Free Breakwater: Custer (BBW Bad Boy Space Bear Shifter Romance) by Becca Fanning

because I don't recognize, like, any of them."

    "I met Dina a couple of years ago. We're just your regular, run-of-the-mill friends, I guess."

    "I saw you talking to her over there," Sam nodded to the spot where Dina was now nonchalantly watching them and sipping champagne. "Looked like you guys had good banter."

    "We do. Even if she's insisting that I find someone to spend the wedding weekend with," Lorne rolled her eyes, and he flashed a knowing grin her way.  

    "Yeah, Tom's pretty much been doing the same for me." He admitted. "Hey, you think that's the logic behind the wedding party?"

    "What, just getting all their single friends together?" Lorne laughed. "I wouldn't put it past them."

    "It seems like exactly the kind of shit they would do," he nodded, turning to her with a glint in his eye. "I bet they've been planning this for years, getting married is just secondary to pairing off all the single people they know."

    Lorne looked at him for a moment, incredulous, until she scanned her brain back over the guest list that Dina had given her all those months ago. Every member of the wedding party, and she had checked, because it had seemed strange to her at the time, was single.  

    "You know, you could be right," she nodded. "How do you know the rest of us were single, though?"

    "Oh, I know the other groomsmen," he waved his hand vaguely, apparently speaking without really giving much thought to his words. Lorne wrinkled her brow, this was the first she was hearing of this.

    "How do you know them?"

    "Um, squash team?" He offered up hopefully, as if Lorne would swallow his answer without question.  

    "Come on, you can tell me," she leaned in conspiratorially. "What is it?"  

    "Nothing that you should get burdened with," he looked away, his warm expression dropping away, as if he knew he'd said too much. Lorne was intrigued now, and she wasn't exactly the type to let someone brush her off like that.

    "Look, I've been burdened with putting together pretty much this entire wedding," she pointed out. "I'm pretty sure I can handle whatever it is that you're keeping from me."

    "It's just that Tom and Dina don't know," he looked at her seriously, and she leaned in closer.

    "Trust me, I'm good at keeping secrets." She kept her voice low, her interest piqued. "Now will you just tell me what the hell is going on?"

    "We're shifters," he shot back, and for a moment Lorne was knocked off-balance-which was not a feeling she tolerated with much joy. Then she took another look at him, the metallic flecks in his eyes, the wiry build, the solitude. Now that she thought about it, it seemed obvious.

    "Oh." She replied, taking a sip of her drink and thinking for a moment. "How does Tom not know that?"

    "We met through him. We sniffed each other out."

    "Literally?"

    "Yeah, pretty much," Sam grinned sheepishly, obviously used to a bigger reaction than the one he got.   "That doesn't bother you?"

    "The only thing that could bother me right now is the caterers getting stuck off the island or something," she raised her eyebrows at him. "Provided you're not planning a twenty-one groomsmen shift or something, I'm pretty sure we'll be okay."

    "Huh," Sam commented, running his finger round the rim of his glass.  

    "Not what you expected?"  

    "Most people tend to be at least a little rattled when I first tell them, you know?" He admitted.

    "Would you rather I fell to the floor in a dead faint and had to be revived with smelling salts?" She rolled her eyes. "You've been around for more than seventy years now. Meeting a…shifter, one of you, it's not the big deal it was."

    "Have you met one of us before?"  

    "Well, obviously I have, even if I didn't know it." she gestured to the other groomsmen dotted around the room. "So, what are you, a pack or a…herd or something?"

    That finally coaxed a smile out of Sam.  

    "We're a pack. We don't see each other often, but we take trips to go shift sometimes. We've only met up