Joss moved through fog gathering the plates and mugs after the last guest pushed away from the table. A group of them milled in the great room planning the last minute details for a trip into town, while another handful elected to wait a few hours and head to the shores of the lake for the afternoon.

She left them to their planning and hoped none asked her a question. She wasn’t in a position to listen or answer or do anything but gnaw on her lower lip with worry while shooting another look toward the nearest window.

Hunter was out there, somewhere. Upset over something she was reasonably sure had to do with the texts she’d received that morning. Maybe there was another explanation, but she wasn’t convinced. The timeline between those words flashing across her screen and Hunter shoving outside while reeking of fur was too much of a coincidence.

I’d do anything for your forgiveness.

I need to see you again.

What was just an annoyance had become an unwanted complication.

Joss shook herself and tried to ignore the oily feeling in her stomach. Sharp points in her head were signs of her badger’s objection to playing nice as the first guests descended the staircase. They didn’t matter, the beast seemed to insist. Well, her employment contract and insufferable need to please people said otherwise.

Tansey gave her a knowing look and handed her a cup of coffee as soon as her hands were free. “Spill.”

Joss glanced out the window again. “I really should go—”

“You really should have a cup of coffee with me. We’ve had a busy few days already, and it’s only going to get crazier as we wind down to the ceremony.” Tansey sipped her coffee and stared her down over the rim. “Spill. You stayed out last night.”

“Yes, Mom, I did,” Joss chided with a roll of her eyes fit for any annoyed teenage girl.

That was what made the morning so painful. She’d let herself have a night with Hunter. Let herself feel again. The glimmer of possibility that sparked to life when he kissed her flared into full daydreams of what-could-be.

“I just wish I knew where he was.”

“Don’t like being apart from him? Is it eating you up inside? Your little beastie trying to get out and track him down?” Tansey sighed happily. “Yeah, I know what that’s like.”

Joss plopped down into a stool at the island counter. “It’s exactly like that. I don’t know how to pair that with wanting to feel things out first. Then there are all the messy parts that I don’t know how to explain. When does one disclose their ex-husband is being a crackpot creep with regrets to the guy your inner animal wants to treat like a well-loved chew toy? Before or after he has a weird freak out himself and disappears on four feet?”

The words poured out of her. For a second, she stared into open air in surprise.

Getting it all out in the open felt good. She’d kept herself bottled up for too long. That ended in disaster and she wanted to avoid a repeat of sticking her head in the sand and pretending life was peachy.

Tansey patted her hand. “I wouldn’t worry about him. A breakfast without someone storming off makes me pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming. He’ll be back once he calms down, I’m sure.”

That was true enough. The clan kept themselves respectable in front of outsiders, but they slung insults and punches as soon as watching eyes turned the other way.

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am. When a man looks at you like that, there’s no keeping him away. Give him your side of things, and I’m sure he’ll understand.” She leaned forward. “So...? What did you end up doing?”

Joss huffed a laugh. A thin thread of relief wedged through her worry. “We didn’t stay much longer after you left. We went back to his place, but then he grabbed a blanket and a bottle of booze and we went out to watch the stars. After a while, we shifted and went for a run.”

Monumental, that. She couldn’t ever remember a time, aside from the initial curiosity, that Cal wanted to see or acknowledge her inner animal. Hunter did nothing but encourage her to get in tune with her other side. And, she had to admit, running through the night after they’d had sex was better than a cigarette.

“And did you...?”

Joss covered her cheeks to hide her blush. “A girl never kisses and tells.”

“You did!” Tansey squealed. “Holy shit, that’s awesome! Get back on that horse, girl. Or, cowboy, in this instance.”

“Tansey!” Joss hissed, scandalized.

The door behind her opened and her badger jumped into action with hisses and clawing up her insides. The urge to shift took her by surprise. She dug her fingers into her palms to hold on to her control.

Tansey lifted her chin to the newcomer. “Can I help you, sir?”

Joss turned, expecting to find one of the guests. She froze when the man behind her turned out to be Cal.

Her badger’s bristled reaction made sense. Hurt and anger piled over top one another for the most terrible layered cake in the history of ever.

“I didn’t believe Tony when he said it, but here you are.”

He strode forward and wrapped her into a hard hug that dragged her out of her chair and cracked her back.

Joss stiffened with shock. Her brain shutdown and rebooted ten times over while she processed who had appeared and held her.

The cryptic texts made more sense with him standing in the kitchen. He spoke of forgiveness and seeing her? Yeah, those were the words of a man about to ambush his ex and carpet bomb her rejections with his own wants and needs.

Joss shoved at his stupid, inconsiderate chest and pulled away just as a disgusted scoff reached her ears.

No. No, no, no. Everything was going wrong and it was awful and she hated everything!

Over Cal’s shoulder, Hunter slid a golden-eyed look from Cal, to her. His lip raised in a silent snarl and he stomped out the door. The wood bounced against the frame from the force of his slam.

Cal flashed big eyes better suited on a sad puppy. He looked… pathetic. He’d kept his looks even as his hair started to thin. He wasn’t anywhere near as brawny and fit as the shifters on the ranch, but he wasn’t chubby, either.

His physical appearance wasn’t what made him seem so small in her eyes, though. It was showing up with pouting lips and a bouquet of roses. He proved yet again how much he actually listened to her. She’d told him to leave her alone, and ignored him when he didn’t stop.

And the roses?

She was a wildflower sort of girl.

He didn’t hear her. He didn’t see her. She was done fitting into the box he’d built around her.

“What the fuck, Cal? Really?” The curse tasted good on her tongue. The word was the least he deserved. Right then, she wanted to bite his stupid, non-comic-strip-reading face off. “You need to leave. You never should have come.”

Cal blinked at her and shook his head like he couldn’t believe the words. “Wh-what?” he spluttered. Red crept up his neck. “You weren’t answering my calls—”

“Maybe there was a reason for that. Like, I don’t know, being blindsided by a divorce?” Her badger hissed and Joss didn’t quiet the noise in the slightest. Embarrassment and shame roiled in her stomach. The effing nerve! He’d burnt their life to the ground, then expected her to be sunshine and rainbows when he wanted back in? “Go back to your cold bed of money and leave me alone.”

Joss pushed him out of her way. He’d shoved her out when she didn’t fit with him anymore, so she gave him the same treatment.

Joss didn’t stop when he called her name. Maybe Tansey pulled him back, or she’d stunned him into staying firmly planted to the floor. He wasn’t her concern.

The man who’d disappeared from the yard held her entire attention.

Her inner animal scrabbled to be acknowledged. Joss listened, and let the beast push forward. A wealth of scents assaulted her nose, including the one she’d become intimately familiar with overnight.

She followed Hunter’s trail into the barn. She worried briefly that she’d been wrong when she didn’t catch sight of him. Then he appeared at the other end, stalking out of the tack room with a saddle in his hands.

He scowled when he spotted her. A muscle jumped along his jaw. “Get out of here, Joss,” he said in a resigned voice.

She marched up to him and raised her hands to stop him from bowling her over. Heck no, she wasn’t allowing Cal to ruin the bit of good she’d found. “We need to talk.”

“We don’t need to do anything. You need to get back to your life. Your pit stop here is done, isn’t it?” He stepped around her and dipped into a stall.

Frustration spilled over into an annoyed growl. If he didn’t listen to her, she’d shift and let him deal with her badger! Joss slammed the stall door closed, slid the lock in place, and pressed her back to the wood for good measure.

“You’re going to listen to me, Hunter Shaw!” Oh boy, she didn’t know where the sass was coming from, but she rode the wave. “I’ve been pushed aside and hurt and made to feel invisible and wrong for being born with my ‘nasty little badger.’ Enough! You don’t get to do that, too.”

Hunter sighed. “You know I can get out anytime I want, right? There’s another door in here.”

“Will you listen to me? Please?”

He paused long enough that she peeked over the door to make sure he was still there. One hand on his hip, the other holding Trooper’s halter, he stared at the ceiling.

“Make it quick,” he said gruffly.

“I didn’t invite him here. I didn’t tell him to come. I don’t want to go back. That bridge burned the moment he ended it. Was I sad? Did I want a different future? Yes.” Joss shrugged. “What person wouldn’t, if they found themselves losing their partner without warning? But when he made it clear that he wasn’t going to fight for me, that’s when I resigned myself to picking our lives apart and going different ways. For the record, I cursed at him and told him to leave. Tansey is probably picking her teeth with his bones as we speak, and I can’t find it in me to care.”

Hunter grunted.

“I don’t know where this is going yet, but I want to find out. You already know what’s in my past. You know I need time. Coming here was the closest to jumping feet first into anything I’ve ever done. Then with everything else… I don’t know what my instincts are telling me half the time, and the other half seems so far out of my level of normal that I question myself.”

Right then, they were telling her to keep talking. She needed to spill her purse out on the couch and let him see the contents.

He turned, finally, and stepped closer to the stall door. His scent softened right along with the hard lines of his face. Brown eyes watched her closely.

She wasn’t looking for someone like him when she found her way to Bearden. She wasn’t looking for anyone. But she’d found him anyways. She’d misplaced her loyalty before, and suffered for it. She didn’t want to go another round. Better he know that from the start.

Joss gripped the edge of the stall and poked at another piece of herself. “I need to know you’re choosing me as much as I’m picking you. That’s just how it has to be because I’ve been through otherwise and I don’t want to have my heart stomped on again. I’m not running off. That’s not me. You need to know that before this goes any further. I don’t do casual.”

Hunter reached over the door and undid the lock without breaking their look. Her heart pounded in her chest when he closed it firmly behind him.

She let go of a ragged breath when he pulled her into his arms. His scent washed over her and soothed the roughness of the morning. She wanted to stick to his side and never leave.

Both hugs of her morning were so different. One pushed her off balance and felt awkward in its insistence she conform. The other held her close and didn’t drag her into position. She lined up with him perfectly and he held her just where she needed.

“I don’t do casual, either. I’m all in, Joss. That’s just how I do things. I follow my gut and my gut says to trust you.” He tucked her hair over her ears. “I see you.”

He’d said the words the night before. The daylight didn’t make her shiver any less. They were big.

He leaned close, palms lightly pressing against her cheeks to tilt her head toward him. As if there were any question.

Hunter sipped at her lips with tenderness and caring. Even when he deepened the kiss, tongue stroking into her mouth rhythmically and punctuated by sexy growls, she felt like her heart had cracked open.

He eased back with a final, slow sip that left her reeling. She didn’t know if she’d ever get tired of how he made her pulse race. She doubted that was even a possibility.

“I pick you,” he said.

Joss was glad he still had her wrapped up in his arms. Her knees buckled with her swoon.