Rigo said, “Would you prefer to sit in a coffee shop? There’s a nice one on Pacific Coast Highway that I sampled my first night out here. Best coffee I ever had in my life.”
“Yeah. Do that,” she said gruffly.
He drove in silence, keeping the speed low and steady in case she began to feel unsafe. But when he stopped at a red light and risked a glance her way, her gaze had gone so inward he wondered if she’d forgotten that she was entirely alone with him.
The light changed. He pulled into the parking lot of the all-night coffee shop, stopped the car, and shut off the engine. Before he could open the door, she turned to him. “You said. That night. The last time we saw each other. That that was the first time you . . . did that.”
“Shifted,” he said.
“Shifted. Shifter. Shapeshifter, that’s what it’s from, right? Then werewolves are real?”
“Yes.”
She let out a sigh. “Maybe it’s just me being old, but I’m trying to get my head around the fact that the world is a whole lot weirder than I thought.”
“It’s a human thing,” he said. “Believing only what we see. So . . . I showed you. I’m sorry if it was too much at once.”
She tipped her head, then said in tha
t small, gruff voice, “You sprang it on me because I wasn’t going to believe a word you said otherwise.”
“Well, you had reason,” he returned. “I know that. I’ve known that from the moment I walked away from your door that night. Don’t think I haven’t replayed that conversation a thousand times ever since, wishing I could hire someone to kick me for making all the wrong choices. Here, let’s go inside. They get their coffee from a farm on one of the Hawaiian islands, and it’s fresh-ground every day.”
They walked in the door. The place was plain, even dumpy on the outside but the inside was nicely decorated, with real wood, tiffany lamps glowing like jewels, and lots of ferny things. She looked around and smiled. Maybe it was a bit seventies, but he’d always liked that look—and it seemed she did as well.
They headed for one of the comfortable booths. No plastic or glaring fluorescent lighting here. Godiva sniffed appreciatively, then said with an expression of wonder, “I don’t understand why this place isn’t packed to the rafters around the clock.”
“Because most of the customers are shifters,” Rigo said. “I was given the address before I came west. We can talk safely here.”
They sat across from each other in a booth. A young man ambled up and handed them a menu. After they ordered, Godiva looked across the table at Rigo, then said, “I still don’t get why you didn’t say anything. Was it because you thought I couldn’t handle it?”
“It was because I couldn’t handle it. Because I’d just turned three men to stone when their eyes met mine. Three very bad men, you could even say evil. Erich, Tonio, and Gravas. But I had no idea it was going to happen until I did it,” Rigo said.
Godiva scowled. “I remember that Erich, if he’s the one who always tried to flush out Eddie, just to pick on him. Called him all sorts of mean insults, but Eddie was smart enough to see him coming and hide whenever he could.”
“Tonio insisted on being the boss of the horses, but all he cared about was speed. He was careless and cruel, and criminally negligent. And Gravas, the owner, didn’t give a damn about anyone, horses or men. He was all about the money he could wrench out of us all. All three were evil, and they liked being evil.”
“So you didn’t know about the shifting, before then?”
“No.” He shook his head. “After I left, I found out that my grandfather Tzama was an iguana shifter. Ordinary animal shifters tend to make their first shift a lot younger. I didn’t, Grandfather assumed I was human, and so he never told me. I took off as a teen, much like you did, and for a lot of the same reasons.”
“I remember you told me once your dad was in jail for assault.”
“It was after he got caught finally and couldn’t argue or bribe his way out that I was able to think about taking off for good. The instinct to shift didn’t start hitting me until I was around eighteen. I drank to suppress it. I hated drinking. I hated having to get up and ride when my head was pounding from hangovers. But it was the only way I could numb this instinct I couldn’t explain, that scared the crap out of me.”
The coffee arrived then. Godiva plopped milk into it and then stirred slowly, absently, the spoon whirling round and round as he said, “I sensed that it was dangerous. I was dangerous, if I let it happen. It seemed to be caught up with my ability to hear the thoughts of animals—”
“What?” she dropped the spoon into the mug.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s how I got into the rodeo business in the first place. I was a good rider because I understood the horses and they understood me. I tried to get Gravas to let me do the training, but Tonio was his cousin. He was a bad boss, but worse, if he didn’t win in the ring, he took it out on us. We riders knew we had to let him win most of the time, but that day, his horse had stumbled, and I won—well, later that night Tonio threatened to shoot my pinto, but I realized later that was just an excuse to get me out there. He tried to jump me. I lit into him. Tonio yelped for Erich to jump me from behind, Gravas sat by to watch, laughing at the prospect of me being beaten to a pulp.”
“I never liked those men, but I never knew any of that.”
“I know. I didn’t want to drag the dirty parts of my life into your clean life.”
She looked away, and he said quickly, “Well, to get this sordid bit of my history over with, when both men went for me, the instinct hit me harder than ever before. Thanks to you, I was stone cold sober that night, or I probably would have died, as like I said, being drunk suppressed the shift-instinct. Tonio grabbed up a piece of iron to beat my brains out, and without knowing how, or even what, suddenly I was a basilisk. Erich fell on his ass screaming. Tonio yelled at Gravas, shoot it, shoot it! Gravas pulled out the pistol he always carried—”
Rigo sighed. “He glared at me as he took aim. My eyes met his, and he instantly turned to stone, his finger pulling the trigger. Never got off that shot. Then I looked at the other two. Same thing happened. All it took was eyes meeting eyes. I was so shocked I shifted back to myself, and then ran like hell. Straight to you, my safety island in a sea of bad. My sanity.”