Todd seemed to realize that, too, because slowly, he sat back on his haunches. Then, with a shudder, he shifted back to human, looking slumped and pathetic.
Nate transformed a second later, and came back to stand with Stella. “Okay?”
She nodded, leaning against his broad warmth—not for comfort, really, but just for the joy of standing with her mate.
“Is that enough?” she asked. “For the cameras?”
“Is the sheriff a shifter?” Nate asked dubiously.
“She is,” Stella said. “If there’s any need to do anything legal with the footage, I bet she’ll cut out anything where anyone’s shown transforming.”
“Then absolutely,” Nate said. “We won’t even need the footage of the fight. Breaking and entering, threatening, confessing to stalking, trying to attack—there’s plenty. He’s not wiggling out of this one.”
“Good.”
Carlos had his phone out and was dialing. He spoke calmly to the person on the other end, and hung up. “Sheriff’s on her way.”
Stella let out her breath. “And let’s hope that’s the end of it.”
Nate pulled h
er into his arms. “It will be,” he murmured into her hair. “Now, our lives can really start.”
***
The next day, after breakfast, Nate gave Stella a kiss and held up his phone. “I’m going to go make a call,” he murmured.
Stella kissed back and watched him step outside, then curled her hands around her mug of tea. Eva was still asleep. After the sheriff had taken Todd away, Stella had spent a while reassuring her that it was all over. But Eva hadn’t wanted to go back to bed, so Stella had sat with her on the couch until her head slowly tipped over and she was breathing softly into Stella’s shoulder. When Stella had shaken her awake, she’d finally agreed to zombie her way back to bed.
Then Stella had curled up in Nate’s arms and drifted off to sleep, more easily than she ever would’ve anticipated after something like Todd’s intrusion. And dreamt of being warm and safe.
Now, she sat in her kitchen and watched Nate, out in the backyard, have what looked like a serious conversation on his phone. It took a while, and Stella was finished with her tea by the time he came back.
He was smiling, so she smiled back. “Good call?”
Nate sat down next to her and took her hands. “Very good. I was talking to Connie, my assistant.”
“Oh?” Stella asked, curious. She didn’t know much about the day-to-day work Nate actually did for his business. “Work stuff?”
Nate nodded. “I was thinking about something you said to me a few days ago.”
Stella frowned. “What did I say?”
“I said that Connie could basically do my job for me, and you asked why I didn’t just pay her to do my job. At least the paperwork part of it.” Nate’s smile widened.
Stella felt her breath catch in her chest. “And?” she whispered.
“I just offered her a promotion,” he said. “From now on, she is going to be doing my job. We’re going to hire her an assistant to do her old job, and I’m going to be taking more of a...consulting role.”
“What does that mean, a consulting role?” Stella asked. She could feel hope rising in her chest.
Nate grinned. “It means I’ll be traveling around to take on trickier jobs, on my own schedule, when I think a job needs my expertise. It means I can otherwise live where I want, and Connie can email anything over that I really need to personally look at. It means that I can stay here, with you, and when I take a job, I can take a few extra days before or after, and we can see the sights together.”
Stella jumped him.
She hadn’t meant to be quite so sudden, but Nate easily caught her around the waist, laughing, and settled her in his lap. She kissed him fiercely. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Don’t thank me. I don’t want you thinking I did this only for you. These days I’ve spent here in Glacier, with you and Eva, and Lynn and Ken, all in this house together...it’s the most like a pack I’ve ever found.”