Page 40 of Shifter's Dream

Troy was up. He was moving, operating mostly on the sugar high that had come in fast and made him wired. He was in the driveway. It was night.Look!The stars were still in the sky. The moon was up there, too, stark and inviting.

It was like the world didn’t even care that his mate hated him.

“I drank too many beers, you’ve got to drive,” Conri said, holding on to the bed of his truck.

“Right on,” Troy said, holding his hand up for the keys. Conri tossed them. They climbed in.

Troy looked around at all the buttons and dials. He’d driven two trucks, a tractor, a go cart, and a car so far, and this truck was no different. It wasn’t that hecouldn’tdrive, it was that he shouldn’t. But heartache had made him a changed man. That aching stab in his gut would slow him down, he knew it. He could do this.

Troy started the truck. Put it in gear. R for REVERSE.

“Here we go,” he whispered, suddenly seized with the need to knowexactlyhow fast a vehicle could go in reverse. He floored it.

Conri’s head slammed forward. He put his hands to it, moaning. “Take it easy. If you don’t slow down, I’m going to puke, and nobody wants to see that.”

Troy took it easy. He put his window down so he could catch the breeze. He eased out onto the road, then he eased out into the non-existent, nighttime, farm-road traffic. Once he was on the rural route straightaway, he eased the speed up to 55, then 65, then 85, then nudged it toward higher. The truck had good shocks, and Conri didn’t even notice how fast they were going. He might have been snoring. Troy eased the pedal a little closer to the floor, wind whipping around his face, making him feel slightly better, letting some air into his lungs, easing some of that suffocating feeling he’d had since his mate had said,I don’t ever want to see you again,and her scent had confirmed it.

Out there on the open road, he could almost hope that she hadn’t meant it.

Troy took the turn onto Remington’s street just a little too fast, rapping Conri’s head on the glass. He overcorrected, hit the curb, jumped it, plowed over a small bush, than straightened them out on the road again. “Nice,” he told himself.

Conri sat up straight, rubbing his head, grabbing for theoh fuckhandle above his door. “Do you even have your license, Troy?”

“Not yet.”

Conri grabbed for him. “Pull over, I’m driving!”

Troy fought him off. “Forget it. You’ve been drinking.” The truck fishtailed.

“If you wreck my truck, Troy, I’ll…”

But they were pulling down Remington’s street. Troy parked it perfectly, yanked out the keys and tossed them to Conri. He pointed to Mac’s car in front of them. “Mac’s here.”

“That’s why this is the perfect night. Earlier, I overheard Rogue say they were working all night, then going to VF in the morning to sleep, because Mac is going to try to take Kendra for a walk on his own in the afternoon.” Conri shuddered. “That chick scares me.”

“She’s a baby,” Troy sneered. “An infant.”

Conri didn’t say a word, only shook his head from side to side.

“Remington doesn’t care if you take his cats?”

“Nah, I asked him already, been planning this for weeks. He said they would find their way home, unless any of them took a liking to Mac. I get the feeling Remington would be OK with it, if that happened.”

It sounded like a plan. They got out. Conri reached in the back and grabbed out two extra-large dog kennels. He held them up and grinned. “How many cats do you think we can stuff into these?”

Troy eyed them. “You ever tried to stuff a cat into anything?” He had. Many things. It hadn’t gone well even one time.

Conri shrugged. “How hard can it be?” He dropped the kennels on the ground. “Now how do you call a cat?”

They eyeballed the clinic. The porch was well lit. The inside was lit, too, and Troy could see a hint of Blake in his hospital bed through the window of a room on the ground floor. Not a cat in sight, not even Remington.

Conri cupped his hands to his mouth and called, “Here pussy, pussy, pussy.” He elbowed Troy. “That’s you on a Friday night.”

“Not anymore,” Troy growled.

“Right. Sorry. You’re a one-woman man now.”

“If she’d have me.”And if I don’t go permanent furball.

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