Ivo rambled on about the rams making a mess.
Mystery man indeed. She thought she had a pretty good grasp on the Angel Fire scene, having lived just outside of town for ages, and having worked at its core for just as long. The snappily dressed newcomer gave her some pause, racking her brain to figure out if she knew him or not. While his face seemed handsomely familiar, with a chiseled jaw and bright eyes—ones she took note of even at a distance—Tanith figured that could also be because he was some low-key famous movie star or a world-class supermodel who had snuck in under her radar.
Her lips turned in a frown. Yeah right, a supermodel in Angel Fire. Even for Alani’s wedding, that sounded a bit far-fetched. Maybe he was a Hawaiian import too, and was just visiting for a few nights. But that seemed pretty unlikely, considering he didn’t look like a native Hawaiian himself.
The little voice in the back of her mind told her to approach him. After all, Tanith adored meeting new people. She was an artist, and all creatures, great and small, in this world had some facet of interest for her—people included. However, if she did strike up a conversation with him, she knew it wouldn’t be because she found him interesting; it would be because she hadn’t dated anyone in years and he was positively scrumptious.
Unfortunately for Tanith, she just didn’t have the time to pursue anything with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsomely Mysterious. With her gallery getting an overhaul from the ground up this spring, she had a relaunch to plan, art shows to arrange, and artists to woo. Plus, her daughter Hayley took up all her time outside of the gallery, which, if she was being honest, wasn’t much since she was completely devoted to her business remaining successful so she could afford to take care of her.
And she already felt guilty enough about leaving her daughter each day with her tutor, Trudy, spending most of her time away. No need to add a man in her life—both to take time away from her ailing daughter and become yet another person who she didn’t have enough time for.
She cleared her throat and focused back on Ivo, who was waving his beautiful wife over with a love-struck smile of his own. Tanith’s mind had wandered somewhere a little too serious as she’d considered a future that she wasn’t even looking for. Still, she knew she could appreciate the gorgeous specimen from a distance without planning out the rest of their lives together. And given how hectic and draining her day-to-day life was, a little fantasizing, without serious relationship thoughts involved, ought to be encouraged.
“Is everything okay?” Alani asked, gliding over and fitting perfectly under Ivo’s arm. Tanith couldn’t help but smile as they wrapped themselves around one another, hopelessly in love. Alani certainly made a beautiful bride. She wore a floral crown crafted from fresh Hawaiian flowers, which Ivo had paid extra to have shipped in for the wedding as a surprise. Her dress fit snugly at the bodice, but flowed elegantly to the ground, and Tanith couldn’t help but wonder if the copious amount of fabric was there to hide the small bump she had seen earlier while helping Alani get ready.
It would be wonderful if her suspicions were correct. Alani had her twins in a previous relationship, and while it was plain for all to see that Ivo adored those girls to the moon and back, it would be lovely if they had a child of their own.
Babies in general were wonderful. Tanith adored babies—she wanted all her friends to be pregnant and popping them out the instant they ended up in a relationship, even if she wasn’t willing to do the same thing herself.
“Everything’s perfect,” Tanith assured her friend, then gave her arm an affectionate squeeze. Smiling, she left the newlyweds to themselves and teetered over to the dance floor in her stilettos. Espie Ruiz had been beckoning her over with a goofy grin, her best friend Maida by her side, and Tanith joined in on their dancing with a laugh.
Out of the corner of her eye, she swore she caught Mystery Man watching her, but when she glanced back another time he was gone.
