"Charlotte?" It was the first thing he'd said since he'd seen her, and his voice was faint with confusion and hope.
She smiled, the soft gentle smile he remembered so well, and sat in the chair Garius had been in. "It's Lola now."
"Lola." Sam cradled the name in his soul. "You always liked that nickname. I remember…you convinced the yearbook to use it, the last year, didn't you?"
"God, I don't remember. Are you all right?"
"I've never been better," he replied, stunned, then realized she meant whether he'd hurt himself walking into the table. "Yes, fine, but…no. Lola…? I looked for you," he said desperately. "I never stopped looking for you. But you disappeared, you…"
"Well," she said slowly, "you were dead."
Sam laughed, a cracked sound, and put his face in his hands before looking up again. "Yes. Obviously not, but…I'm sorry, Char…Lola. They had no right to do that. Did you…" So many questions swirled through him, he honestly had no idea where to begin, and he imagined she had at least as many to ask him in return. After a few struggling seconds, he said the one thing he knew absolutely to be true: "I have never been so happy to see anyone in my life as I am to see you right now."
To his relief, Lola's smile blossomed, bright and beautiful. "Me either. Oh,Sam."
He couldn't say which of them pushed the table out of the way (spilling more coffee, but he didn't care). He just knew that suddenly they were hugging, his nose buried in her soft white hair, and nothing else in the world mattered. She was alive. The only woman he had ever loved, the only one he'd everwantedto love, was alive and in his arms and nothing,nothing, could be wrong in this moment.
When they finally released the embrace, Lola's brown eyes were bright with tears that she carefully daubed away. "I don't know how I imagined this would go," she whispered. "I didn't imagine spilled coffee and…whatisa 'bear claw' doughnut?"
"Mostly a joke for Mr Beren," Sam said. "Because he's…"
A shifter,his fox prompted.A bear shifter.
Sam nodded, but the thing was…they'd been kids when they last knew each other. Madly in love, but kids. He had only been struck with the certainty that Lola was his fated mate a few days after their high school graduation. A few weeks before they disappeared from each other's lives for decades.
He had never had the chance to tell her that he was a shifter. And now, sitting in a doughnut shop, seeing each other for the first time since they'd been teens…was obviously not the time or placetotell her.
She'll understand,his fox promised.Mates always do.
Yes, but…
"Large?" Lola asked, amused. Sam blinked at her a few times, having totally lost his own train of thought before it came back to him in a crash of recollection.
"Right. Yes. Mr Beren is very large. Bear-sized, even. Yes." That was the most obvious explanation for the bear claw doughnuts being for Garius specifically. A hazy sense of disbelief rolled through Sam as he gave his mate a helpless smile. "I don't know what I'd imagined either," he told her. "I've imagined this day so often, Lola, so many times a day for so many years, and now…now I don't know what to do. What to say. How is that possible? How could I have been practicing this in my head for so long, and be at a loss when it happens?"
"Well," she said again with that same slow thoughtfulness, "you probably didn't imagine a doughnut shop and spilled coffee, either."
He glanced at the mess he'd made, then back at her with a rueful smile. "You're right. Not once. Not once in a million dreams was there spilled coffee or doughnuts. They're almond-filled, usually. Bear claws are."
Charlotte Nelson—Lola Nelson, or whatever her surname was now—gave him a very solemn look, and with the quick dry humor he remembered from their youth, said, "Don't be silly, Sam. Bear claws are full of keratin, just like human fingernails. Almonds. Hnf. Well I never."
Sam laughed, bright and joyful, and felt like it had been years since he'd heard himself laugh that way. "Smart aleck. You haven't changed much, Lola."
Her eyebrows, feathery and white now, rose as she first glanced, then gestured down at herself, indicating the years and their toll since they'd last seen each other. Sam shook his head, still with a smile. "You know what I mean."
"I do. I admit, when I saw you, all I could think was you hadn't changed at all."
Sam discovered it was impossiblenotto do that downward glance and gesture, the one that encompassed all the inevitable changes that age brought. Lola said, "You know whatImean," and of course, he did, although she added, "The beard is new, though. I'm going to have to think about that."
"I can shave it," Sam said promptly, although he also brushed his hand over it rather possessively. "One of my kids told me I looked like Santa Claus with it, though, so I kept it."
Shock filled Lola's brown eyes, although it was tempered a moment later with understanding. "Of course you have children. How many?"
"Mostly foster kids," Sam admitted. "I never married or had any serious relationships after…" As her eyes widened again, he took a deep breath and tried to answer the questions she'd actually asked. "Quite a few. Most of them were relatively short-term, but I had a handful who stayed with me. You?" he asked a little hesitantly.
He thought she hesitated, too. "One daughter. I did get married, after a while. And my granddaughter… she ended up in Virtue, somehow. That's how I found out you were alive."
Sam felt his eyebrows fly upward. "Youknew?"
