Relief flooded him. Apparently she knew about the wolf shifters who had made Clearwater their home for generations, and that meant that there was a lot he didn’t have to worry about. He stood up from his wolf form, man-shaped, and continued watching the unicorn eat.
“My mother was a Madsen. My dad was a Cole from Whitefish Harbor up north, and that makes me Turner Cole. Good to know you.”
“Ah, just the man that I’m looking for. I have some groceries for you.”
It startled a laugh out of him.
“So I guess that’s my sausage that she’s eating?”
“I’m afraid so. Is... is that a bad thing? It won’t make her sick?”
“Not at all. She’s got four cast-iron stomachs, and if she wants to put it in her mouth, she can generally digest it. I just didn’t think that garlic-black pepper sausage links were going to calm her. Damn. Well, I guess that’s one for the books.”
As he watched, the unicorn finished off his sausage, nosing at it sadly and turning the paper over hoping for more. It was fair. The co-op made great sausage, and he figured that was how he looked when it was gone as well.
“She looks a lot calmer now,” he mused. “Ma’am, thank you for the groceries, but unless you want to get roped into another episode of Unicorn Rodeo, I might suggest you get back in your car and hit the road.”
“Sounds good to me, but.”
“Hm?”
“I hate to be that person, but I was told that I’d get some cash…”
“Oh! God, yeah, I’m sorry, here.”
The unicorn looked intent on licking a hole through the paper on the off-chance she could get some more meat off it, and it gave Turner the chance to dig in his pocket for his wallet.
“Sorry, I’ve been a little preoccupied here. Thank you for asking, I would have felt like shit if you had… if you had…”
He froze, cash in hand, looking up at the woman who lingered on the third step. For someone who had recently been attacked by a unicorn, she looked remarkably composed, her long dark hair tamed back into a loose ponytail with flyaway strands wisping her face, one bare hand shockingly pale where it rested on the hip of her dark wool coat. He couldn’t avoid observing how her hips swelled under her coat, round eventhrough all the cold-weather protection—it was his favorite when he had the time to have favorites, but then he looked up into her face, and everything—house, field, unicorn, winter, world—faded into the background. In that moment, nothing else mattered, not even the breath in his lungs, and he could barely breathe.
She had the kind of face that poets would have called dreamy, full lips with a slight downturn at the corners that could make her look sultry or sullen, but it was her eyes that caught him and would never let him go. Her eyes were as deep and dark as the forests where he had grown up, and, when he met them with his own, he and his wolf both knew what she was beyond a shadow of a doubt.
To his wolf, she was every good thing in the world, a full belly after a hunt and the hunt itself, digging out a den and sleeping in it. She was spring, summer, and fall; and, here in the winter, he would love her like the storm.
To Turner, there were words, and they rose up in his throat as if they’d come straight from his heart.
My fated mate.
CHAPTER TWO
∞∞∞
Something happened.
Okay, that was silly. Of course something happened. Ilona had just been trying to do a good deed. A call from her old friend Macy had sent her down County Road L with groceries for someone named Turner Cole who was stuck on the farm for the holiday. Sure, she’d been going shopping anyway to get ingredients for her big day of baking. She would get the items in question, run them out to whoever it was. Maybe she’d get back to Aunt Freddie’s early, maybe have a little private cry in her room. She had it all planned out, and then out of nowhere she had been attacked by a unicorn, which was the first impossible thing that had happened that day.
Honestly, it was a good thing that she had grown up in Clearwater, where the existence of shifters like the Madsen family and assorted others was more or less an open secret. She knew that sometimes people turned into wolves—it was a non-issue after you got over the initial shock. Hell, Macy had married a shifter and was expecting a kid with him. Luca Reyes was a hell of a nice guy once you got him talking. He wasdedicated to his conservation work, he was going to be a great dad, and, when the need arose, he turned into an inky black panther. Ilona was still trying to figure out if the kitten-themed baby blanket she picked out was in poor taste.
So yes, people turned into animals, but she decided she had every right to be shocked when a unicorn appeared out of nowhere.
Her first thought wasoh my god, it’s a unicorn!followedbywow, unicorns are fatter than I thought they would be,followed byOH, THAT HORN LOOKS SHARP!
She sincerely had no idea what she would have done if the wolf hadn’t appeared from nowhere, driving the unicorn back from the porch with a ferocious snapping of his enormous jaws. Despite his fierce appearance, however, his teeth never touched the unicorn’s white flank, and it was clear that he was trying to keep everyone safe.
The unicorn had no such restraints, and when that horn looked like it was going to skewer the wolf through, Ilona had acted on instinct.
It was a shame to lose the expensive sausage but that was the biggest problem she had to reckon with before she locked eyes with Turner Cole.
