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“I’m not saying that because I’m leaving.”
Gabe turned toward her.
She smiled slightly. “I have a job I love. Friends. A whole life that doesn’t disappear because I came to Bear Creek and fell for a baker.”
“I wouldn’t want it to.”
He meant that. Gabe wanted Mara in his life, not a version of her who had given up everything that mattered to make fitting into his easier.
“And you have Mountain View,” she said.
“I do.” The bakery had been the center of his working life for years, and Mara knew enough about him now to understand what it meant to him.
Her fingers shifted between his. “I don’t know what this…us…looks like yet.”
“Neither do I.”
Mara looked up at him, surprised. “You don’t?”
“I know what I want. That’s not quite the same thing.”
“And what do you want?”
“You.” The word came easily. “In my life. Not only for the rest of your vacation.”
Her fingers tightened around his.
Gabe rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand. “I’m not going to pretend there’s a perfect answer just because we’re mates. You have your life. I have mine. We’ll have to figure out how they fit together.”
“And if some of that has to be long-distance?”
The prospect held no appeal for Gabe or his bear. He had waited years to find her. Now he was supposed to watch her drive away and count the days between visits? Everything in him said no. But she had a life she loved, and she had only just taken it back for herself. He was not going to make her choose.
“I’ll hate it,” he admitted. “But I’ll do it if that’s what we need for a while.”
Mara was quiet, then nodded. “Then we figure it out.”
“Together.”
She smiled. “Together.”
Mara turned her attention toward the orchard again. Gabe thought the conversation might be finished until she drew a slow breath.
“What about children?”
His heart gave one hard thump.
“Would our children be shifters too?” she asked.
“They’d inherit the shifter gene from me.”
“So little bears.”
“Little bears.”
Mara considered that for a moment.
“I can imagine it,” she said.
