The Wolf Marshal's Pack (U.S. Marshal Shifters 3)

“Seriously, though.”

She realized she was prodding mostly because she wanted to know more about him. He’d talked about his childhood, but she was woefully ignorant about his present. She knew who he was, on some essential level, but she wanted to know all the little details, too. What was his favorite sport? What did he like to read? And who were his friends?

Luckily, he seemed happy to satisfy her curiosity.

“Gretchen could pack a picture-perfect overnight bag in a scarily efficient amount of time, but she’s not much on amenities. Theo, on the other hand, is all amenities. The guy will throw in luxury freebies you wouldn’t even know existed. He comes from old, old family money, and he likes spending it on friends. It’s just fun to see what he’ll put in. He once packed me a black-tie outfit, and I don’t even know where he got it. But he needs Gretchen—or his girlfriend, Jillian—to make sure he remembers things like toothbrushes.” He grinned. “Besides, Gretchen eggs him on into including some extra-weird rich people stuff.”

Aria had heard enough workplace horror stories from her friends that she’d never felt like she was missing out by her career mostly being her and her camera. But Colby almost made her feel wistful about not having that kind of fun, friendly office to go to every day.

“They sound great. Is it just the three of you?”

“And our boss, Martin. He’s great, too. Really down-to-earth, genuinely cares about people. He’d go to the wall for any of us, anytime.” He unclicked his seatbelt. “Anything I should know about your family?”

He’d been relaxed and smiling, but then his face tightened up just a little.

“I mean, as opposed to my friends,” he added. “We already talked about my family, kind of—and you heard me tell Luke about my dad—so...”

Was he embarrassed? He would be far from the first person Aria had met to think of his friends as his family, especially when he didn’t have his dad around anymore.

But there was a time and a place to poke around somebody’s insecurities, and she had a hunch that it wasn’t “parked in her driveway, with her parents waiting inside and a killer werewolf on their tail.”

So she kept it short and to the point.

“You probably have them pegged already. Dad’s the outdoorsy type, like me. He used to be a park ranger, and he taught me everything I know about the woods.”

“Which is a lot,” Colby said. He didn’t even sound like he was trying to flatter her, just like he was noting a fact. “That nature preserve felt like your territory.”

It was funny that he’d said that almost the way Eli had—only Eli had accused her of trespassing on his territory. Colby had implied that her love for it and knowledge of it made it as much hers as anybody’s.

The same word, but a completely different feeling behind it.

“And your mom?” Colby said. “She feels more like the ‘tickets to the symphony’ type than the ‘name that bird call’ type.”

Aria laughed. “She actually does have season tickets to the symphony, so you’re right. She works as a curator at the art museum.”

“Opposites attract, huh?”

“Apparently. She wanted to get married in a church and have the reception in a ballroom, he wanted to get married outside and have the reception be a cookout. They couldn’t be more different. But they make it work somehow. They’ve always been head-over-heels for each other—it was even kind of embarrassing when I was a kid.”

“Mates,” Colby said.

“What?”

He bit his lip, with a cute oops look on his face.

“Um—that’s what my dad and his friends always called it. You know, like soulmates. People who are completely right for each other underneath, no matter how weird it seems on the surface. Sometimes people just have unbreakable bonds.”

Unbreakable would be nice. She had always grown up in the comfortable shade of her parents’ secure, obvious love for each other, but it was hard to say how often that kind of love came around. It hadn’t with her and Mike, Mattie’s dad.

And it’s way, way too soon to think about whether it has for you and Colby, Aria told herself firmly.

“Then yes,” she said, trying to steer herself back on topic. “They’re mates.”

At some point, she’d have to get into the story of Mike, but that was another thing that could wait until they were out of the driveway.

“Ready?” she said.

*