Page 29 of Shifters in the Night

Jon flung himself in the air as his body changed shape. They both exploded through the water’s surface in their selkie form. Jon instantly relaxed the moment the waves took him in, sliding over his slick seal tail. It had been too long since he’d enjoyed the caress of the sea against his skin. He’d been working too hard.

Jon followed his brother as he stroked towards the open water. Will had been right, as usual. He needed to get out of his own head. This wasn’t who Jon was, this self-doubting mess. He wanted Lia, that was true. But if she didn’t want him in her life, there was nothing he could do about that. He would take the opportunity if it came up, but he had to stop worrying about it.

But Jon wouldn’t admit that Will was right, as usual.

Will’s tail flicked up the side of Jon’s head as he swam past. He could hear Will’s voice in his head. “I’m always right.”

“Shut it.”

8

LIA

Lia was starting to understand the wisdom of round-the-clock pie.

She could certainly use the sugar rush after spending most of her morning ironing out logistical issues of re-ordering new building materials to reflect the “cozy cottage” aesthetic of the new design. And then there was coordinating the trucks transporting those materials and finding a place to store those materials in an area where there was no warehouse space available. It was like trying to unsnarl a ball of yarn and finding a new snag every few inches.

Lia stood at the meeting table in the office trailer’s lobby, going over reports with Andy Partine, the project’s construction manager. Jeff was sitting at his own desk, pre-knotting Victor’s ties so he could dress more quickly in the morning.

“It’s going to run like clockwork once we break ground, Lia,” Andy assured her, gently bumping her shoulder with his. Andy was tall and broad, built like the proverbial barn – if the barn also happened to make an insanely good meat loaf and have an encyclopedic knowledge of 1990s sitcoms. He and his husband, Chris, were a capricorn and an otter shifter, respectively. Somehow, even with Andy’s travel schedule, they made their lives work. It left Lia bewildered and more than a little envious

“Yeah, but ground-breaking is a few weeks away and I’m not going to sleep much between now and then,” she groaned.

Lia hated to admit it, but she’d been … unsettled since meeting Eva at Jon’s. Yes, Lia clearly had Jon’s interest, but Eva was gorgeous and funny and smart. And she and Jon clearly shared a lot of interests. Eva was obviously very good at boat repair if he was willing to hire her on to the family business. And Jon seemed like the kind of person who found mechanical skills to be sexy. Lia didn’t want to look at their emotions, but she could see interest and attraction and amusement floating around them when they’d stood there on Jon’s driveway. It was such a muddle, she couldn’t tell if it was coming from Jon or Eva.

For the first time in a long time, she was … jealous. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been jealous and this wasn’t a comfortable sensation. It was doubly so because Eva seemed really nice, the sort of person Lia would like to make a friend. Hell, they had a “date” to visit the Ice Cream Depot sometime in the next week.

Generally speaking, if and when a man Lia was interested in decided he wanted someone else, she just moved along. But Jon was irreplaceable. She couldn’t help but feel that she could very easily lose him to Eva. And she couldn’t even be mad about it, because, again, Eva was beautiful and interesting.

Lia rubbed her hands over her face. If Jon was interested in Eva, maybe that was for the best. Eva clearly planned to make a life here in Mystic Bayou, and Lia had no idea where she would be in the next few months.

No… No. She liked Jon. If she broke her feelings down to their most basic terms, she wanted to see him naked and kiss his various places.

Why couldn’t she be more emotionally mature about this? Probably because she’d just classified a relationship as being naked and kissing his various places. She groaned and rubbed her hand over her eyes.

“You want some coffee?” Jeff asked from his desk. “I could make a fresh pot.”

“No thanks.” Lia offered him a grateful smile.

“I think I can do a little better than coffee,” Victor announced as he opened the trailer’s front door, brandishing a bottle of the expensive French champagne he normally kept under lock and key in his office mini-fridge.

Victor had been out of pocket since the disastrous meeting with League personnel. She wasn’t even sure of where her boss had been. Jeff would only say that he was taking “personal time.” Honestly, she wasn’t even sure why Victor insisted traveling to the job sites with them. He did very little actual work during the construction phase. That was left to her and to Andy.

Not for the first time, Lia wondered if it was because he didn’t trust her. Did Victor trust anyone? Maybe Jeff. You had to trust someone who had your underwear monogrammed for you, right?

“I’m going to go make some calls,” Andy said, quietly exiting the trailer without a word to their boss. Andy had no patience for Victor when he was in a “grand entrance” mood.

“What’s this?” Lia asked as Victor placed the bottle of champagne in her hands. This was not a random nice gesture. He usually did this sort of thing after a misstep that created more work for her. She thought back to his comments at the town meeting and cringed all over again. Suddenly, she felt like draining the champagne bottle directly. No glass required. She deserved it.

“I just wanted to recognize the efforts you’re making on the company’s behalf,” Victor said grandly. “Jeff told me that you had drinks with several important ladies the other night. Very clever of you to make friends with the partners of the movers and shakers in this town, such as they are. Better you than me. I’d have to white-knuckle my way through that sort of social crucible.”

“Those women are also very powerful locals, in their own right,” Lia noted, staring daggers at Victor. If she looked towards Jeff, her glare would be so scathing it might derail their working relationship. Since when did Jeff report her movements to Victor? “Also, several of the League employees chose to move here from larger cities. And plenty of the locals are kind, generous, educated people – you’d like them, if you tried to get to know them.”

“Well, don’t get pulled too close to any of them,” he purred. “You’re not here to enjoy their hospitality or kindness. You’re here to represent my business and I expect that to remain your priority. You and I could change the landscape of this town, Lia, make it into something real.”

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded, following Victor into his office. “You keep making cryptic comments like that and I don’t understand. We have one project here, that’s all we’re contracted for.”

Victor turned, a surprised expression on his face, which he quickly rearranged into placid nonchalance. Clearly, he didn’t expect her to follow him. He closed the door behind her and crossed to his desk.

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