“Mate bond?” she said. “Like . . . oh, crapberries, you can’t read my mind, can you? You really don’t want to be in there!”
“I can’t,” he said. “Only your moods. Some shifters can talk mind to mind. We might get there. If you want to. It’s all new for me, too.”
“I’ve been feeling as if I could suss out your moods for days.”
“Probably you can,” he said easily. “it’s different for everyone, so I’m told.”
She drew him to the bed, and they sat down side by side. “Did you always have this bond and I didn’t know?”
“We,” he corrected gently.
“We. I’m trying to get used to that,” she said. “I’ve only been a ‘we’ for spurts here and there, long ago.”
“You were repeatedly abandoned by those you loved most,” he said in a low voice. She could feel his regret. “All for reasons that seemed right at the time, but there you were. Alone. Doing the best you could.”
“Maybe that’s why I hate saying goodbye,” she said. “Welp! I’ve got you back. And Alejo, a twofer! But tell me more about that—uh, our mate bond. So you can’t read my messy mind, hallelujah, but you still were . . . monitoring me somehow from a distance?”
He gave his head a shake. “You had closed it off at your end before I even knew it existed. All I sensed was that you still lived, but I couldn’t find you.”
She took his hand into hers. “You never told me how you did find me.”
“You know I like detective novels. I saw one of your mysteries on the rack of a convenience store. The name Hidalgo caught my eye. I picked it up. Opened to a page. Your P.I. was trash-talking the villain and I swear I heard your voice, trash-talking Erich when he’d been going after the shoeshine kid.”
She grinned. “When was this?”
“A few months ago. I bought the book. Read it all the way through. Gave it to Alejo, and when he said he heard your voice in the narrator, I looked for information on the author. All I found was that biography that didn’t say much. We read all the ones we could find, and searched the internet. Alejo found a blog where the writer thanked G.T. Hidalgo for help on their first book, and mentioned you encouraging new writers out in California. There was that voice, and the name Hidalgo, and I couldn’t let go of the thought that it might be you.”
He slid his arm around her. “Then I was talking with someone I know in the Guardian circles who mentioned needing help with the Cang problem, and somehow that led to Joey Hu, and in the course of talking he mentioned his wife, and her friends, and your name came up. I volunteered, because I had to come and see if it really was you.”
“I’m sorry about the pastries,” she murmured into his shoulder. “And the coffee. And the custard on the car.”
She felt his chuckle through his body. “It was all worth it.” He leaned from side to side. “This really is a waterbed,” he observed.
Tired as Godiva was after several days of shorted sleep, she heard a note in his voice that she recognized—kindling that fire in her all over again.
She batted her eyelashes. “Want to give it a spin?”
Whether it was the waterbed or not, making love was even better this time. They took it slow, having a better sense for what each other liked. Her body remembered so well how to fit together with his, sending her straight to the stratosphere.
She sensed it was the same for him. And it was a relief to find out that this sense was a real thing, not her projecting her own feelings. Her body was sublimely happy. When she had floated down from the land of bliss, she lay in his arms, drowsing in that state between thinking and dreams.
She was aware of happiness, but conditionally. Was that mistrust? No, not that. Though they’d only spent a few days together, she knew enough to recognize that this was the real Rigo, the man she fell for all those years ago. What you saw was what you got. But . . .
“Godiva,” he murmured into the top of her head, and kissed her there. “You’re thinking again. About?”
“That’s right,” she said. “I can talk to you. Habit is hard to break. And . . . I’m beginning to realize I don’t know how to talk about what I’m feeling. I’ve never done it. Even when it was you and me, so long ago. We always blabbed about a future that was all wishes, and not so much of the how-to. Which you do when you’re young and it’s your first relationship.”
“With you so far, querida.”
“Maybe it’s guilt. My guilt. For my share of what happened. Because I could have at least tried to look for you. For Alejo’s sake, if not my own. Given you a chance to explain.”
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “I totally understand. I’d left you flat. There was no reason for you to trust me even that far.”
“You are sweet to try to talk me out of my share of whatever guilt remains, but in my experience, humans don’t accept blame for their own screwups nearly enough. So let me have mine. It won’t last long. Every time you kiss me, a little more of it whittles away—”
He happily obliged her not-so-subtle hint, until her phone bleeped. “That’s Jen’s ringtone,” she said.
They broke apart and looked at each other, both exclaiming “Long Cang!”