by Anya Nowlan
Curious, she thought, turning around.
“So how do you two know each other, anyway?” Marcus asked, not bothering to look at either Dahlia or Austin.
Dahlia shared a quick moment with Austin, where Austin was looking at her questioningly and she was frankly panicking a little. Obviously, she hadn’t told her teenage son that she was coming to meet a shapeshifter, who just happened to be a mountain lion like his dad had been, and that she answered a mail-order bride ad on a damn dating site originally! She’d managed to skirt around the topic so far by saying that he was an old friend she’d known when she was younger and they were going to see him because she had time off from work—another lie!. Frankly, Dahlia wasn’t feeling too great about how she’d handled things so far.
“Oh, your mom and I just have some shared experiences and we figured it was about time you two come see some real wilderness. Ain’t right for a boy to be cooped up in that concrete jungle at that age, y’know?” Austin said with a cheerful note to his voice, winking at Dahlia. “Your mom figured you might enjoy the nature and I think she’s right on the money about that.”
“Whatever,” came a muttered reply and Marcus popped in his headphones, turning up the music on his phone so loud that even Dahlia could make out the words.
She knew well that he was practically out of reach now, the music blaring in his ears drowning out any other noises.
“Thank you,” Dahlia murmured, looking at Austin as he expertly drove the heavy truck through the winding roads, farther and farther from the kind of civilization Dahlia knew.
“Don’t you mention it, little lady.”
“’Little lady?’ I don’t think anyone’s called me that since I was a teenager,” Dahlia giggled, unzipping her coat and relaxing into the warm, heated seat.
“Well, you can get used to all sorts of things I imagine you haven’t been experiencing in a while around me, hmm? Don’t worry. We’ll figure things out. New town, new rules, new start, that’s what I always say,” Austin chuckled.
Dahlia couldn’t really go along with his good-natured self-assurance, but she wasn’t going to outright argue either. For a moment, she caught herself staring at that tall, handsome man sitting beside her and wondering how she’d gotten so lucky to steal a second out of her life like this to truly enjoy something so different from her sometimes dreary everyday life.
“I hope so,” she said noncommittally.
Coming here was entirely insane. Why the hell did you think this was a good idea?
CHAPTER FOUR
Austin
“You need a hand?” Austin called, watching Marcus struggle a bit with a steep incline.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled, finally skittering up with a burst of power that seemed to surprise even himself.
“That’s it. If you can’t get it being good, you gotta get it being angry,” Austin noted mildly, pulling Dahlia up with him as well.
He grinned to her, squeezing her hand hard for a minute as Marcus rushed forward like someone was on his tail, ready to pounce.
“That kid of yours has some strength,” he said, enjoying the stolen moment he found with Dahlia.
He hadn’t expected to fly her over and immediately sweep her off her feet, and that had turned out to be fair. She obviously felt a little awkward around him, and Austin couldn’t claim to be completely himself either. He was a seasoned flirt, sure, but this woman had ignited feelings in him that he hadn’t felt in… well, a very long time. It made him stop and question himself every once in a while, hesitating when he should have probably been taking the reins.
“You’d think so. His father was a shifter, after all,” Dahlia said with a sigh, Marcus already far ahead of them on the well-worn hiking trail through the mountains and forests around Shifter Grove.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about him,” Austin said, falling into step with Dahlia.
He kept her hand in his, not letting it go. He understood the need to break things softly to the child, especially one who had lost his father, but he would be damned if he’d let Dahlia think he wasn’t interested because of it. If anything, the fact that she had a kid and had lost a loved one, just like Austin himself had, showed that she had character. She had scars and she had wounds, but she’d still come through it all with her head held high, providing for both herself and her son.
Dahlia seemed a bit taken aback from Austin keeping her hand in his, which made him grin. She was so damn adorable he wanted to scoop her up and kiss all those worried lines off of her expression. Letting her go to sleep in one of his many guest bedrooms had been the closest thing he’d felt to physical pain in a while. All he needed was to really get to touch this gorgeous, curvy, vivacious woman, who had hidden herself away so carefully under layers of worry and stress.
Now that she was walking beside him in the forest, he felt like she was finally coming into her own. Her head was held higher and her gait had a grace to it that he had imagined from all those conversations they had had. She had lovely blue eyes that he bet would shine brightly when she would really let herself go and laugh, and dimples in her cheeks that she didn’t show nearly as much as she should. Her long, chestnut hair made him want to bury his face into it and her pale skin begged to be kissed by the sun, and by Austin himself.
She was, in a word, perfect. And that scared the hell out of him.
These things don’t happen twice, he reminded himself, taking an edge off of that irrational joy that had been bubbling in his chest from the very first moment he laid eyes on her.
All of this had happened before. He’d already gone through it. He’d found the perfect woman, he’d made her love him and in the process fallen so deeply and madly in love that he could barely tell top from bottom and up from down, and then he’d lost it all. It had taken more than a decade to feel semi-alive again and he was entirely sure that there was still a big chunk of him missing or displaced after…
He coughed, shooing the memories away and again, as usual, wishing he had a smoke between his lips right then. It was a poor substitute for spiritual calm, but it had served him well all those years. Looking at Dahlia, he could of course imagine plenty of other things he’d rather be doing as well, but fate was not being quite that kind to him at the moment.
Deep in his own thoughts, he’d neglected to notice that Dahlia seemed to be equally as stuck in hers. He gave her hand a squeeze, looking at her pretty face come alive with surprise.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I … I was thinking about him. You remind me of him, of Arthur, in a way,” she said softly.
“Must be the dashing good looks,” Austin quipped, spying a nice open lot between the trees and pointing her toward it. “I think we can have lunch there. Hey Marcus! We’re setting up camp here!” he yelled.
The “Whatever!” in reply that he got from somewhere in the distance didn’t surprise him one bit. Dahlia looked properly mortified as Austin took off his rucksack and pulled out a couple of blankets, handing one to her and setting another on the ground.
“Don’t worry about it. I was a teenaged boy as well. And, on top of that, I was a teenaged shifter boy. I get it. He needs some time by himself.”
He started taking the food out of the bag, piling treats he’d gotten from Cerise on the blanket along with a thermos full of hot tea and a smaller one with coffee. Falling down to sit with a thud, he tugged Dahlia down along with him, patting a place next to him.
“He’ll be fine. All the animals around here are friendly. I should know, I keep them tamed with the beer and the shots.”
Dahlia grinned weakly and obliged, accepting a cup of tea as he poured it out. “It’s not that I’m so worried about anything happening to him as much as I am about what he might do… and I don’t know if he’s a shifter, really.” A heavy frown crossed her expression as she sipped on her tea, the warm fumes wafting up from the edge of the cup.
“How come? You said his father was a shifter, didn’t you?”
Were mountain lions were reclusive creatures by habit. Unlike many other shifters, they lacked the pack or clan structure wolves, lions, and even bears had. Instead, mountain lions settled for being alone until fate and a dose of good luck brought them together with their mate. After that, they really wouldn’t need much else. What more could a heart desire if it was kept happy and loved, after all?
It all meant that mountain lions were that much more devoted to their fated ones. Without a pack to share their attention with, all that iron shifter focus and attention was centered on one person, and cubs later on. While they weren’t quite as drastic as dragons were—dying not long after their mates passed—they weren’t far from it. The times where a mountain lion ended up losing their mate for whatever reason usually spelled disaster for the shifter.
They’d turn inward, get angry and depressed on a level that couldn’t compare with a human. Somewhat grouchy by nature, a depressed mountain lion was a force to be reckoned with. Sometimes it would seem that nothing could get through to a big cat shifter in the middle of a particularly nasty spell of depression. Austin knew that first hand. He’d beat up many unsuspecting bar creeps and gotten into one brawl too many in his days.
In a way, the fact that they were not pack animals certainly made it worse. Without a support system, every hit was that much more painful. But it also made for fiercely independent shifters, men and women who really only needed themselves and their mates to go through life, like a knife through butter.
“He was, yes. A mountain lion,” Dahlia admitted gently, averting her eyes from Austin.
Austin cocked a brow, smirking. That was something she hadn’t revealed. Funny how life worked sometimes—bringing together two people with a shared past, even though they had never met each other.
“And?” Austin urged, taking a bite out of his sandwich and handing one to Dahlia.
He wanted to keep her talking, keep her out of that shell that she seemed to like to retreat into when she got worried or insecure. Austin had noticed it tangling its long tentacles around Dahlia a few times when they had been chatting, but in person it was all the more obvious. All he wanted was to make her feel comfortable around him and open up to him. Spirits above, he knew he needed someone to confide in and by the looks of her, she did as well. And Austin was just the man for the job.
“Marcus never shifted.”
“No? How old did you say he was? Twelve?” Austin asked, a frown scrunching his brow.
“Yes. His father passed away when he was seven and at that point, it was still okay, normal even. Many big cat shifters come into their own when they hit their pre-teens. Frankly, I was thankful, because dealing with a rambunctious shifter child in a tiny New York apartment didn’t sound entirely easy to me. But after Arthur died, Marcus started getting angrier and angrier. I think it’s mostly my fault. I couldn’t bring him out of that state of mind and it’s been getting worse as time goes by. You know this is the first time I’ve seen him show interest in anything other than that loud noise he calls music and breaking things?”
“Nature will do that to a shifter,” Austin commented mildly, letting his thumb run over the skin on the back of Dahlia’s hand.
He couldn’t deny that talking about Dahlia’s son ignited feelings in him that he thought he had conquered a long time ago. He should have had children by now as well. Just like Dahlia, life had dealt him a blow that was not easy to deal with, and having to face the living incarnation of that reality made things more glaringly obvious.
“You think so?” she asked, looking at him curiously.
“Don’t you have any shifter family to help you with him? No brothers or an overprotective grandma somewhere?” he queried, taking a sip of coffee and offering Dahlia a cup as well.
The way her lips pursed a little as she shook her head was the most adorable thing he’d seen in a while. There next to him sat a woman who had already gone through too much in life, and she was still holding her head up high and proud. While she thought she was doing a sub-par job, Austin couldn’t help but admire her will and strength of character for managing alone with a child like that. The respect he had for her grew even stronger, and now he was surer than ever that putting up that ad had been the right thing to do.
“Arthur was an only child and his parents had passed away by the time we married. It’s always just been me and Marcus. My family did not appreciate the fact that I ‘chose’ a shifter. That’s what they think it is—a choice. Like love is something you can turn on and off like that, at the drop of a hat.”
Austin put down his coffee cup and drew Dahlia to him suddenly, wrapping his strong arms around her generous, mouth-watering frame. A tingle went down his spine as she gave a soft sigh, nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck. That was a feeling he’d thought he would never get again. Butterflies in the pit of his stomach, nervousness around her, and the infallible need to keep her safe and happy all told him of a connection he’d resigned himself to never having again. But he had to be sure. For not only his, but for hers and Marcus’s sake as well.
“People believe what they want to believe, Dahlia. If they don’t want to support you when you need it the most, they’re not worthy of being your family. You have Marcus, and now you have me. We’ll figure things out,” he said, more than certain of his words.
Dahlia looked up at him, her lips slightly parted and her eyes sparkling with that life he’d longed to see in them. Without taking a moment to think about it and let indecision ruin it, Austin dipped his face lower and met her lips in a long, soft kiss. He tasted her gently, giving her a chance to pull away if it was not what she wanted, but when her lips responded with equal need, Austin lost any pretense of carefulness.
A deep growl rumbled at the back of his throat as he slipped a hand behind her neck and kept her there, his tongue darting into her sweet mouth. She tasted like cherries and new beginnings. She tasted divine and he was more than certain that if the only thing he could ever do from now on was to kiss her all the time, he would die a happy and satisfied man.
When he finally drew back, Austin grinned. Dahlia’s eyes were fogged over with desire and her cheeks had flushed a lovely shade of pink. Those luscious lips he had longed to taste were now red from kissing, begging for more. He was about to dive in for more when crackling bushes and hurried steps made Dahlia turn away from him in the direction of the sound. Marcus appeared from amidst the trees, looking as grouchy as when he’d sped off, but now he had the healthy glow of a boy using his body.
Whatever it takes, I’ll make Dahlia and her boy feel safe here, Austin promised himself.
At the back of his head, a worrying note struck. What if she left and he’d lose another chance at love? Considering his luck with fate and higher powers, it would not surprise him one bit.
“Come grab some lunch, Marcus. I’ll show you some caves up toward the peak later,” Austin said, pointing at the basket.
Grumbling a reply that could have been “yes,” “no,” or “whatever,” or maybe all of the above, Marcus plopped down on the edge of the blanket and tore into the food like he’d never eaten before. Austin chuckled, covertly putting his hand on the small of Dahlia’s back and leaning into her when Marcus was busy scarfing down a sandwich.
“He certainly has the appetite of a shifter,” Austin whispered.
That was another thing he was going to do: figure out what made that boy tick and then unravel why he wasn’t shifting yet. It was about damn time he learn the possibilities that his background gave him.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dahlia
To say that she was a little bit worried would have been a massive understatement. No, Dahlia was very worried. It was just the third day in Idaho and she was already falling helplessly in love.
It wasn’t the clear blue skies and the crisp mountain air that made Shifter Grove so wonderful for her. And it wasn’t the autumn foliage or the cozy house she found herself in, where every morning she could have her coffee sitting on the porch, looking at the sunrise over the snowy peaks. Though all of that certainly helped.
It was the company she kept that made everything taste sweeter and her step spring lighter. Being with Austin made her blossom in a way that she would have never imagined. Living in New York after Arthur’s passing, she’d given up any hope of love. It wasn’t just that it was hard to find being a single mother of a boy who may or may not turn into a mountain lion at any moment, but that she had felt guilty even thinking about finding happiness again.
Of course, it had also seemed impossible to find something as strong and as pure as she had had with Arthur.
But Austin was making her question all of that. With him, she felt as comfortable as she had with Arthur. Their conversation flowed easily and they found many things in common thanks to being raised in the south. Austin had that Texas charm and no-nonsense attitude of a man used to working with his hands and struggling for every inch he gained, for every buck he earned, and she appreciated it immensely. Living in a big city in the Northeast, she’d forgotten how it felt to be around a real man, not one of those yuppies who spent more on a haircut than they did on getting decent work boots, or who would never think of opening a door for a lady.
Naturally, it wasn’t just their common heritage that drew Dahlia to him. Austin was kind, calm, and collected. He was attentive, and when he kissed her the world seemed to flood with color where before there had been only gray. It sounded awfully poetic, but to a woman who hadn’t so much as thought of being with a man for five years, a good kiss could mean the world. For the first time in a long time, Dahlia felt like she was coming alive.
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