Snow Leopard's Lady

by Zoe Chant

But she didn’t want him setting up impossible things, making it seem like everything could work out, fantasy-like, into some beautiful picture of true love, when that was clearly not right.

  She couldn’t make a move in either direction, so she waited, still frozen, while he came over to her, kissed her gently, and said, “Please think this over. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the wedding, and we can talk again then.”

  And then he was gone, and she was left to wonder—could this be real?

  Was there any universe where she could have something like this?

  She couldn’t quite believe there was.

  As much as she wanted to.

  ***

  Wilson drove around the town, restless. He didn’t want to go back to his hotel room and sit alone, wondering what Mavis was thinking about.

  The way she’d protested so automatically that it was impossible, that it couldn’t be true—he didn’t know what to make of that.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in mates. They were going to a wedding between two true mates tomorrow, for Pete’s sake. So the problem must be something else. Something that was keeping her from believing that she could be someone’s mate.

  Maybe it made sense after all, then. With her past...it might be hard to believe in something so good, after so much bad.

  He pulled over on the edge of town, looking up at the black shapes of the mountains looming above him. He felt a sudden urge to shift and run out there, explore this wild countryside in snow leopard form.

  Wilson had grown up in the Midwest, and gone straight to West Point out of high school, then spent most of his active career deployed in the Middle East. He’d never spent any time in this kind of environment, dramatic mountain peaks, glaciers, frozen lakes—the kind of environment a snow leopard was meant to inhabit.

  Every time he looked out at the mountains, he could feel his leopard growling in his chest, wanting to get out and learn what was out there. Explore every inch of it, until he knew it like the back of his hand.

  Until he made it his home, a place he could live with his mate...

  His phone buzzed, and he started. He thumbed it open, and found himself looking at an email.

  Hello, sir, it began. The men and I are going out on the town. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like...

  Cal had given the address of a local bar. Wilson stared at it for a long moment, then started the car with a determined motion.

  He wasn’t going to go back to his hotel room alone. He was tired of being alone—well, maybe it was time to take some steps to rectify that.

  ***

  “Sir!” Cal said, looking startled, as Wilson came into the bar.

  “You’re not in the military any longer,” Wilson said to him. “Call me Wilson like any other man would.”

  There was silence around the table as the rest of the veterans took that in.

  “Well, Wilson,” said ex-Sergeant Turner, always the brashest of Wilson’s men, after a long pause. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  “Thank you,” Wilson said, and sat.

  The group was divided evenly between the ex-Marines and the Glacier pack, with the groom squarely in the middle. Wilson took a seat in the middle also, and said seriously, “Congratulations. I mean that.”

  “Thank you, s—Wilson,” Cal said, the name sounding a bit awkward in his mouth. “I never thought I’d get this lucky.”

  “You all have mates, am I right?” Wilson asked the leopards. They all nodded. “Any of you?” he asked the rest of the Marines.

  Turner, Gonzalez, Sanders, and Neal all shook their heads.

  Though, Wilson thought, if he was on a first-name basis with all of them now, he should start thinking of them as Ken, Carlos, Nate, and Ty instead.

  “Well,” Wilson said, “clearly with all the useful things the Marines taught us, being able to hang onto a woman wasn’t one of them.”

  “Hey,” said Ty good-naturedly, “some of us have other priorities.”

  “No priority should be more important than your mate,” Cal said seriously. “I thought for a long time I was fine just doing my job, taking care of the Park, being a good boss. I know better now. Nothing’s more important than Lillian and our baby.”

  The other snow leopards were nodding.

  “It can be hard,” Cal continued. “Because you’ll both have issues. You’ll both have problems from your past, and you’ve got to face together if it’s going to work out. But it’s worth it. The most worth it of anything you’ll ever do.”

  “Ordinarily,” Nate said in distant tones, “I’d object to all of this romantic bull. But I suppose we are looking forward to your wedding tomorrow, so it’s unavoidable.”

  “Nothing wrong with romantic bull,” Ty said comfortably. “I just prioritize other things, that’s all. My sisters, my nieces and nephews, my community, serving my country.”

  One of the snow leopards toasted him. “That’s a sign of a good man, there.”

  “Just means you’ll be a better husband someday,” Cal pointed out.

  Nate tossed a crumpled-up bar napkin at him. “You have to say that, you’re getting married tomorrow.”

  Wilson was thinking about what Cal had said. “You all ever think that maybe someone’s issues were insurmountable?” he asked. “Maybe a lady can’t seem to accept that you’re truly mates?”

  All at once, Cal and the rest of the veterans were staring at him. Wilson might have ruined his image as a lofty omniscient officer, here. But he didn’t care, because several of the snow leopards had nodded.

  “You have to communicate,” said one of the leopards. Grey, that was it. Ironically, Wilson thought this was the first time he’d heard the man speak. “A lot of advice just says, keep after her, don’t give up. But that’s not gonna help as much as using your mouth and your ears like a grown-up and learning why she’s shying away. Or telling her why you are. You give in to any macho bullshit about being a strong silent alpha, you’re just going to lose your chance.”

  “You having lady problems, sir?” Ken ventured.

  Wilson smiled at them. “It’s Wilson,” he said. “And that’s my business.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Mercifully, he changed the subject back to the upcoming wedding after that, and the atmosphere relaxed fairly quickly.

  And to Wilson’s surprise, there wasn’t much in the way of overt stiffness on the part of the Marines. Cal was the most formal, even after a few beers had gone down, but even he was able to smile and kid around a little bit with the group.

  Nate, Ken, Carlos, and Ty relaxed much faster. By the end of the night, Wilson had heard all about Ty’s sisters and looked at pictures of their kids. He’d also gotten a rundown of Nate’s job as a security consultant—and learned that the viciously sarcastic, ruthless-in-combat Ken actually had an environmental science degree.

  Progress, Wilson thought. Maybe he wasn’t as much of a loner as he’d been imagining, if he could have a good time even with men he’d used to command.

  He remembered insisting to Mavis that there was no way he could get a beer with these men, not without completely inhibiting the conversation. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so certain of that.

  In addition to catching up with the Marines, he heard bits and pieces about the trials all of the snow leopards had gone through when they’d met their mates. It seemed like every one of them had had some kind of seemingly impossible problem to get past—and they all agreed that being open and honest was the solution.

  “You gotta start like you mean to go on, anyway,” said Cal, a little tipsily, leaning forward to meet Wilson’s eyes. “If you can’t talk about what’s wrong now, how’re you going to be a family together? And that’s the most important thing. The most important thing in the world.”

  Wilson solemnly agreed. It was certainly true. Although he was also glad that shifter biology meant that Cal wasn’t going to be suffering from a hangover on his wedding day. He didn’t know how huma
ns managed that sort of thing.

  He left the party early, still wanting the men to have a chance to cut loose without a former commanding officer around. Because maybe they could relax a bit, but he was sure they’d be rowdier after he left.

  He’d talk to Mavis tomorrow, and whatever she was so worried about, he’d make sure it was all taken care of. Anything she needed—reassurance, time to think it over, some sort of demonstration that he was sincere, and nothing like her no-good ex—he’d give it to her.

  He just hoped it was enough.

  ***

  The day of the wedding dawned bright and clear, but Mavis was full of apprehension instead of joy.

  What would she say, when she saw Wilson? What would he say to her?

  She had no idea. She was afraid to even allow herself to visualize what would happen if he was right about them being mates. Too good to be true didn’t even cover it.

  She drove to the church with shaky hands, and parked and slipped in at the very last minute, taking her place in the back.

  But she couldn’t help looking for Wilson, of course. He was up front, sitting calmly and watching the ceremony.

  As she watched him, though, he twisted around to look at the entrance. Watching for her?

  He must have been. Because his eyes settled on her moment later, and his whole face transformed, from a carefully polite expression to a smile that lit up his whole face.

  That smile had to be telling the truth. Didn’t it?

  Though Mavis didn’t think Wilson was lying about being mates. She was convinced that he was a good, honest man, who wouldn’t make up any kind of story to get a woman to stay with him, let alone something so potentially hurtful.

  But it did seem possible that he was confused. Presumably he’d never felt a shifter mate-bond before, since he was single now. So maybe he was just...amplifying their connection in his mind. Blowing it out of proportion.

  The music started, and Mavis tried to put her doubts out of her mind and simply enjoy the ceremony.

  It was simple, but beautiful. Cal and Lillian stood up together and spoke their vows to one another; they’d written the words themselves, and Mavis was struck by their straightforward truth:

  With these words, I am showing what’s in my heart. We are one, and we will never be parted, for the rest of our lives.

  Had the two of them just known? Had they been as sure as Wilson was now?

  When the ceremony was over, Mavis stood with the rest of the congregation. Nina was following the couple out, beautiful in her classic sheath bridesmaid’s dress, and Mavis teared up a bit, thinking that one day soon, Nina would be the one in the wedding dress, standing up with Joel.

  That gave her an idea.

  As everyone gathered outside to congratulate the couple, Mavis found her daughter. She hugged Nina first, and said, “You were so beautiful up there.”

  “Lillian outshone all of us,” Nina said, and looked over to where Lillian was standing with Cal, resplendent in a gorgeous white silk gown that flowed softly over the curve of her belly and accentuated her generous figure.

  “They both look so happy,” Mavis said softly. Then she turned back to Nina. “You said that you knew, when you got together with Joel, that you were mates. Is that how it always works? Is that how it was with Cal and Lillian, too?”

  Nina hesitated. “Sort of. What I understand is that shifters know, instinctively. I think Lillian had a bit of trouble, because she was still human when she and Cal met. So she didn’t realize at first that the connection meant that they really were mates, and not just—you know. Very attracted to each other.”

  “Right,” Mavis said. She thought about that. “And there’s no way for a shifter to...get it wrong? You definitely know it, no way to make a mistake or anything?”

  “Definitely not,” Nina said positively. “It’s really, really obvious. Even if you had no idea what it would feel like beforehand—and I definitely didn’t!—when it hit me, I knew for sure.” Then her eyes widened. “Mom,” she said slowly, “why are you asking me this?”

  Her eyes had flickered to a spot behind Mavis’ shoulder. Mavis turned around, and sure enough—there was Wilson.

  “Excuse me,” he said, smiling at Nina. “I just wanted to make sure I had a chance to speak with your mother before she left.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Nina. “Of course. We were done. In fact, I have to go now, I see Joel waving at me.”

  She vanished so quickly that Mavis suspected her of using shifter abilities somehow.

  Wilson turned to Mavis, his smile fading into an intense focus. “Hello.”

  “Hello,” she said nervously.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said. “I know you don’t trust that what I’m saying about us being mates is true. Can I ask you why? Is there anything I can do to show you that it’s the truth?”

  Mavis let out a breath in a long sigh. “I know why it is,” she said. “It’s because I want it to be true so badly.”

  Wilson closed his eyes, and Mavis saw his chest heave with the force of his inhale.

  He felt that strongly about my answer, she thought wonderingly. He really cares about me.

  He opened his eyes, and she was struck once again by the depth of their silver-grey color. “Then help me,” he said. “I want you to know that it’s true as certainly as I do.”

  “It’s hard,” Mavis tried. “Because it’s not—it’s not anything you’ve done, or haven’t done. It’s because I have a hard time believing that something so wonderful could really happen to me. I already had one miracle happen: I got Nina back, after being sure she was gone forever. I can’t have another miracle in my life. That’s too much.”

  Wilson stepped forward and took her hands. “Getting your daughter back—that was just the universe righting a terrible wrong,” he said, quiet but intense. “Losing her in the first place, your husband kicking her out—that needed to be reversed. You and she both deserved that reunion. And you deserve something better than him. Someone who would never, in his life, do a thing like that. Someone who would die rather than separate a mother from her daughter for so long.”

  Mavis squeezed his hands with hers, too overwhelmed to speak for a moment. “I believe you,” she whispered finally. “I do.”

  Wilson pulled her forward into his arms, his lips brushing her cheek. Mavis held him back fiercely, tightly, wanting with all her might to keep him with her forever.

  She did believe him. At least in her head.

  When they pulled back, she smiled tremulously. “It might take some convincing before my whole heart can believe this is really happening,” she said. “I hope that’s all right.”

  “Mavis.” Wilson cupped her cheek, one thumb brushing a tear from underneath her eye. “Of course it is. You tell me if I can do anything to show you that it’s real, all right?”

  Mavis nodded. Wilson’s hand dropped—and she suddenly remembered that they were in public, surrounded by people. She looked around self-consciously.

  Most of the guests were clustered around the bride and groom, but Nina’s eyes were fixed on them. She was standing with Teri, Lillian’s sister and maid of honor, and their mates Joel and Zach.

  Teri gave them a thumb’s-up. Mavis let out a breathy laugh.

  “What is it?” Wilson followed her gaze. “Oh.” He laughed a bit. “There really is a whole community here, isn’t there?”

  Mavis nodded. “They’re a very tight-knit pack. Young, but they all have solid heads on their shoulders. Even if they can tease a bit.”

  “I can’t wait to get to know them better,” he said quietly.

  “How much time can you spend here, though? You work in Washington.” She couldn’t help the frown that was spreading across her face. “Wilson, even if this is real—and I believe it is—how are we going to make it work? I won’t leave Nina...”

  Wilson caught her hand again. “Mavis, I would never, ever ask you to leave your daughter. You should stay right here. Thi
s is the right place for you.”

  Mavis nodded. “Good. I’m glad you see that. But what about you? I can come visit...”

  “Well,” Wilson said, “I’m starting to think that I might want to change some things about my life. Let’s talk about it after the wedding, all right?”

  Mavis glanced around. People were starting to head for their cars, ready to get the reception started. “All right.”

  Change some things. Mavis remembered how he’d talked about finding his job dull, about not being able to change things as much as he’d once wanted to do, and she wondered if he could possibly mean what she hoped he meant.

  Could Wilson come here, to Glacier?

  It seemed like a crazy hope—no man wanted to completely uproot his life, his job, and his hometown, just to be with a woman. If anything, they’d usually expect it to be the other way around.

  But she had a feeling that Wilson might different.

  Surely this all had to be too good to be true...right?

  ***

  The reception was cheerful and crowded—so many people in town had come to the wedding that the place was packed. Wilson was happy to see that Cal and his new wife had such a solid community here at Glacier.

  He'd have to think about how he might affect that community.

  As soon as Mavis said that she believed him, that they could be together, all of Wilson's life had seemed to fall into place. He'd almost heard the click as everything settled into a new pattern.

  He'd been dissatisfied with his job for so long. It was sobering to realize that the only reason he hadn't retired years ago was that he hadn't had a reason to leave. Nothing waiting for him, nothing to take up his time if he didn't have to get up and go to work every day.

  It was also sobering to realize how much he truly disliked living in Washington. So many people were there only to get something for themselves—money, power, influence. Some days, it seemed like he was surrounded by naked ambition, and Wilson had never appreciated that kind of attitude.

  The idea of leaving it all behind, of coming out here, where the sky stretched endlessly blue, and came down to meet the stone giants of the Rockies, spreading snowmelt rivers and gorgeous wildflower-strewn valleys in all directions...