weekend, and the animal species she’d seen. Before long, Connor came to pick Lauren up. He’d been catching up with a few of the guys. Kristin looked at him with envy. He was just as good looking as Logan, and obviously a really nice, gentle guy, despite his huge bulk. Could she really dare to believe that there was a shifter out there who was perfect for her too?
Dina, Logan and Kristin stayed up for a while longer, and Logan kept topping up Kristin’s glass. She was glad for it. Thinking about dating made her nervous. She’d been single now for more than a year, after her last relationship had ended in disaster when she’d caught her boyfriend cheating on her. With a tiny, skinny girl. Putting herself out there again brought her insecurities rushing to the surface.
At last Dina started yawning.
“I’m off to bed, guys,” she said, pulling herself up from the sofa.
“I think I’m done for the night too,” Logan said. “I’ve got to do fire drills with the boys tomorrow morning.” They hugged Kristin goodnight, and brought her a pillow and a blanket. She was asleep in seconds.
Chapter Three
It took Kristin a few moments to work out where she was when she woke up. She was staring up at wooden rafters, instead of her white painted ceiling. There was a sweet smell of wood and nature in the air, and all she could hear was birdsong. Her head felt fuzzy. She reached down, picked up the glass of water that Logan had thoughtfully put out for her, and drank it all in one go. As she sat up, she registered that she had a slight headache. “ Too much whisky ,” she muttered to herself. She looked at the time on her phone and groaned. She had five hours to clear her head before basketball that afternoon. Absently, she unlocked the phone to check for new messages, and her eyes immediately zoomed in on the little orange app, with the playful, heart-shaped paw print. She tapped it. There were a ton of new messages from wolves, wanting to find out if they were a match, and right at the top were the messages from the tiger and the bad-boy wolf from last night. Her thumb hovered over the wolf. Waking up by herself, knowing that Dina was snuggled up with Logan next door and Lauren was with Connor a few cabins away made her feel lonely and empty. She clicked on the wolf’s message. It was just the standard alert, with the happy face and sad face icons. It wouldn’t hurt to exchange a few messages and find out whether the app was wrong about their compatibility. She tapped the happy face icon. Then she gazed at the thumbnail photo of the tiger. She couldn’t see his striking face or his muscular torso very well in the tiny image. She had an overwhelming urge to click on it and look at his profile again. But if she did that, she’d leave another track. And he’d know that what she’d written last night was bullshit. Sighing, she closed the app. She’d leave the messages from the other guys for when she was more awake.
There was no sound coming from the rest of the cabin. Dina and Logan were most likely still sleeping. Her stomach was growling: she needed breakfast. Gathering up her things, she tiptoed out of the cabin. She closed the door behind her, and looked around, disoriented. Ok, we walked towards the cabins from that direction last, night, I’m pretty sure , she thought, and began walking through a dense wood, with a narrow track lightly marked out.
Kristin exhaled in relief as the track led her out to the road, and her car. Although it was early, the fall sun was bright, and she enjoyed the drive home, partly through forest and rolling hills. That was one of the best things about living in a small town – you were never too far from green spaces.
As she turned into her street, her phone made a weird radar sound, and she jumped. What the hell was that? She drove to her driveway, parked, and picked it up. There was a message alert on the screen, bordered with hearts, stars and little orange paw