Right before the accident, I’d been all set to move in with Niall in his two-bedroom pondside cabin, but I was such an invalid that I’d stayed home. Not that Mom and Dad would’ve let me move out weak and useless as I was.
Both my parents were the nurturing type. Dad with food and stories, Mom with her time and gentleness. I didn’t always appreciate how deeply they loved and cared, especially when I was trying to be rebellious in my teenage years. Between them and myfourolder brothers, my rebellious streak died a quick death.
I tried my hardest, though, managing to check skinny-dipping, a hangover, and purple hair off my list.
Skinny-dipping wasn’t that wild considering wolves weren’t exactly modest, what with having to get naked before shifting, but at thirteen, it had felt totally badass.
The hangover and purple hair coincided. Adalyn and I had unearthed a bottle of Don Julio in her house and a dye kit for hair leftover from Grandma Reeves’ salon. Drunk on tequila, I’d dyed her light hair blue, and she’d colored my brown hair purple. It had honestly felt like a great idea that night, but so had drinking hard liquor. Even though it wasn’t all that awful, especially after her grams filled in the patches we’d forgotten to color, my brothers spent the next few weeks threatening to dye our wolves’ pelts purple and blue to match.
I slid the grocery bag onto the counter, then kissed Dad’s bristly cheek. “Smells delicious.”
“Thanks, honey.”
The butcher-block island was laden with dishes, some cooked, others raw. Amidst the chaos, Nolan was skillfully crimping the edges of a tart shell.
I dumped my bag on one of the high chairs propped under the island. “Please tell me the filling’s sour cherry.”
Nolan looked up at me, a streak of flour over his jaw. “Sour cherry? Now why would I bake a cherry pie in the fall?”
Where Nate, Niall, and I inherited Mom’s brown eyes, the twins got Dad’s blue peepers. Totally unfair. Especially considering their lashes were indecently dark and curly.
I bumped him with my shoulder. “Because you love your little sister to bits.”
“It’s sour cherry.”
“Yes!” I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and was about to ask how I could help when I remembered the murdered girl and my urgent desire to talk with my cop brother about the baseball-cap wearing shifter. “Is Nate here?”
“He’s helping your mother set the table,” Dad replied as he heated oil in a pan, filling the kitchen with a rich-smelling sizzle.
I walked toward the adjacent dining room where Nate was uncorking red wine. “Nate, the murder yesterday—”
“Nikki, honey.” Mom handed me a stack of napkins, which I folded and stuck onto plates. “No murder-talk tonight.”
“Sorry, Mom, but I just want to know, was it a real wolf or a shifter?”
Nate rubbed his temple and expelled a weary sigh. “We don’t know yet.” Dark circles smudged the skin beneath his eyes. “But don’t worry.” He shot me a reassuring smile. “I have the best trackers on the case.”
If he had the best trackers on the case, then why was my brother Nolan making cherry pie instead of prowling the woods? “I think I know who it is.”
My brother’s grip on the wine bottle turned white-knuckled.
“What?” Mom dropped the fork she’d been laying out, and it clattered raucously against the plate. “What do you mean you know who it is? How?”
“When I was coming out of the supermarket, I bumped into . . .”
The doorbell shrilled, and I jumped. Our doorbellneverrang. Our shifter neighbors knocked, but no one ever bothered ringing.
Mom and Nate exchanged a look.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Why did the doorbell ring? Are we expecting company?”
“We are. A very special guest.” Mom smoothed her denim shirt, which, in spite of her silver-streaked brown hair, gave her the appearance of a teen. Especially, since she was tall and willowy, and her face wasn’t all that lined.
I got the tall part, not the willowy one.
I trailed them out of the dining room. “So, I bumped into this shifter, and I think, that maybe he was—”
“He?” Nate paused in the hallway, leaving Mom to greet our guest.
