Page 2 of Broken-Hearted

After thanking Ivy profusely, I climb out in a small Colorado town called Rosenwood, on the ass end of nowhere. I drag myself up and down Main Street on a desperate quest for a job.

I need cash and I need a plan because wolves have sharp noses, and my sister will worry. She’ll track me down herself, or send someone else to make sure I’m okay.

It’s why I shifted to my wolf form as soon as I got away from Martha. I stripped out of my skinny jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, bundling them together before I ran with them in my mouth to get to the road as fast as I could.

I heard a car approaching and shifted, quickly stuffed my clothes back on—hence the back-to-front T-shirt—and nearly got myself run over by Ivy.

When I spot a diner with a handwritten white sign in the window, a smile nearly cracks my face in two.

Hiring.

My first night at O’Shane’s Diner goes swimmingly.

The owner is nice; the night is quiet, and the patrons are polite to the diner’s brand new waitress.

O’Shane spoke with the motel owner, who gave me a room for free when I told him I didn’t have anywhere to stay since my boyfriend dumped me here and took off.

Yes, it was a lie. No, I don’t regret it.

It’s my second day, and my apron pocket is bulging with tips from generous patrons when the bell over the front door rings.

I turn around, and my nose is twitching before the shifter takes one step into the diner.

He’s tall with short, burnished red-brown hair, a black T-shirt, ropy muscles, and an amiable smile that contrasts starkly with the penetrating stare he’s aiming my way.

And he’s handsome. Definitely handsome.

I don’t know him, but he’s a shifter, and there is one… okay,twokinds of shifter after me.

This one isn’t tackling me to the ground and attempting to abduct me, so this must be the good kind.

I hope.

I keep my distance just in case.

“Can I help you?” I call out, hovering near the hatch that leads to a kitchen, and through that kitchen, a back alley. Escape, in other words, in case I got this guy all wrong.

“Just here for a meal,” he calls back.

He doesn’t move toward me as he speaks. Just lingers near the front door.

Can he sense my wariness, or is this a ploy to get me to lower my guard so he can grab me and drag me to Minnesota?

“Sure. Anywhere is fine. Menu’s on the table. Grab a seat wherever.” I gesture toward the half-empty diner.

“Thanks.”

I watch him walk over to a brown leather booth. He slides long, powerful legs under the table, and I pretend to wipe up animaginary spill on the front counter as I observe him out of the corner of my eye.

He picks up a plastic-coated menu, takes his time scanning it, then returns it to the light gray Formica table to peer out of the window.

There’s not much to look at in Rosenwood, so it won’t take him long to get his fill. Thirty minutes prowling the streets on a hunt for a job was more than enough for me.

It’s one of those small towns meant for tourists. A place to eat, sleep, and fill up the tank, but not enough that they would want to stay longer than a night or two. It’s probably why O’Shane had a sign in his window that looked like it had been there for a while.

I guess being on the edge of Colorado and Kansas means Rosenwood is a bathroom break that punctuates the long journey between the two states.

I study the shifter’s profile as he stares out at the quiet parking lot. A couple of eighteen-wheelers have parked up outside. Their middle-aged, gray-haired drivers are sharing one of the booths, friends apparently, as they catch up between bites of their burgers and fries.

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