Grey and Cal’s voices got louder as they neared her. “I want you to meet my mate,” Grey was saying.
Alethia tore her eyes away from the scenery and shook Cal’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Alethia Parker.”
She was getting used to using her full name again. It was a little strange to think of herself as Alethia again inside her own head, but it no longer felt weird for other people to call her by her full name.
It helped that her snow leopard was definitely Alethia. What she liked most of all, apart from her mate, was having that that true form inside her.
“Soon-to-be Alethia Landin,” Grey added.
And she couldn’t wait to get away from being a Parker. A whole new her.
“It’s nice to meet you, too.” Cal had a quiet smile on his face, and he was giving Grey a knowing look. “I used to think that Grey Landin would never settle down. It’s nice to see him proving me wrong. You must be some woman to have him looking at you like that.”
Alethia raised her eyebrows at Grey, curious. He gave her a look that said, Later. “She is. And now that I’m settling down, you’ve got no excuses, yourself.”
Cal laughed and shook his head. “No, I’m a confirmed bachelor. Married to my job.”
“It seems like a great job to be married to,” Alethia offered. “This place is beautiful.”
Cal nodded. “The most beautiful place in the world. And I’ve been over every mile of it. I could never leave.”
The intensity of his feeling came through in his voice, even as quiet as it was. Alethia glanced over at Grey. “I think we might end up feeling the same way.”
Grey’s smile intensified. “I know we will.”
“Well, let me point you at your new house, then,” Cal said. “You’re welcome to get a place in town, if you want, but the family housing for rangers is pretty good.”
Family housing. Alethia thought about what that might mean, in the future.
Cal gave them directions, and they said their goodbyes and went back to the truck. Grey lifted her up easily into the cab, and they drove off.
Alethia looked at Grey once they were moving. “What did Cal mean? All that stuff about you being hard to pin down. You’ve been full-speed-ahead since we first laid eyes on each other.”
Grey glanced at her, a warm look in his eyes. “Can you blame me?”
Alethia refused to be distracted. “Don’t change the subject.”
He glanced away for a second, then back. “All right. I already told you that I was kind of wild when I was younger.”
“I remember.” Although to be truthful, Alethia had a hard time picturing Grey being wild. He was one of the most grounded men she’d ever met.
“Getting into fights, doing stupid, dangerous stunts. Shifting where people might see. And also trying my luck with any girl who looked like she might be willing.”
“Oh. Well, we’ve both had to work hard to get ahead of our pasts, haven’t we?”
He nodded. “When my friend Ben died, I realized that I wasn’t doing anything with my life but screwing it up. I turned right around, I worked hard to qualify as a ranger, I got a job and I did good work.”
“I know you did,” Alethia said softly. “When you put your mind to someth
ing, it gets done.”
He looked over at her. “That’s a trait we share.”
She blushed, and he went on, “I was working hard, but I still got with girls sometimes. I never tried to find anything long-term. I thought I wanted to be alone.”
Grey shook his head. “I’d already changed before I got to Colorado. I knew I didn’t want any trouble, that I was tired of one-night stands. But meeting you…” He looked over at her again, and this time he smiled. “It showed me what I wanted instead.”
The truck came around a curve, and suddenly they were in a little residential area just outside the official border of the park. Grey glanced at the piece of paper Cal had given him and pulled up to a house.