He’d said what he genuinely thought, and listened for Alethia’s genuine opinion of it. How long had it been since he’d been that open with anyone?
Alethia seemed to come out of her reverie, and looked away from the expanse of forest outside, fixing those beautiful eyes back on him. “Where did you live before you moved to Ryder’s Lodge?”
“Utah. Right in the mountains. Most amazing sunsets you ever saw out there,” he remembered. “Like the sky was lit on fire.”
“Sounds beautiful.” He could hear the wistfulness in her voice.
This woman needs to get out of Prescott, he thought. It was a poor and grimy little town with nothing much to recommend it as far as he’d seen, full of people who were dissatisfied with their lives but didn’t have the means to change them.
He wished he really did have a million dollars, so he could sweep Alethia away to somewhere better.
He didn’t, but he could at least say, “Nature’s always beautiful. The forest here is something else. I can hike it for hours every weekend and always see something new.”
By ‘hike,’ he meant ‘shift and run,’ of course, but he couldn’t say that out loud. At least not yet. He wondered if Alethia had already heard of shifters, living in a place where their existence seemed like an open secret.
And if she hadn’t, how she’d react if he told her.
Calm down, he told himself. Revealing his true nature to someone was not something to be done the first day you met. You never knew how people would react.
“I wish I’d spent more time hiking and being outdoors when I was a kid,” she said. “My brother was always outside, and he went to this local camp where they learned all sorts of things about… Animals and nature and how to be safe in the forest. I don’t know any of that stuff. I’d be afraid to just strike out on my own. You always hear about people getting lost because they didn’t know what they were doing.”
And I don’t have anyone to go with me, she didn’t say, but he heard it anyway.
“Never too late to learn,” he pointed out. “I could teach you a few things, even, if you wanted.”
She looked over at him, a little smile quirking the corners of her mouth. “That sounds nice, actually. Sure.”
He resisted the stupid urge to thank her for saying yes. “My pleasure.” That was better.
She looked back out the window. “Is this a place where you go hiking?”
“Sometimes. It’s a tough area for hikers because there’s a lot of steep inclines, but sometimes that’s what I’m in the mood for.” And as a snow leopard, he had sharp claws and powerful hindquarters that could scale the steepest slopes, so it wasn’t so much of an issue.
She was quiet for a long moment, and then she said, “My brother, the one I just mentioned...”
“Yeah?” He wasn’t sure where this was going.
“He works for Tanner Logging. Is that who you work for?”
Tanner Logging hired shifters for its crew—as far as Grey knew, exclusively shifters. “That’s the one.”
“There’s one or two things about that company that no one’s supposed to know outside of the workers, but my brother has a big mouth. He told me that everyone who works there is…like him.”
That was clear enough. “What sort of animal is your brother?”
She relaxed. “He’s a bear. His name is Paul.”
Paul. Grey knew Paul Parker, and he didn’t think much of him. The man might have hidden depths, but Grey didn’t think so. It seemed wrong that Alethia had grown up with someone that shallow and small-minded.
Alethia was hesitating. “What about you?” she asked finally.
“I’m a snow leopard.” He wondered what she’d think of that. It wasn’t as common as a bear or a wolf, and some people thought it made him a bit strange. And big cats had a reputation for being standoffish.
But her eyes went wide. “A snow leopard! That’s amazing. I’ve never met a leopard before, let alone a snow leopard— I mean, I’ve only met a few shifters that I know of— Although probably more that I didn’t know, come to think of it— All right, shutting up now.”
He was surprised into a laugh. She made a face at him, wrinkling her nose. It was adorable. “Don’t laugh at me babbling.”
“I wasn’t.” He had been, but he stifled it. “It’s cute.”