Chapter One
“That’ll be sixty three dollars and fifty nine cents,” Eliza Anderson told the lady standing in front of her register. She looked her customer over—from her upswept hairstyle and flawless makeup to the pale pink suit that probably cost twice Eliza’s income at the grocery store—while the woman riffled through a purse the size of an overnight bag in search of her wallet.
Eliza glanced down at her own ensemble of a blood red pullover that washed out her already pale skin and the pleated khaki pants she’d bought at a thrift store to save money and sighed. By comparison, she felt like a hot mess.
Finally, the business woman pulled out a credit card and went through the motions of running it through the machine and punching the appropriate buttons. Eliza pretended to examine her ragged fingernails while she waited. A nail file would be nice. She’d have to try to remember to buy one of those. Later.
The computer returned to the main screen and the register started spitting out a mile-long receipt. She caught the narrow paper, folded it over, and handed it across the counter to the customer. “Have a nice day, ma’am.”
The woman looked down at the receipt and then back up at Eliza. “I asked for cash back.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry. The register didn’t open. Can I see the receipt again, please?”
The woman shook her head. “I’ve already put it away.”
“Okay.” Eliza tried hard not to roll her eyes. The woman still had her wallet in her hand. How hard would it be to reopen it and hand over the receipt? “Well, just let me print out another one and I’ll have your cash to you in a jiff.” She turned to do just that and heard a huff of impatience behind her.
Ignoring the woman’s impatience, Eliza hit the button on top of the printer and it spit out another receipt. She scanned down to the bottom to check the amount owed to the customer and found nothing but the original balance. With a sigh, she looked up and faked a polite smile. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It appears you forgot to request cash.”
“What? Let me see that.” The woman reached over and snatched the paper out of Eliza’s hand and glared at it. She huffed and frowned. “I clearly remember requesting forty dollars back. Your machine must be malfunctioning.”
“Yes ma’am. I’m sure that’s what happened.” Eliza dropped the paper into the trash bin under the counter. “I’m afraid I can’t open my register without ringing up a purchase, but there is an ATM at the front of the store if you’d still like cash.”
“That ATM charges a fee for use.”
“Yes ma’am.”
The woman frowned hard. “Can’t I just run my card back through the machine?”
“Not without making a purchase, ma’am.”
“Fine.” She stalked off in a huff, shoving her buggy full of groceries ahead of her, and headed straight for the customer service desk.
Eliza couldn’t wait to hear that complaint.
She waited on a few more customers, sneaked peeks at the clock on the corner of the computer screen, and tried to psychically will it to move faster. The scent of fried chicken and potato wedges from the deli teased her senses and made her stomach rumble. She’d left home without breakfast because Audrey had been fussy and demanded extra attention before going to the sitter for the day. To make matters worse, she’d been in such a hurry to get them out the door that she’d forgotten to pack lunch. Again.
Some times she wondered if pregnancy-brain stuck around for life. She was so forgetful it was beginning to be a real problem.
Her stomach growled and twisted. It was going to be a long day.
Just before her scheduled afternoon break, she spotted the general manager striding toward her and cursed under her breath. Harlon Crane was a dour, middle-aged man with thin, receding brown hair, thick coke-bottle glasses, and a rapidly expanding beer gut. Her shoulders slumped as she accepted the inevitable. He was going to give her hell over the complaint lodged earlier. As unpleasant as the lecture would be, being forced to talk to Harlon was worse. Although there was nothing outwardly threatening about the man, he gave her the creeps. There was just something off about him that set her nerves on edge. The fact that he’d subtly hit on her every chance he got didn’t help matters.
Inhaling a deep breath, she braced herself for the upcoming unpleasantness, exhaled, and forced herself to smile as Harlon drew near. “Hey Harlon. How you doing today?”
“I’m fine, Eliza. Thank you for asking.” Harlon stopped at the end of the lane. “A call came through for you in the main office. Go ahead and shut down your register and turn off your light and you can take your break a few minutes early. In the future, please do try to remember that there are no personal calls allowed while on duty.”
“Yes, sir. It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t,” Harlon answered before turning and heading back to the office.
Eliza hurried to comply, while worrying over who could be on the phone. After aging out of the foster care system, she didn’t have any family to speak of and she didn’t have time for close friends. Not really. She barely managed being a single mother and working full time. The only person she could think of was her child’s sitter—which didn’t bode well.
Once finished securing her work station, she rushed to the front office.
Harlon sat behind the desk. Upon seeing her, he waved at the phone. “Your call is on line two.”
“Thanks.” She picked up the receiver and hit the glowing button for the appropriate line. “Hello. This is Eliza.”
“Thank God,” the woman on the other end exclaimed. “I didn’t think you were ever going to answer.”
“Helen?” Eliza asked, recognizing her sitter’s voice. “What’s going on? Is Audrey all right? You know you aren’t supposed to call me at work unless it’s an emergency.”
“I’ve got an emergency for you all right,” Helen replied. “Your child is a monster and I refuse to watch her for another minute. You need to come and get her right now.”
“What?” Eliza strained to hear over the noise of the store and Harlon’s loud typing. “Listen, I’m sorry if the baby’s been more fussy than usual, but I think she’s going through another growth spurt or something. I’m sure if you just give her an extra bottle, she’ll settle down for you.”
“That’s not it. That’s not it at all! Your kid turned into a monster and bit me. I swear, if I’ve caught some kind of disease, I’ll—”
“I would appreciate it if you stopped the name calling, Helen.” Eliza cut her off, beyond aggravated and confused. “I’m sorry if Audrey bit you, but it couldn’t have broken the skin or even hurt that bad. She doesn’t even have teeth yet.” She had no idea where any of this was coming from. Helen had been watching Audrey since Eliza had gone back to work after having her maternity leave and this was the first sign of the woman being unhinged. She really hoped she hadn’t been leaving her kid with someone who abused drugs. That was the only reason she could fathom for why a seemingly sane woman would suddenly start ranting about a six month old baby attacking her.
“I refuse to care for a creature that’s not even human. If you aren’t here in the next fifteen minutes, I’m gonna set her outside and let nature take care of its mistake.”
Eliza opened her mouth to reply and got hit by the dial tone. The crazy bitch hung up on her. She stared at the receiver for a second, puzzled and angry, and then snapped out of the fugue and returned the phone to its cradle. “I’m sorry, Harlo, but I need to leave early. My babysitter is unstable and threatening to hurt my child.”
Harlon’s brows wrinkled. “I couldn’t help but overhear part of your conversation. I might be able to clear up your confusion, if you can answer one question for me.”
Curiosity got the better of her. “Okay.”
“Is your child human? Because I’ve heard shifter children don’t begin to show the defects of their heritage until several months after their birth.”
“Yes,” Eliza answered, silently thinking that it was none of his damn business one way or the other. “She’s human, just like me.” Not that it mattered. Audrey’s being a shifter wouldn’t magically make her sitter’s threatening behavior more reasonable. Audrey was an innocent baby, barely six months old. She wasn’t a danger to anyone.
“Well, that’s a relief.” Harlon pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’ve always respected you, Eliza, despite some of your choices. I’d hate to learn you’d been debasing yourself with someone well beneath your station.”
“Excuse me?” Eliza’s face went cold and her stomach tightened in shock. How dare he judge her? Who the hell did he think he was?
“Don’t work yourself up into a tizzy. I’m just saying you’re a bright young woman who deserves the best life has to offer.”
Eliza stared at her boss, more than a little shaken. She knew there were still a lot of ignorant, backward people who feared shifters and condemned interspecies relationships, but she hadn’t expected to be slapped upside the face by a prime example of the shifterphobic movement right in her own place of employment. The fact that it was her boss spouting off such a hateful viewpoint complicated things. If she spoke up and called him out on his bullshit, she might lose her job. If it was just her, she wouldn’t care, but she had Audrey to think about.
Audrey, her baby, who needed her immediately. She didn’t have time to stand up to her boss at the moment. She needed to get to her girl. “I need to go. Can you find someone to cover the rest of my shift?”
Harlon waved her off. “Go on. It’s been a slow day. I probably would have wound up sending someone home early anyway.”
“Thank you.” She pivoted around and strode from the room without waiting for a reply. She had more important things on her mind, like how fast she could reach Helen’s home without getting pulled over by a police officer. After clocking out and grabbing her purse and cell phone out of her locker, she ran for the exit.
The drive across town seemed to take forever, although it was probably less than twenty minutes in reality. She was sweating bullets by the time she pulled into Helen’s driveway and hustled across the yard toward the door. Audrey was nowhere to be seen outside, so surely that was a good sign. Right? It meant she’d gotten there in time and Audrey was presumably still being taken care of by her sitter.
Eliza beat on the door, impatient to see her child and make sure Audrey was unharmed. If that bitch laid one finger on her child…
The door swung open to reveal Helen, wearing a pale pink tracksuit, with her long, frizzy blond hair slicked back from her face in a sloppy ponytail. “Took you long enough.”
Eliza muscled passed the deranged woman and frantically gazed around the room in search of her child, who she finally spotted in the playpen by the wall. She breezed by two small boys playing with cars on the floor and lifted her daughter up, looking her over for visible marks. Finding none, she pulled the baby against her chest and hugged her tight, so relieved she wanted to cry. Audrey was fine.
There wasn’t a thing wrong with her child and Helen had some explaining to do.
Eliza whirled around and glared at the babysitter. “What’s wrong with you? You call me at work, scare the hel—” she glanced at the other kids and switched words at the last second “—heck out of me, and for what? Audrey’s perfectly fine.”
Helen crossed her arms over her chest. “She isn’t fine. She’s an abomination and I want both of you out of my house right now.”
“Whatever.” The woman was clearly out of her mind. “Give me Audrey’s things and we’ll go.”
“Her bag’s by the door. You can pick it up on your way out.”
“Fine.” Gritting her teeth to keep from giving the crazy woman a piece of her mind, Eliza held her daughter tight, careful to keep herself between Audrey and the sitter, and walked out of the house, pausing only long enough to bend down and scoop up her diaper bag on her way out the door.
“Don’t come back,” Helen yelled and slammed the door closed.
Audrey started to fuss and Eliza rocked her back and forth and patted her bottom. “Shh. Mama’s here and everything’s going be just fine.” She kept talking, murmuring assurances in a quiet, reassuring tone, as she reached the car and buckled Audrey into her car seat. She bent over and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “You’re never going to have to see that mean old woman again.” She pulled back to smile down at her daughter and froze in horror. Audrey’s sweet brown eyes had turned molten gold and were glittering in the sunlight.