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Then I had packed cupcakes.

As cover stories went, mine lacked sophistication.

My phone vibrated in the cup holder.

Patty: ARE YOU HERE YET???

I scrolled and found another message that had been sent twenty minutes earlier.

Hudson: Drive carefully. The gravel gets loose near the last curve.

Too late for that advice, but the message squeezed at my heartstrings anyway.

I picked up the bakery box from the passenger seat, took a breath, and opened the door.

The sound assaulted me. Laughter. Music. Children yelling. Several conversations happening at once. A dog barked from somewhere behind the building, though after recent revelations, I no longer trusted any four-legged animal to be exactly what it appeared.

I balanced the cupcake box against my hip.

Nobody noticed me immediately. That was good. It gave me time to walk twenty feet toward the building before panic took over.

Then a man stepped off the porch. I knew who he was before he started walking toward me.

I hadn’t seen a photo of him where his face hadn’t been obscured by distance, sunlight, or another person. Still, something in the way he moved carried the same grounded certainty as his messages. People gave way around him without being asked. A little boy handed him a ball while he passed, and Hudson caught it one-handed, tossed it back, and never broke his stride.

He was tall—six feet and three inches of pure presence—with a golden tan that made it clear he spent most of his life in the sun. He had jet-black hair, just long enough on top that it settled into thick, heavy waves, and a strong nose with a distinct, slightly crooked bend on the bridge that gave his face a rugged symmetry.

But it was his eyes that enthralled me—a piercing, vibrant green so striking it felt like they belonged to a different world entirely. The combination made him look less polished than I’d imagined, and considerably more dangerous to my ability to think. He wore jeans, boots, and a dark green T-shirt that fit him well enough to leave nothing to the imagination concerning his muscles.

Then he looked directly at me. Everything around us continued moving, but none of it reached me.

The music faded until all I could hear was my blood rushing in my ears. The conversations, footsteps, and distant laughter became part of another dimension. Hudson slowed several feet away, the expression on his face changing. Recognition came first. Then surprise. Then something warmer that made my fingers tighten around the cupcake box.

“Sloane?” His mouth shaped my name exactly the way I’d imagined it during late-night conversations, which felt unfair on several levels.

“Hudson.” That was all I managed.

Excellent beginning.

Weeks of messages, personal confessions, jokes, reminders, and emotional support, and my first spoken contribution was his name.

His gaze moved over my face, then lowered briefly before returning to my eyes. He didn’t stare, exactly, but the look lasted long enough for heat to gather beneath my skin.

“You made it,” he said.

“I did.”

Neither of us moved.

I had pictured this moment many times, usually while brushing my teeth or waiting for a file to export. In some versions, I was charming. In others, I made him laugh immediately. In all of them, I knew what to do with my hands.

Reality had left me with no remaining motor skills.

Hudson seemed to notice. “Let me take that for you.”

When he reached for the box, our fingers brushed. A small current traveled through my hand and settled inconveniently in my core. His eyes met mine again. The pause lasted only a second, but it contained enough awareness to make me wonder whether wolf shifters could hear thoughts.

That possibility hadn’t occurred to me before.