Simon & Rose by V.A. Dold Page B

9
     
     
    Mark’s white shirt was no match for her black coffee. Her insistence on cleaning the mess she’d made amused him. There was no telling this woman no, so he sat back and enjoyed the attention. Several napkins later, Sharon admitted defeat. “I have a couple of my father’s T-shirts upstairs. I’ll be but a minute.”
    “You don’t have to…”
    But she was already out of sight. Mark frowned at the sitting room they passed through to get to the patio. Where had she gone? She should have been right there. He looked harder. There wasn’t a single inch of that room he couldn’t see. What the hell?
    He was still pondering her vanishing act, when a blur rushed toward him and stopped next to the table.
    Instant chaos reigned.
    Rizzo shot to her feet, barking.
    Mark’s arms pin wheeled.
    And the table crashed to the ground when he hooked his good leg around a brace, doing his best not to land on his back. At least he wasn’t on the ground sprawled out, looking like a fool in front of Sharon.
    “Holy hell. How did you do that?”
    Her hand went to her heart, and her eyes grew wide. “Goodness. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She nibbled her lower lip and shuffled foot to foot. “I guess this is a good time to explain shifter gifts. As I demonstrated, extreme speed is one of them,” she said sheepishly.
    “Are you kidding me?” he sputtered, righting the table. He reached for his coffee cup, but it was shattered.
    “No. And to tell you the truth, I was actually going a little slow. I can move so fast you wouldn’t be able to see me at all.”
    Mark stared at her for a long minute. He rubbed the back of his neck massaging away the tension. This was shaping up to be a very long day. “Darlin’, do you have any whiskey?”
    “I think so. Why?”
    “I’m going to need to add a splash to my coffee for this conversation.”
    Sharon walked to the parlor, purposely moving at normal human speed. She waited until she was out of view to giggle. If she wasn’t careful, she would traumatize him beyond repair. She grabbed the cut crystal decanter of whiskey she kept on her bar top, and tapped her lower lip. Mark’s education in all things shifter could take a while. She better bring more coffee.
    In the kitchen, she poured the remaining coffee into a carafe and grabbed new cups. She considered the items before her. There was no way to carry the whiskey, coffee, cups and sugar bowl all at once. She snapped her fingers. Leslie kept serving trays someplace. In the sixth cupboard, she found the stash of trays. Bingo! Very pleased with herself, she arranged everything carefully. The last thing she needed was the decanter or carafe tipping off the tray.
    She set the whiskey before him and waited for him to add his so called splash. Then she topped off his cup with hot coffee before taking her seat. He took a test sip and then a healthy gulp. Wow, he wasn’t kidding when he said he needed some whiskey.
    “Better?”
    “Much.” He set his cup on the table and took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m ready. Hit me with all the shocking things you can do.”
    “If you’re sure. I can wait until you’ve had a cup or two.”
    “Oh yeah, I’m sure. Go ahead and rip that Band-Aid off as you said.”
    She eyed him and smiled. He did indeed look ready. “Let me see. There are several powers or gifts that all shifters have. You’ve seen me shift so you know shifters can do that, and once you do the ritual, you’ll be able to shift as well. One you haven’t seen is dressing and undressing with a thought. Using that gift in conjunction with a shift is what allows us to avoid the need to get naked before we shift or end up naked when we shift back. A shifter imagines the clothes either on or off depending on their intention. The one rule is you have to own the clothing you are putting on.”
    “Okay, so that’s why you were able to change when you had clothes on. Stefan did that to, but he changed from a