Page 34 of Shifter's Dream

“You’ll walk?”

Sure.

Trevor pulled into a parking lot and stopped in front of the door of a doctor’s office.

Troy got out, tucking the flowers and candy under his arm, then turning around to face his brother.I got this,I’ll take care of it.

Trevor nodded at him.Call me if you need me.

He drove away. Troy watched him go.

Throw them away,his wolf said.

Troy turned around and headed for the building, stopping at a trash can just outside the door. He shoved the flowers inside it. Troy made to drop the candy inside the trash can also, but first he opened the cardboard heart and grabbed a handful, shoving them all in his mouth and chewing.

Troy hit the door, his mouth full of ordinary chocolate, his brain hoping his wolf wasn’t wrong again. As soon as he hit the waiting room inside, he knew his wolf had been right all along.

He scented his mate.

21 – Found

Reed twirled her pen in tented fingers and tried to force herself to look at the file of her next patient. She couldn’t do it, so she looked up at her new office instead. It was a bigger office than she had any right to be in, fresh out of school as she was, and the furniture was perfect. Comfortable but functional, and coolly professional. The entire office screamed, up-and-coming-superstar-pathologist, with eyes on her own clinic, and maybe a doctorate and full-time research someday.Dr. Marion, is there a Doctor Marion here?Yes, that’s me. Reed laughed at the fantasy and checked her computer again, still not focused enough to read the patient’s name and condition.

Unable to wrestle her thoughts back on task, Reed looked around her office again, again thinking it was perfect and what she’d wanted for so long. Again.

So why did this day, her first day working as an actual Speech Language Pathologist, feel so hollow? Reed got up and paced around the desk, thinking. It wasn’t the staff, they’d been great, especially the receptionist. It wasn’t the office. It wasn’t the twoactualpatients she’d seen so far, on her own, with no supervision, and no one would be questioning her diagnosis and treatment plan later. It wasn’t the filing system, that had been the first thing she’d checked when she’d arrived early that morning and gotten her office and network password. It wasn’t the supply cabinet, that had been the second thing she’d checked.

So what was going on? Why did she feel so restless, so… off?

A handsome face flashed in her mind and she felt the same confusing rush of utter longing laced with righteous indignation that she had yesterday. He was on her mind and he wouldn’t get off and it was ruining her day.

Her intercom buzzed. “Your one o’clock is here. Let me say he is yum but don’t get excited because he is also dumb.”

Reed thought about that for a second, then leaned close to the intercom and whispered, “Did you say yum, or young?”

“You’ll see,” Aspen said. “Say come in.”

A knock sounded on the door.

“Come in,” Reed said.

The door opened. “Oh. You said yum,” Reed clicked the intercom off and pulled the damn thing out of the wall. It was Troy. Troy was her one o’clock. Troy-she-didn’t-know-his-last-name-but-he’d-made-her-come-five-times-then-bitten-her-Troy. That Troy.

She stood, tipping her chair over, smoothing her skirt, then snatching her hands away from it and grabbing up a clipboard like a shield.

Troy was smiling, but he’d come in smiling, like he’d known she was going to be there. It wasn’t a scary smile, not at all, it made him look like an enthusiastic child, but also hot and sexy and nothing like a child.

Before she said a word, he closed the door behind him and moved quickly into the room, coming all up into her space in about three seconds.

“No,” she tried to say, shaking her head and backing away from her desk. Her ass hit the wall behind her. He stopped on the other side of her desk and listened to her intently. “You can’t be here. I can’t treat you. You can’t be my patient. You have to go away.” She was babbling. He needed to leave.

Troy held up his hands like he was no threat to her and sat down in the client chair. “Please,” he said. “I need you.”

She shook her head some more. “How did you even find me?”

He looked confused, then he gave her a smoldering look and spoke slowly, the most she’d ever heard him say at once. She liked it. She didn’t want to like it, but oh, she did. He sounded dangerous and sweet and careful and wild all at the same time.

“I didn’t find you,” he said. “My brother made the appointment because I have a hard time sayingW.” He did. He couldn’t quite get his lips in the right shape. He took a deep breath and she thought for a moment he was going to stutter, but he didn’t. “I didn’t know you would be here, until I caught your scent in the hall.”

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