She’d been angry, her daughter had told me, that Adam had insisted on moving all the way out to Finley instead of building in one of the more prestigious neighborhoods in West Richland or Kennewick. He’d given her free rein in the house to make up for the fact that he’d wanted the house next to my trailer because Bran, who ruled all the weres in this part of the world, had told him to keep an eye on me. In addition to ruling hundreds and maybe thousands of werewolves, Bran had been the Alpha of the pack my foster father, Bryan, had belonged to. That had occasionally left Bran with delusions that he had a right to interfere with my life long after I’d left Montana and his pack behind.

Christy was shorter than me by a couple of inches, about the same size as Jesse. The body in the blouse and peasant skirt was softly curved, but not fat. Her hair, brown when I’d last seen her, was now blond-streaked and French-braided in a thick rope that hung to her hips.

“Could you find some paper towels, Jesse?” she asked without turning around. “They’ve been moved, and I have bacon ready to come out of the frying pan.”

I opened the cabinet that held the paper towels exactly where she probably had put them on the day she first moved in. I hadn’t changed the organization of the kitchen. Too many people were already using it, so it made more sense for me to learn where everything was than for me to reorganize it to my tastes.

So Christy’s kitchen was exactly as she’d left it—still hers in spirit if not in truth. Her presence in my kitchen felt like an invasion in a fashion that the Gray Lord who’d been here in the wee hours of the night had not, despite his intentions.

Christy knew I wasn’t Jesse, I could smell her tension—which was sort of cheating, so I didn’t call her on it. Also, accusing her of lying right off the bat didn’t seem like a good way to make peace with her.

“Paper towels,” I said as peaceably as I could manage, setting them down on the counter beside the stove.

She turned to look at me, and I saw her face.

“Holy Hannah,” I said before she could say anything, distracted entirely from my territorial irritation. “Tell me you shot him or hit him with a two-by-four.” She didn’t just have a shiner. Half her face was black with that greenish brown around the edges that told you it hadn’t happened in the last twenty-four hours.

She gave me a half smile, probably the half that didn’t hurt. “Would a frying pan be okay? Not as effective as a baseball bat, but it was hot.”