“I don’t want to uproot your life,” Nate was saying, with real concern. “I love my job—okay, the non-paperwork parts of my job. I love doing security consults, solving the puzzle of how a certain place is vulnerable, stopping someone from committing a crime. I don’t want to give that up. But I don’t want to drag you along anywhere you don’t want to go. I live in Chicago, but if you want to stay here—if you don’t want to be in a city all the time—or if Eva would rather stay here and do her senior year here—we can make it work, somehow.”
“We will make it work,” Stella said firmly. “If you knew how many times I’d totally uprooted my life—for much worse reasons than this—we can make it work.”
The anxiety was receding. It had come, Stella thought, from the feeling of being out of control, of not being able to make her own decisions. She’d always struggled with that.
But that feeling was being replaced by something else. The knowledge that the decision that the Universe had made for her was...Nate.
And she wasn’t going to say, Screw you! to a good thing just because she hadn’t thought it up herself.
She wasn’t going to flounce off in a huff from something that promised to lift her up, bring her more happiness than she could ever have dreamed off.
Lynn would hardly recognize her, Stella thought with a private smile.
“There’s waitress jobs in Chicago,” Stella told Nate. “Eva will hit the roof at the idea of moving to a real city. She’s always told me that—how does she say it—optimum nerd concentration is in places with a ton of people already living there.”
Nate still looked concerned. “But—your family’s here, and the Park just seems so...important to you.”
Stella had to admit, at least to herself, that the idea of leaving Montana entirely, moving somewhere with endless stretches of suburbia that led to endless stretches of flat plains—no mountains, no rugged wilderness to lose herself in—
It was strange. Strange, and a little uncomfortable, to think of not just visiting a big city, exploring it and learning its culture, but living there.
Something occurred to her. “Can we—are there places to shift?”
Nate’s concern deepened. “Out in the forest preserve. But there’s only small areas where you can be really sure you won’t run into hikers. I mostly wait until I’m traveling, just because it would be hard to explain a panther away. A lynx would be easier, but you might be more vulnerable if anyone thought you were dangerous.”
A big city. A forest preserve. Stella had never lived anywhere too urban for too long—Missoula was the biggest city that she’d really called home for any length of time.
“The other thing to consider,” Nate said quietly, “is that if you leave town, the Todd problem will be taken care of.”
Stella thought about that for about four seconds before she felt a hardening of reserve, of determination that she thought might’ve run out in the last month.
Well, maybe having a mate was bringing some of it back.
“I’m not running away from my own goddamn house,” she said fiercely. “We can talk about where we want to live, but no way am I deciding because I’m afraid of that loser.”
Nate’s face broke into a wide smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Then forget it. We’re going to show him who’s boss. And I have to make a phone call soon.”
Stella frowned. “To whom?”
“To—hm. To Connie, I guess, although she’s going to tell me that all of my people are out on assignments.” Nate frowned thoughtfully. “But I need to
pull someone else in.”
“Why?”
He took her hands. “Because I can’t do a good job bodyguarding you right now. I’m paying attention to all the wrong things, I’m distracted all the time, and I won’t make the right choices in the heat of the moment because I’m listening to my heart instead of my head.”
That was...dizzying. “To your—”
There was a hint of red on Nate’s cheeks. “You know,” he said ruefully, “I’ve read out that lecture to half a dozen starry-eyed youngsters on bodyguard duty over my life, but I’ve never had to use it on myself.” He kissed her hand. “My heart.”
It was strange to think that Nate—competent, calm Nate—was feeling the same kind of swoopy overwhelmed feeling that seemed to have permanently lodged itself in Stella’s chest.
But somehow, she knew he was.
Nate continued, despite the blush, “If we’re going to keep protecting you effectively, I have to call in some backup.”
Now Stella was having second thoughts. “I’m not going to disrupt someone else’s life—”