She drove the same short stretch of highway for the third time that day, this time with a sense of excitement, missing during the first two trips. Stopping at the first motel she came across, JV rented a room. She carried her bags inside without taking time to unpack, she pulled the holstered pistol from her waistband and set it aside, then she lay back on the bed to decide what to do next. 

She'd made the first move. Hopefully he would make the next one but she didn't expect it to be that easy. She'd suspected he was her potential mate, and she was one for him, for a number of years. However, he believed he was too old for her. Why else would he have left and never come back? Admittedly, ten years had been a big age difference.

Seeing him again confirmed it, at least from her point of view. By the way he responded to her kiss, she was almost certain he felt it too. When she considered that she could touch him, actually skin to skin, without pain, it only made her more determined to take the chance. Even so, she had to convince him that a relationship between them wasn't wrong - she wasn't a child anymore. She lay there for a long time, trying to figure out how to convince him to give her, and them, a chance.

The sound of knocking on her door, made JV jump. Her thoughts had been so tangled, she hadn't noticed footsteps approaching or stopping outside her door. Her body flashed hot, then instantly cold as panic flooded her. She fought the urge to hide. Instead, she took a deep breath and pushed it back. She'd been careless. She had to pay more attention. Grabbing her Smith and Wesson .38 Special from the table beside the bed, she pulled it from the holster and went to the door. 

Looking through the peep hole, a woman who looked a little younger than herself looked back she had dark hair pulled away from her gentle face. JV took a careful breath, trying to pick up the woman's scent through the door, but got nothing. She opened the door slightly and found the younger woman wasn't alone. There was a man with her. He wasn't much taller than the woman, but he was several years older and stocky. It looked like it might take a truck to knock him over, not someone JV wanted to have to fight.

"Yes?" JV kept her body behind the door, the arm with her pistol held close to her body, out of sight but ready, just in case.

"Hi, I'm Rebecca Hastings. I'd like to talk to you, if I could?" The younger woman was bouncy and perky, something JV hadn't been in a long time.

With the door open she could pick up their scents, both of her visitors were Kitsune, shifters like herself, but the woman carried the scent of the Kahn, not the man with her. She suspected she was meeting the local Karhyn, the head female in the clan and the Khan’s mate. She tucked the small revolver into the back of her jeans then stepped back. She kicked the holster she’d dropped in her haste to get to the door, under the bed and out of sight, then opened the door to make room for them. She wasn't particularly comfortable letting a man she didn't know into her room, if it had been him alone she wouldn't even have answered the door, but if this was the Karhyn then he was likely her enforcer, her bodyguard. She knew better than to try to bar him.

Rebecca seemed to sense JV's anxiety, "Bobby, this is the only door, why don't you stay out here and let us have a little girl talk?" She looked at the man for a second, seeming to communicate without words.

He met her look, then nodded silently. He watched her enter the room, and once she was inside, he leaned against the wall between this door and the one next to it. He seemed content to wait there as JV closed the door. 

Inside, Rebecca made herself at home. She glanced around the tiny room, then sat on the foot of the bed. "My husband said you were pretty, but he didn't tell me you were beautiful." 

JV didn't know what to say. The last thing she wanted to do was to piss of the clan leaders while trying to convince their head enforcer that she wasn't the child he still thought her to be. 

Rebecca took a deep breath, "Let me back up. I'm Rebecca."

"You said that already." JV was uncertain as she sat in the only chair at the small table. Her pistol dug into her back as she trapped it between her body and the hard cushion. The slight pain reminded her she wasn't helpless and helped keep her panic at bay.

"You met my husband, Nick, a little while ago." Rebecca watched her as she spoke. 

JV nodded, she’d figured that much out for herself.

"He said you came to see Steve?" Rebecca made it a question, as if hoping JV would elaborate. When she didn't, Rebecca continued, "Steve's been a part of this clan longer than I have, he was the Shaku when I got here. He does his best to protect Nick and me, and I'd do a lot to protect him in return." 

"You're here to ask my intentions?" JV realized. For some reason the idea amused her. 

Rebecca gave a wry smile, "In a way, yes."

JV sighed. She looked away for a moment, staring sightlessly at the mirror across the room as she tried to decide how much to share. She needed someone she could talk to, someone on her side. She needed a friend. But first, she had to come clean, "I'm gonna be honest with you. I've got a weapon. I'm not threatening you, but I need to move it and I need you not to call your enforcer because of it." She watched the other woman, looking for signs she was going to call out to the man outside.

Rebecca's eyes widened, "Okay." 

JV reached behind her and pulled the gun from her waistband. Laying the weapon on the table beside her, she leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees as she dropped her head in her hands.

"How did Bobby not smell that?" Rebecca looked at the weapon, then back to JV. 

JV glanced at the gun, then back at the floor, dismissing the weapon she kept nearby, always. "I've masked the scent." It was something she was normally proud of, it had taken a lot of trial and error to get it right, but that wasn't what was important right now.

Still looking at the floor, JV tried to decide how to start, before meeting the other woman's gaze. "My name is JV. I've known Steve since I was a child. He was my brother's best friend the whole time we were growing up. He was always around when I was little. I wasn't a teenager yet when he joined the military, but I was older when he got out and came home. There was something new between us then, a draw that I don't know if I could have fought at seventeen. 

“Then, suddenly I didn't have to. He was gone. It took me a long time to realize he was right to leave. I waited for him to come back for ten years, now I'm through waiting." She was leaving a lot out, but Rebecca wasn't the one she needed to share it with. 

"So you decided to come after him?"

"Pretty much."

"What, exactly, do you have planned?" Rebecca looked intrigued, "If you don't mind my asking, that is."

"I don't really have a plan. I only had one thing in mind when I left Austin yesterday. Now that I've seen him, I've got to figure out what my next step is."

"Is that what you had in mind, to see him?"

"Not entirely, but that was part of it." JV hesitated, "It had been so long since I'd seen him, since I'd felt it, I had to see him again, see if it was really there." 

"And---?" Rebecca’s interest seemed genuine.

JV looked at the ceiling a moment, then back at Rebecca, "I was right. It's there." 

"You feel the instinct don't you?" 

She knew what the clan leader meant. She'd heard about it growing up, but it hadn't been all that important. Her family hadn't pushed her to find a mate, they were more concerned that she make a good match. A mate was someone a shifter could form a bond with that is as magical as their ability to change shapes, JV looked away again, then swallowed and met her gaze. "Yes, ma'am."

"What about Steve, does he feel it too?" 

"From the way he reacted today, I think so."

"So, what are you going to do about it?" 

"I don't know. I didn't think that far ahead." 

"Do you want him to go back with you?" Rebecca tilted her head to one side and watched JV. 

JV, still lost in thought, gave her head an absent shake, "No, I don't expect that. He has a life here. I have no intention of making him leave it."

"What about your life, in Austin, didn't you say?"

"What life? I grew up in our tiny hometown and left to go to school. I've only been back for visits, to both my family and his, since I was nineteen. I've lived in Austin since I got out of school, a little more than five years ago. I've had a couple of jobs and there are a few old coworkers I talk to now and then, but I don't have any real friends, nothing to keep me there."

Rebecca nodded slowly, thinking, "What if he says no?"

"He already said no. He told me," she glanced at the clock beside the bed, "not two hours ago that I'm wasting my time. I should go home." 

"Of course he did," Rebecca wasn't surprised. "He's too used to everyone, including me, doing whatever he says. What I meant was,  in time, if he doesn't see things differently, then what?"

JV took a deep breath, "I honestly don't know," she paused, "I didn't come all this way to give up. He left to get away from me. I knew it then and I actually understand it now. I was a kid, and it was more than just being underage. I was sheltered and naive. He was ten years older and far more mature. To me, he was larger than life and I was awed by him. If he'd stayed, I would have pursued him. I was as tenacious then as I am now, but I was still a child, with simple ideals. I think he saw that and left. I respect that, but I'm not a child anymore." 

"You don't mean to take no for an answer?" 

JV was silent a moment, "I won't force him, but I'm not going to give up easily, either."

"Are you sure he feels the instinct too?" 

JV understood why she asked. It wasn't unheard of to feel the mating instinct for someone who didn't feel the same for you. It wasn't really a big deal, most just stayed away from each other and kept looking for another potential mate. It wasn't like the instinct was flawless; it just helped shifters find the ones they could form a deeper bond with. 

She looked at the other woman for a long minute, then decided to hell with it, she might as well tell her everything. "When I pulled into town this afternoon, I wasn't even sure I'd felt it. For all I knew, I had imagined it or thought it could have been the wishful thinking of an infatuated teenager. 

"Then I saw him. The moment I caught his scent it came back, stronger than I remembered. I tried to get him to admit why he left, but he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about." She looked down, refusing to look at Rebecca as she made her confession. "So I threw myself at him. I kissed him with everything in me. I could have believed he doesn't feel it if he hadn't, just for a moment, returned my kiss with the same hunger."

Rebecca was silent a moment, "All right." She stood, taking charge, "first things first. You can't stay here. Gather you're things." She issued orders like she was used to having them followed without questions.

"Of course I am. Where else would I stay?"

Rebecca gave her a questioning look. "JV, how can you seduce a man from more than thirty minutes away? Steve comes into town once, maybe twice a week, less once snow falls and that's not far off. If you stay here, it'll be too easy for him to avoid you." Her voice softened, "Come back out to our place. We have a spare bedroom. You can stay there until you can convince that stubborn man to open up."

"How will the Kahn feel about me staying there?" JV asked. 

Rebecca gave a secretive smile, "You leave him to me. Honestly, he won't have a problem with it. He's got more insight than people realize."

"I don't know," JV hesitated.

"If you don't do it, you'll never know if you lost him because you didn't do everything you could."

JV had to admit, at least to herself, Rebecca was right. If she had any hope of wearing him down, she couldn't give him the option of retreating or hiding. She had to be close enough to be in his face all the time. She had to be where she could catch him with his guard down. 

JV nodded, picked up her pistol, retrieved the holster from where she’d kicked it under the bed and stuck them both back in waistband of her jeans. She grabbed her jacket and slipped it on, making the gun invisible. "You convinced me." She looked around the room once more, checking for anything she might have missed before picking up her suitcase. "Give me a couple of minutes to load up and check out. I'll be right behind you."

Rebecca opened the door and held it so JV could get by with the bag then closed it behind them. Her enforcer fell into step beside her as she walked away.

JV carried her bag to the truck and headed for the office. After checking out, she met the Karhyn and her bodyguard beside the newer truck she'd seen in front of the cabin earlier.

"Thanks again for this." JV said.

"It's no problem," Rebecca said, "I'm happy to help."

"Is there anything I can do? Anything I can bring?"

"You're our guest, just bring yourself."

"Are you sure?" 

"I'm sure. It’ll be nice to have another woman around for a change" 

"All right." JV agreed. She climbed back into her pickup and waited while they pulled out of the lot, then followed them back to the cabin.