Sassy Ever After: Wise Sass Mates (Kindle Worlds Novella) (4 page)

B
ianca curled
up in one of the massive upholstered chairs overlooking the pond. Blue Creek Library’s Historical Files room was one of the nicest spaces in an already lovely building.

Addison and Mei were munching on breakfast baklava from Blue Creek Cafe. The little Greek diner had an incredible breakfast menu.

But for once, Bianca had no appetite. She sipped her Turkish coffee, a necessary indulgence after a night like last night, and lost herself to the memory of Ian Anderson.

He had been so angry with her when he’d tracked her down at the house, but why? How had he even found her?

Maybe being a wolf he could actually track her. That would be amazing.

She was so lost in thought that she almost didn’t realize Mei was talking to her.

“What’s the matter?” Mei asked her with a smile. “Cat got your tongue?”

More like the wolf’s got my tongue.

Or like I’ve got his tongue.

Ack! Stop thinking about it, Bianca.

“Nothing, I’m good,” she replied vaguely.

“Yeah, you look good,” Mei retorted.

“Actually you
do
look good,” Addison observed calmly.

Did she?

As a matter of fact, she
felt
good for a woman who had been up half the night. All the colors in the world seemed to be brighter today.

“You
got paid
last night, didn’t you?” Mei asked.

“That’s not a thing people say. And I don’t want to talk about it,” Bianca retorted, though she was pretty sure her vivid blush was talking for her.

“I don’t get it,” Addison mused. “You’ve had a crazy crush on him for ten years. You obviously had some kind of… encounter with him last night. How could you not want to talk about it?”

“You know what? I
do
want to talk about it,” Bianca declared suddenly. These were her best friends. If they couldn’t help her work out these feelings, what was the point?

“So, yes, I bumped into him,” she began. “I was on my way to the party thing and I saw him in the woods.”

“Did he look, you know, as good as before?” Addison asked.

“He looked
better
than before, he’s so gorgeous I can’t even tell you,” Bianca let herself gush. “Anyway, things got kind of physical really quickly.”

“How quickly?” Mei asked suspiciously.

“Like… immediately,” Bianca admitted.

“
Immediately
?” Addison leaned forward, looking impressed.

“Well, he had just shifted and—oh. Yeah. I forgot to tell you guys, he’s a
wolf
,” Bianca told them, finally convinced she had completely lost her marbles.

“Wait - what?!?” Mei demanded.

“He’s a shifter?” Addison asked. “Why didn’t you think to tell us this before?”

She was right to ask. The whole reason they were in Blue Creek in the first place was to research shifters.

“I didn’t know before last night,” Bianca told them truthfully. “I was in the woods, this wolf came after me, it turned into my old crush, and then
boom
we did it in the woods
,
and then I came home and there was a burglar in my apartment, and I beat him up and came to your place.”

She conveniently left out the part where she made out with Ian
again
.

“Listen,” Mei said. “I don’t want to complain about your storytelling or anything, which is
seriously
lacking in detail, but are we really supposed to believe you
did it
out in the woods? I mean, you just organized our creamers.”

Bianca looked down at the table. It was true. She had arranged the creamers so that they were in a symmetrical pyramid, with the labels facing the same direction.

“I did,” she admitted. “I guess there’s just something about him…”

“So how do you feel?” Addison asked.

“I don’t know,” Bianca admitted. “I feel like a complete slut for doing what I did. I mean clearly if he liked me he wouldn’t have just, you know,
fucked me
in the woods. He would have asked me out.”

“Then why did he come to the house for you last night?” Addison asked.

Oh god.

Bianca blushed so hard she felt like steam must be rising from her cheeks.

“I heard voices,” Addison said delicately, “I assumed you were talking with someone, makes sense that it was him.”

“Well, I think he only came back for round two,” Bianca admitted.

“Sounds like my kinda guy,” Mei chimed in. “Does he have a brother?”

“Maybe I’m just old fashioned or something,” Bianca admitted. “Or I read too many books. But if I’m bringing a guy into my life I want the real deal - flowers and home cooked meals and romantic walks. Otherwise, I’d rather have my peace and quiet.”

“Well, a guy like him won’t stop that,” Mei pointed out helpfully. “Sounds like he’s ready to help you let off some steam and stay out of your way.”

Addison didn’t say anything, but Bianca saw the line forming between her brows.

“I’m good,” she told Addison, patting her gently.

Addison caught her eye for a moment, then smiled at last, as if she were convinced.

Now if only Bianca could convince herself that she was all good.

“Wait, Bianca, what was the party you were invited to?” Addison asked suddenly.

“I dunno a scent party or something,” Bianca replied. “Something with perfumes, I guess.”

“Could it have been a
scenting ceremony?”
Addison asked, her soft voice unusually low.

“Oh, yeah, that was it,” Bianca nodded. “I didn’t go though. Clearly.”

Mei and Addison exchanged a look.

“Oh, I think you went,” Mei said with a smile.

Bianca looked from one to the other, confused.

“What Mei is trying to tell you,” Addison said slowly, “is that a scenting ceremony is not what you think. It has to do with shifters.”

“What do you mean?” Bianca asked. “Why would shifters need perfume?”

Mei shook her head in a way that let her know she was seriously missing the point.

“A scenting ceremony happens once a year,” Addison explained. “Eligible males and females gather at a designated place in the woods to let their wolves… meet.”

“I’m not a wolf,” Bianca pointed out.

“It’s not just for wolves,” Mei told her. “Plenty of shifters take humans for mates.”

“
Mates?
” Bianca echoed.

“Who invited you?” Addison asked.

“There was no name, just an invitation,” Bianca answered, calling up a mental image of the card. “Handwritten. Dropped in my mailbox. No stamp.”

Her friends exchanged another glance.

A realization dawned on Bianca.

“You think
he
invited me, don’t you?” she asked.

“You went, he found you, he, um, was glad to see you there…” Addison pointed out. “You should read up on scenting ceremonies, Bianca. Just, you know, to get your head around it.”

Bianca nodded, pressing her lips together.

“I will,” she agreed, opening a large box of papers. “Later.”

T
he rest
of Bianca’s morning passed pleasantly. The women divided up the files and read, took notes and occasionally reading a passage out loud when they came across something worth sharing.

By lunchtime, they still hadn’t come across anything that supported the theory they were here to research.

That Andrew Jackson had been a shifter.

Addison had been the first one to float the idea.

Though the notion that the seventh President of the United States was a wolf had seemed far-fetched to Bianca at first, she had to admit, Addison made a pretty solid case for it. Starting with the story of his assassination attempt.

The story went that Andrew Jackson was walking out of the Capitol Building when a house painter called Richard Lawrence shot him with two pistols.

The history books said that both pistols misfired, whereupon Jackson beat the man soundly with his cane until the police arrived to take him to jail.

But Addison thought it was a little too convenient that both pistols had misfired.

The assassination attempt hadn’t been Jackson’s first miraculous escape either.

At thirteen, he’d survived being a British prisoner of war. During his imprisonment, he had been slashed in the head and hands with a sword after refusing to polish a British officer’s shoes, and he had even bunked with other prisoners who died of small pox.

Yet Jackson emerged unscathed.

It could have been good luck, but Addison’s theory was that Jackson had the healing powers of a shifter.

It didn’t take her long to get her two best friends on board. Since then, it had become almost an obsession for all of them.

The three friends had come to Blue Creek to view one of the nation’s oldest collections of shifter family records, trying to find out if their theory was correct.

Their work was made more difficult by the fact that the Historical Files librarian, Angus Wolfe, (seriously, Wolfe) was out on extended sick leave. And it turned out it was more than just the flu. He’d been hit by a car while walking home from the library, and was actually in a coma.

So they were on their own when it came to navigating the records.

It appeared that Angus’s filing system was akin to Addison’s style of organization. Which was to say that everything in the place was obviously arranged
somehow,
just not in a way that would make sense to anyone except the person who had organized it. So the women had each begun in one section and were cataloging what they found and searching for references to family names that could be related to Jackson’s family tree.

Bianca had been leafing through a box of files from the town Fourth of July celebration in the early 1800s. The residents of Blue Creek had been nothing if not thorough. There were even notes on the ladies’ meetings about decorations.

She had just pulled out a schematic of the downtown area, when there was a knock at the door.

Addison and Mei looked up from their files.

Since she was closest to the door, Mei shrugged and opened it.

A man stood in the doorway, dark hair, blue eyes, a confident air about him.

Bianca gasped, then looked down quickly at her files.

But it was too late. He had spotted her.

“Bianca,” he said softly.

Zach Greenfield was even sexier than he’d been in high school, and that was saying something.

Bianca gazed back into those icy blue eyes that looked somehow tortured, and tried not to let her own eyes wander to his broad shoulders, or the well-developed biceps that threatened to burst the seams of his t-shirt.

“Hi,” she replied curtly.

“Bianca Silver,” he continued. “I - I came to see you. I heard you were here.”

“Why?” she asked. “Were you worried I might have forgotten that I’m a fat cow? You thought I might need a reminder?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“I deserve that. That and more. I behaved so horribly to you. I know you’ll never forgive me but I wanted to apologize anyway.”

“Hold up, is this
Zach Greenfield
?” Mei asked, pointing at him as if he were a piece of scenery, which come to think of it, he was - damned dreamy scenery, actually, if he didn’t have the soul of a stage coach tilter.

“It’s okay, Mei,” Bianca said.

“No.
Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh- no,”
Mei said, waving a finger in the air. “This jackass made you feel like crap in high school - a time when everyone feels like crap anyway. He
will
pay.”

Addison stood, placing the papers she’d been holding down on the table. She didn’t speak but her body language was clear - she wasn’t comfortable letting this guy into their circle.

“I don’t want to interrupt you ladies,” Zach said, his hands up as if he were demonstrating that he had no weapons. “I just wanted to apologize, Bianca. If there is anything I can do, including help you with… whatever this is… just say the word. I owe you.”

Bianca studied his face.

He looked as if he were telling the truth. He was even looking at the files with some interest, as if hoping she would order him to alphabetize them or something.

“We’re good, Zach,” she began.

“No,” Mei interjected. “We’re not good, Zach.”

She gave Bianca a fiery look that clearly said if Bianca didn’t say something, Mei would.

Bianca sighed.

“Zach,” she said. “You were a complete douchebag in high school, and not just to me. I get that you want to apologize. It sounds like you’re trying to be a better person now, and I respect that. But you can’t change the past, and I really don’t want to spend any time with you. So thanks for your offer, but I’m all good.”

“Thanks, Bianca, but I would really like to do something to show you I’m sorry,” Zach pleaded.

“You heard what she said, go pay it forward someplace else,” Addison said quietly.

Zach scowled. Somehow it only made him look more handsome.

“Well, look, if you change your mind, you can find me here,” he said, slipping a card out of his wallet and offering it to Bianca.

She studied him, hand extended, sorrowful eyes.

At last she walked over and took the card, half expecting him to snatch it back at the last second and call her a name.

He didn’t though.

He just smiled a sad little smile, and turned to walk out the door.

Bianca was half tempted to call him back in. But she resisted the urge, figuring it was only the result of seeing his ass in those tight jeans.

As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Addison began a slow clap.

Mei grinned like a pirate.

“
Damn
, girl. You’re bringing them out of the woodwork!”

Bianca shook her head, her eyes wide in surprise.

“You said the teacher was
more
attractive than the bully?” Addison asked, her dark eyes twinkling.

Bianca nodded slowly, then thought about it and giggled.

The others laughed with her, and suddenly the bad feeling that had wrapped itself around her fell to the ground and shattered. Stupid Zach Greenfield couldn’t hurt her anymore. She was an adult, with friends, and self-esteem that wasn’t wrapped up in looking a certain way.

Zach, on the other hand, was clearly living in the past. Which meant the present couldn’t be so great.

She looked down at the card in her hand.

B
lue Creek Insurance

Zach Greenfield - Sales Associate

Y
ikes
. That was probably punishment enough.

After the girls had ribbed her a bit for being a magnet for hot locals, they all settled in to work again. Soon the peaceful sounds of papers being slid against each other, and coffee being sipped put Bianca into a sort of a trance and all the regrets and fears of her homecoming melted away as she lost herself in the notes and news of the past.

When the clock showed it was five, Addison and Mei began to gather their things.

“I think I’ll stay a while, guys,” Bianca said. “I’m in the zone.”

“Don’t be too late,” Mei warned her. “I’m cooking.”

Mei’s cooking was definitely something worth getting home on time for. Her mother was Chinese and her father was Jewish and both were phenomenal cooks. They had taught their daughter well. Pictures of Mei’s Asian-Jewish fusion meals were Bianca’s only regular contribution to social media.

She made a mental note to stop after the folder she was working through as her friends headed out.