I just shook my head. That beautiful little liar. “Definitely sure there’s no mix-up?”
“Unless the Andrews Funeral Home in Cortland, New York buried the wrong person. This Julia Harris has the same date of birth, eye and hair color. She definitely passed in that hit and run on January 1, 2024.”
“I’ll be damned. Her paperwork looked fucking professional. I want you to pull out all the stops. Go ahead with facial recognition, the works. And when you find out who she is, I want to know who her parents are. Her grandparents. Everyone. The girl has wolf blood, and I want to know where it came from. I want to know yesterday.”
“I’ll have it for you by the party at the clubhouse.”
“See that you do.”
Chapter 7
Juliet
The first conscious breath tasted like fresh cotton and freedom. Not the perfumed jasmine of my usual morning haze back in New York, but oil-stained desert blooming plants and dry prairie air seeping through the barely opened window. My fingers curled into cotton sheets still holding the chill of desert nights as the dream residue slipped away—something about running through sagebrush, earth crunching deliciously beneath…
I jerked upright, palm pressed to my racing heart. The movement sent my hair tumbling down from the loose hair tie that had held the messy bun I’d slept in last night. A recent conversation with Pearl looped behind my eyelids when I blinked, her sweet voice slicing through the bar’s whiskey haze. “Black doesn’t suit an angel like you, darlin’.”
The mirror above the apartment’s sink showed the damage. Midnight dye job bleeding violet at the roots, bangs hacked just short enough to graze my lashes. A thrift store disguise stitched together with drugstore recklessness. My reflection wavered like a heat mirage over pavement, part runaway debutante, part scavenged roadkill.
Coffee grounds hissed as I dumped them into the filter, the sound syncopating with gravel popping under tires out on County Road 14. A few weeks since I’d traded marble foyers for this cutelittle one-bedroom filled with hopes, fear, and ambition. My pinky finger tapped the arrhythmic Morse code against the butcher block countertop—not going back, not going back, not—
A wolf’s howl split the predawn stillness.
Or maybe just the wind through the canyon. I gripped my mug tighter, lukewarm liquid sloshing onto my skin. The memory arrived unbidden. Last night’s moon hanging low and heavy as a bullet hole in the sky, that chorus of animal cries reverberated in my marrow. Something had answered deep in my gut, a primal string plucked hard enough to make my molars ache.
I made my way to my sweet little bathroom to wash my face and get my teeth brushed.
Bronc’s knuckles rapped twice on the metal door. “You decent?”
I spat toothpaste froth into the sink and rinsed then headed to the door. “Define decent.”
"Put some pants on; we’re heading to breakfast before work."
A small smile split my face as I yelled through the door, “Down in a minute!”
The smell of burnt coffee grounds and sourdough toast followed me into Dairyville’s only twenty-four-hour diner. I stopped off in the restroom to fix my hair that had fallen out of my hair tie. God, what a mess. Bronc already occupied the corner booth; two mugs already sat steaming between placemats stained with decades of pancake syrup when I returned. His leather cut lay draped over the vinyl seatback like a second skin shed for my benefit.
“They’re out of oat milk.” He didn’t look up from dismantling a sugar packet, calloused fingers precise as a bomb technician’s. “Got you the cinnamon swirl French toast special.”
I slid into the booth, knees brushing denim under the table. “How’d you know?”
“Noticed you doctoring your coffee with enough sugar to put a diabetic in a coma.” His boot tappedmine—accidental? Deliberate? The laminated menu trembled in my grip. “Figured French toast fell in the same category.”
Three truckers at the counter swiveled on their stools when my laugh came out unbidden. Bronc’s gaze tracked their reflection in the dust-specked mirror behind me. Something feral glinted beneath his civility, there and gone like the flick of a switch.
“Those wolves were at it again last night.” I stirred creamer into my coffee, watching the liquid spiral into caramel depths. “Closer this time.”
His teaspoon stilled mid-stir. Silver glinted at his temples where the diner’s fluorescents caught threads of gray. “Probably coyotes. Sound carries funny over the plains at—”
“I know what I heard.” The words emerged steadier than I felt. My left palm itched, strange sensations suddenly flaring. “Five distinct voices. One deeper than the others. Lower register, almost…”
Almost human.The unspoken words vibrated between us. Bronc’s knuckles whitened around his mug. Across the diner, the waitress’s voice carried through the service window as she berated a line cook about over-easy yolks.
He leaned back; the booth creaking under his weight. Sunlight through greasy windows caught the amber flecks in his eyes. “You always this obsessed with local wildlife?”
“Only the ones that sound like they’re harmonizing.” My smile felt stretched too tight. “Funny thing—whenever they start up, my… Never mind.”
Bronc’s eyebrow quirked. Heat flooded my cheeks as last night’s dream resurged—hot and vivid as the Texas sun.
