Page 1 of The Claiming of the Shrew (Fated Mountain Lodge #4)
LEAH
“Leah, I know you’re happy about Bar giving you a car with hand controls, so you can finally drive.”
Leah’s answer to her sister’s remark was to slam down a gear as the mountain road cut around a switchback.
“But,” her sister Joy went on doggedly, clutching the cake dish in her lap with one hand and the passenger side handle with the other, “I have to point out that this is a Honda Civic.”
Leah didn’t dignify this with a response. She was winding this baby out .
“A manual Honda Civic,” Joy added.
“Her name,” Leah said, “is Roxanne.”
“Right. Roxanne. Apologies, I forgot.” Joy swallowed as they went around another turn. “And if you get Baby Bar too upset and make me ill, it’s going to be your problem and Roxanne’s problem, I’m just saying.”
They settled into a straight stretch, and Leah regretfully reined in her steed, clutched the wheel, and turned a bright grin on her sister.
They were full biological sisters, but with ten years between them, the resemblance wasn’t that strong.
Joy was softly rounded, more so now since marriage and a burgeoning pregnancy had been treating her well.
Leah was slight, her brown hair similar in color to her sister’s but fine and straight where Joy’s had a great deal of natural bounce.
But most people didn’t notice Leah’s hair or her smile (excellent if she did say so herself) or her eyes (hazel).
What they noticed first was her forearm crutches—currently tucked down between the seat and the door—and second, her legs, a congenital deformity with the toes twisted in and one leg markedly shorter than the other.
Childhood surgeries had given her the ability to walk with aid, and she had finally left behind the awkward, heavy braces that had been the bane of her teenage years.
But driving was entirely out. She couldn’t reach the pedals with her right foot, and didn’t have enough strength in either leg to properly use them.
Being able to finally, properly drive was wonderful . After years of relying on other people to drive her, long past the age when most teenagers got their driver’s license and on into her twenties, holding the wheel of the Civic felt like flying.
Not that she really knew what flying was like, but her inner animal, her shrew, had evidently decided that driving was the next best thing to the only other flight-like activity that the shrew understood, which was falling (which it also thought was exciting).
Leah’s shrew didn’t talk to her in words—she figured that this was for the best; she couldn’t imagine that a shrew would be a brilliant conversationalist anyway—but it was definitely a thrill seeker and she got a lot of inner EEEEEEEEEEE from fast mountain curves.
But she decided that maybe the flying could be restricted for times when she didn’t have a pregnant sister in the car. Joy still looked pale.
“Are you all right? Are you actually feeling sick? You should have said something.”
“I did,” Joy said between her teeth. “I said a lot of things, like ‘not so fast’ and ‘there’s a turn coming up’ and ‘you’ve only had your license for three weeks.’”
It felt like a lot longer.
“I mean helpful things.”
Joy scowled at her. “I can’t believe you’re driving like this with a pregnant woman on board.”
Leah was immediately contrite. “But it’s so early. Are sharp turns bad for the baby?”
“Terrible,” Joy said sincerely. “Absolutely terrible. Just the g-force alone.”
“Isn’t Baby Bar the size of a pencil eraser at this point?”
“Leah—”
“A very darling pencil eraser, the absolute cutest eraser of all time. Actually a bean is cuter, don’t you think? A cute bean, a lima or pinto bean. Maybe a garbanzo.”
“Are we there yet?” Joy asked plaintively.
In fact, they were. Leah drove up the last steep stretch, past the glacial boulder painted with FATED MOUNTAIN LODGE. There were sprays of stenciled wildflowers around the words, framed now by real wildflowers embracing the boulder in a flush of color.
It was an absolutely lovely spring day. Back in the city, the flowering trees were past their first rush of bloom, but here in the mountains they were still covered in puffs of pink and white, and the new green leaves looked lacy and soft.
The ground beneath the trees was carpeted with delicate blue, pink, and yellow flowers.
Leah didn’t know the names of any of them, but as she eased very carefully into the lodge’s big gravel parking lot, she was pleased to see that the flowers continued around the lodge, now in gorgeous planters filled with a riot of blooms.
The lodge’s parking area was as filled with vehicles as she’d ever seen it, around a couple dozen of them, many splattered with mud from the rougher stretches of the gravel road leading to the lodge.
Among the surrounding pine trees, a variety of tents and camper trailers or RVs could be seen, and wisps of smoke rose from the campsites to tint the air faintly blue.
Leah opened her car door and inhaled deep breaths of crisp mountain air tinged with woodsmoke. Meanwhile Joy put her cake aside, stumbled out of her side of the car, and stood grasping the edge of the door and taking deep breaths for a slightly different reason.
“Are you sure you’re all right? The bean is all right?”
Joy straightened up and scowled at her sister as some color began to return to her face. “The bean and I are fine, but if I never drive with you again, it’ll be too soon.”
“I still drive with you, and you put us in the ditch the first time we came here,” Leah pointed out reasonably.
She swung herself out of the car, steadying herself on the door frame while she got her crutches arranged.
It was just so nice to be able to do this from her own car now.
She really owed Barnaby, Joy’s mate, a hug or twelve.
Joy sighed and looked around. “So that’s your theater company. With the lodge right there, why are they camping out?”
“To keep costs down,” Leah pointed out reasonably, “and to reserve space in the lodge for our audience when we open. Some of them are staying in the hotel, but everyone camping together promotes group bonding, at least that’s what Maggie says. Oh, there she is. Hi, Maggie!”
She waved vigorously at the theater group’s director. Maggie was a tall, graceful woman with waves of gray-streaked dark hair, wearing a practical sweater and jeans. She strode over to clasp Leah’s hand in greeting and also shook hands with Joy.
“We’re so glad to see you,” she told Leah. “Rehearsals are underway, but we need our special effects gal! And understudy—you’ve been studying Gloria’s part, haven’t you?”
“Oh yes,” Leah said eagerly. “I know it backwards and forwards. Er—Gloria’s definitely going on then, is she? Still perfectly healthy?”
“Yes, of course she’s healthy,” Maggie said with a small frown. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Oh, no reason,” Leah said hastily. Just in case anything did happen to Gloria, who was playing Peter Pan—not that anything would! terrible!—she didn’t want to be the prime suspect.
It was just that it would have been so nice to have a leading role for a change, rather than being behind the scenes making props and filling in for bit players when someone had the flu.
In the last couple of years, Leah’s theater hobby and her sister’s newly acquired shifter connections through the lodge owners had led Leah to become involved with a shifter-only theater troupe, the Menagerie Players.
Being part a group where she didn’t have to hide her true nature had been wonderful.
She was able to shift and trundle around on her shrewmobile (she had added a visibility flag, the type normally associated with utility and garden work, to make sure no one stepped on her), but the upcoming weeks were going to be extra special.
The troupe would be putting on a theater-in-the-woods showing of Peter Pan. The plan was to finish rehearsals this week on location, then perform a few shows for a shifter-only audience at the lodge before they opened to the regular summer crowd after Memorial Day.
It was going to be wonderful and amazing, Leah knew. The opportunity of a lifetime. She was going to love it. But oh, she thought wistfully, how much more would she have loved it if she could fly through the woods on the wire contraption she had designed for Peter Pan?
She would be a great Peter Pan, she knew. She was tiny and twiggy and really a much better Peter Pan than Gloria, their leading lady, who was built along sturdier and more hourglass-y lines. But Gloria had got the part, as Gloria got most of the female leads, and that was that.
“Come on and get settled in,” Maggie was saying. “We’ve started setting up, but of course we need you to put the effects together. And we have a few new people I don’t think you’ve met yet. Your sister can have a look around backstage if you like—it’s Joy, right?”
“Yes,” said Joy, who was finally getting some color back in her cheeks.
“But I need to let Hester know I’m here with the latest shipment of baked goods.
” Hester was the lodge manager. “Assuming any of them survived the trip,” she added with a pointed look at Leah, who squirmed a little.
She had forgotten that there was also a trunk full of muffins and cookies.
“Oh yes, Hester and Mauro have been wonderful to us,” Maggie exclaimed. “Actually they’re out in the set area right now. It’s good you’re here, Leah, we’ll need your input for putting the finishing touches on the rigging. Do you have luggage?”
If there was one thing that was usually true around a theater, it was the presence of spare hands for any work that needed doing. Soon there was a vaguely sulky-looking stagehand lugging Leah’s tent and suitcase, while Leah crutched briskly into the trees with Maggie leading.