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

She nodded, and he could see her chin shaking slightly as she tried to keep her emotions in check.

He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to do that around him, but he also knew first-hand that sometimes, with grief, all you could do was power through it. Especially when it was no longer fresh.

He just had to hope that holding her hand was enough.

Because it looked like she was working her way up to something important. He didn’t know how he could tell that—he could barely see her face in the dim light off the instrument dials—but he did.

Maybe it was his wolf. Or maybe it was just his heart, meeting up with hers.

“The second answer,” Aria said, her voice calmer now, “was that we’d already fallen out of love with each other by then. I don’t tell a lot of people that, because it sounds like I’m saying his death didn’t hit me that hard. It did. He was my best friend. He set up his will to take care of Mattie and me, and I’ll always be grateful for that. We were head-over-heels for each other in high school, when I was a total ugly duckling. Before him, I didn’t really feel comfortable in my own skin. But...”

Colby waited.

“But even if he hadn’t gotten called up, we weren’t going to make it as a couple. The spark was gone, and we both knew it. It mellowed. By the end, we were just friends who happened to live together.”

He knew how that felt, too, but he wasn’t going to say that. He’d had relationships that had fizzled out because they had both known, in their heart of hearts, that they weren’t meant for each other.

But none of them had been with his best friend, none of the women had died, and none of them had ever had a kid with him. It wasn’t the same thing.

Besides, Aria was still going on, talking even faster now. She wasn’t pausing for him to insert his sympathies.

She was trying to say something, either to him or to herself, before she lost the nerve.

“For a long time, I thought that was it. That Mike had been one my real chance at having what my parents have. I’ve never felt exactly... desirable. Men don’t think about me that way. I’ve had more camp-outs than spa days and I own more hiking boots than high heels. When I put on a lot of makeup, I like how I look, but I never feel like me. So I thought: maybe the kind of love that’s really just friendship is the only kind of love I’m going to get, and I should be happy with that. It’s fine to have a relationship where the fire dies out. A lot of people do, right?”

This he couldn’t listen to in silence. “Aria—”

“But then,” she said, “I met you.”

She knows, Colby’s wolf said. In her heart, she already knows what we are to her. Don’t wait any longer to tell her.

Every now and then, Colby thought, you give some good advice.

“Aria, the way I feel about you isn’t going to change. Not ever. Except I’ll probably fall even more in love with you.”

“You’re in love with me?”

She said the words like they were something impossibly delicate, like she was in a dream that would fall apart if she handled it too roughly.

He wanted to tear to pieces every guy she’d ever met who had convinced her that she was somehow uniquely unworthy of being cherished.

What had they been thinking? How had they looked at her and seen anything other than a woman as hot as fire, full of artistic passion and love of the outdoors, warmly lit from within by how much she cared about her family and the people and animals around her, and fully inhabiting her own gorgeous, involved life?

Even if he was going to be completely shallow, how could they have missed that her legs looked terrific in those hiking boots?

“I’m in love with you,” he said. “I’ve been in love with you from the second we met.”

“I love you too,” Aria said. She still sounded stunned. “But I thought it was just me. I thought—this kind of thing didn’t really happen.”

“It happens to shifters,” Colby said.

He wanted to dispel any doubts whatsoever that she might have about whether or not his love—and desire—for her would stay true forever.

Never mind his initial plan to take things slow and be considerate of the fact that she was having a hard day. It was because she was having a hard day that she needed him. She needed the security that a fated mate could bring.

She needed a pack. Why had he ever thought humans couldn’t feel like that?

Why had he convinced himself that he was somehow uniquely unworthy of having people in his life?