Page 28 of Luke: The Bears

She let out an excited giggle. “I’m touching a dang bear!”

He let out a bearish chuckle.

“Hey, Luke,” she said, pressing her head against his. He gave a soft growl in response.

They walked to the lake, watching the sun set, and then they caught up to the den in the woods. Maggie was walking with Tyler in his shift, and she and Valley spoke for a long while about being mates to bears, and although Maggie was a bear herself, she and Tyler had had a whirlwind romance of their own, so she could relate to how fast things moved when shifters found their forever person.

Like how Luke had found Valley.

He and Valley ended up back at the lake after a while, and he stretched out on the still-warm grass and she leaned against him, staring up at the dark sky and the stars. She talked quietly for a while, about her past and family, and her hopes for the future, and then she drifted off to sleep, snuggled into his fur.

When he was able to shift back, she woke up long enough for him to return to human and then he carried her back to the house and straight to bed, where they fell asleep, arms around each other, in the house that was suddenly a home because Valley was there.

Valley had learned several things over the last few days. Among them, that Luke snored when he was exhausted from a long day of hard work; that her eclectic collection of coffee mugs looked great in his kitchen cabinet; and that moving into his house had taken far less time than she’d spent packing up for the life she didn’t want anymore.

She’d expected to move over slowly, a couple boxes at a time while he worked during the day, but his den had shown up and carried everything out of her garage apartment in a few hours.

He’d told her to decorate however she wanted, but she didn’t want to change everything. She just liked adding her own pieces among his.

Her favorite soft blanket across the back of his navy-blue sectional sofa. Her baking implements in the pantry. Her body wash and shampoo on the shower shelf next to his.

Friday came and went. She spent it setting up her flour and sugar containers in Luke’s pantry instead of loading a truck, and she didn’t think about the drive she wasn’t taking until she was already half asleep.

When she woke up Saturday morning with his arm around her, and his warm breath fanning her neck, her first thought was that her life had changed so completely in a week, but not in a scary way. She wasn’t mourning lost chances or the road she didn’t take, she was with the guy who held her heart. She might have walked away from a job she thought she wanted, but she didn’t feel like she had lost anything. She’d gained Luke and his friends, and the bonus was that she got to stay close to her parents and Eisley.

She might not have a job right now, but she felt blessed in so many other ways. And after hearing everyone’s opinion about the burgers of the week being magical in some interesting way related to shifters finding their mates, she figured some of that fate-magic might be waiting to bring the right job to her.

That afternoon, they went to her parents and took the outdoor furniture her dad had just refinished. The old set was a roadside find he’d been tickled about for months.

“I think it’s fate, honey,” her dad said, watching as Luke tied down the round table in the truck bed.

“Me and Luke meeting?”

“What? Oh, yes,” he said with a chuckle. “I mean it was fate that I grabbed the outdoor furniture. So that you and Luke would have what you need to make your house a home.”

She smiled at her dad. “Shifters talk a lot about fate.”

He hummed. “Maybe because they see things as more set in stone than we do as humans. He knew that one day he’d meet someone he was meant to be with, and that would be it for him. It would be nice to have that feeling, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” she said. She watched Luke as he jumped down from the truck and hefted one of the four matching chairs. He was so sexy. So capable and strong. And so very much hers. “Having a shifter for a mate is like love at first sight on steroids. Fast and strong.”

Her mom joined them. “What’s your plan for the night?”

Luke set a chair next to the table on the truck bed and said, “Date night.”

“How fun,” her mom said. “How would you two feel about a weekly family dinner? Or breakfast on Sundays?”

Luke smiled encouragingly at Valley.

“Sunday breakfasts sound great,” Valley said. “I’ll make some cinnamon rolls.”

“Perfect,” her mom said.

After Luke finished securing the outdoor set, they said goodbye to her parents, and Valley grabbed the last of the clothes from the apartment closet before they headed back to King Lake.

She hosed off the patio while he untied the furniture, and then they arranged the table and chairs on the concrete and made plans to have dinner there Sunday night. “I’m thinking brats,” he said.

“Why not burgers?” she asked.