Snow Leopard's Lady (Veteran Shifters 1)

Wilson grinned. “Imagine that.” He looked up and down the street. “What else?”

“Well—we can head out of town if you want, and see some of the good vistas.” Mavis cleared her throat. “I’m afraid that most of my knowledge of the town is actually just stories about the clients I’ve gotten. You know, I’ve only been here several months myself, so I’m probably not the best tour guide. I don’t know much about the history, or anything.”

“Are you kidding me?” Wilson looked surprised. “This is the best kind of introduction to a place I’ve ever had. You know about all these people, all the local businesses—that’s the very heart of the community. I can’t imagine anything else I’d rather learn, if I wanted to get to know a place.”

Mavis hadn’t quite thought about it like that. She felt herself starting to smile. “Well—all right. Keep going, and I’ll show you a craft shop that was about to go under last year...”

Wilson started the car.

***

They spent a pleasant afternoon driving around town. Mavis was afraid she’d be monologuing the whole time, but Wilson was always very interested, asking questions, coming up with stories of Marines he’d known who’d left the service with the intention of opening their own businesses doing this or that.

After a couple hours, Wilson asked her where the locals went to eat, and Mavis directed him to Oliver’s diner. Nina, she knew, wasn’t working tonight, which was probably for the best. Mavis didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, seeing her mother having dinner with a handsome man like Wilson.

After all, he was going back to DC once the wedding was over, and he’d never have any reason to come here again. He’d probably remember this fondly as a nice vacation, where he learned some things he’d never known about small-town life, acquired some funny stories, and experienced some natural beauty.

An interlude in his busy, important DC life. Full of his military job, and his—did he have a girlfriend?

Surely he must. As good-looking as he was, with a job like his. Nice, kind, willing to listen—he must have a girlfriend. Women must be lining up at the door, for a man like that.

But if he did, he hadn’t mentioned her at all.

Mavis refused to let herself start hoping that Wilson was in fact single. Because it didn’t matter, did it? She wasn’t going to date him. He was going back to DC.

He held the door for her as they went into the restaurant. Mavis bit her lip and redoubled her mental efforts to forget how good-looking he was.

They were seated by one of the other servers, Patsy, who gave Mavis a significant look behind Wilson’s back. Mavis sighed to herself. It looked like Nina was going to hear about her mother’s not-actually-a-date no matter what.

Wilson scanned the menu. “What’s good here?”

“Everything’s good here,” Mavis told him, which was true. For a small-town diner, it put together a mean spread. “It’s not a gourmet place, but the food is always top-notch. Even my daughter’s happy to eat here, and she works as a waitress most nights.”

Wilson’s eyebrows went up. “Now that is a sign of a good restaurant. Hmm. I hardly ever eat out anymore, I should get something indulgent. Maybe the steak.”

“Why don’t you eat out?” Mavis asked, curious. It couldn’t be money, could it, with a job like his?

Crap, maybe it was money. Maybe he had some kind of massive expense—debts, or medical bills, or child support. Maybe she’d just completely overstepped her bounds—

But he was shaking his head and smiling. “Not as much of a party animal as I used to be. I’m a real homebody these days. And I do love to cook, so it seems a shame to pay somebody else to do it, particularly if I’m going to be eating by myself either way.”

Mavis frowned. “You don’t have a lot of friends in DC?”

“My good friends were in the Corps with me,” Wilson said frankly, “and most of them have either retired, or they’re still on active duty somewhere far away. And a few of them didn’t make it home.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mavis said, struck by the bleakness of that picture.

He shrugged, but the nonchalant gesture was contradicted by the air of sadness around him. “That’s military life.”

Mavis thought about that as the waitress, Ruth, appeared to take their orders. When she'd left, Mavis said, "It sounds like joining the military is signing up for a lonely life, down the road."

"Well," Wilson said, "that's not true for everybody. Most of the time, a military man—or woman—will have a family to come home to. So once you're done being deployed, you might miss your buddies from overseas, but you'll be home with your family at last."

"But you aren't married?" Mavis ventured.

Wilson shook his head. "No, I never met the right woman. Married to my job." There was a pause—was he hesitating? "And you?"

"I'm...not married anymore," Mavis said.