Karl closed his eyes and laughed, a quiet rough sound. “Maybe not.” He moved away from the gate, just a couple of steps, and tugged her hand lightly to see if she’d go with him. Emmy did, and some of the panic and ice in her body melted as he gently put his arms around her shoulders and his face in her hair. “My mom, it was always just her and me. She was sick for quite a while,” he eventually said in a cracked voice. “I didn’t see how I could possibly live without her. She was the one who was dying, and she still helped me through it, right up until the day I had to face it all by myself. I couldn’t have done it without her help. So maybe not. Maybe it’s not really exactly about the border after all.”
“Or maybe that’s exactly what it’s about. Just…in a roundabout way.”
“I don’t know, Emmy. I only met you yesterday. You’re perfect, I swear I think you’re perfect, but you’re not my therapist or something. I must be crazy, pulling something like this in less than a full day. I’m sorry.”
“No.” Emmy held onto him hard, feeling the lean strength of his body and the tremble in his arms around her. “No, actually, you’re completely perfect. Do you know what my parents have always said when I said I never wanted to leave Virtue?”
“What?”
“They say ‘okay, honey.’ They’re both rabbit shifters too, and they get it. The whole completely irrational panic over…” Emmy sighed deeply. “Everything. Dad goes to pick people up at the airport if necessary, but otherwise they almost never leave town themselves. A couple of my brothers are a little more exploratory, but mostly my family came to Virtue centuries ago and haven’t left since. They aren’t the people to push me, is what I’m saying. And I might need that.”
“From a stranger?” Karl gave her a fragile grin. “An admittedly buff handsome stranger, but a stranger?”
Emmy laughed softly and stood on her toes to kiss him. “You’re not, though. You’re my fated mate.”
“Am I?” He sounded, and looked, bemused. “What does that mean?”
“It means from the moment I saw you, as a rabbit who’d just been freed from a trap, that I knew you were the person for me, forever. It’s a shifter thing.”
A laugh broke in Karl’s chest and he almost sagged in her arms, like she’d said something to cut the wires that had been holding him in place. “SoI’mnot crazy? Thinking you’re…just perfect? I don’t mean to be crude, but God knows you’re my physical type—”
“Really?” Emmy glanced down at herself, as if she might have changed body types in the last few minutes. Unsurprisingly, she hadn’t. “I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m fat, Karl.”
He groaned against her hair. “Yeah you are. And gorgeous. I love fat girls. You’re so soft and cuddly and sexy. I love jiggly bits and having something to grab on to when I’m with a girl. I like sturdy. And there are plenty of beautiful big girls out there that I’ve never felt likethisabout. Right away. I fell for you right away. As soon as I saw you at the B&B. You were perfect for me and I just knew it. Is that magic? Are you magic? You are magic. Where do your clothes go?”
Emmy laughed. “They shift with us, but not if they’re underwear that’s been dropped by the side of a fence.”
“Noted. Next time I’ll…” Karl paused, clearly considering this. “Scout for balloons, first, for one thing.”
“Oh, excellent idea. But first?” She stepped back, taking a deep, deep breath before offering Karl her hand. “First, will you take me out of Virtue?”
Karl’s eyes widened. He caught her hand and brought it to his lips, his gaze a pool of blue above the kiss. “Are you sure?”
Emmy screwed up her face. “Pretty sure. I can always turn into a rabbit and run away if I chicken out.”
“Rabbit out?”
“Wimp out?”
“Wimp out.” Karl, smiling, led her to the fence and slipped through the kissing gate so he was on one side and she was on the other. “Did you know they’re not called kissing gates because people used to stand on either side of them and kiss?”
“I did not know that.” Emmy’s heart was going a thousand miles an hour again, although it felt a little less like rising panic than usual. “Why are they called that?”
“Because when they swing back and forth they ‘kiss’ the opposite sides of the gate. I’ve always thought that was a pity, though. The opportunity is right there, after all.”
“Then you’d better kiss me,” Emmy whispered, and Karl obliged, tenderly, sweetly, even protectively.
“You ready for this?” he asked when the kiss ended.
Her rabbit’s feet were twitching in preparation to run.
This is a bad scary idea, it whispered to her.
We’re with Karl,she whispered back.Our fated mate. He won’t let anything happen to us. Can you be brave for him?
The rabbit looked dubiously at her, then curled itself up in a small tight ball.No,it said,but I can be brave for you.
Emmy’s heartbeat slowed as her chest filled with emotion.Thank you. Then she nodded at Karl, and, her hand in his, she slipped around the kissing gate, and left Virtue for the first time in her life.
