Page 2 of Loan Wolf (Green Valley Shifters: Generations #1)

2

CLARA

T revor and Aaron had grown up.

Clara knew in a clinical sort of way that they must have, and surely, she had, too.

But they had grown up. As tall as she was now, she had to tilt her head up to see their faces when she stood, and they had all kinds of planes to their jaws and cheekbones that had never been there before. Aaron was a little taller, with dark hair and eyes. Trevor’s hair was summer bleached and shoulder-length, like a lion’s mane, and his eyes were gold.

Because Trevor was a lion. And maybe Aaron was a bear like his dad.

Clara tried to tamp down the hope she had nurtured for so many years. Was one of them her mate? Would this be a lightning moment of magic and recognition? How would she even know, if she wasn’t a shifter herself?

They certainly seemed nervous, like they weren’t sure where to look or what to say. Was it more awkwardness than seeing a childhood friend again after so long deserved? Was that glance between them somehow possessive? Would they argue about her attention like they used to?

Clara’s hands were full of paper plate and gravy. “Hang on,” she said, turning to put it down on her chair. Trevor and Aaron both stuck out their hands for her to shake when she was facing them again, aborted the motion, tried to defer to each other, and chuckled awkwardly.

“This is so weird,” Clara said, as warmly as she could, and she gave them each a laughing hug, Trevor first and Aaron a little longer but not suggestively long.

That seemed to break the ice a little. “You’re so tall!” was a safe thing to say, and, “It’s been so long!” She could tease Trevor about the length of his hair. “Does Marta tell you you’re looking like a hippy?”

Their conversation was interrupted by the unmusical blat of a tuba and they all turned to watch a dark-haired man with—were those tattoos? In Green Valley ?—put the tuba player firmly on his feet after apparently barrelling into him. The rest of the band was in chaos, the accordion squeezing random noises and the banjo strumming the wrong chord entirely.

Clara got a glimpse of the man’s strong arms, swirled with colorful art, and then he was abandoning the unbalanced tuba player and dashing out of the auditorium like his boots were on fire.

Conversation swirled back up in his wake as the band resumed playing with even more vigor.

“You should finish your biscuits,” Aaron said, pulling up a chair to sit. “Don’t let us stop you.”

Clara picked her plate back up. “These taste just like I remember,” she said, taking a delicate bite. They were almost cold now, but still delicious, all creamy and salty.

Trevor sat down, scraping a folding chair around so he could face Clara. “Abby’s running Gran’s Grits now, do you remember Abby? She serves fancier food than Gran ever did. You can imagine how that ruffles the feathers of the old folk.”

Clara cast back in her memory. “Abby…she’s a little older than us? She lived in Tawny’s old house with her brother…Dennis?”

“Devon,” Trevor supplied. “Devon and Jamie have four kids and live in Aaron’s old house.”

“They have the same swing set,” Aaron said. “I don’t know how it’s still standing.”

“I saw that whole new subdivision on the way in,” Clara remembered. “And there’s a hotel now! Green Valley’s a lot bigger than it was.”

“It’s the theatre, mostly,” Trevor said. “Linda Turner started up this community project that gets a lot of Broadway actors in doing shows every summer and now Green Valley is this seasonal tourist destination. My dad’s bakery is booming, and there’s a bunch of fancy pants bed and breakfasts downtown. Gran’s Grit is one of six restaurants in town now, can you believe it?”

“Six restaurants!” Clara exclaimed.

“Half of them close in the winter, though,” Aaron pointed out.

“Three restaurants is still more than we ever had before.”

Trevor sounded annoyed and Clara instinctively wanted to keep them from quarreling, just as she had when they were children. “Well, we’re here for a little more than a week, so I should have time to try them all.”

“That’s great!” Aaron said. “I’d love to tour our old haunts with you. Remember when we used to play lions and bears on the playground under the trees?”

“It’s not there anymore,” Trevor told him. “They put a parking lot where those trees were and moved the playground to the other side of the school.” Aside to Clara, he added, “Aaron’s been living in Madison, of course.”

“We come back here a lot, though,” Aaron said, sounding irritated. “Family stuff for the holidays. I just didn’t visit the elementary school, sorry.”

“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” Clara suggested. “College? Working?”

“Accounting degree,” Trevor said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Would have been a football scholarship, but you know…”

He glanced around them and Clara knew what he wasn’t saying. He was a shifter, and wouldn’t participate in sports unfairly. Virtue, where she’d grown up, had an unspoken shifter’s league for local sports, but shifters had to be far more secretive in Green Valley.

“I got a degree in engineering,” Aaron said. “I’m taking a year off before I start job hunting. Trevor’s working at the hardware store, even though he’s super rich and doesn’t have to.”

“I’m not super rich,” Trevor protested, the tips of his ears turning red. “And I just want to earn my own keep.”

“ Super rich,” Aaron said in a stage whisper to Clara.

“Well, we don’t have to ask what you’ve been up to,” Trevor said firmly. “Miss famous fancy-pants dancer!”

“My whole family watched you in the Nutcracker on PBS,” Aaron said.

“Clara, dancing as Clara!” Trevor crowed. “Everyone talked about it afterwards.”

Clara kept a smile on her face out of practice and knew that it would be perfectly convincing. She didn’t want to talk about dancing. She didn’t want to be Clara Montgomery, daughter of an Angel, here. She wanted to be just Clara, Miss Patricia’s daughter, and no one special. “Did they ever rebuild the auto shop that burned down?”

“Yeah,” Trevor said, like he was grateful for the distraction. “But it’s a bike shop now.”

“Motorcycles?” That seemed out of character for the little town.

“Mountain bikes,” Aaron said. “Gabe’s got a sales, repair, and rental place. The county did a big upgrade of the trails around here and Green Valley is one of the jumping off places for a twenty-mile loop, so we get a bunch of ecotourists through the town in their tight bike shorts.”

“Supporting the six local restaurants,” Trevor added.

“Three in the winter,” Aaron said sharply.

Were they jostling over her, or was this just the usual amount of rivalry? Was Clara imagining their lingering gazes or giving too much credit to the way they appraised her? Certainly, she was probably doing the same, trying not to stare, but curious about how much they’d grown up, how their voices were different, how they were the same best friends…and so very not.