Instead, I crossed my arms, which helped nothing except making it more apparent that I was naked and forty and locked out.
“Iknewyou were a shifter.” Esther’s voice was laced with smug confidence, but it was her words that set me reeling.
“What?”A shifter?
Tabi stripped off her long cardigan and handed it to me. “It happens when you shift. You’ll figure out how to handle it.”
“Oh, no.” She had it all wrong. I didn’t shift into a nudie when I got drunk. “I just had too much to drink, and I might be coming down with a cold. My daughter had one.” Even to me, I sounded ridiculous. Despite that old country song, tequila didn’t actually make anyone’s clothes fall off. Even mine. Neither did the common cold. But it was all I had to run with, so I did.
Esther cocked her brow. “A cold won’t turn you into a dragon.”
“Wha—?” Dragon? That had been a tequila-soaked hallucination.
But I couldn’t reply because Tabi was busy sniffing the air, then bent to root through the landscaping pebbles at the edge of the patio. “Got it!” She held up a fake rock, dropped the hidden key into her palm, and grinned as she unlocked the door. I’d totally forgotten I’d put that thing there. How had she known?
Esther patted Tabi’s back as they led me back into the house. “Get dressed. We need to talk.”
About dragons? I thought not, but I hurried to my room thinking this was a lot like that dream about showing up at work naked. And being accused of being a dragon wasn’t really how I wanted to kick off my new friendships with them, but that, too, seemed out of my control. I still wasn’t even sure their intentions were honorable. Or whatever.
CHAPTERNINE
If getting dressed quickly was an Olympic sport, I was a gold medal contender. Although, I did go commando under my t-shirt and jeans. But there were matters to discuss more important than a bra or panties. On my way out of my bedroom, I looked down at my tatas and hurried back in to slip on a bra. Some women could go without. I wasn’t comfortable.
Although, no way did I look like someone these women should’ve been talking to. I looked more like a railroad hobo ready to hop the next train. All I needed was a guitar on my back and a flower in my top hat. And a top hat.
I walked into the kitchen, but they weren’t there. With a sigh, I backtracked through the living room. Empty, as it had been when I’d walked through seconds before.
My house was a split bedroom design, so my room was on one side of the living room and kitchen and Tilly’s on the other. There weren’t really a bunch of other places they could be, so I made my way past the bathroom to Tilly’s room. Across the hall from her room was a third bedroom we mostly used for storage.
When I peeked into the open door of Tilly’s room, my daughter was gone and Tabi had one of Tilly’s sweaters pressed to her nose. Esther was full-on sniffing the laundry hamper, her face buried in Tilly’s dirty clothes. Gross! What in the world? This was going from freaky to freaking weird!
She didn’t drop it when I walked in but gave me the courtesy of a look-up and a wry smile before she set it down and walked to the dresser for a nice long inhale in the top drawer, then a couple of short snorts.
If my head wasn’t spinning, and I didn’t feel so woozy again, it might’ve occurred to me that their behavior wasn’t the norm for visitors. Of course, neither was running naked through the forest. Who was I to judge? They’d found me naked. I’d found them sniffing my daughter’s laundry. Concessions were being made for all sorts of odd behavior.
Esther turned as if I’d managed to form the words to ask them what they were doing in Tilly’s room. “What kind of shifter lives in this room?” she asked. “I can’t get a handle on the scent.” There wasn’t accusation in her tone, but honest curiosity.
Oh, wouldn’t Tilly laugh at the question, assuming I could find some way to explain shifters to her. “It’s my daughter’s room.”
She gave me a dismissive, “yes, yes,” and a wave of her hand. “But what kind of shifter is she?”
“Shifter?”
She lifted a brow. “You know, a person who can shift from a human to an animal form.”
I couldn’t answer for a couple of reasons. First, I had no idea what the heck she was talking about other than fantasy stuff I’d seen on TV, and second… holy hell. Tilly had been feverish. I had been, too. She’d seemed dizzy. Delirious. Another couple of common symptoms we’d shared. And there’d been a bunny in my house.
But no way. Tilly. A shifter? Wouldn’t I have known? You know, if shifters were even real.
Tabi hadn’t stopped staring at me. “Did you get bit?”
Bit by a bunny that had snuck into my house when Tilly’d left the door open. Or bit by a bunny thathad beenTilly, who’d walked right in the front door. Oh, dear.
“Bit?” It was still hard to comprehend. Or imagine. Or make sense of.
Esther and Tabi were in my house, talking about shifters like we were in one of those teen movies. The fact I was sick and suffering hallucinations—and the bunny—aside, they were sniffing clothes.
“Smells like a male shifter’s been here, too.” Esther gave Tabi a knowing look, but I couldn’t keep up.
