Hard Landing

by Ophelia Sexton

  He looked forward to spending the next few months in splendid isolation on this beautiful ranch, courting her for his mate.

  Michelle's face lit up in an incandescent smile. "I'd love that. I've been thinking that I'd miss you like crazy once you left," she confessed. Then her expression sobered. "But what about the holidays? And your family? And…" She swallowed hard. "Your arranged marriage?"

  Carl wasn't looking forward to that part, but he knew with every fiber of his being that no matter what happened next, this luscious, curvy woman on his lap would be worth it.

  "Don't worry about that," he assured her. "I'll handle it. Just tell me that you want to be my girlfriend."

  She didn't hesitate. "I definitely want to be your girlfriend."

  He glanced at the clock that hung on her living room wall, over the big spinning wheel that she used when creating her videos for her social media channels.

  Colorado was two hours ahead of Alaska, so his parents would still be up. But he decided that he'd rather call them in the morning, before breakfast, when Michelle was out of the house doing her morning chores.

  He wanted privacy for whatever fireworks ensued once he told them that he wasn't going to be coming home for Thanksgiving to meet his prospective mate.

  Then he drew Michelle down and buried his face in the crook of her neck, surrounding himself with her divine scent as he used his lips and tongue and teeth to drive her crazy with desire.

  Chapter 16

  Necessary Sacrifices

  The next morning, Carl woke when Michelle's alarm went off at dawn.

  With the time difference between here and Alaska, his parents wouldn't be up for a while yet. He planned to catch them when they were having their first cup of coffee before heading out to do their own pre-breakfast chores on their ranch.

  Michelle slipped out of bed and got dressed. Then she left to feed the dogs and do her morning chores.

  Cookie and Biscuit, who had gradually warmed up to Carl, usually stayed overnight in the pasture with the goats and alpacas whenever the weather was clear.

  When it rained, Michelle brought her livestock into the barn to keep their fleeces as clean and dry as possible, even with the blankets they all wore.

  Deep in thought and rehearsing what he would say to his parents when he called them, Carl dressed, started the coffee maker, and headed over to the chicken coop to gather eggs so that he could get breakfast started.

  His phone pinged with an automated text message from CDOT, informing him that the all the roads in the area that had been affected by the recent series of landslides had now been reopened.

  That was good. He could ask Michelle for a lift to the Durango airport, and bum a flight back to his Denver-area base to collect his gear and personal belongings before returning to the ranch to settle in and pursue his courtship in earnest.

  When he returned to the house with a basket full of eggs, it was time to make the call to his pack alphas…who also happened to be his parents.

  Dammit, I'm a grown man. Why am I so nervous? he asked himself, as he started up the video conferencing app on his phone. He knew he was making the right decision, no matter how much it was about to cost him.

  "Carl!" Evelyn Jensen answered the call with a delighted smile.

  His mother was a fine-boned wolf shifter, with a few laugh lines around her mouth and crow's-feet around her blue eyes. Her blond hair, cut into a short, practical bob, was still only lightly frosted with silver.

  "Hi Mom," Carl said, returning her smile.

  Despite the knowledge that his news was probably going to really upset her in a few moments, it was still good to see her. Pack was pack, after all.

  He saw the white ruffled curtains of his boyhood home's dining room behind her, and experienced a sudden rush of nostalgia. There was a very good chance that he might never see it again after this call.

  She turned and called, "Bob! Bob, come here! Our boy's on the phone!"

  A moment later, Robert Jensen appeared on the screen, looming over Mom's shoulder and grinning at him. Dad was a big wolf shifter with light brown hair graying at the temples and a darker brown beard sporting long silver streaks. He had the same dark blue eyes that Carl saw in the mirror every day.

  "Hi Dad," Carl said.

  "Hey, stranger," Dad replied. "Rumor has it that fire season's over in the Lower 48."

  "Yeah, that's why I'm calling," Carl answered cautiously.

  His mom interrupted, still smiling, "How's your leg doing, honey? Everything healing up okay?"

  "Everything's fine, and I'm almost back to normal," Carl assured her. "Though I'm going to have an interesting scar."

  Unconsciously, he rubbed the almost-healed place on his leg. His body had closed the open wound quickly with a patch of shiny, reddish scar tissue, but the nerves and muscles beneath his skin were still knitting, and it itched and tingled.

  "That's great news," Dad said.

  "Have you booked your flight home yet?" Mom asked eagerly. "Chloe wants to know when she should plan to arrive in Anchorage. We've told her all about you, and she's dying to meet you! She's such a sweet girl. We've been talking every week by video chat, and I know you're going to love her."

  Dad added, "She's Canadian, from the Laurentian Pack of Quebec. And she's a wildlife biologist! She told us that she was really excited about the opportunity to work and live with our pack in Alaska."

  Chloe, huh?

  "About that…" Carl steeled himself for the shitstorm he was about to bring down. "I, uh, met someone here in Colorado."

  His parents both stopped smiling.

  "Oh?" Mom asked, her tone so neutral that Carl's wolf cowered.

  Defying the pack alphas was anathema to a wolf shifter, and he was about to do just that.

  "And my wolf has chosen her for our mate," he said, cutting to the chase.

  "Your wolf found its mate in the week since we last spoke to you?" Dad sounded incredulous.

  Mom added, "Your text message a few days ago just said that you'd hurt your leg and you were recuperating on a ranch somewhere. When did you have the chance to go out and court a mate?"

  With disastrous timing, Michelle entered the house. Carl heard her approaching footsteps pause, as if she were listening. But he couldn't afford to take his attention away from the most important conversation of his life.

  "She's the ranch owner. And it was love at first sight. I know, it sounds like one of those fairy tales about fated mates, right?" Carl forged ahead with grim determination. "Look, I'm sorry, but it's the truth. Her name is Michelle Hernandez, and she's amazing. Smart and kind and strong. Great sense of humor. And beautiful too."

  "Oh, honey, Chloe and the Laurentian Pack will be so disappointed if we back out of the arrangement now!" Mom said. "Are you sure that this…thing…with your—with Michelle—isn't just an infatuation? Something that you'll get over?"

  "No," Carl said firmly. "My wolf and I both think that she's the one. Our mate."

  "Hernandez," Dad said in a musing tone. "I don't remember any hearing about any Hernandez members in any of the Colorado packs. Is she from one of the New Mexico or Arizona packs? Or one of the Mexican Lobo packs?"

  "Um, she doesn't have a pack affiliation." Carl braced himself before dropping his second bombshell. "She's an Ordinary."

  "An Ordinary!" exclaimed his mother, looking shocked. "Your wolf wants to mate an Ordinary?"

  "And does she know that you're a shifter?" Dad interjected.

  "She knows everything," Carl replied. "She saw me shift the first day we met…in fact, that's kind of how we met. After crashing into that tree, and with my leg out of commission, I had to four-foot it."

  Not wanting to alarm his parents, Carl had deliberately omitted a lot of the details from the "I'm alive, don't worry about me," text message he'd sent shortly after waking up in Michelle's bedroom that first afternoon.

  "Oh?" His mother's tone had returned to the neutrality that screamed danger.

>   "Would you believe that she thought I was threatening her herd of goats?" He rubbed at the raised scar under his hair that marked the path of the rifle bullet. "Luckily, we cleared up the, uh, misunderstanding before anyone got seriously hurt, and she patched me up. My wolf took one look at her and decided that she was the one. It took me a couple of days to realize that he was right."

  His parents both traded a long look. Mom's expression was grim and unhappy. Dad just looked worried.

  "Son, are you absolutely sure about wanting to mate this Ordinary?" Dad asked, his voice gentle. "Sure enough to give up everything?"

  "And her ranch is in Colorado? You mean you're not coming home to Alaska?" His mother's eyes were sheened with gold, and her lips were pressed into a tight line.

  Carl heard Michelle's footsteps beat a quick retreat. The door between the living room and mudroom closed firmly, followed an instant later by the front door.

  She had left, presumably to give him some privacy.

  Fuck. He longed to run after her and reassure her that everything was going to be okay. But first, he had to get through the rest of this call, painful as it was.

  "Mom, Dad, I really wish I didn't have to choose," Carl said, speaking from his heart. "I love you, and I love my packmates. But Michelle is my life and my heart and my soul. So if you're going to make me choose…I choose her."

  His parents traded another one of those long looks filled with silent communication. Then, solemnly, they turned back to face their phone.

  Dad put his arm around Mom's shoulders. Carl noticed that her eyes were shiny, and she looked like she was about to cry.

  His heart pounding, Carl braced himself for the words he had never wanted to hear: the formal pronouncement of severance from pack bonds.

  To his shock and absolute relief, Dad said with a small smile, "All right, that sounds pretty darned serious to me. And I know we can't argue with our wolf spirits when they tell us that we've found the one. Congratulations on finding a mate, son. It's about time."

  Carl stared at the screen, unable to believe his ears. His shocked expression made his dad chuckle and shake his head.

  "Oh, honey, all we ever wanted was for you to be happy," Mom said, wiping at her eyes. "Will you bring Michelle to Thanksgiving, so that your father and I can meet her? And your sisters too?"

  ◆◆◆

  Her head whirling with what she had just accidentally overheard, Michelle fled to the barn and tried to busy herself refilling the barn cats' water and bowls of food.

  As usual, the near-feral Tamarindo had vanished as soon as she entered the barn, but brown-and-white Coco came over to greet her with a quick sniff and head-rub against her legs.

  Are you absolutely sure about wanting to mate this Ordinary? Sure enough to give up everything?

  She hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but once she realized that Carl was talking about her to his parents, she couldn't help listening.

  Sick guilt roiled through her belly. She hadn't realized that being with Carl would drive a wedge between him and his family.

  From what he had told her, they were very important to him.

  And they clearly weren't happy about the fact that she was just an ordinary human rather than a werewolf.

  Her shoulders slumped, and tiredness flooded through her. Carl was probably finished talking to his family by now, but she wasn’t ready to face him yet.

  Instead, she took a seat on an overturned bucket and tried to prepare herself to face the disappointment of reality.

  Because she saw now that their time together so far had been a vacation from that reality. A wonderful, miraculous vacation with a gorgeous, perfect man who'd given her the most amazing sex she'd ever had, even if they hadn't gone all the way yet.

  But the truth was, it was just a vacation, and nothing more.

  Carl had another life waiting for him. He was a werewolf, for crying out loud, and his family's reaction to hearing that he'd gotten involved with someone who wasn't a shapeshifter…hadn't been good.

  Who are you fooling, chica? Michelle asked herself. It was worse than "not good." His parents sounded like they were about to disown him over his non-werewolf girlfriend.

  She wanted to weep at the thought that she might be responsible for ruining his life.

  Carl's voice had been filled with affection every time he had mentioned his pack and his parents and sisters. They had sounded like the kind of perfect family that she'd always dreamed about and had only seen on TV.

  I can't be the one who tears his family apart. I'm not worth that. Even if he says he doesn't care, I know he'll regret it eventually. I can't do that to him.

  And even if they did try to make the relationship work over the winter, what about her ranch? What about her dreams of making a success of her Pashmina goats and alpaca?

  Wooly Mountain Ranch was her home. She loved the wild, isolated beauty of this place.

  Could she bear to return to the suburban sprawl of Denver, to be near Carl's smokejumper base?

  And if she decided to give up the ranch to be with him, what would she do with herself during fire season, when his job sent him all over the western states on short notice and for unpredictable periods of time?

  She found she couldn't bear the thought of going back to an office job somewhere.

  Her background in accounting helped her manage her ranch's finances, but every part of her recoiled from the prospect of being a full-time accountant again, stuck in the city without her beloved animals and lots of fresh air.

  She didn't know how long she sat there in the gloom of the barn, but it was long enough that Tamarindo eventually crept out of his hiding place and began to eat from his bowl, never taking his eyes off her.

  Michelle didn't want to leave the barn and do what needed doing. Every part of her was screaming in rebellion. But her accountant brain had done the math, and the figures just didn't add up to long-term happiness.

  For either of them.

  She didn't cry. She was weirdly proud of that. She just felt…numb. And terribly empty.

  From experience, she knew the dam would break eventually and that it would be ugly. But for now, she could pretend that she had everything under control, just like she'd pretended as her marriage crumbled and collapsed around her.

  The barn door slid open, admitting sunlight and a tall, golden-haired man.

  "Michelle?" Carl hesitated in the doorway. "Breakfast is ready."

  "Thanks," she said automatically, and got to her feet.

  She felt a slow and aching hundred years old, and apparently it showed.

  "Michelle, love, are you all right?" In the blink of an eye, he was standing before her, looking concerned.

  "I've just been doing some thinking," she said. "You know, when I saw that wolf menacing Alfred—"

  "Hey," he interrupted, laughing and looking strangely okay for someone who'd just had an upsetting conversation with his parents. "Alfred was menacing me. And then someone shot me."

  Even now, the reminder made her wince. Things could have gone so very tragically wrong that day.

  "Okay," she conceded. "Anyhow, after we got off to such a rocky start, I never thought that things would turn out this way…or that I'd find someone who made me so happy."

  Carl broke into a glowing smile that made her want to shrivel up with guilt. She plowed grimly ahead with her speech.

  "…but I've been thinking about it, and I can't see a way for us to be together in the long run without making us both really unhappy. Maybe, now that the roads are open again, we should just say goodbye, and remember the good times?"

  Chapter 17

  Up in Flames

  "Wait…what?" Carl asked.

  His relief and triumph at having obtained his parents' blessing for his mating vanished at the sight of the naked anguish in Michelle's face.

  She's breaking up with me? Disbelief shot through him. But she's my mate! She agreed to be my girlfriend and let me court her!

  How c
ould this be happening, especially when he'd thought that everything was going so well?

  He took her in his arms. She smelled of stress and unhappiness, and her pulse throbbed wildly, making him ache to fix whatever was troubling her. "Michelle. Hey, love, talk to me. What's going on?"

  "Your parents. I heard what they said about you giving up everything if we're together." She began shaking.

  "No, no, it's okay." He kissed her hair and held her tightly. "I think that was just a test to see how serious I really am about you. Everything's going to be okay."