Three Shifters for Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Dani April

traffic shoving past and knew the minutes would hang heavy until five fifteen.
     
    * * * *
     
    The Friday afternoon dragged by for Sarah. She couldn’t concentrate on her work and the digital clock on her computer screen seemed to count off the seconds in slow motion. Anticipation, anxiety, fear, along with jumbled other emotions that she couldn’t put a name to tore at her nerves as she waited for the end of the work week.
    At last she heard the welcome sounds of her peers saying their “Have a good weekend” to each other while they headed for the elevator, and she realized her time had finally arrived.
    She didn’t have time to be angry or to question where this unexpected meeting might lead. Locking her computer for the weekend, she caught the next elevator and headed down to the lobby. Rush-hour traffic was its usual aggravating headache, but she worked her way through the maze of people and down to the pedestrian benches where she ate lunch.
    “I didn’t know if you would come.” TJ had one of his cowboy boots hiked up on the armrest as he waited for her arrival.
    “Why wouldn’t I?”
    “You have a way of getting away from me.” His smile was so sexy it should have been illegal. However, Sarah steeled her resolve. She wasn’t going to crack that easily. This cowboy still had a lot of explaining to do.
    “I want to talk,” Sarah told him as she fell in beside him. They had started to walk north on Broadway past Trinity Church. “I want you to tell me about shape-shifters. But I don’t want you to lie to me this time.”
    “I never did lie to you, Sarah. None of us did.”
    Sarah wasn’t too sure what to believe, but had to admit inwardly that it felt good to have his tall, gallant presence escorting her down the busy street. She liked TJ’s company and still found it hard to believe that he was here in New York City with her, found it impossible to believe he had come all that way from the Circle T just to see her.
    “TJ, I saw all three of you turn into wolves out on the prairie last week.” Sarah spit out what had been bothering her ever since she had seen the horrifying sight.
    “We do that all the time,” he told her as if there was nothing to it.
    Just to hear TJ speak openly about it made Sarah feel relieved and put the whole terrible scene into a new perspective. “So I’m not losing my mind then? I really did see what I thought I saw out there?”
    “You sure did.” TJ’s hat rode low on his brow, and he looked down at her with bright-blue eyes she wanted to get lost in. “I reckon an apology is sort of in order for that. We sure didn’t mean to scare you none. In hindsight I realize you had no way of knowing just exactly what you saw and must have been scared half out of your mind.”
    “You can say that again.”
    “We don’t mean anyone harm, certainly not you, Sarah.”
    They walked another block in silence. A group of foreign business men in thousand-dollar suits rushing to an early dinner pushed past them, and TJ wrapped an arm around her to keep them together. Sarah didn’t object. New York was going crazy at this time of the evening, and his arm secured around her waist was an introduction of sanity into the reckless world unfolding around them.
    TJ brought them to a halt at the curb and held his hand in the air for a cab. He seemed to have learned a lot about big-city living after only a single day. At this time of day it was hard to find an empty cab, but TJ had succeeded in spotting one, and it was already pulling up alongside them.
    “Where are we going?” Sarah hesitated. Getting in a cab with a strange man was a definite no for any woman in The Big Apple even if the guy happened to be as cute as TJ.
    “Don’t you trust me yet, Sarah?” TJ seemed to be hurt by her reticence.
    “I can’t think of any reason why I should.”
    “Come on, Sarah, we can’t talk here. I have a lot to say to you, and I’ve come a long way to say it.” Then he devastated her