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“Colton, would you show me your turtle?” he asked, and Colton being Colton ran to the pool and jumped in, shifting in midair.

“Showoff.” I rolled my eyes, and Scotty and I both went to the pool’s edge.

“He’s…I had in my mind these tiny little turtles, but look at him. He has to be what? Four feet long?” Scotty knelt down, watching Colton intently.

“He’s alpha. I’m not as long, but I’m just as adorable.”

“I never said he was adorable.” He looked back at me. “Is that what people say?”

I gave a nod.

“No, not adorable. Graceful. Magnificent. Stunning. But not adorable.”

No one had ever described us that way before and even though this was about Colton, it still hit me.

“Let me see your beast.” I watched as Scotty took two steps back and called forth his fur. He stood there slightly taller than I for a few seconds then went on all fours, his head brushing my bare skin.

“Wow.” Words were evading me. Wow would need to do.

He rubbed up against me and then dove into the water and paddled to our mate.

I dove in after him, shifting once I was in the water.

Scotty could swim. I didn’t know a great deal about bears, but I had some stereotypes in my head, and one of them was that only polar bears swam this gracefully. How wrong I’d been.

We swam, played, and let our beasts get to know each other for hours. I couldn’t remember such a fun day. Not this kind of fun, anyway.

And when it was time to get out and go home, we did exactly as planned, spending the rest of the day in our rooms…naked.

EPILOGUE

SCOTTY

“You should rest,” Mateo said for the fifth time. In theory, he was right? I was about to have a baby—our baby—and that took a lot of energy out of you. But he was forgetting something really important: it was leaf peeping weekend.

While it was not an official holiday, it was around here. The tourists dried up for a few weeks as summer turned to fall, but the second a leaf turned red, they were flooding back in for a weekend getaway. In theory, this weekend was predicted to be the pinnacle of the season, and there was no room in town anywhere.

Unlike when I first came and the guests were all there for work, these people were here for the full experience. Mateo had even worked a couple of boat tours earlier this morning to help with the influx of people. For the most part, I was able to do less taxing things such as making hot cider for those who wanted it after a brisk walk

But it was time to turn over all of the rooms and that meant manual labor for all of us.

“I will sleep in tomorrow,” I promised. “I’m not even doing the hard stuff. Colton stripped all the beds and brought down the towels. I’m just loading the machine, switching to the dryer, and folding. It’s no big deal.” And with our new larger capacity machines, it really wasn’t.

“You’re growing a human,” he said sternly.

I wasn’t. Not really. I was growing a shifter, but with guests likely to post their head in and ask a question about the town, we used the word human.

“I am.” I smiled brightly and folded another towel. “And once we get things taken care of here, I’ll relax.” Only the towels were left. The beds made, the bathrooms cleaned, the floors vacuumed. “And you’re folding twice as fast as I am, so we will be done soon.” Gods I hoped that was the truth. My back was killing me, our baby was playing soccer on my bladder, and I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a week.

“Go lie down.” Colton came up behind me and settled his hands on my rounded belly. I hadn’t even heard him enter the room. “I’m done upstairs, and I can finish here.”

“I feel like you two are in on this nap plan together.” I leaned into him. “Is it all a ploy to get me naked?” I was teasing. So very much teasing. Until about a week ago, I couldn’t get enough of them. But things had changed.

The midwife said it was a sign the baby was near. I surely hoped so. I was at the point in this pregnancy where I was out of breath walking up the stairs, I waddled instead of taking normal steps, and my belly went through the doorway way before I did. I was done. Put a fork in me done. Only problem was our little one didn’t want to get out. Nope. They liked it in there very much.

“I don’t think either of us would say no to that.” Mateo winked at me. “But it will have to wait until after your nap.”

“Fine. I’ll go and be a slug.” And really sex sounded delightful.