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“Letters. That’s kind of a nice thought. But they’re slow.”
“I wouldn’t say they’re the fastest means of communicating, no.”
“Plus, you have to buy a stamp.”
“You do have to do that.”
“Then again, I guess you pay for a phone plan and the internet.”
“You do.”
She hadn’t said no. She looked like she was having more fun with the idea than considering it, but it still gave him hope. Until she stared straight at him with the most intense expression and levelled him with some honesty. “You think we’re mates. That our futures are tied together and me not believing it doesn’t have anything to do with the reality of it. You think we need to stay in contact because of that shared destiny, whatever it might be. It sounds a lot like insta-love to me, which equals infatuation, which equals falseness. I’m not saying you’re lying or that you’re playing me. I just don’t think those are real feelings or that they should be trusted. If you want to write to me to get to know each other, or maybe send a few emails or texts, I would be open to that, as long as we maintain a friendship first. I was panicking this morning and I’m sorry if I came across as cold—”
“You didn’t. I understood.”
She looked relieved. “Okay. But I don’t want to write or email or text as a furtherance of just jumping into anything. It’s not that I’m scared of commitment, but I don’t just blindly rush into anything either. I’m too old for that. I’m starting to realize that I wasn’t in the right kind of love in my marriage. It was more of a friendship love right from the start. If there is other love out there, the kind that burns bright and hot and stays that way for a lifetime, then I want to be sure I find it, or if it finds me—and that’s what it truly is rather than just lust or obsession.”
She wasn’t saying it didn’t exist. She wasn’t saying she wasn’t open to it. She was a lot more open than she had been that morning, but he did understand how fear and being overwhelmed with information and sensory crap could do that. She’d shut down to protect herself and to slow down all the things that were moving too fast.
He was going too fast.
He would have laughed at himself if he was anyone else and he was watching this play out. If he was reading one of his romance novels, he’d throw it down in disgust. Maybe this was like grief. You couldn’t put it into words so that anyone else would ever feel what you were feeling. You couldn’t make them understand by speaking or writing. That kind of sensation could only be understood by living it. What he felt when he looked at January was the purest form of trust, of rightness and of certainty. He wouldn’t talk about it again because he didn’t want to scare the pants off her.
He didn’t want to think about her without pants on at all because that was too far, and it was a guarantee to pretty much slay him where he sat.
“That’s very…”
“Lame?”
“No. Not lame. I was going to say—”
“Responsible and boring?”
“Gracious? I mean, gracious of you to accept my offer, but that’s not what I wanted to say. I think it’s smart. It makes sense to use caution. I’ve been going about this like getting in an old muscle car and driving it to its limit down a gravel road full of potholes, in the rain, at nigh, without seatbelts or airbags, and expecting to come out in one piece.”
“Oh. Wow. That’s vivid.”
One thing about being a shifter was his keen senses. The aroma of roasting meat suddenly flooded into the living room, or maybe he was just aware of it now that the heavy cloud of tension had lifted. “The roast is ready. I’m just going to go and get it out.”
“Alright. I’ll come with you. Do you need help setting the table?’
He hadn’t done that. Maybe he was stuck in bachelor ways because he hadn’t even thought ahead. Certainly, there were no flowers or candles, but if he’d set it up as a romantic dinner, he had the feeling that January would have felt duped and walked right back out.
He hurried to the oven, grabbing the well-used red plaid oven mitts along the way. Lowering the door, the roast snapped and sizzled in the pan as he pulled it out and set it on top of the stove. He didn’t need a thermometer to tell that it was the perfect temperature. Whether he’d seasoned it right, or to January’s taste, was another matter. He hoped she liked it. This was more than a roast. It was an honor to be giving her this dinner. It was a gift. He wanted to do this for her. He felt privileged that she had agreed to come. Even if she knew nothing about the bear and didn’t have that knowledge crashing around in her head to contend with, he would have been so honored.
He turned the potatoes off and walked the pot to the sink to drain them with the lid pressed up tight to the edge, so only a hot stream of steaming water poured into the stainless-steel sink and down the drain, raising a cloud of steam that he leaned away from.
He’d cooked corn too. It was some of the corn that Thaddius grew in the garden that he fed the whole clan with. He’d always thought that he didn’t have a special role in the place, but that wasn’t true. Providing good food to see them all through winter and beyond, fresh and healthy food in the summer and fall, that was a big deal. He was always the one who prepared everything. In the fall, some of the members of the clan helped with canning so they had food put away, but Thaddius insisted on doing most of it himself. He’d cleaned all this corn, taken it off the cob, and bagged it up for freezing. It was the sweetest corn, even though it was months away from being fresh.
Sure, they could order food from Seattle. Do grocery runs for everyone. But this was something so much better. He knew what a gift being able to grow your own food was.
After draining the corn, he wanted to add butter and salt. He turned around to go to the fridge and ran straight into January, who had a handful of cutlery.
Knives and forks clattered to the ground. She made a tiny gasp in her throat. His hands flew to her hips to make sure she didn’t fall over. He only intended to steady her, but as soon as he made contact, she leaned into his touch. Her eyes closed and her breath hitched. Her face tilted up just a fraction and that was it. That was all it took to set off the wild sparks that had been building ever since the first time they saw each other in that exam room.
“January?” He had to be sure. One hundred percent sure.
Her eyes opened just enough that he could see there was no hesitation there. She grasped his shoulders. Her touch burned through him, scouring his control and turning him inside out. He left one hand at her hip and bracketed her head with the other. Their lips met, hot fire and eagerness.
