The speech died.
She was a disaster.
Overalls—actual denim overalls—streaked with dirt and what appeared to be dried moss. A flowing shirt underneath in somedeep jewel tone that should have clashed with the workwear and somehow didn’t. Dark curls escaping from a haphazard bun, framing a face smudged with soil at the cheekbone and along the jaw. A sunflower tucked behind one ear, wilting slightly but stubbornly cheerful.
And her body?—
He shouldn’t be noticing her body. He was a professional. She was a contractor. But the overalls did nothing to hide the curves beneath them, and the way she moved—restless energy barely contained, hips swaying with each impatient stride—made it impossible to look anywhere else.
She smelled like night-blooming jasmine and fresh earth and electricity that made his lion snap to attention with a force that nearly buckled his knees.
What the?—
The beast had been quiet for years. Decades. Barely stirring through the mating surge, through crisis after crisis, through the slow realization that whatever other shifters felt, he couldn’t.
Now it was very, very awake.
“You’re the one with the forms, right?” She crossed the courtyard with the easy stride of someone who had never worried about making a good impression and had no intention of starting now. Her boots left dirt prints on the flagstones. “Junie warned me about you.”
“I’m Mayor Holt.” He managed to keep his voice level. Professional. The voice of a man whose lion wasn’t currently trying to claw its way out of his chest toward this woman it had no business wanting. “Welcome to Haven Shores, Ms. Reed.”
“Lunaria.” She extended her hand. Dirt under the fingernails. Calluses on the palm. Hands that did real work, not the manicured hands of the socialites and politicians he usually dealt with. “Ms. Reed makes me feel like I’m in trouble.”
“You’re twenty minutes late to an official ceremony.”
“So I am in trouble.” Her lips quirked. Full lips, he noticed against his will, curved in amusement at his expense. “In my defense, the gardens are very distracting.”
He took her hand. The contact sent a jolt up his arm that he refused to acknowledge—heat and electricity and a sensation that felt disturbingly like recognition. Her skin was warm, her grip firm, and his lion made a sound in the back of his mind that was disturbingly close to a purr.
No, he told it firmly. The candle showed nothing. This is impossible.
“The gardens have been dormant for sixty years.” He released her hand, stepped back, reached for the familiar armor of procedure. “I wouldn’t think there’s much to be distracted by yet.”
Wariness flickered across her face—there and gone, too fast to read. Caution, maybe. Or calculation. “You’d be surprised.”
The small crowd of community members was watching them with undisguised interest. Mrs. Patterson had stopped checking her watch. Wyatt’s hand had moved to rest on Narla’s hip, possessive and casual, and both of them were watching the interaction with expressions that suggested they saw more than Hux wanted them to.
Hux straightened his already-straight tie. “Perhaps we should proceed with the official welcome. I have a brief overview prepared?—”
“How brief?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“That’s not brief. That’s a TED talk.” She eyed the podium with open skepticism. “Can we skip to the part where I get keys and you give me the forms I apparently need to sign?”
“The overview contains important historical context?—”
“I read the file you sent. Three times.” She held up her phone, which was smudged with the same dirt that covered her hands.“Three hundred years of history, seven ley line intersections, Deia Tullio maintained the gardens for forty years until her death from ‘natural causes.’” The air quotes were audible. “Built by a coalition of celestial witches. Crown jewel of Haven Shores. Very impressive stuff.”
She’d actually read the file. The forty-page file that he’d spent a week compiling, that he’d assumed would gather digital dust.
“You read the entire document?”
“I’m thorough when it comes to things I actually care about.” Her gaze swept the courtyard, lingering on the refreshment table, the podium, the carefully arranged chairs. “Ceremonies, not so much. No offense.”
“Some taken.”
That surprised a laugh out of her—short, startled, genuine. The sound made his chest tighten, made his lion rumble with satisfaction.
