***
Nate
Nate wanted desperately to run after Stella, follow her, wrap her up in his arms and tell her that it was all going to be okay, they’d figure it out.
But it was pretty obvious that she didn’t want that right now.
All right. It tore at him, staying here alone, but he could respect her needs.
When he heard the door, he did go to the back of the house and look out the window, just in time to see Stella’s form blur and shift, and a lynx go running like a shot into the woods behind the house.
That reassured him. He didn’t want Stella going around alone and vulnerable while Todd was out there, but if she was in her lynx form, he was confident in her ability to stay safe in the forest where she’d grown up. She’d almost evaded him, and he was a security professional with a Special Forces background.
Besides, they still hadn’t seen any evidence that Todd was dangerous.
Yet.
He prowled through the house, restless and unable to sit still. Shifter senses confirmed that both Lynn and Ken were gone—it was after dawn, and presumably they were both at work—whereas Eva was sleeping the sleep of a teenager who didn’t have to get up for work yet.
It disturbed him a little that he hadn’t woken up when Lynn and Ken had left. He was used to sleeping more lightly than that. But with Stella curled up with him, he’d been completely dead to the world.
Safe, his panther growled. All safe together.
That...must have been it. The knowledge that everything that was important to him was right here in his arms had kept him slumbering deeply away.
That was an odd thought.
Nate suddenly felt as though he understood part of what had obviously been freaking Stella out.
He was forty-six years old. He’d built a life, a full and busy life, with responsibilities and routines and people who depended on him to behave a certain way. He’d never had any plans to get married, never set his life up to accommodate another person like that.
Now—everything was going to change. He could see how frightening that might be.
Intellectually, he could see it. Inside, though...there was just a rising excitement.
Yes, his panther chimed in. Everything will be better now.
Better. Nate tried to picture his own life, but better.
Coming home every day, not to his empty, sterile apartment, but to Stella’s smiles. She’d probably decorate. He tried to picture his place with something reminiscent of Stella’s brightly-colored flowy outfits, and had to smile a little.
Taking time off not because Connie bullied him into it, but because he wanted to take Stella to Paris or Tokyo.
Going with Eva to visit college campuses.
Because he wasn’t just getting a mate. He was getting a daughter.
A smart, funny, hardworking daughter, filled to the brim with teenage disdain for lame adults.
Better.
He shook out his hands. He was filled with an antsy energy, a need to go find Stella, pick her up and twirl her around and delight in being mates.
But she wasn’t there yet.
So he set to work installing cameras around the entrances and in the front hall, because that had to get done sometime, and he needed somewhere to put his energy.
He wasn’t used to this. Normally, Nate was a calm and measured man, who could move fast when it was necessary, but who otherwise smiled slow and thought before he acted. He didn’t bounce around like a Superball because he was excited for the future.