Page 47 of Fire Dancer

“It’s just not possible to investigate all supernatural activity in every area, and unnecessary too. Just the activity that causes concern or harm.”

Like bear shifter scent in the vicinity of the dead woman at Gunnery Point?I wanted to yell.

“And it’s certainly not our mission to harass law-abiding citizens without reasonable suspicion. Operative word — reasonable,” Edwards emphasized. “So you will cease and desist from anything involving Jananovich, even remotely, starting yesterday. Is that clear?”

I kicked the chair opposite mine, and it skidded over the cool tile floor.

“I said, is that clear?” he growled over the phone.

“Yes, sir,” I forced myself to say.

* * *

I did some serious soul-searching — and chair-kicking — over the next few hours. But I didn’t truly calm down until about an hour into my visit to the glass shop that afternoon.

“Grab that and hold it still,” Pippa instructed, intent on her work. “A little higher…higher…right there.”

Minutes earlier, that mass had been a brown lump. Now, it was shaping up to be a beautiful wineglass.

“Higher,” she prompted, her brow knitted into parallel furrows.

I was making good on my promise to pay her back for her time, though she’d been reluctant to accept. But she wascrunched for time — or better put,desperate, considering the pace she worked at — so she’d agreed.

Even so, I found the work calming. Or maybe that came from working beside Pippa and inhaling her sweet, soothing scent.

Nothing like being home,my father liked to say, slowly settling down after days away with his job — one dominated by gritty, life-and-death days in the middle of a burning forest.

He would come home, shower, eat, and settle down, keeping my mother close likeshewas home, and that would calm him right down.

Home,my wolf sighed when Pippa’s leg bumped mine.

“Hold it there,” Pippa murmured.

My leg or the glass? I decided to keep both where they were.

Apparently, the owner of Sedona Glass let Pippa work on her own projects when she was finished any outstanding orders — like now. That meant she had a window of opportunity to work on her entry for a glass contest with a $25,000 prize. Which sounded like a long shot, but with Pippa, you never knew.

That window was short, though — a single afternoon — because she’d previously committed to help a friend with a catering job later on. Typical Pippa — helping a friend even when her ranch was in serious jeopardy.

So, time was at a premium. I did my best to help, though it didn’t feel like much.

“Closer…” Pippa murmured. A drop of sweat fell from her forehead.

Outside, people were bundled in warm jackets. In the hot shop, I was down to a T-shirt and sweating up a storm, even with the back door propped open and a fan blasting. Moist fabric clung to my skin, and salt stung my eyes.

“Get me that pad, please,” she asked.

When I did, our hands brushed, and my wolf side hummed.

“Okay. I’m going to tap the glass here so it breaks from the stem, and I need you to catch it. Ready?”

I pulled on oven mitts that would fit an elephant — if an elephant needed oven mitts — and waited.

“On three,” Pippa said.

I held out my hands, sweating buckets, and not just from the heat. Pippa had spent ages on that wineglass. If I dropped it now…

I swear, I would have been less anxious if I’d had to catch a premature baby.