“Humans don’t feel the mate bond,” Cooper said, and it almost startled her to realize that he was still thinking only about her. She’d only been thinking about him. “Not like that. Maybe they’re attracted, maybe they fall quickly, but—”
“But they don’t do it with prisoners,” Gretchen said.
Was he right? She thought back to what she knew of mates from her family and her friends.
Jillian had been interested in Theo right away—but the most that had stood between them was his unfortunate task of seizing her criminal father’s ill-gotten gains. Jillian hadn’t liked her dad, so even though the experience had been hard, she’d been ready to cooperate with law enforcement.
Tiffani hadn’t been able to resist Martin—but since he was just the handsome, warm-hearted hero who was everything her rotten ex wasn’t, why would she have wanted to?
Aria had been head over heels for Colby from the start—but he’d been both her biggest fan and the man assigned to protect her from a homicidal werewolf.
Their paths to love might not have been smooth, but they hadn’t had an enormous hurdle right out of the starting gate the way Gretchen’s had.
But her little sister Tricia, the same one who had been coaxed and bribed into biting her, had wound up with a human mate, a woman named Bonnie. Bonnie had still been in the closet when she’d first met Tricia, and she stayed there for almost a year after that, too. She had spent a while running from their obvious chemistry because she’d known a relationship with Tricia would change her life completely, and it had terrified her. They were happy and comfortable now, but it had taken months for them to get that way.
Whatever Bonnie had felt about Tricia hadn’t been enough to automatically make her willing to overturn her whole life and risk her family’s disapproval.
But Gretchen had been willing to do that for Cooper.
And sure, there were a lot of reasons for that, and Bonnie had still probably had the harder fight, but—
She knew. She knew just like he did.
“I’m a shifter,” she said, stunned.
When she said it out loud, she knew it was true.
But it changed so little that she had to laugh.
“I’m a shifter who can’t shift. I don’t know that that means much, then, Coop.”
“It means you’re still stronger than most humans,” he said earnestly, “and you can heal faster.”
“My insurance provider will be happy to hear that. My mom will be too.”
“And it means that we might be able to figure out what your shift form is, if it isn’t a lynx. That might help you turn into it.”
She breathed in sharply. “You mean that?”
“Sure. You couldn’t shift before, but weren’t you always trying to turn into a lynx? You were reaching for something that wasn’t there. But something is there, so maybe it’s just not what you were looking for.”
It made sense. And if it was too close to fulfilling every dream she’d had since she was old enough to understand what made her different from her siblings... hadn’t he already made some other dreams come true?
She kissed him again, lingering on the taste of his lips, and then said briskly, “We can worry about that later. For right now, we still have a couple of killers on our tail, and I don’t want to lead them to Ford if I can help it. We need to get out of here.”
She stood, naked, and walked over to the window, opening the curtains just enough to confirm that the snow had stopped. The roads would be bad for another few hours, but the plows would already be getting started. They could get out of here soon.
She took a deep breath. “If I can get a signal, I’m going to call Martin.”
Cooper said, “What are you going to tell him?”
“Everything. We can trust him.”
“If you trust him, I trust him. He definitely seemed like a good guy when I worked with him. But we’re putting him in a hell of a difficult position. He’s still a Deputy Chief Marshal.” He swung his feet down to the floor. His gaze was intent on hers. “And you’re still a Marshal, Gretchen. You’re even more of a Marshal than you are a shifter. I can’t let you give that up.”
“I’m not giving that up.” She wasn’t one hundred percent sure that was true, but it felt like the right morning for being hopeful. “I’m too much of a workaholic to just shrug off my life and say we should head to South America and try living on a beach somewhere in a country that doesn’t have extradition. Besides, I have nieces and nephews who are going to be expecting birthday presents from Cool Aunt Gretchen, and there’s no way I’m not going to be around to see Theo and Jillian have their baby. We’re not going to throw my career away. We’re going to get yours back.”
“How?” he said, sitting up even straighter. His face was shining.
She deflated a little. “Okay, admittedly I haven’t figured that out yet. But I’m not giving up, and neither should you.”
“As long as I’m with you,” Cooper said, “it’s pretty easy to be hopeful.”
*
So she called Martin. The landlines were still down, but she at least had some spotty cell phone signal.
He answered at once. “Gretchen, thank God. The storm hit so fast last night that I was worried.”
“I’m fine, and so is Cooper. He tore some of his stitches last night, but he’s doing a lot better now. How’s Keith?”
“Out of the woods. He signed out of the hospital about an hour ago, so he got out of there before they noticed how much he was on the mend. We’re looking after him, but he’s more or less back on his feet.”
“Good. Tell him I’m glad. He wasn’t bad in the field, you know, not when it came right down to it. I think he’ll shake out okay.”
“Mm,” Martin said.
“You sound skeptical.”
“Not about Keith. I’ve been saying that all along.
