Lion's Lynx (Veteran Shifters Book 2) by Zoe Chant (1)

Lynn Davidson frowned at her email.

Email in general was not her favorite thing—she preferred to be outside, away from computers and phones, surrounded by nature.

But this particular email was getting the stinkeye for a reason.

The subject was A Request, and it was from Cal Westland, head ranger at Glacier National Park. Apparently one of his old Marine buddies worked for an environmental research company, and the buddy was being posted to Glacier to take soil samples or whatever.

Normally, the guy would have a ranger assigned to him to show him around and help him find what he needed. However, it was the height of tourist season, there’d been a dangerous fire up in the mountains last week, and although they’d caught it early enough that it hadn’t done much damage, all of the rangers were on high alert.

And since Cal couldn’t spare anyone, and Lynn ran the most popular guide service in the area, he was asking her to do it.

The problem was, it was the height of tourist season. Lynn was already overworked, and her new trainee, Nina, wasn’t experienced enough to take on as many clients as Lynn did. They were booked solid.

Maybe she could foist the environmental scientist off on Nina?

But no, she knew she wouldn’t. Anytime a big company took interest in Glacier or the land around it, Lynn wanted to be in the loop. “Environmental research” covered a lot of ground, and if anything shady was going on, she needed to know.

Honestly, that was probably one of the reasons Cal was asking her to take the guy under her wing. He and Lynn were in perfect agreement on this subject. If he couldn’t supervise an industry-funded research project personally, he knew Lynn would report back to him.

Although this guy was his friend from back in his Marine days.

Lynn tried to picture that. A Marine veteran. Probably a gruff, buzz-cut drill sergeant type, used to getting his own way and bulldozing over anyone who disagreed.

Odds were he wouldn’t want to take any orders from a woman, either. Lynn had met more than a few outdoorsmen who thought that anytime she warned them about real danger, she was just being a namby-pamby girl who was scared of a little adventure. They drove her crazy—and usually ended up in trouble that she had to rescue them from.

And the older ones were sometimes worse. If this guy was Cal’s old buddy, he was probably around Lynn’s own age, late forties or so. He’d be firmly set in his ways.

The office door opened then, and Nina came sailing in, stars in her eyes. “Hi!”

Lynn couldn’t help but smile, despite her annoyance. Watching Nina stretch her professional muscles as she worked a challenging and fulfilling job had been lifting Lynn’s heart for a month now. “So the Yang family enjoyed their hike?”

Nina nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes. They were wonderful—asking questions about everything, so impressed, so happy to be there. And they let me know when they were getting tired instead of thinking they had to push on. I had them take breaks at the best vistas, and they loved it.” She smiled broadly. “They thanked me afterwards, and I got this great tip!” She held up a handful of cash. “Should I put it in the books?”

Lynn shook her head firmly. “Are you kidding? That’s yours. You earned it, kid. Buy your man something pretty to wear or something.”

Nina burst out laughing. “Maybe I will.”

Lynn chuckled too, knowing that Nina’s mate, Joel, was a Glacier Park ranger and probably wasn’t too interested in wearing anything pretty. Although who knew—maybe he was a real clotheshorse—clothes-leopard?—when he wasn’t in the uniform. No judging people, sometimes.

“How has your day been?” Nina was asking. It was past quitting time; the sky outside was full dark, and Lynn had just stepped into the office to do the day’s bookkeeping and check the email.

Which reminded her. “Full day of clients, a couple of real experienced hikers in the mix. But now I’ve got Cal asking me to babysit an environmental scientist later this week.”

Nina frowned. “Do environmental scientists need babysitting?”

“Ha,” Lynn said sourly. “They don’t think they do, but they do. They’ve got a degree or two, and suddenly they’re sure they know more about the land than someone who’s lived here her entire life.”

Nina smiled a little. “Not that you’re bitter.”

“Not in the slightest,” Lynn said, mock-serious. “This guy’s a friend of Cal’s, so maybe he won’t be...too awful.”

“Wow, I definitely believe you now,” Nina said, wide-eyed. “Super convincing.”

“Thank you.” Lynn finally let herself crack a smile. “Anyway, he’s going to be taking an early slot, because we’re booked from six AM to full dark all week. If he wants any help during the day, I might have to foist a client or two off on you. Think you can take it?”

Nina’s posture straightened. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good on you. Now go home.”

She smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

Nina took herself off, presumably heading home to Joel. Lynn smiled a little at the thought of them—young mates, both snow leopard shifters, in the earliest stages of a life together.

Lynn had never married, or even lived together with a boyfriend. In her younger years, she’d confined herself to casual relationships, often with men who were only around Glacier for the summer. She’d never had the time or the willingness to commit too much of herself to a man.

Especially once she’d seen, over and over again, how it could go wrong.

Now that she was older, it was easier to just be single. No one tried to set her up or asked her when she was planning on settling down. The town had accepted that Lynn Davidson was a confirmed—whatever the female equivalent of bachelor was. And that was how she liked it.

Lynn needed space to herself and control over her own life, and she’d never thought that the sacrifices a relationship required were worth it. So she smiled indulgently at Nina’s young love, shook her head at Cal getting married at his age—now with a brand-new baby, no less—and went about her business.

Her extremely busy business, these days. Shaking away her thoughts, Lynn opened up a reply window and started typing out a message to Cal.

Those environmentalists had better pay well.

***

Ken Turner, formerly a Staff Sergeant in the Marine Corps, these days a mild-mannered environmental scientist, pulled his truck into the rangers’ office complex at Glacier National Park.

It was strange to be coming back here so soon. Just a few months ago, he’d visited Glacier Park when his old Gunnery Sergeant Cal Westland had married his mate, Lillian. The wedding had been the first time Ken had seen Cal in ten years...and now here he was, right back on his doorstep again.

But it was more than a coincidence. He’d asked Cal specifically if he could pull some strings to allow Ken’s bosses at GeoSync to do some work up at Glacier. Until now, they’d been having a difficult time getting through the endless miles of red tape needed to research in a national park.

Cal had come through, though, and now Ken was in great with the bosses, and had been hand-picked to come do the fieldwork himself. As he got out of the truck, he resisted the urge to start up a cheerful whistle.

The rangers’ building was unlocked, and Cal’s office was easy to find. Ken tapped on the door, and grinned as Cal’s voice intoned, “Come.”

Some things hadn’t changed since Cal’s days as a gunnery sergeant, that was for sure. Ken had to resist the urge to stand at attention when he entered the office.

He’d been out of the Marines for ten years, but the Corps never really left your blood. The instincts were there for life.

But Cal gestured him at a chair, so Ken somehow managed to conquer years of psychological training and sit down across from him, just like two civilians having a meeting. He gave himself a mental pat on the back.

“Welcome back to Glacier.” Then Cal gave him a smile. A real, actual smile. Ken restrained himself from shaking his head and blinking.

“Thanks,” he said instead. “Congrats on the new baby.”

The smile softened. “Thanks. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

A little baby girl. Ken tried to picture Gunnery Sergeant Westland cooing over a baby girl in a tiny pink dress and booties, and came up with a flashing DOES NOT COMPUTE.

“Marriage and fatherhood are treating you right, then,” he managed.

“You’ve got no idea. You should really try it sometime.” The dopey look hadn’t left Cal’s face.

“Mmm,” Ken said, as though he were testing the idea, “...no, I don’t think it’s for me. Women are great, but not a lot of them go nuts over a guy who investigates bear poop for a living, you know?”

Not to mention how he was pretty sure most women wanted a man who’d stay home and be with them, cuddle on the couch and so on. When sometimes all a lion shifter wanted was to get out and range through the deserted countryside.

Forget sometimes. All the time. Ken had come to love his job, but originally, the only reason he’d studied environmental science after leaving the Marines was so that he could make a living outdoors.

Even environmental science required more office-and-computer time than he’d originally anticipated. But all that meant was that he maximized his field time, staying out in the wild for weeks at a time whenever he could.

And he didn’t want to try and build a relationship around that. Because it wouldn’t work, for one, and because it sounded freaking exhausting, for another.

Ken couldn’t be tied down. Twenty-five years ago, he’d left to join the Marines even when his first girlfriend had begged him not to, and he’d disappointed a few more girls in his youth when he’d refused to settle down and commit.

Finally, he’d just accepted that women didn’t want men like him, and he didn’t want women like them, and so they should probably all just agree to disagree and go their separate ways.

These days, he had flings now and then, but only when it was understood that it wasn’t going anywhere. Otherwise, he kept himself to himself, and enjoyed a monogamous relationship with the great outdoors.

Cal was shaking his head. “You’re not talking to the right women. I could name a few out here who have no problems with bear poop.”

Ken mock-fluttered his eyelashes. “How romantic.”

Cal closed his eyes briefly, and then said, “So this company of yours wants you operating in my Park?”

Back to business then. Probably for the best. “Both in the Park and just outside it. Ideally some good old-growth forested area, adjacent to some areas that have been logged in the last fifty years or so.”

Cal was nodding. “That’s doable. The paperwork that GeoSync sent me authorized payment of a local guide to give you locations and data, so I’ve called one up for you—the best in the business.”

Ken frowned. “I don’t need a guide. If you just point me in the right direction—or get a ranger to run me up some records on the local forestry—”

Cal shook his head. “The rangers are swamped; we’re at peak season right now, and there’s been some potential wildfires. Everyone’s got their eyes open, and I can’t spare anybody. But I promise you, I’ve hired the best private guide there is.”

Ken was about to explain, once again, that he didn’t need anybody to hold his hand through the process of doing his goddamn job, when there was a knock on the door.

“That should be her now,” Cal added, and raised his voice. “Come!”

The door opened, and in came a woman.

She was short and stocky, dressed in a loose khaki shirt and utility vest, jeans, and hiking boots. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and she was wearing a no-nonsense expression.

So she definitely wasn’t trying to look attractive. Ken knew when women were presenting themselves to their best advantage, and this woman was here to do her job—no makeup, no frills, nothing.

Which meant there was no explanation for the burst of want he felt when he saw her. And not just from his human side: his lion sat up inside Ken’s chest and growled appreciatively.

Sure, she was pretty—her features were surprisingly delicate, compared to the image she put forward. The classic line of her nose, the elegant cheekbones and cupid’s-bow lips, all came together into a beautiful picture. Ken could see that, if it hadn’t been severely confined, her hair would be a mass of soft, ash-colored curls.

And even the most shapeless clothing wouldn’t be able to conceal that figure. Her curves were clearly visible under her vest and through her jeans.

Still, though. Ken had thought he’d gotten good at the not-dating game. GeoSync employed plenty of attractive, smart women, and he might notice that they were pretty, but his lion never took too much interest in them, and he never let it distract him from his job.

And he for sure never felt the urge to grab them by the arm, tug them out into the hall away from his former gunnery sergeant, and see if those lips tasted as gorgeous as they looked.

Yes, his lion agreed, in a low rumble.

“Hello?”

She was right in front of him. Holding out her hand. He...must have missed something in there.

He summoned up a smile. It wasn’t difficult. “Hi. Nice to meet you.” He took the hand and shook it.

Her handshake was as firm as any man’s, her palm warm and dry. Ken had to force himself not to keep her hand in his, not to twine their fingers together and hold her close.

The idea made him shiver. Shiver, like a teenager with his first crush. Sweet baby hedgehog angels, what was wrong with him?

“Lynn’s the best guide in the Glacier area,” Cal was saying. “She’s helped out with the pack’s search-and-rescue efforts many times. She’ll be able to show you wherever you need to go, and answer any questions you might have about land use in the area.”

Lynn. Ken tasted the name silently in his mouth, and he liked it.

Also, Cal had referenced his pack, which meant that he was tactfully letting them both know that they could talk about shifters.

Ken knew that even aside from the snow leopard pack, the local area was especially densely populated with shifters. Was Lynn one? If so, what animal was she?

It would be rude to ask outright, and he didn’t want to offend her. But he suddenly and desperately needed to know.

He hoped she wasn’t a prey animal. Herbivore shifters often got nervous around predators like Ken. An enormous male lion disconcerted them for some reason.

Hard to imagine why.

But Lynn didn’t look like she was easily disconcerted. By anything.

“You’ll be getting settled in today, I assume,” Lynn was saying. “I’m heavily booked because it’s tourist season, so we’ll have to meet early in the morning or late in the evening. How do you feel about five AM tomorrow?”

Her gaze was challenging. Her eyes, Ken noticed, were a beautiful clear topaz color.

She must be a shifter. Unusual eye colors were often a clue, and someone who spent her time out in the wilderness of Glacier, especially considering how many shifters lived up here...?

Now he just had to figure out what animal had eyes like that. An owl?

Also he had to answer her question.

“Five AM sounds great,” he said honestly. “Can I show my appreciation for your help? Take you to dinner tonight, maybe?”

She shook her head firmly. “Too busy for socializing right now. Your company can show their appreciation when I send them an invoice.”

The rejection stung. But Ken had to admire the confidence and total lack of hesitation as she shut him down.

“Well, let’s exchange information,” he said, pulling out his phone. “What’s the reception like out here?”

“It’s fine in town,” she said, unearthing a battered flip-phone from one of her vest pockets. “Not so good out on the trails, but I make sure to check my texts and email at least once at the end of the day, so if you have to cancel or reschedule something, I should see it.”

Her voice was husky, a low, sweet sound. Ken made himself focus on the words instead of the tone as he typed her phone number, email address, and website into his phone.

She nodded briskly as he gave her his own info, getting it entered into her little numerical keypad with speed. “Good. Meet me at the visitor’s center tomorrow morning at five, and we’ll discuss what you’re looking to research.”

They shook hands again. Struck by a sudden burst of inspiration, Ken said, “I’m looking forward to learning from your expertise.”

That got him a reaction. Startled, she met his eyes. He smiled.

She tugged her hand away quickly and looked over at Cal. “See you around, Westland.”

“You too,” Cal said blandly.

Ken watched her leave. Her curves were just as apparent from behind.

As the door clicked shut behind her, Cal said, “Still don’t want a guide?” Amusement flavored his tone.

Getting married, Ken thought, had done wonders for Cal’s ability to express emotions and respond to humor. It was really too bad that Ken had to experience it in this particular context. “Shut up.”

Cal didn’t say anything else, but Ken could see the smile lurking at the corners of his mouth.

Damn it. He didn’t need anyone making fun of him for getting googly-eyed over a woman. And frankly, he didn’t need to get googly-eyed over a woman in the first place. This was a professional step up for him, one that he needed after getting such a late start in the game.

Most people got into environmental science as twenty-two-year-olds, not after ten years in the Marines and three years in an accelerated college program. The Glacier research project was a big win for him, and he wasn’t about to screw it up because of the way his gonads were responding to one woman.

A woman who could probably be a professional asset, at that, if he didn’t totally alienate her by asking her out seventeen times after she’d already said no.

But she smells so good, his lion purred.

And I don’t need any input from you, Ken added firmly.

***

Well. Lynn had not been prepared for that.

She’d been expecting some grizzled, take-no-advice, high-and-mighty jerk, not that...man.

Ken, Cal had said. Ken Turner.

With the warm auburn hair only barely touched with grey, and the tawny golden eyes that had seemed to take her all in at a glance. Eyes with laugh lines at the corners, lines that deepened when he smiled at her.

Which had been a lot.

He smelled good, too, her lynx thought wistfully.

Stop it. Lynn firmly reminded her lynx—and herself—that he was probably just one of those natural charmers. Anyone with a face like that must be; he looked like one of those classic movie stars, the ones who just got better-looking as they aged. He must have women falling all over him, wherever he traveled for his field research.

And he must be used to taking advantage of that. After all, he’d asked her out to dinner after knowing her for approximately four minutes.

And Lynn had said no, because she didn’t date.

She’d accepted a long time ago that she was happiest alone. All of the serious connections in her life had eventually fallen away. Her family...well, the less said about that, the better. And most men didn’t understand her need to be independent, to spend most of her time out in the wilderness that was her first love.

Or they understood that too well. When she was younger, some men had thought that that made Lynn a perfect candidate for a casual hookup, nothing serious. Those were the charmers, the ones who wanted a string of girls.

So she didn’t trust charming, handsome men who wanted a date right away. Falling for that was a one-way ticket to disappointment.

Right?

Even though there was a little niggling thought at the back of her mind: what would dinner with Ken Turner, environmental scientist, formerly of the Marine Corps, have been like? Most environmental scientists she’d met were eggheads, people who’d spent most of their lives in school, not former military.

And most of them didn’t smile at her like the sun was coming up right before their eyes.

He probably does that to everyone, she said to herself.

I don’t think so, her lynx purred. I think that was just for us.

What is wrong with you? Lynn thought incredulously. The last time her lynx had shown interest in a man was...oh, yes, never. Usually Lynn’s shifter side was only interested in hunting, sunning herself on rocks, napping, and more hunting. She barely paid attention to people who weren’t family.

Maybe he could become family.

No, Lynn told her lynx, as sternly as she could manage when she was essentially talking to herself. He could not.

Her family had enough complications. The last thing they needed was a sweet-talking, movie-star-looking, sunlight-bright-smiling environmental scientist waltzing in. And then, no doubt about it, waltzing right out, and leaving them hurting more than before.

And I don’t want to hear any more about it.

Her lynx just purred.

***

Lynn was up the next day at four-thirty. She lived in an old house she’d inherited from her grandmother, on the edge of town, out beyond where the houses clustered together, edging into the territory that was mostly trees, with the occasional cabin or isolated home. She and her sister had inherited it together, but Stella lived off with her boyfriend and daughter a few towns over, so Lynn had the whole, big, rambling place to herself.

Sometimes she thought about trying to sell it, if she could get Stella’s permission, and get herself something more suited to a single woman living alone. Cleaning the whole place was a hell of a pain, if nothing else, and she really only used about three rooms.

But somehow she could never bring herself to do it. She reasoned that it would be hard to find a buyer, out here in the middle of nowhere. Particularly for a house that hadn’t been repaired in quite some time.

Really, though, it was because she loved the place too much to let it go. She pretended it was convenience, if anyone asked. But she didn’t think she’d ever give up her grandmother’s beloved home.

The house was dark when she got up, but as she got ready and got in her car to drive out to Glacier, the early summer dawn was beginning, the sky lightening. She watched the light filter through the trees, and as she pulled in to the visitor’s center, the first rays burst over the horizon to light up...

...Ken Turner’s hair, flaring auburn in the dawn sun as he waited by his car, alone in the parking lot.

Lynn frowned at him, although he surely couldn’t see her face through the window from several yards away. It just seemed unfair that the very dawn was conspiring to light him up like a sign from above: Here is a handsome man!

I know, Lynn told the universe, and maybe slammed her car door unnecessarily hard as she got out.

She didn’t think of herself as susceptible to attractive men. She was even proud of it. But somehow Ken was so handsome that it was making her weak in the knees just to look at him.

And that was making her irritated at herself.

He walked over to meet her. “Good morning,” he said, still smiling that cheerful smile.

“Good morning.” Lynn was shooting for pleasant and landed hard at cordially polite. That was better than breathless, though, right? “How about you tell me something about the sort of research you want to be doing, and we can head over to an area that might help you out?”

A little abrupt, maybe, but five in the morning was a good excuse.

“Sure thing.” Ken settled himself casually against Lynn’s car, leaning on the roof, but too far away for him to be looming over her personal space. Which was good.

“I’m checking out the flora and fauna in old-growth versus reforested territory,” he said. “GeoSync understands that the way logging has gone around here, what with changes in regulations over the decades, there are areas that were logged a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, ten years ago, one year ago...and areas that have never been logged at all, particularly within the Park itself. We’re looking to get some comparison data to see what sort of ecology arises after different spans of time.”

“Well,” Lynn had to admit, “that sounds like a useful project.”

“We think so.” Were his eyes actually sparkling, or was that just the dawn light? “I have all the official logging records that we could get, but...your knowledge of local history and land use could be really helpful to me.”

“I suppose so.” Lynn felt a bit grudging about it, because on the one hand, it seemed likely that he was just looking to spend some more time with her.

But on the other hand...he was right. She would know more about the various local logging projects, legitimate and illegitimate, that had gone on in the areas around Glacier Park. She knew every area that had been logged during her lifetime, and quite a few that had been cleared out long before she was born.

And it was a worthy project.

“Let’s get going,” she told him. “You can follow me in your truck.”

He smiled cheerfully. “Great.”

It didn't seem right that he was so happy this early in the morning. And the temptation to smile back at him was strong. Lynn watched as he jogged over to his truck, took a shaky breath, and got into her own car.

The drive wasn't too long, but it dead-ended eventually. The road took a sharp turn, heading over towards civilization, but their way was further into the forest. Lynn got out of her car and waited while Ken grabbed a backpack and carrying case that must all be full of his equipment. He gave her another one of those infuriatingly bright smiles when he was ready.

Lynn tried hard not to melt, and barely succeeded—instead, she jerked her head toward the faint trail and started forward without a word.

As she walked, though, she realized she was trying too hard to be professional instead of girlish. She’d overshot, and come out the other side into rude.

Normally, she was happy to chat a bit, to learn where a client was from, what had brought them to Glacier, what sort of hiking and wilderness experience they'd had in the past. It was gratifying to realize that someone had come from far away, or that they'd spent time in a different mountain range, and to talk about what they'd expected to see here in the Rockies, and what was surprising to them.

Lynn was still fairly sure that Ken knew he was handsome, and that he was probably used to women responding to it. But that didn't mean she had to sink down to a level she wasn't proud of. She could still be polite and friendly, for God's sake.

It wasn't like he was so beautiful he'd strike her speechless if she looked at him for more than half a second.

So she slowed her pace a bit. She’d been striding ahead on the narrow path, and Ken had been following behind, even though he was clearly in excellent shape, and even burdened with his equipment, could have paced or outstripped her with those long legs.

But he’d stayed politely behind. Lynn regretted her terseness once again.

“Not too much further,” she said as they drew level with one another.

He nodded amiably. “No problem.”

“Can I carry anything?” she offered belatedly.

But he just smiled and shook his head. “I got it. But thanks.”

They emerged from the heavy trees they’d been walking through into a clearing, and Lynn was saved from having to think up a response as they crested a hilltop, looking out over the expanses of the mountains.

The sun was still low, and it lit the snow-capped peaks a fiery pink and gold, casting long shadows throughout the valleys and setting the landscape into a blaze of dramatic contrast. Lynn had seen it a thousand times, and it still stole her breath and left her chest aching.

She looked over at Ken. His eyes were locked on the horizon, his own chest rising in a long inhale as he took it in.

“Well,” he said after a long, long moment. “That’s really something.”

Lynn felt a burst of pride for the place where she’d grown up. “I think so every time I see it.”

She waited while he looked his fill, and when he seemed to blink back to the moment, she pointed out to the north. “We’ll be heading over there. It’s never been logged, so I figure you can take your baseline information there, and then compare it to places that have been.”

“Great,” he said. His voice still had a hush to it, even though he was looking at her now, rather than the gorgeous Glacier vista.

They started off, and this time Ken kept pace with her.

“Have you lived here all your life?” he asked after a minute.

“I have,” Lynn said. “Never wanted to be anywhere else.”

“I can understand why. I’ve traveled a lot of places, but that view is enough to floor anybody.”

Lynn could only agree.

***

Ken was more and more certain that Lynn was a shifter. Back in Cal's office, he'd thought so, but seeing her out here, in her element, he was sure of it. Despite her short, stocky form, she moved with a fluid grace and strength that he associated with other shifters. More than once, he saw her head tilt at forest noises that were faint enough that he thought a normal human would've barely heard them, if at all.

If they’d been anywhere else, he might’ve thought he was imagining it. Shifters were a rare, closely-guarded secret in most of the world. All-shifter military groups like Ken’s old Marine unit were absolutely top secret. But Cal had told him that the area around Glacier Park was unusually full of shifters. That their existence was an open secret around here, and there were several packs running through these forests, living in their human forms in town.

And Ken was almost sure Lynn was one of them.

He was wild with curiosity about what her other form was. Part of it was plain nosiness, but also, he just wanted to see her shift, wanted to witness that grace and power in its natural form.

Of course, it would've been an unbearably rude, intimate invasion of privacy to ask, so he was going to have to live in suspense. Until and unless they got closer.

Which he would've given long odds earlier this morning, given her short answers and mild annoyance whenever he talked. Now, though, she seemed to be softening a bit.

He didn't know what he’d done to rub her the wrong way. It was unusual for women to dislike him—Ken knew he had decent looks, and he'd spent most of his teenagehood in a concerted effort to learn to be charming. His efforts had paid off, and he could usually make someone laugh within a few minutes of meeting them.

He hadn't made Lynn laugh yet.

And in fact, she overall seemed to be a very serious person. Even now that she was—maybe—warming up to him. The friendlier attitude had come across in softer, more sincere statements, not in smiles or jokes.

Ken resolved to make her laugh at least once while he was here. It didn't have to be a gateway to anything else, he reminded himself. He doubted this woman was the sort to enjoy a casual fling of the type Ken was used to.

He'd just...appreciate seeing her laugh. That was all, and that was surely enough.

Another fifteen minutes of good hard hiking brought them down off the ridge they'd been on into a relatively flat forested area. Ken was silently impressed with Lynn's speed and stamina. He could keep up with her, but if he'd been a human man, even one in good shape, he'd probably have had a hard time.

“I'd say this is the best place for you to start,” Lynn told him, no sign of strain in her breathing. “As far as I know, no one's logged it, not ever. And we're outside the official bounds of Glacier Park, so you're not likely to find much tourist detritus. No settlements ever established near here, either.”

Ken looked around. The woodlands were still dim, as the dawn slowly filtered down through the treetops to the forest floor. The trees were enormous, old growth, the canopy thick. They could've been a thousand miles from any civilization, alone in the silence of the woods.

“Thank you,” he told her. “I'll get started here. And let me show you the map GeoSync gave me, with their understanding of the logging history. Maybe you can point out where is best to go next.”

Lynn nodded. “Let's see it.”

Ken dug through his pack until he found the folded paper, and spread it out on a rock for Lynn to see.

She glanced at it, a frown appearing between her eyebrows. Ken was struck once again by the delicate beauty of her features, the way her eyebrows arched over those beautiful topaz-colored eyes.

“Well, this is wrong.”

He dragged his attention back to his job. The map, right. He raised an eyebrow. “Wrong?”

She nodded, putting a finger down on the shaded areas. “These are supposed to have been logged a hundred years ago and never since? Absolutely not. There's been logging done there in the last ten years.”

Her hands were strong and capable, nails cut practically short, no polish. He bet she had calluses. He wondered what those calluses would feel like—

Job. Right. Doing his job. She was looking at him with a challenging expression, probably expecting him to argue that his information was better than hers. Well, she was about to be surprised, then. “You're telling me my company was wrong?” He put a hand to his heart in mock-shock. “Surely not. Please excuse me. I must go have the vapors.”

Her expression changed. “Most people are more confident in their employers than that,” she said, sounding cautious.

Ken grinned. “Oh, I know they did the best they could. But logging information isn't always centralized or easy to come by, particularly if the land isn't protected or owned by the government. The research guys would've done their best, but even they told me that I'd have to consult with the locals to try and confirm their information.”

And he’d been planning on asking the rangers, but this was...much better. Much, much better. Ken pictured all the time they could spend poring over the map together, heads bent, standing close—

Down, boy.

“Well, I can't confirm...” She squinted down at the map. “Somewhere between forty and sixty percent of this. I'll have to make you a better map, I guess.”

“No need to go to that much effort,” he hastened to say. “I'll get a map, you can run down what you know, and I'll shade it all in myself. I can manage it, I promise. I got an A in coloring in the lines in kindergarten.”

She frowned at him. “You won't know how precise to be.”

“We'll work on it together,” he proposed. “I won't make you do all this work yourself. I know you're already going outside of your normal schedule to meet up with me.”

“True.” Blunt and to the point. Ken didn't know why he found it so charming that she wasn't making any effort to spare his feelings, but he absolutely did. “Speaking of—” She glanced at her watch. “I have to get going soon.”

Ken suppressed an automatic protest. “Tomorrow morning?” he tried. “Same time?”

She nodded. “That should work.”

“I’ll overnight out here, so just meet me...” He glanced around. “That rock looks like a good spot, don’t you think? Nice architecture, good ventilation, free parking.”

That got him a look that was—well, probably more bemused than amused, but Ken felt like he was making progress. “All right.”

And she turned and started back along the trail. Ken allowed himself one minute of watching her generous curves as she hiked, and then looked away.

After all, he had work to do.

***

“So I hear the new environmental scientist is extremely handsome.”

Lynn startled, and dropped the pile of papers she’d been sorting through—mock-ups of different possible brochure designs for the guide business. Murphy’s Law dictated that they had to end up all over the office somehow, and indeed they did, with several drifting under the desk, and one—how?—ending up behind the radiator.

Lynn surveyed the paper blizzard. “Thanks.”

Nina’s hand was over her mouth. “I’m so sorry!” she said, but the laugh was escaping even as she apologized. “No, don’t, I’ll clean them up.” She hustled over to the radiator first.

Lynn sighed and gathered together the papers in the desk area. Maybe Nina would forget what she’d been saying in the flurry of brochure search-and-rescue.

But there was no such luck. Standing up with a pile of brochure pages tucked neatly together in her hands, Nina said, “So, he must be really handsome if this is what happens when I bring it up.”

“Where on earth did you hear anything about the relative handsomeness of the environmental scientist?” Lynn asked. “As far as I know, he’s only talked to me and Cal, and you’re not going to convince me that Cal’s been gossiping about handsome men.”

“Aha!” Nina pointed a finger at her. “So you admit he’s handsome.”

Lynn raised an eyebrow and waited.

Nina deflated after a minute, and admitted, “From my mother. She met all of Cal’s old Marine buddies back at the wedding, and she remembered Ken. Although she said they were all very handsome.”

“Good for them,” Lynn said flatly.

“She said that Wilson says that he commanded all of them in combat, overseas, and they were all good Marines,” Nina added.

Nina’s mother Mavis was married to a former Marine Colonel, Wilson Hanes. Wilson had commanded Cal back in the day—and apparently Ken, too.

Well, good for him. Them. Whatever. It was no skin off her nose how good of a Marine Ken had been.

Although it did add a kind of an...extra dimension to him. She’d been thinking of him as a wisecracking, womanizing type of man. But knowing that he’d served in combat—well, he had to have a certain strength of character to have done that, and come back alive.

She pictured him in fatigues, somewhere in the desert sand. It was easier than she would’ve thought.

Something else occurred to her. “So he must be a shifter.” Cal and Wilson were both shifters, and Lynn vaguely remembered something about top-secret all-shifter units in the military. “Right?”

There was a little smile on Nina’s face. Lynn didn’t want to think too hard about what it might mean. “Yep. Mom said she didn’t know what type he was. I doubt Wilson would just go around telling people. But he’s definitely a shifter.”

That added even more. No wonder he was so comfortable hiking through the wilderness. Normally, Lynn had to make sure she kept her pace slow and easy for regular humans. Even athletic men wouldn’t have the speed and power a shifter did. But Ken had kept up with her no problem, and she’d even felt like he could’ve outstripped her without too much trouble, if he’d wanted to.

There were plenty of shifters living around Glacier Park—an unusually large amount, compared to other places. So it wasn’t strange to be spending time with another one. But for some reason, she’d just been assuming that Ken was a regular human man.

If he was a shifter, she could tell him a lot more about how she knew the history of the forests around Glacier. He’d understand things like why she’d chosen the job she did...

She pulled herself sternly to a halt. She didn’t want to get too caught up in personal feelings for Ken, after all. Because that would be too close to thinking about that date he’d asked for, and dating wasn’t for her. Too old, too used to being alone, too set in her ways...

Too unwilling to watch anyone else walk away.

“Time to get this brochure figured out so we can both go home,” she told Nina, and something about her tone of voice must have made it clear that she was serious, because Nina immediately came over and bent her head to look at the papers with Lynn.

Good. It had been a silly conversation anyway. The idea that Ken might even be interested in her life...! Silly.

***

“So how’d you come to start working as a Park guide?” Ken asked Lynn, trying for a relatively casual tone of voice.

But he missed the mark or something, because her head came up like she’d just scented prey. “Why?” she asked. Suspiciously.

Which was completely unfair, because he’d done nothing suspicious whatsoever. “Just curious.”

She stared at him for a long minute, with that frown-wrinkle settling between her eyebrows. Ken wanted to reach out and soothe it away with his thumb, stroke his fingers down the side her face. Ask her what had made her so careful, so suspicious, that an innocent question like this set off her internal alarms.

But after a minute, the frown softened, and she said, “I kind of fell into it. I spent so much time in and around the Park as a kid, running wild, learning all the different places a person could go, to play or hide or what-have-you.”

Ken wondered what little-kid Lynn had felt like she needed to hide from. Other kids? Parents? He was filled with a sudden and fierce protectiveness.

But Lynn kept talking. “So...by the time I was a teenager, I felt like I knew everything there was to know about these woods. I felt like they were mine, and mine alone. But then I started talking to my grandmother about them.”

She smiled, then, and Ken was startled by the amount of pure love that was alive in her face. “Grandmother knew everything about the history of the land. She told me story after story, about how the Glacier area was originally settled, the way people used the land, abused it, harmonized with it, fought against it...times when it fought back. I hadn't realized how much there was that I didn't know. And learning from her was such a—a profound experience. I thought that all I wanted was to be able to do that for other people.”

She shrugged. “So as soon as I was old enough, I started taking little jobs as a guide, offering to show tourists around. And it took years, but eventually word got around, and it reached the point where I was making enough money that I could do it full-time. And here I am.”

“Here you are,” Ken echoed. Here she was, standing right in front of him, and he was so—

So something. So overwhelmed at the depth of feeling Lynn clearly had for these woods. So struck by the intimate space between them, alone here in the woods, as she told him that soft, simple story about her grandmother.

“That's a beautiful story,” he managed.

Lynn quirked a little half-smile at him. “Thank you. Now—” She looked around. “Did you want to spend some time on that map, then?”

He started. “Oh, yes. Sure. Let's get to it.”

Ken dug around in his bag for the map, and then a notebook and pen, feeling a little gobsmacked.

Lynn had turned the tables on him. He'd been determined to make her laugh, take her out of her serious thoughts. Instead, she'd brought him to a place where all he could feel was the seriousness of the moment. Where he didn't want to laugh, just to feel what Lynn felt.

“Here it is,” he said finally. “Let's see what you've got, then.”

And of course, she had a lot. Ken wasn't at all surprised to find that Lynn seemed to know when every tree in a forty-mile radius had been felled over the last hundred years. Most of the time, she knew the name of the person or the company that had done the logging, even if it was long enough ago that they were dead or defunct.

“Did your grandmother tell you about all of this, too?” Ken had to ask, as Lynn was frowning over the last finishing touches.

She nodded without looking up. “Grandmother valued the forest. She always said that we needed it, out here, that we'd die off without it, and I think she was right. She always wanted to know when trees were being cut down, and how quickly they were growing back.”

“Sounds like a woman after my own heart,” Ken said sincerely. “We could use someone like her at my company.”

Lynn smiled again, this time a full-on grin. “Good luck. My grandmother would never have worked for a big corporation. She thought they had no souls.”

Ken raised his eyebrows. “And what do you think?”

Lynn shrugged. “Depends on who’s at the top, I guess. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have an organization big enough to accomplish so much. But once the people in charge lose sight of what’s really important...” She shook her head.

“And what’s really important?” Ken asked, fascinated.

Lynn threw her hand out, wordlessly encompassing the silent wilderness around them.

“Right you are,” Ken said quietly.

***

The following day, Lynn left to meet Ken with a feeling of trepidation.

She hardly knew what she’d been thinking, yesterday. She’d practically told him her life’s story, with almost no prompting. Where had that even come from?

But he’d listened with interest, and not just interest. Something more. There’d been a sense of...happiness, even wonder, radiating off of him as she’d told him about Grandmother and her stories.

Like just hearing about it had lifted his spirits. Which made her wonder about his family life. Had he been reminded of someone he loved?

Or had he been amazed to hear about it because he hadn’t had that sort of mentor, growing up?

Silly speculation, of course, but Lynn was less hard on herself than she’d been a day or two ago. Ken was turning out to be a better man than she’d suspected at first. He didn’t seem to have the sort of ego she’d automatically assigned to anyone as good-looking and charming as he was.

He was even willing to acknowledge that she knew more about the woods than he did. And not just acknowledge, but actively ask her for help.

And he hadn’t asked her out again.

She’d been expecting, as they worked together, that he’d reiterate the invitation. Men, in her experience, weren’t very good at understanding the concept, No, I don’t want to go out with you.

But he hadn’t. Even now that they’d been getting along a bit better, now that they’d had a personal conversation or two, even—there’d been no, So hey, how about that dinner?

Almost like he respected her ability to know her own mind, and express her own opinions.

Shocking, she thought drily.

And all right, maybe she was cynical about men. But she’d never had any kind of great romance to convince her to be otherwise. Most of the time, she considered herself a realist, not blinded by love like some of the women she knew. Her sister among them.

It wasn’t like there weren’t good men out there. Joel, Nina’s mate. Cal, of course. In fact, the men of the snow leopard pack were, in general, a stand-up group, hardworking and genuine. Which was especially clear when she considered the women they’d ended up with. None of the ladies of the pack would’ve put up with insufferable egos or lazy dickheads.

So good men did exist. They just seemed to be...rare.

But maybe Ken was one.

Maybe. She barely knew him, after all. She reminded herself that they’d spent all of a couple hours together. He could still turn out to be an asshole.

And if he did, it was no skin off her nose.

Right?

Shaking her thoughts away, Lynn hopped out of her truck and started the quick hike through the woods that would lead her to the spot where she’d left Ken.

She remembered that he’d designated a sun-dappled rock as their official meeting spot—free parking!—and smiled wryly. He was a bit of a joker, no doubt about it.

She hastened her stride, remembering that she had to be back at the Glacier visitor’s center at six to meet her first morning appointment, an older couple from Maine who were touring every national park in the country. Glacier was number thirty-seven, they’d told her, and one of the parks they’d most been looking forward to.

Lynn wasn’t going to keep them waiting, that was for sure.

Fortunately, she knew this area well, and it wasn’t long before she was coming up a slope towards the little hollow where she’d left Ken yesterday. She circled a thicket of underbrush and stepped out into a clearer area—

—to the sight of an enormous lion asleep on the rock where they were supposed to meet.

Lynn froze, all of her human prey-instincts shouting at her. Predator! they screamed. Get away!

Her shifter instincts, on the other hand, sat up and purred.

Because this was Ken, Lynn belatedly realized. Of course. She’d already known he had to be a shifter, and it made a thousand times more sense that the lion was Ken, rather than assuming a wild lion had suddenly shown up in northern Montana.

Look, her lynx said to her. It’s him. Look how big and beautiful he is. Look at that glorious mane.

It was a glorious mane. Auburn like his hair, falling over his face and tumbling down to his back. Lynn wanted to walk right over and bury her hands in it—or shift and curl up next to him on the rock, right up against that warm fur.

What are you thinking? Snap out of it!

There was no reason to be so fascinated by another shifter’s mane, for Pete’s sake. Sure, Lynn had never seen a true lion shifter before. Mountain lions, yes, but this was a real, honest-to-God huge African lion.

Asleep with his chin on his paws, breathing softly in the dawn light.

Lynn had to admit it. The sight moved her. She’d inhaled sharply when she saw him, and that breath pulsed hard in her chest still. She let it out on a sigh, and acknowledged the truth to herself: she was drawn to this man.

To this lion.

Slowly, she walked forward, closer and closer until she was right nearby. She kept expecting him to start awake, but he kept breathing slowly and softly until she was right next to him, almost close enough to touch.

Reach out, her lynx urged. Reach out and touch him. He’s right there. I want to feel his fur under our fingers!

Lynn hovered on the edge of giving in to the impulse. Almost, she was ready to lift her hand—

And then his eyes blinked open.

Lynn jumped. “Excuse me,” she said instantly. And then quickly pulled herself together. She didn’t have anything to be sorry for; it was after five, and time for them to meet. “Good morning,” she tried instead. “Ken, I presume?”

Those tawny eyes blinked at her for a moment. If she’d had any doubts about who the lion was, they would’ve been dispelled by now: his eyes were exactly the same warm golden shade in his lion form as they were when he was a man.

Blinking, he lifted his head from his paws, then shook out his mane. Lynn watched. It really was glorious.

Then he stretched. His claws flexed, his muscles rippled, and he yawned a great yawn, revealing huge teeth and a pink tongue.

Let’s shift, her lynx suggested. We could go on a run together! He probably wants to run, now that he’s awake.

No, Lynn told her lynx firmly. Half her attention was still on the majestically wonderful sight of the male lion coming fully awake.

He shook himself once more, then padded to the edge of the rock and hopped down. Lynn was struck all over again by how enormous he was: standing on all fours, his head was almost level with hers, on two legs.

Then he shivered, blurred, and shifted, and she was looking at Ken Turner, wearing a T-shirt and boxers and standing barefoot and human on the forest floor.

His auburn hair, she couldn’t help but note, was in the same messy tumble his mane had been.

“Good morning,” Lynn managed.

“Good morning,” he said, sounding remarkably composed. “Sorry for oversleeping. I was sure the sun would wake me up.”

“It’s only just barely risen,” Lynn said. “Not as bright here in the thick forest as it is elsewhere, also. Ready to get going?”

“Mmm, just about,” he said, and gave another jaw-cracking yawn. It was funny—he was in his human form, but she felt like she could see echoes of the lion’s enormous yawn in his. “Let me get my things together.”

He turned to gather up a few belongings, tugging on jeans and a clean shirt as he did. Lynn caught herself watching the muscles of his bare chest and deliberately looked away, just as Ken said over his shoulder, “So you don’t seem too surprised that I’m a shifter.”

“I heard you and Cal served under Colonel Hanes, back in the Marines,” said Lynn, aiming for a calm and composed tone, and—she thought—managing it okay. “An all-shifter unit, apparently. So I guessed you must be, although I didn’t know what your form was.”

“I don’t shift much unless I’m sure I’m alone.” He hefted his pack and stood up, striding back over. “Hard to explain a lion roaming free in an American forest.”

Lynn started off with him. Should she tell him she was a shifter, too?

She should. It would make sense to mention it. It didn’t make sense not to mention it. He might even have figured it out, if he was so careless about his lion form around her.

But then maybe he’d want to see her shift.

And that gave her a shivery, uncertain feeling. Like it was too intimate a thing to show him.

Show him! her lynx said. He should see us. See me. We should shift and run together.

And she wanted to.

So much it scared her.

She avoided the issue, and all the self-conscious feelings that that brought up, by asking, “So did you grow up in a pack of lion shifters? Was it hard to keep secret? I can't imagine where you'd all be able to shift, being so conspicuous.”

Even here in Glacier, it could be difficult for the bigger, more ostentatious animals to find places to shift. She knew the snow leopards all used caution, because Nina talked about it sometimes—and snow leopards were built for camouflage; they practically turned invisible on a mountainside. Maybe lion shifters lived down south somewhere, in southern Utah or Arizona, where they'd be much better concealed in the scenery?

But Ken was shaking his head. “No, I didn't grow up in a pack, just a small family—and my mom wasn't a lion shifter, just my dad. No siblings, so it was only the two of us lions in our small town.”

“Oh. That must have been easier, then.” Maybe.

But Ken was grinning ruefully and shaking his head. “Nope. My dad was a paranoid guy. He was sure that we'd be caught at some point, and he put the fear of God into me about shifting. He was a stickler for rules, too—we were only allowed to shift on family vacations into the middle of the desert.”

“That sounds hard,” Lynn said involuntarily. Hard to imagine, too, when she'd grown up practically able to shift in her backyard. With the mountain forests stretching away for miles in several directions, and as unobtrusive as a lynx could be—and considering how well-known shifters were in the Glacier area, especially—there hadn't been anything like the kind of fear and paranoia that Ken was describing.

He nodded. “The Marines were an escape for me. And they felt less oppressive and constrained than home, if you can believe it. At least in the Corps, the rules were consistent, and it felt like I was working towards something.”

Lynn couldn’t help but picture it—an eighteen-year-old Ken. Skinny, maybe, and certainly in possession of that irreverent twinkle, maybe even more sarcastic as a teenager. Running away to the Marine Corps because he needed to live his life for something, instead of just in the pursuit of fear.

“Saved my life, probably,” he was reflecting. “Which not everyone can say about serving in combat. But it definitely put me on a different path than my dad’s.” A flash of that insouciant grin. “I keep waiting to see if I’m going to turn into him in my old age, but so far, so good.”

Lynn suppressed a smile. “It’s impressive,” she said instead. “That you’ve stayed so—so lighthearted. After an upbringing like that. And seeing overseas combat, too. That’s an admirable thing.”

He paused, turning to fix his eyes on her. Lynn wasn’t sure what his expression meant. He looked maybe a little surprised, and more serious than she was used to seeing him.

“You’re too good at that,” he said after a minute.

She stopped walking too. That sober stare was putting her off-balance. “Too good at what?”

“At making me take myself seriously.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, as though searching for the smile that should’ve been there.

Lynn didn’t know whether he was expecting her to apologize, or what. Well, she wouldn’t, because she wanted to see what was beyond Ken’s careless smile and offhand jokes. As disconcerting as it was when he looked at her as though he was seeing right through her skin...she wanted to see more of it.

She hadn’t expected Ken Turner to be a complicated man. Now that it was becoming clear that he was, she wanted to know how, and why. Greedy, maybe, but it was the truth.

So she said, softly, “Good.”

There was the smile. But it was softer than she was used to.

“I suppose combat puts things in perspective,” he said. It took her a minute to realize that he was responding to what she’d said. His patient stare had almost made her forget what had come out of her mouth just a minute ago.

“It made me realize that I should be—should be appreciating all the joys in life,” he continued. “All the things that aren’t combat. Anytime I’m somewhere pleasant, anytime I’m not in danger, when I’m with people I like or looking at something beautiful or hearing a funny joke—I’m grateful for that. I’m happy to have that. Because there are so many people who don’t. There are so many places where that doesn’t exist. And having been there, it’s even sweeter to be here.”

Lynn felt caught up in his words; when he was done speaking, it was almost like she had to catch her breath.

“That’s very profound,” she said finally, feeling like it wasn’t enough, but not knowing what else to say.

She didn’t know how good she was at that sort of happiness. That continuous appreciation. Maybe when she was out alone in the forest, just her and Glacier. She definitely didn’t manage it much around other people, though, not like Ken seemed to.

Ken just smiled at her—that soft smile again, not the irreverent grin—and turned to start walking again. Lynn followed, then remembered she was supposed to be leading, and caught up. They were heading to his next research spot, she reminded herself, the place she’d marked on the map as having been logged just over a hundred years ago. So he could compare the data with the old-growth ecology. For his job. Which was why he was here.

It’s even sweeter to be here, he’d said. And she couldn’t help wonder if he’d meant here, like not in combat, somewhere other than combat, or here like—here. Right here, with her.

They walked in silence for a while, Lynn breathing the crisp morning air and focusing on the woods around her, rather than the man at her side.

It occurred to her that this would've gone more quickly if they'd shifted. Ken would've had to carry his things on his lion's back somehow, because objects didn't shift along with a person like clothing did, but they could surely have rigged something up without too much trouble.

There wouldn't be any risk of discovery, way out here. Almost no people came within miles of this stretch of forest, and they would scent or hear someone long before they came across them. Lynn wondered what it would be like, running through the woods with a lion.

She'd feel pretty small, that was for sure. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

On the whole, Lynn avoided the other big, predatory shifters. Nina was an exception, and Lynn was starting to learn that the snow leopards were overall a decent bunch, if a bit insular. But she'd occasionally run into the local mountain lions while out shifted, and once or twice a wolf, and although lynxes were fierce, they were smaller cats. And if it was one of her and two of them...

Anyway, she didn't have time for fights with other shifters, and so often they were for stupid reasons like territory—territory! When there was endless forest to roam in! Or just fighting for the sake of fighting. It had never occurred to her to try and make friends with any of them.

Making friends with a lion would be...something else.

And she wasn't worried about Ken. She knew already, even though they'd only known each other a couple of days, that he wasn't violent. He wouldn't try to intimidate or scare her because he was bigger.

Lynn's eyes caught on a familiar rocky outcropping, and she swung their path to the right. “Almost there,” she called over her shoulder.

Glancing at her watch, she realized that the hike had taken a bit longer than she'd anticipated—her fault, probably, for having a serious conversation in the middle of the wilderness. She was going to have to hurry to get back.

No sticking around to talk any more with Ken. She was surprised at the sudden surge of disappointment that brought.

They pushed through a last stand of trees, and Lynn came to a stop. “Here's where they started logging, back at the beginning of the twentieth century,” she told Ken. “Grandmother never told me a specific date, but she knew it was before World War I. Probably around 1910 or so.”

“It's amazing that you know all of this,” Ken said, letting his pack slip from his shoulders.

“Grandmother's the one who found most of it out,” she said with a shrug. “I have to get back, I have a client to meet at six.”

“Will you come tomorrow?” he asked.

She hesitated. “I wasn't sure you'd need me tomorrow.” But she didn’t have any early-morning clients tomorrow. She could stay longer. If she wanted.

“I could always use your input,” he said. Which wasn't a yes. And if he'd just been another client, taking up her time without any real need, she might even have been annoyed.

But, well...she wasn't.

“All right,” she said, aware that her voice sounded a little breathless, and annoyed about it. “Tomorrow morning. I'll see you here.”

“Looking forward to it.” His eyes were smiling.

And then impulse took her. She needed to get back to her truck as soon as possible, so she wouldn't be late for her client meeting. And she'd just been thinking about how best to move more quickly, hadn't she?

It was like the quiet conversation they’d had, the way he’d freely talked about his history, his feelings, had broken down her own self-consciousness. His own openness was making her realize how closed-off she really was.

It made her realize that the intimacy she was afraid of...was already here. And it wasn’t bad. It was the opposite of bad.

Before she could hesitate any longer, she said, “Tomorrow, then,” and shifted.

She could feel her lynx rise up in her chest and take over, as her ears lengthened and her fur rippled into existence, her claws extending and her tail appearing. She fell to all fours, looking up at Ken with suddenly-sharpened vision.

She could scent him, now. He smelled like the forest, with a masculine tinge, and like a big predator. But there wasn't a wariness to her sense of him, like there usually was when she encountered predators in the wild. He felt...strangely safe.

As she shifted, he'd taken what looked like an involuntary step forward. His lips were parted, his eyes wide. She could see his chest heave with a quick inhale of breath.

“Look at you,” he said quietly. “A lynx. You're beautiful.”

Lynn didn't know what to make of that, had no idea how she might respond.

Fortunately, she didn't have to; she held his gaze for a long moment, then turned to dart off into the forest, running back to civilization, to her truck and her next client.

Even though her whole being yearned to stay back there in the woods with Ken.

***

The next morning, Ken woke up even earlier than he'd intended, while it was still dark. He'd slept restlessly, his eyes opening what seemed like every hour, because he'd dreamed that Lynn was there and he wanted to be awake to see her.

Finally, around four, he gave up sleep as a bad investment and decided to be up for the day. Only one more hour until she'd arrive.

A lynx. He'd been caught off-guard when she shifted, not expecting it at all. And then he'd been arrested by the beauty of her form. Those delicately tufted ears, that luxurious tail, the sleek spotted fur. She looked fierce, wild, and beautiful, like nothing could touch her.

Ken wanted to touch her.

He wanted to shift and run with her, to tussle on the forest floor. And then he wanted to shift back, and take her human form in his arms, run his hands over that soft skin, kiss those beautiful lips.

It was time to acknowledge the truth to himself. He'd fallen hard.

He hadn't expected anything like this to happen. He'd thought he was too old, too set in his ways. Too used to flirtations and flings.

But no. He wanted Lynn with a fierce passion that outweighed any casual attraction he'd ever felt. And underlying that passion, somehow, was the desire to commit. He wanted to stay here with her, to learn everything there was to know about her, to support her, join her life.

He was shaken by the power of those feelings. He barely knew what to do with any emotions that strong.

But he was pretty sure they weren't about to go away.

So he slept restlessly, and awoke with her name on his lips, and he waited as the dawn slowly crept into the sky.

He didn't need to see her today for work. He'd practically admitted as much yesterday, wondering if she'd respond, Well, if there's nothing I can help you with, why are you asking? Wondering if she'd rather stay away. He already knew that if she felt that way, she wouldn’t hesitate to tell him straight out.

But she hadn't. She'd met his eyes and agreed to come. Just to see him.

And then she'd shifted.

He'd never met a lynx shifter before. Didn't know much about them, either. Were they rare? Did they keep to themselves? Did they have packs? Lynn didn't seem to be part of a pack, or at least she'd never mentioned one.

You know hardly anything about her, he reminded himself. She'd mentioned her grandmother, and she'd talked about growing up in these forests and becoming a guide, but beyond that, he didn't know anything about her life. She could have a whole crowd of lynx shifters living in the same house with her, and he'd have no idea.

Well, if she did, he'd get to know all of them and do his best to ingratiate himself.

But somehow, he doubted it.

Ken kept himself busy until she arrived by finding a creek and giving himself a quick, bracing outdoor shower, shaving, and otherwise making himself presentable.

Date night, he thought wryly. Or date morning, at least.

He flipped through his map, the one she’d annotated. She’d done such a good job, even quickly, that he wouldn’t necessarily need her guidance through the forest to other logging locations. He could follow a map without any trouble, and all the areas were now clearly marked.

But even aside from the fact that he wanted her company, she so obviously knew these woods like the back of her hand. That sort of understanding was invaluable to an environmental scientist. She’d already come out with little facts, off-the-cuff pieces of information about the wildlife or the plant species, that it would’ve taken him months to collect on his own.

Usually, it was a bit of a pain to spend enough time with local guides to learn all of their—always valuable—information. Because they usually hated bigshot big-city scientists, and weren’t at all keen on being told what to do, told that their information was incomplete, or told that any local lore might be wrong.

But on the other hand, as had already been amply proven with his map, bigshot environmental scientists weren’t always right, either.

Eventually, he’d killed enough time that the dawn was well on its way, and...yes, there was Lynn, coming down the slope. She was in human form, walking purposefully, with that powerful stride he’d come to recognize over the last few days. Ken felt sure that if he saw her from far away, from behind, and only had her movement to go on, he’d recognize her in an instant.

She slowed as she approached his little—camp was almost too strong a word. Since he was sleeping in his lion form, he didn’t need a tent or a sleeping bag, so really he just had his pack and his tools set up, only taking up a few square feet of the forest floor. He wished, suddenly, that he had somewhere more substantial to welcome her to. A chair to offer her, a kitchen to cook her breakfast with.

Lynn, of course, looked perfectly comfortable just among the trees, so maybe it didn’t matter. She was like him, Ken could tell—happier outside than in.

“Good morning,” she said. Cautiously. Did she regret how personal they’d gotten yesterday?

Only one way to find out. “Good morning,” Ken said. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for showing me your lynx yesterday. I know it’s a gesture of trust, and I appreciate it.”

She nodded gravely. Ken felt caught up in the gravity of the situation, and he wondered again at how Lynn was so easily able to draw him into serious moments, when most of the time he’d joke them away without any trouble.

“I wanted you to know,” she said. The words sent a thrill through him. “And I’d seen your lion, so it seemed...fair.”

“I’ve never met a lynx shifter before,” he said. “Are they rare?”

She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I’m the only one around here anymore.”

“No family?”

She looked away. “No. My father was never around, and my mother passed away when I was a little kid.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

She shrugged. “I never knew them. My sister and I were raised by my grandmother. She was a lynx, and she taught me everything I know about being a shifter, and living in these woods. She lived to a good old age, but she’s been gone for years now.”

“And your sister?”

Lynn waved a hand. “She lives a few towns over. She was never as invested in these forests as I was.”

It sounded lonely. Especially now that her grandmother was gone.

“Is she not a shifter, then?” Ken asked. Shifter parents didn't always produce shifter children, even though it was usual.

“No, she is.” Lynn looked a bit uncomfortable, and Ken was about to tell her that she didn't have to talk about it if she didn't want to, when she continued, “She's always been a bit—wild.” Then she smiled ruefully. “A different kind of wild. She never wanted to run through the forests, she just wanted to go to parties. She's always had a ton of boyfriends. She got pregnant at a young age, and now she lives with the latest boyfriend and her daughter, my niece, who's seventeen.” Lynn was quiet for a long moment.

“I've never been able to approve,” she said finally. “I never like her boyfriends, and she always knows it. This latest one is a wolf shifter, and the crowd he runs with is kind of rough, and more than once I've had to hold myself back from threatening to kick his ass. She wouldn't appreciate it.”

But Lynn could do it, Ken had no doubt. The fierce expression she wore, not to mention her grace and power out on the trails—any shifter, even a wolf, would have to hesitate before coming head-to-head with her.

“Anyway.” Lynn looked a little embarrassed. “You don't care about my sister and her latest douchebag boyfriend.”

“I do,” he said immediately. “I want to know. I think you're interesting, and that goes for your history, your family, all of it.”

Lynn's embarrassment visibly increased. “Well, I probably shouldn't talk about her personal life to someone who doesn't know her,” she finally said. “Anyway, is there more of the forest that you wanted to see? Did you finish your measurements here already?”

“Not quite done here yet,” Ken admitted, “but I am interested to see more of this area. The way it's grown back from being logged, over a hundred years, is fascinating. Maybe a tour?”

Lynn nodded. “Of course.” She hesitated for a minute, and then said, “Would you prefer to go in human form, or shifted?”

“Shifted,” Ken said without thinking. Running shifted alongside Lynn in her lynx form would be—

Hold on a second. “Lynn the lynx?” he said.

Lynn made a face. “Blame my mother. Grandmother said she thought it was cute. And please do not make a single joke, because I have already heard every possible comment that there is to make.”

“Fair enough.” Ken shut his mouth on all of the puns that were dying to get out.

He was still determined to make her laugh somehow, but repeating jokes about her name that she'd probably heard all her life—God, Ken could just imagine what that would've been like in grade school, among the other shifter kids—well, that was clearly not the way to do it.

“Let's go.” Lynn was obviously eager to leave the name topic far behind; she'd already taken a few steps away from the camp, frowning at the surrounding forest. “This way is best, I think.” And she breathed out, shivered a bit, and shifted.

***

Lynn hadn't been sure about shifting alongside Ken. She wasn't used to spending time around very large predators.

And the other predatory shifters she had spent time around—well, either they'd been her family, other lynxes like her sister and grandmother...or they'd been the local mountain lions and wolves, and Lynn tended not to get along with them. Being around them, knowing that they had the strength and power to give her a tough time if they decided to bother her, put her on edge.

So she'd been a bit worried that if she was in her lynx form, she'd be too wary of Ken's lion form, or that she'd be instinctively aggressive toward him.

Which would...not be ideal. She was starting to realize that, more than just finding him interesting, she actually liked Ken. She was actually enjoying these private mornings together, alone in the encroaching dawn, surrounded by silent forest on all sides, talking softly with one another.

She definitely hadn't anticipated this.

And, as it turned out, she hadn't anticipated how she'd feel when Ken shifted, either.

All of a sudden, there was a truly enormous cat next to her. Lynxes were medium-sized big cats, not tiny by any means...but her size was absolutely nothing compared to his. When he padded up to her, she had to sit back on her haunches to look up at him. His physical presence was—was there a positive version of menacing? Like she could feel his heat, his lion's breath, the long fur of his mane, all of it taking up what felt like the entire clearing, but it wasn't frightening at all.

Because her lynx wasn't upset about the nearby lion in the least. There was no fear, no aggression, not even any wariness or tension.

Nope. Her lynx was delighted.

Look at him, she purred. Look how big and powerful. Do you think he wants to play?

He's working, Lynn said severely.

But her lynx was eyeing the lion in a thoughtful way. He's so large. He could catch us fast, if we were running. He could catch anything.

Lynn had never heard her lynx even hint at the idea that being caught, or bested in any way, was a good thing. Normally she was even more wildly fierce than Lynn's human side.

He could protect us from anything, too, her lynx considered.

We don't need protection, Lynn told her firmly. She stood, twitched her ears at Ken, and started off at a trot into the woods. Clearly sitting around here and thinking wasn't doing anybody any good.

Ken followed quickly, and Lynn found that her awareness of him wasn't lessened at all now that they were on the move. In fact, it was the opposite. He was quiet, able like all big cats to move swiftly and silently when the need arose, but she could feel the air displaced as he moved, his quick breaths ruffling her fur when he got too close on her tail.

She made herself focus on her surroundings. She led him through clearings, through areas where the forest had come back as dense as ever, through the occasional spot where the underbrush had taken over before the trees could grow back, leaving a thicket of bushes open to the sky.

They did a circuit around the area that had been logged. Lynn wondered what the land here had looked like, a hundred years ago. Similar, probably, but the feel of it must have been so different—no offroad vehicles, no trails to get people back to town, almost no towns. Hardly any people at all.

A shifter, back then, would’ve felt like a real wild animal, with no fear of or dependence on human civilization at all.

A nip on her shoulder startled her out of her thoughts.

It didn’t hurt at all—it was just a little playful bite, the barest touch of teeth. But she whirled anyway, to find Ken sitting on his haunches, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. His ears flicked twice, and then suddenly he was up and bounding away.

Before she could think too hard about it, Lynn had leapt up and was chasing after him.

She quickly realized that a lion wasn’t totally guaranteed to be victorious over a lynx. She almost caught him twice before he turned the tables and started chasing her, and she found that she could wriggle through thickets and dodge between close-growing trees more easily than he could, with his greater bulk.

On the other hand, he could bound and leap further than she would’ve thought possible, and if there was an open stretch of ground, their game of chase went in his favor very, very quickly.

There was a moment when she’d hauled herself up a tree by the force of her claws, and perched in the V of two branches, looking down on him, where she wondered, What on earth am I doing?

Playing! her lynx growled back, a playful growl rising in her chest as she stared down at her adversary, pacing around the trunk of the tree.

I don’t...play, Lynn thought. And it was true. She enjoyed herself, sure, but it was usually either quietly, sitting and appreciating the wilderness, or productively, hiking around with clients.

Expending so much energy purely for the sake of...fun...was a foreign idea to her. She wondered when she’d lost it—she’d definitely known how to run and play when she was a kid. But somehow, over the years, it had faded away.

Now, though, she was caught up in the sense of gleeful competition, this idea that she and Ken were locked in a no-stakes combat and no matter who won or lost, it was just a good time.

So she crouched on her tree branch, feeling her butt start to wiggle as she prepared to leap. Ken’s eyes were locked on her, and she stared back—right up until the last second, when she shifted her gaze to the next tree over, and sprang.

She landed sure-footed on a thick branch, then scrambled forward to hop to the next tree, and then the next, until she was able to leap down to the ground yards away from where Ken was, as he peered up into the branches trying to find her.

Laughing inwardly, she ran full-throttled out from their little thicket, ending up in a wide clearing.

She chanced a look over her shoulder—he must be following, but for some reason she just had to check.

And yes, there he was, pounding out of the forest with a gleam in his lion’s tawny eyes. Lynn froze, watching him—and then he pounced.

He landed on her, but must have broken the fall with his back paws on the ground, because it was a soft impact, not even knocking the wind out of her. They rolled over and over through the grass, crushing it beneath their bodies and sending sweet summer smells into the air.

Lynn didn’t struggle very hard, and they came to a halt with her on her back, Ken crouched over her. There was a long moment where they were scenting one another, breathing each other’s air—and then Ken’s form blurred and changed, and he was human again.

Lynn followed suit. When she came back into her human form, she was laughing.

Fun. It had been so fun. How had she forgotten what fun was?

Ken wasn’t laughing, though. He looked—happy, still, his eyes crinkled at the corners, the edges of his mouth tilted up. But he was watching her, rather than giving into laughter himself.

Lynn felt her laughter fade, until she was looking up at him, still feeling the swell of joy in her chest. But it was changing, just like they had, from the rough, wild, animalistic happiness into something deeper, softer.

Lynn couldn’t help but notice, once again, how Ken’s eyes were exactly the same in his human form as they were in his lion form—warm and golden-soft, not clear and hard like her own topaz color always seemed to be. Right now, they seemed to burn with some kind of inner furnace, not just warm but hot.

The last chuckles had disappeared, and as they vanished, Ken leaned down and caught her smiling mouth with his.

Lynn melted under his kiss immediately. She hadn’t been expecting it, exactly...but somehow it still didn’t take her by surprise. As though the touch of his lips, the taste of his mouth, the feel of his stubble rasping against her cheek—as though there’d been no question that this was going to happen. No doubt in her mind at all.

Ken's tongue teased at her lips, and Lynn opened her mouth without thinking. Or at least, not beyond the feeling of his mouth on hers, the way his body was held just barely hovering over hers. If he let his arms relax, he'd be fully stretched out on top of her, their bodies pressed together—

But right now they were just kissing. If just could describe the heat of the kiss, the way their mouths moved together, and how warmth flushed through Lynn's entire body. He tasted her mouth, then pulled away just for a moment, until she lifted her chin for more, and he came right back to catch her lips with his again.

Lynn didn't know how long the kiss went on, but it felt like it could've been an hour. When he finally pulled back, her lips were tingling and she was breathless. Her whole body felt hot, and just the feeling of her own clothes against her skin was almost too much.

“Wow,” he said, as he sat back on his heels. “I've been wanting to do that for a while, and I knew it was going to be good, but I had no idea it would be that good.”

“Thanks,” Lynn said automatically, and then was struck by how awkward that sounded. What was she thanking him for—the praise, the kiss?

His grin quirked the corners of his mouth up. “No charge.”

Lynn tried to pull her brain together into something resembling normal thought. What came out of her mouth, though, was, “A while? We've only known each other for...” How many days was it? For some reason, she couldn't remember. It seemed like so much longer than it actually was.

“Pretty much since the first moment I saw you in Cal's office,” Ken admitted ruefully, though the little smile stayed on his mouth. Lynn found herself wondering how long it would be before she could taste that smile again.

Then she shook herself out of it with the realization, “I knew you were asking me on a date!”

“Guilty.” He bit his lip, which was unfairly cute. Men over forty shouldn't even be able to be cute, she thought disgustedly. “I tried to disguise it as a work thing, but I guess I didn't do that great of a job.”

“Definitely not. Not stealthy at all.” Then she hesitated, but finally plunged forward, because she wanted to hear what he said to this. “I thought you just asked out any woman in a new town. You know, just for a casual date.”

Now it was his turn to hesitate. Lynn's heartbeat thundered in her ears as she waited to hear what he said—had this kiss just been the prelude to a fling? Was he about to say that he had a girlfriend or six in different cities all over North America?

“I'm used to casual relationships,” is what he came out with. “But that's because I never meet women I connect with. I'm never so attracted that I...forget myself. You know? I'll flirt and have a good time, go out on a few dates, but I always know where it's going, and I always make sure that she does, too. And a while ago, even that started to seem like more trouble than it was worth.”

“But?” Lynn said, almost airlessly. There had to be a but coming, didn't there? That sort of speech was practically designed to have a but come after it.

This time, the smile that spread over his face wasn't that teasing grin. It was something else, something Lynn realized she'd started to get used to. When they'd first met, he'd grinned a lot, while he made his jokes, but over the last day or two, the grin had taken second place to this real smile.

“But,” he said, “the second I met you, that all went out the window.”

It sounded like a line. It had to be a line. In fact, Lynn was pretty sure that when she'd been younger, she'd heard this exact line before. And she hadn't fallen for it, not for a second.

So why was she so sure that Ken was sincere?

“I've always prided myself on my cool,” he said, the smile fading to a serious look. “I keep my head. I'm always thinking. I like to be funny, so I work on making people laugh. Making women laugh.”

“I noticed.” She was still having a hard time getting enough air to talk, for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that she was lying on her back. She pushed herself up to a sitting position—Ken held out his hand as she moved, and she grabbed it to pull herself up.

When their fingers touched, it felt like an electric jolt through her body. She let go quickly, because all she wanted was to hold on.

“I was so drawn to you,” he said, leaning forward but not touching. Was he worried about keeping his head, too? “I'd never been that attracted to a woman, that quickly. But I kept to my usual tactics, because that's what I'm used to. I wanted to make you laugh.”

Lynn tried to remember if she'd laughed at any of his little comments, right at the beginning. She didn't think so. She'd been too suspicious of his motives.

“It didn't work,” he confirmed. “And the opposite started happening. You started making me be serious.”

Lynn opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “That...wasn't on purpose.”

“That's why it worked,” he said ruefully. “You were so—genuine. Everything you said was honest and sincere, and I couldn't help responding in the same way. I don't talk about my family, not even with people I know well.”

“Why not?” she asked softly.

“I—I suppose it seems like it would bring people down,” he said.

Or, Lynn thought, he was too scared to open up. She usually felt the same, and in retrospect, it was surprising she'd told Ken as much as she had.

He probably wasn't going to admit to that, though. Men.

“Anyway, I told myself that it was my goal to make you laugh,” he said. “I wanted to see if I could do it—and I wanted to see what you looked like when you were laughing.”

Lynn blushed. It was such a girlish thing to do, blushing at a man’s attention, but she couldn’t help it. The idea that he’d been wondering to himself what she looked like when she laughed...!

“And then we were just...playing together, like kids, and when we shifted back you were laughing, and I—well, I couldn’t help myself.” He smiled again. “I knew you’d be beautiful when you laughed, but I didn’t realize how beautiful. I had to kiss you when I saw.”

Lynn felt dizzy. “I didn’t realize,” she said. “But—” Was it strange to say this to a man? Probably, but when had she ever let being strange stop her? “You’re beautiful when you laugh, too.”

He stared at her for a long minute—and then laughed. It was true, Lynn thought: his eyes lit up, and crinkled, and his smile-lines deepened so that it looked like his whole face was overcome with joy.

“I don’t think any woman’s ever said that to me before,” he said, shaking his head.

“It’s true.” Lynn felt an odd sort of satisfaction at being the only one, though.

“I believe you. I don't think you've told a lie in your life.” Then his eyes seemed to warm, looking at her. “Lynn,” he murmured, and leaned in to kiss her again.

And again, Lynn couldn't think of anything she wanted to do more than surrender to the kiss.

There were several long, pleasurable moments. Now that Lynn was sitting up, she was able to participate a bit more, leaning into him, taking control for a minute before he retaliated and tilted her head back.

She was happy to let him guide the kiss, because anything this heated and pleasurable was worth it, but she did think that if they were going to be doing this a lot, they'd be jockeying back and forth for control quite a bit.

And that seemed like it could be a lot of fun, too.

Then Ken's hand, which had been resting on her waist, slid up underneath her shirt, his rough palm caressing the soft skin of her back. Lynn shivered at the feeling, just enjoying it for a long minute—

—before pulling back abruptly, as the implications hit her. “Where is this going?” she asked. It came out sounding abrupt, but she didn’t want to soften it or take it back.

Was she nervous? Excited? Suspicious? She couldn't separate the roil of emotions from the pleasure building in the pit of her stomach.

He leaned back, looking bereft. “Do you want to stop?”

The answer was no, of course...but. Did he mean to strip down right now? “I—I'm not sure,” she said. “Did you want to—out here? In the open?”

Lynn had spent a lot of time outdoors over the years, but she'd never had sex in the forest. Though, to be fair, she hadn't had too much in the way of sex overall.

“There's no one around,” he said. “And we just shifted without worrying about anyone coming across us.”

That was true. And having some poor hiker discover a full-grown male lion in the Montana wilderness would be worse than someone accidentally catching a glimpse of them with their clothes off. Not that either was likely to happen, because Lynn hadn't seen, heard, or scented anybody anywhere nearby.

“If you want to stop, we’ll stop,” he said. “But Lynn...” He kissed her hotly, biting softly at her lip. “If you don’t want to stop, I promise you that this will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.”

“You’re so sure of your prowess?” she managed, around a breathless gasp.

“Mmm,” he said, “yes.” A grin against her mouth. “But I meant, if this is how it feels just to kiss you, I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like to be inside you.”

To be inside you.

Suddenly, that was all Lynn could think about. The two of them, naked here on this forest floor, and Ken deep inside her. Her inner muscles contracted at the thought, sending a wave of pleasure through her body—like a preview, a tantalizing taste of what was to come.

“Yes,” she said.

His eyes lit. “Yes?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, and found herself caught up in a fiery kiss. Ken’s arms tightened around her, pulling her close, and Lynn panted into his mouth.

His hands lost no time in slipping under her shirt again, and Lynn had to tug herself away, laughing, to say, “That isn’t going to work, let me do it.”

Ken simply nodded, his eyes fixed on her face. Lynn felt her laughter fade away as she remembered what he’d said about how beautiful she was, laughing.

Their eyes locked for a long minute, and then Lynn busied herself with unbuttoning her shirt and tugging it off, followed by her sports bra—which involved some ungainly contorting.

Those few minutes reminded her that she was displaying her body to a man for the first time in...years. Literally years. Her movements slowed. She snuck a glance at Ken, to see if he was reacting at all to the extra pounds she carried around her middle, the signs of age. Her skin wasn’t as taut as it had been once, her breasts weren’t as firm, and her weight—

Well, she mostly didn’t care about her weight, because she was fit enough to hike miles and miles through the Glacier forests every day, so what did it matter? But she’d always been stocky, and now that she was over forty, she’d settled into...thick. It wasn’t the most attractive body type to men, she knew.

And yeesh, when was the last time she’d shaved her legs?

She felt herself blushing again, and this time it wasn’t because she felt flattered. She was holding her shirt in front of her torso, she realized, and in a minute she was going to have to let it go, or it would look odd, and Ken would see—

Ken reached out and put his hand over hers. “Lynn.” His voice was soft. “What's wrong?”

Lynn shook her head. “Nothing.” This was silly. She steeled herself to set the shirt aside and let him see her, wrinkles and all. There was no reason it should be this hard.

“Lynn, I think you're beautiful,” Ken said. Lynn glanced up, and he was watching her. As she met his eyes, his gaze deliberately flickered down, tracing the curves of her breasts and the parts of her stomach that were visible around the shirt. “Not just your face. Your body is gorgeous.”

Lynn couldn't help it: she snorted.

“You don't believe me?” Ken raised his eyebrows. “I think I'm hurt.”

“Look,” Lynn said, “you don't have to flatter me. I know what I look like. I'm not a teenager. I'm a forty-five-year-old woman, I've had plenty of time to come to terms with the fact that I'm not some willowy model.”

“I've never been that into skinny women,” Ken said thoughtfully. “There's something about curves...you know, when I first saw you in Cal's office, well. I told you that you caught my attention like no woman ever has. And part of that was your face—” He reached out and traced a finger down her cheek. It strayed over to linger on her top lip, then the bottom one. He ended by cupping her chin.

The touch made her shiver, but even more than that, the look in his eyes. There was no question that he thought she was beautiful. She could see it, that appreciation, all over his face.

“But,” he continued, “part of that was your body. You were just wearing jeans and hiking boots and a loose shirt—I could tell you weren't trying to show it off, that you hadn't dressed to look sexy. But there was no way you could hide those curves. And I wanted to get you out of those clothes right there, and see all of that gorgeous body.”

His hand moved from her chin to her shoulder. Warm fingers traced her collarbone, then down her chest until they hit the bunched cloth of the shirt she was holding. “I'd love it,” he said, his voice dropping what seemed like a full octave, “if I could see it now.”

Almost without her brain's input, her finger relaxed, her arms fell, and then suddenly the shirt wasn't shielding her any longer, and Ken could see her naked torso in all its glory.

And his eyes turned hot. Lynn could see it. He'd been telling the truth; he really did think her body was sexy.

His hand curved down around her breast, his other hand coming up too, and he leaned forward and kissed her as he spread both hands over them. Lynn sighed into his mouth. His hands were big enough to cup each one fully—unusual, because Lynn had always been irritatingly well-endowed—and the feeling of his rough, warm callouses against her most sensitive skin was making her eyes roll back in her head.

His hands were gentle, but clever. Lynn had usually found that whenever men wanted to pay a lot of attention to her breasts, she was mostly on the side of telling them to quit being so rough, and waiting patiently until they got their fill and were willing to move on to more interesting territory. But this wasn’t like that.

This was a delicate building of sensation, a slow tingle that started in each nipple, making them harden. With Ken’s careful attention, the tingle built into a swell of arousal, until each touch seemed to have a line straight down her belly into her panties. Lynn gasped into his mouth as he caught one nipple between his fingers and rubbed, slowly but firmly, until she was twisting her hips, rubbing her damp thighs together to catch the sensations between her legs.

“Oh,” Lynn gasped, too caught up in the feelings he was awakening in her body to be self-conscious about how she sounded. “Oh.”

But Ken smiled against her mouth, and murmured, “You feel fantastic, but you sound even better.”

And then he was pushing her backwards, catching up her shirt to spread it quickly out on the forest floor behind her, to give her a soft place to lie down. Lynn meant to tell him that she'd been out in these forests all her life, and besides, she was a shifter, and so didn't need any protection for her delicate skin or any nonsense like that. But the words were lost when he bent down over her and put his mouth where his hands had been.

“Oh, God,” Lynn heard herself say, as he tongued her nipple. When he started sucking softly at it, she made a strangled noise that might have been a swear word when it first started.

Her underwear was probably soaked through by now. Her clit was pulsing in time with his mouth, and her head fell back to thunk on the ground as she panted for air. It felt so good. Why hadn't anything ever felt this good before?

And she hadn't even gotten her pants off yet.

Which made her wonder what it would be like when she did get her pants off, which made her clit pulse harder. She was going to have to figure out how to speak in coherent words again fast, because she suddenly needed to be naked, needed to feel his hands, his tongue, against her throbbing clit.

And inside her, where everything was hot and aching with need.

“Mmm,” Ken murmured, and the vibration from his voice against her breast made Lynn gasp. “I could do this all day.”

That gave her the motivation to find her voice. “I will murder you if you don't get going soon.”

He lifted his head, which made Lynn stifle a protesting noise. The forest air was cool on her damp skin. “Get going how?” His eyes were limpid, innocent.

“They'll never find the body,” Lynn informed him. “I know these woods like the back of my hand.” She was trying to sound threatening, but laughter was trying to break through. She’d never laughed like this with a man before.

His eyebrows lifted. “That's disturbingly believable. I guess I'd better do as I'm told.” But a smile was teasing the corners of his mouth.

It didn’t matter how much they joked, though, because he was reaching for the button of her jeans. Lynn lifted her hips impatiently as he tugged the zipper down, and cursed her own curves as he worked them down her hips, catching her underwear on the way.

He had to stop and undo her bootlaces before he could get her pants completely off. He laughed at himself the whole time, and Lynn, even though she was caught in an agony of desire, was struck by it. A man who could laugh at himself in a moment of awkwardness or embarrassment, instead of getting angrily defensive, or pretending nothing had happened—

That was a man to hang onto, maybe.

Finally, after what seemed like a thousand years, she was naked. Her body exposed to the forest, even more so than she was used to. She could feel a breeze between her legs, and blushed. She felt—wanton was such an old-fashioned word, but it seemed like the only one that fit.

Ken was looking down at her. He was still fully-dressed, Lynn realized, which seemed unfair somehow. But before she had time to insist that he take off some of his clothes and give her a show, he’d bent down again and kissed her right between her breasts.

She gasped, and he pressed another kiss just below the first. And then another, lower. And then another.

Lynn shivered as she realized where this was going, her legs falling apart to accommodate his bulk. He gripped her thighs in his strong hands, pushing them apart as he looked his fill.

Just his eyes between her legs felt like he was caressing her there. Like his gaze was a physical touch, like she could feel it pressing against her clit, lingering around her wet entrance. Lynn felt the opening to her body twitch and contract, and Ken’s lips parted as he watched.

She gathered all of the tiny scraps of composure she still possessed, lifted her head to look at him, and said, “Well?”

This laugh was a sharp burst, as if she’d surprised it out of him. Lynn felt a little thrill of satisfaction—he’d been wanting to make her laugh since she met, but so far it looked like she was having more success at it.

But then it was her turn to be surprised, because before the laughter had faded away, Ken ducked his head and pressed his mouth right between her legs.

The sound Lynn made was loud enough to echo through the trees. Oh God, oh God, the feel of his tongue against her clit...! Pressing firm and wet along it, licking up, and then how he sucked at the very tip, sending pleasure bursting through her body.

Then she felt his fingers, teasing at her entrance. He traced around it, slow and soft, over and over and over, while his tongue played games on her clit. Fast, slow, up, down—Lynn thought she might scream, but she wasn’t sure if it was pleasure or frustration at the way he kept her dancing on the edge.

Then, finally, finally, he settled into a hard, fast rhythm, licking close and firm. His tongue caught up all the little fiery bits of pleasure he’d been evoking, found them and corralled them all together, until she could feel it snowballing, building like an avalanche.

And then it crested, and peaked, and she came. She gasped for breath, her head back and her mouth open as her inner muscles locked in wracking pleasure. Her hands clenched in the pine needles, and Ken had to hold her hips still, or she would have thrashed her way off of his mouth.

Which would’ve defeated his purpose, she realized after a long moment. Because while spots were still hovering in front of her eyes, her body wringing itself out against his tongue, he was starting again.

He chased the aftershocks like he’d chased the beginnings of pleasure before. He kept his tongue soft and slow, careful not to overstimulate. Once in a while, he hit an oversensitive spot and Lynn’s hips twitched away, and every time he pulled back immediately, waited a second, and tried somewhere else.

And it was working.

Lynn had never come twice in a row before, at least not without a long rest. But she knew her body, and she was ramping up for a second round.

As desire really started to build again, she was aware that as sensitive as her clit was, there was still one area of her body that hadn’t gotten any attention at all. She caught her breath, and reached down to thread her fingers through Ken’s hair.

She hadn’t touched it yet, she realized, and she was arrested for a moment, distracted from her purpose by how soft it was.

Ken made a pleased sound as her hand curved over his scalp, and Lynn made a mental note to explore that later. For now, though...she tugged gently.

His head came up immediately. “Too much?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not enough,” she said.

Ken’s smile was wicked. “Oh, really?”

He was still wearing all of his clothes. “I want to see you,” fell out of her mouth.

He raised his eyebrows, looked down at himself.

Lynn’s voice sharpened—it was funny, she never had any trouble being commanding, but she hadn’t ever quite managed it in this context before. “Naked.”

The grin broke out on his face once more. “As my lady commands.” He stood up, and in one powerful motion, pulled his shirt off over his head. Then he tugged off each of his boots—order of operations figured out by now, Lynn noted wryly—unbuttoned his pants, and slid them down. His underwear (boxers? briefs? She only saw a waistband, and couldn't tell) got pulled along with them, and he stepped out of them, leaving him suddenly and gloriously naked.

He raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

Lynn had to take a moment just to look at him.

He was heavily muscled, with powerful arms, a thick core, and legs like tree trunks. Most shifters had a natural layer of muscle in their human forms, but this went above and beyond. Lynn wondered when he found the time to work out—or perhaps an environmental scientist position required more heavy lifting than she'd realized.

There was more gray in his body hair than on his head, adding a silvery sheen to the amber curls on his chest, his legs, and...between them.

He was very well-endowed. Lynn's eyes caught on his generous erection, moved away, and then returned, helplessly. The ache between her own legs intensified as she imagined that inside of her.

But she wanted one more moment to look her fill. In fact, it was hard to look away, because the sun was now fully risen, sending early-morning rays over the mountains, and Ken's body was illuminated in the new sunlight. It lit his hair into an amber fire, and threw his muscles into a play of light and shadow that made Lynn think of famous paintings.

“I wish I could take a picture of you right now,” she murmured.

“Of me?” Ken asked. “You should see yourself, draped naked over the moss like some Renaissance goddess. Venus or Artemis or someone.”

His words were so close to what Lynn had been thinking that it felt uncanny, like their thoughts were in sync. Lynn studied him for a moment longer, feeling a frown between her eyebrows.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing.” They were both naked in the middle of the forest at dawn; it probably wasn't weird at all that their thoughts had both gone to old paintings.

“Seen enough?” His eyebrows quirked again.

“Not even close,” Lynn told him. “But come here.”

Instantly, he was back on his knees, leaning over her to drop a kiss on her lips. “Your kisses taste so good,” he murmured.

“Coffee and toothpaste?” she asked disbelievingly.

He shook his head, smiling. “Wildness and strength.”

Before Lynn could point out that neither of those things had a taste, he'd kissed her again, and she abandoned any need for argument. This kiss went on and on, each momentary pause just blending into the next meeting of mouths, hot and perfect.

Lynn could feel that ache starting up again. She shifted her hips underneath him, spreading her legs until he fit perfectly between. He groaned as his erection brushed her inner thigh.

“Lynn,” he said in a low voice. “I need you.” He pushed his hips forward a little, making his meaning clear. She could feel the head of his cock gently kissing her outside folds, up against her pubic hair. The tiny touch was maddening.

“Now,” she said to him. “Ken, now.”

He got a hand underneath her, tilting her hips up, cupping her hip as he pressed forward. Lynn felt herself already spasming in pleasure as his cock touched her entrance, and then he was pushing inside.

If she'd thought about it, she might have expected it to hurt. She'd never been with a man this big before. But it didn't. Coming once already had made her wet, open and slick and ready for him, and he slid right in without any resistance at all.

And it felt so—right.

Even beyond the pleasurable slide of him against her inner muscles, the way sensation rippled from her core all the way through the rest of her body—the way Lynn wanted to bite her lip and clutch at his shoulders and let herself go to the pleasure of it all—

Even beyond that, there was something else. Like the moment they'd joined together, something that had been wrong with the universe had clicked together, and become right. Lynn felt a sudden flood of well-being, a spark of joy that she’d never known was missing from her heart until now.

And then he moved, and all of her thoughts fled in a surge of pleasure so powerful, she couldn’t do anything but moan.

Ken kissed her shoulder, her collarbone, and her neck, as though he couldn’t help himself. The kisses were smudged and damp, and his breath washed warm and fast over her skin as he panted, thrusting hard. Lynn shuddered and gasped, clenching around his cock, wanting nothing more than for this moment to last forever. She’d never been filled like this before. She’d never felt so wrung out with pleasure, so shattered by it.

And Ken seemed as overwhelmed as she was. He kissed her hard, groaning, as his thrusts became wilder, faster. One hand gripped her hip so hard it might’ve hurt if she’d been human, but as it was, it was just another sensation adding to the whirlwind inside her.

Lynn’s head tilted back, breaking the kiss as pleasure ripped through her. Orgasm stole her breath and obliterated her thoughts. She couldn’t tell if she made noise, she couldn’t see through the darkness in her vision, and she couldn’t feel anything but Ken.

She could hear, faintly, Ken’s own roar of pleasure, and she knew that he was climaxing too. Could almost feel it herself, echoing through her own pleasure. Together, they shuddered and clutched at each other, breathing each other’s air and almost vibrating with the aftershocks of orgasm.

Slowly, slowly, Lynn came back to herself. Her breath evened out, her heartrate slowed, and she relaxed back into the soft earth, feeling the weight of Ken on top of her. His face was pressed against her neck, and she reached up to card her fingers through his sweat-damp hair.

And slowly, a new knowledge filled her.

She was more certain than she’d ever been of anything before. This new truth had appeared, like an immutable law of the universe, like gravity or temperature. There was no denying it, because it was all around her.

This man was her mate.

As she blinked up at the sky, the realization coursing through her veins like a heartbeat, Ken lifted his head and looked down at her.

They stared at each other for a long, long moment. There was no need to ask if Ken felt it too. Just by looking at him, Lynn could tell that he did.

“Lynn,” he murmured. “I knew there was something special about you from the moment that I saw you. I never realized it would be this.”

Slowly, Lynn pushed herself into a sitting position. Ken retreated enough to let her, but stayed close, slipping an arm around her shoulders, twining the fingers of his other hand with hers.

Mates. “I never thought I’d have a mate,” Lynn said blankly.

It was true. She’d always pictured herself alone. She hadn’t dreamed about perfect, destined romance like some of the other shifter girls she’d known, growing up. Heck, she hadn’t even dreamed about normal romance.

Her dreams had always been about the forest. Sometimes, about her family—about her lost parents, her difficult sister, her grandmother. What it would be like to have a large family, a dependable family. A family that was there all the time, and not just when they wanted to be, or for only a short time before they left or passed away.

She’d never dreamed about boys. Nor, as an adult, about men.

A mate was family, though. Right? She tilted her head to look at Ken, considering. Could he be her family?

But it wasn’t any use asking, was it? There was no getting away. He was her family.

The thought sat oddly in her chest. On the one hand, it felt perfectly right, perfectly wonderful. But on the other hand—

“I never thought I’d have a mate, either,” Ken said softly. “When I was a kid, I daydreamed about it, but only ever in this...lost, abstract way. And when I grew up, I thought that it seemed like too much for me. That I couldn’t make that kind of commitment, maintain that close of a relationship.”

Lynn managed a little chuckle. “That doesn’t bode well.”

His arm tightened around her. “In my twenties, it wouldn’t have. Even in my thirties. I didn’t think I could be that for another person. But I learned, in the Corps, how to commit, and how to be close. I just came out of it thinking that it was too much. That I couldn’t ever do it again—not for an institution, not for a person.”

“And now?” she whispered, caught in a swell of apprehension. That he’d say he couldn’t? Or that he’d say he could?

“Now I know I can,” he said back. “I just never wanted to before. Before now.”

Lynn wriggled out from under his arm, started casting around for her clothes. Underwear, bra. Pants. Shirt. “But how can we do it?” she asked, searching desperately for practicalities. She needed something concrete. She couldn’t swim around in this sea of emotions for much longer, before drowning. She wanted dry land. “You have this job—you won’t be here for much longer—and I could never leave Glacier—”

“I would never ask you to,” Ken said immediately. “I promise. I’ll never ask you to leave your home.”

That was some kind of commitment, from a man who’d as much as admitted that he’d never really had a home, himself.

“But maybe I can stay here,” he was continuing. “I don’t think I mentioned to you how much of a coup it was for me to get this job. It was my connection to Cal that even got us the permits to work in Glacier, and my bosses were incredibly grateful. They were talking about how many years of work we could do up here. Our data on these northern forests is incredibly sparse. I’m pretty sure I could get them to agree to post me semi-permanently here in and around Glacier—especially if I say I’m getting married to someone who lives here, the company’s pretty good about respecting relationships like that—”

Married. God. Lynn pulled her boots on and breathed. She wasn’t just going to stand up and run away from all this talk of commitment. She could stay here and have a rational conversation about it.

Couldn’t she?

She felt like some sort of bizarre male stereotype. Wasn’t this how men were supposed to be? Comfortable having fantastic sex with someone, but the second the word marriage was on the table, they were off like a shot.

Whereas right now, Ken was calmly discussing the idea of getting married, of bending his whole career around this newly-discovered relationship. And meanwhile, Lynn was the one practically hyperventilating about it.

“Ken,” she said, interrupting a stream of reassurances about how his job would be perfectly okay with him running off to live in Nowheresville, Montana for the rest of his life with a woman he’d known for less than a week. “Ken.”

He stopped. “What?”

“I need to take a little while to think about this,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to change the rest of my life today. I never expected this. I need to take a step back. Be alone. Think about what this is going to mean for the future.” She remembered suddenly, “I have to meet a client in half an hour anyway.” She was lucky she hadn’t had back-to-back appointments starting at six AM today.

His face did a—a thing. Lynn instantly felt like the worst person in the world, because it was clear that he hadn’t been ready to hear that. Even more than just his expression, she knew he was hurt, deep in her bones.

How long had it been since she’d had the power to hurt another person so easily, like this? Had she ever?

But before she could say anything, try to explain, or take it back, his face smoothed out completely, composing itself into the friendly, easygoing expression she’d seen before. “Sure,” he said. “I understand. No problem.”

It was awful to see. Lynn knew she’d hurt him. She’d watched it happen. And then he took that hurt and buried it under a smile, as though it didn’t matter, and no one needed to see it.

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll stay here for a while. I can—I can call my next client and cancel—”

“Whoa, whoa,” he said instantly. “I said it isn’t a problem.”

It was Lynn’s turn to be gentle, to be understanding, she realized. As kind as he’d been to her about revealing her body, she had to be just as kind to him about revealing his emotions.

“Ken,” she said quietly. “You lied.”

His eyes widened. “Wow,” he said after a long moment of silence. “That’s going to be tough to get used to.”

“Not lying?” Lynn wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“No, not that. I’m not a compulsive liar or anything, I promise.” He flashed her a reassuring smile, which faded into a thoughtful look. “I’m just...used to being able to keep stuff hidden, I guess. Give myself time to process it.”

“I’m not as good at that,” Lynn said. Too much time spent alone, probably; she hardly ever had to deal with strong emotions in front of people. Everyone in town was used to her being gruff, blunt-spoken, not hiding her opinions of things.

“So you have to take some time to yourself.” Ken was following the thought to its logical conclusion. “All right. Okay. That makes sense.” He was talking to himself, now, working through it.

“You get that I don’t want to get away from you,” Lynn tried. “I just need—this is a big change. I need to think about what it means.”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes. I understand.” He looked up and smiled, and this time it was tentative, but real. “All right. When can I see you again?”

“Tonight?” Lynn said. “Dinner?”

Ken took her hand, squeezed it. “Dinner sounds amazing.”

“Great,” Lynn said on a relieved sigh. “We can go to Oliver’s, I guess; it’s the best place in town.” Although that meant the gossip would begin spreading immediately. Nina had worked as a waitress as Oliver’s before taking the guide job with Lynn, and Lynn was sure her former coworkers would be texting her about her new boss being there with a—Lynn cast an eye over Ken’s still-naked body—very attractive man. Probably before they were even seated.

But if they were mates, well, it wasn’t like they were going to be having some kind of secret fling. Right?

God.

Lynn squeezed Ken’s hand back, then freed her fingers. “I have to go meet my client.” After having sex out on the forest floor. She was going to be scrutinizing herself very carefully in her truck’s mirror before heading back, that was for sure.

He leaned in and kissed her softly. “Go. I’ll see you tonight.”

The kiss temporarily evaporated any issues Lynn might’ve had a second ago. She kissed him back, marveling once again at how right it felt. She’d never even realized it was possible to feel like this.

Only the knowledge of her client waiting for her made her pull back. “Tonight,” she affirmed, and turned towards her truck. Thinking about speed, she shifted, the better to run back quickly.

The mate-bond hit her all over again once she was in her lynx form. Mate! her lynx was thinking ecstatically. He’s our mate. The lion is our mate!

Lynn hadn’t quite realized how fantastic Ken smelled in her human form. She wanted to run back and nuzzle up to him, then maybe curl up next to him and stay there forever.

Client, she reminded both herself and her inner lynx, although her shifter side definitely didn’t care much.

Mate, her lynx thought wistfully, as Lynn forced them to trot off into the woods instead of staying curled up with Ken.

If she hadn’t had a real professional obligation, she would’ve turned right back. Well, it was good to know that her shifter side didn’t share any of the complicated feelings Lynn’s human side had about the mate-bond.

Mate, she thought again, this time with all the wonderment that had been overwhelmed by her doubts. My mate.

***

Ken watched Lynn vanish into the forest, holding himself still with an effort.

His lion was roaring inside him. We can’t let our mate leave! We just found her.  She needs to stay with us!

That’s not how this works, Ken told his lion firmly. Our mate is her own person with her own wants. She can make her own decisions. We can’t run after her and carry her off against her will. She wouldn’t like that.

His lion receded a bit, grumbling, Well, if you say it like that.

I do.

The problem was, Ken understood his lion’s need. But he also understood that it wasn’t a need born entirely of love and desire.

Although he felt both of those for Lynn, and they both rose up in him, cutting like a knife, when she left.

But really, that kind of dumb possessive behavior was born out of fear. He was afraid that if he let Lynn out of his sight, she wouldn’t come back. And if he couldn’t trust his mate to come back to him, if he thought she’d run away from his love, well, then he couldn’t trust in anything. And he’d probably want to take a good hard look at his own self, if he ever did drive a woman away like that.

So he let Lynn go, trusting her to come back.

And, truth be told, he understood why she needed to be alone for a bit.

Because, mates. Now that the initial euphoria was receding enough to allow for other thoughts, Ken’s brain was becoming one big question mark.

Mates. At his age. It was insane.

And it wasn’t just his age. He’d spent his entire life demonstrating that he wasn’t the sort of man to be a good mate to anyone. Drifting from woman to woman, having fling after fling, nothing serious. Sometimes just good sex, and sometimes not even that—he was always happy to go out on a date or two, show a woman a good time, make her laugh, kiss her at the end of the night and leave it at that if she didn’t want any more.

That sort of life was totally incompatible with even the idea of mates. Committing his whole self to one person, putting her needs above his own, bending his life to fit around hers—

Well, the only thing in his life that had ever had that privilege was the Marine Corps.

And even that had started more as a way to get away from his family than anything else. Over time, he’d learned the rewards of devoting himself to something bigger than just him. He’d learned what it was like to forge bonds with people. People like Cal, and the rest of his old unit. Seeing his old buddies Nate, Carlos, and Ty at Cal’s wedding had reignited that connection. Reminded him that he wasn’t as much of a loner as he sometimes thought.

But there was a big difference between the kind of bond you forged with a wartime buddy and the kind you had with the woman who was your mate.

Could he do this? Was he even capable of it? Those seemed like the big questions he should be asking.

The problem was, he was so sure he knew the answer. Yes, his entire body screamed. Yes, his lion said with absolute confidence. Yes. After all, there was nothing else Ken had to distract his attention. Only his job, and he’d taken the job so he could be outside and active. If they wouldn’t post him to Glacier permanently, he could quit and do something else. Anything else, really, if he was living up here.

Maybe Lynn would take him on at her guide business. It sounded like she had more clients than she could handle.

The idea of Lynn as his boss made him smile. He was sure she was as no-nonsense in the office as she’d been with him at first. She probably had everything organized to a T, and made sure every client went away satisfied.

And Ken would be happy to work for her. Or to work somewhere else, and come home to her every night. To go running with her in the mountains, to sleep curled up together in the wilderness. To sleep in her bed, wherever that was. He wondered where she lived—a house or an apartment? Probably a house, in a small town like this. He couldn’t wait to see it.

That Yes was still pulsing inside his chest, a sure and certain drum.

He was going to trust it. And if it turned out to be optimistic, well, no matter how many jokes he made, Ken had always been a hard worker and a fast learner. He’d never done anything like this before, never been in any kind of serious relationship, but he could do it now.

For his mate.

***