Was it getting hard to breathe? No, Myka stood in the cool, fresh air, October in Austin dry and fine.

Jordan squirmed in her arms and pointed at Spike. “That’s my dad.” He said it proudly, no fear. “Did you know I had a dad?”

“He stays with me,” Spike said. His tone was flat, no argument welcome.

“How’s he doing?” Myka asked.

Instead of answering, Spike looked her over, running his gaze from her unmanageable hair to the pointed toes of her cowboy boots. Myka had put on a form-hugging tank top under a button-down shirt when she’d left the house, then thrown off the shirt when she drove over here, the day plenty warm under the sunshine.

Spike didn’t pretend not to look—he ran his dark gaze from her neckline to where the fabric clung to her waist. Myka held Jordan a little closer, a shield from Spike’s unnerving scrutiny.

“He’s fine,” Spike said, answering her question. His hard gaze broke a moment, as though he wanted to say something more, then he shut up.

Jordan squirmed to get down. Myka let him with some reluctance. Jordan ran back to the porch, jumped up on the swing, and started swinging as hard as he could. The chains creaked, but the porch swing held. The look on Spike’s face as he turned to watch his son was such a mixture of worry, protectiveness, and terror that it stopped Myka in her tracks.

“I came to tell you that Jillian’s funeral is Saturday,” she said into the silence between them. “Sharon—Jillian’s mom—thought you might like to come.”

Spike glanced at her. “Best I don’t.”

True. A Shifter showing up at a funeral with all Jillian’s family might cause some problems.

“Jordan shouldn’t go either,” Spike said. “He wouldn’t understand.”

Here Myka had to disagree. “He should be able say good-bye to his mother.”

“We’ll say good-bye. But in the Shifter way. Human funerals are depressing. You bury your people in the ground. Or shove them into a fire. That’s just weird.”

“Not much alternative, is there?”

“Jordan will give her to the Goddess, with me.”

Myka hadn’t been religious since she’d moved in with her stepfather at age ten, but she knew that Shifters followed some form of paganism no one really understood, though many documentaries had been made. Some of the churches around town had tried time and again to convert them, but had never made a dent.

“Come to the ritual,” Spike said.

“What?” Myka blinked out of her thoughts.

“Come to the ritual with us. Say good-bye to her our way.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Spike turned fully back to Myka, resting his hands on his hips, right above his waistband. “I have to go. I don’t want to, but I don’t have a choice, and I can’t take him with me. Not to this.”

“Have to go where?” Here it came.

“Shifter business. My job.” He hesitated, giving Myka the once-over again. “My grandma can’t watch him by herself. She’s not use to kids, and . . .”

Myka waited, wondering where the and led, but Spike shut his mouth again.

“Are you asking me to watch him?” Myka asked.

“Can you?”

Now he was pleading. The bad-ass warrior, who’d defeated a giant bear, for crap’s sake, was asking her, near-fear in his eyes, to watch over a four-year-old so he could do . . . whatever he had to do.

“What is this Shifter business?” she asked.

Spike’s brows drew down. “You’re nosy.”

“Jordan’s the son of my best friend, and she died last night. So, yeah, I’m all kinds of nosy. I used to ride horses tougher than you, so don’t think I’m afraid of you.”

He just stared at her, like a lion might stare at a roach who’d made the same declaration. “Does that mean you’ll stay?”

“You didn’t answer my question about what kind of work you do.”

“Errands. I’m an errand boy.”

“Yeah?” Myka looked him up and down, from all those bulging muscles to his buzzed hair and his wicked-dark eyes. “What kind of errands?”

“Anything I’m told to do. And that’s all you get. Stay?”

Myka had planned to already, but she made a show of conceding. “Yes.”

“Yay!” Jordan yelled from the porch. “My new great-grandma made me pancakes. Want some pancakes, Aunt Myka?”

“Pancakes? Give him a sugar high, why don’t you?”

Spike looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “Pancakes are good for him. He needs energy. He’s a Shifter.”

Myka raised her hands. Now was not the time to debate. “Just go do your thing. I’ll watch him.”

Spike gave her a nod, half of thanks, half of exasperation. He turned around without another word and loped back up to the porch. Gracefully. He moved with amazing precision.

He opened the screen door. Jordan hopped down from the swing and dashed inside before Spike could grab him, the kid shouting for Spike’s grandmother.

Spike glanced back at Myka, still holding open the door. “Well? Aren’t you coming in?”

Myka hurried up to the porch. Just before she reached the door, Spike moved ahead of her and walked into the house, the screen gently swinging shut in Myka’s face. What the hell?

Spike turned around impatiently and yanked the screen door open again. “I said, aren’t you coming in?”

“I was, but you cut me off.”

Spike scowled down at her. He was close enough that she could smell the warmth of him, the male musk, the faint sweet of syrup from his pancakes.

“You think I’m stupid enough to let a female enter someplace ahead of me? Without me checking it out first?”

“It’s your own house.”

Spike kept staring at her, then he shook his head. “Goddess, I’m going to have to help Jordan unlearn all kinds of stupid shit.”

Chapter Six

Spike rode down to San Antonio with Ellison, a wolf Shifter who’d decided to embrace Texas all the way, though he’d been transplanted here from Colorado twenty or so years ago. Ellison wore jeans, a big belt buckle, roach-killer cowboy boots, and a big cowboy hat. He wasn’t born with his Texas drawl, but he’d sure adopted it.