Three Shifters for Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (20 page)

The buzzing of her alarm woke Sarah up at six the next morning.

One moment she had been in Ryan’s arms feeling his love for her, and the next minute she was fuzzy headed and fumbling with the snooze button on her clock. She was back in her own apartment. In fact she had never left. It had only been a shared dream with the man she loved.

She lay in bed and listened to the noise of traffic under her window and tried to force herself awake. It was Monday morning and time to start a new week and get on with her old life.

After her shower she saw she was running late. Quickly buttoning her work blouse, she grabbed her shoulder bag and headed out the door. Breakfast would have to wait, but if she had time she could stop off on her way to the office and pick up a quick bite.

The warm, sunny weather the city had experienced all weekend had broken. Today it was overcast and gloomy with rain predicted for later. The subway was crowded and the other passengers grumpy. Sarah held onto the overhead rail scrunched in between a large man and a large woman who were trying to have a conversation over her head. The train made its inexorable way through the boroughs and into Manhattan, the newspaper she had purchased left unread because the interior was just too crowded for anything except holding on and waiting to get off.

With just enough time to spare, she stopped by a small shop and purchased her morning cup of coffee and a bagel. The caffeine put life back into her and warded off the fuzzy headedness from her strange night of dreams.

Everything looked normal when the elevator doors flew open, and she stepped into her office to begin another day. She wondered what she had been expecting anyway. Did she expect this place to be magically transformed somehow just because the rest of her life had been? If so she was disappointed because it was the same old office she had left behind Friday evening.

Hanging up her shoulder bag on her cube wall, she set her coffee and bagel down in front of her monitor and had a chance to come down from the subway rush. Her to-do list for the day was in a binder on top of her desk, and she supposed after another few swigs from her coffee she would be good to start perusing it.

“How was your weekend?” Ruth stuck her head around the cube wall.

Sarah was caught off guard for a fraction of a second. Where could she begin to describe the weekend her three cowboys had given her? But that was her business and no one else’s so a white lie was in order.

“Boring and uneventful,” she told Ruth with a perky Monday-morning smile. “How was yours?”

Ruth commenced a story about her brother and sister-in-law and told Sarah she would have to finish it at lunch. A polite smile was Sarah’s way of getting away from Ruth and back to her work.

Her first order of business was to go through her email. Most of it was inner office junk that did not even apply to her position, but it was always a good idea to skim through them anyway. One of the messages in her in basket was about changing the computer backgrounds. Everyone was supposed to personalize their workstations. It was now appropriate to bring pictures from home of family or friends and load them on your work computer as the background.

Sarah got out her phone and used the USB connection to off-load all the captured images to her work computer.

When she started going through them, letting them run across her monitor in a slideshow, she was haunted by all that was there.

Friday evening in Central Park with TJ. The first picture she had taken was of the two of them in the carriage while they rode through the park. TJ had a big smile on his face and was showing off for her lens, but Sarah was surprised how happy she looked sitting at his side. Her adventure had just been starting then. She was still a little unsure where it was all leading, but she had clearly been approaching it with wide-eyed enthusiasm.

Then she came to one of her and Lance taken on the Staten Island Ferry. She had been acting as his tour guide. The bright sun was hitting them on the deck, a thoughtful look was on Lance’s face, and once again Sarah saw the unquestioned look of happiness radiating off her own countenance in the picture.

Then the swanky cocktail party of yesterday afternoon, Ryan looking so handsome and strong in his business suit, there was no trouble in picking him out as the leader of the pack. But what was amazing to Sarah is how good she looked in the elegant dress he had rented for her. She looked like a beautiful woman and like she belonged at Ryan’s side.

A tear came to her eye, and she batted it away. Not at work, she told herself.

Bypassing all the pictures of her shape-shifters, she chose a photo of her and her father out in his backyard and set it as her PC background. Fewer questions would be asked by her coworkers that way, and if she put one of those other pictures up at work, the emotional rollercoaster her life had become would follow her into the privacy of her cubicle.

She needed some point at which she could just forget and move on. However, the stinging tears in her eyes told her that time would be a while in arriving.

* * * *

Sarah’s phone started playing “Is This Love” by Whitesnake. It was a preset song that identified the caller.

“TJ,” she answered, placing the phone to her ear.

“Sarah.” It was the dear voice of her lover from Friday night. “I wanted to call and say good-bye.”

“Where are you?”

“We’re all at the airport. Our flight leaves in twenty minutes.”

“TJ, I’m sorry I didn’t…” She broke off because she was sorry for so many things in her relationship with the attractive young cowboy she didn’t know where to start.

“No need to be sorry, Sarah,” he told her, his friendly voice making her feel like a ray of sunshine had just opened up above her cube. “I just called because I wanted you to know that everything’s okay. I respect the way you feel. You wouldn’t be an honest woman if you felt any other way after all the surprises we sprang on you. But I wanted to tell you we’ll be waiting for you. Take your time. We’re going to wait as long as it takes.”

“I don’t want to lie to you, TJ.” Sarah looked over the wall of her cubicle, recognizing work was probably not the best place to have this conversation. “I don’t know what I can tell you because I don’t know how I’m feeling myself.”

“That’s okay. Take your time and sort all those feelings out.” He paused for a second, and she could hear one of the other guys in the background. “Lance wanted to say good-bye, too.”

“Hello, Sarah.” Lance came on, sounding in control as always, though she picked up a hint of restrained emotion in his tone.

“Lance.” His name dripped off her tongue like a talisman.

“What TJ just said goes for me, too. The Circle T will always be there and so will we.”

“Lance, I can’t ask any of you to wait for me because I can’t make any promises.”

“We’re not asking for any. I’ll wait for you until I’m an old man. You’re my mate and the only woman I’ll ever want. I even forgive you for being a human.” He said this last tongue in cheek.

Sarah laughed through her tears.

“Good-bye, Sarah.” Lance was gone, but TJ took over for him.

“I just wanted to say I had fun on our date.”

“Me, too.” Sarah’s voice was a whisper when she answered.

“Bye.”

And just like that they were gone.

* * * *

Sarah was listless for the rest of the morning but managed to get two spreadsheets finished for the director of finance, and by lunch she had her melancholy almost all the way under control. Digging in and doing some work had helped clear her mind. Right now she just wanted to put her life on autopilot. Her emotions had short-circuited, and she didn’t have the strength for them anymore.

“I’ll buy you lunch,” Ruth said when she stopped by her cube ten minutes before it was time to eat. “If you share the scoop with me on the cute cowboy I saw you with after work Friday night.”

Sarah started to decline then decided why not. Ruth was a friend. Talking might help. So the two of them huddled under Ruth’s umbrella and headed out into the rain. By this time the day had turned completely nasty and it was coming down in buckets with a clap of thunder thrown in every now and then for good measure.

A tasty sub shop and restaurant was only a block away. Drying off at their table, Ruth ordered a Caesar salad and Sarah got a garden vegetable dish. Sarah was sipping her Diet Coke and watching it rain outside when apparently Ruth couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted some answers about Friday night from her longtime friend.

“So are you going to spill the beans?” Ruth demanded.

“Sorry.” Sarah realized she had been daydreaming and came back to the present.

“Was that the guy you met out in Montana?” Ruth was just dying to know.

“One of them.”

“Honey, he was gorgeous.”

Sarah smiled. Ruth couldn’t even begin to imagine just how gorgeous the young cowboy was. “Believe it or not he’s rich, too.”

Ruth was about to fall out of the booth. “Well, honey, if you don’t want him, send him my way.”

“He’s smart, and he’s honest, and a hard worker.” Sarah continued to sing TJ’s praises for Ruth’s benefit.

“When are you going to see him again?” She had Ruth practically drooling now. But Ruth was buying lunch, so Sarah figured she should get her money’s worth.

“There are complications,” Sarah told her honestly. “A
lot
of complications.”

“Work them out,” Ruth ordered. “Guy’s like him don’t exactly grow on trees, not even in Montana.”

“That’s true.” Sarah was happy just talking about TJ. Of course there were two other guys who made her just as happy, but that part she would leave out of her narration with Ruth. “The people I met out on the ranch have asked me to move out to Montana with them.”

“What are you waiting for?” Ruth looked at her like she thought she was crazy.

Sarah shrugged. “What would I do out in rural Montana? I’m not very good at lassoing horses.”

“You could find a job of some kind.”

“True, but I wouldn’t fit in. I’m a city girl. Always have been and probably always will be.”

Ruth looked uncomfortable. “But, Sarah, have you ever really been happy living in the city?”

Sarah was surprised that she had to think about that one for a minute and even more surprised when she couldn’t come up with an answer. “I don’t know,” she finally settled on.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, honey,” Ruth told her in a motherly sort of way. “From a casual observer’s viewpoint I would say that you’ve never really felt like fitting in up here in the city. Maybe that’s why you went two years without finding a boyfriend in New York and why you spent a week in Montana and found the cutest men alive to romance you.”

“You could be right,” Sarah admitted, finding her friend’s opinion interesting. “But there’s more to it than that.” Her mind drifted back to the first time she had seen the men turn into wolfs.

“Tell me what it is.”

“I’m not sharing that part of my story with you for the price of one lunch,” Sarah teased her friend, and knew she had told her all she felt comfortable with. Their food had arrived, and she spent the rest of her lunch hour fending off Ruth’s questions.

The remainder of her day loomed ahead along with a rush in the rain to get back to the office. Still Ruth had provided her with some insight during the lunch and given Sarah something new to ponder.

But she was not a shape-shifter and knew it wouldn’t work out with the three men.

The men made it safely back to the Circle T. She heard from them in an e-mail from TJ that night when she got home. His writing was sweet and polite, and she noticed he chose his words carefully. From his tone it was obvious he did not want to make her feel uncomfortable. Again he told her to take all the time she needed, and ended by saying he would love her no matter what conclusions she reached.

Her father called her later that night. He wanted to thank her for coming to Sunday dinner and introducing him to Ryan.

“I liked him.” Her father commended her on her choice. This was unusual. He had never warmed up to her fiancé when she had been living with him and told her so openly. So for him to acclaim Ryan after their first meeting was unprecedented. “I think he’s a decent man with a solid character. I felt he was honest and I could trust him.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Sarah smiled into the phone. “Ryan is pretty great. I’m glad you liked him.”

“But I sense there’s a problem?” She knew he could hear it in her voice.

“Ryan and his friends went back to Montana. I don’t know when I’ll see them again.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, honey.” He paused, and Sarah was silent as well. This isn’t a conversation she really wanted to be having with her dad. “Listen, honey, there are some things I’d like to discuss with you. If I can ever get away from all these damn drills they keep having at the fire department, I’d like to drive into the city some night and see you.”

“Sure, Dad, that would be great. I’m free any night. Just stop by.”