Snow Leopard's Lady (Veteran Shifters Book 1) by Zoe Chant (1)

“I had a great time, Mom. See you tomorrow, okay?” Mavis’ daughter hugged her goodbye.

“Me too, honey.” Mavis held Nina close for a long minute, then reluctantly let her go. “See you at the dinner.”

Nina headed off down the street, waving over her shoulder. Mavis watched her go, and then once she’d turned the corner, sighed and turned to unlock the door to her building.

Mavis was so grateful for every moment she got to spend with her daughter. They’d only been back in contact for eight months, after years of separation, and Mavis treasured every second of it.

Mavis’ husband had kicked Nina out of the house when she was sixteen, and what followed had been the worst years of Mavis’ life.

She’d spent them certain that Nina was gone forever. That she was suffering terribly—or maybe even that she’d been killed. Daryl had kicked Nina out because she was a shapeshifter, and Mavis had had no idea what sort of creature her daughter was, if there were others like her, and if those others might be dangerous, or violent. She wasn’t sure if Nina was safe and happy with her own kind, or lost and alone—or if she was even alive.

Now, Mavis had finally left Daryl, and moved here to live by Glacier National Park, where many shifters made their home. Nina had a whole pack of young snow leopards to call her family, and Mavis got to see her several times a week, sometimes even every day.

It was all she could possibly have asked for.

Mavis climbed the creaking stairs up to her small third-floor apartment. The building was an old converted house, and it showed its age and shoddy workmanship in many different ways—the uncertain plumbing, the thin walls, the cold in winter.

But leaving the city had meant taking a big, big pay cut. Mavis worked as a freelance financial consultant, and she’d had to start over from scratch here in this small town, where there weren’t many people who needed her services. She worked remotely as much as she could, but her income was definitely less than it had been. And divorce was expensive.

She did have some savings. But the uncertainty of her job, plus lawyers’ fees and the endless division of assets with Daryl, meant that she’d chosen the cheapest housing option that seemed reasonably clean and safe. She knew she might potentially have to rely on her tiny income for a while.

Mavis hoped she’d get some money for the house, at least, once everything was said and done, because she wanted to have something squirrelled away in case Nina ever needed help. Nina’s mate, Joel, had a good job as a national park ranger, and Nina worked hard as a waitress, but anything could come up and Mavis wanted to be there if it did.

So she lived in this tiny set of rooms in the old house with thin walls and loud neighbors. And it was all right. She was happy to live anywhere close to her daughter.

Mavis knew Nina worried about her being alone, not having many good friends in this small town, being single after so many years of marriage. And it was true that Mavis sometimes wondered what it would be like to have someone to come home to.

But she had her daughter. And that was what mattered.

And she’d see Nina tomorrow again, at the dinner that Cal and Lillian were throwing as a pre-wedding celebration, for close family and out-of-town guests. Mavis was looking forward to it. She liked the pack leader and his mate; they were both no-nonsense people with good heads on their shoulders, and Cal at least was closer to Mavis’ age than to Nina’s, which was a nice thing sometimes.

She’d enjoyed what time she’d spent around them. But of course, they were caught up in each other, in their wedding, and in the baby they had on the way. Lillian was five months pregnant, and the expression on Cal’s face whenever he looked at her...that was a man that was very much in love.

Mavis wondered sometimes if she’d ever seen an expression like that on Daryl’s face. She couldn’t remember. And maybe that was for the best.

It was all right. She’d tried marriage, and it certainly hadn’t worked out the way she’d wanted. If she’d picked a different man, a better man, and adopted Nina with him instead of with Daryl, things wouldn’t have been nearly so terrible.

That was surely a sign that Mavis should stay out of the romance game from here on out, whatever Nina thought. She’d go to Cal and Lillian’s wedding, and she’d smile at the newlyweds and their happy anticipation of their new life together, and she’d dance silly dances with her daughter.

That was more than enough to ask for, after what she’d caused with her mistakes. She would be satisfied with that.

***

Wilson stepped through the door of the diner. He was strangely apprehensive, though he told himself that he was being ridiculous. He’d commanded Westland in combat, and any other Marines who were invited would likely be former subordinates, too. And everyone else who would be there were ordinary civilians.

Still, he found himself straightening his posture as he came inside.

The little restaurant was crowded with people already. The invitation had said that the place was reserved for wedding guests only, but it seemed as though half the town was invited. Wilson cast his eyes about the room in a practiced reconnaissance, scanning for recognizable faces.

He spotted Westland at the same time as his former gunny’s eyes lit on him. Westland broke into a smile, broader than any Wilson had ever seen on him.

“Sir,” he said, coming up to shake Wilson’s hand. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Gunny,” Wilson said, with heartfelt sincerity. He gave the man a onceover. “You look like you’re still in fighting shape.”

In point of fact, Westland looked healthy, happy, and—something more. Over and above the way his body was clearly still in condition, and the smile that seemed somehow incongruous on his face, there was an air about him. Some kind of...completeness. Contentment.

Wilson guessed that that was what being in love was like.

“Thank you, sir,” Westland was saying. “Let me introduce you to my mate, Lillian.”

That explained it. Westland wasn’t just getting married. He’d found his true mate, something many shifters only ever dreamed about. Some people even dismissed the idea of mates as pure fiction, made up by dreamy-eyed lovers.

Wilson believed in the idea of mates, but he’d never had any ambitions in that direction. He’d always been destined for the military, and stayed married to his career. And you didn’t meet many women in combat—or in the Pentagon, which in Wilson’s opinion was a shame. Sexism kept a lot of good minds and strong bodies out of the military, even these days.

Which meant that Wilson had had hardly any contact with female shifters since joining up, so even if he’d been searching for a mate, he wouldn’t have found her.

But Cal Westland had.

A woman was coming over to Cal’s beckoning hand. Wilson estimated she was in her mid-thirties, elegant and graceful...and visibly pregnant. She held out a hand.

“Congratulations to both of you,” Wilson said, shaking it. “This man is one of the best Marines I ever commanded. He’ll do right by you.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Lillian said with a lovely smile. “Cal has a lot of good things to say about you, as well. In fact, since you found him the job at Glacier, we’d never have met without you.”

Cal was nodding. “Sir, this was the best possible place for me. At the time, and now. I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done.”

“Now, now,” Wilson said, “I just gave you the opportunity. What you made of it was up to you.”

And it was the absolute least he could have done for a man who’d gone through so many years of danger and tedium all wrapped up together into a grueling package. Reliable non-coms were worth their weight in diamonds, and deserved to be rewarded with the equivalent.

Just then, an older couple descended on the bride and groom, the woman saying, “Lillian, come here, you have to take care of—”

“Mom, we’re talking to Cal’s old commanding officer,” Lillian interrupted.

The mother of the bride turned a disdainful look on Wilson. Before she could deliver her opinion of that, which looked like it would be scathing, Wilson said, “I was just going to see about something to drink. We’ll catch up later.”

“Sir,” Cal started, but Wilson shook his head, smiling, and extracted himself. He certainly didn’t want to overhear any private family conversations.

He looked around the room. Most of the attendees seemed to be couples, which wasn’t a surprise—Wilson’s own invitation had included “and guest.” Weddings were the sort of events you brought a date to, even if you weren’t in a serious relationship.

He did see one woman sitting by herself off to the side a bit, away from any of the groups of talking people. She was watching them with a fond smile that he immediately liked. She was about Wilson’s age, he judged, which put her above most of this younger crowd, with a classic beauty that was enhanced rather than marred by the streaks of silver in her hair.

She stood out, somehow—and not only because she was one of the few African-American people he could see in the crowd of northern Montanans. He wondered how she knew the bride and groom, and if she was actually here alone, or if her date or family were simply off in the crowd somewhere.

Then he was distracted by a call of, “Colonel!”

He turned, and found himself facing four men who, alongside Westland, had brought a lot of good soldiers safely back from Iraq.

“Well, if it isn’t Platoon Delta,” he said. “Turner, Gonzalez, Sanders, and Neal. You all been keeping busy since you left the Corps?”

“Can’t speak for anyone else,” Sanders drawled, “but I sure have.”

Neal snorted. “With the ladies, he means.”

“You tell me when you finally get your first kiss, and I’ll explain the appeal,” Sanders retorted lazily.

Wilson shook his head. They might be retired, but Marines never changed.

***

Mavis hadn’t been to a wedding in a long, long time.

Most of her friends back in the city had been married forever, and when Nina had still been at home, their kids had all been too young for the next round of weddings to start.

And after Nina had disappeared, Mavis had sent her regrets to most events involving other people’s children. It had simply been too painful.

But now that she was here, Mavis was remembering what made weddings so bittersweet.

On the one hand, it was wonderful to see how happy everybody was. Cal and Lillian were so clearly in love; there was nothing in their eyes but each other. And the way they had the love and support of everyone in their community...it was a beautiful thing to see.

But it also brought an ache to her chest.

Mavis couldn’t help but think about her own wedding, her own marriage, and how it had gone so wrong. She’d been so happy on her wedding day, anticipating the long, full life that she and Daryl would have together...and it had come to a long, drawn-out, awful, bitter end. She’d thought she was marrying a good, kind man, and she’d been wrong.

Now those memories were flooded with regret. Watching Cal and Lillian together, Mavis had been struck hard by the realization that she’d never have something like that.

But that was a small-minded way to think. Their happiness didn’t take anything away from Mavis, after all, and it was petty to feel sad when it was such a joyous occasion.

So, since she couldn’t force her emotions away, Mavis just watched Nina having a wonderful time with her own mate and her friends, laughing and eating appetizers and just generally enjoying herself.

That was enough to make her forget about the ache, even if it didn’t quite go away.

As the evening wore on, Mavis made herself get up and mingle, instead of just sitting by the sidelines like an old grandma.

Which she wasn’t yet. Although the idea of Nina having a baby, of really being a grandmother, gave her a thrill of anticipation. Maybe someday.

Still, though, Mavis was fifty, not eighty, and she could socialize just as well as the young people. She started moving through the crowd and saying hello.

She knew most of the attendees, since the rehearsal dinner had mostly been for the pack and close family and friends. But she ended up introducing herself to a group of men she’d never seen before, clustered together in a corner.

Goodness, they were enormous. Well over six feet, all of them, and with an air that suggested former military to Mavis.

“Let me guess,” she said with a smile as she approached. “You all must have served with Cal in the Marines.”

“Got it in one, ma’am,” said the tallest of them. He had short military-styled hair, though the cut didn’t disguise the warm auburn color. His eyes were a striking green. “Though we’re all retired now. I’m Ken Turner.”

“Carlos Gonzalez,” said the next man, shaking her hand. His voice was quiet, but his handshake was firm, and though he was probably as old as Mavis, he was handsome enough to be in the movies, with silver-touched black hair and piercing black eyes.

“Nate Sanders,” said the third man. His hair was grown out into a wavy cut, and was a honey-blond that disguised any gray that might be creeping in. His posture was the most relaxed of the four of them, without any hint of Marine-Corps-style bearing. “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he added with a sweet Southern twang.

“And I’m Ty Neal,” the last one finished. He was a broad-shouldered black man—it was nice, Mavis thought, to see another brown face in overwhelmingly pale Montana—and his smile was warm, his golden-brown eyes kind as he shook Mavis hand.

“Well,” she said. “How long has it been since you’ve all been the same room? Or do you have reunions often?”

“It’s been about ten years,” said the first man, Ken.

“Probably about the right amount of time for a break from these clowns,” Nate told her in his Southern drawl. “I’ve had just about enough civilization in the interim to tide me over.”

“If you’re calling someone a clown,” Ken said dryly, “then maybe someone should let this good lady know who she’s hearing it from. I seem to remember one night involving an MRE, night-vision goggles, and military-grade pepper spray—”

“This coming from the man who switched out the Sergeant Major’s toothpaste for, hmm, what was it again?” Ty put in.

An argument arose about what exactly Ken had swapped the Sergeant Major’s toothpaste with, while Mavis watched with a combination of amusement and wistfulness. These men had clearly picked up where they’d left off ten years ago, sharing jokes and good-natured insults, but with an undercurrent of real affection and camaraderie that was obvious even to an outsider like her.

She wished she had a group of friends like that, people who would stand by her even as they brought up old in-jokes and ribbed each other about incidents that had happened long ago.

The argument was rising in volume—“You’re telling me that Nate wasn’t out with a girl that night, he was sneaking around the tent pulling what exactly?” Ty boomed—and Mavis was about to discreetly slip away, leaving the men to their reminiscing, when another voice cut in.

“I see leaving the Corps hasn’t civilized any of you.”

The voice wasn’t loud, but it somehow sliced through the veterans’ back-and-forth, impossible to ignore. Mavis watched, fascinated, as the four men snapped to attention, as though the years they’d spent as civilians had just melted away.

“Sir,” said Ken. “Our apologies.”

The newcomer, a tall, handsome man in a dress uniform covered in symbols and medals that Mavis couldn’t parse at all, looked them over. “I left you alone for fifteen minutes, and you’re causing a disturbance with a lady present.” He turned to Mavis. “I apologize for my men. Colonel Wilson Hanes.” He held out his hand.

“Mavis Williams,” Mavis said, feeling almost like she should be fluttering a fan. The Colonel was a big, imposing man. Even more than his size, which was as considerable as any of the other Marines’, he seemed to exude authority and confidence. But his grip, when she shook, was gentle—not like the rest of the men, who’d all seemed to be demonstrating their strength with their handshakes.

She pulled herself together enough to say, “There’s no need to apologize. I was just going to leave them to their catching-up and go get a drink.”

There was a chorus of protests, but Colonel Hanes held up a hand, and they died instantly away. He turned back to Mavis. “Would you like company?”

She smiled. The slightly formal, old-fashioned air about him was charming. Not to mention the way he played these tough retired Marines like a violin. “Yes, thank you.” She looked at the four other men. “It was very nice to meet all of you.”

“You as well,” said Carlos, still noticeably more soft-spoken than the rest of the men’s You toos. Mavis smiled at all of them and stepped away at the Colonel’s side.

“I hope you don’t mind the intrusion,” he said apologetically, as they walked to the drinks table. “I noticed them getting rowdy, and I thought you might want an out.”

“Not at all,” she said. “Anyway, they don’t need a stranger around while they’re catching up. Although—” She cast a look back. “You don’t want to stay back with them, catch up too?”

He shook his head, smiling. Mavis was struck again by how handsome he was. His short military-style hair only served to accentuate the strong, clean lines of his face. And the imposing uniform didn’t hide the strong musculature underneath; he was clearly in good shape for his age, which was probably about the same as hers—fiftyish or so.

But most noticeably, his eyes were a striking silvery color that reminded her of some of the snow leopards’. Could he be...?

“They don’t want an officer around for the sort of stories they’re telling,” he was saying.

“Oh.” Mavis tried to pull herself back to the conversation, instead of just ogling the poor man. An attractive Marine officer like him was probably used to women hanging off of him. “Are there other officers here, too?”

A regretful headshake. “Social events don’t often cross those boundaries, I’m afraid.”

“What makes this one different, then? Or—” Mavis dared a bit, “what makes you different?”

That got her a laugh. It was deep and rich, and made her feel temporarily light-headed.

“Nothing too special,” he said at last, though the laugh lingered in the smile at the corners of his lips. “I recommended Sergeant Westland—Cal—for this job at Glacier Park, years ago when he first left the Corps. He’s very grateful, and he wanted to tell me in person.” The Colonel looked over his shoulder, over to where Cal and Lillian were talking with several other members of their pack. “I’m glad to know it’s worked out so well for him, but that’s a credit to him, not to me.”

“You’re the Major I’ve heard him mention,” Mavis realized. He must have been promoted since Cal knew him, which would make sense. It had been ten years, after all, and the uniform suggested that this man was still in the Service, not retired like the others.

“That’s me. Or I was, back when I last saw any of the men.” He sounded a bit wistful.

The man must feel like a fish out of water here, then, considering what he’d said about officers and enlisted men. And he wouldn’t know anybody else here.

Well, she could spend some time with him. It wasn’t like it would be a hardship—definitely the opposite. And as it happened, they were standing by the drinks table. “What would you like?”

“No, no, that’s my line,” he protested, and stepped forward to get them both glasses of champagne. The delicate flutes looked tiny in his big, capable hands.

His fingers brushed hers when she took a glass. They were warm and rough, and Mavis was startled by the sudden, very physical reaction she had to the touch. When was the last time she’d responded to a man like this? “What should we toast to?” she asked, trying to distract herself.

He thought for a moment. “Wedded bliss?”

Mavis thought she recognized that same bittersweet feeling in his eyes. “Wedded bliss,” she agreed, and they clinked glasses.

Because it was important for some people to have it, even if it had escaped her. And perhaps him as well; there wasn’t a ring on his finger.

“How do you know the bride and groom?” the Colonel asked her after they’d sipped.

“Oh, my daughter’s in—” their pack, she almost said, but then caught herself, and revised it to, “—the wedding party.” Even if the Colonel’s eyes seemed suggestive of snow leopards to her, she had no way of knowing if he really was a shifter, or even knew about them. Maybe Cal had had to keep his shifter nature secret while he was in the military.

Probably the military knew about that sort of thing, though, didn’t they? She cautiously tried, “Nina has...a lot in common with Cal and Lillian and some of their friends.”

The Colonel’s eyebrows went up. “Your daughter does...but you don’t?”

They had to be talking about the same thing. Didn’t they? “She’s adopted,” Mavis said.

His eyebrows went up. “Ah.” Then he smiled. “Is your daughter a snow leopard as well, then?”

“Yes,” Mavis said in relief. “Oh, good. I couldn’t have kept that up for long.”

“I’m not a fan of double-talk,” the Colonel said frankly. “I prefer straightforward honesty, when possible. Unfortunately, with shifters it isn’t always possible.”

“This town is very odd about it,” Mavis confided. “Everyone knows, but it’s still treated like a secret. People don’t talk openly, and there’s no way of knowing if anyone individually is a shifter unless they tell you personally.”

The Colonel nodded slowly. “Shifters are used to hiding, for their own safety. The military perpetuates that as well—they’re kept together in special units, and their shifter natures are classified top-secret.”

Mavis realized that that probably meant that all of Cal’s former platoon-mates were shifters, too. She wondered what types they were. “I understand the need for secrecy, but I wish it was safe for people to be more open. I want to learn more about the culture, but it’s difficult when no one will talk about it.”

The Colonel’s face was thoughtful. “Shifter culture varies widely, depending on the place and the type of shifter. They’re all fairly secretive and insular, but that can mean that they develop their own customs, some of which are unusual or surprising.” His face darkened a bit. “It can also mean that their systems of authority are—unfortunate. Since no one is policing them.”

Mavis nodded. She knew Nina had encountered plenty of packs when she was out on her own, but had been rejected or chosen to leave them because they were too awful to join. It broke her heart. “Cal and Lillian have been doing some wonderful things here in the Glacier pack,” she offered. “Everyone has input on any decisions, they meet regularly to discuss pack business...”

The Colonel smiled, though he looked a bit surprised. “That’s excellent news. Sergeant Westland—Cal, that is—was always something of a loner. It’s good to hear he’s developing his leadership skills.”

“I think a lot of it was Lillian’s idea, actually,” Mavis admitted.

But his smile only grew. “Then it’s good to hear he’s marrying someone with complementary leadership skills, how’s that.”

Mavis was about to say something about how the pack had welcomed Nina so generously when Nina herself appeared.

“Mom—” she said, and then came up short. “Oh, excuse me.”

“Nina, this is Colonel Wilson Hanes, Cal’s old commanding officer,” Mavis said. “Colonel, this is my daughter, Nina.”

“Wilson, please,” the man protested. He held out his hand. “Lovely to meet you, Nina.”

Nina shook and murmured something polite. “I don’t want to interrupt,” she started.

“No, no,” the Colonel said immediately. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

Mavis wanted to protest, but the Colonel—Wilson—was already melting away into the crowd, with a startling skill considering how big and imposing he was. She turned to Nina. “Honey, I think you scared him off.”

“Ha ha,” Nina said. “He seemed nice.”

Mavis raised her eyebrows. Nina tended to be somewhat wary of strangers—especially strange shifters—after her experiences living out on her own. She always needed some time to warm up and get to know a person, before she would come to truly like them.

It broke Mavis’ heart a little, but she understood why.

Now, though...“Now what makes you say that?” Mavis asked archly.

Nina smiled a little. “He just seemed like he was a nice man, that’s all. I’m sorry I interrupted. I just wanted to ask if you were going to come sit and eat with us.”

“Of course I will,” Mavis said.

Nina looked out into the crowd, where the Colonel—Wilson, Mavis reminded herself—had taken up a position by the wall, sipping his champagne and surveying the room with a politely benevolent expression. “Maybe you’d rather eat with...new friends, instead?”

“Quit matchmaking,” Mavis said firmly. “I want to eat with my daughter.”

Though she did cast a second look back at Wilson, as they walked over to their table. She hoped he had a pleasant dinner, even if he thought he was a social inhibitor around his men. She was tempted to go over and invite him to come eat at their table...but Nina was sitting down with the rest of the wedding party, and surely it wouldn’t be any more comfortable for the man to sit with a pack he didn’t know at all.

There was a whole weekend for the wedding, Mavis reminded herself. They were doing a hike in the Park tomorrow. She’d probably see him then.

She hoped.

Because he’d been interesting to talk to. He was exactly the sort of person she’d been wanting to meet, after all: a shifter who wasn’t afraid to talk about their customs.

And anything Nina thought, well, that was Nina’s matchmaking ambitions carrying her away.

***

Wilson went back to the little bed-and-breakfast he was staying in after dinner, wishing he’d had more of a chance to talk to the lovely woman he’d met. Mavis.

He didn’t know what it was about her, but speaking to her had felt like taking a drink of cool water. She was so clearly a thoughtful, kind person.

A thoughtful, kind person who wanted to learn more about shifter culture. That was interesting, considering her daughter was a shifter. Wilson wondered when she’d adopted that young woman—Nina. Maybe Mavis had taken her in as a teenager?

It was very unusual to meet a shifter who had entirely human parents. A human and a shifter together might have a shifter baby, but two humans never did. But adopting would take that completely out of the equation.

Of course, he was making assumptions. Even though Nina was adopted, Mavis’ husband might be a shifter.

Though that wouldn’t explain why she felt she needed to learn about shifter culture. And she hadn’t been wearing a ring.

Had she adopted Nina entirely on her own, then?

Wilson told himself to stop speculating. There was clearly some kind of story there, but it wasn’t any of his business, and he wasn’t going to figure it out by theorizing wildly alone in his hotel room. Maybe tomorrow or the next day he’d have a chance to talk to Mavis again.

He hoped so.

Wilson had been assuming that this weekend wouldn’t be much of a social occasion for him, and figured he would spend much of his free time out in the countryside. He had been eagerly anticipating seeing Sergeant Westland again, of course, ensuring that the man was happy in his new life, that Wilson’s recommendation had worked out for him. He’d been looking forward to meeting Lillian, as well, and he hadn’t been disappointed.

But there would always be a social barrier between him and Cal. And it was the same with the rest of the non-coms who’d shown up. As pleased as Wilson was to see them, he could tell that they still weren’t quite prepared to relax around him. No matter how long they’d been out of the military, the Corps was in their blood, and with it, the instinct to snap to attention when an officer showed up.

Wilson couldn’t sit down for a few beers with them. Not if he wanted them to enjoy the experience, instead of keeping one eye on him the entire time.

It was good to see them, though. Particularly those four, who’d been the cream of the crop overseas. Ken Turner, quick on his feet, sarcastic to a fault—Wilson could remember more than a few yes, sirs that had had a tinge of Screw you, sir behind them. But unbeatable in combat, quickest reflexes he’d ever seen on any man, shifter or not.

Carlos Gonzales, quiet and unassuming, but an absolute crack marksman. He could hit a target in the dead of night with a howling wind, no hesitation. Though Wilson had always had the sense that Gonzales wasn’t too happy with his lot in life as a deadly marksman, though of course the man had never said so out loud. He hoped Gonzales was happier as a civilian.

Nate Sanders, a Southern good ol’ boy who somehow managed to find single ladies no matter where they were stationed. He could smile lazily at a man, while behind those blue eyes, he was calculating the best way to take him out, and that brain never stopped working, not for one second.

And Tyrone Neal. Friendly, cheerful, dedicated to his family—and determined to keep them, and the rest of the country, safe from any threats that might come their way. Wilson knew that he’d stayed single while he was in the Corps because he felt his calling was to be the protector, always on the outside.

Four good men. From what he’d learned tonight, though, none of them had quite managed to settle down. Oh, sure, they all had civilian jobs, but none of them had families or kids. Maybe attending the wedding of one of their old buddies would give them some ideas. They all deserved to be happy.

Wilson’s thoughts landed on Mavis again. There was a good woman, he could tell. He wondered if there was a man in the picture somewhere, or if she might be looking around herself.

Maybe he should’ve left her to talk to the men, rather than taking her off.

Something in him rebelled at that idea, though. The thought of her graceful, thoughtful face turned to Sanders, or Gonzales, that quiet smile spreading at something one of them said—

No. He was sure she wasn’t suited for any of them. He didn’t know how, but he was sure.

***

Mavis set off for Glacier Park the next day with a strange anticipation in her chest.

She always liked going out to the Park, of course. It was the most beautiful place she’d ever been, hands down. And Nina loved it—she’d explored all over it, in human form and as a snow leopard, and she always wanted to show Mavis new and wonderful things about it. They’d hiked for miles, some days, with Nina pointing out this view and that flower and those animal dens.

But she didn’t usually feel this sense of bubbly excitement. This idea that something wonderful might happen.

It couldn’t be because of that Marine officer. That would just be silly—Mavis was a fifty-year-old woman, not a fifteen-year-old girl. She had a grown daughter and a failed marriage behind her. She shouldn’t be getting giggly over some handsome man.

Particularly a handsome man who had an important job somewhere else. A Colonel in the Marines? He must be extremely busy deploying troops, or arranging supply runs, or whatever it was Marine Colonels did with their time. Approving secret weapon research. Something. He probably worked overseas, or in Washington, DC.

An interesting friend to have, Mavis told herself. She’d had one nice conversation with him, and maybe she’d have one or two more, over the course of the wedding weekend. She could learn some things about his important job, maybe, and come away having expanded her horizons.

They’d probably never see each other after this weekend, but in the future, maybe Mavis could say in conversation, I know a Marine Colonel who...

That was a nice, reasonable expectation. Mavis nodded firmly to herself as she pulled in to Glacier and parked her car, going to meet with the rest of the group. A few interesting conversations. A distraction from anything else that might be going on in her life right now.

She could use one, after all. Divorce was the sort of thing that weighed a person down, even if the relationship had been over for years and years.

At the visitor’s center, a crowd of wedding-goers had gathered. Lillian had some extended family in town, all of the Park employees were going to come unless they had to work, and Cal had apparently been surprised by the number of locals who were excited to attend his wedding.

Mavis knew that he thought of himself as a loner, but he was a good man who had made a lot of solid connections without quite realizing it.

Nina was holding hands with Joel, her mate, up near the front of the group. Mavis went over to say hello and hug her daughter, still overwhelmed with joy that she could, anytime she wanted.

Nina grinned at her and said, “I’m so excited for the hike. We’re going to see all the new spring flowers, and the little rabbits, and by the pond there’s the beaver lodge, and—”

Mavis smiled as she chattered. Nina had been a talkative kid, but nowadays she was much quieter and shyer. Anytime she got excited and started going a mile a minute about something—usually the Park or Joel—Mavis felt a flush of happiness, remembering that little girl.

Cal called everyone to order, and they started off. Mavis let herself fall back a bit, wanting Nina to be able to run ahead with the young pack members. She watched her and Teri, Lillian’s little sister, sprint ahead for a bit. Probably wishing they could shift, Mavis thought.

She wondered, often, what shifting into snow leopard form was like. Nina had tried to describe it for her, but it was always clear that there was more than she could say in words. A whole other half of her, something beyond normal human experience.

Mavis wished sometimes that she could share it with her. She knew that humans could be changed, sometimes, and she’d thought about asking Nina to do it for her. But it didn’t seem the sort of thing you should ask of your daughter—what if Mavis wasn’t meant for that life? What if she felt wrong, after? That would be an awful thing to burden Nina with.

Besides, she was too old to start an entirely new type of existence. Fifty was surely past the point where you could take on a whole other half of yourself.

“Hello again.”

Mavis was startled out of her thoughts by the deep voice. She looked over to see Colonel Hanes—Wilson—coming up alongside her.

Unlike last night, when he’d been wearing the dramatic and imposing Marine dress uniform, with its ribbons and insignia and red stripes, today he was wearing hiking gear. Mavis was caught by how warmly attractive he looked in a sweater and jeans. Much more approachable than the uniform. Even his salt-and-pepper hair looked a little mussed from the wind.

“Sorry if I startled you,” he was saying. “I can go on ahead if you’d rather be alone with your thoughts.”

“Not at all,” Mavis said quickly, again struck by his slightly old-fashioned, formal phrasing. Alone with your thoughts.

It sounded a lot better than lonely middle-aged woman, that was for sure.

“Good.” When he smiled, his eyes crinkled, little lines appearing at their corners. They weren’t visible at all when he was serious, and Mavis wondered if that meant he hadn’t laughed much in his life.

Not that that was any of her business. After all, she had lines of sorrow carved into her face from years and years of a missing child, and she wouldn’t want a stranger asking her about that.

Though something about the kindness and warmth coming from Wilson’s eyes...she didn’t know that she’d mind if he asked about her past. She had a strange feeling that he’d understand.

He was looking out at the Park, his silvery eyes dark with some kind of emotion. “This is beautiful. You’re lucky to live so close.”

Glacier Park spread out around them; they were walking through a valley full of early wildflowers, glacier lilies and forget-me-nots and trillium. Up on either side, the mountains swept up in a vista of snow-capped peaks. The air was cool and fragrant; Mavis inhaled the scent of spring with pleasure.

“I am,” she said softly. “I moved here to be close to my daughter, and I’m so glad this is where she found her home, because I think it’s the most beautiful place on Earth.”

He breathed in, too, and she could see his shoulders relaxing as he turned his face into the spring breeze. “I have to agree.”

“Where do you live?” The way he looked—like he was drinking in the sunlight, like the sight of the mountains was nourishing him—suggested to Mavis that it must be somewhere in the city, away from natural wonders like this.

“Washington, DC,” he said on a let-out breath. “It’s a necessary evil once you’re in a position like mine.”

A necessary evil. “It sounds like you could use a break from it, with language like that.”

He chuckled, but it seemed tinged with sadness. “It surely does, doesn’t it? I’m lucky this vacation came up when it did. And it’s been even more of a breath of fresh air than I’d thought it would be, back home.”

Was it her imagination, or were his eyes lingering meaningfully on her as he said it? It must be her imagination; they were talking, after all. Of course he would look at her.

“It must be important work,” she ventured.

He waved a hand. “It’s mostly administrative. Not much to write home about. What about you, what do you do?”

Changing the subject. Well, fine. Maybe she’d bring it up again later, see if he’d be more open once they knew each other a bit better. “I’m a financial advisor for small businesses.”

His eyebrows went up. “That’s an impressive line of work. Valuable, I imagine.”

“I do my best.” Mavis smiled at the thought of her clients. “A lot of people who go into business for themselves are experts at whatever their line of work is—sewing, or sales, or dance, or what-have-you—but don’t know a thing about running a business. I help them make the connection between their passion and the sort of revenue they need to keep doing it.”

“That’s admirable,” he said quietly.

It was strange. His phrasing was still a bit formal, a bit old-fashioned. But the depth of feeling behind it, the richness of emotion, was undeniable. When he said That’s admirable, she could hear the admiration coming from somewhere deep inside.

“Do you find a lot of clients out here near Glacier?” he was saying.

“Some,” she said. “Like I said, I moved here to be close to my daughter, not for the client base. But the people around here are the independent type. They like having control over their own lives. A couple of businesses have even opened since I arrived, because word is getting around that I’ll help them get started.”

A smile broke out on his face. “You’re helping build up the community. Making it possible for people to achieve their dreams.”

The familiar excitement rose inside her at the thought of all of these individuals realizing that they could make it on their own, rather than working for big corporations. “I’m trying. Most recently, I met a woman who’s setting up a guide business at Glacier. She’s a shifter—a lynx—and she’d just been taking little guide jobs here and there, but word got around and now she’s in demand.” She shook her head. “She’s going to have to hire some people soon, because she’s the best there is—has been for years and years—and people are finally starting to realize that. Because now she has an actual business plan, with marketing and so on.”

“And it would be more than worth it to hire someone who really knew the Park to show you around,” Wilson finished.

Mavis nodded. “I’ve gotten an unofficial tour from my daughter’s friends—they’re rangers, after all, so they know it better than anybody—but not everyone has those kinds of fancy connections.” She grinned.

He laughed. “Well, I see who I’m going to have to keep close to, if I want that kind of VIP treatment for myself.”

“I’m sure Cal would love to—well, maybe not on his wedding weekend. But any of the other young men: Grey, or Jeff, or Zach or my daughter’s mate Joel.”

Now Wilson was looking over at Cal. “I’m happy Cal found a pack,” he said. “He never talked much about his past—certainly not to me—but from his record, and his leave requests, it was clear that he’d gotten away from something he didn’t want to go back to. I always hoped he’d find somewhere to stay, and it looks like he has.”

There was that depth of feeling again. The words were restrained, but Mavis could hear the layers of concern, of relief, vibrating in that deep voice.

“Do you have a pack?” she asked tentatively, not sure if she was being rude.

He shook his head. “I’m a bit of a loner. The military’s always been enough pack for me.”

Mavis thought that sounded a little sad. But she didn’t really have room to talk, did she? She’d left all her friends, her husband, her hometown, everything. For the absolute best of reasons, of course, but she’d become a bit of a loner herself in the process.

“I hope you’re enjoying catching up with all your old friends, then,” she offered.

“What I’m most enjoying is making new ones,” was what he came back with. His smile was warm, and Mavis felt her cheeks flush with heat.

This was silly. She shouldn't be blushing like a schoolgirl over a man's smile. Fortunately, her skin was much too dark to show it.

In defiance of her own juvenile shyness, she lifted her chin and said, "Well, would you like a tour around the town? I'm afraid I'm not the expert in the Park that some of the shifters are, but I've been getting to know our little town over the last few months, and I could show you a few of the sights."

His smile widened. "I'd love that."

"Wonderful." Mavis kept her voice confident, but she suddenly wasn't sure what she'd gotten herself into. Showing this man around her small town? He lived in Washington, DC. He wasn't going to be interested in the diner where her daughter worked or the new clothing store Alethia, one of the leopards, had recently opened up.

But the way he was smiling suggested that she might be wrong about that.

***

Wilson hadn't expected to come to Glacier National Park for a wedding and meet a beautiful woman who wanted to show him around town.

Stunning mountain peaks, certainly. Beautiful flowers, perhaps a moose or a bear for excitement. But a lovely, kind, intelligent woman like Mavis, who was offering to spend time with him? He hadn't expected that at all.

Wilson hadn't made a habit of dating in the last several years. Back when he'd been an idiot twentysomething lieutenant, he'd enjoyed going out with girls, telling them fantastical stories about his time overseas—often with only the barest hint of truth in them—and showing them a good time at bars and clubs.

But he'd grown out of that phase, as most people did. And once he'd reached the point of shaking his head at the young Marines who went out with three different girls during a 48-hour leave, he'd started leaving dating behind entirely.

When he'd been deployed for long periods, it simply hadn't been an option. Nor had he wanted to come home to the States, start dating a woman, and then have to leave her behind again. Not to mention the real danger of serving in Iraq: no woman should have to deal with that kind of uncertainty in a new relationship.

Or ever. But certainly not when they'd only been together for a couple of months in the first place.

So he'd left dating behind, and become truly married to his job.

And now that he'd met a woman who interested him for the first time in long, long time, he was wondering what it was that was catching her attention.

Wilson knew the truth: he'd become something of a dull man. He got up, went for a six-mile run, went into work, looked at paperwork all day, came home, cooked himself something difficult to take up the evening hours, went to bed, and did the same thing the next day. He was not someone who offered any sort of thrills or excitement. His conversation these days was fairly limited; he didn't go out and see shows or go on long trips. He just lived his quiet, boring life. Sometimes on the weekends he’d drive out of the city, into the wilderness, get far away from any popular hiking trails, and shift into his snow leopard form and go for a run.

But even that was rarer and rarer these days. It took hours to drive far enough from the heart of Washington, DC that he wouldn’t run into tourists or locals out for a hike. Sometimes it just didn’t seem worth it.

He knew that people heard "Marine Colonel" and thought that that meant he was directing secret missions or meeting daily with the President or something ridiculous like that. The reality was much more prosaic.

Still, apparently there was something interesting about him, because Mavis wanted to spend more time together.

And he certainly wanted to spend more time with her. He admired her affection for her daughter, but also the drive and ambition—not to mention the intelligence!—she must have to work as a freelance financial advisor and be successful enough to support herself, even out here in the middle of nowhere. The pride in her voice was obvious, when she talked about her clients getting themselves set up as small business owners in a world that overwhelmingly rewarded big corporations.

She cared about these people, it was clear. Wilson felt like he’d gotten used to the cold, number-crunching, heartless world of DC, where no one saw the faces of the people they were ostensibly serving.

And looking at Mavis, with her careworn but beautiful face and her kind dark eyes, standing against the breathtaking splendor of Glacier National Park, Wilson suddenly had a hard time remembering why living there was a good idea at all.

***

Mavis waited nervously outside of her apartment for Wilson to come by. He'd rented a car, and he said he'd come pick her up and they could drive around town, and she could point out local attractions.

She didn't know why she'd offered to do this. What sort of local attractions did they even have? Her mind was a blank. All she knew for certain was that there was nothing like what you could find in DC.

But it was too late to turn back, because a sleek little sports car was pulling up next to her, and she could see Wilson in the driver's seat. He leaned across to open the door for her, and smiled ruefully as she got in.

"Sorry about the car," he said. "I thought since I was on vacation I'd pick something fun, but I wasn't banking on having anyone else in it. You're going to have to resign yourself to riding around in a midlife-crisis-mobile."

Mavis laughed, surprised. "I like it," she said. "I've never been in a sports car like this before." She and Daryl had always had sensible middle-class cars.

"We'll have to get out on the highway and open up at some point, then." Wilson grinned, and there was a sparkle in his eyes that Mavis liked.

"I'd love to." She looked around. "Take a left up here."

Since she didn't have any tour guide maps, or any real knowledge of the history of the town, because she'd only been here eight months—what had she been thinking, volunteering to show him around?—Mavis stuck with what she knew.

"There's Alethia's clothing store," she said as they went past. "Alethia's only been in town a year and a half herself, but she always wanted to own a clothing store, and so she got to work on it as soon as she moved here with her mate, Grey. She grew up poor and had to work hard to get nice things to wear, so she's working on making good-quality, affordable clothing available to local women."

"Admirable," Wilson said softly, looking at the store. The front was cheerful, well-lit and inviting, with Alethia's favorite outfits displayed in the window. Mavis felt warmly happy every time she looked at it.

"Alethia was a big help to my daughter when Nina first moved here," she told Wilson. "So I gave her a discount. She's got a big heart and a good head on her shoulders, and that's a combination you don't see too often."

Wilson looked thoughtfully at Mavis. "No, you don't.”

Mavis felt like that stare was looking right through her, somehow. She looked away and cleared her throat. "And, um, if you drive on down the road, you can see the hardware store. That place really needed some marketing work, because he bought the building from a chiropractor ten years ago and never bothered to change the sign."

Wilson made a startled noise in his throat. "Really?"

Mavis nodded, smiling. "Can you believe it? A hardware store with Gina Rossellini, Chiropractor on a big sign in front. But the locals just rolled with it for years, because they knew it was there, after all.”

Wilson smiled. “Of course. Small-town life.”

“That’s right. I got to know Sam, the owner, and we talked about why he didn't want to change the sign. Turned out he didn't think he was good at design, and he's color-blind, so he was afraid he'd pick something totally garish and ruin the whole thing, and also it had been so long that he was afraid he’d ruin the joke. So I worked with him and a local artist to come up with something nice."

Wilson came to a stop in front of the store, where Sam’s Hardware was set up in a lovely, old-fashioned-looking font against a weathered-wood background. “It is nice.”

“Look closer,” Mavis advised.

He leaned out the window, peering at the door, and suddenly laughed. Mavis knew he’d seen the tiny lettering at the bottom of the sign: for chiropractic questions, inquire within. “So he gets a tasteful, accurate sign, but the joke keeps going.”

Mavis nodded. “Everyone was pretty pleased with how it came out. And now anyone can find the store, and Sam’s doing better business.”

Wilson grinned. “Imagine that.” He looked up and down the street. “What else?”

“Well—we can head out of town if you want, and see some of the good vistas.” Mavis cleared her throat. “I’m afraid that most of my knowledge of the town is actually just stories about the clients I’ve gotten. You know, I’ve only been here several months myself, so I’m probably not the best tour guide. I don’t know much about the history, or anything.”

“Are you kidding me?” Wilson looked surprised. “This is the best kind of introduction to a place I’ve ever had. You know about all these people, all the local businesses—that’s the very heart of the community. I can’t imagine anything else I’d rather learn, if I wanted to get to know a place.”

Mavis hadn’t quite thought about it like that. She felt herself starting to smile. “Well—all right. Keep going, and I’ll show you a craft shop that was about to go under last year...”

Wilson started the car.

***

They spent a pleasant afternoon driving around town. Mavis was afraid she’d be monologuing the whole time, but Wilson was always very interested, asking questions, coming up with stories of Marines he’d known who’d left the service with the intention of opening their own businesses doing this or that.

After a couple hours, Wilson asked her where the locals went to eat, and Mavis directed him to Oliver’s diner. Nina, she knew, wasn’t working tonight, which was probably for the best. Mavis didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, seeing her mother having dinner with a handsome man like Wilson.

After all, he was going back to DC once the wedding was over, and he’d never have any reason to come here again. He’d probably remember this fondly as a nice vacation, where he learned some things he’d never known about small-town life, acquired some funny stories, and experienced some natural beauty.

An interlude in his busy, important DC life. Full of his military job, and his—did he have a girlfriend?

Surely he must. As good-looking as he was, with a job like his. Nice, kind, willing to listen—he must have a girlfriend. Women must be lining up at the door, for a man like that.

But if he did, he hadn’t mentioned her at all.

Mavis refused to let herself start hoping that Wilson was in fact single. Because it didn’t matter, did it? She wasn’t going to date him. He was going back to DC.

He held the door for her as they went into the restaurant. Mavis bit her lip and redoubled her mental efforts to forget how good-looking he was.

They were seated by one of the other servers, Patsy, who gave Mavis a significant look behind Wilson’s back. Mavis sighed to herself. It looked like Nina was going to hear about her mother’s not-actually-a-date no matter what.

Wilson scanned the menu. “What’s good here?”

“Everything’s good here,” Mavis told him, which was true. For a small-town diner, it put together a mean spread. “It’s not a gourmet place, but the food is always top-notch. Even my daughter’s happy to eat here, and she works as a waitress most nights.”

Wilson’s eyebrows went up. “Now that is a sign of a good restaurant. Hmm. I hardly ever eat out anymore, I should get something indulgent. Maybe the steak.”

“Why don’t you eat out?” Mavis asked, curious. It couldn’t be money, could it, with a job like his?

Crap, maybe it was money. Maybe he had some kind of massive expense—debts, or medical bills, or child support. Maybe she’d just completely overstepped her bounds—

But he was shaking his head and smiling. “Not as much of a party animal as I used to be. I’m a real homebody these days. And I do love to cook, so it seems a shame to pay somebody else to do it, particularly if I’m going to be eating by myself either way.”

Mavis frowned. “You don’t have a lot of friends in DC?”

“My good friends were in the Corps with me,” Wilson said frankly, “and most of them have either retired, or they’re still on active duty somewhere far away. And a few of them didn’t make it home.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mavis said, struck by the bleakness of that picture.

He shrugged, but the nonchalant gesture was contradicted by the air of sadness around him. “That’s military life.”

Mavis thought about that as the waitress, Ruth, appeared to take their orders. When she'd left, Mavis said, "It sounds like joining the military is signing up for a lonely life, down the road."

"Well," Wilson said, "that's not true for everybody. Most of the time, a military man—or woman—will have a family to come home to. So once you're done being deployed, you might miss your buddies from overseas, but you'll be home with your family at last."

"But you aren't married?" Mavis ventured.

Wilson shook his head. "No, I never met the right woman. Married to my job." There was a pause—was he hesitating? "And you?"

"I'm...not married anymore," Mavis said.

"I'm sorry," Wilson replied immediately. "If this is a painful subject..."

"No, no—well, yes." Mavis had to contradict herself, because, well, it was. "But it's good to talk about it, I think. My divorce is in the final stages right now. My husband was...he was not a good man."

Wilson's mouth firmed into an expression that looked almost angry. "Sometimes I think women in bad marriages have it worse than any combat Marine. Were you—in danger from him?"

Mavis shook her head immediately. "No, he was never physical like that. It was just—he just—" She stopped.

"Please don't think you have to talk about it, if you'd rather not," Wilson said.

Mavis was frustrated with herself. "I want to. Do you ever—have you ever had something that was so terrible, and you wished you could just bring it to light, expose it to the air so that it would lose some of its potency? Be able to talk about it with people, like it was long ago and not important anymore?"

The conversation had gotten heavy fast. Mavis felt like she should apologize, back off from sensitive topics, but Wilson was leaning forward, his eyes meeting hers. And something about the look in those silver-gray eyes suggested to her that he wanted to hear her. That he wanted to take this step forward into close, intimate things.

As their eyes locked, he nodded slowly. "I feel that way about combat. It’s been years, but there are still things I saw, things I had to do... things I had to order other people to do. I understand.”

Mavis held his gaze. She could almost feel the same pain in him, the way the past could reach forward and take hold of you. “Can you talk about it now?”

Maybe if she could hear someone else’s story, it would be easier to tell her own.

Wilson was quiet for a long moment. “It’s difficult. Because I believed, and I still believe, that it's important to defend our country. But in the moment, it’s hard to know if your orders are the best thing, if you're really serving the greater good, or if you're just contributing to human suffering. And there's so much suffering in the world, and I know that I was responsible for some of it.”

There was an endless sadness in his eyes. Mavis had to blink back tears at his words. "I'm glad you made it back," she said softly. "But I'm so sorry you had to see things like that."

"I'm sorry anyone has to," Wilson said. "When I got back, I was driven by the memories of what terrible things could happen during war. I thought that by going into administration, I could work toward making the whole system better, take a step toward peace. But you've got to be truly ambitious, truly connected, to get that high up, and I'm not enough of a politician. As it turns out."

"That's no bad thing," Mavis pointed out. "If you were that much of a politician, you probably wouldn't want the same things."

Wilson nodded. "Which is a problem, but not one I can fix, that's for sure."

There was a pause as their food arrived. Mavis realized she'd completely forgotten what she'd ordered, too caught up in the conversation. The fish, as it turned out. "Fresh-caught this morning," said Ruth as she set the plate in front of her. "And medium-rare steak for the gentleman."

"Thank you, Ruth," Mavis told her, and Ruth smiled.

"Enjoy your meal, Mavis. Enjoy, sir," to Wilson, and she left them to it.

"Very friendly staff here," Wilson commented approvingly.

"They are," Mavis said, "although I know them fairly well, because of my daughter."

"Since she's a waitress too," Wilson remembered. "She seemed like a lovely young woman, when I met her last night."

"She is." Mavis took a bite of her fish—it melted in her mouth, delicious and perfectly seasoned. She took a second to appreciate it, before adding, "I'm very proud of her for growing up as well as she did."

"You should be." Wilson took a bite, and closed his eyes in enjoyment. Mavis found herself caught by the expression of pure pleasure on his face.

Stop it, she scolded herself. She had to remember that there was nothing between them, that he lived thousands of miles away.

But would a little vacation fling really hurt?

The idea shocked her a bit. Mavis had never had a temporary fling. She and Daryl had met in college, and she'd only had one boyfriend before him. She'd never been much of a party girl, always looking for a serious relationship.

But that hadn't worked out too well for her, had it?

Still, that was no reason for her to go throwing herself at the nearest single man of an appropriate age. Mavis told herself firmly to put the idea out of her mind.

"You said you moved here to be with your daughter," Wilson was saying. "And that was recently? What brought her here?"

Mavis bit her lip. "That's—well. It's quite a story."

"I've got nowhere to be," Wilson said. His eyes were warm.

Mavis breathed in and out slowly. "I mentioned things that are difficult to talk about, but that deserve to be brought out into the air."

Wilson nodded, quietly supportive.

"I mentioned that Nina's adopted," Mavis said. "We didn't know she was a shapeshifter until she was first able to change, as a teenager."

Wilson made an understanding noise. "I'd wondered why you were so curious about shifter culture, if your daughter was a shifter."

Mavis nodded. "Since we weren't part of the community, we'd never heard of shifters. Nina kept it a secret, until one day we saw her. My husband—" Her voice caught.

Wilson had set down his fork. He reached across the table and took her hand.

The warm pressure of his palm against hers somehow gave her the courage to keep speaking. "My husband kicked her out of the house," she whispered. "He called her an unnatural creature, and—and all sorts of names." She swallowed. This was the hardest part. "And I didn't say anything against him. I was too much of a coward, too shocked—I didn't know what to do, and so I did nothing."

She blinked several times, remembering that awful night, Daryl's furious shouting echoing through the house, Nina crying and yelling back, and then that final, horrible slam of the door.

For so many years, that sound had haunted her dreams. The last thing she'd ever heard of her daughter.

Mavis fumbled for her phone. "I'm sorry, I just need—" She had to make sure Nina was all right.

"Whatever you need," Wilson said softly.

But when she found her phone, she saw that she already had a text from Nina. It said, I hear you're having a date with a handsome military man! :)

Mavis smiled helplessly at it, reaching for a napkin to dab at her eyes.

"What is it?" Wilson asked.

"I was going to text Nina, just to be in touch with her, but she's already texted me, teasing me about being out—" Mavis suddenly realized what she was saying, and felt her cheeks flush with heat again. She glanced up across the table.

Wilson was smiling now. "Out with an old paper-pusher like me?"

His voice was gentle, but he was following her lead, taking them out of the fraught subject of Mavis’ past.

"That's...not how she characterized you," Mavis said, relaxing gratefully into the more lighthearted mood. She put the phone down. "I want to tell you the rest of the story," she said, more seriously. "But I don't think I can do it in public."

"Of course. You should do whatever you're most comfortable with," said Wilson. His silver eyes were endlessly kind. "Shall we get the food to go?"

"Let's finish," Mavis decided. "We should really appreciate this as it was meant to be eaten, hot and fresh." And she could use a break from this particular topic of conversation.

"I'm going to have to come back here just to have this steak again," Wilson commented. "It's better than I've had in DC."

"Local beef," Mavis pointed out. "Not much room for cows in the city."

"Too true," Wilson said, with a hint of wistfulness in his voice.

"Do you get out to shift much?" Mavis asked as she took another bite of her fish.

He sighed. "I wish I could, but no. It's too far a drive to get somewhere private enough that no one would noticed a stray snow leopard running around. I spent most of my time in the city—concrete, sidewalks, shopping malls."

“That’s hard,” Mavis sympathized. “I mean—I think it must be. Nina’s told me that it’s difficult to stay in one form all the time.”

“I manage. I suppose it is difficult, but I’ve had many years to get used to it. In the military, even in the shifter units, there aren’t always many opportunities to go out and shift.”

“I suppose not,” Mavis said.

They focused on their food for a few minutes, while Mavis went over what Wilson had said about himself in her mind. It didn’t quite seem to fit the idea of a flashy, high-powered Washington military man that she’d had in her mind.

In fact, it seemed as though Wilson thought his life was...dull? Confined? At least some parts of it.

“What would you do if you weren’t working at your job?” she said impulsively. “Do you have any plans for after you retire?”

“Come here and eat this steak for dinner every night,” Wilson said immediately, and when she chuckled, “I suppose that’s not the most realistic ambition. I’ve thought about it, but I admit I’m not quite sure. That’s probably what’s kept me in the job so long.”

“How do you mean?”

“A military pension is very, very good,” he told her. “Particularly once you’re fairly high-ranking, and you’ve been in the Service for twenty years or more. Which I certainly have.”

“How much more?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

“Now, now, never ask a gentleman his age,” he said, and she laughed again.

She liked his sense of humor. It wasn’t crude or insulting like a lot of men’s; it was more refined, and almost delicate, how he dropped casual little jokes into the conversation.

Daryl hadn’t had much of a sense of humor. She’d given up trying to joke with him early on in their marriage, because he never got it, and then she’d either feel awkward when he didn’t notice, or have to explain the joke to him and deal with him telling her it wasn’t funny.

“In any case, I could’ve retired years ago if I’d wanted to, and with the pension and my savings from all of the combat pay I’ve gotten, I wouldn’t have had to worry about money at all,” he said. “But—as I said before, I married my job. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself without it.”

Mavis privately thought that it sounded like he and his job might be on the rocks, and perhaps a divorce was in order. But she wasn’t about to dictate his life choices for him, so she kept her mouth shut.

The rest of dinner was in the same, more lighthearted vein. Wilson picked up the check, not even considering Mavis’ offer to pay.

“It’s the least I can do in exchange for the wonderful tour this afternoon,” he said, “and the company and conversation this evening.”

He held the door for her again on the way out. And then opened the sports car’s door for her, too.

She had to keep her mind out of impossible fantasies, somehow.

And then, once they were in the car, he said softly, “Did you want to continue our earlier conversation? If you’re comfortable. If not, I entirely understand.”

And Mavis heard herself saying, “Would you like to come to my place for a cup of coffee?”

Wilson said, “That sounds lovely,” and Mavis had to accept that she’d just asked a man up to her apartment only a day after meeting him.

And she didn’t regret it.

She was certain that Wilson would be a perfect gentleman, for one thing. And...if something did end up happening, Mavis was somehow sure she wouldn’t regret it.

She wanted to spend as much time with this man as she could, before he flew off, away from Montana forever. She wanted to experience every moment with him as fully as she could.

And from what she could tell, even fully clothed, he seemed to have the sort of body that a man twenty years younger would be envious of. Trim waist, broad shoulders, biceps that showed some definition even under his shirt...his jeans hugged his behind in a way that Mavis appreciated very much, and showed off powerful thighs.

She remembered him saying he ran six miles every morning. Looking at him as he got out of the car and came around to open her door, she could believe it.

She let him into her building. “It’s a bit shabby,” she said as they went upstairs.

“No need to apologize for anything about your home,” he said in firm tones.

So Mavis bit her tongue as they came into her apartment, with its secondhand couch and fraying blankets and pillows.

She’d left everything behind when she left Daryl. All of the nice things they’d bought for their house were still in the house, where Daryl was living. Mavis’ lawyer said that they could get her some of her things, and that she would certainly get a half-share of the home’s value...but that was sometime in the future, and right now the lawyer’s fees were taking up most of her spare income.

But Wilson settled into the Goodwill couch like it was the most comfortable place he’d ever sat. Mavis started up the coffee and came back into the living room.

And suddenly she was faced with a choice—the chair catty-corner to the couch, or the cushion next to Wilson.

She chose the cushion. Immediately, she could feel the warmth of his body heat radiating out towards her. She resisted the urge to scoot closer.

“So,” he said quietly. “You were telling me about your daughter.”

Mavis was struck suddenly by how much of a rock he seemed, a quiet, immutable foundation.

This was a man who’d been in violent combat and kept his head. Who’d come back alive, and brought others back with him. Who’d commanded men for his entire adult life.

Someone who would never fly off the handle in a crisis. Who would carefully assess a situation. Who wouldn’t scream or yell, or make a split-second decision and stick to it like glue, no matter what anyone said to him.

Someone nothing like Daryl.

Mavis drew in a breath. “Daryl threw Nina out of the house, and I stood by and said nothing. I didn’t know what to do—I didn’t know what had just happened to my daughter. Daryl was insisting that she was possessed, that she was some kind of devil-creature, and I’d just seen her turn into an animal...but that’s no excuse at all. She was my daughter. I shouldn’t have let him. I should have gone with her.”

There was a short space of quiet, and then Wilson said, “Sometimes you make the wrong decision. And the consequences—well, the consequences can be irrevocable. And there’s nothing you can do to go back. I’ve—” He stopped.

“What?” Mavis whispered.

“I’ve done the same thing,” he said in a low voice.

“When?” Her voice was airless. She was desperate to hear, to feel that someone else understood how it felt to be caught endlessly in one moment of a horrific mistake.

“Once...once in Iraq, I gave an order to investigate a town. I sent good men out to it, thinking it was just another village.” He exhaled heavily. “It was an enemy hideout.”

Mavis drew in her breath.

“If I’d kept the men back, ordered more caution, it would have been different. But I didn’t consider all the options, and men died because of that error.”

She clenched her fists, feeling her fingernails prick her palms as she thought about the horror he must have felt when it all went wrong.

“I spent a long time living inside of that moment,” he said. “I still feel that pain, that regret. But if I let it consume me, I wouldn’t be able to make any amends. I wouldn’t be able to do better the next time, because all of my judgment, my experience, would be lost inside of one event, and there would be no way to bring my full self to the next thing. And that would be dishonoring those men’s memory, more than anything else.”

He took Mavis’ hand. His palm was warm, and big enough to engulf hers. “Do you see? No one is served by that much guilt. Not me, not you. Not Nina.”

Mavis stared down at their joined hands. “I try,” she said. “I try to keep all of the guilt I feel, the shame, away from Nina. It’s not going to help her, if I’m beating myself up all the time. She doesn’t need to constantly reassure me that it’s all right, or try to calm me down when I’m upset. That’s not my job, as her mother. I need to be the best mother I can be for her, now, rather than living—like you said—living inside of that moment when I was at my worst.”

Wilson twined their fingers together, and she shivered at the closeness, the intimacy of the moment. “That’s all we can ever do,” he said softly. “The best that we can. And if we fail, well, we have to get up and keep going and try for a better best.”

Mavis blinked tears back. “Nina was gone for seven years,” she said in a rush, and Wilson’s hand tightened on hers as he sucked in a breath. “She went out that door and she never came back. I looked for her. I called shelters, I called hospitals, I put up posters, I searched on the Internet. I asked everyone she knew, all of her friends. But she left town, and I didn’t know where to find her.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Wilson said. “Seven years of your daughter missing...it must have been the worst hell imaginable.”

Mavis nodded. “It was.”

Wilson frowned, his thumb stroking up and down her hand. “You said your divorce was only just being finalized now. Did you marry again, after that?”

Mavis shook her head. “No. I stayed with Daryl. Because I knew that if I left him, he’d fight tooth and nail to keep the house. If I was going to leave, I’d have to leave. And Nina would have no way of finding me.”

Understanding dawned in Wilson’s eyes, and his hand tightened on hers. “So you stayed, so she’d have her mother to come home to.”

Mavis nodded. “I couldn’t let her come home to a house with only Daryl in it. And I couldn’t take any risk that she might come back, and I wouldn’t know about it. I had to stay.”

“For seven years,” Wilson breathed. “With a man like that.” He shook his head. “You have a strength matching any Marine I’ve ever known. I’m amazed that you came out of that experience so...”

“So what?” Mavis dared to ask. Fishing for compliments, maybe, but she desperately wanted to hear what he thought of her.

“So kind,” he said. “So caring, so able to pay attention to all these people whose businesses you help. And so calm and poised. I think that most people, in a situation like that, would be on-edge for the rest of their lives. What you said about keeping your guilt away from your daughter, managing it yourself so that the burden of it isn’t on her...after that experience, it would be hard to even conceive of that, let alone put it into practice.” He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it, slow and heartfelt. “You have an astonishing strength of character, Mavis.”

Mavis felt dizzy. She pulled herself together to say, “I think you’re overestimating me. I don’t always succeed at keeping my fears away from Nina. I try, but it’s hard. And staying with Daryl...it was the only thing to do. I couldn’t do anything else. So I pulled myself inward. Like a turtle, or a snail. Put all the vulnerable parts of me inside a shell, and made sure that Daryl only saw the shell. Taking them out again, after Nina got in contact with us, was hard, and it hurt, but I’m so happy to be a whole person again, instead of just a—wall.”

“I’m happy, too,” Wilson said. “I would have been disappointed not to be able to meet you as you are.”

“You wouldn’t have known,” Mavis pointed out.

“Oh,” he said, and his eyes were warm, “I think I would have known.”

Mavis leaned forward, drawn in by those beautiful eyes, and he met her halfway in a kiss.

It was the sweetest, softest kiss Mavis had ever experienced. His lips were gentle against hers, and he drew her carefully into his arms, so that she was held in a pure state of warmth as he kissed her like time had stopped.

Mavis sighed against his mouth, caught up in this feeling of bliss, like she’d come to a place where, at last, she could relax and enjoy this oasis of pleasurable calm. A place where she wasn’t being careful, wasn’t conscious of her own failures and worries, but could just let herself float away on the feeling of Wilson’s mouth, lean into the support of his arms around her, and that was all.

After a long, long time, he drew back. She smiled up at him. He was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite parse, but it had a hint of...wonder?

“I wasn’t planning on doing that,” he said after a moment. “I thought I might offer to take you out tomorrow after the wedding, and perhaps I’d kiss you then. It seemed inappropriate to do it when you invited me up here to tell me something so private. But I feel for you so deeply already.”

“I feel the same,” Mavis murmured. “I’m not sorry at all. I thought, when I invited you up...this isn’t the sort of thing I do very often, inviting men home.”

“I didn’t think it was,” he assured her. “And I didn’t take it as anything other than an invitation to talk, I promise you.”

“That’s what it was,” she said. “But I thought...I thought that it would be all right if something happened. I can’t explain it, but I feel such a connection with you.”

“Yes,” he said. “Like we’ve known each other for a long time, even as we’re just getting to know each other now.”

Mavis nodded. “With you, I feel...” She hesitated. “I feel safe. As though I don’t have to guard myself. And if you knew how long it’s been since I felt that...”

Wilson’s face contorted in some sympathetic pain, and he pulled her into his arms again. Not for a kiss this time, but just to hold her tightly. Mavis marveled once again at the feeling of safety. Like all of her guilt and pain just melted away at the feeling of him holding her.

Maybe it was because he’d felt some of the same guilt and pain, in his own past. Mavis was always aware, as she got to know people, of this gaping hole in her past, seven years of suffering that no one could possibly understand.

She talked around it. When people asked why she’d moved to northern Montana, she said she wanted to be close to her daughter, and people accepted that. If anyone pressed further, she mentioned she was going through a divorce, and that usually got a sympathetic face and no further questions.

Even with Nina, she was on her guard, because like she’d said, she needed to keep her own problems inside her own skin, and not draw Nina into them. She needed to have the relationship that was best for Nina, and that meant paying attention to Nina’s needs over her own.

She’d never wanted to tell someone else, someone outside the family. But with Wilson, she’d somehow needed him to know. And hearing that he’d gone through something similar...she could let go of that constant guardedness. She could just be Mavis, who’d lost her daughter because she couldn’t stand up to her husband. And that wasn’t all right, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

Like Wilson had said, it was time to turn her face to the future.

She wished the future could be with him. She wished he could stay here instead of going back to Washington.

But she wasn’t going to think about that. She was just going to think about how wonderful his arms felt around her.

Eventually, they parted in a way that felt completely natural; Mavis was happy to go from feeling Wilson’s arms to looking into his eyes.

“You’re trembling,” he said softly. “How long has it been since someone held you?”

Mavis felt sudden, unexpected tears prickling at her eyes. “A long, long time.” When was the last time she’d felt safe in anyone’s arms? The only person she’d hugged in the last several months was Nina, of course, and that was a different kind of happiness, tinged with a fierce protectiveness, a determination that nothing would ever take her daughter away again.

Before that...had she ever felt safe in Daryl’s arms? She didn’t know. Before Nina had left, there hadn’t been much terrible fear in her life. She hadn’t had anything she needed to feel safe from.

Daryl, of course, had never been the type of man to comfort others. He was too impatient, too caught up in his own view of the world. If he was all right, everyone else should be too, and anyone who wasn’t was just wasting his time.

Back when she’d been graduating college, with lofty ambitions about how she was going to make a place for herself in the world of finance, Mavis had admired that. Once she’d started to understand what was really important—family, friends, connecting with people and making their lives a little bit better—she’d been less and less appreciative of Daryl’s attitudes.

Even before Nina left, she and Daryl hadn’t spent much time holding each other, that was for sure.

And what about Wilson? She looked at him, frowning. “I think the same is probably true for you. Isn’t it?”

He looked startled. “Well—I suppose I hadn’t thought of it that way. A man doesn’t usually think he needs to be held.”

“Everyone needs to be held sometimes,” Mavis said firmly.

A slow smile spread across his face. “I guess I have to agree. Though the military doesn’t provide many opportunities. No mandatory hugging checks, or anything of the sort.”

Mavis huffed a laugh at that mental image. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

“It would,” he agreed. “I think some of these straight-laced, upright military men could use a good hug or two. Although I doubt they’d ever admit it.”

“Probably not.” Mavis ran a hand up his arm, getting distracted at the curve of his bicep, before she traced over his shoulder to cup his neck. God, he was muscular. “What were you going to suggest?” she asked him.

He seemed distracted by her hand. “Sorry?”

“Before,” she said. “You said, ‘This can be all we do tonight.’” She raised her eyebrows. “As opposed to what? It sounded like there was another option in there.”

She could hear the flirtatious tone in her voice. She knew what she was suggesting...and she wasn’t about to take it back.

“Well.” His voice had gone deeper. “I could kiss you again.”

“You could,” she agreed.

Her hand was still cupping his neck. He turned his head, his lips brushing against her wrist. “Like that, perhaps.”

“Or?” She sounded breathless. That was all right, she decided. She could use a little breathlessness in her life.

“Or like this.” He reached out, his hand brushing her cheek, and drew her in.

This kiss was deeper than the last one had been. His tongue flirted with her lips, and she opened her mouth to let him in, melting into his arms.

But it was still so gentle, so soft, like she was something precious that he wanted to take the absolute best care of. Mavis held on tight and kissed him back, her heart aching with the feeling of him so close to her.

“Mmm,” she said as he pulled back. “Exactly like that.”

He kissed her again. This time, the kiss melted into more kisses, until they were twined together on Mavis’ couch like teenagers, kissing and kissing and kissing.

Somewhere in there, the softness started transforming into heat. The kisses were still gentle, still full of a tender care that Mavis wanted to feel directed toward her every single day from now on. But the air between her and Wilson was starting to light up, to crackle with desire. Mavis could feel herself getting wet, heat building in her stomach and between her legs. Her breasts tingled with want, and she pulled Wilson closer, one hand on his bicep, the other starting to explore down his side toward his hip.

He pulled back with a gasp. “What do you want?”

“Hm?” she asked dizzily.

He kissed her again, as though he couldn’t help himself. “What do you want?” he murmured. “Should we move this to the bedroom? If you’re—”

“I am more than okay with moving it to the bedroom,” Mavis told him. “I would be delighted if we could move it to the bedroom. In fact—”

“I think I understand,” he said, laughing. “Well, then—”

Mavis made a startled noise as he swept her up into his arms, without exerting any sort of apparent effort.

Shifter strength, she reminded herself. Although he was so muscular, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he could’ve done it no matter what. And Mavis wasn’t a small woman; she had curves all over.

“Just tell me the way,” he murmured to her.

Mavis directed him down the hall to her bedroom door, and he opened it neatly without jostling her, closed it carefully behind him, and then deposited her right in the center of her bed. Then he kissed her deeply, one broad hand supporting her back as he laid her down onto the pillows.

Mavis held on tight, luxuriating in the feeling of his large, strong body over hers. One of his hands cupped her breast, thumbing at her nipple through the cup of her bra, and even that muffled touch was enough to send a jolt of pleasure through her body.

She shifted her hips underneath him, spreading her legs until she could feel the growing hardness of his erection pressing against her upper thigh. He moved up, kissing her deeply, and his cock settled directly between her legs.

Urgency had definitely taken them over now, but somehow that earlier tenderness hadn’t disappeared. Wilson’s every movement was still gentle, still caressing and caring. As he moved his hips against her, pressing right up against her clit, he broke the kiss and studied her face, as if to check that she was all right, that this was what she wanted.

“More,” Mavis breathed, and watched his eyes kindle with a silvery flame just before he bent down to kiss her again, more fiercely.

And then they were moving together—the swell of his cock pressing up on her clit through their pants, pleasure starting to rock through her body as she tasted his mouth. She was amazed at how quickly she felt the crest of ecstasy rising inside her. It had been so, so long since anyone had touched her at all, and her body was thirsty for it; every kiss was a drink of water.

She moaned into his mouth as his hips rolled, sending a wave of sensation through her. He did it again, and the wave went higher. She was soaking through her pants at this rate; she was going to leave a damp patch on his jeans, and she couldn't bring herself to care.

"Oh God," she broke from his mouth to say. "Oh God, right there, right there, Wilson—"

She came. She came without even getting her pants off, shuddering and pulsing with pleasure right there, fully clothed in his arms. He kissed her through it, fiercely at first, and then gentling, until she caught her breath and calmed down, lifting her chin for more soft, dragging kisses.

"Whoo," she said finally, when the last shivers of pleasure were fading away. "It's been a long while since I've done that." Then she laughed.

He smiled down at her. "What?"

"Necking on the couch, and now dry humping on the bed. What sort of middle-aged people are we?" she asked. "Teenagers, more like it."

"Maybe teenagers have the right idea," he said in low voice, "because that was the hottest thing I've ever seen."

That was a strange idea. Mavis wasn't in the habit of thinking of herself as hot. After all, she was fifty. She had a grown daughter. She wore sensible, businesslike clothing, never anything suggestive or revealing. And it had been more than seven years since she'd even thought about having sex with a man, let alone actually done anything.

But Wilson was looking at her like the very sight of her stretched out on this bed was setting him on fire. And Mavis couldn't do anything but believe him.

"Well then," she said, and her voice was low like his had been, rough with renewed desire, "why don't you let me take some clothes off, and we'll see if we can't top that?"

He kissed her hard, and then pulled back. "I can't think of anything in the entire world I'd want more than that."

Mavis unbuttoned her shirt, and watched Wilson's eyes trace over the curves of her generous breasts as they were revealed. He reached out and traced a thumb down the line of her bra, and she shivered. She sat up, shedding the shirt and reaching behind herself to undo the clasp.

When she was bare from the waist up, Wilson leaned forward and kissed her just between her breasts, then trailed warm, damp kisses up over one curve to her nipple, while Mavis trembled and felt the muscles between her legs clench with increasing want.

He paid lavish attention to her nipple with his mouth, catching the other one between two fingers and massaging lightly. He didn't pinch, just slowly built up pressure and sensation until she was almost writhing.

She was gasping for breath when he pulled back, his hands going to her waistband. He gave her a questioning look and she nodded, too breathless to speak.

He undid her pants and tugged them down; she lifted her hips to help him. Her panties were still on, white cotton with a lacy border, dramatic against her dark skin. He leaned down and kissed the thin fabric over her hipbone. His fingers dipped between her legs, and when he lifted his head, his pupils were wide and dark. "You're so wet."

The fabric was surely soaked through from her orgasm. Mavis nodded, and then gasped again as his fingers started massaging once more, this time over her clit. The wet cotton dragged over the sensitive skin, making her arch her back in sudden, overwhelming pleasure.

Just as she was sure she was about to come a second time, he pulled back, and over her protesting sound, he pulled her panties down. Mavis kicked them impatiently off, and said, "Now you."

Wilson looked down, as though he'd completely forgotten he was still clothed. Then he glanced back up at her, and grinned. It made him look ten years younger. "If you insist," he said, and went for the buttons of his shirt.

Mavis drank in the sight of him as it was revealed. She hadn't been wrong about his muscles—they rippled over his body, hard and defined from decades of conditioning. His chest hair was salt-and-pepper gray, and she wanted to get her fingers on it.

When he unbuttoned his jeans, Mavis found her mouth watering. Slowly, teasingly, he inched them down over his hips—then paused when all she could see was a hint of pubic hair. She looked up, and he had a twinkle in his eye.

Sternly, she said, "Quit stalling."

His lips quirked, and he stripped his pants and underwear off in one smooth motion, leaving his cock exposed. It was long and thick, fully erect and flushed with blood. Mavis drew in an involuntary breath.

Then he was over her, bending down to kiss her mouth, one hand between her legs, fingers slipping inside. Mavis pushed back against them, but they quickly disappeared—just checking if she was ready, they must have been, because the next thing she felt was the thick, blunt pressure of his cock pushing into her.

God, it felt so good. It was like they were coming together in more than just the physical. Mavis felt as though what she’d wanted earlier, to have Wilson stay with her forever, with his caring eyes and his gentle touch, was actually coming true.

He pressed in achingly slowly, one hand caressing her—her breast, the curve of her stomach, her hip, a loving touch that sent shivers of pleasure through her, coalescing at the point where they were joined.

When he was seated fully inside her, looking down at her with eyes that seemed like silvery flame, he asked, with strain audible in his voice, “All right?”

“More than all right,” Mavis said back. More all right than I’ve ever been in my life, she thought. “You feel so good.”

“Good,” he said on a gust of breath, and started to move inside her, thrusting deep and slow. It felt like she was being carried away on a wave of him, as he moved her, his body all around her, his cock inside her. Like she could just let everything else go, relax, and be his.

Mavis shuddered as the pleasure started to build again. She was on a hair-trigger after coming once and being brought to the edge a second time, and the deep press of his cock was making her clench around him, pulses of pleasure starting to echo through her body. She reached up to hold him close, needing an anchor, and he wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her fiercely as she came again.

This orgasm didn’t fade away, though. As she spasmed in pleasure, he kept thrusting, and it was like every push of his cock into her sparked another wave of climax. Mavis almost sobbed in pleasure as it went on and on and on.

Finally, he groaned, deep and low, and his cock jerked in her, his hips thrusting hard and deep one last time as he came. Mavis sighed as her second orgasm finally came to an end, the pulses weakening into an overall feeling of shuddery bliss.

After a long moment, he withdrew, and stretched out next to her, his arms still around her, holding her close in a pocket of heat and joy. Mavis closed her eyes and held him back, nothing in her mind but the pure happiness of the moment.

The future would bring other things, and there were plenty of reasons her feelings didn’t make any sense, wouldn’t lead to any good outcome. But it didn’t matter.

In this moment, she loved him.

***

Wilson felt Mavis breathing softly in his arms. Her eyes had drifted shut, and after a few moments, it was clear she’d fallen asleep. A smile still lingered on her lips.

Wilson was torn in two directions—on the one hand, he wanted to immediately wake her up and tell her what he now knew, down to his bones, without any doubt.

On the other hand, he needed a moment to sit with this knowledge, to understand that his entire life had been bringing him to this moment. To rearrange his future in his head, and understand that it was so much brighter than he’d ever dreamed.

Mavis was his mate.

He’d been so certain that it wasn’t in the cards for him. Married to my job, he’d said with a jovial tone to anyone who asked, as though that’s all he wanted from his life. As though his work made him plenty happy, and there was no need for anything more.

He’d been lying, every time. And he’d known it—he pretended hard, even to himself, that the military was all the home and family he’d ever need. When he’d been overseas, it had even seemed true, if only because he couldn’t imagine subjecting any woman to the fear and uncertainty that came from a husband deployed into combat.

But in the years after he’d been posted to Washington, he’d had to pretend harder and harder. Because the truth was that underneath the fiction he presented to the world, he was deeply unhappy.

And lonely. That had always seemed like a childish word to him, something that should be easy to conquer. But what it represented was long, empty evenings, weekends where he went on walks or drove out of the city to shift alone. Reading books without anyone around to talk to about them, coming home from a long day of work and having no one to wrap their arms around him and take his mind to happier things.

Now he could have that with Mavis.

But could he? She wasn’t going to leave Glacier, he knew that. She’d stay with her daughter until her last breath, after what had happened.

That story had broken Wilson’s heart. Her daughter missing for so long...and she’d had to stay with the man who’d caused it all, or risk losing Nina forever.

That made his fists want to clench in anger, though he kept his body relaxed to avoid waking Mavis.

But if he ever met that man, the man who’d throw his own teenage daughter onto the streets, cause his wife and his child so much pain...well, even decades of military training would have a hard time restraining him from teaching the man a lesson he wouldn’t forget.

He’d protect Mavis from now on. The idea filled him a with a fierce love. Nothing so awful would ever happen to her again, because Wilson was going to stand between her and trouble from now on.

And Nina. That was something he’d never considered. A stepdaughter? He blinked at the ceiling in wonder. A stepdaughter.

But he was getting ahead of himself. He had to tell Mavis what he already knew down to his bones, and see where they went from there.

She wouldn’t know they were mates yet, not like he did. Because she was human. A human mate—what a strange thing. But perfect. Mavis was perfect in every way.

He couldn’t wait to tell her.

***

Mavis came awake quickly, her eyes flying open to see Wilson frozen in the act of pulling away.

“I was just going to check on that coffee,” he explained. “But now that you’re awake—” He settled back in, his arms warm and solid around her. “Did you have a good nap?”

“Mmm,” Mavis said. She wondered how long she’d slept. It didn’t seem long. But she didn’t want to look at the clock—didn’t want to think about time ticking away until Wilson would fly back to Washington, out of her life forever.

She blinked a few times, waking herself up, and stretched in Wilson’s arms. Best to just enjoy the moment. She smiled at him. “I hope it wasn’t boring, just watching me sleep.”

“It was anything but boring.” His tone was so heartfelt, Mavis couldn’t help but believe him.

He took her hands in his, brought them to his mouth, and kissed her fingers softly. It was so sweet that Mavis was left speechless and blinking sudden, inexplicable tears from her eyes.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

Mavis was surprised to find that she was. But when she looked at the clock, she realized that dinner had been hours ago now. “A bit.”

He glanced over his shoulder. Mavis was struck by the picture of him, lying naked in her bed, the long lines of his body softly illuminated by the single lamp, light playing over the deep-cut angles of his muscles.

“May I use your kitchen?” he asked, and Mavis had to shake herself out of her reverie.

“Of course,” she said, only realizing what she’d agreed to a moment later.

But he was already slipping away, snagging some clothes on the way out. Mavis smiled incredulously to herself. What was this luck? How had this happened to her?

She found a robe—a comfy terrycloth number, nothing silky or diaphanous. But somehow she didn’t think Wilson would mind.

Out in the kitchen, she found him dressed in his jeans but no shirt, with half the contents of her cupboards already spread out on the countertops. Milk, eggs, flour, butter, apples, cinnamon...he was focused intently on a mixing bowl, so rather than disturbing him, Mavis took up a position in the doorway and watched.

It was easy to see that he was a competent cook. He moved quickly and purposefully, his hands sure and strong as they cracked eggs, splashed milk without measuring, and mixed things up with easy confidence. He wasn’t looking at a recipe.

“Can I help?” Mavis asked after a few minutes; she was starting to feel lazy, just standing in the doorway and spectating.

“No,” he said firmly, chopping up an apples with quick flashes of her best knife. “I’m always cooking for myself. I want to cook for you.” He glanced over and shot her a grin, an expression that made him look twenty years younger. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

“I have no doubt,” Mavis said, heartfelt. Well, she supposed it wasn’t a hardship to watch a gorgeous shirtless man cooking her a midnight snack.

And phrased that way, it really seemed like she was living in some kind of crazy fantasy.

In what seemed like no time, Wilson had produced spiced-apple pancakes and the fluffiest, dreamiest scrambled eggs she’d ever seen prepared. He laid the table and said, “Now, enjoy.”

Mavis kissed him before she sat down. He caught her up in a tight embrace, then just as quickly let her go. “Sit down, it’ll get cold.”

She thought she saw a hint of military discipline in that, and stifled a smile. She wasn’t going to argue with a regimented presentation of amazing food.

And when she took the first bite, she thought she was going to melt out of her chair. “Oh.” The word was more of a moan. “Oh my goodness. You’re going to have to teach me how to make these.”

Mavis could make pancakes. But she’d never made pancakes like this.

A slow, private grin was spreading over his face. “I don’t know,” he said. “I like the idea of being the only one who can make you make that noise.”

That made her shiver a bit in fearful pleasure. The only one. That sounded like a statement of intent. Could he mean...?

Mavis told herself to stop thinking about the future. Why worry about what was coming, anyway, when she had the most delicious midnight breakfast she’d ever tasted, sitting right here in front of her.

She ate every bite, and Wilson fairly beamed with pride in his cooking. It was endearing as all get-out.

When they were finished, Mavis sat back and said, “Well. I could get used to that.”

“Good,” he said in his slow, deep voice. “Because I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?” she asked, curious, feeling that same fearful anticipation rising inside her.

“I don’t know how much you know about shifter—marriage, and romance,” he said tentatively.

“I know that shifters sometimes meet their true mates,” she ventured. “Like Nina and Joel, or Cal and Lillian. There’s some kind of—I don’t quite understand it. A mystical connection of some kind. So that they know that they’re meant to be together. It’s a permanent bond.”

If only humans had the same thing, she might’ve avoided ending up with Daryl, and married a better man. If only.

Wilson reached across the table for her hand, and kissed the back of it, as he’d done on the couch earlier. “Mavis,” he said, his eyes locked with hers, “you’re my mate. I realized it when we were—together.” His hesitation gave her no doubt about what he meant. “I know it more surely than I’ve ever known anything in my life. You’re my mate. We’re meant to be together.”

Mavis blinked.

It took her a few minutes to even process what he was saying. She was his mate? What could he possibly mean?

When her brain finally got through the words to the meaning, she found herself just as unsure. Wilson was saying that she, Mavis, was the one person meant to be with him forever. As a snow leopard shifter’s mate.

Her first thought was that it couldn’t be, because she was human. But she knew that wasn’t true. Lillian had been human before Cal changed her—and so had her sister Teri, before she met her mate, Zach. Leah, Jeff’s mate, was human. There were plenty of humans who were shifters’ mates.

But not her.

Mavis didn’t have any hint of the sort of magical grace she saw in all of the women in the snow leopard pack. She always imagined that there was some kind of ethereal presence about them, especially when they were with their mates. When they were together, the love and connection practically wafted off of them.

That wasn’t anything that belonged to her. It couldn’t be.

Wilson’s grip on her hand tightened, and she realized she was shaking her head.

“I don’t think—I don’t think that can be right,” she managed. Her voice broke a little, but she kept going. “I agree that we have a—a connection. There’s something between us. But you’re mistaking it for something else. You must be. We can’t be mates.”

“Why not?” he asked. The warmth and care in his voice, which usually made her feel calm and cared for, now seemed like too much to take. Like she was looking into the sun, and it was too bright to survive.

“Well, because—because it just isn’t possible, that’s all.”

Why was she arguing? She could remember just a couple of hours ago, thinking how wonderful it would be if she and Wilson could be together forever.

But that had been a pipe dream. The sort of wistful fantasy of a perfect life that was never actually realized.

Mavis had already had one impossible dream come true: she had her daughter back. There wasn’t any room in her life for another one. Right?

“Why isn’t it possible?” he asked her. God, his voice was so terribly gentle.

She pulled her hands back. “I don’t—I don’t know,” she managed. “It just isn’t. How could it work, anyway? You live in Washington.”

“That’s what I want to figure out together,” he said. “I want to be with you. If that means leaving Washington—”

She pushed away in a quick, violent motion, coming up out of her chair. Her robe was gaping a little, she realized, and she clutched it tighter around herself. “No, you can’t just leave your job for no reason—”

“It wouldn’t be for no reason,” he said calmly, getting up as well. “Mavis, I’m sorry if this is upsetting you. That’s the last thing I want to do. If you need some time to think about it, that’s all right. Would you like me to go?”

Then she was frozen—she didn’t want him to leave.

But she didn’t want him setting up impossible things, making it seem like everything could work out, fantasy-like, into some beautiful picture of true love, when that was clearly not right.

She couldn’t make a move in either direction, so she waited, still frozen, while he came over to her, kissed her gently, and said, “Please think this over. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the wedding, and we can talk again then.”

And then he was gone, and she was left to wonder—could this be real?

Was there any universe where she could have something like this?

She couldn’t quite believe there was.

As much as she wanted to.

***

Wilson drove around the town, restless. He didn’t want to go back to his hotel room and sit alone, wondering what Mavis was thinking about.

The way she’d protested so automatically that it was impossible, that it couldn’t be true—he didn’t know what to make of that.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in mates. They were going to a wedding between two true mates tomorrow, for Pete’s sake. So the problem must be something else. Something that was keeping her from believing that she could be someone’s mate.

Maybe it made sense after all, then. With her past...it might be hard to believe in something so good, after so much bad.

He pulled over on the edge of town, looking up at the black shapes of the mountains looming above him. He felt a sudden urge to shift and run out there, explore this wild countryside in snow leopard form.

Wilson had grown up in the Midwest, and gone straight to West Point out of high school, then spent most of his active career deployed in the Middle East. He’d never spent any time in this kind of environment, dramatic mountain peaks, glaciers, frozen lakes—the kind of environment a snow leopard was meant to inhabit.

Every time he looked out at the mountains, he could feel his leopard growling in his chest, wanting to get out and learn what was out there. Explore every inch of it, until he knew it like the back of his hand.

Until he made it his home, a place he could live with his mate...

His phone buzzed, and he started. He thumbed it open, and found himself looking at an email.

Hello, sir, it began. The men and I are going out on the town. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like...

Cal had given the address of a local bar. Wilson stared at it for a long moment, then started the car with a determined motion.

He wasn’t going to go back to his hotel room alone. He was tired of being alone—well, maybe it was time to take some steps to rectify that.

***

“Sir!” Cal said, looking startled, as Wilson came into the bar.

“You’re not in the military any longer,” Wilson said to him. “Call me Wilson like any other man would.”

There was silence around the table as the rest of the veterans took that in.

“Well, Wilson,” said ex-Sergeant Turner, always the brashest of Wilson’s men, after a long pause. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

“Thank you,” Wilson said, and sat.

The group was divided evenly between the ex-Marines and the Glacier pack, with the groom squarely in the middle. Wilson took a seat in the middle also, and said seriously, “Congratulations. I mean that.”

“Thank you, s—Wilson,” Cal said, the name sounding a bit awkward in his mouth. “I never thought I’d get this lucky.”

“You all have mates, am I right?” Wilson asked the leopards. They all nodded. “Any of you?” he asked the rest of the Marines.

Turner, Gonzalez, Sanders, and Neal all shook their heads.

Though, Wilson thought, if he was on a first-name basis with all of them now, he should start thinking of them as Ken, Carlos, Nate, and Ty instead.

“Well,” Wilson said, “clearly with all the useful things the Marines taught us, being able to hang onto a woman wasn’t one of them.”

“Hey,” said Ty good-naturedly, “some of us have other priorities.”

“No priority should be more important than your mate,” Cal said seriously. “I thought for a long time I was fine just doing my job, taking care of the Park, being a good boss. I know better now. Nothing’s more important than Lillian and our baby.”

The other snow leopards were nodding.

“It can be hard,” Cal continued. “Because you’ll both have issues. You’ll both have problems from your past, and you’ve got to face together if it’s going to work out. But it’s worth it. The most worth it of anything you’ll ever do.”

“Ordinarily,” Nate said in distant tones, “I’d object to all of this romantic bull. But I suppose we are looking forward to your wedding tomorrow, so it’s unavoidable.”

“Nothing wrong with romantic bull,” Ty said comfortably. “I just prioritize other things, that’s all. My sisters, my nieces and nephews, my community, serving my country.”

One of the snow leopards toasted him. “That’s a sign of a good man, there.”

“Just means you’ll be a better husband someday,” Cal pointed out.

Nate tossed a crumpled-up bar napkin at him. “You have to say that, you’re getting married tomorrow.”

Wilson was thinking about what Cal had said. “You all ever think that maybe someone’s issues were insurmountable?” he asked. “Maybe a lady can’t seem to accept that you’re truly mates?”

All at once, Cal and the rest of the veterans were staring at him. Wilson might have ruined his image as a lofty omniscient officer, here. But he didn’t care, because several of the snow leopards had nodded.

“You have to communicate,” said one of the leopards. Grey, that was it. Ironically, Wilson thought this was the first time he’d heard the man speak. “A lot of advice just says, keep after her, don’t give up. But that’s not gonna help as much as using your mouth and your ears like a grown-up and learning why she’s shying away. Or telling her why you are. You give in to any macho bullshit about being a strong silent alpha, you’re just going to lose your chance.”

“You having lady problems, sir?” Ken ventured.

Wilson smiled at them. “It’s Wilson,” he said. “And that’s my business.”

“Fair enough.”

Mercifully, he changed the subject back to the upcoming wedding after that, and the atmosphere relaxed fairly quickly.

And to Wilson’s surprise, there wasn’t much in the way of overt stiffness on the part of the Marines. Cal was the most formal, even after a few beers had gone down, but even he was able to smile and kid around a little bit with the group.

Nate, Ken, Carlos, and Ty relaxed much faster. By the end of the night, Wilson had heard all about Ty’s sisters and looked at pictures of their kids. He’d also gotten a rundown of Nate’s job as a security consultant—and learned that the viciously sarcastic, ruthless-in-combat Ken actually had an environmental science degree.

Progress, Wilson thought. Maybe he wasn’t as much of a loner as he’d been imagining, if he could have a good time even with men he’d used to command.

He remembered insisting to Mavis that there was no way he could get a beer with these men, not without completely inhibiting the conversation. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so certain of that.

In addition to catching up with the Marines, he heard bits and pieces about the trials all of the snow leopards had gone through when they’d met their mates. It seemed like every one of them had had some kind of seemingly impossible problem to get past—and they all agreed that being open and honest was the solution.

“You gotta start like you mean to go on, anyway,” said Cal, a little tipsily, leaning forward to meet Wilson’s eyes. “If you can’t talk about what’s wrong now, how’re you going to be a family together? And that’s the most important thing. The most important thing in the world.”

Wilson solemnly agreed. It was certainly true. Although he was also glad that shifter biology meant that Cal wasn’t going to be suffering from a hangover on his wedding day. He didn’t know how humans managed that sort of thing.

He left the party early, still wanting the men to have a chance to cut loose without a former commanding officer around. Because maybe they could relax a bit, but he was sure they’d be rowdier after he left.

He’d talk to Mavis tomorrow, and whatever she was so worried about, he’d make sure it was all taken care of. Anything she needed—reassurance, time to think it over, some sort of demonstration that he was sincere, and nothing like her no-good ex—he’d give it to her.

He just hoped it was enough.

***

The day of the wedding dawned bright and clear, but Mavis was full of apprehension instead of joy.

What would she say, when she saw Wilson? What would he say to her?

She had no idea. She was afraid to even allow herself to visualize what would happen if he was right about them being mates. Too good to be true didn’t even cover it.

She drove to the church with shaky hands, and parked and slipped in at the very last minute, taking her place in the back.

But she couldn’t help looking for Wilson, of course. He was up front, sitting calmly and watching the ceremony.

As she watched him, though, he twisted around to look at the entrance. Watching for her?

He must have been. Because his eyes settled on her moment later, and his whole face transformed, from a carefully polite expression to a smile that lit up his whole face.

That smile had to be telling the truth. Didn’t it?

Though Mavis didn’t think Wilson was lying about being mates. She was convinced that he was a good, honest man, who wouldn’t make up any kind of story to get a woman to stay with him, let alone something so potentially hurtful.

But it did seem possible that he was confused. Presumably he’d never felt a shifter mate-bond before, since he was single now. So maybe he was just...amplifying their connection in his mind. Blowing it out of proportion.

The music started, and Mavis tried to put her doubts out of her mind and simply enjoy the ceremony.

It was simple, but beautiful. Cal and Lillian stood up together and spoke their vows to one another; they’d written the words themselves, and Mavis was struck by their straightforward truth:

With these words, I am showing what’s in my heart. We are one, and we will never be parted, for the rest of our lives.

Had the two of them just known? Had they been as sure as Wilson was now?

When the ceremony was over, Mavis stood with the rest of the congregation. Nina was following the couple out, beautiful in her classic sheath bridesmaid’s dress, and Mavis teared up a bit, thinking that one day soon, Nina would be the one in the wedding dress, standing up with Joel.

That gave her an idea.

As everyone gathered outside to congratulate the couple, Mavis found her daughter. She hugged Nina first, and said, “You were so beautiful up there.”

“Lillian outshone all of us,” Nina said, and looked over to where Lillian was standing with Cal, resplendent in a gorgeous white silk gown that flowed softly over the curve of her belly and accentuated her generous figure.

“They both look so happy,” Mavis said softly. Then she turned back to Nina. “You said that you knew, when you got together with Joel, that you were mates. Is that how it always works? Is that how it was with Cal and Lillian, too?”

Nina hesitated. “Sort of. What I understand is that shifters know, instinctively. I think Lillian had a bit of trouble, because she was still human when she and Cal met. So she didn’t realize at first that the connection meant that they really were mates, and not just—you know. Very attracted to each other.”

“Right,” Mavis said. She thought about that. “And there’s no way for a shifter to...get it wrong? You definitely know it, no way to make a mistake or anything?”

“Definitely not,” Nina said positively. “It’s really, really obvious. Even if you had no idea what it would feel like beforehand—and I definitely didn’t!—when it hit me, I knew for sure.” Then her eyes widened. “Mom,” she said slowly, “why are you asking me this?”

Her eyes had flickered to a spot behind Mavis’ shoulder. Mavis turned around, and sure enough—there was Wilson.

“Excuse me,” he said, smiling at Nina. “I just wanted to make sure I had a chance to speak with your mother before she left.”

“Oh, sure,” said Nina. “Of course. We were done. In fact, I have to go now, I see Joel waving at me.”

She vanished so quickly that Mavis suspected her of using shifter abilities somehow.

Wilson turned to Mavis, his smile fading into an intense focus. “Hello.”

“Hello,” she said nervously.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “I know you don’t trust that what I’m saying about us being mates is true. Can I ask you why? Is there anything I can do to show you that it’s the truth?”

Mavis let out a breath in a long sigh. “I know why it is,” she said. “It’s because I want it to be true so badly.”

Wilson closed his eyes, and Mavis saw his chest heave with the force of his inhale.

He felt that strongly about my answer, she thought wonderingly. He really cares about me.

He opened his eyes, and she was struck once again by the depth of their silver-grey color. “Then help me,” he said. “I want you to know that it’s true as certainly as I do.”

“It’s hard,” Mavis tried. “Because it’s not—it’s not anything you’ve done, or haven’t done. It’s because I have a hard time believing that something so wonderful could really happen to me. I already had one miracle happen: I got Nina back, after being sure she was gone forever. I can’t have another miracle in my life. That’s too much.”

Wilson stepped forward and took her hands. “Getting your daughter back—that was just the universe righting a terrible wrong,” he said, quiet but intense. “Losing her in the first place, your husband kicking her out—that needed to be reversed. You and she both deserved that reunion. And you deserve something better than him. Someone who would never, in his life, do a thing like that. Someone who would die rather than separate a mother from her daughter for so long.”

Mavis squeezed his hands with hers, too overwhelmed to speak for a moment. “I believe you,” she whispered finally. “I do.”

Wilson pulled her forward into his arms, his lips brushing her cheek. Mavis held him back fiercely, tightly, wanting with all her might to keep him with her forever.

She did believe him. At least in her head.

When they pulled back, she smiled tremulously. “It might take some convincing before my whole heart can believe this is really happening,” she said. “I hope that’s all right.”

“Mavis.” Wilson cupped her cheek, one thumb brushing a tear from underneath her eye. “Of course it is. You tell me if I can do anything to show you that it’s real, all right?”

Mavis nodded. Wilson’s hand dropped—and she suddenly remembered that they were in public, surrounded by people. She looked around self-consciously.

Most of the guests were clustered around the bride and groom, but Nina’s eyes were fixed on them. She was standing with Teri, Lillian’s sister and maid of honor, and their mates Joel and Zach.

Teri gave them a thumb’s-up. Mavis let out a breathy laugh.

“What is it?” Wilson followed her gaze. “Oh.” He laughed a bit. “There really is a whole community here, isn’t there?”

Mavis nodded. “They’re a very tight-knit pack. Young, but they all have solid heads on their shoulders. Even if they can tease a bit.”

“I can’t wait to get to know them better,” he said quietly.

“How much time can you spend here, though? You work in Washington.” She couldn’t help the frown that was spreading across her face. “Wilson, even if this is real—and I believe it is—how are we going to make it work? I won’t leave Nina...”

Wilson caught her hand again. “Mavis, I would never, ever ask you to leave your daughter. You should stay right here. This is the right place for you.”

Mavis nodded. “Good. I’m glad you see that. But what about you? I can come visit...”

“Well,” Wilson said, “I’m starting to think that I might want to change some things about my life. Let’s talk about it after the wedding, all right?”

Mavis glanced around. People were starting to head for their cars, ready to get the reception started. “All right.”

Change some things. Mavis remembered how he’d talked about finding his job dull, about not being able to change things as much as he’d once wanted to do, and she wondered if he could possibly mean what she hoped he meant.

Could Wilson come here, to Glacier?

It seemed like a crazy hope—no man wanted to completely uproot his life, his job, and his hometown, just to be with a woman. If anything, they’d usually expect it to be the other way around.

But she had a feeling that Wilson might different.

Surely this all had to be too good to be true...right?

***

The reception was cheerful and crowded—so many people in town had come to the wedding that the place was packed. Wilson was happy to see that Cal and his new wife had such a solid community here at Glacier.

He'd have to think about how he might affect that community.

As soon as Mavis said that she believed him, that they could be together, all of Wilson's life had seemed to fall into place. He'd almost heard the click as everything settled into a new pattern.

He'd been dissatisfied with his job for so long. It was sobering to realize that the only reason he hadn't retired years ago was that he hadn't had a reason to leave. Nothing waiting for him, nothing to take up his time if he didn't have to get up and go to work every day.

It was also sobering to realize how much he truly disliked living in Washington. So many people were there only to get something for themselves—money, power, influence. Some days, it seemed like he was surrounded by naked ambition, and Wilson had never appreciated that kind of attitude.

The idea of leaving it all behind, of coming out here, where the sky stretched endlessly blue, and came down to meet the stone giants of the Rockies, spreading snowmelt rivers and gorgeous wildflower-strewn valleys in all directions...

He couldn't think of anywhere better to live. He wanted to shift and run through the hills and forests, digging his claws into the dirt, scaling trees and leaping from rock to rock. Just inhaling the mountain air seemed to clean out the dull patina that had been building around him after years in the city.

So he knew what he wanted: he wanted to leave Washington and come be with Mavis in Glacier. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind.

And even if there had been, Mavis shouldn't worry, because he would never, ever ask her to leave her daughter. If he'd had to sacrifice something he wanted for himself, he would have done it in a second.

But he didn't. This was what he wanted.

The problem, though, was the pack. Cal was the pack leader, but he still had that instinct to defer to Wilson, after years spent on opposite sides of the officer-enlisted divide.

Wilson would have to tread very delicately to avoid disrupting Cal's pack. Which was the last thing he wanted to do.

Maybe he could set himself up as more of a loner, out here. Or maybe there was another pack he could join—if not more snow leopards, then one of those multi-shifter packs that occasionally popped up in places with high concentrations of different shifter types. Looking at it from a certain angle, shifter units in the military were essentially that, with an officer as the alpha.

Wilson would figure it out. For the moment, he'd make absolutely sure to keep himself out of Cal's pack hierarchy. There was no question about who was the leader of that pack, and Wilson didn't want to change that at all.

Mavis came over from the dance floor, smiling and breathing hard after doing some kind of fast dance to a pop song. Nina had dragged her out to dance with the younger pack women, and Mavis had gone with only a token protest.

Wilson smiled at her. "Something to drink?"

"Please," Mavis panted.

Wilson got her a glass of water and pulled out a chair for her. "That looked fun."

Mavis nodded. "It was. But of course, I'm not twenty-five anymore. Or a shifter, come to that. That's probably my one fast dance for the evening."

"Nina looks like she's having a great time, though," he offered.

The smile that spread across Mavis' face was beautiful—happy, tender, grateful, all rolled into one gorgeous expression. Wilson knew he was always going to love how Mavis spoke about her daughter. "She's loving it," Mavis said. "She told me three separate times that she doesn't know how to dance, until Teri pulled her into a spin and insisted that it didn't matter one bit, all that mattered was having fun. And she's sure doing that."

"Good," Wilson said. "I hope she won't mind that you and I..."

Mavis rolled her eyes. "Are you kidding? She was ready to ‘accidentally’ lock us in a closet or something. She's always worried that I'm lonely."

"Are you?" Wilson thought about moving to a new town alone, well into middle age, when everyone's social circles were usually pretty fixed—especially in a small town like this. And right after a bad divorce, too. It must have been hard.

Mavis shrugged, a small motion that suggested at larger feelings beneath it. "I've gotten to know the locals pretty well, I think," she said. "But those are mostly friendly business connections, if I'm honest. The pack are all very nice to me, but they're so young. Except Cal and Lillian, and they're caught up in starting their family. And, well..." She trailed off.

"Well?" Wilson prompted.

"Well," she said slowly, "I was going to say that when the pack gets together, it's usually very apparent that they're all coupled off. I mean, they're so happy, it's hard to miss, even if they're not all holding hands or what-have-you. And that can be a bit lonely. But now..." She smiled at him.

Deliberately, Wilson reached out and took her hand. And at that moment, the loud pop song faded out, and a slower tune started up. Wilson met Mavis' beautiful brown eyes and smiled. "May I have this dance?"

Mavis looked started, and then wondering. She squeezed his hand. "Of course."

Wilson stood and led her out onto the dance floor. He drew her into his arms, and together they swayed to the slow, sweet music. Mavis fit perfectly just under his chin, and the feeling of her tucked up against him was divine. And as he looked down at her, her eyes drifted closed and she laid her head against his shoulder, relaxing into his movements and letting him lead them in their graceful swaying dance.

Wilson wanted to freeze this moment, and keep it in his heart forever. His and Mavis' first dance.

Of course, he couldn’t stop time, so he just breathed in and enjoyed it. The warmth of his mate in his arms, the slow beat of the music, and the feeling of pure, undiluted happiness in his chest.

When it was over, Mavis lifted her head and looked up at him, a smile lingering on her lips. Wilson bent down and kissed her softly, then led her back to the table.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I don’t know when I last had a dance like that.”

“We can dance together every night, if you want,” he told her.

At his words, her face took on an expression he was starting to recognize—a combination of happiness and anxiety. He knew what it meant, now: he’d offered her something that she truly, deeply wanted, but she was afraid that it couldn’t be real.

Well, Wilson was just going to have to keep delivering on his promises, so that she’d understand that it was real, and that she could have her heart’s desire. He was going to give it all to her.

On the table, Mavis’ phone buzzed, and she fumbled for it, letting the moment slip away. Wilson resolved that there were going to be many, many more moments like this one, until that fear was entirely gone from her face, and only happiness remained.

But as she looked at her phone, the happiness drained away.

“What is it?” Wilson asked. The fear was noticeable now, an anxious set to her mouth and a deep, unhappy look in her eyes.

“It’s Daryl,” she said shortly.

Her ex. Wilson took a careful, deep breath, making sure to keep his voice steady and even. “Has he done something?”

“It’s an email from him,” she said. “I have to go to the house and get my things. He’s included a list of the things he considers to be mine.” Her mouth twisted. “It’s very fair. I suppose I should be grateful.”

“You have nothing to be grateful for from that—” Wilson made himself stop. Calling her ex-husband names wasn’t going to help the situation at all. “You have to go to the house personally?”

“That’s what he says. He says I need to come myself, and I can hire movers or whatever I need to do, but he’s not letting strangers inside. I guess he’s going to be there.” Mavis sighed. “So I suppose I’m going to have to see him again, if I want any of my things.”

“Do you need them?” Wilson asked tentatively.

“My mother’s jewelry is in that house,” Mavis said. “And some other sentimental things. I certainly don’t need the furniture—it’s nicer than what I have now, but that’s not very important.”

Mavis, Wilson vowed, was going to have the absolute nicest furniture once he moved out here. Local, handmade, beautiful pieces. He had the money, and he wanted her to choose whatever she wanted.

“But I do need to go out there, at least for the jewelry. I want Nina to have some of it,” Mavis finished. She rubbed her eyes. “I wish I’d waited to check my messages until the party was over. God, I have to look for plane tickets—he wants me there sometime in the next week.” She lifted her head and looked at Wilson. “I’m so sorry. This isn’t the sort of thing you need to hear about.”

“Mavis, we’re mates,” Wilson said firmly. “I want to hear about all of your problems.”

“Not this,” Mavis objected. “No one wants to hear about their partner’s ex drama.”

“Especially this.” Wilson took her hand and laced their fingers together. “He treated you and your daughter awfully. He made your life a living hell. If he’s causing you trouble again, I want to help you with it. Now, what day do you want to fly out? Tomorrow?”

“I suppose...I suppose it would be better to get it over with.” Mavis frowned. “Why do you ask? What are you going to do?”

“Come with you.” Wilson made his tone absolutely convinced, as though it was a done deal. “You shouldn’t have to face him alone.”

“Oh, Wilson...” Mavis’ voice trailed off. She bit her lip. “You shouldn’t have to do something like this! And so soon after we met. No, I should go alone.”

“I would much, much rather come with you than stay here, knowing that you’re out there alone facing him,” Wilson said gently. “Can you tell me honestly that you’d be happier going alone, rather than having me come with you? Because if it would truly make it harder to have me there, I’ll stay behind.” He mentally crossed his fingers, hoping she wouldn’t decide to insist. He’d have to abide by his word, if so...and he really, really didn’t want to.

But she said, “Of course it would be easier if you were there! Of course I don’t want to go back into that house by myself, face Daryl by myself. But it’s such an incredible thing to ask.”

Wilson wrapped her hand up in both of his, leaned forward, and met her eyes. “Mavis, we’re mates now. In shifter terms, that’s stronger than marriage. This,” and he indicated the rest of the room, the wedding-goers and the bride and groom, with a jerk of his head, “is just the social trappings of what’s already been true for months, for Lillian and Cal. And the same is true for us. We’re one unit now, and your problems are my problems. So nothing can be an imposition, because it already belongs to me as much as to you. Okay?”

There was that look again. Fear that it couldn’t be true, but a dawning hope that it might be. Wilson lifted up their clasped hands and kissed her knuckles. “Will you let me come with you to get your things?”

Slowly, Mavis nodded, and the hope began to outweigh the fear. Wilson’s heart rejoiced.

***

Mavis squeezed Wilson’s hand as the airplane touched down on the runway, breathing deeply.

It had only been a couple of days now that they’d been together—maybe only twenty-four hours, if she counted just from the moment at the wedding when she’d said she believed him—but she was already getting used to the feeling of his big hand engulfing hers.

Wilson seemed happiest when they were touching somehow. He always wanted to hold her hand, to put his arm around her, squeeze her shoulder, kiss the top of her head. And Mavis was drinking it all in. She felt as though she’d been cold for over seven years, and finally, finally she got to luxuriate in the warmth coming off of him. Both literal and metaphorical.

As the plane taxied to a stop, Wilson squeezed her hand back. “Are you ready?”

“I am,” Mavis said positively.

And she felt like she was. It was crazy. Just having Wilson there suddenly made everything seem ten times easier.

Part of it was just that he’d insisted on taking care of all of the headachey administrative stuff himself. He’d booked the tickets and set up a rental car, gotten them a hotel room, worked out a place where they could stop and pick up a few boxes on the way, and generally made it so that it should be easy to get over to the house, get her things, and leave with minimal fuss.

Mavis had started to object to him paying for all of the travel fees as well, but he’d asked her to look on it as a gift.

“I can’t go back in time and undo what he did to you,” he said with quiet intensity. “I can’t get the police to cart him away for putting his own daughter on the streets. I know I can’t start a fight with him once we get there, as much as I want desperately to teach him a lesson—” He’d given her a questioning look, and she’d seen the anger lurking underneath it.

But Mavis had shook her head, semi-regretfully. She’d love for someone to give Daryl a seeing-to, but she didn’t want to have to watch it happen, and she definitely didn’t want Wilson to have to deal with any consequences for doing it.

“Well, then, I need to do something in exchange for not being able to do any of that. So I’m doing this.” His tone had been firm, and Mavis had finally nodded her acceptance.

So that was all taken care of for her.

It was completely bizarre. She’d spent seven years all alone, having turned her heart to stone so she didn’t break down completely over the fact that she was living with the man who’d forced her daughter away.

And then, once she’d left him, she’d handled the divorce proceedings herself as well. She’d wanted to shield Nina from even hearing about anything Daryl was doing, so she’d never mentioned one single thing about the divorce to anyone in Montana.

But suddenly, she wasn’t just able to talk about it, she was getting help. It made her want to start crying.

Now, though, it wasn’t the time for tears. It was time for action.

They made their way off the plane—Wilson took her overnight bag, holding it in one hand while he kept Mavis’ hand clasped in the other—got their rental car, and drove to the hotel where they were spending the night. Mavis was learning that traveling with a member of the military was very different from just traveling by herself: every ticket agent and rental employee and hotel concierge seemed to jump to attention, saying, “Yes, Colonel,” and, “Absolutely, Colonel,” and, “Let me just see if I can get that upgraded for you, Colonel. Thank you for your service.”

Wilson was always calmly gracious in the face of it, saying to Mavis afterward, “It’s a little embarrassing sometimes. I just have an office job like anyone else’s, these days. With a better pension plan, no less.”

“But you served in combat,” Mavis pointed out. “They’re honoring that.”

“Well,” he said, and that was all, but Mavis felt like it was nothing more than his due.

Finally, though, all of the little things were taken care of. They were checked in to their hotel, they had the rental car, they’d stopped for boxes, and they were on their way to the house.

Mavis felt anxiety rising in her as the car headed into her old neighborhood. She’d lived here for decades—and felt the worst pain of her life here.

“All right?” Wilson asked softly, and she just nodded, not trusting her voice.

He found the address easily, not needing any directions from her, and pulled into the driveway. Daryl’s car was already there, so he must be home.

Wilson turned off the car and looked at her. “If you want to leave at any point, tell me and we’ll leave,” he said steadily. “If Daryl makes any threats, or threatening moves, towards you, then I’ll step up and stop him.”

“No violence,” Mavis said, her voice shaky.

“I promise.” His voice was steady as a rock, and it calmed her somehow, leaving her certain that if something did go wrong, he’d take care of it without any trouble. “I’ve been a Marine for decades. I know how to defuse a situation without having to resort to violence. You don’t have to worry about that. You don’t have to worry about anything, all right? If there’s a problem, you won’t be in any danger.”

“All right.” She already felt better, like his assurance was filling her up with warmth and courage.

He reached out, raising his eyebrows, and Mavis took his hand with a little smile and squeezed. It already felt like a ritual, the way they linked their fingers together during important moments.

She looked forward to repeating that ritual for years and years to come.

And that was what really calmed her. She didn’t need to worry about Daryl.

She had her mate with her. And he was going to be with her forever, from now on.

"Let's get this over with," she said to Wilson, and she could hear the confidence in her own voice as she opened the door and got out.

She rang the doorbell. On the one hand, it was strange: she was ringing the bell to the house where she'd lived for years.

But on the other hand, it felt like just one more step towards severing her connections to Daryl and her old, miserable life. She stood on the outside with Wilson, because the two of them belonged somewhere else. Here, they were just visiting.

The door jerked open and Daryl stood framed in the entryway.

Mavis had worried that she'd feel some kind of debilitating surge of emotion when she saw her ex-husband again for the first time in months. That she'd break down crying, or start yelling at him, or feel like she had to run away.

But—she didn't. Daryl was a man who'd hurt her badly, but she was leaving him behind. The only thing she felt was relief that she only had to be near him for a few minutes, and that Wilson was here by her side.

Daryl's eyes were fixed on Wilson. "Who's this?" he asked. "A hired mover?"

Not even a hello. Straight to a hostile interrogation.

"This is Wilson," Mavis said in crisp tones. "Will you let us in?"

There was a power in not explaining things. Mavis could've said, This is my new partner Wilson, but that would've invited Daryl to make some kind of nasty comment.

This way, though, Daryl was clearly left uncertain, and he stepped back to let them inside the house without saying anything.

That, of course, only lasted a few minutes. Mavis led the way to the bedroom, and Daryl followed them; when they reached the room, he said, "Getting your new boyfriend to come to your husband's home and take your things? That's a low-down move, Mavis."

Wilson tensed. Mavis put a hand on his arm, then indicated the closet where she kept her jewelry box. "Telling me to come here without any notice, and saying I had to come myself—that was a low-down move, Daryl," she said. "Did you want me to show up by myself so you could talk me in to staying? I'm never leaving Nina, and you should understand that by now."

"She's an unnatural creature!" Daryl spit out.

Mavis turned her back on him and followed Wilson into the closet. Wilson held the box while Mavis quickly checked over her jewelry. Nothing was missing, not that she’d expected anything to disappear. Daryl was a lot of bad things, but a thief wasn't one of them.

She took the jewelry, her favorite clothes, and then a few other sentimental pieces from the bedroom. She was finding that she didn't actually want too much of what was there, because it was all suffused with memories of the seven years she'd lived in this house as a shell of a woman, mourning her missing daughter.

"You're not even going to defend her?" Daryl asked as they left the bedroom. Mavis determined to make a quick sweep of the house, taking anything that was hers without question and could easily be stuck in a box, and wouldn't make her sad every time she looked at it.

It was surprisingly few items.

"And what about you?" Daryl turned his attack to Wilson, since Mavis had resolved not to rise to any of his taunts. "Do you know the truth? Her daughter is a monster. A shapeshifting beast."

"I do know the truth," Wilson said, in a calm tone that somehow still managed to sound incredibly menacing. "Nina is a lovely young woman who seems like she has a bright future ahead of her, despite the terrible treatment she experienced from her father."

Mavis went into the kitchen, her heart in her throat. Daryl had never cooked when they were together; Mavis was always in charge of the kitchen. If he’d somehow become a gourmet since they split, he might have found...

She looked for the stepstool. Wilson broke off his solid-steel stare at Daryl and asked her, “What do you need?”

She pointed to the cupboard above the refrigerator. “Could you look in there?”

Wilson reached easily up to the cupboard and opened it. Mavis snuck a glance at Daryl, who just looked perplexed. That gave her hope.

“An ice cream maker,” Wilson reported.

“Behind that,” Mavis said, her voice shaky.

Wilson reached behind the ice cream maker and pulled out a photo album. Mavis exhaled all at once and reached for it with trembling hands.

Daryl was staring at it with a betrayed look. “You said you threw that away.”

“I would never, ever throw away pictures of my daughter,” Mavis snapped, clutching the album to her chest and glaring at her ex.

After Nina had left, Daryl had wanted to destroy all of their pictures of her, any childhood memorabilia—any record she’d existed at all. Mavis had secreted away the album full of photos of Nina as a baby and a little girl, and lied to Daryl and said she’d thrown it away.

And now she had it back. She wanted to look through every picture as soon as she could.

Daryl took a step forward.

Mavis froze.

“There are pictures of me with her in there,” he snapped. “I don’t want those out in the world. She’s a devil creature, and I don’t want any association with her anymore.”

He snatched for the book.

Suddenly—too fast for Mavis to properly see what had happened—Wilson was standing between Mavis and Daryl.

Daryl started backwards in surprise, but his anger wasn’t letting up. After he collected himself, he just glared at Wilson.

“What do you think you’re doing? Getting between a man and his wife like that.”

Wilson’s face darkened in anger.

“You aren’t married any longer. And even if you were, you forfeited the right to any marital bond when you betrayed your family,” he gritted out. “You have no right to be near her. And you never had any right to lay hands on her without her permission. No man does.”

“How dare you tell me what I can and can’t do?” Daryl snarled. “Who do you think you are?”

“I apologize, Daryl.” Mavis summoned up her firmest tones. “I didn’t fully introduce you. This is Colonel Wilson Hanes of the Marine Corps. From now on, if you want to deal with me, you’ll be dealing with both of us.”

“That’s right,” said Wilson. Softly, but with a thrum of danger beneath the words.

Mavis felt like she was setting down the truth of her own words, even as she spoke. Any lingering doubts about what the future might hold were disappearing.

Because here, now, Daryl was opening and closing his mouth, surprised into silence, while Wilson stood solid as a rock between him and Mavis.

“You should stop hounding me about Nina,” Mavis told him. “I don’t believe she’s some kind of evil creature, and I never will. And if you had some kind of crazy idea about us getting back together—”

“You listen to me,” Daryl snarled, coming forward again.

This time, though, before he’d gone one step, Wilson’s form shivered, shifted, and changed.

And standing between them, right in the kitchen like some kind of magic had come out of nowhere into this old house, was a snow leopard.

Mavis’ first thought, completely removed from the situation, was that he was beautiful.

Powerful muscles rippled under a coat of silky-soft-looking fur, which was a shining silvery-white dappled with black spots. A thick, strong-looking tail lashed back and forth as he paced gracefully around Daryl.

Sharp silver-gray eyes looked over at her, and Mavis knew somehow that he was checking to see if she was all right, if he needed to intimidate Daryl away from her.

Daryl, on the other hand, had frozen in place, his eyes wide enough to show white all around the pupil, his hands clenching and unclenching spasmodically.

"That—he—" he sputtered, and then pulled himself together enough to say, "That man's a creature too! Mavis, how could you possibly—I suppose I almost understand being loyal to Nina, even though I know you're wrong, but how could you let a monster like that touch you?" His face was twisted in disgust.

"That's enough," Mavis snapped.

She didn't know if she'd ever talked to Daryl quite like that before, and he stared at her, surprised.

"You need to stop talking.” For so many years, she’d wanted to say this to him. "Every time you open your mouth, hateful vitriol comes out. I had to listen because I wanted to be here in case Nina came back. But I don't have to any longer.”

“How dare you,” he started furiously, but she interrupted. Her voice sounded like steel to her own ears.

“No. I will not listen to another word. I'm going to finish collecting my things, and then I'm going to leave. Any future communication you have with me should come through my lawyer."

A growl rose in Wilson’s throat as she finished speaking, punctuating her words with a visceral threat. Daryl took a few steps back, and when the growl didn't stop, a few more.

"All—all right.” His bravado faded before her eyes. Was that all it had ever needed? A strong stand, something he couldn’t yell into silence? "All right."

Wilson's form seemed to shiver, and a second later, he transformed back into a human. Mavis marveled at the sight. She'd seen Nina and the other leopards change shape before, but somehow it never ceased to fill her with wonderment.

Daryl was so utterly wrong. The shifters weren't monsters. They were miracles.

"Let's go," she told Wilson. Her voice didn't want to tremble anymore. She could see Daryl's shrunken posture, the way his shoulders had curled in on themselves. He was beaten, and he knew it.

She and Wilson left him behind in the kitchen to get the last few things—a blanket Mavis had had since she first moved out of her parents' house, some more mementoes, her sewing equipment, a few other odds and ends that she found she did want to bring with her, rather than leave them here to be discarded or ignored by Daryl.

Finally, they were done, and she stepped back into the kitchen to say, "We're leaving. Remember what I said. I never want to hear directly from you again. Talk to my lawyer from now on."

Daryl nodded slowly, and together, Mavis and Wilson left the house.

Wilson quickly and efficiently loaded the boxes into their rental car, and held the door for Mavis. She slumped in the passenger's seat, suddenly exhausted.

Wilson got in the driver's seat and looked at her. Compassion filled his face. "All right?" he asked softly.

Mavis nodded. "Yes. Let's get out of here. And order room service for dinner."

"Sounds like a plan." Wilson turned the key and they left Daryl, and Mavis' old life, behind them.

***

Back at the hotel, they not only ordered a lavish meal, but also a bottle of wine. Mavis found herself relaxing for the first time since she'd gotten Daryl's message.

"May I ask you a favor?" Wilson said, after they'd eaten through most of the food, and the bottle of wine was almost empty.

"Of course." They were sitting on the couch together, and Mavis turned to look at him from where she'd been cuddled up to his side.

"Would you show me some of the pictures in the photo album?"

Mavis hadn't been expecting that. She blinked. "You want to see pictures of Nina as a kid?" Most people would run the other way when a proud parent mentioned photos of their child.

"I do," he said, heartfelt. "If I'm going to be a part of her life—a father figure, as much as she's willing to have me—I want to know her a little better." He smiled warmly. "And I love how you look when you talk about her. Like you're so full of love you can't contain it."

That was how it felt, Mavis thought. He'd hit the nail on the head.

"All right." She went to get the album, and came back to snuggle again, opening it up.

"Here she is right after we adopted her," she began, and Wilson's arm tightened around her as he leaned forward to look.

She’d been half-expecting him to just want to see one or two pictures, but as it turned out, he hadn’t been kidding about really wanting to hear about Nina. He kept asking questions, or turning to the next page in the album, and Mavis found herself telling story after story of tiny Nina getting into scrapes, saying something adorable, or simply being the caring, loving girl that she’d always been, at heart.

Finally, they reached the last page of the photo album. Daryl had been in a lot of the pictures, and Mavis had thought about skipping those, or apologizing for them, or something—but Daryl was a part of both Nina and Mavis’ history, and that wasn’t going to change. She wouldn’t be afraid of talking about him.

After all, he didn’t have any power over her or Nina anymore. Nothing else bad could come of it, and she already knew that Wilson didn’t judge her at all for having chosen so wrongly in her first marriage.

First marriage.

She’d been picturing Nina up at the altar, when she’d been at Cal and Lillian’s wedding. Maybe she would be up there before long, herself.

The idea made her flush with joy.

“Thank you for sharing all of that with me,” Wilson was saying. He laid a hand on the closed album, a gesture of respect or even reverence. “I hope I can be a positive figure in her life from now on.”

“You will be,” Mavis assured him.

He was frowning a bit. “I never thought I’d be a stepfather. I never planned for any kind of fatherly...activities, or advice, or anything of the sort. But now I’m looking forward to it. I just hope that I don’t overstep my bounds, or remind her of Daryl in any way.”

“You could never do that,” Mavis said with force. “You’re nothing like him.”

The frown didn’t quite disappear, but he said, “I’m glad to hear it.”

“Just be yourself.” She found that this hint of insecurity, in what was otherwise such a confident, self-assured man, was endearing. “She’ll like you without any trouble, and I know she’ll come to love you.”

He kissed her. “I can’t wait.”

“Thank you for making this trip something more than that confrontation with Daryl,” Mavis said impulsively. “I was sure it was all going to be terrible. But this evening has been wonderful.”

He pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. “I love you.” The words rumbled in his chest, so that Mavis almost felt them more than she heard them.

She closed her eyes, filled with happiness. “I love you, too.”

***

They flew back the next day. Nina was working until later that evening, so Mavis restrained herself from rushing right over to the diner to give her a big hug, which was what she truly wanted to do, after all that.

“What would you say to going out to the Park?” Wilson asked her, after they’d unpacked the few things they’d brought, stopping first at Mavis’ place, and then at his hotel room.

“Oh,” Mavis said in surprise, “that sounds lovely.”

It did sound lovely. One more way to cleanse that acrimonious confrontation from her mind. To put something else beautiful between her and the memory of Daryl spouting vicious words about the people Mavis loved the most.

It was fading already, with Wilson’s love there to remind her of what was really important. But the memories piled on top of each other sometimes. It was hard to completely move past them.

But Wilson took her hand as they went out to his car, and held the door for her like he always did, and it was like one more step away. One more step into this new, wonderful life that she was starting to really believe might belong to her.

They drove out to the Park, and when they got out of the car and went in, the first person they saw was Nina’s mate, Joel.

“Mavis!” he said. And then straightened his posture a bit. “And Colonel Hanes. Hello, sir.”

“Hello, son,” said Wilson. “Good to see you again. Had a nice time out with you all the other night.”

“Glad to hear that, sir.” Joel’s eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them. “How are you, Mavis? Nina said you looked nervous at the wedding, and you said you had something to take care of today?”

“I’m just fine,” Mavis said firmly. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

Joel looked a little suspicious, but he nodded without questioning her.

Nina had told Mavis that Joel had lost his parents at a young age, and that he missed them very much. Mavis had instinctively responded by mothering Joel a bit—cautiously at first, because she didn’t want to bring up painful memories. Or, like Wilson had said, overstep her bounds.

But Joel was clearly hungry for a mother-figure in his life. He tried to play it cool, like he was a big stoic man, but he was always happy to see her, eager for her to come over and bake with them or other mom-like activities.

Mavis wondered suddenly if he’d be happy to have a father-figure in his life, too.

Also...“When were you out with the pack?” she asked Wilson.

“The other night,” Wilson said, “after I’d experienced a disappointment. The pack helped me out some. Good solid group you have here.”

After Mavis had been too afraid to accept that they were mates, she interpreted. He’d gone and asked some of the other leopards for advice.

Wasn’t that...sweet. “I think so, too.” She smiled at Joel.

There was a hint of a blush on the young man’s cheeks, and he quickly changed the subject. “Are you two out here to see anyone, or are you just going on a hike? It’s a beautiful day for it.”

“A hike,” Mavis said. “Can you recommend somewhere that’s likely to be open and empty? I’d rather not be walking shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of tourists, today.”

Joel smiled. “No problem. It’s too early in the season for big crowds, anyway. Here,” and he pulled a map of the Park from his back pocket and found a pen somewhere, marking off a trail. “Head up this way. It’s a beautiful route, full of early flowers, not strenuous at all, and there’s no one at all up that way, I just checked it over.”

Mavis smiled gratefully at him. “Thanks, honey.”

The blush deepened a little at the endearment. “No problem.” His radio crackled then, and he said, “I gotta go. Nice to see you, Mavis. Sir.” He nodded at Wilson, and jogged off.

“That’s a nice young man,” Wilson observed.

Mavis nodded. “He’s wonderful for Nina. Just wants to be the best man he can be, wants everything that’s best for her. So sweet, although don’t tell him I said it like that, he’ll be embarrassed.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.” Wilson was looking thoughtfully after Joel. “I didn’t think about this—Nina isn’t alone, is she? She comes with a whole family of her own.”

“Yes,” Mavis said on a happy sigh. “I’m so grateful. Because it’s not just Joel—Joel’s very close with his brother Zach, and Zach’s mated to Teri, and Teri is Lillian’s sister, of course. Nina’s connected to the whole pack, that way, and it’s so good for her. After being alone for so long...I’m just happy she’s got such a close group of family and friends.”

Wilson nodded, still looking after Joel. Mavis wondered suddenly if Wilson had ever wished he had a son.

Well, a stepson-in-law might be just the thing for him, then. Mavis smiled to herself, and then looked up at him. “Shall we hike?”

“We shall.” Wilson held his arm out to her like they were at some nineteenth-century ball, and Mavis laughed a little as she took it. They started off towards the trail.

Joel had been right: the trail was absolutely gorgeous. The mountains stretched up into the distance, but they were in a little valley, so it felt like they were being held by the cupped hands of the earth. The grass was verdantly green, the trees just getting their leaves, and the sun shone warmly over it all.

It was a beautiful day—one of those late April days that felt more like mid-May, with the temperature climbing up through the sixties as they walked. Mavis inhaled the sweet, sweet scent of wildflowers and pine, wanting nothing more than for this moment to last forever. Her fingers were twined with Wilson’s, and she felt like they were of one mind, taking in all of the gorgeous natural beauty around them, breathing in the mountain air, and just being together.

They walked for close to an hour, only speaking to point out some beautiful plant or bird. It was a revelation, being able to be comfortable with a man in silence like this. Daryl had always had to make his opinion known, and most of Mavis’ memories of them being quiet together were chilly, when one or both of them was upset.

The years that Nina had been missing had been almost entirely silent.

But this—it was like she was rewriting the past. Relearning what could be, in the future. She could almost sense Wilson’s love and affection; she could feel the warmth of his hand, and see the deep feeling in his eyes when she looked at him. They didn’t need to speak. They only needed to be here together.

Eventually, they reached a point where the path either continued up into a more strenuous hike into the mountains, or looped back around on itself to go back to the visitor’s center. Wilson looked around with a frown.

“What is it?” Mavis asked. She didn’t quite want to turn around yet, either, she had to admit, although she wasn’t really in the type of shape she’d need to be in to start straight up a mountainside.

“Do you mind taking a bit of a detour?” Wilson asked her, turning back with a twinkle in his eye.

“What do you mean?”

Wilson grinned, looking boyish, and tugged her toward the edge of the path.

Mavis followed, but she said, “Is this safe?” Nina had warned her about the fact that the Park had dangers, wild animals and dangerous terrain, and how it was always important to either stay on the tourist paths, or be sure you knew the territory you were headed into and had the correct safety equipment with you.

Not that Mavis thought a little traipse through the sun-dappled woods would be dangerous.

And actually, now that she thought about it, she had her own dangerous wild animal with her. She was pretty sure that most wildlife would think twice before coming after a genuine snow leopard.

Wilson was saying, “The woods aren’t too thick, and I can’t scent any bears or anything else dangerous nearby. If you’d rather go back on the path—”

“No,” Mavis interrupted, smiling at him. “I trust you. Let’s go this way.”

Wilson smiled back, and together they stepped into the forest.

Mavis felt almost like a fairy tale creature now, following a shapeshifter into the woods. She smiled to herself at the private fantasy. She was surrounded by magical, fairy-tale type creatures every day, including her own daughter.

Plenty of magic in her life already. She didn’t even need fairy tales.

The path quickly disappeared behind them as Wilson led her through the trees. Out here, the natural wonder was even more apparent than it had been on the path; they were surrounded on all sides by the forest, with no indication anywhere of human activity.

Mavis breathed in happily, and caught the aroma of flowers drifting in from somewhere. The area where they were walking was so thickly wooded that the forest floor was mostly logs and pine needles, because the sun filtered in only dimly through the enormous trees. She wondered where it was coming from.

The breeze was wafting towards them from the direction they were walking, though, so maybe it was ahead. She followed Wilson eagerly, and after a few minutes, the trees started to thin out.

They emerged from the woods into a gorgeous clearing. The ground was carpeted with grass and wildflowers—blue, white, yellow, pink, all twinkling amid the rich green. Mavis sighed with appreciation.

“Let’s stop here for a little while,” she suggested to Wilson.

He smiled and laid down his jacket on the grass for her. It was warm enough that they’d long taken their light spring jackets off—Mavis was even starting to sweat a bit in her long-sleeved shirt.

Struck by a whimsical impulse, before she sat down she spread her own jacket on the ground for Wilson, raising her eyebrows at him when he laughed.

“What?” she asked. “I want you to be just as comfortable as I am.”

“Thank you,” he said gravely, and they sat together in the grass.

Mavis leaned into her mate’s side, feeling a pleasurable warmth run through her. She was here, in the most beautiful place on Earth, with the best man she’d ever known, and she was ready to spend the rest of her life with him.

Nothing could have made the moment any better.

They sat in the sun for a while, just appreciating the beauty around them. Wilson put his arm around Mavis and tugged her close, and she relaxed into the rhythm of his breathing and the thump of his heartbeat. His body was so strong and firm against hers. She wondered if...

“Wilson?” she murmured.

“Hmmm?” he rumbled back.

“Would you—would you shift for me? It seems wrong that the only time I’ve ever seen it was at Daryl’s house.”

Daryl’s house. Not hers anymore, not ever again. The thought was so freeing.

Wilson made a dissatisfied noise. “You’re right. That’s not how it should be. Of course I’ll shift for you, love.”

The endearment made her flush with pleasure. She sat upright, and watched as Wilson stood and stretched—good God, his muscles in a T-shirt and jeans, it was enough to make a woman need to fan herself—and stepped a few paces away.

“Ready?” he asked her.

She nodded. “Whenever you are.”

And then his form shivered, and blurred, and standing in front of her was a snow leopard.

He was just as beautiful as she remembered. More, even, because out here, the sun dappled his coat with shining silver, bringing out the sleekness of his fur, and the way the muscles shifted underneath it.

He paced forward when she held her hand out, and nuzzled at her fingers. She petted his head, marveling at how soft the fur was, and then buried her fingers in the longer coat on his side. He leaned into the touch.

She petted along his side, and he stretched, looking as indulgent as any cat. The luxuriousness of his fur was unbelievable. Mavis ran her hands along his flank, his spine, touching his tail just for a moment before he flicked away—instinctively, she thought. But she moved her attention back to his head, running curious fingers over his ears, the delicate fur on his forehead. She avoided the extremely large, sharp teeth.

His eyes, though—his eyes looked exactly the same.

After a minute, he leaned forward, and delicately touched his nose to hers. Mavis laughed in delight.

Wilson pulled back and gave her a look that she could almost describe as—playful? And then he shot off into the trees, almost faster than she could follow. She gasped involuntarily—she’d had no idea that snow leopards were so fast. She’d seen the rest of the pack in their shifted forms every now and then, but usually just when they were heading out or coming back from a run, not at their full speeds.

He must have circled around, because he came back quickly, out of the trees and into the clearing like a shot. He raced past her, leapt for a tree, and scaled it almost all the way to the top. He ended up on the last sturdy branch, stretched out with his tail hanging down in a curve, exactly like a photograph of a big wild cat.

Mavis applauded, breathless with how impressive he was. The things a wild cat could do!

And he was hers.

After a moment, he made his way down the tree trunk, with no indication that it took any real effort to get down a straight vertical incline like that. He padded back over to her, nosed at her fingers again, and then blurred and shifted back.

“Like that?” he asked, eyes twinkling.

“That was amazing,” Mavis breathed. “You’ll have to do that for me again.”

“Anytime you like,” he said sincerely, and leaned in for a soft kiss.

Mavis caught him around the neck, pulling him forward and deepening the kiss. She wanted to feel his body against hers, revel in it, just enjoy the fact that there was nothing separating her from this fantastical man.

That they were one.

He kissed her back, hot and fierce, and the next thing she knew, they were tearing at each other’s clothes.

This is crazy, she thought, even as she slid her hands under Wilson’s shirt and pulled it over his head. We’re outside. Anyone could come by and see us.

But they were far off the path, and they hadn’t seen another soul for hours.

Besides, Wilson’s shifter senses would pick up on any casual off-path hikers well before they showed up. There wasn’t any danger.

So she let the thought of discovery go, and concentrated on getting Wilson’s jeans off, without getting in the way of his attempts to strip her bare.

Soon enough, and with only a little fumbling, they were naked in the soft grass, tumbling down to the ground together. Mavis shuddered at the feeling of all of his hot skin against hers, feeling a rush of liquid heat between her thighs, her stomach heating and clenching with desire.

It seemed like they were one with the spring day, everything warm and fragrant and a bit damp. And so it was the most natural thing in the world to straddle Wilson’s hips as he lay back in the grass, slipping a hand between them to grasp his cock.

He groaned at the touch of her hand, hardening fully against her fingers. Mavis could feel herself getting wetter, her core aching for the feel of him. She guided him to her entrance and slowly, slowly sank down onto him.

His big hands closed over her hips as he filled her, and her eyes fell shut at the intense pleasure of it. And it didn’t just feel good physically—there was something about doing it this way, with her on top, about taking her own pleasure and making both her and Wilson feel so good—

It was somehow just as pleasurable as when Wilson had done the same for her. Mavis felt a satisfied smile spread over her face—and then it broke into a gasp as she seated herself fully onto him.

She opened her eyes to see him staring up at her. His expression suggested that he was seeing something too wonderful for words, that the sight of her over him, here in this sunny clearing, was something he almost couldn’t believe was real.

Mavis spread her hands over the gorgeous expanse of his muscled chest, looked into the endless depths of his silver eyes, and thought, It’s mutual.

Then she started to move.

She hadn’t done this often—even back when they’d still been intimate, Daryl had always wanted to be on top—but her hips seemed to know the right rhythm, instinctively chasing the burst of pleasure she felt with every small movement. Soon, Wilson was rising to meet her as she rolled her hips, feeling the beginning of a sweet burn in her core muscles, contrasting with the rising heat inside of her.

They were both starting to pant, and sweat had sprung out on Mavis’ forehead and between her breasts; she could see it gleaming on Wilson’s chest. The spring breeze swirled around them as they moved, and Mavis laughed out loud at how free it felt, the sun and the wind on her naked body as she made love with her mate.

Wilson grinned up at her, and slid a hand between them, his hand finding her clit. Mavis moaned at the sudden lightning-burst of pleasure, his calloused finger rubbing right over her most sensitive spot and making her clench hard around his cock.

He shuddered at that, but kept up the quick, focused rub of his finger right where she needed it most. Mavis bit her lip at the sharp, sweet ache, grinding her hips down against his hand, gasping at how deep he pressed inside her when she did it.

Wilson’s hand came up to her shoulder and pulled her roughly down for a kiss, and Mavis came as his mouth devoured hers. It was like the kiss lanced through her body and detonated her climax, pleasure bursting its way through her. She moaned and shook, clutching at Wilson’s shoulders, and heard his deep, deep groan as he thrust up inside her one final time and came too.

For a long, long moment, Mavis just stayed where she was, panting softly, feeling the breeze on her sweat-damp skin, the sun warming her naked body. Wilson was a solid warmth underneath her, his chest moving as he caught his breath.

“Wow,” he said finally, looking up at her with residual heat in his eyes. “That may be the hottest thing I have ever done.”

Mavis broke into a smile. “Me, too.”

He kissed her, holding her close, and then suddenly rolled her over so that she was the one on her back in the grass. She let out a startled squeak, and then relaxed into the softness. Around them, the scent of crushed grass and wildflowers rose into the air.

“Now,” he said seriously, “I think I just want to kiss you forever.”

Mavis stroked a hand over his forehead, cupped his cheek, lost herself in his eyes. “That can be arranged.”

***

Wilson didn’t think he’d ever felt better in his life.

It was as though he was just...suffused with a sense of well-being. The rush of joy he felt every time he looked at Mavis seemed to be building up inside him, adding layers and layers of happiness that stayed warm in his chest after he looked away.

Although he didn’t look away much.

Mavis seemed to be feeling the same, if the smile that lingered at the corners of her mouth was any indication. They walked back along the path hand-in-hand, and their eyes kept catching on each other, their fingers squeezing, their shoulders brushing.

Wilson was a middle-aged Marine Colonel. He’d never thought he’d feel like a giddy teenager again, but apparently he’d been wrong.

They were meeting Nina for dinner at Oliver’s, and so they drove back into town; Wilson was amazed that he didn’t crash them right into a tree, the way he kept getting distracted by how beautiful Mavis’ smile was, the graceful bend of her wrist, the gorgeous curve of her shoulder.

He wanted to take some serious time and learn every single inch of her better than he knew himself.

“Wilson,” Mavis murmured, when they were about halfway back to town.

“Hm?” Wilson asked.

“What are you going to do about your job? Your home in Washington?” She turned to look at him, and Wilson was gratified to see that she didn’t look anxious, or upset, like she had when she’d brought it up before. Just curious.

No longer was she wondering how this was going to end, worrying that there was no way he could choose her over anything else. Somewhere in there, she’d gotten the confidence in their relationship to look at this as a problem for them to solve together.

Fortunately, it wasn’t much of a problem. Wilson wasn’t sure when he’d made up his mind about this—the possibility had been there, and he’d turned it over in his mind several times already, but it had always seemed dubious. Self-indulgent. Risky.

Now, though, it was clearly the only option. He didn’t know when he’d made that decision. Maybe around the same time Mavis had stopped worrying.

“I’m retiring,” he told her. “I’m leaving Washington, and I’m going to move up here to Glacier.”

Her lips parted. “Oh,” she breathed. “But—you shouldn’t have to leave your home for me.”

“First,” he said firmly, “if that’s what’s best for both of us, that’s exactly what I should do. Secondly...I haven’t been happy with my job for a long time. The only reason I haven’t retired yet is that I didn’t know what I would do otherwise, where I would go. My life seemed like a wasteland, apart from the Marines. Now,” and he reached over and squeezed her hand, “my life is full. Full of love.”

Mavis squeezed back. He loved the feeling of her strong hand in his; smaller than his own, of course, but still capable, with power in its grip as well as gentleness.

“I would love to have you here with me in Glacier,” she said quietly. “I can’t think of anything that would make me happier.”

He smiled. “Good. And I’m looking forward to making up for years and years of lost time in the city. The idea of having all of these mountains and forests to explore, the whole Park to learn...I think I could spend my days re-learning what it is to be a shifter out in nature, like I was meant to be.”

Mavis smiled. But was there a hint of wistfulness to it? Wilson wondered if she felt left out, since her daughter and most of her friends here were shifters.

Would she want...?

But they were coming up to the town, and that was a question for another time. Besides, Mavis was thinking. “Are you going to join Cal’s pack?” she asked.

Wilson hesitated. “I think I’ll keep myself a loner for a bit longer,” he said finally. “Maybe I could be an associate member. A satellite member. I won’t usurp Cal’s authority, but I’m afraid that he’d be uncomfortable leading his former commanding officer.”

“Maybe you could find a different pack, up here,” Mavis suggested. “There’s a lot of different shifters around. Or do you all have to be the same type?”

“That’s usually how it works out in shifter communities,” Wilson said, “but in the military, everyone’s thrown together, and we make it work. I almost prefer it that way, because then there’s a multitude of experiences of what being a shifter means. You learn more that way.”

Mavis smiled. “I’m sure you’ll make it all work out.”

They pulled up to Oliver’s, and Wilson parked, then leaned over to kiss Mavis’ delicious lips. “We’ll make it work out together,” he murmured.

She kissed him back, and then squeezed his hand one more time, before they got out and headed into the diner.

Nina was waiting for them at a booth. Mavis and Wilson took the other side, and after the usual greetings, Mavis took a breath. “Nina,” she said, “I have something to tell you.”

“I think I might know what it is, Mom,” said Nina, with a little impish smile.

“Well, let me tell you anyway,” Mavis said. Wilson could see the expression reflected back: like mother, like daughter.

Mavis drew in her breath. “Wilson and I are mates,” she said.

Nina’s smile broke out into a wide grin. “I knew it.” Her voice was still soft—Wilson didn’t think he’d heard it raised—but heartfelt. “I knew it. Oh, Mom, I’m so happy for you.”

She did look happy. Good. That was good.

“I’m looking forward to getting to know you, Nina,” Wilson said. “On whatever terms you’d like. Maybe we could start out as friends.”

The idea of being a father figure to Nina—and from what Mavis had said, perhaps even also her mate, Joel—filled Wilson with a combination of apprehension and excitement.

He wanted it. He’d always appreciated the opportunity to mentor young soldiers, to feel as though he was making a difference in a young person’s life. It filled him with purpose, and a sense of warmth.

That was something a man had to build up to, though. No one stepped up and immediately gained someone’s trust and admiration; that was the sort of thing that was established over time.

And he was looking forward to spending time with Nina.

“That sounds good to me,” Nina said. “Maybe we could go for a run together in the Park sometime.”

“What a wonderful idea,” Wilson said, heartfelt. “I was just telling your mother about how I’d like to learn more about the terrain and the wilderness here.”

“Oh,” said Nina, “well, actually, someone just walked in who would be better at that than I would.” She waved, and Mavis turned to look. Her face lit up.

A middle-aged woman came over to the table, a broad smile on her face. She was stocky and muscular, with tightly-curled blonde hair and tawny golden eyes.

“Well, if it isn’t the Williams women,” she said warmly.

“Wilson, this is Lynn,” Mavis said. “She’s the woman I mentioned to you the other day, the one who has the guide business. She knows the Park better than anyone out there.”

“So much so that she’s got more business than she can handle,” Nina put in.

Lynn smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “That’s why I’m looking for new hires every chance I get.” She raised her eyebrows at Nina. “You thought about my offer?”

Nina smiled shyly. “Maybe.”

Lynn shook her head. “You let me know if that ‘maybe’ turns into a yes. Nice to meet you—Wilson, was it?” she said, turning.

Wilson shook her hand. “Wilson Hanes. It’s a pleasure.”

“Wilson and my mom are together,” Nina put in.

“Well, you’re a lucky man, then,” Lynn said sincerely. “This woman’s one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Wilson said. “Since you’re clearly a person of taste, I’ll definitely be engaging your services the next time you’re free. I’m new in town and I want to learn the lay of the land.”

“Wilson’s a snow leopard, too,” Nina confided in a low voice to Lynn.

Lynn nodded. “I’m a shifter as well. A lynx. Don’t ask me what my parents were thinking when they named me; I’ve already heard all the dumb jokes.”

Wilson hid a smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“We’ll have to go for a run sometime, then. I’ll show you all the best spots.”

They shook hands all around, and Lynn strode off to her table. “That’s an impressive woman, I can already tell,” Wilson said.

“And she’s made it all alone in the world,” Mavis said. “Never married, not much family, no real pack—just her and her determination. I never cease to be amazed by her.” Then she turned back to Nina. “What’s this about a job offer?”

“I don’t know yet!” Nina said. “She seems to think I’d be good at it. But I haven’t been here nearly as long as some other people have, I’m sure I don’t know the territory well enough to be a guide. And I have this job, and it’s decent, and I definitely don’t want to give it up for something I might not be good at...”

“Well,” Wilson said practically, “there’s only one way to learn, and that’s to start doing it. How about you show me around first, and I’ll let you know what I think of your skills. I could even book one of Lynn’s tours and then give you a rundown of where you differed, if you’d rather do that before trying to do it professionally.”

“Oh.” Nina blinked. “That sounds like a good idea. Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Wilson assured her.

Mavis reached for his hand, and it struck Wilson suddenly that this was his future. That he was sitting here not only with his beautiful, intelligent, brave, compassionate mate, but rather with his new family, in his new home.

He took a deep breath, and settled back to drink it all in. This was his life, and he was happier than he’d ever been.