This could not be happening.
And yet it was.
»»•««
It was dark when Laurie managed to stretch out her muscles and flatten her body on the bed. Something had startled her from her reverie.
She heard voices and knew instantly Melinda was there.
She didn’t want to face her sister naked, so she dragged herself from the bed, pulled her T-shirt over her head, and stepped quietly across the hall to the bathroom. Flipping on the shower, she stood next to the glass door, leaning her weight into the frame.
She was exhausted and weak. She hadn’t eaten all day. Her body hurt—every muscle screaming. And still, she was aroused. Or at least horny.
Steam rose into the room, inviting her to step into the shower. It felt amazing having the water sluice over her sensitive skin. It didn’t replace what she really needed, but it was better than nothing.
After the longest, slowest-moving shower in the history of bathing, she stepped out and wrapped her body in a large fluffy towel to pad from the room and face her sister.
Melinda sat on her bed. She had changed the sheets and gathered up the laundry in a pile in the corner. She smiled. “It smelled like sex in here. I hope you don’t mind me tidying up a bit.”
Laurie blushed, but Melinda was a welcome presence, so she ignored the sex comment. She stepped across the room and grabbed clean panties and a loose T-shirt from her bag. She didn’t have enough clothes to go much longer. She hadn’t thought hard before leaving Cambridge.
Without an ounce of modesty, she dropped her towel and shrugged into her panties, wincing as the cotton touched her skin. The shirt came next. And then she eased onto the bed to sit at the head as if she’d been sick for months and barely had the strength to move.
That wasn’t far from how she actually felt.
“You gonna talk to me now?” Melinda asked.
“Depends. You gonna lecture me?”
“Maybe. You done trying to prove a moot point?”
“Nope.”
“Then I’m going to lecture you.”
Laurie lowered her gaze. She was losing this battle, but she wasn’t one who enjoyed admitting defeat. “How’s the weather?”
“The weather’s fine. You think you’re God?”
“Nope.”
“Then come home. Your mates need you. From the looks of you, you’ve fared worse than them. You need them.” She waved a hand through the air in Laurie’s general direction. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Prove a point you can’t prove? So what if the weather doesn’t behave in your absence. What does that prove?”
Laurie shrugged.
“You know, Mimi thinks this is crazy, but she didn’t want me to come here either. She was of the opinion that we should let you play this out.”
“Smart woman.”
“I think you’re stubborn, and the spirits are going to be pissed off for your misunderstanding. Whatever they want, it isn’t this.”
“How do you know?”
Melinda hauled a leg onto the bed and twisted her body to face Laurie head on. “I’ve been in touch with my shaman side far longer than you. Most of my life, in fact. You’ve been dealing with supernatural experiences for less than two weeks.”
Laurie started to respond to that, and Melinda held up a hand.
“I don’t mean that to be condescending. It’s simply a fact. I’ve been watching the weird occurrences in a forty mile radius for years. People have come to Mimi with spirit sightings for longer than that.
“Granted, most of them were seemingly innocuous. Nevertheless, in recent history I believe the spirits have been there to guide us to help mankind. Warnings we need to heed. In neither my case nor Rebecca’s did it seem the spirits wanted us to leave. Especially separate from our mates.”
Laurie shrugged. “Perhaps they don’t want
me
there.”
“That’s what your gut tells you?” Melinda narrowed her gaze. “Look me in the eye and tell me you honestly believe the reason for the sightings you’ve had of dark smoke coalescing into a shape in front of your face is to tell you to get out of town.”
Laurie didn’t move.
“You can’t. None of the sightings have left you with the vibe that the spirit was angry with you, right?”
“They’ve left me with nothing. That’s the problem.”
“So you think you can play God and decide what you believe the messages may be?”
“Hardly. I’m just testing a theory.”
“Really? And how’s that working?”
“Not well,” Laurie mumbled.
“So come home.”
“I’ve come this far. I’d rather see it through.”
“You’d leave two men sitting on their asses in Cambridge in a completely frantic state to prove a point? For how long? Days? Weeks? Months?”
“I told them three days.”
“Three days?” Melinda raised her voice. “This being the end of day one?”
“Yes.”
“That’s insane. I know we haven’t known each other long, and it’s difficult for me to sit here in judgment of your choices, but Laurie, think about how much you’re hurting.” She paused. “Don’t deny it. I can see the pain on your face. You must feel like you’ve been through a tornado that picked you up, carried you two states away, and dropped you.”
That wasn’t a bad analogy. Laurie winced. “How do you know?”
Her voice rose. “Because that’s what you look like. You’re exhausted. You haven’t slept. There are bags under your eyes. I can smell your arousal, and I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with me being in the room.”
Laurie glanced away. It embarrassed her that her sister could scent her that way.
“It’s like the pheromones that fill a room when two people, or in this case three, need to mate. Except you already did mate, and now you’ve decided to play God and take that claiming and throw it out the window and pretend it didn’t happen. It’s too late.
“So imagine how your mates feel. They’re hurting too. Badly.”
Laurie bit her lower lip. Why did Melinda have to make so much sense?
Melinda opened her mouth to continue and then held up a hand. Her eyes glazed over slightly, a sure indication she was communicating with her mates. She smiled and nodded—comical since it was the equivalent of hand gestures while talking on the phone and driving. They couldn’t see her.
Finally she shook away the connection and met Laurie’s gaze again. “It’s snowing in Cambridge.”
“See?” She perked up, hopeful.
“Yeah. It’s fucking December. It snows most days in Cambridge. That’s why they built a ski resort there at the base of a mountain. Laurie, get your head out of your ass.”
Laurie flinched.
Melinda’s shoulders drooped. “However, it
is
snowing hard. It wasn’t in the forecast. And it hasn’t let up for hours.”
Laurie smiled, crossing her arms under her breasts and ignoring the pressure it put on her chest. She scooted back down the bed and lay flat. “I need sleep.”
“Seriously?”
Laurie closed her eyes and nodded.
“You know better than anyone you won’t be able to sleep one minute until you’ve been reunited with your mates. Don’t even fake like it’s all hunky dory.”
Laurie opened one eye and lifted that brow. “Hunky dory?”
Melinda ignored her. She stood and grabbed Laurie’s bag from the corner, stuffing her belongings into it. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Home. Where you belong. Before things really get out of hand.”
“I can’t do it. I’m ruining both their lives with my presence.”
“Because you mated two men, and you happen to be of mixed races?”
Laurie shrugged.
“What year is this? That’s idiotic. Anyone who believes that shit needs to have their head examined, and you know it. Admit defeat. Come home with me.”
She lifted Laurie’s bag and set it on the bed. She pulled out a pair of jeans and socks and tossed them at her sister. “Get dressed. It’s fucking cold out there.”
The jeans landed on her belly. She winced but didn’t move. Instead she put her hands behind her head and feigned nonchalance.
“Girl, I will physically drag you out of this house and throw you in my car without caring a bit about your state of undress.” She put her hands on her hips. “Mom will gladly help. She thinks you’re cracked.”
Laurie felt cracked. She rolled her eyes back and stared at the ceiling. “What if I’m right?”
“About what? The weather?”
“What if I’m right about the town? What if they can’t accept the three of us as an entity? What if they get increasingly more violent? I would feel awful if anything happened to either of my mates or any other innocent bystander if those religious zealots tried to kill someone and succeeded. Or worse, the jerks from the reservation stuck in a time long gone who want to keep the wolf line pure. That’s insane. They’re crazy. And crazy people do crazy things.”
“True. And their actions are on them, not you. All you can do is follow your heart and what Fate has arranged. Can you tell me you don’t love those two men with every fiber of your being?”
Laurie couldn’t move. Of course she loved them. Both of them. With every inch of her body.
“I’ll take that as a
no
. And would you deny yourself or either of them happiness because some other assholes are spouting religious nonsense at you?”
“Of course not. But I have to consider more than my own feelings. What about the Masters? What if they lose their livelihood because I came to town? How is that fair?”
Melinda rolled her eyes. “No one’s losing their jobs. The resort will not go under because one strange fundamentalist backward church thinks the races shouldn’t mix or consenting adults can’t enjoy sex with whomever they want. Purity of the white man? That’s rubbish. It’s a small handful of people who believe in that shit, and most of either town would never support it. You can’t let a dozen bigots dictate your life and take away your happiness.”
Laurie let that all sink in. “What about the weather. Why do you think the black smoky aura always comes to
me
, and it comes to me during a crisis?”
“I won’t deny the spirits want your attention. I just think you’re misguided when it comes to their intentions.”
“How do you know what they want?”
Melinda frowned. “Honey, you don’t. I never have. All you can do is follow your heart and your instincts.”
“Melinda, my instincts tell me to stay out of town,” she grumbled.
Melinda shook her head. “Okay, then maybe you shouldn’t follow your instincts this time. You can tell the difference between evil intent that involves real harm and a warning, right?”
“Probably.”
“So think about each sighting. Did you ever feel like the spirit was angry with you in particular?”
“No, but it sure is angry.”
“Well, I’ve had the same sensation. I know the spirits are angry with our entire section of the country for some reason. They’re trying to warn us. I know from the earthquake that the spirit genuinely wanted me to keep Rebecca safe. I did that. It worked. She’s alive, and she helped so many people the day of the earthquake, something she couldn’t have done if she’d been one of the victims.
“She experienced many similar things as you—unexplained rain for one, and a smaller earthquake for another. She could have left town. Hell, she’s even human. Every aspect of this weirdness was new to her. But she didn’t. She held her ground—stomping and complaining until the bitter end.”
Laurie’s head was spinning as she tried to make sense of all this. “What about your mating? You saw several spirits also.”
“Yeah, that was different, I’ll admit. I knew instinctively they were there to warn me. I even thought something was about to happen to the casino site. I assumed it would be weather related again. It wasn’t. Our intuition isn’t an exact science. It’s a guide. I knew with my very soul that Keegan was in danger on that site. He’s stubborn. It took forever, and he almost lost his life, but I finally got through to him.
“In the end, lives were saved. If that casino had been built, who knows how many people would have died in the next earthquake. The structure would have collapsed and taken everyone inside down with it. Instead, it was never completed.
“Now we’re in a new phase. Are the spirits warning you of some sort of natural phenomenon that’s about to occur? Or is it human stupidity the spirits are worried about? I’m not sure. But what I am sure of with one hundred percent certainty is the spirits didn’t intend for you to interpret their presence as insinuating you needed to leave town.”
“Why don’t they come to me now, then? I’ve been here long enough. If one of those black auras wanted to pay me a visit and get me to return, why not face me here? I’ve been home all day. I could have taken the visitor in stride,” she mocked.
“Not sure. But I can say the sightings have not been this far from the two counties at any point. In fact, they were originally only spotted in high-altitude locations in the mountains. The fact they came down into our towns and homes is disconcerting. But they have not strayed farther than that.
“Perhaps their goal was simply to impress upon you that you too had the powers of the women of our family. Perhaps they put weird weather occurrences in your path to get you to pay attention to them and not the other way around.
“We may never know for sure. But I’m pretty intuitive, and I’m going to insist that your warped idea is wrong.” She tugged the jeans back that still lay on Laurie’s lap and shook them in the air. “Get dressed. I’m not fucking kidding you.” She shivered. “I don’t know about spirits visiting people this far from home, but I do know that my skin is crawling with the need to return with haste. So let’s get a move on.”
Laurie paused. She blew out a breath in defeat. “Okay.” Reluctantly she pulled herself to standing and shrugged into the jeans. They chaffed against her pussy even with the cotton panties between them as a barrier.
She pulled a sweater out of her bag and yanked it over her head next, not bothering to remove her T-shirt or put on a bra. She was too exhausted for either.
“Good. I’ll tell Mom we’re leaving.”
“Why doesn’t she come with us? Maybe we could use her.”
Laurie smiled. “I totally agree. And I hope I can convince her of that soon. But she has a life here that needs to be wrapped up before she can skip town. Your brothers both live nearby. Her mate has a job. It’s complicated. I understand that totally.