And she couldn’t take advantage of such a kind, generous man like that. He’d want to help her, and so he’d let her stay with him...until her car was fixed, or maybe while she found a part-time job to get herself a little bit of money, and that wasn’t fair to him, to trade on his giving nature like that.
And it wasn’t fair to her. Now that she’d realized how she felt, she knew that she couldn’t bear to spend too much more time with him. Not if she had to leave. And eventually, she’d have to leave. There was no question about it.
Because she had a daughter to support. And unless Jeff wanted to let her move in and be a stay-at-home mom while he supported both of them, after having known her for one day, that meant that Leah had to find her own way.
Just for a second, though, she let herself have that fantasy. Living with Jeff in some cute little house right on the border of a gorgeous national park, taking Emily on walks together. Maybe getting a part-time job working on gardens or in a local nursery, but just as an extra income, something fun, rather than a desperate attempt to scrape together enough money to support two people. Jeff cooking them breakfast in the mornings.
But then she shook herself out of it. She would not be a burden on Jeff. She would figure out how to get her car fixed, thank Jeff for all that he’d done for her and Emily, kiss him goodbye, and move on with her life.
Item one in that agenda, then, was getting out of this cabin. “Maybe you should go find that snowplow,” she suggested to Jeff. “Then he’ll know we’re up here, and he can tell someone when he gets home.”
Jeff nodded. “Better than that, he’ll probably have a radio. I can get hold of the rangers’ headquarters and report in. They have to be wondering where I am, I should have been at work over an hour ago.”
Oops. Leah hadn’t even thought of the fact that Jeff had to be missing work for this.
He caught her guilty look. “But it?
?s okay, because I’m technically doing my job. Rescuing people who are stranded in the snow is one of our main priorities here at Glacier. I just need to let people know where I am, and ask for someone to come get us out.”
“Then the snowplow sounds like our best bet,” Leah said firmly.
“You’re absolutely right. Okay.” Jeff looked around, like he was wondering if he’d be leaving something behind. “I’ll...head out, I guess. See you soon.”
He leaned in to give her a kiss, and she melted into it despite herself. Why did she have to leave somebody who tasted so good? It wasn’t fair.
It was a long, long moment before he pulled back. And then he leaned in for one more little kiss, like he couldn’t help himself. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said finally, and stepped back to shift.
Once more, there was a snow leopard standing in front of them. Leah thought she could watch Jeff transform a thousand times and never get used to the sight.
He bounded off through the snow, quickly disappearing into the trees, but Leah watched for a long time after he seemed to be gone.
Then Emily tried to dive out of her arms into the snow, and she had to go back inside. “Don’t worry, honey,” she told her daughter as she closed the door behind them, “we’ll be out of here soon. Maybe we can get your snowsuit out of the car and you can play in the snow all you want.”
Emily started to cry, straining backwards for the door, and Leah sighed and set her down, letting her crawl back to it and plaster her little body against it.
“Soon, baby,” she promised. “Soon.”
***
Jeff hadn’t expected the snowplow to show up this soon, and so when he’d heard it, he’d been thrown off-balance.
Leah’s suggestion to go find the plow and talk to the driver was absolutely right, of course—and it showed that she was thinking straight, thinking about getting back to civilization as quickly as possible.
Which Jeff wasn’t.
He’d been planning on revealing that Leah was his mate after demonstrating his shifter form to her. But communicating their situation to the ranger base was...maybe not more important, but more urgent.
People would be worried back home, now that he hadn’t shown up for work, and probably someone had come by his house to see where he was. What with the storm last night, they’d probably think something had happened to him.
And the plow, at least, had to have passed Leah’s car on its way up. There’d be news of an accident circling around. It was Jeff’s duty to tell everyone what had happened, so that valuable manpower wasn’t being put into a search for the occupants of that car, when it could be helping anyone who might still be in trouble.
So talking to Leah was going to have to wait. And it wasn’t like this was the last time he’d ever see her. He could talk to her later today.
Still, Jeff couldn’t help but regret that their time in the cabin was coming to an end. Cozied up with Leah and Emily as he’d been for the last day, he’d realized that this was exactly what he wanted on a snowy night. Playing with the baby, snuggling in front of the fire, making love as the snow fell outside the window...
It didn’t matter, he reminded himself. Just because they wouldn’t be in the cabin anymore didn’t mean that that fantasy couldn’t be a reality, going forward. There was a whole, long winter ahead, and if he did this right, Leah and Emily would be with him all the way through to spring and beyond.
Jeff shifted to human as he neared the road, and jogged through the snow to where the plow was ponderously making its way up the slope. He waved his arms.