“Mother,” Zuri called out, closing the distance between them and gripping the back of one of the living room chairs, “we’re not done with you and the shifter thing.”

“You don’t have to go,” Mirabel sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I can ask the lovely lady who’s organizing it to remove your name. I just wanted to try and help you meet men, sweetie. You’re so young and beautiful.” She walked toward Zuri, her eyes filling with moisture. “And I just want you to find love. You’re thirty-nine years old. In a few months, you’re going to be forty. Do you really not want to meet a man and start a family already?”

Zuri’s anger deflated. “Mom, you know I do. I just refuse to waste my time with some loser again. I spent too many years being someone’s wife. Now I am me, Zuri. Cooking school is keeping me busy.”

“Honey, I get that, but you’ve gone to school for so many things. First, you were doing real estate. Flipping houses and all that stuff. You made all that money with your ex. But when you divorced,” she bit her lip and placed a hand on Zuri’s arm, “you lost yourself a little. I just want to see you find the woman who had her shit together again.”

“Mom…” She blew on her bangs.

“No. Don’t mom, me,” Mirabel said softly. “You stood by Edward. You were his partner in every sense of the word. You two tried. Nobody will ever say you didn’t. You stood by him when he fought cancer and won. And you flipped houses together for a long time. You made money. You learned many things. But it did not bring you closer together. It’s time to move past that, Zuri. It’s time to learn to live again.”

Her mom was right. After being married for almost ten years and then getting a divorce, she’d lost track of who she was. Her marriage had been her life. Then, when Edward got sick and he needed her, she’d done everything for him to know he wasn’t alone. She’d become the woman he wanted. That’s the biggest mistake she’d made. She’d become Edward’s wife and forgot who Zuri was.

When they grew so far apart it wasn’t worth it to stay together, she realized she needed to find herself again. How could she have forgotten the young, happy, carefree woman she used to be? She sighed and gave her mother a soft look. “I get what you’re trying to do. I really do, but this is crazy. A shifter mating gathering? Am I going to be the only human there?”

Sage sat up on the sofa. “So, you’re going?”

All the fear of being around shifters aside, she thought back to her old self. The Zuri that would look at this as a big adventure. She needed to get that girl in her life again. “Yeah. I’ll go.”

“Oh!” Mirabel squealed, her eyes filling with tears again. “This is going to be so awesome, honey. You’ll see. Even if you’re not someone’s mate, I bet the experience will be interesting. You’ve always said you wondered about shifters. They’re really nice men. With um…massive appetites.”

Isaline blinked. “Like for dessert?”

Zuri laughed. “Don’t be dense, Isaline. I think Mom means sex.”

Isaline rushed over and shoved more veggie chips in her mouth. “We’ll need to find you something to wear,” she mumbled between bites. “Oh my god. I’m so stressed for you. I need to find something else to eat.”

Zuri raised her brows. “What does me doing this have anything to do with you eating?”

Isaline rolled her eyes. “Hello-o-o, stress makes me hungry.”

Sage laughed and hopped to her feet. “Everything makes you hungry.” She pushed her rainbow-colored curls over her shoulder. “Come on. I think I have the dress for her.”

Oh, man. This was one of the things she worried about. Before she’d married, Zuri had been young with a perky body. But at thirty-nine, she was curvy, soft and what used to be perky wasn’t perky any more. Her hips were wider than in her twenties. Her belly was soft and rounded. She had rolls. Hell, even her ass had lost some of its firmness.

Even though she worked out regularly, she couldn’t stop time. That was another reason she’d been wary of meeting another man. A relationship that took years and didn’t work out would mean she’d be closer and closer to spending the rest of her life alone. “I’m not a spring chicken, Sage.”

Mirabel blew a raspberry and squeezed her arms. “Oh, please. You’re thirty-nine, not sixty-nine. Stop acting like life’s over. You need to find love and if that means making you look a little slutty, so be it.”

“Mom!” Zuri gasped.

“Go, Mom!” Isaline laughed. “I always knew you were a bit of a ho.”

“I was a hippie. What do you expect?”

“Mom, I’m not sure pimping out your daughter is the way to find her a man,” Sage told her mom as she went into her walk-in closet.

“Listen, I will have you know that it was me who got Harry and Jessie together. They’ve been married for ten years. And I just knew Lucy and Kevin were perfect for each other. Now, they just celebrated their fifth anniversary and have two gorgeous kids. If y’all listened to me more often, you’d have families and husbands, and I would finally have all the grandkids I keep asking for. But does anyone listen to me? No.” Mirabel hopped on Sage’s bed.

She ran her fingers over the colorful quit Sage had made. They all had one. Sage had amazing talent when it came to sewing and decoration. But being so shy, she had trouble meeting men. She still lived at home, even though she spent most of her time traveling to different locations to do interior decorating projects for big hotels.

Sage finally pulled out a long silver satin dress from her closet. “I made this for a client’s big hotel opening. I ended up wearing something else, so it’s still brand new.”

“Oooh,” Isaline gushed. “I haven’t seen that one before.”

Sage grinned at her sister. “That’s because if I had shown you, you’d have just taken it, and I was holding on to it for a special occasion. I spent a lot of sleepless nights making it and I kind of love it.”

Zuri bit her lip, insecurity alive and growing in her chest. “Are you sure about this, Sage? I mean, it’s very beautiful but I don’t know if it will look good on me.”

“Just put it on,” Mirabel yelled from the bed. “You can give it back after the party.”

Zuri scowled at her mother and took the dress from Sage’s hands. It was now or never. So maybe she would look sexier than she was used to, but at the end of the day, what’s the worst that could happen?