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Gabe covered her hand with his.

“I don’t know exactly what happens when my vacation ends. I still have work and a life outside Bear Creek, and I’m not pretending any of that suddenly disappeared. But I do know I’m not ready for this to end.”

Gabe bent and kissed her. There was no sense of victory in it because Scott had never been a competition he wanted to win.

When the kiss ended, she stayed close, her hand still resting against his chest. His bear remained unusually quiet, but Gabe could feel his happiness beneath his own.

Then his bear pushed gently against him. Tell her.

I’m going to.

Show her.

Gabe paused.

She knows you, his bear said. Let her know me.

Mara knew the man who baked cinnamon bears, played with Dana’s kids, and spent his mornings listening to five friends drink his coffee. She knew the man who had kissed her and made love to her and wanted more time with her than the remaining days of her vacation could ever give him.

But his bear had been there too, through every conversation, every touch, every moment Gabe had wanted her. Mara had never met that part of him.

His bear was right.

She needed to see.

Gabe eased back enough to face her. “There’s something I need to show you.”

Mara’s eyebrows rose. “Show me?”

“Yes. And this is the part where I need you to trust me, because if I try to explain it here, I’m fairly sure you’re going to think I’m crazy.”

She studied him for several seconds. Then Mara curled her fingers more firmly through his.

“I trust you.”

The certainty of it left him unable to answer immediately. He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles instead. “Come with me.”

Gabe ducked back into Mountain View long enough to tell Matilda he was taking Mara out for a while. One look at his face seemed to tell her everything she needed to know.

“We’re fine here,” she said.

Soon Gabe and Mara were heading out of Bear Creek.

Now, his bear said the moment the truck doors closed.

We have to get somewhere private first.

His bear fell silent again, and Gabe drove on.

Mara glanced toward him. “You look as though you’re having an argument with yourself.”

“Something like that.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she let it go.

Gabe’s nerves worsened the closer they came to the orchard. It was ridiculous in one sense. He had shifted thousands of times, and the change itself was as natural as breathing. He barely thought about it anymore.

But Mara had never seen his bear, and his bear had never stood in front of their mate.