Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter by Jessica Sims Page B

raised my eyebrows. It shouldn’t have surprised me, given that the house was falling down around our ears. But still. “But we’re mated. We need a real kitchen, and a fridge if we’re going to live here. Where do you normally eat?”
    “With the Russells.”
    That didn’t help much. I looked back at the ancient fridge, not daring to open it again. “That fridge croaked long ago. Do you ever stay here?”
    “Rarely.”
    “Then why own such a dump?”
    He gave me a quelling look, as if horribly insulted. “Needed a home.”
    “Judging by the look of this place, you still need one. I can’t believe we’re going to stay here for the unforeseeable future.”
    “It’s your fault.”
    I stared at him. “ My fault?”
    “Your plan, wasn’t it?”
    He had me there. “The next time I have a brilliant plan, tell me to shut up.”
    Ramsey snorted. It sounded like agreement.

Chapter Six
    T he guesthouse turned out to be a cute little mother-in-law-type cottage on the other side of the murky pond behind the trees. It had a running air conditioner, power, and running water. And a roof, which automatically made it better than the main house. I supposed that was where Ramsey normally stayed when he had to crash here.
    I knocked on Connor’s door. When he opened it, I gave him my cheeriest look. “You about ready to head in to work with me, shadow?”
    He gave me a wary look. “You okay this morning?”
    “Of course,” I said, pretending last night’s embarrassing transformation hadn’t occurred. “It was just a fluke accident. Never happened before.” Much.
    He crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    That was the last thing I wanted. I already had Ramsey crawling all over me; I wasn’t about to start confessing all my dirty werewolf secrets to Connor. “I’m going to be late to work if we don’t get movingsoon,” I said, turning and leaving because that was the only way I could think to get him out of the guesthouse. “So we’d better get going, or Ramsey’s going to be cranky.”
    “Wouldn’t want that,” Connor muttered, but I heard it anyhow.
    It was decided that we’d grab breakfast on the way in. I knew Connor would be shadowing me, but I hadn’t realized that Ramsey would be sticking to my side as well. I couldn’t act like I didn’t want Ramsey protecting me, though. That was his job in this charade. I did my best to look delighted at the thought of Ramsey at my side all day, but I’m not sure I succeeded.
    The ride into town was uncomfortable. Ramsey didn’t talk to me, and Connor was still giving me that skeptical look, and I knew he was thinking about my messy, involuntary shift last night. To distract him, I fired question after question about his family and the pack.
    He answered them all with a lazy, casual drawl. His uncle was Levi, and the others were his cousins. His aunt Maybelle had been the mother to the Anderson pack, before she died a few years back. His parents lived in Arkansas. No, they didn’t like Texas. No, he didn’t miss them much. The pack kept him busy. His cousins filled out the rest of the wolf pack—Maynard, Owen, Wyatt, Buck, and Tony. The youngest was the only girl in the pack, his cousin Gracie. She was newly eighteen and a little wild, he admitted. The other wolf packs hadstarted to sniff around her, since she was getting to about that age.
    All this talk about other wolf packs and sniffing around made me highly uncomfortable, and I just shrugged when the men ordered from the McDonald’s drive-thru, my appetite suddenly gone.
    A coffee was shoved into my hand and a bag of food passed to me. Ramsey glared down at me. “Eat.”
    “I’m really not hungry,” I said. Just the thought of all those wolves made my stomach lurch uncomfortably.
    “To learn to be a proper shifter,” Connor said as he scarfed down a breakfast sandwich in two bites, “you need fuel and a mentor, and I’m here to help you with the second