She turned to glare at him. “So?”
“So, piss in the woods.” He frowned and turned to shake Lance’s hand.
Oh. So, he could be rude back. Acceptable.
She lifted her chin higher into the air and did a little, “Hmp,” to Birdie Kissalot and stomped toward the trees.
“I’m a shifter too!” Birdie called.
“I know. I can smell you.”
“Oh. Well, why can’t I tell that you’re a shifter?”
Moira closed her eyes and then called on her animal and then turned around and flashed them at Birdie with a hiss. “Happy?”
Birdie jumped back and grabbed her chest. “O M G.”
“Don’t say the letters out loud like that. It’s lame. Say ‘oh my gosh.’ That’s like me saying L O L.”
“What’s your animal?”
“A C.”
“A C?” Birdie asked.
“A C your way away from me. You are dismissed, you miniature weirdo.”
“You’re really mean sometimes.”
“And yet here you are, still talking to me. I’m trying to find a pee spot. Leave me alone.”
“You shouldn’t be in the woods alone. Girls go in packs. You should have someone watching your back.”
“You want to watch me pee?”
“What? No!”
“I’m fine in the woods,” she said, stomping through the snow drifts. She didn’t really have to go to the bathroom. She just needed a break from peopling. If she had to ride around with these dopes for the next couple of hours, she needed to take a meditative breather so she wouldn’t Change into her animal and bite every last one of them. No, that wasn’t right. Her animal was harmless. She would just run away, and Moira would Change back in a few hours lost in the middle of the woods.
No Changing today. This wasn’t the time nor the place.
Birdie grew half a brain and stopped following her, and Moira marched right into the trees and hid behind a big trunk. She inhaled deeply, rolled her eyes closed, and imagined her cabin back at the Woodpecker Inn. It was full of snacks, and silence. Her paradise. What had convinced her she needed to do this tour, she didn’t know. The adventurous spirit that had taken her over since she’d arrived in beautiful snowy Colorado, perhaps? Or maybe it was the boredom that had consumed her yesterday when she’d only ventured out one time to eat in the main lodge.
She took a few minutes, then smoothed her black sweater out, and slowly made her way back to the ATVs. Hot Tour Guide had Birdie and Lance all loaded up on theirs, and they were giggling and flirting. Yack.
“Hey, would you mind taking a picture of us?” Birdie asked her.
Without missing a beat, Moira said, “I would rather eat oatmeal.”
“Oh. Oatmeal isn’t so bad if you put honey and raisins in it,” Lance said.
“I’m allergic to oatmeal and will go into anaphylactic shock and die.”
“Oh,” Lance said in a disappointed tone.
“You’re just a delight, aren’t you?” Hot Tour Guide said. His smile was annoyingly handsome.
She swung her leg over the seat of the ATV he stood beside, and gripped the handles. “I’m ready.”
