Snow Leopard's Lady (Veteran Shifters 1)

"I'm sorry," Wilson replied immediately. "If this is a painful subject..."

"No, no—well, yes." Mavis had to contradict herself, because, well, it was. "But it's good to talk about it, I think. My divorce is in the final stages right now. My husband was...he was not a good man."

Wilson's mouth firmed into an expression that looked almost angry. "Sometimes I think women in bad marriages have it worse than any combat Marine. Were you—in danger from him?"

Mavis shook her head immediately. "No, he was never physical like that. It was just—he just—" She stopped.

"Please don't think you have to talk about it, if you'd rather not," Wilson said.

Mavis was frustrated with herself. "I want to. Do you ever—have you ever had something that was so terrible, and you wished you could just bring it to light, expose it to the air so that it would lose some of its potency? Be able to talk about it with people, like it was long ago and not important anymore?"

The conversation had gotten heavy fast. Mavis felt like she should apologize, back off from sensitive topics, but Wilson was leaning forward, his eyes meeting hers. And something about the look in those silver-gray eyes suggested to her that he wanted to hear her. That he wanted to take this step forward into close, intimate things.

As their eyes locked, he nodded slowly. "I feel that way about combat. It’s been years, but there are still things I saw, things I had to do... things I had to order other people to do. I understand.”

Mavis held his gaze. She could almost feel the same pain in him, the way the past could reach forward and take hold of you. “Can you talk about it now?”

Maybe if she could hear someone else’s story, it would be easier to tell her own.

Wilson was quiet for a long moment. “It’s difficult. Because I believed, and I still believe, that it's important to defend our country. But in the moment, it’s hard to know if your orders are the best thing, if you're really serving the greater good, or if you're just contributing to human suffering. And there's so much suffering in the world, and I know that I was responsible for some of it.”

There

was an endless sadness in his eyes. Mavis had to blink back tears at his words. "I'm glad you made it back," she said softly. "But I'm so sorry you had to see things like that."

"I'm sorry anyone has to," Wilson said. "When I got back, I was driven by the memories of what terrible things could happen during war. I thought that by going into administration, I could work toward making the whole system better, take a step toward peace. But you've got to be truly ambitious, truly connected, to get that high up, and I'm not enough of a politician. As it turns out."

"That's no bad thing," Mavis pointed out. "If you were that much of a politician, you probably wouldn't want the same things."

Wilson nodded. "Which is a problem, but not one I can fix, that's for sure."

There was a pause as their food arrived. Mavis realized she'd completely forgotten what she'd ordered, too caught up in the conversation. The fish, as it turned out. "Fresh-caught this morning," said Ruth as she set the plate in front of her. "And medium-rare steak for the gentleman."

"Thank you, Ruth," Mavis told her, and Ruth smiled.

"Enjoy your meal, Mavis. Enjoy, sir," to Wilson, and she left them to it.

"Very friendly staff here," Wilson commented approvingly.

"They are," Mavis said, "although I know them fairly well, because of my daughter."

"Since she's a waitress too," Wilson remembered. "She seemed like a lovely young woman, when I met her last night."

"She is." Mavis took a bite of her fish—it melted in her mouth, delicious and perfectly seasoned. She took a second to appreciate it, before adding, "I'm very proud of her for growing up as well as she did."

"You should be." Wilson took a bite, and closed his eyes in enjoyment. Mavis found herself caught by the expression of pure pleasure on his face.

Stop it, she scolded herself. She had to remember that there was nothing between them, that he lived thousands of miles away.

But would a little vacation fling really hurt?

The idea shocked her a bit. Mavis had never had a temporary fling. She and Daryl had met in college, and she'd only had one boyfriend before him. She'd never been much of a party girl, always looking for a serious relationship.

But that hadn't worked out too well for her, had it?

Still, that was no reason for her to go throwing herself at the nearest single man of an appropriate age. Mavis told herself firmly to put the idea out of her mind.

"You said you moved here to be with your daughter," Wilson was saying. "And that was recently? What brought her here?"