She choked a little, because when it came to what sheneededto do, it involved touching Turner’s face, kissing his mouth, touching those shoulders that seemed impossibly broaddespite his slenderness, pulling him inside the farmhouse, maybe not even pulling him inside the farmhouse—
“It’s okay. Take your time.”
“I’m fine, it’s just. I think I just need to go.”
“Go?” The frayed edges of his voice sounded like her own will slowly unraveling, and she stood up straighter.
“Not forever! Definitely not forever, but this is a lot, and I need space, and I need to think…”
No, she didn’t, a part of her insisted. Thinking was the last thing she needed to do. Thinking might get in the way of touching Turner. Didn’t she want to touch Turner?
Turner nodded reluctantly, offering her half a grin.
“Okay. Okay. I get it. You take all the time you need, and then—whoa!”
It shouldn’t have been possible for a unicorn, especially one as fat as this one, to sneak up on them, but somehow this one had. Ilona had one horrified moment where that enormous sharp horn wavered far too close to her face and then—
The unicorn leaned in and nuzzled her hand.
“What?”
CHAPTER THREE
∞∞∞
Turner was a grown man. He’d had a pretty easy life thus far. Sure, he’d had the usual share of trouble, but he thought he had dealt with it fairly gracefully. All in all, he considered himself a level-headed kind of guy, but that was before he met his fated mate and she told him she needed to leave.
He did the mental equivalent of sitting flat on his wolf before it could howl out its broken heart, and he was just in the middle of agreeing to his fated mate’s deeply reasonable request when the unicorn intervened.
It was damned embarrassing letting a unicorn, let alone a unicorn that pregnant, sneak by him, but there it was. He started to move forward, ready to throw himself bodily between his mate and that wickedly sharp horn if he had to, but then he stared as the unicorn nuzzled up to his mate like a family cat.
His mate froze, her dark eyes darting between him and the unicorn, and he realized in a moment what must have been happening.
“It’s okay... it’s okay,” he murmured soothingly. “No such thing as secrets with a unicorn. If she didn’t like you, you’d know. As it is… wow, she likes you.”
When his mate seemed reluctant to move, the unicorn grew more insistent, shoving her nose under her hand. After a moment, his mate gently began to stroke the unicorn’s nose, and Turner had to squelch a stab of jealousy.
Okay, you can be jealous the unicorn is getting pets, or you can be jealous that your mate gets to pet the unicorn after knowing her for five minutes, but not both.
“Well, it looks like you made a friend,” he said, keeping his voice low. “When I’m not cussing her out, I call her Maisey, if you want to say hi.”
“Hi, Maisey,” his mate said softly, and a shiver ran up his spine at her husky voice. “Hi, pretty girl. You’re abiggirl, huh?”
“Pregnant,” Turner said, unable to keep a note of pride out of his voice. “First pregnant unicorn mare in North America since the mid-1800s.”
“Oh wow, you’re special, and your baby’s going to be a special one, too.”
In response, the unicorn sighed blissfully, fluttering her pert ears like butterfly wings and nuzzling even closer. She was as calm as Turner had ever seen her, or, at least, she was until his mate turned back toward her car.
The difference in the animal was profound. One moment she was as relaxed as a strand of spaghetti, and the next she was on high alert, whining through her teeth the way she did before the screaming started.
“What’s the matter with her?” his mate asked, and Turner shook his head.
“Unicorns aren’t domesticated, but they have a long, long history with humans. We don’t own them. We have to make friends with them, and it looks like Maisey wants to be your friend.”
She gave him a confused look, and Turner chewed his lip.
“Before you leave, I want to test something. Will you come with me?”
