Since Esteban and Nandi were away at a book signing, I had a little free time on my hands. I drove to Quickdraw Saturday morning, prepared for a day with my little ones.

Dressed in my favorite leggings and a thick, oversized sweater, I arrived to find Lyle raking leaves in the yard. He worked shirtless despite the weather, another example of physical perfection wrapped within one shifter body. His muscles gleamed beneath a thin layer of sweat, and he hadn’t yet lost his summer tan.

“Sup, kitty? Come to take the pups off our hands?”

“And to spend a little time with your wife. Need a hand with that?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I got it. Jules is in the office.”

I let myself in, crouched to pet Tux when the cat pranced out to meet me, and made my way to the back of the house to find Jules. Her office overlooked the fenced-in backyard with a pair of french doors, and a wide assortment of children’s playground toys decorated the leaf-strewn grass.

“Sasha?” Julia called before I entered the room. She’d already twisted in the seat behind her desk.

“Kitty!” Charlotte threw down the pony figures she’d been playing with and ran over to me.

“Hey, doll, how are you?” I scooped her up, noticing Leigh standing near the window. Outside, the boys played with Sophia in the sandbox. “Hey, Leigh.”

“Hey, Sasha.”

“Kitty! Kitty!”

“Maybe later,” I told the insistent toddler squirming in my arms. “Don’t you wanna go play with your brothers and Sophia?”

Charlotte’s little face scrunched up as she considered the idea. She looked at me, to the children beyond the window, then back to me. “Um…”

“It’ll be fun,” I told her. “And I promise a little later I’ll be a kitty for you, okay?”

She grinned and pointed at the floor, so I set her down. The moment her feet touched the carpet, she took off to the door leading to the patio. Julia opened it for her and released a dramatically relieved sigh.

“I’ve been trying to convince her to go out there and play for an hour. How do you do it?”

“Auntie Sasha is awesome, that’s how.”

She chucked a pen at me, and we both laughed, but it was only the two of us. Concerned, I glanced over at our friend then back to Julia and mouthed, “Is she all right?”

Julia shrugged, a firm frown on her face.

I mouthed to her, “Did something happen?”

Julia shook her head then twisted around. “Leigh, are you okay?”

“Huh?” She blinked away from the window and flashed me a wan smile. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve barely said a word.”

“It’s… it’s nothing. Really.”

Julia and I exchanged looks. Then we both descended on our friend and pulled her over to the couch, sitting her between us.

“Nothing doesn’t make you look like you want to cry. We’re your friends, Leigh. You can talk to us about anything. And if Ian’s being a jerk, I’ll bat his feathered ass out the air and show him what a pissed-off lioness looks like.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” she said in a rush. “Ian’s wonderful. He’s always wonderful.”

“Then what’s wrong, sweetie?” Julia asked.

“God, I’m so embarrassed to even say it, but...” She wrung her hands together and drooped her head forward, letting her blonde hair fall into her face. “We’ve been trying to have a baby, and I thought this time something finally happened. My period was almost two months late this time, and then today… it came today.”

My heart lurched in my chest. “It takes time. Sometimes a year or more to become fertile once you’re off the pill.”

Leigh raked her fingers through her blonde hair. “It’s been almost three years since I got off birth control, and nothing is happening. He’s so depressed, guys, but he won’t own up to it and just shoves it all away. Like, Ian always tells me that he doesn’t care if we don’t have any kids of our own because he loves Sophia like his own child, but…”

“She’s not his biological child,” I finished in a soft voice.

“I love him so much, and all that I want to do is give this to him. A baby who will share his eagle genes. Someone to fly with him. No matter how much he loves Sophia and me, we can’t fly with him. We’ll never be shifters.”

Shaking her head and mopping her cheeks with her wrists, Leigh managed to blubber out a tremulous, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin our afternoon.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Julia said.

“Exactly.” I squeezed Leigh’s shoulders. “You haven’t ruined anything. Trust me. Have you two been to the doctor yet?”

“Not yet, but I want to.”

“Set up an appointment,” Julia said.

“But Ian would—”

“Ian will support you if that’s what you want to do,” I said. “Hell, call and make the appointment yourself.”

“I did call to get some information,” she said. “But they said it could take a couple months to get in with anyone.”

“What? Ugh, no, I’ll ask around at work then and see if I can call in any favors. There has to be a fertility doctor in my social circle.”

“Oh, Sasha, you don’t—”

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to. You and Ian are like family. Besides, what’s the point of being an amazing doctor if I can’t help people cut through the red tape now and again?” I grinned, relieved to see a smile returning to Leigh’s face.

“Thanks.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

---

The aroma of savory garlic and chicken greeted me the moment I stepped into the penthouse. I followed my nose to the kitchen where Isisa was carefully removing a foil-covered pan from the oven.

Thin, white candles glowed on countertops and on our dining room table. It had been set for two with salads on our fine china ordered from a local deli around the corner. I grinned. She’d placed cheesecake slices on small dessert dishes and set out two long-stem wine flutes. A corner of the dessert box protruded from the kitchen trashcan.

“What’s all this?”

“Most of it was ordered, but I wanted to cook dinner for you. Nandi left this recipe out for me.”

Bless Nandi for leaving a foolproof, anyone-can-make-this, recipe choice. Isisa tried her best in the kitchen, she really did, but usually her meals ended up in the trash while she sulked and we ordered Chinese. I’d been eating her kitchen nightmares for over twenty-four years, ever since we’d first moved out on our own together.

“Well, it smells delicious. Need me to do anything?”

“Nope. Well, unless you want to pick a wine maybe?”

“Sure thing.”

She said for me to pick the wine, but what she really meant was for me to select one of the three bottles in front of the wine locker where she stored her ever-increasing collection of expensive vintages. I grabbed the closest one and carried it back to the table. Nandi and Isisa were the wine snobs, but I just drank whatever they put in my glass and sometimes wondered if their cultured taste buds were better than mine. Last year, I watched them fawn over a bottle of red from California. When I had a sip, it tasted like wet earth and chalk.

While she nuked a frozen veggie pack in the microwave, I twisted the corkscrew in and replaced the cork with her favorite stopper, a baby elephant that poured the wine through its trunk.

I sat and watched her putter around the kitchen, grinning. “Thank you for this. You didn’t have to go through the effort.”

“I know, but with Nandi gone and you and I so busy lately, I thought it’d be nice to have a good dinner before you take a sixteen-hour shift tomorrow.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

Isisa leaned over the back of my chair and kissed me. “Then I won’t.”

Despite past kitchen disasters worthy of a television sitcom, this meal turned out perfect, if a touch salty. A loaf of french bread—its wrapper from the grocery store also in the trash—helped with that, as did the vegetable mix of kale and butternut squash.

Afterward, once the dishes were loaded into the washer, we sat together on the couch with one of our favorite sitcoms on the television.

“Hey, Sash?”

“What’s up, hon?”

“I’m sorry for the way I froze up that day Esteban asked about kids. I guess I worried he’d think less of me.”

“That’s been bugging you all this time?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, sweetie.” I twisted around until I faced her and tucked my feet onto the couch beneath me. “You know we’d never hold it against you, and I hope you know by now Esteban wouldn’t.”

“I do. Still, I know I can be…”

“Moody? Bitchy? Broody?”

She flattened her mouth and tossed a pillow at my face. “Bitchy? Really?”

“Okay, fine, but the broody bit was spot-on, you have to admit.”

Her sour expression melted into a sheepish grin. “You’re right, and I’m sorry.”

“You never have to apologize to me for being yourself. Have you talked about any of this to Esteban, though?”

“Not yet. I want to, but I wanted to tell you first.”

I set the pillow down between us and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “Apology accepted, but unnecessary. Now tell Esteban how you feel. He’ll understand.”

“I will, I promise. I’ve, uh, been thinking about it a lot lately, and I hoped that maybe I could tell him about what it was like after your miscarriage.”

I stiffened. “You’re free to talk about whatever you want with Esteban. I’m not going to put a ban on anything.”

“I’m not asking if I’m banned. I’m asking if you’d like me to talk to him about it.” In a softer voice, Isisa added, “So you won’t have to. I know you did the same for me and explained about Dad. Nandi said so.”

“We talked about it a little,” I admitted. “And he does know I had a miscarriage. That’s it.”

Isisa eased an arm around my waist and drew me in close. “All right. I didn’t mean to stir up sad feelings.”

Soft kisses against my shoulder and collarbone eased the ache away. She meant well, I knew that, and I loved her all the more for caring so deeply about my feelings that she’d bear the burden of bad memories. My muscles relaxed, and I leaned into her embrace.

“You’re the best.”

Her dark eyes gleamed above a widening smile. “I know I am.”

“Jerk.”

“Brat.”

My eager fingers slipped a few times on the pearl buttons fastening her blouse. I loosened them on the third attempt, and ivory silk slid back from her shoulders, leaving only pale pink lace against her dark skin.

Then her mouth was seeking mine, lips soft and pliant, tongue flavored with wine and a delicious hint of caramel-drizzled cheesecake. Between kisses, I managed to murmur, “I think I’m bored with this TV show. I’d rather enjoy some quality time with you upstairs.”

“I like your thinking. You’re a little overdressed though.”

“Bet I beat you upstairs and out of my clothes first.”

“Ha. I’m already half undressed.”

And then the mad scramble began, both of us dashing for the stairs and shedding clothes along the way.

---

The cell phone dragged me away from pleasant dreams of Esteban and Isisa indulging in a round of double penetration with me trapped in the middle. I could still feel his touch on my skin, his lips whispering over my tits while Isisa teased me from behind with her favorite strap on.

It had felt so real. In the dream, we had been acting out a ménage à trois for Nandi at her behest, performing as she directed us to bring one of her book scenes to life while she wrote.

Wanting to murder whoever was on the other end, I raised my cheek from Isisa’s chest and swatted at the phone, nearly knocking it off the nightstand. Through my blurry vision, I saw Ian’s name pop up from his home office line. I accepted the call and placed it on one ear. “Hello?”

“Bad time?”

I squinted at the digital clock. One-fifteen? Ian was never up this late. “I was asleep. That thing most sensible people do at one in the morning. This had better be important or your feathered goose is cooked the next time I see you. Why aren’t you asleep, too?”

“Working. Figured you’d be eager to receive an update about the missing young ladies in Houston. I took that information you gave me and passed it on to the people in charge of the case. If it’s a bad time—”

“What do you know?”

“So,” Ian said conversationally, a chuckle in his voice. “Does this mean you’re up for a job?”