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“Coming right up.”
While she waited for her bundle, Stephanie searched the area around her. No one caught her eye except for the five-foot nothing man with the paunch at the stomach area. He flashed a spacey grin and winked. She raised an eyebrow and offered a half-hearted reply before turning away as fast as she could. After checking her watch, she determined she had three hours until it was time to pick up Meechi from school. They had come to a tentative agreement. Stephanie would pursue fiction writing for a while at home rather than try to get something outside, and Meechi could skip daycare. Stephanie had to set aside a lot of pride in order to accept using more of Meechi’s monthly allowance, but so far they were happy—or as happy as she could be missing Hawke every day.
Stephanie wandered on down the road smelling her flowers and realized she was near the theatre where she’d first met Hawke. On impulse, she turned a corner and darted across the street to the address where the taxi had dropped her that first night. Being early afternoon, the place was closed, and somehow seeing it in clarity didn’t have the same magic as it did then.
She turned away in time to hear a rustle of feathers above her, and she scanned the sky and the tops of the buildings. A small flock of pigeons nestled on the roof of the building next door. Stephanie frowned at them. Enough is enough!
After tugging her cell from her purse, she started to dial a number but changed her mind. Instead, she hailed a cab and jumped into the back seat. Giving the driver the address she knew by heart although she’d never been there, she settled into her seat. No more would she suffer with stupid fears a
nd a morality that didn’t even match the situation. So what Hawke wasn’t human. He wasn’t wholly an animal either. He was a sentient hawk, unique—and wonderful. She ached to be with him, and damn it if he would have her, she would be his mate.
His mate.
Butterflies took flight in her belly, but she tamped them down. In a half hour, she arrived at the office Hawke had once told her he kept for his investigative work. They had ridden past it on a date, and he’d pointed out the building. The street stuck in her mind from that moment even while she didn’t see the details. She would find it one way or another.
She stepped onto the pavement and scanned the two buildings. The one to the left would be her start. In the lobby, no guard watched over the entrance. Instead, a bank of elevators lay to the rear, and two doors on opposite sides led to a couple of offices. She spotted a directory on the wall and headed toward it. As she scanned the board, the elevator dinged, and the doors slid open, but she didn’t look that way. A woman’s heels clicked on the marble floor, and the subtler tap of a man’s step matched it in pace. When the man’s steps halted behind her, and she caught the scent that would never leave her memory, she first went still, and then eased around to face him.
“Hawke.”
“Stephanie.”
He called her name the same time she said his. He smelled incredible, but he looked better. Green eyes. Beautiful, sexy, take off all her clothes and beg to be taken eyes. His straight and narrow nose worked well with the delicious lips and rugged jaw. Oh wow, who knew how cute he was all this time?
Realizing she’d been staring and close to wiping away drool from her chin, she smiled. “How have you been? I’m glad to see you’re on your feet.”
“You see me,” he said in awe, pleasure suffusing his expression.
She cocked her head to the side and put a hand on her hip with a playful attitude. “You didn’t know?”
“You made me promise not to watch over you.”
She pursed her lips, but then she noticed the woman, a beautiful blonde. A stab of jealousy hit her in the chest. Was he with her in that way? Was it too late, and she’d waited too long? Was the woman a shifter? She couldn’t compare to that.
Hawke’s gaze went from her to the woman and back again. He stepped forward and placed a hand at her elbow. “I’ll have to catch lunch with you another time, Z. I’m going to spend some time with my mate.”
Both the woman and Stephanie gasped, and a burst of happiness rocketed through Stephanie’s body. She let Hawke lead her to the elevators, and they took one to the fourth floor. At the end of the hall, a door with frosted glass had his name and title etched onto it. Stephanie grinned and ran her finger over the name. “Like a gumshoe.”
He frowned. “I am real.”
She touched his chest, loving the hard muscle beneath her fingers. “Yes, you are.”
They walked into the office, Stephanie preceding him. She hugged herself, a bit nervous. While he had said mate, she didn’t want to assume. Hawke’s office looked much like Toron’s with books cluttering every available space. A Mac computer sat front and center on his desk, and a stack of paper to the right of it had not one sheet askew. Neat. There was so much she wanted to learn about him. They might love each other, but loving and knowing were two different things.
“Hawke?” she called, facing his desk rather than him.
“Hm?”
She started realizing he stood close behind her, and when she glanced at him over her shoulder, she caught an expression of longing before it disappeared. Something in it triggered a memory of what Doctor Perry said to her. Mated shifters felt the pain of their partner with greater intensity. Did that mean the pain of being separated from Hawke all this time hit him harder? Did he stand so close because he needed to touch her?
“Who was that woman?”
“She’s no one.”
“Hawke.”
He pushed his hands into his pockets. “She’s actually my financial advisor.”
That gave her pause. “Are you two seeing each other?”
