Shifters with Secrets (An MMF Bisexual Threesome)(5)

Thomas just nodded.

Every bear he knew had had some sort of close call. His had come at age seventeen when he’d been racing down a mountain in his mom’s car, doing at least ninety on the straightaways. When the cops had pulled him over, he’d been so nervous and amped up that he could practically feel the fur starting to come through his skin, and he’d broken a sweat just trying not to shift.

“Thanks, Mrs. Long,” he said.

“Sure,” she said. “I was just making dinner for myself, but do you want to stay?”

It smelled great, but he didn’t like being in Glenn’s house any longer than he had to be.

“I’m getting dinner with my folks,” he said. “Thank you, though.”





Chapter Three





Walking down the stone steps away from the library, Sofia didn’t have any of the bounce in her step that she’d had earlier that day. Not after spending nearly nine hours picking shards of glass off of the floor, shaking the old newspapers off to get the glass shards out, and then sweeping the rest of the glass off of the floor.

Francis’s husband had at least come, knocked the rest of the glass from the panes, and nailed plywood over the empty windows. At least it would be harder to break into the room again, Sofia thought, but she didn’t take much comfort in that.

In five minutes she was in front of The Tipsy Miner, her other favorite place in Placerville. She pulled the big brass handle on the glass door toward herself and headed in.

The Tipsy Miner was actually a pretty classy place, more wine bar than dive, and much nicer than its goofy name would suggest.

At the center was a dark wood bar, rows and rows of whiskey and vodka and gin and tequila neatly lined up behind it, beer taps in front. Rumor around town had it that the bar still had bullets from a gunfight encased in the heavy wood, but Sofia had never been able to find them, and she’d been to the Miner plenty of times in the past few weeks.

“Hey, Sophie,” called Gavin, the bartender. He was shaking some cocktail in a heavy silver cocktail shaker, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he did.

Sofia could have watched him shake that thing all day, honestly.

He was cut from the same cloth as Thomas, the library’s computer guy, though they both said they weren’t related. Gavin was lighter-haired than Thomas, his coloring a little ruddier, but he had the same build: incredibly tall, and built solid.

“Hey, Gavin,” she called, walking to her usual place at the bar.

“Usual?” he asked, pouring the martini into a glass for an older tourist couple.


She just nodded, and thirty seconds later, Gavin was pushing a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon in front of her.

Sofia just looked at it and sighed, not even able to get excited about a delicious glass of wine.

Gavin frowned.

“Bad day?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Someone broke into the room with all the old stuff that I’m using for my dissertation,” she said.

“In the library?”

Sofia nodded, taking a sip of wine. It was very good, and Gavin was partly to thank for that — his family owned both the bar and the winery where they got all their wine.

“Why?” Gavin asked.

Sofia just shrugged and shook her head, all at once.

“I have no idea,” she said. “They took all the books I’d set aside for research, but it’s not like those are valuable, they’re just old.”

“Are they collector’s items or anything?”

Sofia snorted. “Nothing nearly that fancy,” she said, taking another sip. “I mean, maybe there’s some kooky millionaire collector out there who really wants an original copy of Shifter Legends of the Sierra with handwritten notes in it, but I doubt it. The cops think it was just a random thing, whoever broke in didn’t find anything valuable, and so they just took whatever looked the best.”

Gavin drummed his fingers against the bar for a moment.

“Hold on for just a sec,” he said, and walked away.

Sofia took another long quaff from her wine and watched Gavin pull a bottle of whiskey off the shelf, pour it into a small glass, and bring it back to her.

“Buffalo Trace small batch,” he said, pushing it across the lacquered wood. “On the house. Seems like you could use it.”

Sofia smiled, despite herself.

“You do know how to take care of a girl,” she said. She could already feel the wine beginning to take effect.

“I do my best,” he said, resting his forearms on the bar and grinning at her.

She blushed, and quickly took a sip of the whiskey to cover it up. It burned sweetly down her throat, prickling at the inside of her mouth, and she savored it for a moment.

“That’s really good,” she said, swirling the remaining liquid in the glass.

“Don’t tell my boss I gave it to you,” Gavin said. “They’d write me out of the will.”

“It’s worth it,” said Sofia, taking another sip of the whiskey.

“Does the library have cameras or anything?” Gavin asked. He grabbed a towel and started drying off glasses. He seemed to Sofia like the kind of person who couldn’t sit still very well, or for very long.

Sofia shook her head. “Only on the front entrance,” she said. She’d gone over it extensively with Thomas today, as they worked to pick glass up from the room.