odds with her previous experiences with men who were too attractive for their own good. Those guys had all moved through the world in a bubble of unconscious arrogance, sublimely confident that whatever they wanted would be handed to them on a silver platter.
Bob piped up. "You're not going to believe this, but that leopard is helping us! It—she—is pushing the kids on their floats to the other side of the lake. She told us that we'd be safe there."
"She's a jaguar, not a leopard," Mr. Hotness said. Then his brows rose. "Wait, she's helping you?"
Maggie glanced at the line of waiting children. No time to waste. If Mr. Hotness and Camper Bob wanted to talk, fine. She couldn't afford to waste any more time ferrying the next batch of kids to safety.
Maggie slid past Mr. Hotness and padded over to the waiting kids.
Another firefighter intercepted her. This guy was big and brawny and bearded, with shoulders a mile wide. He also seemed oddly familiar, though it was hard to tell with the helmet and goggles he was wearing.
To Maggie's astonishment, he leaned forward and took a deep sniff.
"Holy shi—uh, sugar," he exclaimed, with a rueful glance at the gaggle of waiting kids. In a much lower voice, he continued, "Maggie? Maggie Ornelas? What the heck are you doing here?"
He knows me! Maggie's hackles rose in alarm, the skin of her upper back prickling as her thick pelt lifted and stood on end there. Who the hell is he?
Until today, she'd been extremely careful to hide her true nature. Outside of her family and hometown, there were only a handful of people who knew that Maggie was a shifter.
And none of them were strange Anglos who looked like giant football players. And yet…he didn't feel like a stranger.
Then the unpredictable wind shifted, and Maggie caught a trace of the firefighter's scent through the choking stench of smoke. And the mystery resolved.
Thor? Thor Swanson?
He was one of the bear shifters who had been her family's neighbors in Bearpaw Ridge. She'd heard that he was now working as a professional firefighter in Colorado, but she never dreamed that she'd actually run into him.
She nodded.
"Friend of yours?" asked Mr. Hotness.
Thor grins. "Yeah, we go way back." He looked at Maggie. "You need help."
It wasn't a question. She nodded again.
In his bear shape, Thor was at least twice as big as her jaguar. Hell, he was nearly twice her size in his human shape. She remembered that he was a strong swimmer too.
He'll probably be able to take some kids on his back while he's pushing a float. Relief flooded through her. Maybe we'll be able to save everyone, after all.
Thor faced the kids and their adult camp leaders. "So, um, we can help get the rest of you across the lake. But you have to promise—"
"—that we won't tell anyone?" one of the remaining kids finished for him.
Thor's expression of surprise was almost comical.
"Because you have superhero powers!" declared a little girl confidently.
The big firefighter grinned down at them. "You got it, sweetie. Me and these other firefighters want to help you. We're all friendly, even if we look pretty scary once we've changed shape."
The little girl nodded.
Maggie watched incredulously as all seven firefighters put down their tools and other gear and rapidly began stripping down.
They're shifters? All of them? How the heck did that happen?
Compared to the vast number of Ordinaries crowding the planet, shifters were rare. Away from Bearpaw Ridge and her family's gatherings, it was rare to encounter more than one or two shifters at a time.
While the newcomers were undressing, they chatted with the campers, a move that Maggie recognized from her long-ago firefighter training as a technique to help keep everyone calm.
She already knew Thor, but the other firefighters were all strangers. The two women introduced themselves as Kara Latrans and Felicia Concolor. A big Asian-American guy identified himself as Mike Nakano, the leanly muscular blond surfer dude was Josh Sterling, the Black firefighter was Ken Anderson, and Mr. Hotness turned out to be named Steve Lopez.
"Help is on the way," Ken announced as he shed a red t-shirt emblazoned with a circular logo featuring a pair of wings.
Like Thor and Mike, Ken was a big guy, with the bearing of an ex-military man.
Maggie wondered what kind of shifter he would turn out to be. She hoped that his beast-shape was something that could swim, and large enough to ferry at least two kids across the lake.