They’d seen her off at the airport with happy faces and truly good wishes that this gig might be the break she needed to really launch her career. She was blessed to have such understanding parents. She’d expected pushback. She’d expected them to at least question her sanity in throwing away a steady income for something that was so uncertain, but she’d been wrong. She should have known better. Her mother had explained their position and that they’d noticed her unhappiness, working in the restaurant, day after day, year after year.
Her mother and father knew her better than she knew herself, at times. They’d given her the job when she’d given up on acting and had nowhere else to turn. Now, they were setting her free to fly again, to see if she could reach that faraway dream. The one sure thing in her life—the thing that gave her the strength to try—was knowing that they would be there to catch her, should she fall again.
A tear in her eye as she thought of her mother, Katrina picked up the phone. It wasn’t too late. Her mother would probably be free to chat as the evening crowd started to depart. She called the restaurant, and her mother answered the phone.
“Kitty, sweetheart! How was your first day?” Her mother’s warm voice brought more tears to her eye, but she didn’t let them fall.
Katrina had called her parents from the airport after her plane landed, just to let them know she’d made it to her destination safely, but now that she’d met the others, she had more to report. They spoke for a half-hour, Katrina filling her mother in on the people she’d met and her impressions of everyone. She glossed over her meeting with Ren. Somehow, she wasn’t really ready to share her impressions of her co-star, yet. Instead, she talked about the dinner out with the girls and the food they’d eaten.
Her mother was at work, so she didn’t pry too much, and Katrina hung up with a promise to call again in a day or two. Her parents wanted frequent reports on how things were going, but they also wanted to give her room to spread her wings and really fly this time. It was really touching how much their love and support meant to Katrina, sitting in her little hotel room, almost a thousand miles away.
She went back to her planning with a much lighter heart and worked quietly for another hour before she caught herself yawning. She had an early call the next morning, so she set the alarm to wake her in good time, laid out her clothes and toiletries so they’d be ready, and went to bed.
Ren felt restless after dinner with some of his Clanmates. He’d heard through the grapevine that Franny and Deidre had taken Kat out to dinner, to get to know her a bit better. The women of the Clan were checking out the newcomer. Making friends but also assessing any possible threat.
Surprisingly, both Franny and little Dee had been charmed by the human. They’d learned a bit about her background, and they genuinely liked her quiet demeanor. Franny and Dee had joined the rest of the shifters for an after-hours meeting in Ren’s suite when they returned from dinner and had given their report.
Then, talk had turned more general. Each of them had made assessments of the other previously unknown members of the crew that they’d met, and everyone seemed content that the shifters would be okay on this particular film set, as long as they were circumspect. Ren was relieved to hear it, though, of course, with a fey in charge, he’d expected no less. Sonia had been very particular with her casting. It was one of the requirements for Ren and his Clanmates’ participation in this project.
The crowd left by dribs and drabs until, finally, Ren was alone in his hotel suite. He should sleep. He had an early call in the morning, when his work on the film would begin in earnest. He went to bed, but he was troubled by a brown-haired, brown-eyed woman who haunted his dreams. He wasn’t sure if she was warning him or teasing him, but either way, he woke troubled in the middle of the night.
There was only one thing that would settle him enough to sleep. Ren padded barefoot and naked to the balcony of his suite. It was only on the second floor of the hotel. An easy distance for him to leap in either of his forms. He shifted form as soon as he closed the sliding glass door behind himself and leapt off the balcony, landing lightly on the grass below.
He would go for a run in the nearby woods. Maybe he’d stalk something. That would settle his cat and let him sleep. He hoped.
Chapter Four
Something woke Katrina in the middle of the night. She got up and went into the bathroom, then came back out and, thinking ahead, opened the curtains so that, in a few hours, the morning sun would help her wake up. The night was black as pitch outside her window, but for the softly glowing lamps dotted here and there in the landscaping that illuminated small patches around the base of the building.
She was about to turn back to her bed when she saw something moving out there, in the darkness. It seemed to turn, and she gasped when she caught sight of two eerie, glowing eyes. They blinked slowly then turned away again. It was definitely something like a cat. A really big cat.
Her neighbor’s tabby had that same way of slow-blinking, and its eyes were just as luminescent. The creature—whatever it was—moved, and she saw the gleam of dull gold here and there in the darkness, spotted with irregular black dots. Like a leopard? A jaguar? Some kind of exotic cat that didn’t belong in this part of the world?
She blinked hard, scrunching her eyes up and then reopened them. Whatever it had been was gone in the shadows of the woodland that bordered this back side of the hotel. If there had actually been something there. For all she knew, she was seeing things. A mirage conjured up by the late hour, the dark night and the strange environment.
It had probably been somebody’s house cat, on the prowl for mice, after all. She’d just imagined the size and the spots. Had to be. With a confused yawn, Katrina turned back to her bed and lay down. She still had an early call in the morning, and staying awake when she should be sleeping was not part of her plan.
Putting thoughts of wild cats out of her mind, she closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. She was still physically tired from all the travel and excitement the day before, so that helped. As she drifted off, though, her mind turned back to those strangely glowing eyes…
The next morning, Katrina did her best to put the dream images of big spotted cats running through the forest out of her mind as she got dressed after her shower. She was still yawning a bit when she knocked on the door of the hotel suite that had been designated for props and makeup. Franny answered the door, looking all too awake.
“Sorry,” Katrina said as she yawned again. “I’m used to a much later schedule. The restaurant closes after midnight on the weekends, and I never have to be at work before noon. I’m still adjusting.”
“No problem,” Franny said absently as she sorted through the little containers of makeup she’d selected to try on Katrina. “I’m usually a night owl, myself, when I’m not working. It just takes a day or two for your body to adjust to getting up earlier. You’ll get there.”
“In time to start shooting, I hope,” Katrina mumbled, but Franny apparently heard her and chuckled in reply.
They spent the next hour going over makeup choices with Franny trying various things on Katrina’s face. Sonia arrived toward the end of the hour, and both women spent quite a bit of time staring at Katrina’s face, which was a bit unnerving.