Timber Valley Pack: Lynx On The Loose( A Paranormal Romance With Shifters) Read Online Free PDF Page B

squawk.
    “You heard me. There’s a McDonald’s up ahead. I am not buying you lunch until you clean up.”
    “McDonald’s!” Sally cheered, grabbed the pack of wet wipes, and began scrubbing at her face.
    “Why should we clean up?” Thomas’s voice had taken on a sullen whine.
    “Because I said so,” Isadora said, and then remembered how much she hated it when her mother said that. “And also because it helps you fit in, which helps keep you safe and also makes it easier to spy on people.”
    “What do you mean?” Now Thomas was intrigued rather than sullen.
    “When people look on you as an outsider, they don’t let you get close to them, and they’re watching you all the time, expecting the worst from you. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. So when you want to blend in and not attract any attention, you have to look like them and act like them. If you look dirty, wear dirty clothes and smell bad, shifters think you’re a Hobo, and humans think you’re trailer trash. Either way, you’ve just made it so everybody is watching you all the time.”
    “That’s true,” Thomas said thoughtfully. He grabbed a wipe and began scrubbing. “Sometimes I need to kind of, you know, borrow a new laptop so I can get online, and it’s hard because security guards are always watching me. And Sally and me can’t go into any human towns or cities too much, because sometimes humans want to call welfare services on us.”
    “That’s because they think you’re homeless.  I’ll buy you both some new clothes today,” Isadora said. “I passed a clothing store a few miles back. Trust me, you’ll feel like a new man.”

Chapter Four
                  The Mosswood’s three story colonial style home loomed high, bigger than all the other houses in their subdivision.  It was far more house than they needed for themselves and their daughter Diana, who still lived with them. Dash suspected it was meant to make a statement to all the other homes in their ritzy neighborhood, and the statement went something like “We’re richer than you. Suck it.” Except it would be phrased in much more elegant terms.
    As Dash and Warden Redthorne walked up the driveway, he was careful not to tread on the perfectly manicured lawn.  The hedges were trimmed so precisely they looked as if they were made of plastic.   He was tempted to touch one and see if they were.
                  It was impossible to imagine the free-spirited Isadora growing up in this big, imposing house.
                  He’d been asked to come along because he’d had so many dealings with Isadora in the past couple of years that for some reason Redthorne seemed to think he might have special insight into her. 
    After they entered the mudroom and scraped their shoes across the rough carpet, a maid led them into a living room with a vaulted ceiling.
                  The man and woman who sat on the couch resembled Isadora physically.  Dash could see where Isadora got her large green eyes, her small nose, her pale skin, the tilt of her eyebrows. The resemblance ended there.
                  He’d never seen Isadora without a mischievous gleam in her eyes. The woman sitting on the couch shared none of Isadora’s wicked sense of fun; she had a pinched expression of disapproval, and the man with her was scowling and angry. The Chief Elder of the Council Pride, a lion shifter named Hartley Blazetail, sat on a nearby chair. He was an older man in his seventies, with silver hair and a stern demeanor.  The Mosswoods were trying to send a message, obviously: We’re well connected, don’t mess with us.
                  “Mr. and Mrs. Mosswood, thank you for agreeing to see us.” Warden Redthorne inclined his head politely. “Any information that you could give us about Isadora would be most helpful.”
                  They managed pained smiles, which vanished