Nathan rolled his eyes. "No kidding. Those first weeks, I thought I was going to be overrun with people from your Council, all wanting to see her and ask me questions that I had no clue about. I mean, she simply showed up at my door, that's all I know, but somehow they seemed to expect I would know all about her, and I didn't."
Charlie's brows rose almost to his hairline. "Scientists and researchers? Council?"
Harper grinned at him. "There are alotof us," she stressed. "It wasn't an accident that we've flown under the radar for all this time. Although," she allowed, "we knew it was going to happen any time soon, what with street cams, store cams, traffic cams, wildlife cams, not to mention the sheer number of people with phones taking videos everywhere. The Councils have had contingency plans in place for ages."
"Well, the way it did happen, couldn't have been better from a public relations standpoint," Regina declared, sitting back in her chair while Charlie took the opportunity to pet Jill and feedher a strawberry. "With that young woman attacking the grizzly like that to save that man, and probably the woman and child, too."
Nathan made a strangled sound in his throat, and Harper colored up to her roots. Harper raised her hand weakly.
"That would be me," she confessed.
Regina's jaw dropped, and Charlie froze with his hand hovering a half inch above Jill's head.
"The fox in Yosemite?" Regina demanded. "You're that fox?"
"I didn't know that tourist group was there," she admitted miserably. "I didn't think at all... except that I had to distract the bear away from that man."
"That man who totally deserved it if he had got eaten," Nathan defended her, reaching one arm to encircle her shoulder, pulling her close. He looked across the table at his parents. "What Harper didn't know at the time was, the grizzly was a shifter, too. A kid."
"Teenager," Harper mumbled, her voice lost in the folds of Nathan's shirt.
"Right. But a full-grown grizzly. As I was told it, the idiot man saw the grizzly and approached it, making... uhhh...."
"Chirping sounds," Harper put in, her voice dripping with disgust.
"Right, chirping sounds. So the kid..."
"Teenager."
"Willyou let me tell the story?" Nathan demanded, and she lifted her head to grin at him. "So the kid decided to teach him a lesson, to save the guy's life in case he ever came across a real bear in the wild."
"Yes, he was never going to hurt him," Harper said, sitting up straight and pushing her hand through her unruly mass of hair, moving it off her face. "It's just too bad I didn't know that before I charged in to the rescue."
"That was still an incredibly brave thing you did, young lady," Charlie told her in a solemn voice.
She smiled at him. "Thank you. As soon as I got hold of his ear, I realized he was a shifter, and you can believe I was giving him the sharp edge of my tongue the entire time I was fighting him... not, of course, that it was a real fight after that, it was all for show from then on. I was so mad, I could just about have killed him! And then to discover there'd been a whole flock of tourists watching and filming it..."
Nathan hugged her. "But you know the Councils are pretty happy with you. Like my mom said, from a PR aspect, it couldn't have been better for shifters as a first introduction to their existence."
"That's the only thing about the whole thing that does make me feel better," she sighed. Then she looked at Nathan and smiled. "Except, if it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't ever have moved across the country and found this amazing, supportive community, and we'd never have met. That makes it all worth it!"
Nathan leaned over, kissing her softly, despite his parents looking on.
Nathan felt warmth spread through his chest as his mother let out a musical laugh, her eyes twinkling with delight.
"I suppose I should ask to see your fox form," Regina said, smiling warmly at Harper. "But in a way, we already have, haven't we? We must have watched that Yosemite video a hundred times."
"At least that many," Charlie agreed, still absently stroking Jill's soft fur. "Every news channel played it on repeat for days. The way you moved..." He shook his head in amazement. "The grace and speed with which you confronted that bear - well, shifter bear as we now know - was incredible."
Nathan watched Harper duck her head, a becoming blush coloring her cheeks. He squeezed her hand gently, knowing how uncomfortable she still felt about the incident that had exposed the shifter world.
"I think I've memorized every frame," Regina admitted. "The way you transformed mid-leap..." She gestured with her hands, trying to capture the fluid motion she'd seen. "One moment a young woman, the next this beautiful russet fox. Simply extraordinary."
Nathan couldn't help but smile at his parents' enthusiasm. Their genuine wonder and acceptance of Harper, both her human and fox nature, filled him with relief. He'd known they would be fascinated rather than fearful, but seeing their warm response still touched him deeply.
"We must have replayed that transformation sequence dozens of times," Charlie added, his academic interest showing through. "The fluidity of the change is remarkable - there's no awkward interim stage, just this smooth flow from one form to the other."
Nathan felt Harper relax beside him, her earlier tension melting away under his parents' sincere appreciation and curiosity. Jill hopped over to them, settling contentedly against Harper's feet as if sensing her growing comfort with the situation.
