She’d been dreaming that she was alone. When she started awake from the dream, her hands flew out to reach for Joel...but it had been true. She was alone.
That realization was quickly overwhelmed by something else. A bolt of truth that she couldn’t deny.
Mate, her leopard exulted. We found our mate.
The thought filled Nina with a stupid sense of bewilderment.
How could that be true? She didn’t deserve a mate, did she?
But it was true. She knew it like she knew her own name. Deserved or not, Joel was her mate.
That meant—that meant she could stay, didn’t it? If all of the Glacier leopards were rangers and rangers’ mates, and she was a ranger’s mate, then she could stay. The unknown Cal couldn’t object to her now.
She could stay in town. She could stay with Joel. They could even live in this little cabin together. She didn’t have to quit Oliver’s and give up her paycheck, she didn’t have to shift and start running through the lonely, empty mountains to the next small town. She could stay, work at the diner, and on her days off maybe she could help Joel with the cabin—she didn’t know anything about construction or repair, but she could learn.
And they could run together, and hunt together, and at night they could curl up right here by the fire, and Joel would look at her just like he’d looked at her last night.
Like she was his. Like she belonged here, with him.
Nina felt a strange combination of excitement and contentment spreading through her. She’d found what she’d been looking for at last. A home here, with Joel.
...Where was Joel?
She sat up. It was well into morning, from the quality of the light. The fire was dead, and she was by herself in the pile of blankets and pillows on the floor. There was no sign of Joel.
She touched the blankets next to her. They were cold, so he hadn’t just gotten up.
The anxiety she’d woken up with started creeping back. The happy anticipation receded in the face of worry.
It was silly, she told herself. Joel had to be around somewhere. He’d just stepped out for a moment, or he was in the bathroom, or something.
Nina stood up and quickly got dressed in last night’s clothing, then carefully double-checked the cabin: bathroom, loft, nothing.
She stepped outside and did a circuit of the building. It was a beautiful morning: warm and sunny, and the mountains stretched out in all directions. Nina could easily imagine waking up here every day, and coming out to breathe in the mountain air and look at the view.
But there was no Joel anywhere in sight.
Had something happened to him?
But what? This was his cabin. He had to know the territory around it pretty well. And if anything had gone badly wrong, he could shift. Even a bear or a wolf would have a hard time hurting a snow leopard—especially one that just wanted to get away.
Had he...left?
A cold chill went through Nina at the thought.
He’d said he hated the whole idea of mates, she remembered suddenly. When they’d been talking last night, he’d blamed the mate-bond for his parents’ deaths.
Joel must have woken up to the same bone-deep knowledge that she had, that they were mates. But instead of being happy...he’d left.
Nina shifted immediately. In snow leopard form, she caught Joel’s scent right away—in a straight line out towards the wilder parts of the mountains.
He was trying to get away. It felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. What was she going to do?
But before she could figure that out, she smelled something else.
The wind was carrying in the scent of exhaust. Now that she was paying attention, she could hear engines. At least two cars, coming up the dirt road that led from the main road out toward the cabin.
Who was coming here? What could they want?