Page 3 of How I Met My Mate

His mouth quirks. “We eat regular food. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Unless it’s a full moon.”

I look at him suspiciously. Is he mocking me? I can’t tell.

He stops at one of the booths that has a sample section, and grabs a cracker that he holds out to me. It has a gleaming dollop of something pinkish on it.

“What is it?”

“Peach jam.”

I scoop a bit onto a cracker and pop it in my mouth — and moan aloud as the sweet, tart taste floods my mouth. “Oh my God.”

He grins at me. “Would you and the cracker like some time alone together?”

I swallow the cracker and meet his gaze defiantly. “Maybe. This is the most satisfied I’ve been in quite a while.” Then my cheeks instantly redden.

He stares at me, his gaze seizing mine and holding it prisoner. “Sounds like a challenge.” His voice is a low sexy rumble.

Well, I totally brought that on myself.

“Anyway!” I quickly hand over a ten dollar bill to the woman who’s selling the peach jam. “One jar of your incredibly delicious jam, please.”

“Well, thank you, aren’t you sweet!” She beams with appreciation as she puts a jar in a brown paper bag and hands it to me.

We resume walking.

As we walk, I take in the sights of the Moonstone farmer’s market — and it’s similar to a human farmer’s market, but not completely.

A booth manned by burly guys in flannel features venison jerky with a sign that says Locally Hunted. A couple of women with unnervingly bright golden eyes are arranging wildflowers in mason jars, and I swear one of them just sniffed the air in my direction. There’s laughter, the scent of cinnamon and woodsmoke — and an undercurrent of something sharp and wild that makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

“Are all three packs at the farmers’ market?” I ask. Cedar Run is home to three packs, the Moonstone Pack, the Shadowpine Pack and the Frostbane Pack. The town’s population is about 8,000. Some of the shifters live in town, a lot of them live on their respective pack’s properties.

Cole nods. “Yep. Every week.”

“And all three packs get along together?”

“Sure do,” he says cheerfully, after the tiniest micro-second of hesitation. I file that away for future reference.

I pass a jewelry booth and a young girl, maybe nine, steps out and walks up to me. She’s wearing a white flower print dress with a swirly hem. She stands on her tiptoes and solemnly places a daisy crown on my head. It matches the one on her own.

“Now you can be a princess,” she announces.

My heart melts. Lane told me that the shifter children are adorable, and she’s not wrong. “Thank you, it’s beautiful! How much?” I ask.

“It’s a gift.” She curtsies and dances back behind the booth. Oh, my heart.

“You said you wanted coffee. There’s a coffee truck down there,” Cole points at a truck at the end of the farmer’s market.

“Would it be all right if I took some pictures first?” I ask. “It’ll be so great to show people that shifter towns are just like human towns.”

And everyone will get used to seeing me with my camera out. It will look like I’m just shooting fun pictures of people and scenery, but I’ll already have my camera out if I spot anything suspicious. My boss, the owner of the Blakesville Beacon, has told me to keep my eye out for anything that might be going on “behind the scenes”, as he puts it, but he wouldn’t tell me what.

“Just let me know if anything strikes you as off,” he urged me. “You have good instincts.”

“Take all the pictures you want,” Cole smiles. “We’re all about the human-shifter relations.”