A richer life.
That was exactly what he wanted. Exactly what he’d come here looking for.
Would he find that if he found the right woman?
Suddenly, he wanted to try it and see.
***
Pauline
After Pauline got off work, she started making the rounds.
Marsha didn’t have many friends in town. But she had her usual haunts. The library, where she went to use the computers. The convenience store, where she slowly counted out pennies for baby shampoo or toilet paper.
She didn’t frequent any of the several dive bars in town. Pauline had never known her to drink heavily or use drugs at all. She just kept to her little routine, and it slowly, slowly ground her down.
Until she couldn’t do it anymore and...what? What had happened? Where was she now?
Pauline asked the librarian, the convenience store clerk, and anyone else she could think of if they’d seen Marsha recently—pretending she had something to give her, trying not to look too concerned, in case anyone started thinking about reporting her as missing.
Probably they wouldn’t. The large shifter population meant that this town had a long, treasured tradition of minding one’s own business. Unless you were part of a pack, and Marsha had been a lone wolf.
A lone wolf with three kids, who could’ve used a pack’s support system right about now. Maybe if Pauline had been a wolf...but neither of their mothers had been shifters. They’d gotten their shifting genes from their dads. And apart from the kids, Pauline had a hard time thinking of any wolves who weren’t really, really bad news. Most of them were the boys who’d been running with Stella’s stalker ex. She’d never heard a good word about them.
Speaking of Stella—
Pauline hesitated. Stella and Marsha had been friends, once. Back in high school. They’d been about the same age, while Pauline had been a few years ahead. And they’d been the same wild type, chafing against rules, wanting to get out and do something more interesting than small-town high school.
Maybe Stella had kept in touch. And her sister, Lynn, knew these woods better than anyone. And they were both shifters. If anyone might’ve gotten a hint of where Marsha had gone off to...
The problem was, Pauline realized, that she didn’t want to go over to Stella’s house and see her happy with her mate for the second time that day. Didn’t want to see her with her happy, healthy daughter, who was probably going to go to college next year, and didn’t have to worry about feeding herself or any siblings.
It was a combination of frustration and envy, and it did not reflect well on her, Pauline thought firmly. Stella had never done anything to her, and there was no reason to want to stay away from her.
She wondered if Carlos was staying at the house with them.
Well, that was just getting ridiculous. Pauline set her jaw and got in her car. She was going to go over to Stella’s house, sit down with her, and ask her about Marsha, and if any attractive men showed up, they were just going to have to wait until she was done talking about what really mattered.
***
“Marsha?” Stella frowned, thinking. “No, I haven’t seen her in a while. We don’t hang out anymore—haven’t in years, not since I left town when Eva was little. Her little boy was just Eva’s age, though...”
“They’re friends now,” Pauline confirmed. “I see them together at the diner sometimes.”
Stella’s eyebrows rose. “That’s Eva’s friend Drew? Marsha’s little boy, Andrew?” She shook her head slowly. “I had no idea.”
“Teenagers,” Lynn sighed. “Never tell you anything.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “Eva’s under no obligat
ion to tell me everything about her life. As long as she’s not getting into trouble or doing anything dangerous, she can keep things to herself if she wants to.”
Her sister grumbled something under her breath that Pauline suspected might have something to do with Stella’s own wild behavior as a teenager. Lynn was several years older and used to have a really tough time trying to keep Stella under control.
Now, though, they seemed closer, and happy about it. They were all three sitting in the front room at the old Davidson house, where Stella and Lynn both lived with their mates, and Stella’s daughter Eva. Pauline was perched on an antique armchair, but Stella and Lynn had both relaxed on the couch next to each other.
It was a far cry from the times Pauline could remember a twenty-year-old Lynn trying to drag a teenaged Stella home from a disastrous date or an alcohol-heavy party. It was a small enough town that everyone had heard about it when the sisters faced off. It looked like time really did work wonders for some people.