Page 19 of Shame the Devil

She nodded and did it, unable to say anything else. All her bravado was gone. This was too much conflict. Too much aggression in the air. Too many … too manythingshappening in one day. In one week. In one year.

She was not cut out for this. She did regular. She did mundane. She did nonconfrontational.

Kris told the kid, “Owen’s right. We all got a bison lesson. Stay away from those guys from now on, huh?” He smiled with a Hollywood star’s worth of charm and said, as if the confrontation had never happened, “Good to meet you under better circumstances. You all have a good night.” Then he sat down beside Jennifer and told her, “I’ve got to say—I’m ready for that whiskey. How about you?”

* * *

Harlan still wantedto deck the guy for dismissing what he’d done to Jennifer, and to his kid. He did his best to get rid of the impulse, though. For whatever reason, she was way too wound up.

Jennifer. It was a little old-fashioned, maybe. It suited her. He was used to the kind of high-gloss women a football player tended to meet, but she was from a different world. The kind of woman you might see at a PTA meeting. With cookies, or something.

She didn’t have gloss. She had warmth. A whole different thing. And shewasn’twearing a ring.

He wanted to kiss her. Bad.

The waitress brought the drinks, and he lifted his glass and said, “To adventure. And survival.”

The blonde, Dyma, said, “To adventure,” clinked her mug of hot cider (with cinnamon stick) against the others, and took a gulp.

Jennifer said, “To survival.” Wryly, which was interesting. She took a sip of the neat whiskey, sighed, and said, “Or maybe to adventure. You really did ask for the good stuff.”

“Always,” he said.

“There’s something I have to say,” she said. Gearing up for the announcement, the same way she’d done before.

“That you think they’re wolf shifters?” Dyma asked, both her pretty dimples showing. “We had a wolf encounter earlier,” she told Owen. “As in—right before our bison encounter. If I’d known Yellowstone would be this exciting, I wouldn’t have whined about coming. What’s going to happen tomorrow, we get caught in an elk stampede? The grizzlies wake up? What?”

“I can’t believe you whine about anything,” Owen said. “Pretty sure you’re jumping in with both feet every time.”

“A man with outward courage dares to die,” she said. “A man with inward courage dares to live.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jennifer muttered.

“We’re wolf shifters?” Harlan asked. “You’ve been reading the background material too, then. But wait—what wolf encounter?”

“What?” Jennifer said. “No.” She was blushing a little, the pink tinting her cheeks. Maybe that was the whiskey, or maybe it was something else, because she was looking at him.Seriouslylooking. “You have the same eyes he did,” she said. “At least I think so. That’s an interesting coincidence, but obviously, there’s no such thing as a wolf shifter.”

“Aw,” Owen said.

“Never mind,” Harlan told him. “I’m the only one who’d be a wolf. You’re a bison shifter all the way. I was just thinking that today.”

“No.” Dyma sat up straighter. “No, because the brown wolfwasyou, Owen.” She got even more animated, her face lighting up, like the energy inside was propelling her onward. “We skied around this corner beside the river, because we were on the … the …”

“The Lone Star Trail,” Jennifer put in. She was looking tense. Troubled. She took another sip of whiskey, then smiled with the kind of determination that meant she was shaking it off. Harlan wanted to put a hand over hers, but he didn’t, because he couldn’t get a read on her.

“And my mom said something,” Dyma said, “but I didn’t hear, and then she skied up beside me and put her hand on my arm and whispered, ‘Stop.’ And pointed. Her hand was shaking. It wasreallydramatic. And there they were. Wolves.”

“Wait,” Harlan said. “Your mom? Your mom’s here, too? But where … She wasn’t with you when you came out.” Theyhadlooked shaken, nearly frantic, especially Jennifer, but—what? They’d left somebody behind? Not possible.

Dyma said, “What?”

Jennifer sighed, took another swallow of her drink, and said, “She means me. I’m the mom.”

9

The White Wolf

Everybody got very still,and Jennifer had to laugh.