Starlight Web (Moonshadow Bay #1) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,25

together. I don’t know what—if anything—will come of it, but she’s good for me, I think.” Ari gave a little shrug. “If you had told me in high school that I’d end up dating the head cheerleader, I would have laughed you out of town.”

I snorted. Ari had known she was gay from the time she was born. I hadn’t thought twice about it when we became friends. I wasn’t averse to the idea of a relationship with a woman, but it wasn’t my first inclination. On the Kinsey scale, I was probably 75 percent hetero, 25 percent bi-curious. I had never been involved with another woman, but I hadn’t ruled it out.

“I’m happy that you’ve found someone…even if she’s a ‘kind of’ girlfriend. But Meagan…I still can’t get over that. What did her family say when she came out?”

“They weren’t happy, I’ll tell you that,” Ari answered, handing me another box of ornaments. “You’re going to need twice as many ornaments as we’ve got for this tree, you know.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Next year I’ll add those my parents owned. I’ll pick up a few more this weekend, as well. But this is a good start.” I paused, turning to gaze out the window. It was snowing again, very lightly, and the reflection of the tree lights gave the room a warm, fuzzy glow. I closed my eyes for a moment, missing my mother.

We miss you too, a voice whispered, and I jumped. “Did you hear that?”

Ari nodded. “Yes, it sounded like…”

“Like my mother.” I paused and walked out into the center of the room. “Is anybody here?”

A light breeze gusted past me, a puff of air softly shifting my hair. Don’t fret.

“I think my mom’s here,” I said. At that moment, the lights flickered, then burned steady again. I leaned against the wall, staring at the tree. In that one moment, I went from feeling out of place to feeling like I belonged here. As everything slowly settled, I couldn’t help but smile. Even though my parents had crossed over the Veil, they were still here to let me know they were glad I had come home again.

Chapter Six

The next morning, I woke with a smile on my face. My first day of work was ahead of me, the house was decorated, I had a beautiful tree to come home to, and I finally felt like I was settling in. I slipped on a robe and loosely tied it—I slept in the nude—and after slipping my feet into a pair of fluffy slippers, I headed down to the kitchen to fix breakfast. I had no sooner than entered the room when I noticed a movement in the backyard. A dog was racing around. A very large dog that looked suspiciously like a wolf. What the hell?

I set down the espresso filter, cinched my robe tighter, and headed out the kitchen door onto the enclosed back porch, then opened the screen door and cautiously navigated down the snow-covered steps.

“Hey, pooch…you, doggy! What are you doing in my yard?” I frowned, wondering where the dog had come from. He was gorgeous—and now that I got closer, I saw that he was, indeed, a gray wolf. I froze. Was he wild? Was he somebody’s pet?

The wolf was bouncing around after something in the snow and I saw that he was chasing a mouse. Feeling suddenly protective, I yelled again and waded through the ankle-deep snow toward them.

The wolf stopped in his tracks, staring at me.

“You leave that little mouse alone! You don’t look hungry!” And he didn’t. He looked like he was just playing with the mouse.

“Back off, buster.” I was so focused that I hadn’t noticed that I was shivering. The next moment, the wolf cocked his head, staring at me for a moment. Uh oh, I hoped he wasn’t going to head my way next. “Nice doggy, good doggy…just please get out of my yard, Fluffy.”

The wolf let out an odd noise, then bounded back toward the fence, toward Killian’s lawn. He took the fence in one leap and vanished behind the wooden planks that formed the four-foot-high barrier. The mouse gazed up at me, wriggling its nose, then burrowed its way back into the snow and headed toward the tree line.

A little bewildered over what had just gone down and incredibly cold, I turned and headed back inside. My slippers were soaked, and as I closed the door behind me, I glanced down. The ties on my