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in silence. She runs over his brief notes in her mind again. No details, just quick sketches, he told her. She feels as though she is memorizing stuff for a Green Card interview – as though he is French or something and they are trying hard to mount a show for the immigration officials to keep him in the country.
    More important is his resume, which she was forced to memorize last night. But she has to admit he has an impressive resume for someone so young. Has he really put together twenty-eight commercials? If so, he must be a working machine, and if those keyboard-tapping nights are anything to go by, she can well believe it. And she loved that last Revlon ad with the foxy shifter theme. Was that really him who came up with the idea?
    After a while, they come up to a sign saying: BRIXFORTH.
    “Thank God.” He is visibly relieved.
    She supposes he is holding back more than she imagined. He can’t want to be late when first appearances are everything. As someone who has absolutely no corporate or social ladder to climb, she can’t identify with what he is going through. But she can certainly admire it. She has always admired men who single-mindedly go after what they want.
    Jake doesn’t get lost this time because Brixforth consists of a main street and little else. It is an upscale beach community, pretty much like the Hamptons. The stores sell gourmet meats and gourmet breads. There are cafes and wine stores and designer beachwear. Brixforth mostly hosts real estate. Painfully expensive real estate.
    On one side is the beach, stretching as far as the eye can see. The Atlantic Ocean laps against the coarse sand in surprisingly gentle waves, because Brixforth is protected from the trade winds by some climactic quirk of fate. On the other side is green forest.
    Terry can understand why Jake’s potential new boss chose this place as a summer retreat. It is ideal for shifters, especially with the expanse of forest as a cover. Very rich shifters, that is.
    “Do you know where the house is? ” she says.
    “Yeah, I’ve only been t here, like, six times. Chill, will you? I can find it,” he says irritably, tapping the screen of his mounted Garmin.
    She backs off, wondering if he is just going to be as irritable all weekend.
    To Jake’s (and the Garmin’s) credit, he does find the house. Only it is not just a house. It is a veritable mansion. It is a beachfront property, but its grounds are considerable, with a nice thicket of forest surrounding it. The ‘mansion’ is a haphazard, modern day structure with lots of outcroppings and wings – very much like a fairytale chocolate house. There are no gates or fences. Brixforth is as safe a community as safe can be, and anyway, no one would want to tangle with a shifter millionaire.
    Jake steers his Ford down a drive, which leads to a circular parking lot. Plenty of cars are already parked there. In a special shaded parking bay probably reserved for the family, Terry notices a Porsche, two Ferraris, a BMW X5 and a McLaren.
    They park . Since no one is around in the parking lot, Jake hauls both their weekend bags out of his booth.
    “I can carry my own bag,” she says, making a grab for it, but he dances it out of reach.
    “You’re my wife,” he retorts. “No wife of mine is going to carry anything heavier than her purse when I’m around.”
    He marches to the front door with both their bags, leaving her in chagrin. Jake is still very much a shifter male at heart, she reckons.
    He looks back at her.
    “You coming, sweetie?” he says loudly. “Or do you want me to carry you across the threshold?”
    She is not sure he is entirely kidding or if he is doing this for the benefit of anyone within earshot.
    The door opens before either of them has a chance to ring the bell, which is in the shape of a wolf’s head with its jaws gaping open. A redheaded woman, slightly on the plump side, stands there, smiling from ear to ear.
    “Welcome, welcome!” she cries, holding