Chapter 1 #2
She gritted her teeth against what had to be done. “Emma, honey, let the nice man go and come to Mama.” She bent down to catch the little scamp, who abandoned her new friend as soon as her mother caught up with her.
Emma tucked up close to her heart, Tracy looked up to meet Hank’s sky-blue gaze. He looked crestfallen for a split second before he pasted a congenial expression on his face.
“Hi, Tracy,” he said, his deep voice hitting down deep in the place where her wolf howled in welcome. “Long time, no see.”
“Hello, Hank.” She couldn’t say anything else. Emotion nearly choked her as she stood, lifting her baby girl in her arms.
Emma was getting big, but Tracy was a wolf. She could easily carry Emma, who clung to her neck, though she turned her head to look Hank. Her big blue eyes watched him curiously.
“She’s yours,” Hank said, unnecessarily. “Congratulations on…your mating,” he finished somewhat lamely. Tracy didn’t hear joy in his words. Or, maybe, she was reading too much into his tone. Maybe she was hearing what she longed to hear.
He was still so tall and muscular, her mouth went dry at the sight of him.
His hair was a little longer than it had been all those years ago, but that was about the only change she really noticed.
He was still just as handsome and just as much a draw to her starved senses as he had been during their first encounter.
“I’m not mated,” she revealed on a deep breath. “But I do have the love of my life, as you see.” She bent to kiss Emma’s soft cheek, and the child giggled, the sound filling the empty places in Tracy’s heart, as it always did.
Hank looked confused, but he hid it after a second.
“I was wondering, if you haven’t already eaten, would you—and your daughter—like to have lunch with me?”
Brave man to ask her to share a meal in a lobby filled with her Pack mates. They all knew he was a cat. He smelled feline…and ferocious, she’d always thought. Forbidden.
Cats and dogs didn’t mix. At least according to her father. But she’d liked the way she and Hank had mixed during their stolen night together. She’d liked it a lot.
And the little girl wriggling in her arms was proof of that. Tracy opened her mouth to answer his question when a wave of shifter magic caught her unawares…
Hank was caught completely flat-footed by the gorgeous baby girl in Tracy’s arms. She was a joyful child, and the mischief in her baby blue eyes spoke to something in his own soul.
He’d been charmed when the little beauty accosted him in the crowd, but then, his emotions had swung into chaos when he realized the child was Tracy’s.
If Tracy had found her mate and started a family, then any hope he had of renewing their relationship had just gone up in flames.
Then, his emotions had been tugged in the other direction at her claim that she was still unmated, though she was a single mother.
He admired the strength in her voice as she spoke her truth.
Tracy had always been a powerful woman, and he’d enjoyed coaxing her into playing with him.
They were both strong shifters, but together, they didn’t have to compete for dominance. They could just…be. Together.
It had been wonderful while it lasted. An all-too-brief affair. He’d tried for the past two years and more to get back to her, but his duties to his Alpha had kept him far away.
Somehow, he had dug up the nerve to ask her to have lunch with him.
He wanted to know everything that had happened in her life since they’d last met.
He wanted to know where the child’s father was, and if he was still in the picture.
He wanted, more than anything, to have some place in Tracy’s—and now Emma’s—life.
As much of a place as she’d let him have.
He was waiting for her answer when a magical wave reached out to him. The child… The child was emitting shifter magic in a familiar pattern he had experienced a few times on Jaguar Island, now that Mark had gathered their people together and there were little baby jaguars running around the place.
But Hank had always thought wolves were different.
They didn’t usually start shifting until they hit puberty.
Didn’t they? And yet… There was no denying the magic coming from the little girl now struggling in her mother’s arms. She wanted to be put down, and even before Tracy had released the girl completely, a golden shimmer enveloped the child.
Clothes fell away, and a little furry body lay within the drape of the child’s dress.
It struggled its way out, the entire crowd in the busy lobby now watching in silence, waiting to see how she would emerge.
Something significant was going on here, but Hank barely registered their surroundings, except to note that nobody seemed intent on harming the girl or interfering with her shift.
He read the crowd as curious. Maybe overly so. But not dangerous.
Then, the little girl’s head emerged from under the fabric and…she was golden with little black spots. She was…
Sweet Mother of All! She was a jaguar.