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Gabe’s expression softened. “To tell you everything.”

Mara tightened her fingers around his. “Then you’d better listen to him.”

“There’s something else about shifters. We have mates. One person we’re meant to find, and when we do, we know.”

Mara held his gaze. “Know how?”

“We sense them.” Gabe paused as if choosing his words carefully. “That first morning, before I ever saw you, I sensed someone getting closer. My bear understood what it meant before I did. By the time you reached the bakery door, there was no doubt.”

Mara stared at him as that first morning rearranged itself in her memory. His distraction. The way he had looked at her. The strange awareness she had felt almost from the beginning. He had stood behind that counter knowing, while she pointed at pastries and wondered if she had spilled something on her shirt. She had called it chemistry. What had he called it, that first morning, watching her choose a cinnamon bear?

“You knew I was your mate before we’d even met.”

“Yes.”

“That explains a few things.” She turned toward the old trees, trying to fit this new truth around everything she already knew about him. “Is that why you were so careful with me?”

“Yes. I knew what you were to me. You didn’t know me at all. Those aren’t the same thing.”

“Does this bond make me feel something too?” Mara asked. “Is that why I was attracted to you?”

“No. What I feel is mine. What you feel is yours.” Gabe squeezed her fingers gently. “Some human mates say there was a pull they couldn’t explain, or that something felt different before they knew why. But not certainty. The bond didn’t make you kiss me. It didn’t make you sleep with me or come looking for me this morning. Those choices were yours.”

CHAPTER 22

Gabe

For a moment after Gabe told her the choices had always been hers, Mara said nothing.

She still held his hand, her thumb moving once across his knuckles as she looked out through the old apple trees. Gabe waited. He had spent days wondering what would happen when she finally knew everything, but now that she did, all he could do was give her room to decide what it meant to her.

When she looked back at him, her expression was thoughtful rather than uncertain.

“What does being your mate mean you expect from me?” she finally asked.

“Whatever you want it to mean,” he said.

Mara watched him closely. “That’s not really an answer.”

Gabe gave a small nod. “It doesn’t mean you have to stay in Bear Creek, move in with me, marry me, have children with me, or change your life because I knew what you were to me before you knew me.” He tightened his fingers around hers. “Those things are ours to decide. Together, if that’s what you want.”

Her mouth softened. “And if we don’t?”

The question hurt, but that didn’t change the answer. “Then being your mate still wouldn’t give me the right to decide for you.”

Mara stepped closer. “I came looking for you this morning because I wanted you. I did that before I knew you were a bear. Before I knew anything about mates.”

His bear stirred inside him. She wanted us before she knew.

And she still does, Gabe answered.

Mara leaned her shoulder against him, and Gabe slipped his fingers more securely through hers. For a little while they stood without speaking, looking through the old orchard toward the mountains while the breeze stirred the leaves around their feet.

“My vacation ends soon,” she said.

Gabe had known from the first day that Mara was only visiting Bear Creek, but over the last week that fact had become surprisingly easy to ignore.

“I know.”