Alpha's Moon (Shifter Ops 1)

That’s what I’ll do, I decide as I get in my car to drive home that night. I’ll lure him out and seduce him. Or something. Enough of this sitting around. I’m all in on Operation Deke.

I just have to figure out how to do it.

Normally, I’d call up my girlfriends and get them to come over for wine and a brainstorming session, but they’re super busy right now. Adele is taking more catering jobs to cover the slow season at the chocolate shop, and Tabitha is helping her. Charlie is busy too, with some secret project she’s not telling any of us about. Besides, they’re not entirely pro-Deke. They’re firmly pro-Sadie and seem to think I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to him. I get it—I haven’t made the best choices when it comes to men. They don’t want me to get bulldozed by a domineering man again.

Deke isn’t like that. He’s strong, but he doesn’t bulldoze me. Besides, he’s not even interested or available for a relationship. He can be my wild fling.

I’ve never had a wild fling.

I’ve never been wild. And Deke definitely makes me feel wild. In the most wonderful way.

I get home, kick off my ballet flats and rub my hands together. I’m about to call Deke when I see I’ve missed a call, and I’ve got a voicemail.

My heart sinks. It’s from my father. “Sadie, we need to talk.”

Thirty minutes later, I pull into the parking lot of the uptight restaurant my father likes. I didn’t have time to dress up as I know my father would like, but I changed into a fancier cardigan and ballet flats. My battle dress. Too bad I can’t roll up in a tank and wear a suit of armor. Not that my father can’t pierce those sorts of shields. I square my shoulders and march inside.

My father’s already seated at a table right in the center of the restaurant, where everyone can see him. He’s town councilman and prides himself on knowing everyone “worth knowing,” as he’d put it.

He introduced me to Scott.

“Darling,” he says as I dutifully cross to him and bend down to give his cheek a kiss. “I took the liberty of ordering already.” He gestures for me to sit.

“Great.” I’ll have to pick at whatever he ordered for me. Last time it was freshwater trout and a salad of mostly arugula. I hate fish and a little arugula goes a long way.

I look longingly at my wine glass but shake my head when the waiter offers a drink menu. I’m a total lightweight. Besides, I only drink in public with people I absolutely trust not to mock me, like my girl posse. When I was out with Scott, I ordered a lot of cranberry juice with club soda. With my father, I don’t bother with a mocktail. He’ll drink enough for the both of us.

My father is commonly a handsome man, with silver tinsel in his hair. He’s tan and fit from golf at the country club and skiing in the winter. He’s already getting a few appreciative looks from two forty or fifty-something ladies with yoga tight bodies and Botox tight faces. They keep glancing over at him, and he pretends not to notice, but I know he does. He perfected the art of hiding his wandering eye back when he was married to my mother. Now it’s a habit of his to pretend to be oblivious to other women’s attention, at least in public.

Another similarity he shares with Scott.

I clear my throat. “You said you wanted to speak to me?”

“I did.” We’re both absorbed in separate tasks, me placing my napkin on my lap and him inspecting his whiskey glass. We’ve yet to really make eye contact. All part of our regular farce of a father-daughter dinner. “How was work?”

“Wonderful.” He doesn’t care about my teaching career, so I skip telling the latest stories about the moments this week when my students were particularly cute. He doesn’t deserve them. “How’s yours?”

He launches into some city council story, and I nod and murmur at the correct places like a dutiful daughter. Another thing Scott had in common with my father. All their stories revolved around work or golf but mainly them being Very Important. That and their stories seem to get longer and more boring each time.

About twenty minutes into the story, my father clears his throat. “That’s the project Scott proposed, by the way,” he says, seemingly casually, but he makes eye contact with me for the first time. “Have you seen him?”

“Who?” I am busy making a big show of cutting into my trout. Poor dead fish, sacrificed to this dreadful dinner. I wish I could go back in time and toss it back into its mountain stream. Then one of us would be free.