Ilona laughed before she realized that Turner was serious, and, on impulse, she reached up with her free hand, running the tips of her fingers across Turner’s cheek and the line of his jaw. The scrape of his stubble against her skin sent a shock of intriguing pleasure through her, and that was before he made a pleased rumbling sound and nudged closer.
“Oh, you’re handsome,” she said without thinking, and Turner opened his eyes with a lazy smile. This close, she could see the green flecks embedded in the gray, and there was something about it that was so very wolf-like it took her breath away. He was more than a man, no matter how attractive he was—he was a man with a wolf in his head and his heart, and, in that instant, she could see the wolf, and the wolf could see her.
Hello, beautiful one. I adore you already, and I will only adore you more with every day that passes.
It wasn’t the sense of love and warmth that startled her. It was her own longing answer to it, and that was harder to believe in than the unicorn.
She took a step back from man and unicorn both, startled, and she could see that there was a moment where Turner meant to follow her before he reluctantly restrained himself. Maisey, under no compunctions to mind her manners, uttered a sad, impressively loud whining sound, but then she settled back, mercifully calm and quiet.
“I’m sorry—”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Turner said firmly. “You go at your own time, and I’ll be right there with you. And happily it seems like Maisey agrees with me. I need to stay and keep an eye on her, but if you want to get to baking, I think you might have a bit before she gets to missing you too bad.”
“And you?”
“Oh, well, I miss you already, but I know there’s cookies to be made.”
There were, and Ilona puzzled over the stab of regret she felt as she made her way to her car to grab her groceries. It was silly. She was only going into the house, there was no great tragedy here.
Nevertheless, she stole a look over her shoulder to where Maisey was submitting to an ear rub from Turner, and she wanted to be with them again so deeply that it ached.
CHAPTER FIVE
∞∞∞
One of the best things about the kind of work that Turner did was also one of the worst things: essentially, if you couldn’t find something to do, you weren’t trying hard enough. He’d actually been on his first vacation in more than a year when he got called up to help with the Maisey situation.
The truth was that he was grateful. When you filled your days keeping track of wandering antelope herds or trying to institute a trap, neuter, release program for feral winged cats, there was always something to do. If he was dark about the state of the world or his romantic prospects, he could always lose himself in the work.
Right now, though, the tried and true solution wasn’t working, and, even as he checked and rechecked the birthing stall to make sure that it was warm and comfortable for when the time came, his mind kept turning to the woman who was currently in his kitchen, his fated mate, the woman who his heart had known from the moment he met her… the woman whose name he still didn’t know.
His wolf was unconcerned. His wolf just didn’t understand why in the world he was moving bales of hay around and checking on the heater to make sure that it wouldn’t fail at a bad time.
Your mate is right there. Your mate is two doors away. Why aren’t you with her? Why are you doing anything besides holding her, touching her, kissing her…?
Because she asked for space. Because after a moment of pure joy, she looked spooked. She deserves her time. She deserves everything in the world, and he was, by God, going to give it to her.
Turner yelped when something shoved his shoulder hard. He spun, just barely ducking under Maisey's horn, and he found himself staring into her large dark eyes. Unicorns in paintings and statues tended to look adorable and winsome—in person they were exactly as charming as horses or goats. There was the beauty inherent in all living things, but, at the same time, you couldn’t escape seeing a certain weird dorkiness in the wide-set eyes, the long skinny legs, and, in Maisey's case, the sausage belly.
“Hey honey. What can I do for you?”
He didn’t expect an answer. It wasn’t like she was a dog or a cat, something with thousands of years of getting along with humans. He was surprised when she tossed her head towards the house, and, when he proved slow to figure out it, she took hold of his jacket with her teeth, giving him a tug.
“What? You want me to go get her back? You and me both, baby, but—”
She took another firm tug on his jacket, and then she made that huffing whistling sound that was the lead-up for a demanding scream.
“Okay, okay. It’s only been forty minutes, but I can see about bringing her back out. Calm down.”
At the door, Turner wondered if he should knock, and then remembered with a bit of chagrin that it was his place. He let himself in and then blinked because he realized that even the loudest knocking wouldn’t have been heard over the racket. It sounded like his fated mate was a fan of holiday music, and underneath the music was a whir that sounded more like a machine shop than any kind of baking he had ever done.
Turner wasn’t sure what he was going to find in the kitchen; but he was unprepared for the chaos—the kitchen table turned into a floury battleground; containers of flour, sugar, and butter mounded up like forts; and two pots bubbling away on the stove. Over all of this presided his fated mate, her hair wrenched up in a knot to reveal the sweetness of her features and an actual white smock covering her clothes. She was just turning away from the door, so she didn’t see him enter, and he watched in fascination as she switched off the machine that was making all the racket, removing a silver bowl from its stand to dump into another bowl nearby. This she wrapped in plastic wrap and stuck into the fridge, all accomplished with such an economy of motion that it was the next thing to dance.
For a second, Turner was captivated by her grace, her body so competent at her chosen work, and then he was jerked back to reality when she yelped with surprise.
“It’s you!”
“It’s me,” he said with a wince, holding up his own empty hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to scare you.”
