“When we meet the person we’re destined to be with, we know. We can feel it. Didn’t you know?”
Shit, Kathy was right. Hope swallowed down on the sensation of panic building in her stomach. Of course she felt something, a connection more intense than anything she’d ever experienced, but that was very different from some kind of magic bond.
“No, I didn’t know!” she snapped, feeling herself scooting a little farther away from him.
“The agency should have told you!” He paused. “But they didn’t tell you I was a shifter, did they. Someone messed up.”
“Big time,” Hope agreed.
“But you feel it, don’t you? Our connection?” He leaned toward her, probably not even meaning to do it, but it was suddenly the last straw.
“I feel...like I am not prepared to have this conversation.” She swung her feet to the floor, stood up, and began gathering her clothes.
“Hope—”
“I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t enjoy myself, because obviously I did, and you’re gorgeous and nice, but I don’t even commit to a dentist this quickly!”
She knew she was babbling as she pulled on her undergarments and her dress, but as long as she kept talking, there wouldn’t be a really awkward silence, and she wouldn’t actually have to deal with what she was feeling.
Josh was simultaneously tripping over his discarded shoes and trying to disentangle himself from the trailing bedspread. “You’re right, I’m sorry, I just—”
“Where is my purse?” she muttered to herself. There, tossed on the desk chair near the door. She turned to look at Josh, who’d managed to pull on his pants and looked both chagrined and confused.
“Please,” he said. “I know you weren’t expecting this, but please give me another chance. I didn’t mean to come on too strong. I just—I want to be with you. In whatever way you’re comfortable with.”
Hope took a deep breath. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? After we’ve both had a chance to calm down and think about things.” Josh nodded, and when she turned to look, she saw him sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her go.
***
The next day, Josh tried not to stare at his cell phone. He paced in the hotel room. He read half of a book without paying any attention to it. He went down to the gym and lifted weights, a poor substitute for galloping around the ranch with the wind in his mane. He got room service and flipped channels on the TV while eating a burger that might as well have tasted like sand.
Finally he gave up and called his uncle’s cell phone.
“Hey, Josh, how’s it going?”
“Something went wrong, Uncle Rick.” He gave Rick a slightly censored version of what had happened with Hope, leaving out the more lurid details.
“Yeah,” said Rick, raising his voice above the background noise Josh could hear through the phone, “it does sound a little like you stepped in it good. But it wasn’t your fault that she didn’t know.”
“I guess I just thought that because I felt the bond, she’d feel something too.”
“Maybe she does,” Rick reassured him. “She’s just moving at a different speed from you.”
“What should I do?”
“You already know what you have to do. You didn’t call me for advice. You just wanted someone to feel a little sorry for you.”
“Do you?” The noise level on the other end of the phone rose again. A pang of longing struck him. He wanted to be back there, able to run out his problems in the cool evening breeze with the long grass tickling his legs.
Rick tried and failed to conceal the amusement in his voice. “Of course I do, son.”
“I know you’ve said that it’s different for different people. That some are like me, and know immediately, and some people take a little more time to realize it.” Josh took a deep breath and gripped his phone tightly. “Do you know what it was like with my parents? All I ever heard was that they met at the dance.”
“It was something to see, I’ll tell you that.”
Josh could almost see his uncle settling back in his recliner, ready to tell a story.
“Sixteen years old, both of them. It was the Homecoming dance, with nothing fancier than tissue paper streamers hanging from the ceiling and a sad little punch bowl in the corner. But as soon as your mom walked in and saw your dad, her face lit up and made her look twice as pretty as she already was. And your dad, you couldn’t get a coherent word out of him for a week. After that dance, they were never apart again. You’re definitely your father’s son.”