“A spa that serves whiskey?” Maida asked skeptically, holding up a dust-covered bottle. “Oh, hi, Baz.”
“I thought Arden was with you,” Fern told Baz, and turned back to Maida. “You don’t have tokeepthe bottles. I bet Baz would take them. Do you want some antique whiskey bottles for your store, Baz? Look, it’s heavy old glass, very cool.”
Maida shoved a bottle into Baz’s hands. “Yeah, your store needs a liquor aisle.”
“It’s not an actual store,” Baz said impatiently, putting the bottle on the windowsill. “Look, I can’t find Arden. I checked her cabin, but she’s not there.”
“Man, you twoarejoined at the hip, aren’t you?” Maida asked, plunking her dust-covered hands on her own hips. “How long has it been since you last saw her, half an hour?”
“It’s not that. I’m just a little worried. She looked upset about that letter Aunt Tara gave her. And how did anyone know she was here to send it to her, anyway?”
“Maybe she wanted to be alone to read it in privacy,” Fern suggested.
“Yeah, Baz, in which case she’s not going to appreciate you barging in on her.”
Baz threw his hands in the air. “Fine, ladies. Enjoy your saloon.”
“Salon!” Maida said indignantly to his back as he left.
In the aftermath of the storm, the road through the middle of town was a field of mud, tracked heavily from the vehicles earlier. Baz wandered up to the higher end of the street, pondering construction projects to divert water in case of another flood. Surely it couldn’t pour like that more often than once or twice a summer, if that—but once they had basements and fully functional utilities, a major storm could set them back weeks or months.
He supposed it shouldn’t come as a shock that so much work and planning went into running a town. City planner was an entire occupation, after all.
While he was musing on that, he realized suddenly that he knew where he could look for Arden. Maybe it was shifter instinct, or merely a human one, but he turned out to be right. When he headed back to the wishing well, he found her there, leaning on the edge and gazing into its capped-off depths. She was holding a slightly rumpled manila envelope that he had never seen before.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Arden jumped and shoved the envelope under her jacket before Baz could get a good look at it.
“I wish,” she sighed, leaning her hip against the newly cleared-off casing of the well. “Which I guess is funny under thecircumstances. If only everything could be made fresh and new with a simple wish.”
She had seemed much happier earlier. Baz leaned on the well beside her. “Whatever is wrong, if you want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”
Arden’s lips parted. She seemed on the verge of saying something, started and stopped a couple of times. Finally she said, “Baz, I know what most of you shift into, or at least I have a guess. But what about Declan?”
Baz turned to look down at her. She was frowning, looking at the woods rather than him. Her hands were clenched together. This seemed to be oddly important to her.
“That’s not a question you ever want to ask a shifter,” he said. “Especially coming from a human—I’m sorry, Arden, but it’s true.”
“I’m not asking just any shifter,” she said. Her blue eyes turned up to him, deep pools of worry. “I’m asking you, Baz. You all know what it is, at least I assume you do. Why am I the only one who doesn’t know?”
“You’re going to have to talk to Declan about it.”
“Declan hates me.”
“He doesn’t,” Baz said. “He’s wary, that’s all.”
“You keep saying that, but wary ofwhat? I know you’re all shifters. What else is there to be worried about?”
“Arden, I can’t tell you someone else’s secrets without having them involved in the conversation. If you want us to go find Declan, we can.” It wasn’t helping that Baz’s bear was reacting to her distress, wanting to do something about it. “Did Declan do something? Has he threatened you?”
“No—I—” Arden shook her head. “He didn’t. That’s not the?—”
“There you two are!” Fern burst out of the woods with twigs in her hair. “You need to come right now.”
“What’s going on?” Baz asked. Instinctively he moved to put Arden behind him.
“It’s complicated!” Fern threw her hands up in the air. “Just come.”
