“You’reallthe new owners?” Elvy asked.
“Yes, actually. There are four of us—er, five,” he amended quickly, with a glance at Arden. “And a few who aren’t here yet. Oh, there’s my cousin.”
Lexie came down the street, wearing pajama pants and an oversized sleep shirt, looking tousled and cranky. “Baz, why are there goats everywhere?”
“Meet Elvy the Goat Lady,” Baz told her. “Elvy, this is my cousin Lexie, and the one with the lapful of goats is my other cousin Fern. Does anyone know where Declan is?”
“Probably still asleep,” Lexie said. She pushed away a goat that was trying to nibble the waist strings on her pajama pants. “He was up half the night working on his new house. Doing what, I’m not sure; I just know that I kept getting woken up by hammering right across the street from me.” She scratched the goat between its floppy ears. “Oh, that reminds me. We need more building supplies. I’ve been keeping a running list.Someone needs to take the truck into town today and go shopping.”
“I’ll do it,” Baz offered. He turned to Arden. In the morning sun, with her hair tousled, she looked amazing; he had to get his train of thought back on its tracks and remember what he was going to ask her. “How do you feel about a trip to town? I’m sure there must be a few things you could use.”
“Sure.” Arden beamed at him. “That’d be great. Thanks.”
And it would give him a chance to be alone with her, without his entire clan around, not to mention a couple dozen goats.
“You’re probably going to want to change pants first,” said Elvy the Goat Lady, looking at his crotch.
Baz looked down and had the deeply unhappy discovery that the goat had been chewing on it, and his boxers were showing.
“Baz,” Fern said at the same time, looking up rapturously from the pygmy goats in her lap. “Can we get a goat?”
ARDEN
As soon as she agreed,Arden began having doubts, but they evaporated once she was in the passenger seat of Baz’s truck, jolting down the poorly maintained road to the highway. Getting away from the ghost town for a little while, going somewhere with stores and restaurants and bathrooms with running water, felt amazing. Yet she was already looking forward to coming back, for reasons she was not prepared to examine closely.
“We’re gonna need to fix the ruts in the road,” Baz remarked, steering with one hand while holding a mug of coffee in the other. Baz and Arden had both taken the time to change, and Lexie had made coffee for the group, or at least those who were up; Declan’s door had remained firmly closed, and Arden didn’t mind. It was nice to have some relief from his dark moods and sullen silences.
Baz’s cup wasn’t a travel mug. It looked like another find from the town itself, a heavy old-fashioned stoneware mug with a cracked handle.
“What are your plans for the town?” she asked, reaching out to grasp the truck door’s inner handle as they rocked over another deep rut. “Do you plan to live here?”
Baz nodded. “Yes, and open the town up to settlement by others. As you know, we’re shifters.”
“I know,” Arden said with a brief smile.
“The people who threatened you in the woods yesterday—” His brow grew briefly thunderous. “—are from the wild clans who live on the mountain. No matter what they say, this place does not belong to them. They’ve had every opportunity to claim it in the last few decades if they really wanted it. So now we’re here, and we hope to create a place where all of our kinds—yours, mine, theirs—can live in peace. The wild shifters are certainly intelligent and brave, but they know nothing about the human world. They don’t understand cars, phones, or money. And they’re coming into increasing contact with humans, sometimes with unfortunate results. We hope that we can make a space where they can learn about humans in a safe environment with their own kind.”
As Baz spoke, he came alive, filled with energy and enthusiasm. His obvious joy in his project helped soothe Arden’s nervousness at the idea of being surrounded by strange shifters.
They’re just people,she thought.Just like Baz and his friends.
“That’s a smart idea,” she said. “Are you—er—allstaying?”
Baz’s lips twitched. “You’re thinking about Declan, aren’t you?”
“Um.”
“Look. I know he can be ... cranky. And he takes a while to warm up to people. But he’s not going to try to stop you from living there. And if he does, I can overrule him.”
“You’re the—mayor? Or something?”
“I’m the alpha,” Baz said casually.
“I wasn’t sure if that was a real thing.”
“It is.” He slowed as the dirt road approached the highway. Arden held out a hand.
“I can hold that coffee for you, if you like.” She could see why he hadn’t put it in the coffee holder; it didn’t look like the mug would fit, and it would probably slop all over the place with no top.
