telling her. “Does this mean it won’t be necessary for a bunch of strange men to sniff my undies? 'Cause I gotta tell you that was kind of weirding me out.”
Mara started laughing and Laura joined in. Her death sentence had been lifted. She didn’t say anything to Laura but she wasn’t going to stop the packages from being posted. Mara still believed there was a mate out there for Laura and she wanted the young woman to find love.
Chapter Twelve
Wednesday afternoon was spent looking over the information Laura had gathered about the local therapists and finishing the move into her house. She and her guests, Ben and Tom, had come back. They had a nice dinner and spent the evening trying out Laura’s games on the big screen in her entertainment room. Knowing her brothers, and men in general, she’d worked with the architect to have a large room with computer gaming chairs, air hockey, foosball, and a few old fashioned pinball machines. There was a wet bar and a jukebox. Visitors could hang on the three deep couches at the end of the room and watch sports on the three large screens set side by side on the wall if they didn’t want to play. Ben and Tom approved of her man cave as she called it. And Mara knew she’d have a hard time getting them to leave and act like the security guards they were supposed to be.
While they were still keeping an eye on her, now that they knew she had magic, they weren’t as strict about it. Just being in the house with her was enough.
Thursday, Mara took Laura to visit with two of the therapists on the shortlist and she decided the second one, a woman named JoAnne Walker, to be her therapist going forward. Laura had sanitized her medical records so the therapist wouldn’t be able to tell where she’d come from.
After she told Mara her choice, Mara informed her JoAnne was a human mated to a shifter. They were both pleased. The one unusual occurrence of the day was when Laura was going from the mobile home to the therapist’s office. She had been accidentally partially exposed to the sun for several minutes and she hadn’t even noticed. Every other time in her life when it happened, she felt as if her skin were being stabbed with a thousand microscopic hot needles. This time she didn’t even know how long her skin had been showing!
Once again she thought of her strange dream. She decided to experiment when they got home. The upper level of her home had windows so she planned to take the elevator up and a blanket, barely allowing herself to hope for a future she only dreamed of as a child. She didn’t say anything to Mara, a part of her felt if she spoke her ideas aloud, they would disappear like mist in the morning.
*****
Roland Gantry was an asshole and a bully. Unfortunately he was also a shifter so the shifter community had to shelter him to protect their secret. It was a chore when he got drunk and into fights with shifters and humans alike. He spent time moving around the country, staying one a step ahead of shifter law. Like any other being who lived on the wrong side of the law, he had a sense when it was time to make a change.
He’d been hanging around a small town in Colorado, comprised of all shifters for a couple of months. Three days ago he’d challenged the local Alpha for his position. The idea of running an entire town, being the top wolf in this little place appealed to him. He outweighed the current Alpha by a good fifty pounds and he expected an easy victory. His conceit and a couple of drinks before the fight, combined with the magical strength and experience of the Alpha, caused him to be defeated fairly quickly. Bullies didn’t like losing fights and he immediately began thinking of ways to get even.
After licking his wounds—literally, he knew it was time to move on again. He wasn’t going to bow down to the Alpha that had defeated him again and again. On his way out of town he stopped by the small general store to pick up some supplies.
Mara started laughing and Laura joined in. Her death sentence had been lifted. She didn’t say anything to Laura but she wasn’t going to stop the packages from being posted. Mara still believed there was a mate out there for Laura and she wanted the young woman to find love.
Chapter Twelve
Wednesday afternoon was spent looking over the information Laura had gathered about the local therapists and finishing the move into her house. She and her guests, Ben and Tom, had come back. They had a nice dinner and spent the evening trying out Laura’s games on the big screen in her entertainment room. Knowing her brothers, and men in general, she’d worked with the architect to have a large room with computer gaming chairs, air hockey, foosball, and a few old fashioned pinball machines. There was a wet bar and a jukebox. Visitors could hang on the three deep couches at the end of the room and watch sports on the three large screens set side by side on the wall if they didn’t want to play. Ben and Tom approved of her man cave as she called it. And Mara knew she’d have a hard time getting them to leave and act like the security guards they were supposed to be.
While they were still keeping an eye on her, now that they knew she had magic, they weren’t as strict about it. Just being in the house with her was enough.
Thursday, Mara took Laura to visit with two of the therapists on the shortlist and she decided the second one, a woman named JoAnne Walker, to be her therapist going forward. Laura had sanitized her medical records so the therapist wouldn’t be able to tell where she’d come from.
After she told Mara her choice, Mara informed her JoAnne was a human mated to a shifter. They were both pleased. The one unusual occurrence of the day was when Laura was going from the mobile home to the therapist’s office. She had been accidentally partially exposed to the sun for several minutes and she hadn’t even noticed. Every other time in her life when it happened, she felt as if her skin were being stabbed with a thousand microscopic hot needles. This time she didn’t even know how long her skin had been showing!
Once again she thought of her strange dream. She decided to experiment when they got home. The upper level of her home had windows so she planned to take the elevator up and a blanket, barely allowing herself to hope for a future she only dreamed of as a child. She didn’t say anything to Mara, a part of her felt if she spoke her ideas aloud, they would disappear like mist in the morning.
*****
Roland Gantry was an asshole and a bully. Unfortunately he was also a shifter so the shifter community had to shelter him to protect their secret. It was a chore when he got drunk and into fights with shifters and humans alike. He spent time moving around the country, staying one a step ahead of shifter law. Like any other being who lived on the wrong side of the law, he had a sense when it was time to make a change.
He’d been hanging around a small town in Colorado, comprised of all shifters for a couple of months. Three days ago he’d challenged the local Alpha for his position. The idea of running an entire town, being the top wolf in this little place appealed to him. He outweighed the current Alpha by a good fifty pounds and he expected an easy victory. His conceit and a couple of drinks before the fight, combined with the magical strength and experience of the Alpha, caused him to be defeated fairly quickly. Bullies didn’t like losing fights and he immediately began thinking of ways to get even.
After licking his wounds—literally, he knew it was time to move on again. He wasn’t going to bow down to the Alpha that had defeated him again and again. On his way out of town he stopped by the small general store to pick up some supplies.
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