Silver Fox Read online

  Godiva sat back. “That sounds more like the sort of guy Mikhail would be friends with. I can’t pretend that I know Mikhail well. He’s quiet, but he seems like a Knight of the Round Table. Can’t imagine him hanging out with a douchecanoe.”

  Doris sensed that they were testing their memory of whatever they’d seen on Bird’s terrace. Time to shift the subject. “Look, I’ve got a new crisis. I just got about a hundred messages about my much-married niece, who apparently has just found Number Four. I could forget that during the wedding, but after, well, there it all was.”

  Which was true—if she didn’t mention the order things happened in.

  She couldn’t express why she was so reluctant to admit to what had really happened. These women were true friends. They wouldn’t pry until she felt like every aspect of her lay under a microscope for the entire family to discuss endlessly, and then escalate into drama.

  And yet . . . and yet . . .

  She could not bring herself to admit that she alone of the four of them had no experience whatsoever with romance. Even Bird’s first, horrible marriage had at least given her a couple of kids. Whenever the other three talked about their experiences with love, bad or good, Doris had always let them assume that she had a past. To admit that she didn’t have one was humiliating. She knew they would accept it, and her, but she was certain the knowledge would always divide her from them.

  “Family!” Godiva gave a snort. “In other words, business as usual. Though I don’t envy you having to wrangle with your ongoing family telenovela, I’m glad it was only that. I really liked the looks of that Joey Hu.”

  “So did I,” Jen said quietly.

  Godiva went on enthusiastically, “He’s not as . . . imposing as Bird’s Mikhail. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bird tried to tell us he was King Arthur in a past life, or something.”

  Jen turned her thumb up, so much like the old Jen Doris had been afraid was gone forever. She hoped this was a sign that Jen was maybe coming out from under the fog of grief.

  “ . . .but Joey is easy on the eyes in a different way.” Aaaaand they were right back to Joey as Godiva added, “After hearing about him so long, it was nice to finally to get an eyeful. And a mighty fine specimen of eye-candy, I hafta say!”

  Doris got up. “Anyone want me to brew more tea?”

  “Nah.” Godiva rose. “Since you’re okay—that is, back to the usual family drama, episode two-hundred fifty—may as well call it a night.”

  Jen went out to unlock her car. Godiva lingered, peering up at Doris with that unwavering gaze. “Whatever shut you down. You sure it wasn’t Joey?”

  “Nothing to do with him,” Doris lied.

  “Righty-oh, then,” Godiva said. “Catcha on the flip side.”

  It was the first time Doris had ever lied right to someone’s face. She felt like a worm as she shut the door and then leaned against it. All the self-protective reasons flitted through her mind: it was her business, no one else’s. People would talk, and she was already at her limit there.

  She marched into the kitchen and began hand-washing the cups. As she handled the old porcelain, she made herself imagine generations of women, young and old, using these cups over lifetimes, dreaming of the past, maybe wondering about their future.

  And then the image of Joey Hu was back, complete with the spark of sunlight in her body and mind. She sighed as she dried the dancing fox cup and set it on its shelf. The most likely explanation was that whatever those feelings were that Joey had set off in her were a one-time deal, probably caused by all the wedding vibes.

  All the more reason to make that wedding her last. She’d done her wedding duty. In her young days she’d served as the smiling bridesmaid for her sister, her cousins, her college roommate. Then she’d stepped into the background as the smiling aunt to various brides, including all three of Nicola’s turns under the wedding canopy. In recent years she’d stepped even farther back, serving as the smiling elder at the synagogue, whose help with all the last minute details made the day a good one for the wedding parties—after which Doris returned to her quiet, empty house.

  She’d definitely done her time.

  Doris looked around her spotless kitchen, not thinking about Joey Hu. She refused to think about Joey Hu. She needed to keep her mind busy with something useful so she would not think about Joey Hu.

  Maybe she needed a new project. Yes. Her cooking for singles books were still earning royalties. They would never make her rich, but she had never expected them to. After all, if you were writing books for people who had to watch their pennies, you didn’t charge a fortune for them.

  Her eye snagged on the teacups. What about a book of fancy cooking for one? Surely she was not the only one who loved drinking out of porcelain as if she were a princess in a palace, instead of Doris Lebowitz, spinster, living in a fifties tract house with funky plumbing?

  Her eye rested on her fading fox teacup. What about historical cooking for one? The sort of tried-and-true recipes cooked by generations of ordinary people who didn’t have artisanal grocery stores nearby, or a houseful of servants to do the cooking? There were a few of those recipes in her own family.

  If she got cracking, she might even have a recipe or two to try out on the writers’ group on Friday, the highlight of her social life . . .

  And she would be so busy, she wouldn’t be thinking about blond men in elegant black coats whose eyes seemed to glow gold.

  FOUR

  JOEY

  All week long, Doris’s image burned steadily in Joey’s mind as he dealt with university business and helped his students. As usual, people who had troubles involving love gravitated to him. There was a feline shifter struggling to understand her mate’s canine pack, students trying to figure out if their crushes were reciprocated, a human couple needing help in figuring out the best way to present their case to her very traditional family in Singapore. Normally Joey loved helping young lovers, but this week, each new couple only reminded him of his own romantic woes.

  He had to get Doris to talk to him. But how?

  Maybe he could go to one of the places Doris went. Somewhere public, so she didn’t feel trapped, but not so public that there was no chance of exchanging a few words.

  Then he remembered a conversation with Mikhail, not long after the dragon knight met Bird. Mikhail had told him that Bird attended a writers’ group. Doris was a writer, Joey thought, and she was friends with Bird. Surely Doris also went to the group; it only made sense. What had Mikhail said it was called? Something literary. He searched his memory. Baker Street? He looked that up online and found them mentioned on the town’s Facebook group. They met on Fridays.

  We will see our mate there! his fox declared, pleased.

  Joey leaned back in his chair. What to wear? Such an important occasion could not be taken lightly—

  The door to his office crashed open, shattering his train of thought, and two young people burst in. “Uncle, uncle!” one of them cried.

  “It’s customary to knock, Vanessa,” Joey said, swiveling his chair around.

  “Sorry,” the young wolf shifter said, abashed.

  Her twin Vic was with her, of course; the two were rarely apart. One side of Joey’s family were fox shifters in China, the other were wolf shifters in the Pacific Northwest, and both sides occasionally sent him troubled youngsters to straighten out. Vic and Vanessa were the latest. They were good kids, not troublemakers so much as restless young people who wanted to see something outside the pack before they settled down. Joey’s ranch house at the very edge of town, opening into the wild inland areas of Southern California, suited them to a T.

  “Who’s our new houseguest?” Vic asked eagerly.

  “A very handsome houseguest!” Vanessa put in.

  “When were you going to tell us?”

  “He’s from China, isn’t he?”

  “Do you have a new mission from the Empress?”

  “One at a time,” Joey said, amused. His new
“houseguest”, a Chinese qilin shifter named Xi Yong, had arrived the night before from China, carrying (as the twins had guessed) Imperial orders from the dragon empress. “You two were out hunting all night, and asleep when I left this morning. I’d have told you otherwise. I hope you haven’t been harassing poor Xi Yong.”

  “When were you going to tell us?”

  “Why is he here?”

  “What’s the mission?”

  “Can we help?”

  Joey briefly considered trying to keep them out of it, but he’d found out in the past how well that worked. “Close the door,” he told Vanessa, who quickly obeyed. “I’m on assignment to help hunt down a renegade dragon.”

  The twins uttered whoops of excitement, which Joey uselessly tried to hush.

  “When do we start?”

  Joey held up a warning hand. “His name is Fu Cang Long, and he’s extremely dangerous. He nearly killed Mikhail Long—a very formidable dragon knight, and a friend of mine.”

  “They’re both named Long?” Vanessa asked. “Are they related?”

  “No. ‘Long’ just means ‘dragon.’ In China, our names reflect our animal. Hu means fox. Joey is an Americanization of jiu wei, which means nine tails—”

  “Back to Fu Cang,” Vanessa said eagerly. “Where do we start the hunt?”

  “Since you two are all over the neighborhood in your shift forms at all hours anyway,” Joey said dryly, “you may as well start looking for his scent. I’ll bring you something to smell from his abandoned house.” The twins looked delighted at the prospect of adventure. “And I can’t caution you enough, if you find any fresh trails, or anything at all, come straight to me. Do not begin the hunt until I can go with you.”

  Their eyes flicked up, and he knew that at least a couple of his seven tails had flashed in and out of visibility.

  “Got it, Uncle,” they both said.

  Joey saw them out. He hoped that he wasn’t making a mistake. Still, if he hadn’t told them, they would only have found out anyway, and at least this way he could keep an eye on them.

  But he wished this mission hadn’t come along at this particular time. One could not refuse an Imperial order. Normally, he would have been glad to serve the Celestial Empress. But now, he had a mate to worry about. The last thing he wanted was to attract danger to Doris.

  He considered whether it might be better to stay away from her.

  But I haven’t found anything yet, he reasoned. After being defeated at Mikhail’s hands, Cang had fled the town and environs. Neither Joey nor Mikhail had seen any sign of him lately. It was likely that Joey’s hunt for Cang would take him far from Playa del Encanto, and therefore far from Doris, for an unknown length of time.

  All the more reason, therefore, to make good use of the time he had left.

  On Friday night, Joey dressed more carefully than he had since leaving the imperial palace, rejecting item after item as too fancy or too casual. He tried to see himself through Doris’s eyes, but failed. What would she like? What would impress her with his worthiness as a mate?

  He arrived at the bakery in plenty of time. Make that too early. A quick glance showed the back room to be empty. He retreated to his car to sit and wait in the dark, laughing at himself for what he recognized ruefully as the behavior of a callow youth. Well, what of it? He was experienced in many ways, but not when it came to his own mate. Love was his specialty, but only when it concerned others. Now that it was his own turn, he felt as lost as any of the people he’d helped in the past.

  The writers began to arrive. He recognized Godiva’s white braid and small form. There was tall Jen. And then his breath caught when he saw Doris’s short salt-and-pepper hair and confident stride as she emerged through the bakery’s open door, from darkness into slanting golden light.

  She wore pants and a tunic top that only hinted at her figure. But he could see the shapes and shadows of soft curves. He made himself look away, lest she feel his gaze and be made uncomfortable.

  Now that she was here, it was time to join the gathering. His heart thudded against his ribs as he walked toward the bakery door.

  Our mate! yipped his fox. Go to her, sniff her all over—

  And guarantee she thinks we’re a creeper, Joey retorted. Humans do not sniff each other when they’ve just met!

  A jingling and clacking indicated someone approaching. The noise turned out to belong to a small woman with a cloud of blond frizz whose neck and arms were invisible beneath an enormous number of bracelets. “Hel-lo. I’m Cassandra—one of the old stalwarts. Are you new to the workshop?”

  He put on his university professor smile as the woman approached. “I am.”

  Mikhail and Bird came up hand in hand. “Joey,” Bird exclaimed with pleasure. “What a wonderful surprise.”

  Cassandra’s tinkly voice sharpened to one of those humorless giggles that in some people were a nervous habit, and in others were a social weapon. “Oh, Bird! You know our newcomer?”

  “Yes,” Bird said. “Joey is a friend of Mikhail’s from the university . . .”

  Joey didn’t hear what she said next—his awareness was bent on that far room. Doris was there! He could feel her presence like sunrise just beyond the rim of the world. Forcing himself not to go search for her, he politely stood aside so the others could go in first.

  Once they were all in, Bird turned his way. “Joey, you remember Godiva, Jen, and Doris?”

  Joey let the smile come at last. He turned, and there she was!

  “We meet again,” he managed, knowing it sounded like a clumsy pickup line. But it was better than blurting what he wanted to, which was I’m yours. Come and live with me forever!

  He was aware of Godiva and Jen saying something, but he didn’t get the sense of it: his attention was solely on Doris.

  She gave him a polite smile, her gaze sliding away as she said, “Very nice to see you again.” But her neutral tone was belied by the pulse ticking in the soft curve of her throat.

  She is pushing us away, the fox yapped, Go to her!

  Inside Joey, his fox leaped in a frantic circle, stopping only to make inviting play-bows, all nine tails flourishing in the air. Feeling a little dizzy from the intensity, Joey dropped into a random chair.

  Godiva was addressing him. “ . . . good to see more male types turning up. What kind of things do you write?”

  Joey’s throat had gone dry. He used all his self-control not to turn Doris’s way as he said, “I’m more of an oral storyteller. But a number of the students I counsel are creative people of one sort or another. I thought I’d check this workshop out, as an alternative to all-student groups at the university.”

  Cassandra walked between them, bracelets clicking. “Oh, you’ve come to the right place! Those of us with experience do love to mentor our younger writers—”

  “Specifically the professionals among us,” cut in a newcomer.

  The women fell silent at the heavy tread of a paunchy blond man wearing a fedora. He bellied into their personal space, swinging a briefcase in a wide circle, forcing a thin college-aged fellow to duck.

  “Careful with that thing, Bill,” Godiva said sharply. “You nearly decapitated Tomas.”

  The student dropped into a chair as if to hide, beaded dreadlocks curtaining his face.

  “Ha, ha.” Bill also wielded the humorless laugh as a social weapon.

  He made a business of selecting a chair, then plunked down the briefcase and began rooting noisily in it. His parade of importance smothered the sounds Joey was far more interested in. His fox’s ear had pricked up as Doris spoke to the aproned woman setting out baked goods and coffee.

  “Hi, Linette,” Doris said. “Can I help you with that?”

  Linette’s answer was lost beneath what Joey recognized as a Nuclear Holocaust ringtone that he didn’t think anyone over nineteen used.

  Bill yanked out his cellphone and barked into it, “I’m at my meeting, Mindy! Your little plumbing problems in a house I no lo
nger live in can damn well wait. I have obligations here.”

  Bill chucked the phone into his briefcase and addressed the room. “You’re lucky. None of you are forced to deal with selfish, grasping ex-wives like Mindy! Well. Shall we get started?”

  Bird had told him that Doris was the group’s current moderator.

  Doris opened her mouth, but Cassandra forestalled her with one of those machine-gun giggles. “I’d just like to remind everybody that it has been a year. It’s time to pick a new moderator, though Doris has been wonderful—”

  Bill sat back, elbows out at an aggressive angle. “My suggestion is, we confine the moderator to the professionals—”

  Cassandra cut him off, dropping the coy giggle. “My idea is, we give our young people a chance—while offering them mentoring, of course. Tomas, here, would be perfect.”

  Tomas sat bolt upright, radiating the introvert’s agony at suddenly being thrust into the limelight, and shook his head frantically.

  “But I’d be right here to help you,” Cassandra cooed as she leaned over him, necklaces jingling. “I’ve been leading groups for years.”

  Joey’s gaze caught on Linette, still standing by the coffee. She looked wistful. Joey caught Mikhail’s eye and flicked a look toward Linette.

  Like the battle-hardened knight he was, Mikhail leaped into action. He said in his sonorous voice, “I nominate Linette, who kindly hosts these gatherings.”

  Cassandra shot a glance across the room. “I nominate Bill. Such a natural leader.”

  Linette sat down, raising her hand as she did so. With a generous smile, she said, “I nominate Cassandra.”

  Cassandra smirked and rattled her bracelets as she sat back, leaving poor Tomas alone at last.

  “That gives us three candidates,” Doris said briskly. “Write down your votes, and slip them in here before you leave.” She held up a manila envelope. “Now, we have a full group tonight, so let’s get right to it.”

  Doris called on a tiny, wizened woman who looked like a bird hoping for crumbs. “Feni, why don’t you start us off tonight?”