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rumpled oversized t-shirt that was all she wore. Dark brows arched high above sharply angled features.
    “Aye, that’s what I expected,” he drawled in the deep, slightly burred voice that had always made her feel at once protected and threatened.
    “Business took less time than I anticipated.”
    Jenny nodded dumbly. She had counted on his being out of town for another two days. It was why she’d arranged for last night to happen. She could have chanced it with him still at home, but it had seemed so much safer to take advantage of his absence. Even a witch with her talents had a hard time pulling the wool over the eyes of a selkie.
    “I-I guess so.” Her voiced sounded weak in her own ears. The lady only knew how it sounded to Richard.
    He hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his faded denim jeans, and Jenny could see his broad swimmer’s shoulders flexing beneath his heavy Arran sweater. “I thought you’d be pleased to have me back in time to help with the wedding fuss.”
    She was. She would have been. Except for one small detail.
    Jenny saw Richard’s eyes shift from her to the shadowed doorway behind her and watched as they went from the warm color of sealskin to the frozen hue of tundra soil.
    “Patrick.”
    Jenny felt a hand on her shoulder attempting to ease her out of the way, but she planted her feet and refused to budge. She didn’t need her old friend and former lover to defend her from her fiancé, for the Lady’s sake.
    Patrick MacLennan slung his shirt over one bare shoulder and gave Richard a cool nod accompanied by a smile with an unhelpfully taunting edge. “Maccus. Fancy seeing you here.”
    Jenny rolled her eyes. Richard and Patrick were both locals and had known each other their entire lives. Once upon a time, the two men had been the best of friends. Half of their childhoods had been spent running together along the cliffs and tiny hidden beach on Richard’s family estate. The camaraderie of childhood, however, had died a quick death when Jenny had turned eighteen and she and Patrick had become lovers.
    But for pity’s sake, it had been more than seven years since any romantic or physical relationship had existed between her and Patrick. You’d think Richard would have gotten over it by now.
    “Do you mind telling me what you’re doing standing half-naked in my woman’s doorway less than half an hour after dawn, MacLennan?”
    Jenny sighed. Apparently he hadn’t.
    “Richard, we—”
    Patrick held up a hand to cut her off. “You and Jenny might be engaged,” he said, he voice carrying a distinct edge, “but that doesn’t make her you possession. If she wants you to know her personal business, I’m certain she’ll tell you of it. Until then, it’s not my place to carry tales.”
    A flash of rage lit Richard’s dark eyes, and Jenny stifled a groan. She hated the rift that had appeared in the two men’s relationship. They had been so close, once upon a time, and she couldn’t understand why neither of them seemed willing to heal the breach. Her affair with Patrick had ended ages ago, and she and Richard had forged the sort of bond that even eternity would never erode. Jenny knew that in her heart, just as she knew that any romantic attachment Patrick had once felt for her had long ago evolved into a much more brotherly sort of affection.
    So why in the name of all the gods did the two of them keep scraping at each other around her, as if they were a couple of mongrel dogs and she an abandoned soup bone?
    “I want you to stay away from her,” Richard snarled, a predatory sound Jenny had never heard from him before. The power of a selkie came from magic, after all, not from the sort of brute power of other shapeshifters. “This is your final warning. If I catch you putting one hand on her ever again, I will rip it off and use it to dig your grave at the bottom of the sea. Do I make myself clear?”
    “As uisge beatha .”
    It took all of Jenny’s willpower not to