“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.
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.
Then I had packed cupcakes.
As cover stories went, mine lacked sophistication.
My phone vibrated in the cup holder.
Patty: ARE YOU HERE YET???
I scrolled and found another message that had been sent twenty minutes earlier.
Hudson: Drive carefully. The gravel gets loose near the last curve.
Too late for that advice, but the message squeezed at my heartstrings anyway.
I picked up the bakery box from the passenger seat, took a breath, and opened the door.
The sound assaulted me. Laughter. Music. Children yelling. Several conversations happening at once. A dog barked from somewhere behind the building, though after recent revelations, I no longer trusted any four-legged animal to be exactly what it appeared.
I balanced the cupcake box against my hip.
Nobody noticed me immediately. That was good. It gave me time to walk twenty feet toward the building before panic took over.
Then a man stepped off the porch. I knew who he was before he started walking toward me.
I hadn’t seen a photo of him where his face hadn’t been obscured by distance, sunlight, or another person. Still, something in the way he moved carried the same grounded certainty as his messages. People gave way around him without being asked. A little boy handed him a ball while he passed, and Hudson caught it one-handed, tossed it back, and never broke his stride.
He was tall – six feet and three inches of pure presence – with a golden tan that made it clear he spent most of his life in the sun. He had jet-black hair, just long enough on top that it settled into thick, heavy waves, and a strong nose with a distinct, slightly crooked bend on the bridge that gave his face a rugged symmetry.
But it was his eyes that enthralled me – a piercing, vibrant green so striking it felt like they belonged to a different world entirely. The combination made him look less polished than I’d imagined, and considerably more dangerous to my ability to think. He wore jeans, boots, and a dark green T-shirt that fit him well enough to leave nothing to the imagination concerning his muscles.
Then he looked directly at me. Everything around us continued moving, but none of it reached me.
The music faded until all I could hear was my blood rushing in my ears. The conversations, footsteps, and distant laughter became part of another dimension. Hudson slowed several feet away, the expression on his face changing. Recognition came first. Then surprise. Then something warmer that made my fingers tighten around the cupcake box.
“Sloane?” His mouth shaped my name exactly the way I’d imagined it during late-night conversations, which felt unfair on several levels.
“Hudson.” That was all I managed.
Excellent beginning.
Weeks of messages, personal confessions, jokes, reminders, and emotional support, and my first spoken contribution was his name.
His gaze moved over my face, then lowered briefly before returning to my eyes. He didn’t stare, exactly, but the look lasted long enough for heat to gather beneath my skin.
“You made it,” he said.
“I did.”
Neither of us moved.
I had pictured this moment many times, usually while brushing my teeth or waiting for a file to export. In some versions, I was charming. In others, I made him laugh immediately. In all of them, I knew what to do with my hands.
Reality had left me with no remaining motor skills.
Hudson seemed to notice. “Let me take that for you.”
When he reached for the box, our fingers brushed. A small current traveled through my hand and settled inconveniently in my core. His eyes met mine again. The pause lasted only a second, but it contained enough awareness to make me wonder whether wolf shifters could hear thoughts.
That possibility hadn’t occurred to me before.
Oh, God. Could they?
I tried not to think about Hudson’s broad shoulders, which only made me think about them with greater clarity.
“Thanks,” I said, releasing the box.
“You look different,” he said.
My stomach dropped.
Different.
Of course I looked different. The real Loany had red hair and green eyes.
I forced a smile. “Time will do that to a person.” Er, wolf?
Fuck me.
Hudson’s eyebrows drew together. “I meant from what I pictured.”
“Oh. What did you picture?” I asked, because apparently, I enjoyed risk.
His mouth curved. “I don’t know, exactly, but my imagination definitely didn’t do you justice.”
The look on his face made butterflies move violently through my stomach. “That bad, huh?”
“No.” His answer came quickly. “Not bad at all.”
Someone shouted his name from the porch, and Hudson glanced over his shoulder. A man held an extension cord in one hand and gestured toward a string of lights that had fallen from the pavilion.
“I have to deal with that,” Hudson said, returning his attention to me. “I’m sorry.”
“Of course you do.”
He smiled at the familiar accusation. “Patty has been asking around for you, so she’s probably close.”
He shifted the bakery box to one arm and nodded toward the hall. “I’ll take these inside and find you again.”
“Okay.”
He started toward the porch, then turned back. “I’m glad you came.”
There were entire conversations hidden inside that sentence. I held his gaze and tried not to think how much I wanted him to say it all out loud. “Me too.”
He walked away. I watched him for nearly a full minute before remembering I was surrounded by people with enhanced senses.
I turned around just as a blur of combat boots and oversized flannel came charging out of the double doors. Patty Kipner materialized in front of me, her artsy black-and-white profile picture coming to life with a burst of chaotic energy.
“Oh my God, you’re real!” she shrieked, throwing her arms around my neck in a hug so tight I felt my spine crack. She pulled back, her eyes wide with excitement. “I’ve been waiting by the door for an hour.”
She held me at arm’s length. “You are Sloane, right? Because if you’re not, this is super awkward.”
I laughed. “Yes, I’m Sloane. It’s so good to finally meet you in person.”
Patty was shorter than I had imagined, with dark hair cut in an uneven bob, several gold hoops along one ear, and heavy black eyeliner. Her black dress had tiny moons printed across it, and a painted denim jacket hung from one arm.
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