“First rule about shifter club is you don’t talk about shifter club.” Taking advantage of a lull in demands, Hunter heeled his horse, Trooper, closer to Joss. The black gelding tossed his head and whinnied to Jolie, Joss’s mount.

He’d exchanged only a handful of words with her since their moment in the barn. Tony was only the first guest to arrive, followed by an entire bridal party excited for their plans before the big shindig took place. Joss had been pulled away for her duties in the kitchen while he and the rest of the clan entertained others outside with riding and roping exhibitions, amongst other silly tasks. The morning hadn’t been any less busy and, despite his best efforts, she’d been shuffled into a different vehicle for the trip to the trailhead.

Their current section of trail was easy for everyone, and quickly coming to a close. If he listened hard enough, he could hear the stream up ahead where they would stop to stretch their legs before heading into the final hour of the day’s ride. He looked forward to sitting around the campfire at the end of a long ride.

Joss huffed a laugh and rolled her eyes. “I think that rule has been broken enough to not matter anymore.”

Ahead, a collection of bridesmaids and groomsmen chatted amongst themselves or enjoyed the scenery. The bride and groom themselves mysteriously dropped out of the camping trip in favor of seeing to other concerns on the ranch. Hunter didn’t buy it for a moment. The hungry looks they shot each other made their plans plain as day.

He wouldn’t have minded doing the same with a certain ranch chef.

“On the contrary. It’s even more important now. Don’t go broadcasting what someone is for fear of forcing them on the registration list.” His bear paced in his head. Dangerous, that list. He should rightfully be on it, and expected to be there if his cover ever blew up.

Problems for another day. Those ghosts always lurked just over his shoulder. He’d learned not to feed them.

“That’s just called being polite. Besides, I’m already registered.”

He knew that. He’d gone looking through the rolls after their meeting in the barn. She was the only badger on the list. Not surprising, since she was the only badger he’d ever met. He didn’t know if they were rare or just very secretive. “What happened?”

Joss wrinkled her nose and made a face. “Pass.”

“I can’t be your teacher if I don’t know where you went wrong.”

“Where I went wrong? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Indignation sifted through her scent, but underneath was a thin thread of sadness. She wanted to believe her words, but someone else’s actions told her otherwise.

“Second and third shifter lesson: we can smell a lie and fuck no, there’s nothing wrong with you. Get that out of your head right now.” His bear twisted through him with the desire to prove how perfect he thought her, starting with treating everyone who made her feel less than to a taste of his fury and ending with her spread out before him. Hunter dipped the brim of his Stetson to hide the naked longing he couldn’t keep out of his voice.

That gave her pause. She peeked out from under her lashes and favored him with a small smile. “My dad was the shifter, but he died when I was young. My mom didn’t know what to do with me. I had to be homeschooled for a while because I kept shifting unexpectedly.”

“That must have been hard on the both of you,” he murmured.

“I was always afraid of hurting her, you know? I worked hard to keep everything quiet and under wraps. Control was the name of the game, not understanding.” She frowned, regret lining her face.

He wanted to kiss it away.

“I came close a couple times. Those were the scariest moments. It’s hard to forget that look of fear on someone’s face and know you were the one that put it there.”

Hunter tightened his hands on his reins. Fuck. He’d done the exact thing she worried about doing. He’d lost control, lashed out, and hurt someone in the process. That night haunted his dreams and his reality. His perfectly crafted world turned on end and spilled him sideways.

He cleared his throat. “There’s more control when you have that understanding. Try this. Close your eyes.” At her skeptical look, he flashed a smile. “Trust me. You’ll be safe.”

She pressed her lips together, but her lids fell closed. Mostly. She squinted at him from the smallest crack possible.

“Sink into the sway. Jolie is just plodding along. You’re not going to fall.”

“Okay,” she huffed. “This is so weird. You’re not trying to align my chakras or something like that, are you?”

“Not unless that’s what you call your badger. Now, hush, and take a deep breath. Feel the beating of your heart. Let the outside push in on you.” Hunter stared as her face slowly relaxed. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. “Tell me what you smell.”

“Outside and horses.” Her lips twitched at the corners.

“Smart ass,” he chuckled.

“I am smart, thank you for recognizing my obvious good qualities.” She cracked open one eye, then closed it again, smelling amused.

Hunter clicked his tongue and shook his head. The woman would be the death of him even before he got a chance to know her.

“I smell… Dirt and grass and flowers. Leather. Water. Different fruits, but those are tiny compared to everything else. Soaps and shampoos, I guess? Something that tickles my nose, but I don’t know how exactly to describe it.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “My badger likes it, though.”

A pleased growl rumbled in his throat. That she trusted him enough to listen, and that she let her inner animal do the sniffing. So he pushed. “Maybe if you ask me nicely, I’ll pick you some flowers to figure it out.”

Her eyes snapped open. Fluster brought her eyebrows together and turned her cheeks a lovely shade of pink.

The trail opened up on a stream running through an open valley. With a break in the trees, he saw tiny puffs of white dotting the gorgeous blue of the skies above. Wildflowers stretched away from the banks and toward the rugged inclines of the surrounding mountains.

Jesse pulled his horse to a stop first, then motioned the others down to the ground. Groans of stretches and teasing laughter were met with an indulgent smile.

“Take a few minutes to walk around. Let your mounts get a drink. They deserve a moment of rest for carrying you lot all day,” Jesse said.

Joss turned from side to side, eyes never staying still for long as she took in all the details. Hunter watched. His bear watched with him. This moment felt big and important. These sights called to something inside him, maybe even more than his home state. He wanted her approval.

“This is beautiful,” Joss said. “Do you ride out here often?”

“Only when we do overnights. The half-day or shorter rides are always in the enclave.” He spotted her as she pushed up and out of the saddle. Jolie threw her head high and pawed at the ground, then settled in to drink at the stream.

Hunter pointed upstream. “The lodge will be that way. We go downstream for real camping. Tomorrow after breakfast, we’ll meet some of the guys and head back to the ranch.”

“Wait, so you’re saying I could have just driven on up here? No need for sore muscles?”

“But who would have fed us lunch?”

“No one. You’d have starved. Too bad for you. Now, who’s the one earning negative star ratings?” She frowned and jammed her thumb down.

“No chance. That once again falls on the chef who didn’t adequately prepare the guests. You didn’t even throw us a breakfast bar.”

“No water, either. Better hope you can catch some in your hat.”

She worked hard to keep the smile off her face, but Hunter wouldn’t be the first to break. He added to the increasingly ridiculous scenario.

“And when we don’t turn up at the lodge in time for dinner, you’ll still have to ride out all this way to collect our parched corpses. Zero stars. Dead.”

“Dead.” Joss laughed. “Good gravy. That’s going to slow down business.”

His bear rolled through him at the tinkling sound. Another pleased growl rumbled in his chest. He fought against the urge to draw her closer. There was a limit to how much he could push. “All because you didn’t want to come out on the trail.”

One of the bridesmaids edged near. Sandy? Candy? Mandy? He hadn’t paid attention during the introductions, entirely distracted by Joss. She and her two companions could have been exact copies. He was sure they each had unique and interesting qualities, but none held his attention.

“Hunter?” Big eyes lined with thick eyelashes fluttered at him. “Can you help me back into my saddle?”

Hunter frowned at the baby voice. He knew some men liked how it stroked their egos and fed into some kink, but it wasn’t for him. He wanted a strong, sensitive woman, not one who pretended at frailty.

“Better go earn my keep.” He shrugged.

“Flirt for it, you mean.”

There was the shutdown. Joss tried to keep her voice light, but the smile on her face was as fake as could be. Her scent prickled his nose and made him want to sneeze.

Fear. Thick, stinging, stinking fear replaced all the spicy cinnamon and striking briskness of her scent.

She was his mate, and she was scared of him.

For all the wrong reasons.

Too much, too fast. He understood that. She was freshly wounded and needed space. What blossomed between them was entirely unfamiliar to someone disconnected from her inner animal.

But that put him at a loss. He didn’t know where he stood with her. Smiles and laughs one minute, pushing him away the next. It was like she needed the safety of a wall between them, and panicked when she realized she’d let her guard down.

He should have felt elated after learning she was available. Instead, it complicated matters more than he knew how to process. The more time he spent with her, the more he felt like a burr had sandwiched itself between his skin and his shirt. His shoulders felt too tight and his bear wanted to pout.

Joss was his mate. He couldn’t deny the fact. Finding her should have been simple and easy. Instead, the hole in his heart remained unfilled.

It grew bigger when he turned away from bright green eyes and walked toward bottle blonde hair.

“Have you always been good with horses?” SandyCandyMandy asked in a simpering tone.

“Born riding,” he muttered.

He dropped his reins to the ground and Trooper stood still. He’d stay in relatively the same place until Hunter grabbed hold of the reins again, too. Working horse on a farm staffed by occasionally rampaging bears had to be willing to put up with some bullshit.

One loop of his hands and too much wiggling to be anything but purposeful, SandyCandyMandy was back in the saddle. She threw him a promising grin, then nudged her horse forward. An ominous gaggle of giggles hit the air at whatever she reported to her clones.

A quick glance found Joss whirling away just as his eyes found her.

Hunter wanted to bite something, and guests were strictly off limits. Ethan would skin him alive if he beared out in front of the humans, then turn him over to Tansey for round two. Just the thought of going through the wringer with the power couple made him shift uncomfortably.

Trooper caught his agitation and danced sideways with a toss of his head. Hunter stroked a hand down the gelding’s neck. The touch calmed his horse, but he had no one to do the same for him.

Jesse peeled away from the group of groomsmen joking loudly in a cluster by the stream. “You’re being pricklier than usual.”

Hunter grunted. He couldn’t take his eyes off Joss.

“Better make nice with the guests.”

“I am making nice. I’m just not jumping into bed with them.”

“That have something to do with Joyce? Or should I say, the future Mrs. Shaw?”

“Joyce was poison.” Hunter shot him a withering look. His bear rattled around in his head. The guests weren’t to be chewed on, but Jesse was another story.

“And you wear your heart on your sleeve. Maybe you need to get laid.”

Hunter choked back his growl. Yeah, that sounded right. And wrong. Which made it even more right.

He already knew what Joss’s kiss tasted like. He wanted to lick her from head to toe and consume the rest of her, too.

Good money said she was a laugher. He wanted to know if she was one of those girls that could go from pleasure to jokes and back again in the space of a single fucking stroke.

“You’ve had a rotation in your bed since you split with Joyce. I know you’re hunting for your mate, but don’t go making the same mistakes. You can’t force love to happen. You tried that already.” Jesse shrugged. “Your mate will make herself known.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Hunter snapped. He tore his eyes from Joss and directed a glare at Jesse. “Maybe she already has. Maybe I can’t have her. So you can take your serene bullshit pep talk and shove it.”

Jesse’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Has she? Our new chef? What the fuck, man? You’re just going to hold on to that fact and not tell anyone?”

“It’s not that simple.” His bear roared in his head as unpleasantness boiled in his stomach.

The clan’s second barked a laugh. “Is she going to bring a war with the wolves down on us? Call the cops and get our place searched?”

“She was friends with Tansey before coming here, so there’s no telling what crazy is lurking around the corner.” Hunter grimaced. His next breath of air felt like knives slicing his lungs. “She already left one husband. There’s no telling if she’ll leave me, too.”

There. The weight that had tied itself around his neck lifted a fraction. Enough to breathe again, at least. His darkest worry didn’t seem so frightening when given life.

Did she fight for the man? How fast did she give everything up? Was she looking for a way out when he offered it to her?

Hunter knew he made unfair assumptions. Knowing didn’t make those dark thoughts scatter. Even understanding he shouldn’t place the sins of others on her didn’t lessen the doubts that crawled through his head.

He’d been burned too many times. He wanted a mate and cubs, but he couldn’t get over his own shit. That wasn’t fair to put on any person, much less his mate.

Jesse canted his head. Whatever deep thought the man brewed up, Hunter didn’t want to hear it.

He hauled himself back into his saddle and put distance between himself and the rest of the group.