Silver Basilisk - Zoe Chant Page 0,89
Jen said.
“So, in fact, all the shifters in Playa del Encanto saw me nearly take a nose dive into the drink that day, am I right?”
Doris said, “Every shifter who came to the beach that day, yes. And from what I hear, word spread pret-ty fast.”
Bird looked away, but couldn’t hide her laughing eyes. Doris was obviously trying not to snicker, but Jen just grinned. “Godiva, you were a hero. The local shifter world saw you and Rigo being heroes. They now know you’re paired with one of the toughest shifters alive, which will be reassuring to the quiet, law-abiding ones like Mattie, and will give the bad ones second and third thoughts about trying to step into Cang’s place. You are notorious. Get used to it.”
“If notoriety means an end to the zombiepocalypse,” Godiva said, “I’m all for it.”
But it wasn’t the notoriety. It was how, in a handful of days, she’d gone from feeling herself so closed out she might as well leave, to being thoroughly, irrevocably a part of the shifter world.
She felt like she’d come home.
The thought made her throat tighten and her eyes sting. She blinked quickly, fighting it back—the last thing she wanted was to be sniveling and snorting in the middle of a celebration. She sensed Rigo’s concern, and threw a smile his way. He gave a tiny nod, and turned back to stacking used serving dishes. Godiva realized the pause had become a silence, and looked up, to meet an understanding gaze from Doris.
And Jen.
And Bird.
They knew. She knew they knew. They knew she knew they knew—and they also knew how much she hated getting maudlin, and because they understood, Doris said nothing, and Jen turned to Bird to ask if her agent had gotten back to her about the doll book.
Bird’s whole face brightened. “She loves it! It’s off to the editor.”
As they speculated about when the book might come out, Godiva let herself relish this moment of the four of them in balance again. She hadn’t begun to realize how important these three women were to her until the morning Doris and Bird had come to her house wanting only to hear the truth—and help if they possibly could. That, right there, was proof of a real bond. And she’d come very near to letting anger win, throwing it all away.
But she hadn’t. She’d won that battle. All of them had won their own particular private battles. And the reward? None of them had ever expected romance, not at their age, but romance had found them.
As the talk slipped along with all the old ease, Godiva glanced over at the other side of the patio, where Rigo moved about quietly and efficiently bringing food to the cooks and taking away the empty dishes again, so that Joey wouldn’t have to. It was clear that Rigo had organized plenty of big gatherings on his ranch, for he easily slipped into host mode, though this was his first visit to Joey and Doris’s place.
Once in a while Rigo glanced up, and when his eyes met hers, there was that golden glow between them, lighting her up inside exactly as it had when she was eighteen.
While Godiva, Jen, Doris, and Bird talked about writing, and the writing group, and food, and a hundred other subjects, Godiva listened in on what she could hear of the guys’ conversation. She reveled in how Rigo and Mikhail talked about Rigo taking half the silver dragon’s coastal reconnaissance flights. Then how Rigo and Nikos went over all the details of that aerial fight with Cang, complete with swooping hand gestures. And how Rigo quietly oversaw the cleanup, too, as the students packed up their leftovers and then departed in chattering groups.
Godiva flicked a look Joey’s way, to meet a sweet smile of complete comprehension. He knew what she had just realized . . .
The Gang of Four had become a Gang of Eight.
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Epilogue
The month passed with lightning speed.
One morning that first week, Alejo carried his phone outside and walked around showing Godiva what she could expect to see when she visited. She and Rigo did the same for him, walking all around Godiva’s garden, all the way down the back path to the beach.
After that, they fell into a new habit, the