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His bear considered that. Then go later.

Gabe almost laughed. It was tempting. So very tempting.

He turned his head toward Mara. Last night came back to him in pieces: the warmth of her hands on him, her smile when she said we made it, the way she had curled against him afterward as though there were nowhere else she intended to be.

It would be easy to get used to this. He could imagine doing this every morning. Only in his imagination she wasn’t vacationing in cabin seven. She was living with him in Bear Creek. Lying in his bed, in his home.

She knew a lot about him now. She knew his bakery, his friends, Dana and the kids.

And after last night she knew him in ways nobody else did.

But she still didn’t know everything. She didn’t know what he was. And she didn’t know he had known who she was to him before she’d even crossed the threshold into his bakery.

He’d kept that part of himself from her because he wanted her to want the man he was. Not because fate had chosen her for him.

And us for her, his bear added.

But last night she had chosen to be with him. She’d invited him into her cabin. Into her bed. Now, it felt wrong to keep the truth from her.

Tell her, his bear said.

Gabe watched the pale edge of morning beginning to creep across the room. I will.

Not someday. Today.

The decision brought its own nervousness, but underneath that was relief. He would explain shifters first, show her what he was, and then tell her about mates. He would give her the truth and let Mara decide what she wanted to do with it.

She’ll love me, his bear said with utmost confidence.

Let’s hope so, Gabe replied, although he couldn’t stop the small seed of doubt that sprouted inside him. What if she didn’t? What if the whole thing freaked her out?

She’s meant to be with us, his bear insisted.

But no matter how much Gabe believed in fate, did he believe it was infallible? He looked at Mara’s hand lying open on the pillow. Fate could bring her to his door. It couldn’t make her stay once she knew. That was hers to decide, and she had only just come out of eight years with a man who decided her future without telling her. What if his bear was one thing too many?

Even his bear had no answer to that.

Gabe dressed quietly, collecting clothes from the floor and trying not to think too much about how they had ended up there. Before he left the bedroom, he tore a sheet from the small notepad beside the bed and wrote a quick message.

Gone to bake. Back when I can.

Gabe

He left it where Mara would see it when she woke, then bent and pressed a kiss to her hair. “See you later,” he murmured.

As Mara slept on, Gabe pulled the bedroom door almost closed behind him, left the cabin, and headed for Mountain View.

He wouldn’t be able to leave until Matilda arrived later that morning, but when she did, he intended to put together breakfast, bring Mara coffee exactly the way she liked it, and get back to cabin seven as quickly as he could.

The bakery was dark when Gabe let himself in. He switched on the lights, tied on his apron, and moved through the familiar rhythm of starting the day. The ovens began to heat while he mixed dough and checked what he had prepared the afternoon before, and soon the warm smells of coffee, yeast, and cinnamon pushed away the cold that had followed him inside.

It was good to have his kitchen back to himself. After they had finished baking for the charity bake sale, Karina and her staff had collected all their equipment and cleaned the kitchen. It was almost as if the whole kitchen disaster had never happened.

But it had happened. And maybe he had that disaster to thank for giving him a reason to spend so much time with Mara.

So fate broke Karina’s ovens? Gabe’s bear said.

Let’s not share our hypothesis with Karina, Gabe replied as he got down to some serious baking.