“You sure did.” Drake gave his friend a wink and a nod.
“This coffee really tastes good,” Morgan told Drake. She was fast becoming more comfortable with them. They were giving her the one-two punch that had worked on so many of their women, Drake’s warm consideration and Hunter’s bad boy good looks.
Then Morgan sat up in her chair. “You guys are shape-shifters, right?”
They both nodded. It seemed she had something important to ask them.
“I don’t um…” The two men stared at Morgan. They were both dangerous. She wasn’t kidding herself about that, and she was so vulnerable right now she could wind up in a lot of trouble with them. “It’s hard for me to talk about Nathan.” Inside she was all knots and tension.
“Drink some more of your coffee,” Drake suggested.
“I want to ask you some questions about shape-shifters?”
“Shoot.” Hunter had that wicked smile as he regarded her. In spite of how she felt, Morgan knew she was being drawn in.
“When you guys shift and become the wolf, how long do you normally stay like that?” This was the million-dollar question. No one else seemed to want to or be able to help her. Maybe these two strangers could.
The men looked at each other. Morgan thought their answers and really everything about them was probably calculated. She had dated enough men in college to know the routine. But these two were definitely good at it.
“I haven’t shifted in months,” Hunter told her. “I’ve got more important things to do with my time.” He gave her that sun-blasting evil look that made her want to melt. “And I don’t even have a girlfriend now.”
“I think it varies with all shifters,” Drake calmly explained. Drake seemed honest and made her feel comfortable. He also seemed like a man who knew a lot about shape-shifting and might be her best hope. “I would say most shifters like to go out a few times a week. But what Hunter said is partially true.” Drake gave his friend an offhanded look. “Shifters normally get a big sexual turn-on when they change forms. Hunter hasn’t had any female company in a while, so he hasn’t really wanted to frustrate himself by shifting. Personally, I just like to relax and go out once a month or so whether I have a date or not. It all depends on the individual.”
“But it is a sexual turn-on,” Hunter told her and backed it up with a wink and a sure smile. “You have to be naked to shift.”
Morgan cleared her throat and looked down at the living room carpet. These two were so very dangerous all right. But here they were sitting in her home. She had invited them inside, for God’s sake.
“I’m asking for a reason.” Morgan tried to force herself to focus. It wasn’t easy with both men watching her. They seemed interested in everything she had to say. Under different circumstances she would have really appreciated that. Now it just made her nervous. “My boyfriend Nathan shifted two months ago, and he’s never returned.”
“He could have gotten lost in the mountains,” Drake offered. Morgan felt ashamed. It sounded as if her boyfriend had left her.
“No. He’s still a wolf. He’s out there in those mountains all right. He comes by the house sometimes. But he’s always a wolf. I don’t think he can shift back.”
“That sounds like BS to me. Pardon my language, but it does.” This from the cocksure Hunter, who seemed to have made himself quite at home on her couch.
“Did he say anything the last time you saw him as a man?” Drake asked.
Morgan took a deep breath. This was the hard part. It made it sound as if Nathan didn’t care about her, and she knew that couldn’t be further from the truth. “He told me he was going to shift and be gone for a long time. He said it might even be a year or more.”
“You must think all us shifters are just plum crazy long about now?” Hunter asked her.
Morgan had to smile at that. The thought had crossed her mind. “Not at all,” she answered politely. “The only thing I’m thinking about is getting Nathan back. I’m out of my mind with worry about him.”
“Have you spoken with any of his friends or family?” Drake asked.
Morgan shook her head. “They’re no help. I don’t get along with his family.” She gripped her hands in her lap. She felt like she was unloading a sob story to two total strangers. This made her feel even more vulnerable and like she should pull back from sharing anything more with them. However, she needed to talk, had needed to for so long now. It felt so good to be able to reveal her hidden worries like this. “Nathan also mentioned he had seen Doctor Hughes in Wolf Creek a few days before he left. I tried calling him up, but of course I got the old doctor-patient confidentiality story from him.”
“Old Doc Hughes is one of us,” Drake told her. “He’s a shifter, too.”
“Really?” Morgan asked. “I didn’t know that.” Not only did it feel good to talk to these guys, but she was learning a few new tidbits of information. But why, she asked herself, did it feel so naughty to be seated here in her living room in broad daylight talking to these two strange men? It wasn’t so much that they made her feel wicked, but her thoughts about them sure did.
After a long and uncomfortable moment of silence she looked up at first Drake and his kind demeanor. Then she looked into Hunter’s deep and sexy eyes, partially hidden in the morning shadows of her living room.
“I think Nathan is sick. Have either of you ever heard of a shifter getting sick like this and not being able to shift back?”
Once more the men exchanged looks. Again Morgan knew they were probably manipulating her, altering the truth, and forcing her to feel things she shouldn’t, dangerous things she was not ready to feel.
“It is possible,” Drake answered for them. “There are diseases unique to shifters. Your boyfriend may have been a very sick man and so therefore became a wolf to survive.”
* * * *
Hunter listened to Drake explain what was wrong with McLaughlin. Of course it had been Hunter who had gotten it out of old Doc Hughes in the first place, but they could never tell Morgan that. It would just make them seem too calculating, and in fact, that’s exactly what they were.
Drake was always accusing him of moving too fast with the women they seduced, but the more he watched Morgan, the less he could control himself. He had to have her in the worst way.
Hunter was about to make his first move.
“Looks like you could use some help around this here place.” He did not state this as a question, but simply as the obvious fact it was.
Morgan blushed. She didn’t seem to like accepting help from others and seemed proud. That was exactly how Hunter liked his women. Everything he was learning about Morgan was just so right for him.
“No, I’m all right.”
“Don’t feed me that.” Hunter sat up on the couch and got her attention with a sharp look. He could be firm when he wanted to, when firmness was required with a woman. Morgan would require a little push now and then, and he was going to give it to her. “From the little I’ve seen of this place, it looks like it hasn’t fared very well since the owner’s been away. Working out there in the barnyard with them dirty animals and raising crops isn’t a job for a beautiful young woman to be doing.”
“I have thought of leaving.”
Drake gave Hunter a look. He was telling him silently to go easy on her. Hunter wasn’t going to take his friend’s advice this time. Morgan needed to be played, and Hunter knew exactly how to play her.
“You care about your man.” Hunter knew he was good at this game, and he would have to be in top form now to get what he wanted from this beautiful woman. “If you leave now, you know you won’t ever see him again. Anyway, if you were to do that, you’d feel like a miserable coward for the rest of your life, and you don’t strike me as a coward.”
“You’re right.” Morgan wasn’t looking at him.
“Just so happens we’ve been looking for some work.” Hunter looked over at Drake. “Isn’t that right, Drake?”
“It is true we would both like to help out around here, Morgan.” Drake returned Hunter’s look with a nod of his own. “Until your boyfriend gets back,” he added for good measure.
“But I couldn’t afford to pay you anything.” Again there was all that pride and dignity wrapped up in her. Hunter found that to be so sexy in a woman.
“We don’t want you to pay us,” Drake answered, taking over.
“Do you guys live around here?” Morgan asked them, changing the subject.
“We own a business and a little land,” Drake explained to her.
“We each have a trailer we call home,” Hunter threw in. “But Drake’s thirty-five miles away and I’m about fifty.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I couldn’t accept.” Morgan was still resisting them, but Hunter could see she was starting to break down. “You have your business to run, and you both live so far away…”
“We have taken some time off from our business. We have a foreman who can run it for us while we’re away.” Drake was trying to sell Morgan on the idea now, too.
“You took time off so you could come out here and help me?”
“That’s right.” Hunter gave her a smile. “The two of us could be pretty handy around here.”
“But you guys don’t even know me.”
“Listen, don’t you have something else you’d rather be doing than slaving out in those fields all day long?” Drake asked her.
Morgan laughed. She was beautiful when she laughed. Hunter hoped they could make her laugh a lot more in the days to come.
“Actually, I’m an artist,” Morgan confided in them. “That was my job in Chicago. I was a graphic artist. When Nathan and I moved out here, I was going to start painting landscapes of the mountains. I have a studio set up down the hall. I had just gotten started last winter and was about to finish a couple. Then this came up with Nathan, and I haven’t even gone inside my studio since.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to give up all that work outside this summer and get back to your studio and doing something you love?” Hunter knew they had her now. It was all a matter of reeling her in.
“Yes. It would be very nice. But I couldn’t impose on you two.”
“It would be our pleasure to help you while Nathan is away.” Drake gave her a kind and reassuring smile.
This was the important part. Hunter looked her right in the eye. He had her attention now, and he went in for the kill. “Drake and I could take your man’s place while he’s gone.”
Morgan gaped at that. Hunter knew she probably didn’t think she heard him right. Or maybe she thought she had misunderstood his meaning. It took her a moment to recover her wits.
“Thank you both for the offer.” She was making one last valiant attempt to resist them. “But I can’t accept.”
“We’re both shifters. I think you need a shifter like Nathan in your life now to take away the pain, and you’re going to get two of them.” Hunter let his voice grow quiet, husky, and sexy.
“But…I mean, you live too far away to come out here and help me…”
“That won’t be a problem, Morgan,” Hunter assured her. “Because we’re going to come out here and move in with you.”
The next morning, Morgan sat at the table in her breakfast room. It was set for three. Drake and Hunter had left yesterday afternoon after spending most of the day with her. Before they had gone, they had driven into town and purchased enough food at the market for the next month and insisted she take it all.
Morgan had agreed, although reluctantly so, to let them return the following day and help her with some of the things that needed to be done around the place.
Butterflies were in her tummy this morning. She hadn’t slept all night. Obviously she was getting in over her head with these two. But she couldn’t regret her decision to let them come out to her place and help her for a little while. To have them with her yesterday, talking to her and being so concerned about her life, had been like a breath of fresh air in the spring after a long winter.
When they were with her, the two of them focused entirely on her and her needs. There didn’t seem to be anything those two couldn’t or wouldn’t do for her. It made her nervous as hell, but it also made her feel a spark of life somewhere deep inside. That spark of life had almost been all but extinguished over the last couple of months. Now it felt good to join the world of the living once again.
She was sure the guys had plenty of ulterior motives. They weren’t just a couple of small-town do-gooders trying to help. They were a couple of tough, no-nonsense shifters, businessmen, and men of the land. They had set their sights on her. Morgan hadn’t been born yesterday. She knew very well what the two men wanted from her.
Already her daily routine had changed, and they had not even arrived yet. This morning she had dressed in a nice fresh pair of designer jeans that hugged her body in all the right places. She had purchased them just before Nathan went away and never got a chance to wear them for him. In fact, she had never put them on until today. She also wore a T-shirt that fitted snuggly to her tight stomach, showing a hint of skin underneath.
She looked at herself overly long in the mirror that morning and felt wicked and naughty. This was her home with Nathan, for God sakes.
How am I going to handle this situation?
Damn it, I wish I knew.