Page 46 of Bear My Heart

"Those ones are great. You're gorgeous. I love your hair."

She touched the short, fluffed-up curls, and smiled nervously. "Are your parents going to think women should have long hair?"

"My parents are going to think you're perfect, because you are. I'm just worried I don't meet your standards." Peter gestured at himself, and Shanti exhaled a sigh that ended with what felt like a very dippy smile.

"You are perfect. You look great. I love your hair, too. I always love your hair," she said with another dreamy sigh. "It's so long and silky and soft."

He did look great, in a soft chamois shirt of deep red and dark blue jeans that looked new. His hair was loose, although he had a hair tie around his wrist because long hair was beautiful but also often super annoying, which was why Shanti wore hers short. That, and she secretly believed almost everyone looked better with short hair, although she was more than willing to make an exception for Peter and the opportunity to sift her fingers through his dark shining strands.

"Yours looks so much easier to deal with," he said, echoing her thoughts so closely that she laughed.

"It is. But yours is so pretty. Okay." She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I guess I'm ready, then."

"After you put on three more layers."

Shanti laughed again. "Right." She bundled into her coat and, a little to her surprise, they went to the truck. "Your parents live far away?"

Peter's mouth quirked as they got into the vehicle. "Not much in Alaska is walking distance. They're only about five miles, but⁠—"

"Oh. Right. No, that's not really walking distance, is it? Especially in winter. You can walk to almost everything you need in Virtue, even in the winter."

"I noticed that. It's a great feature, but just not how things are built here." Peter drove them through town, amber streetlights glowing on streets narrowed by snow. It was only about four-thirty in the afternoon, but it was dark enough to be night, and Shanti kept looking at her phone to verify the time. Peter noticed and shook his head. "We're not late, don't worry."

"No, it's the light. I keep thinking it must be later than it is."

"Being tired from the flight doesn't help, but…yeah. That's just kind of how it is here. Summer makes up for it, if you can cope with the winters. On the positive side, we're just past the solstice now so it's technically lighter longer today than yesterday!"

Shanti snickered. "Do we count that in seconds or nanoseconds?"

"Entire seconds," Peter promised. "By the end of the week it'll be whole minutes."

"You're joking. Really?"

"Well. A whole minute. It'll take two weeks to be whole minutes, if I'm being completely honest." By then they were pulling into another driveway that fronted a big wood-sided house with an enormous attached garage, and Peter nodded. "This is where I grew up. Me, two brothers and a sister, my parents, and grandparents."

"Are they all bear shifters?"

"My mom and her mom aren't. So you're not entirely alone," he offered with a wry smile, but it made Shanti feel better. Being the only true human in a house full of bear shifters seemed like a lot. Peter got out of the truck and came to open her door, helping her down even though she didn't really need it. He met her eyes, hope and rueful amusement in his own. "Ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, I think."

Pete took her hand and squeezed it like he was assuring her everything would be okay, and then together they went into the house. The entryway was a square foyer with an upstairs and a downstairs off to the left, and his mom was waiting for them in the foyer, with what looked like a carefully restrained expression of curious welcome on her face. She was also almost vibrating with obvious excitement, which made her effort at casual restraint pretty funny.

Even funnier was the fact that the rest of the family, who had clearly been ordered not to overwhelm Peter and his mate, were gathered in bunches at the top and the bottom of the two staircases, and all of them had huge, hopeful grins and were also actually jittering with anticipation. Shanti looked up the stairs, down the stairs, at Peter's mom, and couldn't help herself: she giggled, and clapped an apologetic hand over her mouth.

"I'm sorry!" his mom half-howled. "I told them to behave themselves!"

"We are behaving!" three different people of three different generations yelled indignantly, and Shanti's giggles turned into a full, body-shaking laugh as she put her hand out to Peter's mom.

"Hi. I'm Shanti, and this is actually great."

"I'm Brenda STAY WHERE YOU ARE!"

That was obviously directed at the other eight people in the house, but Shanti and Peter both snapped to rigid attention, too, holding still before dissolving into more laughter. "Sorry," Brenda said, clearly dismayed. "I didn't mean you."

"We are staying where we are!" someone else said with the same indignation as the first three, but in Brenda's defense, two of them were on the stairs when they hadn't been before, and a third—a grandparent—was easing their foot back down to the floor like they hadn't been about to charge up the stairs, themselves.

"Shoo! Move it! Carl!"