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long.”
     
    Blue Moon County was located on the border of The Panther Nation, a huge section of Florida forest and swampland that was inhabited only by a small, close-knit tribe of Native American shape shifters.  It was strictly forbidden for anyone who didn’t belong to the Panther Nation to venture on to the property unless invited by the panthers, and they had resolutely refused to allow any archeologists on their land.
     
    Some of them interacted with the outside world, operating stores, bars, farm stands, and a casino on the edge of their territory; some were more reclusive and never left their land.
     
    “Well, they’ll be out of there in a few weeks, right?” Ginger said.
     
    “If they last that long. I’ve got a bad feeling about it. I’ve been stepping up patrols, doing everything that I can to keep the peace out there.” The sheriff frowned as he dug into his pie.
     

Chapter Five
    Ginger stood next to a cabinet in the file room, putting away case files and pretending not to eavesdrop. 
     
    The sheriff was engaged in a heated argument with an attractive sheriff’s deputy named Portia Sinclair. Portia was a reed thin woman with shining, waist length black hair, an adorable little turned up nose, and a sulky mouth.
     
    P ortia had glanced up at Ginger and the sheriff when they walked in the door, and stiffened in her seat. Another member of the sheriff’s fan club, Ginger thought. And clearly she didn’t like Ginger. 
     
    She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she was sure it involved her. 
     
    Well, eavesdropping was the town’s national past-time, wasn’t it?  Time to join in.
     
    S he ducked behind a stack of boxes and partially shifted.  The bones of her face shifted and stretched, her ears lengthened, and all of her senses, including her hearing, instantly grew sharper.
     
    “-you have to throw them in my face like this all the time?” Portia’s angry voice growled across the room.
     
    “Portia, I never wanted you to join the sheriff’s department.  You went over my head and got yourself hired after I asked you not to,  so you don’t get to complain that you don’t like seeing me with other women. She’s our guest, and I damn sure expect you to be civil to her, or I’ll move you to the night shift at the North County substation.”
     
    Portia let out a low growl of anger, and then Ginger heard the sheriff’s footsteps heading her way.  She quickly shifted back to her human form.
     
    What were they even talking about?  Why would Portia feel threatened by her? Portia was beautiful. And Ginger was only here for two weeks.
     
    She walked out of the room and nearly ran right into Loch. He stepped back with a grin, and she quickly folded her arms over her chest as her nipples sprang to attention.
     
    “Everything going okay with the filing?” he asked.
     
    “Absolutely! Is…is me being here causing you problems?”
     
    “Not at all.  I did have a couple of questions about your abilities. The ones your Alpha mentioned to me.”
     
    Ginger made a face, although she tried to stifle it. “Sure. Ask away.”
     
    “If it’s something that you’d rather not talk about, I don’t have a problem with that.”
     
    “No, no, not at all. That’s not it. It’s just another thing that makes me stand out, and not necessarily in a good way.”
     
    He looked at her quizzically.
     
    “You know,” she said, gesturing at herself.  “This figure. The only werewolves who are, shall we say, fuller figured, are the ones who are half-breeds. So we’re pretty rare. And then when I was little, before I could control my powers, I’d talk to people that only I could see.  My mother had me tested and it turned out that I wasn’t actually crazy, that I was communicating with the recently deceased, but people still look at you funny when you carry on one-sided conversations. It took me until I was in my teens to learn to shut it out unless I was actively seeking to