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Boss’s Buy Friday was a tradition for my construction crews. Whether or not I saw them during the week, each Friday night, I would buy a couple of drinks each at Vixen’s for anybody of age on the crew. It’d been a helluva week. We’d wrapped two jobs and started another, and my new foremen had taken most of the responsibility for day-to-day operations, so it was a goodway to send them off on their weekend, and it helped my cousin’s bottom line.

No matter what happened in the shifter clans—or how worried I might be about the disappearing shifters, Boss’s Buy Friday was a nice reminder of what we were trying to save. And saving our packs from whatever Acheron, the dark sorcerer, had up his sleeve wasn’t something easy for me to forget.

We had to find the multimorph… It was the only way to keep Acheron from growing in power. I had a suspicion that others of the shifter clans were working with him, but I didn’t understand what Acheron could have promised them to get them to betray their kind.

The AC/DC tribute band was warming up, and the familiar soft hum of conversations and the chink of glasses warmed me. Sheila was already behind the bar, slinging drinks and chatting with patrons.

Sheila glanced up from the tap for a locally brewed beer and grinned at me. “Good day in construction?”

“Another day, another dollar,” I said, rubbing my hand over the stubble on my chin. My beard grew faster than most humans’, so by the end of a workday, I always needed another shave.

Sheila swiped a highball glass from the dishwasher and dried it before she motioned me over with her head. “What’re you having?”

“What would you suggest?”

“Beer?”

“No, something stronger tonight.”

“How about an Animal Doctor?”

My gaze narrowed as I studied her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s a new drink on my menu. We call it ‘the Emma.’”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’ll knock you on your ass and have you begging for more. Interested?”

“Sure.” It felt like we were talking about something other than alcohol, and I wasn’t sure what else to say.

Before I could decide, she placed the washed glass on the shelf where it belonged and leaned over the bar. She gestured me closer.

When I obliged, she lowered her voice. “Listen. I think you should make nice with our friendly vet, and I invited her down here tonight after she saved Callie’s cat today. If you play your cards right, you might be able to get her number. She likes the outdoors, and she recently got a new motorcycle, so make conversation when she gets here, okay?”

I sighed. “I don’t think she likes me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I think I do.”

She’d smelled pissed and turned on when I’d met her in the waiting room earlier. The turned-on part intrigued me, and I’d been fantasizing about her since I’d stepped out of the waiting room.

“Give her a chance,” she said.

“Fine. Can I get that drink?”

Between the matchmakers in my pack and Sheila out here in the human world, I never stood a chance, but thevet had interested me for a while. All that strong and sassy enticed me. However, I didn’t have time for anything serious, not with the threat of Acheron looming over all the shifter clans, and I didn’t know Emma Carter, DVM, well enough to suggest a booty call as our main form of relationship.

“You know I have too much going on to actually date anyone,” I added.

“What about the nurses around town and whoever the other one was?”

“Dates don’t mean relationship. Or even sex,” I muttered.

Sheila shrugged. “Don’t be an idiot. Bumping into her isn’t a relationship at all.”

“If you like her so well, why don’t you ask her out?”