Kitty sighed but nodded. “Your eyes. Right. Got it.”
She looked into those deep, golden eyes, until she felt her vision waver. Then suddenly she realized it wasn’t her vision at all, and her eyes opened wide as Bart began to change. He dropped to all fours, and his form warped until instead of a man, she faced a very large black bear across the room.
Kitty was on the verge of screaming, but she clamped her jaws against it when she shifted her vision back to those golden eyes. They were the bear’s eyes, but somehow they were still Bartholomew Saint’s eyes, too, and she trembled with this new, previously never-suspected version of reality.
“Oh, my God…”
The bear/Bart took a step toward her, and Kitty came halfway out of her seat, before she forced herself to sit back down.
“If that’s really you, Bart, I’d really appreciate it if you’d sit down.”
She could have sworn the bear was laughing at her when he plopped his backside down on the floor.
She let out a shuddering breath. “Okay. Okay. I guess you’ve made your point.”
The bear seemed to waver, then, his form morphing into something longer, taller, and thinner, and then Bart was suddenly standing there before her once more.
He took two steps forward, sat on the coffee table, and reached for her hands.
“Breathe, darlin’,” he admonished her as he gave her hands a squeeze.
Kitty took a very deep breath then managed to look up to meet his eyes once more.
“I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it, Kitty.”
“It’s the eyes, right?”
“They’re one tell,” he said. “At least, all the people I know who are Shifters have golden eyes.”
“Shifters?” she asked, trying the word on for size.
“That’s what we’re called,” Bart said.
Kitty thought about that for a moment, then tensed. “Addy! She has golden eyes, too!”
Bart nodded slowly. “Addy’s a Shifter, though her animal is a mountain lion.”
“Oh, God.”
Bart smiled. “Don’t give her too hard a time about it, Kitty. Addy grew up without anyone else in the family to show her what to do, on account of her father dyin’ when she was only two. Talking to her Granny, it seems like there isn’t anyone else in her clan, so she was pretty mixed up, until Granny sent one of her songs in, and Mark went out to find her.”
“How…how many…?”
“How many of us are there?”
Kitty nodded.
“I have no idea. In our family, it’s pretty common. My pappy, grandpappy, oldest brother—that’s the boys’ pa—and me, a couple of cousins. Havin’ so many in one family might be unusual. As I said, Addy’s the only one left in her family—that we know about, anyway, since they’re not as close a family as the Saints are. There are others, I know, but I’m thinkin’ most Shifters stay away from the cities, so you probably don’t run into them very often. We’ve met only one other in Nashville, since we moved here. He’s a lieutenant in the Nashville Police Department.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. Comes in handy, too, if somethin’ comes up, and we need somebody to cover for us.”
“What ‘something’?” she asked sharply, wondering if she really wanted to know.
“Well, like this past spring, when I was walkin’ the girls back to Mel’s car after dark one night, and there were these three drunks who wanted a piece of ’em.”
“Oh, my God. Was anyone hurt?”
“Well, none of us were—Addy and I handled them just fine—but I called our friend at the police station to tell him what happened to the three men after we left ‘em unconscious. Accordin’ to our friend, they never did remember what happened, which was good for us.”
Kitty could only shake her head. She ran her hand through her hair and sat back on the couch. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here having this conversation with you.”
Bart smiled and moved to sit next to her. “I told you it wasn’t somethin’ to talk about in your office or in a restaurant.”
“Yes, you did, didn’t you?”
“I’m hopin’ you now understand why the boys can’t play the Grand Ole Opry. I mean, that place holds what, a couple thousand people?”
“Forty-four-hundred.”
“Geeze. I’m sorry, darlin’ but you gotta see that there’s just no way: forty-four hundred people, balconies, all those lights, and whatever else the management might dream up for a concert? There’s just no way. One of the boys would Shift for sure in that mess.”
Kitty turned her head and studied him for a time then sighed. “Yes. I see.”
She sat forward, her elbow on her knees, and rubbed at her temples. “My father won’t, but that’s okay. I’m sure I can find another job someplace else.”
“What are you talkin’ about? Are you sayin’ he’s threatened to fire you over this?”
Kitty nodded and shook back her hair. She felt strangely free, with her long hair now loose and curling every which way. “Don’t worry. I’ll manage.”