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But maybe they need to know it’s not going to be that easy, Gabe said.

Maybe, Gabe’s bear agreed.

After a moment, Gabe set the coffee pot down. “Mara’s trip was supposed to be for two.”

The change in his voice was enough to sober the table.

“She came with someone?” Isaac asked.

“She was supposed to. Her ex-boyfriend.” Gabe rested his forearms on the table. “They were together eight years. He backed out a few days before the trip because of work, and they broke up.”

Wes frowned. “That recent?”

“Yeah. She nearly canceled, but she came anyway.” Something about that still made Gabe proud of her.

“Good for her,” Isaac said.

Wes smiled faintly. “And for you.”

His bear perked up. Very good for us.

“Yes,” Gabe said. “But you don’t get over something like that overnight.”

“You’re going to have to take it slow,” Joel said as he took a cinnamon bear from the tray Nate offered around.

“Exactly,” Gabe said. “But not that slow, because she’s only here for ten days.”

The bell rang, and a customer came in. Gabe got up to serve two coffees and a loaf of bread. By the time he returned, the conversation had lost some of its intensity, which suited him. Mara wasn’t a problem for the six of them to solve.

Evan broke a piece from his cinnamon roll. “Does she know about shifters?”

“I don’t know,” Gabe said. “And it’s not something I can just ask, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Evan agreed.

“So true. There is no easy way of slipping Hey, by the way, do you know some people can change into bears and things? into a conversation,” Nate said.

Evan nodded and took another bite. That was the end of it. Gabe had to wait for the right time, and believe the right time would come. But how would he know it when it did? She had ten days, and they were already going. Tell her too soon and she would think he had lost his mind. Wait too long and she would drive home believing he was just a baker she met on vacation.

Mara had come to Bear Creek expecting a vacation with a man she had spent eight years loving, and instead she was here on her own. Somewhere in the middle of all that, she had walked into Mountain View Bakery and turned out to be his mate.

His bear knew what that meant. Gabe knew what it meant.

All he had to do was find the right time to tell Mara what it meant and convince her to stay.

CHAPTER 7

Mara

Mara had Gabe’s number open on her phone, and she had been looking at it long enough for her coffee to start going cold. Outside the cabin window, the maples moved in a wind she couldn’t hear through the glass. The planner lay closed on the table beside her, yesterday’s red leaf pressed somewhere inside it.

Morning. Are you still planning to go to Harvest Lights tonight?

She could send that. It was simple, normal, and would take seconds. Her thumb hovered over the screen before she locked the phone and set it face down on the table.

She didn’t want to text him. She wanted to see him, which was an entirely different thing, and Mara wasn’t sure why admitting it to herself in an empty cabin made her smile.

But it did. She drained the last of her coffee and rinsed the mug before she could change her mind. She had spent years being very good at plans. There was something oddly satisfying about leaving the cabin with no plan beyond go and see Gabe.