Panther's Passion (Veteran Shifters 3)

“Sure.” Lynn took a seat at the table with her. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Lynn usually wasn’t an insomniac like Stella. “Something wrong?”

“Apart from a stalker going after my little sister?” Lynn asked wryly. “Nope, nothing. Ken’s out overnight, is all, and I don’t sleep as well when he’s gone.”

Her voice grew gruffer as she finished the sentence, and she looked away, a little flush rising in her cheek. Lynn hated admitting to weakness, and for most of their lives, Stella would’ve said she’d rather die than be dependent on anything or anyone.

But she’d changed, since being with Ken.

“Nate and I are mates,” Stella blurted, her hands tightening on her mug.

Lynn stared at her.

And despite all of her anxiety about—everything, about Todd and the future and telling her big sister something so profoundly important—Stella felt a little twinge of satisfaction at having blindsided Lynn so thoroughly.

They’d come a long way in their relationship, but Stella was always going to have a tiny bit of the bratty little sister inside her.

“You? And Nate?” Lynn managed.

Stella nodded. “Believe it or not.”

Lynn went to the kettle and poured herself some tea. She stood there for a long minute, then shook her head, and came back to sit down. “And here I was trying so hard not to lecture you on sleeping with your bodyguard.”

Shifter senses meant that Lynn couldn’t have missed what was going on. Stella refused to be embarrassed.

“Nate’s calling in a friend,” she said instead. “So he’ll have some backup that isn’t so...involved. He said that was best.”

“Well, good,” Lynn said stridently, her normal self starting to come back. Then she shook her head, wonderingly, and started to laugh. “What are the odds? Me and Ken, and you and Nate?”

“Maybe we’re all meant to be together,” Stella said, smiling. “A big family.”

Lynn softened at the thought. “That might be nice.”

“Lynn, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Stella said in a rush. “Nate works in Chicago. And I should be dying to get out of here for good—I always was, before—but somehow it’s different now. Eva wants to stay, and I like—I like living here with you.”

She and Lynn felt more like sisters than they ever had before. Stella had to admit to herself that she really didn’t want to lose that, not when they’d just found it.

Lynn was thinking, her brows coming together in a frown.

“Does he have to be in Chicago all the time?” she asked finally. “Could you spend some time here, and some time there? If Eva wants to stay here all the time, she can stay with us.”

Stella considered that. “I guess...it depends on our jobs,” she said finally. “I couldn’t just flake out on the diner all the time.”

But if you were an artist, you could work anywhere... said an earnest voice in her head that sounded a lot like her daughter.

“And I don’t know what his work would put up with,” she finished firmly.

“Well,” Lynn said, “talk to him about it, I suppose.” She took Stella’s hand in a solid grip. “You should be happy. I want you to be happy.”

Stella smiled helplessly. Yes, she was so grateful for this new relationship with her sister, she could hardly put it into words. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “I am happy. I’ve never met a man like him before.”

“I know the feeling,” Lynn said, heartfelt, and they laughed together.

***

In the morning, Nate’s friend Carlos arrived.

Stella was struck immediately by how he was dressed—nothing like Nate’s habitual casual look of jeans and a T-shirt, nor like Ken’s standard outdoorsman wear. No, Carlos Gonzalez was wearing a slick, expensive-looking suit.