"What are you doing here?" Steve's angry voice startled JV.

"Unpacking,” she continued what she was doing without looking up.

"I can see that. Why?"

"Rebecca invited me to stay," she was determined not to let him see how shaken she was by his sudden appearance behind her.

"Why? What did you say to her?"

"The truth." 

"You mean your version of it," he snarled. 

"I mean the truth." She flinched, but kept her voice even and her back to the man she'd come so far to see. 

"What kind of sob story did you tell my Karhyn to get her to invite you to stay here?"

The accusation flipped a switch inside her. It turned her fear and nerves to fury. She fought to keep her anger off her face and out of her voice. "I didn't tell her a sob story. I was content to stay at the motel in town. Rebecca showed up at my door and asked a bunch of questions. All I did was answer her. Then she insisted I check out of my room and stay here."

"If you manipulated her so you could sponge off of my Chanat leaders-" he didn't get a chance to finish the threat. 

JV spun around, fire flashing in her eyes as she advanced on him. "Is that what you think of me? You think I came here looking for someone to take me in?" It was all she could do not to poke him in the chest as she spoke.

"Well, …" he verbally backpedaled, realizing he'd let his anger carry his mouth too far.

She interrupted him again, "I don't need someone to take me in. I'm quite capable of looking after and supporting myself, thank-you-very-much. I've been taking care of myself for the last eight years. You know why I am here." She went back to pulling things from her suitcase and hanging them up as if he hadn't interrupted her, though her movements had grown sharp and angry.

"What are you talking about?" he said, but his voice held no confusion. 

JV turned and eyed him for a moment, "Do I need to kiss you again to remind you?" 

Steve turned on his heel and left without another word. 

JV couldn't help a small smile. She could tell he knew exactly what she'd meant. His leaving proved it. Now she had no doubts, he felt the draw between them, the same yearning to touch her that she felt for him. She suspected he'd do everything he could to resist the attraction. Odds were in her favor though, from what she'd been told, the more time they spent near each other, the stronger the desire would become. Her smile grew.

Glancing at the clock, she hurried to finish unpacking in time to join the others for dinner. 

* * *

Seated around the small table situated on one end of a combination kitchen and dining room, JV was unsure what was proper. Her family had never been invited to eat with the Khan back home. They hadn't been close friends or high enough ranking for that. She was uncomfortable letting Rebecca wait on her while she sat at the table. However, she didn't know these people very well and she didn't want to offend anyone by insisting she help.  

"Here we are," Rebecca placed a large pot of spaghetti in the middle of the table then turned away long enough to grab a platter stacked with slices of garlic bread before placing that, too, on the table and taking a seat. 

JV waited while Nick served himself a plate of the pasta, then Steve. She planned to wait until after Rebecca had helped herself, too, but Steve handed her the pot, frowning at her as he did. She served herself and passed it on, then waited, watching to see what everyone else did before doing anything else. 

"So, where are you from, JV?" Nick asked, grabbing a slice of bread and digging into the plate in front of him. 

"Tenaha, Texas," she kept her voice low, knowing everyone at the table had enhanced hearing and she didn't need to speak up to be heard.

Creases appeared on his forehead, "Where is that? I don't think I've ever heard of it." 

JV looked at Steve for a second; curious why he'd never told his Khan where he was from. "I'm not surprised. It's a tiny town on the eastern edge of Texas, not even as big as Springerville."

"Wow, that is tiny," the pack leader spoke between bites. "What brings you here?"

"I came to see Steve." 

"You said that, but I missed why." 

She'd assumed that Rebecca would have told him, or possibly Steve, in an effort to get the leader on his side. She didn't see any reason not to tell him. Hell he might even be willing to help her, but then again, he also might side with Steve. "I had to see him again." 

"Again?"

"Yes, sir. Until this afternoon, the last time I saw Steve was ten years ago when he left the last time."

The Khan's confusion grew, "You've been in this Tenaha?" he asked turning to Steve.

"Yes sir. I grew up just outside of town. I went to school there." 

"How did I not know this?" The clan leader's brow creased as he frowned at Steve.

"You knew. I told you I grew up outside a small town in east Texas. I may not have mentioned the name of the town, I don't remember, but it hasn't been a secret."

Nick turned back to me. "You said you needed to see him, have you tried between now and then?"

She looked back down at her plate, then out at the darkness in the window beyond the clan leader. "I haven't spoken to him since he left, but I've tried to see him several times. I know his parents have begged him to visit, holidays, school reunions, that kind of thing. The mayor once tried to get him to come for the Fourth of July. They were going to make him the Grand Marshal in the parade, to honor him as the local hero he is. 

“From what I've been told, no matter what's used to lure him home, his answer is always that he can't. Not that he doesn't want to, or he can't get the time off, just he can't come back." She looked down at her plate before looking back to the Khan. "I know he left because of me. I suspect I was the reason he wouldn't come back, as well. I'm sorry about that, because his parents miss him. I finally decided he was never gonna, so I took matters into my own hands and came after him."

"Why would he leave town because of you?" Nick didn't seem to understand. 

"While I can't prove that he did, somehow I knew." She looked at Steve, meeting his gaze as she spoke, "He wasn't home for long before he left again. I have a lot of memories of him before he joined the Marines. He and my brother were inseparable. But you know how the memories of a child are; they're tinted with what you thought you knew and childish impressions of people and events. 

“He visited several times during his military time, brief visits while he was on leave. As I got older, he became less of the larger-than-life figure he'd been when I was a kid, more of a person.

"I still remember the first time I saw him after he got out of the military and came home. I didn't recognize him at first, but the new man in town intrigued me. There was something about him that made me want to get close and rub up against him." She looked at Nick as she answered the question, but she watched Steve's reaction out of the corner of her eye. "I didn't, of course. I didn't have the self-confidence to be that bold. Before I could gather enough nerve to do much more than say hello, he left again." 

Nick scowled, "How old were you the last time you saw him?"

"Seventeen."

“Good God,” he muttered, his brows shooting up, "that explains a lot."

"It does. But I'm not seventeen anymore, nor the naive child I once was. I'm through waiting." She let a slow smile spread across her face.

"What makes you think I'm attracted to you?" Steve finally spoke.

She didn't answer. Instead she turned to meet his eyes, then lifted one brow, still smiling, challenging him without a word.

"Even if I was then, you and I both know a prolonged separation breaks the bond between potential mates."

"The bond yes,” she admitted, “but until one or both of them seals a relationship, the attraction remains, as does the potential for a mating bond. Since I've never even met another potential mate, and from what I hear, you've never mated, so the potential is still there." She sat back in her seat, her look daring him to argue. 

"Are you trying to steal my Shaku away from me?" Nick asked, drawing JV's attention back to him and changing the subject. 

"Not at all," she assured him. 

"You're not planning to convince him to go home with you?"

"No," she said. 

"So, should things work out between you, are you willing to stay here? To leave your life in Texas behind and build a new one here?"

"Should something more develop, I have no problem staying here." She didn't tell him she had no life to leave behind. She'd sold most of her furniture and what little she had left was in storage. She didn't even have an apartment to go back to, she'd let her lease lapse before leaving. 

"Even leaving your career behind? You've seen our little town, there's not all that much to offer here." He seemed to believe she wouldn’t want to stay.

She shrugged, "Your little town is bigger than where we grew up. Besides, I don't need to leave my career. I can work from anywhere, as long as I have electricity and an internet connection."

The Khan looked confused, "You work online?"

"You could say that. I run my own web design business."

"Hmm. That's different." Nick seemed to be at a loss for words. 

Steve scowled at her. 

JV refused to let his stubbornness get to her. She'd known when she made the choice to come after him that it wouldn't be easy. He was proving her right, so what? 

"So what do you do around here?" JV asked Nick, wondering how they lived. How they kept the secret of what they are from the humans in the area. 

"Welcome to the X open A." He said, a grin spreading across his face as he made a flourished flip of his hands, leaving them open and welcoming. 

"The X open A?" She frowned, confused, "What is the X open A?" 

Nick dropped his hands and casually reached to lay one on top of hers. She suspected it was because he would be better able to sense how honest she was being with a little contact, "It's a ranch," he said.

She evaded his touch, making the move look like habit, "No way. This isn't a ranch."

Nick frowned for just a moment, "Why do you say that?"

"Where is everything, the buildings, the horses, the equipment?" All that sat in the small clearing was the cabin. JV had seen nothing to let her believe this was a ranch.

Nick smiled and gave a short laugh, "About a quarter mile past Steve's place, through the woods. The bunkhouse is there, too. I built the houses away from the rest of the ranch buildings on purpose. I wanted more privacy, especially since some of the hands are human."

JV turned to Steve, "How do you rate a place of your own?" 

"Foreman." Steve gave the one word answer with a scowl, almost like he was sulking.

JV frowned, not understanding. 

Nick took mercy on her, "He's my foreman, so he gets a place of his own."

"Are all the hands human?" JV wanted to know. 

"No, just a couple." Nick said.

"Bobby, who was with me earlier," Rebecca spoke up, "is one of the hands, he's also another of our enforcers."

JV ate in silence. She thought for a moment before something occurred to her, "I thought ranchers shot cougars?" 

Nick chuckled, "Some do, but most let them be unless they become a problem. They take an attitude of live and let live, at least until the cats start hunting livestock. That’s not really a problem here since natural cats avoid us and our territory."

"I make sure I keep the area we roam marked, so naturals stay away and there's a standing order not to kill anyone else's cattle. It works for us and other ranchers."

"Anyone else's?"

"A few of us are ranchers. I don't care if someone wants to hunt their own animals. Occasionally, I cull out one or two that won't survive the winter and let the Chanat have them. It's not really hunting, but it's something that brings the clan together, though we're careful to do it where the human hands won't find us.”

"We used to hunt deer back home, not often, maybe once a year, but it was a big deal. Everyone loved it." JV was starting to like these people. She hadn't been sure when she’d started out how things would work out. The more she got to know the people Steve had built his life with, the more she could see herself here in the future. Now she just had to convince him. "I bet having the house set away from the main workings of the ranch makes shifting easier, too."

"That's part of why I did it," Nick grinned. "Plus, sometimes the business that comes to my door doesn't think about Kitsune secrecy or the possibility of humans being around."