Leland walked into the dining room and placed a plate with a sandwich, potato chips, and a pickle spear beside her. She looked up at him with a smile.

"Thank you," she said, her stomach starting to grumble at the sight of food. She glanced down at her watch, realizing she had forgotten the time.

"This is going to hit the spot," she said, lifting her sandwich to her lips to take her first bite.

"I had it made fresh at the deli so you could eat as soon as I got back."

"You are the sweetest man," she said with a laugh.

He leaned down and softly kissed the top of her head, and she had a feeling of pleasure wash through her entire body as he stood back up and asked her if she'd like some lemonade to drink.

"I would love some," she said.

He went back to the kitchen and returned a moment later, setting a tall glass full of ice cold lemonade beside her. She couldn't believe a man whose very livelihood was being threatened by her job could be so kind and giving to her.

It made her melt under the warmth of his attention. Sylvia had waited her entire life for feelings like this. Working as an auditor, she didn't tend to have a lot of positive experiences with her clients. She had grown a thick skin over the last several years at her job.

With Leland treating her so sweetly, it made the burden of her job so much greater. She took another bite of her sandwich as Leland sat across from her and ate one of his own. She had no idea what would happen in the future.

After her father died, she’d admitted to herself that what she really wanted was marriage and family. Now that Leland was here, and offering her everything, it should have been the happiest moment of her life. Since the moment they’d met, he’d shown nothing but devotion to her, but she still felt an annoying sense of anxiety that this love affair was too good to be true.

No matter what she wanted, she had to do her job accurately or they could both find themselves behind bars. That certainly wouldn't solve anything. If it was proved in court that Leland’s father was evading his debt, then the government would confiscate everything. Leland and his brothers would be left with nothing. How would Leland ever be able to forgive her for that?

"This is good," she said.

"Sure is," he said. "Didn't realize how hungry I was until right now. Gotta make sure to keep our stomachs full. Looks like the cattle are still suffering from the wet hoof even after all the medicine I gave them. The large animal vet is out of town. I’ve got no company resources to pay for a vet come in from out of town. I’ll have to dig into my own bank account to bring one up here. But what else can I do? I can’t let the cattle suffer. The bloodlines of that herd have been in my family for five generations. I'll be damned if I let my cows go down like that."

"Do you need a loan?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I’ve got money in the bank. It's going to cost me, but it's worth it for the family herd. Always wanted to ranch this land. I got the chance for about two days and now it might be taken away from me."

His words made Sylvia's heart sink, but she knew they weren't intended to hurt her. She wanted to help him, but there was nothing she could do except keep working on his books.

"What are you going to do?" she asked sympathetically.

"I'm going to call somebody up here to take care of it. Hopefully, it'll put an end to the wet hoof they've got. We’ll at least have one less problem to deal with."

"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" she asked with a giggle.

"I sure am sorry that things happened this way. Finding you, my fated mate, right after my dad died and left me all this mess. You deserve better than this, Sylvia. And I promise you, I'm going to make it up to you. Will you let me take you out to the lodge tonight?" he asked.

"I would love that," she said with a smile.

"It’s a date then. Oh, and my brother Jessie wanted to invite us out to his motocross race at the end of the week. That's probably not the kind of thing a lady like you enjoys, but I thought I would ask just in case."

"I'd love to see that. I haven't met your brother Jessie yet. And you have another brother, correct? I see that here in the paperwork. His name is Cyrus? Where is he?"

"Cyrus? That fool’s been off in the mountains for the last seven years. No one’s seen hide nor hair of him, except a couple times a year. Of course, I haven't seen him in seven years myself. But Jessie says he saw him just four months ago, so, I guess he comes down every once in a while. Buck was talking about how he and dad had an argument before he left for the mountains. I wonder if Cyrus knows anything about all these debts Dad got himself into."

"It would be worth asking him, don't you think?"

"Yes, but asking Cyrus means taking a trek up into the mountains to a location that can only be accessed by foot. I’ve got a herd full of wet hoof and an audit to deal with."

"Well, maybe he'll come down from the mountain soon," Sylvia suggested.

"I doubt it at this the time of year. Maybe he’ll come down in the fall before the winter snows come in. I imagine he's gorging on meat and berries right now. Doing hell knows what up there, living like a feral beast in the mountains."

"Do you know why he left?"

"He said he was done. Done with society, the family, the ranch, the humans, the shifters, all of it. He's living totally off the grid. I don’t think he even uses money anymore. Even when he comes into town for supplies."

"He must be very brave.”

"Or very crazy," Leland said.

Sylvia could tell that Leland was agitated. He had just arrived back on Fate Mountain a few days ago, and his world was being turned upside down by something new every day. The thought of his brother being able to escape the worries of the world, on the mountain, obviously irritated him. Sylvia could tell that Leland was the kind of man who took his responsibilities seriously.

A brother who had given up all responsibility for anything probably sounded like a crazy man to him. But Sylvia could almost understand why a shifter would take to the woods after the Great War. She hadn't kept up on all the shifter gossip since they'd been drafted twelve years ago, but she knew enough to understand that much of what had happened to their community was deeply unfair.

When shifters had first come out to the public, about thirty years ago, revealing their existence to humanity, the fear of the unknown had taken hold of the human population. Shifters had suffered a great deal. Then adding insult to injury, the government had drafted able-bodied male shifters into the Great War, a war they had nothing to do with. Shifters had helped put an end to the human war, and after that, the Shifter Equality Act had been passed. Shifters were now considered heroes, but a lot of blood had been spilled and a lot of grudges had been made.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Sylvia said.

"Cyrus always was one to keep to himself," Leland said, standing from the table with his empty plate in hand.

Leland took Sylvia’s empty plate and headed to the kitchen. When he came back, he told her he needed to go find a large animal vet. Sylvia nodded in agreement and watched him walk out of the dining room, wondering when would be the next time she could run her hands over the rise of his perfect round ass over those tight Wrangler jeans. With a sigh, she went back to her work.