“Ugh. Yes. I’m fine.”

He caught up to her. “Do you want me to take a look at your shoulder?” He stepped closer.

“Uh, no. I’m fine. Clumsy is all.” She put her hand on her shoulder and gritted her teeth. The sign had definitely left a mark. She glared back at the metal thing.

“You sure? I’m an EMT.” He crossed his arms over his barrel chest.

“I’m good. I’ll put some ice on it when I get home.” Emma smiled.

“Okay then, be safe on your way home.” He sauntered to the door of the fire station.

A little piece of her was sorry he hadn’t asked her out, but another part was glad. Because the entire time she would have been thinking about her cranky brown-eyed male. Her? She needed to stop that line of thinking. She glanced back at the station. Was he still there? Maybe she could get her power back from him. Healing the bruise on her shoulder was going to take a bit of power. She might need to resort to ice. Did she even have any ice in her apartment? Heck, did she even have any food?

She waved goodbye to the fire station. The firefighter had disappeared inside. Emma zipped up her coat and put her phone in her pocket. The last thing she needed was to walk into traffic and have the EMTs have to scrape her off the road. Green buds were forming on the trees while piles of snow from the freak snowstorm they’d had a few days ago scattered the ground.

This new chapter in her life was like this seasonal transition. It had taken a long time to get off the ground. Her new boss had offered her the job last June, but then things had taken a while to get going. While she supplied the most important part of the operation, there was a lot more to getting a business up and running, even for a billionaire, apparently. She hadn’t believed how long it took for Carter to round up the programmers. And then to find the right building. He wanted somewhere where there were a lot of paranormal people. What Carter failed to understand was the dynamics between wolf shifters and witches. If he’d found a friendly town full of bears, perhaps they wouldn’t have had to keep things so quiet. But nope, he picked the town where the feud between witches and wolves had reached war proportions so long ago. The place where one coven of witches had become so angry that they took matters into their own hands and outed shifters to the human world. Changing the course of history for everyone.

They’d done it while keeping witches secret. But they’d exposed shifters of all kinds who had to deal with the curiosity and wrath of humans and human governments worldwide. Everyone she’d met in the little town had shown her kindness, but would they after they learned her secret? Firefighter Larsen didn’t seem to want them to know about him. Emma decided that she would follow suit. Besides, Carter didn’t want anyone to find out about their fated mate dating service, anyway.

The walk to the bridge didn’t take long. Cute one-story homes lined the road, some neat and tidy with spring wreaths on their doors, others with Christmas wreaths brown and sagging.

Another few steps and her shoulder started to really hurt. When was the new Emma going to start showing up? Her frustration at herself left her ignoring the scenery and made it impossible to enjoy the day.

No. She shook herself. Stop it.

“Stop what?” A woman pushing a baby carriage and holding a leash to a fuzzy goldendoodle had come up alongside her.

“Oh, I’m not crazy, I was just talking to myself.”

“I do it all the time. But I pretend I’m talking to the baby.” The woman had chestnut hair and a comfortable smile.

“I seem to be without one of those.”

“No worries, you could get a dog.” The young mother smiled at her like a dog would solve all her problems.

“I’m not sure I’m responsible enough for a dog.” Emma laughed, stealing a look at the baby all bundled up in the carriage.

“Well, then definitely don’t get one of these. I thought my dog was my baby before I had a baby.” She laughed. “Vivianne Westbrook. You must be new in town.” She put out her glove-covered hand.

Emma shook it. “Emma Davis. Does it show that much?” Because people certainly kept pointing it out.

“We don’t get a lot of people moving to Hundsburg, more people moving out. It’s kind of like a one-way street. They leave and they don’t come back.”

“That bad? It seems like a nice place.”

“Oh, it is. It’s just nothing exciting ever happens here. The most exciting thing to happen is someone buying the old school.”

“Oh.” Emma nodded, turning her head the other way. Vivianne was matching her pace, and luckily the turn to the bridge was coming up because she didn’t want to answer any questions about . . .

“You don’t happen to work at the new business? Do you?” Vivianne smiled.

“My best friend’s husband is Jack Lockett. He makes these really cool play structures based on fairy tales.”

“Oh, what’s going on in the rest of the building?” The wind picked up, and Vivianne straightened the blanket around her baby. And pulled the cute dog closer to her leg.

“I’m not sure. Most of it’s still empty.” Not a lie. The best way to misrepresent the truth was to say as little as possible. Something she’d learned from her ex-fiancé. And she hated lies.

“It’s a gigantic building.”

“It is.” They’d reached the bridge. “It was nice meeting you. I’m sure I’ll see you around soon.”

“If you ever want to borrow a dog to talk to or walk, I share Penny here with my brother.” Vivianne petted the dog’s curly head.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Look me up on ShifterChat and friend me. We have great girls’ nights out at the Easy Rabbit. Mack doesn’t let the usual barflies in and makes us all pink drinks or dragon’s ale if it’s been that kind of day.”

Emma turned, hastening her escape. “I will, Vivianne. Thanks.” Maybe not everyone had an angle. At least, that’s what she hoped was true. That people were bored and curious and wanted to know what was going on in Mr. Thompson’s old science room and how the heck had that little female gotten the Excalibur window open? “Nice meeting you.” Emma waved, crossing the street to head over the bridge.

Halfway over the bridge, Emma slowed her pace and stopped to take in the raging water rushing underneath. It pushed at a giant rock in the middle of the river, and Emma wondered if it was spring drainage that made the river run so fast. She must have stood there longer than she expected to because, when she looked up, the sun had slipped below the horizon. The wind had picked up too, and the smidgeon of Spring in the air had vanished. She trudged up the steep hill to her new little home.

A bottle of wine and a frozen pizza had become her new standard for an exciting night. She settled onto her sofa surrounded by boxes and started a movie on her tablet as her phone rang.

“Shiori! How are you doing?” Emma answered.

“The question is, how are you doing out there in the boondocks?”

“I’m good. It’s a lot of fun out here.” Emma surveyed her new undecorated living room. The movie on her tablet paused.

“I wanted to check up on you.”

The phone buzzed. “It’s Daphne, I’ll conference her in.”

“Are you okay?” Daphne was breathless.

“Shiori’s on the line too,” Emma said.

“Hey.” Daphne paused. “I felt something this afternoon, and I was wondering if it was either of you.”

“It was me. I kind of drained my power really low. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would hurt you. I should have known.” They were more than elementary school friends. They were elementary school friends who’d stolen the family grimoire for a day and successfully completed a complicated spell which tied them and their powers together for the rest of their lives.

“It didn’t hurt me, and I don’t think that’s what it was. It was more of a spark, like a good kind of spark.” Daphne cleared her throat. “Did you feel anything, Shiori?”

“I did. Perhaps. I was in the middle of reading a brief, and I went tingly all over.”

“Did you meet someone, Emma? Because I thought you swore off men.” Daphne’s tone was clipped, and there was definitely something up with it.

Emma paused. “I . . . a bunch of people. I met a friendly woman with a baby. It was cute. I think I’m going to get a dog.” She wasn’t going to be able to keep anything from either one of them. Not when they’d bound themselves and their power together as children.