Paths she hadn't taken was a theme that seemed to apply to a lot of her life lately.
The evening was a tapestry of purple and magenta, sparkled with stars. The garden was well enough away from main areas of the resort that it was dark enough to see the features of the moonless sky, framed in the jungle trees that edged the garden.
Jenny’s marveled in her otter’s night vision. If she weren’t so busy resenting the otter’s constant voice and unwelcome features, there were parts to being a shifter that she could grow to like.
She paused at a vine of white flowers that were climbing riotously up a trellis and reached for one of the blooms.
“Don’t pick them,” Travis warned.
Jenny froze. “Poisonous?” she asked.
Travis’ laugh was her new favorite sound, and her otter practically did backflips of joy over the sound. “No, Graham is just really, really possessive about his gardens. I wouldn’t let him hurt you, but I’m not entirely convinced I would win in a fistfight.”
Jenny glanced over at him, letting her eyes linger over the muscles under his polo shirt. She couldn’t imagine that anyone would be able to beat him in a fistfight. He was not only broad shouldered and strong, but he moved with a grace and efficiency of motion that made Jenny suspect he was underestimating his own proficiency.
Either way, she didn’t want to be the cause of any more trouble at the resort than she already had been, and she left the flower unmolested.
There was a bench tucked into one corner under a violet-flowered shrub, and they sat together. It was a small enough bench that Travis’ thigh was against Jenny’s, and she was keenly aware of how badly she wanted to have less clothing between them even than her thin skirt and his mid-weight khakis.
“I never meant to cause you discomfort,” Travis said, awkwardly clearing his throat.
Jenny put an automatic hand on his thigh. “It wasn’t you,” she said, realizing how trite it sounded. “It was all me. I was… I am… in a really weird place. I don’t want you think I’m not… ah… interested.”
“I’ll be patient,” Travis told her sincerely. “I’ll make Lynx be patient.”
“No promises about my otter,” Jenny laughed weakly. “I don’t think patience is her strong suit.”
Something occurred to her. “You say ‘Lynx’ like it’s capitalized. Not ‘my lynx,’ or ‘a lynx,’ but ‘Lynx.’”
“I grew up in a native village in Alaska, and our shifter lore goes back to old stories, about times when Lynx and Raven and Bear were spirits that roamed the world in their own skins.”
Travis’ voice caught a little as he spoke and Jenny realized that she had unconsciously started caressing his thigh.
Down girl, she told her otter, making her hand still. She wasn't quite willing to remove it.
“So you think of it as a spirit animal, or a totem?”
“Essentially, yes,” Travis said.
Somehow, when she thought of her otter, it was too frivolous to be considered a serious totem animal.
One of us has to not take themselves too seriously, her otter replied with a sniff.
“Tell me about growing up in Alaska,” Jenny said wistfully.
“I lived in a tiny village near the Brooks Range,” Travis said. “You’ve never seen a land so beautiful and harsh. The summers are full of light and mosquitoes, the winters are endless twilight and cold so sharp it makes your nose hairs frost.” He carefully covered her hand with his own, lacing his fingers into hers. She was glad the webbing hadn’t come out in this shift.
Jenny and her otter both listened, enthralled, as Travis talked about a world so different from the mild-climate city life that Jenny had grown up in. His tales about the winter were an odd contrast to the warm, fragrant darkness they sat in now.
“Tell me about California,” Travis suggested then.
Hesitantly, Jenny talked about growing up in the city-sprawl of Southern California. “I looked up to my dad so much. I always wanted to be a lawyer like he was. It was my whole goal in life.”
“You must be pretty good at it,” Travis said. “Laura said you were offered a partnership.”
Jenny shrugged. “I’m not sure. I mean, I worked hard, but maybe it was just because my dad had been a partner…”
“I don’t know much about law,” Travis said, richly skeptical, “but I’m pretty sure they don’t give partnerships just for your genes. Have you ever heard of imposter syndrome?”