“You’re free!” Jeff chuckled, as Leah tucked her onto her hip. “Or not quite.” Now she wanted to get down.
“I can’t let you down, honey, I have to break this down and I can’t watch you at the same time,” Leah said distractedly, fumbling for the button that would let her start folding it up.
“I can do it,” Jeff reminded her.
“Oh.” Leah stopped and sat back. “That’s right. I...forgot.”
Jeff wanted to joke about her forgetting he was standing right next to her, but he found that he couldn’t. Leah was so used to having to do everything herself. She’d knelt down with a squirming Emily held expertly in one hand and started to break down the heavy playpen with the other, like she did it all the time. And she probably did.
“Let her crawl around one last time,” he suggested. “I can watch her, or I can take care of this thing.”
“I’ll watch her.” Leah set Emily on the floor and watched her immediately take off, a fond smile on her face.
Jeff could feel the same smile on his own face. God, he wanted this family.
He folded up the Pack-n-Play quickly enough and got it back into its little carrying sack. Leah scooped Emily up as Jeff doused the fire for the last time and cleaned out the
hearth, and tucked her into her carrier over mighty protests.
Leah took her backpack, but Jeff wouldn’t let her carry anything else.
“You’ve got the most important thing,” he pointed out, tickling a very annoyed Emily under the chin. “I can get the rest.”
“Are you sure?” Leah asked dubiously, and Jeff proved that he was by hoisting her overnight bag and the diaper bag over each shoulder, then carrying the laundry bag and the Pack-n-Play in each hand.
“Trust me,” he said. “I can carry all this with no problem. Shifters are stronger than the average human, and most of it’s not even heavy, just bulky.”
“All right,” Leah conceded. “I wish I had you all around all the time, then, because schlepping all of her stuff around all the time can get difficult for mortals like me.”
I wish you had me around all the time, too. How about we make that happen? But two minutes before they walked out into the snow to be rescued was not the time to make any declarations of commitment. Soon.
Very soon.
They both looked around the cabin, automatically scanning it to see if they’d left anything behind.
“Is it weird that I’m going to miss this place?” Leah murmured. Her face had softened as she looked around.
“No, I’m definitely going to miss it too.” Jeff wasn’t looking at the cabin anymore, though, but at Leah. Her lips were parted slightly, and it made him want to kiss the longing away. “Maybe the owners will late us rent it out next winter for a repeat experience.”
Leah chuckled, but it looked like her heart wasn’t in it. Her expression stayed wistful.
She doesn’t believe it, his leopard whispered to him. She doesn’t know she’s our mate. Tell her!
Soon, he insisted.
Emily let out a particularly enraged squeal and Leah smiled ruefully at him. “We’d better go before she stages a mutiny.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, instead of all of the other things he wanted to say.
Leah got to the door first, and held it for him. “Reverse chivalry,” she said, with a hint of humor.
“Thank you, good lady,” Jeff said, with a quick bow as he passed her. “This burdened knight appreciates it.”
Emily calmed down once they got outside, looking curiously around at the snow-covered landscape.
“Today is the first time she’s really seen snow,” Leah said, as though she was only realizing it now. “You were too small to notice anything the last time there was snow, weren’t you, baby?”
She crouched down and grabbed a handful of it, making a snowball, and held it up for Emily to see. The baby reached a curious hand out to grab some, and then stared at it with a perplexed look.