“Okay, wait, wait, wait. Right here.” Tobias pulled Vera to a stop, but didn’t take his hands off her eyes.
She clung to his wrists to keep her balance, her boots crunching in the deep snow. She’d spent a danged hour with her eyes closed, and as much as she liked surprises, she was tired of being in the dark.
“What do you smell?”
She inhaled deeply and frowned. “Sawdust?”
“Good, what else?”
“Well, I smell Lena, Elyse, and your brothers, and I can hear them, too.”
“Other than that,” Tobias said.
She scented the air again, slowly this time, giving her findings to her fox to decipher. “Evergreen sap, snow. Cattle and chickens, but only faintly, like they are far away. And…Miki.” And then it began to dawn on her where she was. “Tobias,” she breathed, hope blooming in her chest.
Her mate pulled his hands away from her face and gripped her shoulders to steady her. It was mid-December and sunny for this time of year. The light bounced off glittering snow that clung to the roof of a sprawling log cabin. It was made of freshly cut cedar logs and had a wraparound front porch.
Vera shook her head in disbelief. “What is this?”
“It’s ours.”
“But we’re on Elyse’s land,” she said, twisting to look at where Lena and Elyse were grinning next to their mates.
“This part is ours,” Tobias said.
“This is our thank you for all you’ve done for us,” Elyse said. “Lena and Jenner live in one of the outbuildings on the other side of the property, and this one was just sitting out here going to ruin. We all fixed it up for you. We even built onto it so you could have your own mad-scientist lab.”
Vera looked from one expectant face to another, chest heaving. Dragging her attention back to the beautiful cabin, she whispered, “This is home?”
“Well, I like that you come with me on deliveries, but this is home, yeah.”
“Can we get a puppy like Miki?” she asked in a hopeful, shaky voice.
Tobias laughed and nodded, wrapping his arms around her. “Whatever you want, Thistle.”
And she could see it now. A wooden plate that read Silver over the front door. Rocking chairs on the porch, Tobias chopping wood in the front yard. Her mate pushing their cubs on a rope swing that would hang from the towering evergreen near the cabin. A garden in the back and family nearby. Always close. It was everything she could’ve dreamed of and more, a far cry from her pitiful life on Perl Island.
As Tobias hugged her from behind and rested his warm cheek against hers, she heard it—the long, haunting, familiar howl of a lone wolf.
Life wasn’t perfect. It was a ride. It was textured with heartache and happiness, but in this moment, as she basked in the shadow of her new home, in the arms of her mate, surrounded by her family, with the fading notes of Link’s song in the distance—life was as perfect as it could be.