“Well, I’m glad it wasn’t anything serious. We’d better get back to shore and let the others know.” Harrison rolled his shoulders back. “I could fly you over, or—”
“We’ll row in,” Arlo interrupted, then paused to check with Jacqueline.
She nodded happily. After the scare with Tally, she wasn’t sure she could manage something as exciting as flying on a griffin’s back—and a short trip in the rowboat might be the last chance she had to salvage a scrap of time with Arlo, before they got back into the bustle of real life.
Tally giggled and Arlo rocked back slightly, blinking.
“She wants to fly,” he explained to Jacqueline as Tally shifted back into her seal form and started wriggling. “Harrison, you mind?”
“So long as she doesn’t start yelling again,” Harrison said gallantly, and tucked Tally under one arm. “Good practice, anyway, right?”
He shifted and leaped into the air in one smooth movement. Jacqueline leaned closer to Arlo.
“I’m assuming that noise she’s making is happy?”
“Very.” Arlo gazed into her eyes and for a moment, Jacqueline forgot what she’d been about to say. “Jacqueline…”
“Hmm?”
Somehow, their hands found each other’s. Jacqueline tangled her fingers around his.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about and this might be the only chance we have,” he said. “I should have said it earlier, but last night—and now with Tally—I’ve let every chance slip me by. I won’t let that happen again.”
Jacqueline raised her eyebrows. “Sounds serious,” she said as her heart started beating so hard she was worried Arlo might be able to hear it.
Arlo sighed. “I wanted to tell you this on the Hometide. At my workshop. Every minute since I met you. But I…” He shook his head. “I know you’ve been hurt before.”
“I… yes,” Jacqueline said slowly. “You could say that.”
“You were betrayed by the man who pledged to care for you for the rest of both your lives.”
Only because I betrayed him first. Because I couldn’t give him the one thing he wanted most from our marriage.
She pushed the treacherous thought away but even with it gone, Jacqueline’s chest tightened around her hammering heart. Another joke rose to her lips and she bit it back.
“I don’t regret anything that happened last night,” she said, instead of the jokey brush-off that had bubbled up at first. Her voice wobbled.
Arlo’s eyes sharpened with concern. “That’s not—I don’t, either,” he said, his voice gravelly. His hands tightened around hers. “I could never regret any time spent with you.”
Any time? Jacqueline’s treacherous mind took the words and spun them out into whole novels. Any time—meaning more time than just now? More time than just this weekend? Does he want to see me again? Does he want—
Jacqueline put a lid on her thoughts and pushed it down tight.
Stop over thinking it. Just listen to him.
Arlo took a deep breath. “Last night, you asked me about mates. I didn’t answer you.”
Jacqueline could see how much effort it was taking him to get the words out, and her heart was so full of sympathy that it took her another moment to realize what he was saying.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I remember.”
The lid was coming off her pot of ridiculous thoughts and emotions. She held onto it, just for now, just in case this wasn’t going where all those stupid thoughts thought it was going.
“You don’t have to say anything now,” Arlo said urgently. “I know it’s different for humans. Don’t feel like you need to answer, or say you feel the same, or—”
“It would help if I knew what it is I’m meant to be having these feelings about,” Jacqueline said gently.
“Right.” Arlo bowed his head. When he looked up, his expression was more vulnerable than Jacqueline had ever seen before. “Every shifter has a soulmate. One person, somewhere in the world, who’s the other half of their heart. Shifters know who their mate is from the moment they first set eyes on them. And I knew from the moment I first set eyes on you. Every second since then has made me more sure. You’re my mate.”