As the butterflies did another lap around her stomach, Hope Callahan set her cardboard coffee cup down on the wrought-iron table, sternly telling herself to calm down. Her friend Kathy would arrive any minute for their coffee date. And then Hope would have to commit to her plan. Explaining it to Kathy wasn’t the scary part. Actually going through with it—that would be the challenge.

“Okay,” Kathy said as she joined Hope at the patio table. “I’m here. What’s the big announcement?”

Hope protested, “Wait a minute, I never said it was big. Or an announcement.”

“Uh-huh. You texted me and told me you wanted to meet for coffee. You didn’t reschedule once, which you have to admit is unusual.”

“Work,” Hope said weakly. “I’m sorry my schedule is so erratic—”

“I know, I’m just teasing you. And now I really need to know what’s going on.” She tucked a strand of her rich brown hair behind her ear. Tall and model-pretty, Kathy Hernandez always made Hope wish for an extra six inches of height. Instead, at five feet and not-quite-three inches, she’d become resigned to being described as spunky.

Hope reached down into her purse and pulled out a glossy magazine, handing it to Kathy.

“You’ve got an article in this one, right?” Kathy asked.

“Yeah, where the sticky note is.”

Kathy fought with the wind, turning the pages until she reached the marked article. “Single and Serious?”

Hope nodded.

“As in...you’re planning to sign up with them?”

“Already done.” She could feel her cheeks flushing and cursed her fair complexion. She wasn’t embarrassed by her decision. Just nervous. Very nervous.

“Wow.” Kathy wrinkled her nose as she thumbed through the pages of the article. “Are you sure about this? A matchmaking agency’s a big step.”

Hope took a sip of her mocha before replying. “Why not? They’re highly rated, and I did a ton of research on them for the article I wrote.”

“Because you could end up with some weirdo,” Kathy pointed out. “A weirdo who lives in the middle of nowhere with a weirdo family.”

“Highly rated,” Hope repeated. “Ton of research. Trust me, they’re reputable. And it’s completely up to me whether I meet the guy. And as for the middle of nowhere, you know I’ve been dying to move back to somewhere more rural. I told them I wanted mountains and trees and creeks, not this concrete jungle.”

“Your concrete jungle is my civilization,” Kathy countered, taking in the busy sidewalk with a wave of her beautifully manicured hand. “If I’m more than a mile from a Starbucks, I get withdrawal pangs.”

“Small towns have coffee too, you know,” Hope said. “It’s not like I’m dropping off the face of the planet.”

“I know,” Kathy said, “but this is a huge change.”

“Not for me,” she said, pretending a confidence she didn’t feel. She could do this. “I’m ready.”

“Ready for...”

“A serious relationship. Eventually, marriage and kids, the whole shebang.”

“You can’t find that here?”

Hope shrugged ruefully. “I guess not. It’s not like I haven’t tried.” She’d done the dating thing. Gone to bars where men ignored her in favor of gorgeous thin twenty-somethings. She’d looked for guys in grocery store aisles, on public transit, and in cooking classes. She’d even tried speed dating. All it had ever gotten her was a date or two with guys who couldn’t hold her attention or weren’t interested in anything long-term.

“I can’t argue with that,” Kathy admitted. “Remember the guy who took half of everything from your plate?”

“Or the one who only wanted to recruit me into his vitamin-selling pyramid scheme,” Hope countered.

“The one who took three calls from his mother in the movie theater.”

“The one who brought his mother along.”

“Dating can be terrible,” Kathy said. “No argument. But are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Hope knew it was a fair question. But she’d eaten too many dinners by herself in her apartment, with only the TV or a book for company. Her life was in a rut, and the only way to shake it up was to do something drastic.

“It’s just a date. It doesn’t have to lead to anything else. And besides, I’m tired of being alone. You’re a great friend, but—”

“It’s not the same as having a boyfriend. Or a husband.”

“Exactly,” Hope said.

“I’m going to miss the hell out of you, you know,” Kathy said softly.

“Even if I move, I’m not stuck there forever,” she reassured Kathy. “I might cut back on my work travel, but I have no intention of giving it up.”

“Here’s another big question,” Kathy said. “What are you going to do if they match you with a shifter?”

Hope fiddled with the empty packets of sweetener, stalling for time. In truth, she didn’t know how she’d react, so she’d left her options open. “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t intrigue me a little,” she admitted.

“Wait until you fall in love with a guy and he turns out to be a skunk. Literally.” Kathy’s brown eyes sparkled with mischief.

Hope had to laugh at the idea of waking up one morning to find the guy in her bed had turned into something small and furry. It couldn’t be worse than a few of her more terrible dates.

Kathy kept going. “I heard from my cousin that shifters know immediately when they meet the person they’re destined to be with. Like swans or something.”

“Oh, come on, Kathy. It’s not like they’re animals. They’re people, just like you and me.”

“Great. In that case, you’ll meet this guy, he’ll promise to call, and you’ll never hear from him again.”

“Stop being such a cynic. This is why you never see a guy more than once.”

“Nah,” Kathy said. “I just enjoy playing the field too much. I’d get bored with one person. I like having a variety pack.”

Hope knew Kathy didn’t understand. Maybe you had to grow up like Hope had, on a cattle ranch in Colorado. She’d gone away to college and spent several years establishing her career as a writer. She had a good income, a retirement plan, and a collection of sensible shoes.

Now—she was ready to find a man.

Or maybe someone who was a little more than a man.

***

Josh lengthened his gait, easily outpacing the blue roan that had been running at his side. He heard Connor snort and could almost hear the words: you’re showing off! Maybe he was, but what was the point of being the herd’s head stallion if you couldn’t stretch your muscles out and throw your weight around occasionally?

The wind rippled through the chestnut mane and tail that streamed behind him like fiery streaks. When he sighted the fence that marked the ranch’s property line, he pulled up and stood, sides heaving, waiting for Connor to catch up.

In retaliation, Connor thundered up to him and skidded to a halt at the last possible moment. They both reared, pawing at the air with their forelegs, then dropped back down to earth. Josh shifted and dodged just in time to avoid a playful kick from Connor.

“Hey, watch it! Your mom will have my head if I let you hurt either one of us.”

Connor shifted, becoming a lanky twenty-four-year old with a faded scar over one eye. “She still thinks I’m a kid.”

“She still thinks I’m a kid, and I turned thirty last month.” That was the problem with a big family, Josh thought; there was always someone around who remembered when you’d been in diapers.

He loved it, though. Having lost both parents in a car wreck at an early age, he’d depended on his aunts and uncles for everything. And he still did.

“Any sign of a break in the fence?” he asked Connor.

“Nope.”

“Good. I don’t trust those Armstrong kids as far as I could throw them.” The family who owned the neighboring Lonely Creek Ranch had never liked living next to a shifter family. Recently, there’d been a spate of accidents around the Golden Horse—broken fence lines, contaminated water, brush fires. Josh was pretty sure the Armstrongs were to blame, but he hadn’t been able to definitively prove it.

“Let’s go check out the sheep pasture,” he said.

They shifted back and galloped towards the large pasture north of the main house, following the boundary of the property line. As they neared the sheep pasture, Josh’s sensitive ears began to pick up something that didn’t belong. The distant noise quickly began to resolve into rhythmic thudding.

Josh felt his ears pin angrily back against his skull. In the distance, he saw a group of three or four people gathered around one of the fence posts on the Lonely Creek side of the boundary. People who definitely didn’t belong there.

He let out a furious scream, the sound of an enraged stallion. Behind him, Connor echoed with his own ringing call. The intruders’ heads jerked up in panic as they heard the two horses charging towards them.

“Shit!” one of them yelled. Josh got a good look at him–Harry Armstrong. Eighteen, six feet tall, and as mean as he was cowardly. He and the other Armstrong kids abandoned their attempt to knock over the fence post and bolted into the brush on their side of the fence, tools in hand.

Josh jumped the barbed wire fence, clearing it easily. When he landed, he turned to Connor and stomped his forefeet as Connor backed up and prepared to jump, indicating that Connor should remain where he was. Connor pulled up short and shifted. “You sure?”

Josh bobbed his head, the closest he could get to a nod in this form. He wheeled and chased after the kids, but he could see the truck they were heading for. Still, he kept up pursuit until they had clambered into the vehicle and were pulling away.

He skidded to a halt and snorted in disgust. The Farris family had never been friendly with the Armstrongs, but they’d tolerated each other for years. Then Joe Armstrong had died, and his kids and grandkids had started their campaign of harassment. Josh secretly wondered if they held hopes of forcing his family off the ranch, but they had to know it would never happen.

He trotted back towards the fence and leaped over it.  After he landed, he shifted and indulged in a leisurely stretch. Going from two legs to four legs and back again made some of your muscles do weird things.

“Anything?” Connor asked.

He shook his head. “Just the usual. I keep thinking they’re going to escalate somehow, but right now, they seem happy just pulling this stupid kid stuff.”

“It won’t be stupid if all of the cows get out,” Connor pointed out. “It’d be nice if the sheriff cared.”

“He doesn’t really believe it is the Armstrongs, and if it is, he thinks it’s just kids acting up,” Josh said. “You know he’s never really been a fan of ours. We just have to keep our eyes open.”

“And our ears up,” Connor agreed.

“Come on,” Josh ordered. “Time to head back. I’ve got something I want to talk to everyone about.”

They reached the main house just in time to wash up for dinner. The quality of Rick Farris’ cooking meant that most of the family turned out for the big meal each night. The long table groaned with the spread of brisket, mashed potatoes, green beans, cornbread, and salad, and even marinated tofu for the two vegetarians.

Josh let the clamor run unabated through the meal; members of this family learned to eat and argue at the same time, because anyone who didn’t get loud got shouted down. He figured that this wasn’t normal for other families, but even when two of his cousins started shouting at each other over some trivial matter of local politics, it was obvious that love filled the room.

When his uncle Rick shoved back from the table to grab the pies from the counter, Josh tapped his fork on the edge of his plate to silence everyone. “Before we have dessert, there’s something I wanted to talk to all of you about. You know I’ve been wanting to get married—”

“You proposed to Rosie!” squealed his twelve-year-old cousin Taylor.

“Of course he didn’t!” Her older brother smacked her on the arm and immediately set off a scuffle.

“Hey!” he roared. They immediately stopped, and though they continued to toss each other sullen glances, neither of them were stupid enough to defy the herd’s head stallion.

“I haven’t seen Rosie in months, and I already told you she’s not my mate. As I was saying,” he continued, “the town’s getting smaller every day, and we’re related to half of them anyway. So I signed up with a matchmaking service, and they found someone for me, and I’m heading to Chicago to meet her.”

Everyone the table immediately erupted with shouted questions, so loudly that Josh found it hard to hear individual questions at first.

“How is this supposed to work?” asked Mark, one of his uncles.

“I told the service that I wanted to find a wife. Someone like me, who wanted to get married and was willing to move out here.”

“But how much do you really know about this woman?” Mark pressed.

“She’s a writer. Around my age, lives in Chicago.” He looked over at Rick, who’d been suspiciously quiet during the conversation. Rick raised his eyebrows, inviting Josh to comment on his silence, an invitation Josh decided to pass on.

“You really think you can find your mate this way?” Mark said.

Josh crossed his fingers under the table where no one else could see them. “I guess I’m just hoping that destiny’s on my side. With any luck, when I come back, she’ll come with me, and we can all start planning a wedding.”