Etienne (The Shifters of Shotgun Row Book 1)(4)

“Watch your mouth, Eti.”

“Yes, sir.”

I couldn’t get out of the office fast enough.



I hadn’t been on the road more than twenty minutes when I saw Tansy Pansy walking down the street in a teal dress. It wasn’t the one she was wearing this morning. There was only one main drag in the town of Juneau, so anywhere she had to go was probably close.

She looked lost.

“Can I help you find something?” I slowed down and stuck my head out the window a little, turning down Roy again. He was going to get tired of me silencing his songs.

She turned on her red heels, a bright smile on her lips until the moment she figured out who she was talking to.

“Oh, yeah...no. I’ll find it, thanks.”

She was ornery as fuck. “Look, there’s not too many places here. Where you headed?”

She looked up and down the street, probably for somebody—anybody—to give her directions other than me. “Well, I’m looking for someone named Star? Pet store?”

“It’s down the street. Let me give you a ride. It has to be hotter than the devil’s asshole out here.”

She mouthed wow. “It’s okay. I can walk.”

My gator growled. “I know you can walk, but let me drive you. It’s no trouble.”

“Fine.” She stomped in front of my car, making her way to the passenger side. All the stomping made her ass wiggle. And all that ass wiggling made my gator want to come out and play.

Didn’t think a gator in the streets would really do it for the Yankee girl.

“Drive on.”

We drove for a little while, and I couldn’t help myself. I was driving slower, taking in her scent. Even out of the bakery, she was all vanilla and sugar.

“My eyes were the same color until I was eight.”

Well now, why, for fuck’s sake, did I say such a thing?

“What happened when you were eight?” She sounded downright bored.

“My cousin shot me in the eye with a BB gun. After they took the tiny bullet out and my eye healed, it was a different color. They said maybe the metal made it change or something.”

She looked at me for a few seconds like I had already turned beast mode. I slowed the patrol car down even more.

“What?”

“Look.” She bent forward, and my lungs stopped working. She had a couple of freckles on her nose, but unless you were this close, you wouldn’t know. Her fragrance was all over me. She was human, but something else lingered along with her humanity. This couldn’t be happening.

“What? I mean, what am I looking at?”

Fuck. I knew what I was looking at, but I didn’t know what she wanted me to look at.

“Right above my eye. See the little scar?”

It was the tiniest scar I’d ever seen. Looked like a teardrop.

“Who did that number on you?”

“You’re not gonna believe me.”

“Try me.”

“Cousin—with a bow and arrow.”

“You ain’t shittin?”

“Um, no, I’m not poopin’. Cried for days over this scar.”

If she cried for days over that tiny scar, she’d pass clear out if she saw mine.





Tansy

What the freck was I doing? First, I get into the car with Yeti and then I over share, telling him all about my scar. I mean, sure, he told me about his eyes, but this wasn’t a quid pro quo kind of situation. He probably thought I was a vain city girl now, which was so not the case. Not that I was ready to open up about my near-blindness scare and how it somehow triggered my other gifts. ’Cause stinker dos on that.

Ugh. Why did I even care what he thought?

And why did he have to smell so yummalicious, all woods and bacon. Bacon, of all things. The best food in the entire universe. I needed to get out of the car and pronto.

“I need to go.” I sounded frantic. Brilliant.

“You’re almost there, darlin. Just another block.” I could already see it. It wasn’t like I was in a bustling metropolis. I couldn’t begin to fathom how a pet store even made it here with such a small population. Unless part of moving here meant getting three cats and a pair of dogs. If so, I was never going to fit in.

Sure, I liked animals well enough, but in the wild where they belonged, not in a tiny cottage still filled with more knickknacks than anyone in their right mind should ever own.

“I’m not your darlin’, and I need to go find Star.” I sounded like a queen B, and you know what, I was okiedaisies with that. ’Cause with him smellin’ that way and lookin’ that way, I was starting to feel things of a smexy nature, and I was so far done with that.

“Gettin’ your tarot done?” I sensed an edge of humor in his question, not sure if it was at the cards or dropping of Gs at the end of words, a habit that drove Dante up a wall and one I embraced tightly after the incident.

“Hardly.” Except since he put the idea in my head, I planned to do exactly that. Maybe this Star chick could help me figure out this Meemaw dilemma, ’cause Meemaw sure as shit wasn’t gonna. She seemed happy as a clam to stick around. I liked having her around, too, but I feared there was a time window, and if so, I couldn’t be that selfish. “I mean, I don’t think so.” My answer sounded exactly like that. A lie. “I gotta go.”