Werewolves of Forever 06 - Wild Lust

sorry.”
    Charlie jerked her head up. “For what?”
    “For telling you to get lost yesterday.” Shannon’s gaze locked onto hers.
    “I don’t blame you. I’m sorry, too.”
    “Yeah, well, I was kind of upset when you shot Daniel. For the second time.”
    Charlie bit her lower lip and tried not to laugh. “Yeah. Although this time I didn’t actually mean to shoot him. Things just got out of hand. He must really hate me.”
    Shannon shook her head and chuckled. “You’re not his favorite person right now.” She narrowed her eyes. “Good thing he’s a werewolf, or he’d be dead.”
    Charlie swallowed hard. She’d wanted to ease into the dreaded conversation, but Shannon had taken the direct approach. She eased forward to sit on the edge of the couch and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Shannon, how can you do it? How can you live with them? You know what they are. Please, please come home with me. Let me take you back to Boston.”
    Even as she said the words, she felt a pain rip into her heart. Could she leave and never see Blane and Reese again? But didn’t she have an obligation to keep her sister safe?
    “Why?”
    “Why?” Charlie gaped at her. “I just told you why.”
    Shannon stood and walked over to the front window. She pressed her palm to the glass as though wanting to touch her lovers before turning back to Charlie. “Do you remember our father telling us how to tell the difference between a bad deal and a good one?”
    “Of course I do. But what has that to do with anything?”
    “He said to listen to your gut. If you felt like the deal was going south or would cost too much, you’d feel it in your gut. It’s about the only sound piece of advice he ever gave us.”
    Charlie could see her father, sitting behind the massive mahogany desk, refusing to listen to their pleas for him to play with them. She remembered the one day when he’d brought all three daughters into his home office and told them how business worked. She hadn’t paid much attention to his talk about dollars and percentages, but she remembered him talking about his gut. He’d followed his gut all the way into growing a successful worldwide corporation.
    “Too bad his gut never told him to pay more attention to his children and his wife.”
    “How do you know it didn’t? Maybe he just refused to listen to it.”
    Charlie noted the way her sister stood. She seemed more confident, more secure in herself and…content. “I still don’t see what this has to do with you living with a couple of monsters.”
    Anger flashed in her sister’s eyes. “They’re not monsters. They’re good, honest, hardworking men who love me with all their hearts. And I love them back with all of mine.”
    “How? How can you love someone who changes into an animal?” She winced as she said the word “animal,” recalling Reese’s definitions of a real animal. Could he be right? Could being a man be more than what he looked like on the outside?
    “I don’t know if you can understand this, Charlie, but, when I first met them, I felt a connection, a bond between us. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. But that connection was deep inside me. It took me a while to recognize it for what it was.”
    Charlie dragged in a slow breath. “It’s a link between the three of you. Like a cord that’s been tied to you and to them. An incredibly powerful, invisible cord that can never be broken.”
    Shannon tilted her head, reminding Charlie of the way Blane and Reese sometimes looked at her. “That’s right. It’s like that gut feeling our father told us about, but even better. You’ve felt it, haven’t you?”
    Charlie couldn’t find enough air to drag into her lungs. Was Shannon bonded to Daniel and Anderson? Did Shannon feel the same way about her men that she felt about Reese and Blane? But it had to be different since they were werewolves. The only thing she could do was nod.
    Shannon came to her, knelt at her feet, and took her hands. “You understand, don’t you?”
    Charlie shook her head, taking her hands out of her sister’s grip. “It’s different. Your men are werewolves. Blane and Reese…they’re human through and through.”
    Her sister opened her mouth to speak then shut it. Charlie’s heart pounded against her chest as though looking for a way out. She wanted to ask Shannon what she’d started to say, but her courage died.
    “I want you to do something for me, big sis.”
    Shannon hadn’t