“You do not have to do anything that makes you ill at ease.” His deep voice rumbled comfortably across the space between them. “My other form comes in handy in my work.”

“So much time goes by between when I shift, I sometimes forget about that side of myself.”

“I had surmised as much.” He hesitated. “I am certain your cat is just as beautiful as you are.” Her face heated. She glanced at the nav system and noticed they were only twenty miles from Riverton; a quick conversion told her it was thirty-two kilometers because she still had a hard time thinking in miles. “Did your Mum tell you anything about shifter pairings?” he pressed.

“You’ve asked twice,” she said, thinking what it might mean. “I’m guessing there is something important you want to make certain I know.”

“You are astute. Bright as well as beautiful.”

Tamara rolled her eyes. “Just tell me.”

She watched his profile, illuminated by muted lights from the car’s dashboard. “Though I did not mean for us to make love like a couple of randy teenagers in the car, it happened. So we must be careful.”

“Why? I can’t get pregnant unless I will it.”

He shook his head. “No. Not that. And shifters are immune from human diseases, so that is not it, either. Once we shift—and we will—we cannot make love in our animal forms unless we are certain we want to spend our lives together.”

Her ears perked up. This was the first time she’d heard anything like that. “Why is that?”

A muscle in his jaw worked. “When I meet your parents, I will inquire why they did not do a better job educating their offspring. Shifters mate for life. Making love in shifted form cements the bond and will make it impossible for you to love anyone but me, whether we remain together or go our separate ways. It works the same for me.”

Motivated by his seriousness, she dropped her bantering tone. “Och, I see. Mum tried to talk with me about the mate bond, but I wasn’t having any of it. Is any of this written down?”

“Ja. And carefully guarded. Are none of your brothers married to shifters?”

“None of them ever married.” She raked through her memory, recalling shrouded conversations between her parents and other shifters. “Things got so bad for us in Ireland, we hid what we were. If anyone trolled for a mate, they were damned quiet about it.”

He pounded a fist on the steering wheel. “It is why I choose to spend my time among shifters. Humans are afraid of their own shadows, but they have done a hell of a job intimidating us by slapping rules atop other rules. What I have never understood is why we did not mobilize, fight back.”

“That’s an easy one.” She blew out an exasperated breath. “When you’re taught to be invisible, well and it’s a hard habit to break.”

Chapter Eleven

Lars took them to a charming log building for dinner where they’d shared rare steaks, crisp greens, and bread fresh from the oven, along with a bottle of excellent Cabernet. They were on their third motel, had just pulled into the parking lot, when Tamara laid a hand on his arm. “Let’s just find somewhere out of town and sleep in the woods. It’s late, nearly the middle of the night. We won’t be there so long as to arouse suspicion.”

“If you are certain.” He felt protective of her and didn’t want her to be cold, or to want for anything. He’d begun to resurrect the conversation about shifter matings and mate bonds over dinner, but the restaurant had been too crowded for such a sensitive conversation.

“I’m certain. The last two inns refused cash without running your identification. Like as not, so will this one. I’d rather be out of doors than in some of the down-at-the-heels places we went past.”

He leaned toward her, inhaling her unique scent. Privately, he’d been convinced after the first motel that none of them would accept anonymous guests, no matter how empty their parking lot was. Lars nosed the big car west, heading toward Jackson on Highway 26. Though he hadn’t spent much time in this part of the United States, he recalled convoluted country, filled with buttes and mesas both to the north and south of them.

Thank Christ the car had a huge gas tank. He hadn’t been forced to use plastic since hitting the ATM machine at the Caspar airport. It would have been a piece of cake for Chen’s men to trace their emergency landing in Caspar, and easy for them to discover Lars had rented a car. What would be more difficult would be deciding which way out of Caspar to deploy manpower hunting for them—unless someone either bribed or threatened the car rental agency to reveal their destination.

Sixty-five kilometers clicked by. He’d spent enough time in the States, he made the transition from miles to kilometers seamlessly. When he figured they were about as deep in mesa country as they were likely to get, he hunted for a promising side road. No point in getting too far off the highway. He glanced at Tamara. She was dozing again. Good. She needed rest.

Running on instincts that had rarely failed him, Lars flipped the car into four wheel drive and guided it along faint, sandy roads until he was satisfied they were about as hidden as they were likely to get without a whole lot more effort. Small ice and snow patches butted up against stark rock formations. He turned off the engine. Silence, so thick it was almost palpable, rose around them.

“Are we there?” she asked sleepily.

He reached over to ruffle her hair, but she still wore the knitted cap he’d insisted she buy. “Ja, liebchen.”

She cocked her head to one side, leaning into his hand. “It’s quiet. Sure and I don’t even hear any animals.”

“There is much empty land in the United States. It is very different from Europe and the United Kingdom in that respect.”

“I was thinking—” she began.

“And here I thought you were asleep.” His chest swelled with caring for the woman next to him.

“Well, that too,” she admitted. “Now that we’re here, I’ll be taking you up on your offer.”

Lars felt confused. “What offer, fraulein?”

“Och, and I like liebchen—beloved—better. The offer to let our cats meet.” He sucked in a breath. She’d been so gun-shy, he’d just assumed that part of things wouldn’t happen for quite some time. She must have mistaken his hesitation because she added, “Isn’t it safe here?”

“Safe enough. At least I believe it to be. You took me by surprise. Give me a moment or two outside and I will let you know.” He got out of the car and inhaled deeply. The frigid night air seared his lungs, but it was fresh and dry and smelled of the desert. Of little rodents and desert plants. He dialed in his cat senses and did it again. Nothing else human was anywhere close. Beyond the distant thrum of cars on the highway, he didn’t hear or smell anything that might indicate someone was tracking them.

He walked to her side of the car and opened the door. She scrambled out, ignoring his extended hand. He felt her draw magic, concentrate it, and lunged for her arm. “Take your clothes off first, otherwise they will be ruined.”

She looked sheepish, and then began to laugh; tension bled out of the moment. “If I hadn’t already told you how infrequently I do this, I’d surely have given myself away. It’s lucky I remembered when we were back at the airport terminal before I healed myself.”

He moved next to her, tugged the hat from her head and the gloves from her hands. She bent, untied her shoes, toed them off, and tossed them into the car along with her socks and the rest of her clothes as she removed them. She was so beautiful, he just watched her body emerge, mesmerized. Though he’d seen parts of her, he’d never seen her totally nude. The perfection of her sleekly muscled form stole his breath.