Silver Basilisk (Silver Shifters 4)

As the talk slipped along with all the old ease, Godiva glanced over at the other side of the patio, where Rigo moved about quietly and efficiently bringing food to the cooks and taking away the empty dishes again, so that Joey wouldn’t have to. It was clear that Rigo had organized plenty of big gatherings on his ranch, for he easily slipped into host mode, though this was his first visit to Joey and Doris’s place.

Once in a while Rigo glanced up, and when his eyes met hers, there was that golden glow between them, lighting her up inside exactly as it had when she was eighteen.

While Godiva, Jen, Doris, and Bird talked about writing, and the writing group, and food, and a hundred other subjects, Godiva listened in on what she could hear of the guys’ conversation. She reveled in how Rigo and Mikhail talked about Rigo taking half the silver dragon’s coastal reconnaissance flights. Then how Rigo and Nikos went over all the details of that aerial fight with Cang, complete with swooping hand gestures. And how Rigo quietly oversaw the cleanup, too, as the students packed up their leftovers and then departed in chattering groups.

Godiva flicked a look Joey’s way, to meet a sweet smile of complete comprehension. He knew what she had just realized . . .

The Gang of Four had become a Gang of Eight.

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Epilogue

The month passed with lightning speed.

One morning that first week, Alejo carried his phone outside and walked around showing Godiva what she could expect to see when she visited. She and Rigo did the same for him, walking all around Godiva’s garden, all the way down the back path to the beach.

After that, they fell into a new habit, the breakfast call to Alejo as soon as Rigo returned from his morning flight.

Another new habit was Rigo joining the writing group. He said he loved hearing her read her pages, and seeing the audience reaction. She began to rely on him for gauging how successful a scene was.

She also found that it was 100% easier to sit through Bill Champlain’s pages when she could feel Rigo alternately boggling at Bill’s weird idea of what women were like, or his inner laughter when Wilhelm Stryker single-handedly mowed down yet another 3,784 gangsters/mob bosses/secret agents/terrorists.

After the second time he went with her, as they were driving home, she said, “Do you think I should tell Wendy about that horrible Cindy character in Bill’s book?”

Rigo looked pained. “That’s a tough one,” he said slowly. “It’s so petty and cruel. I guess I wouldn’t, unless she decides to come to the group. She deserves fair warning.”

“That’s what I thought,” Godiva said, relieved. “It’s too easy to picture how much it’s going to hurt her. It’s just so pointlessly mean. She’s still trying to shed the toxic residue of being married to Bill. I don’t want to knock her back down. And I’m afraid that will.”

“When I think about it, I want to boot his ass into next week,” Rigo said, low-voiced. “Wendy’s got a big heart. I learned that the first day I met her. And I get a kick out of that little chamaco of hers.”

Godiva grinned at the image of Wendy’s earnest little boy with his thick glasses and his days-long secret games out in the garden.

Relieved to find Rigo on the same page about Wendy—least said, soonest mended—she said, “So about the dresser question. We can easily fit another into that room.”

Rigo pulled into the garage, then turned to her, his face a silhouette. But she could feel his smile. “Just that bottom drawer is plenty. Really. When you open my closet in Kentucky, you’ll see that I don’t have much more there than I do here. I’ve always traveled light. Probably habit from years on the rodeo circuit.”

So Godiva gave in on the question of a dresser, but on her own she moved the stack of books out of her closet so that his

clothes—including his new tux, bought for Jen’s wedding—could hang there next to her things. She relished looking at them there.

As the days went by, she saw that he also didn’t need a study of his own. He liked prowling among her books. No surprise that their tastes aligned a lot, especially their shared love of wisecracking narrators in mystery novels. But best of all, he knew before she had to say anything that when her study door was shut, that was writing time. He respected that, and usually used that time to go running on the beach or to visit Mikhail, to spar together or just talk.

Mikhail, so silent, so austere and quiet, seemed to like Rigo’s brand of easy-goingness. Even Bird commented on the growing bond, confiding to Godiva that Mikhail didn’t make friends easily, as he was so used to years of solitary vigilance for that faraway empress.

Because of this friendship, Rigo frequently came back to Godiva with all the latest shifter news, which included whatever Mikhail could pass on from Guardian circles. For example, the lack of success in tracing the provenance of the handwritten charm book, which Doug Barth had stolen from another shifter—who (he said) had also thieved it.

The good news was, Cang’s organization had completely broken apart, probably as soon as Cang’s ashes stopped steaming. But not before Guardian agents nabbed a couple of Cang’s minions, in hopes of discovering who had been backing Cang. The minions didn’t seem to know that, but they did reveal that Cang had so distrusted everyone else, he’d kept the charms and how to prepare them totally to himself. So at least those were no longer a worry.

And so the days slipped into weeks, until the day of Jen’s wedding arrived.

Jen was definitely showing by now, looking splendid in a filmy, draped Greek thing that reminded Godiva of ancient statuary.

Jen paused to admire them. “I figured Rigo would look great in a tux. I was right. But Godiva, you look awesome in that haori.”