Shifters of Silver Peak: A Very Shifty Christmas by Georgette St. Clair Page B

look sexy. “Second most beautiful,” she amended.
    She took a bite of the Danish and looked at it again. “First most beautiful,” she whispered to the pastry, sotto voce .
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you two think you had a hard time?” Nelda said irritably. “I had to go back to that dreadful shanty town twice to finish up the decorating, or they would have utterly botched it. I simply couldn’t sleep, thinking of what it would look like.” She glanced over at Arthur.
    “Arthur, don’t those people just have the worst decorating taste you ever saw?”
    Arthur was drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. “Yes, ma’am,” he said without looking up.
    Nelda resumed her diatribe. “It took us hours and hours to make decent decorations, and all those human ladies kept talking to me. And that Teddy child kept following me around and asking annoying questions. I had to give her food to make her go away. And then she’d come back for more food.”
    “It’s almost like she’s hungry or something,” Valerie observed drily.
    “Well, then why doesn’t her family take her to a restaurant, or have their chef fix her something?” Nelda said, looking annoyed. “I swear, these people have no practical decision-making skills. Are all humans like that? Why do they insist on living in such tiny houses? Why do they drive old cars that are always breaking down? And the food those so-called Benevolent Society ladies were serving them, if you could even call it food. What’s benevolent about hot dogs? I was so sick of their swill that I ordered catering for everyone, and you’ve never seen such dreadful table manners. Forget about knowing which fork to use; those people use one fork for their entire meal. For every dish.”
    At the other end of the table, CoraBelle and Hud looked up, appearing suitably shocked and scandalized. They exchanged a glance that spoke of their horror and disdain. One fork?
    Nelda glanced over at Arthur for support. “And to think, the humans call us animals.” She made a tsk ing sound. “They don’t even use finger bowls. Can you imagine?”
    He looked up from his newspaper. “No. Yes. What were you talking about?”
    “That must have been so hard for you.” Valerie said it with a straight face. Eileen kicked her under the table and snickered into her hand.
    “Thank you. I’m glad someone appreciates what I went through,” Nelda said with wounded dignity, pushing her chair back from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go plan tonight’s meal.”
    Morgan grabbed a blueberry muffin from the plate. “I’ll be upstairs in my office,” he said to nobody in particular, and headed upstairs without glancing back at Valerie. Valerie felt as if he’d been avoiding contact with her from the moment they’d walked back into the house. What was his problem, all of a sudden?
    Honoria glanced down at the other end of the table at the other pack members, and she stood up. Homer followed suit. “We’re going to go study,” she said to Valerie. “Glad you made it back in one piece.” She and Homer left the room, after shooting a look of dislike at the other pack members.
    CoraBelle fixed Valerie with an unwelcoming stare and bit savagely into a cherry Danish. The red oozing from her mouth looked like blood.
    “DeeDee, everything was delicious,” Valerie said. She grabbed a muffin and she and Eileen left the breakfast table and went into the living room. They settled onto a big brown leather sofa, facing a crackling fire in a flagstone fireplace. Like the rest of the house, the room was decorated with top-of-the-line furniture but no personal touches. Morgan had left most of the work to a decorator.
    Valerie looked around the room. There were hand-carved statues on the fireplace mantel. There should be family photos mixed in there, and childhood knick-knacks made by Homer and Honoria. Maybe some plants. The room needed some softness, some signs of life.
    Well, she wasn’t