My eyes scanned the crowded lot. We’d scheduled a rest stop at Natchez, just beyond the Mississippi border, where Marc was supposed to join us and escort us across the entire free territory, including an overnight stay in the middle of Mississippi. But I didn’t see his car. Disappointed, I clenched my hands in my lap until my fingers ached.

Vic turned right into the parking lot, then pulled into an empty space at the rear. I started to get out and look for Marc inside the store, but Vic laid one hand on my arm as soon as I got the door open. “Can you stay with them for a minute? I have to pee.”

I glanced at Vic, then back at Ethan. Normally, my youngest brother would have been enough security for one postpartum tabby and an infant. But the free zone was unregulated, and Manx was skittish at best, even when she wasn’t about to be tried for murder, so we were trying to give her double coverage at all times. “Yeah, I’ll stay. But hurry up.” He smiled in thanks as I closed my door, then shut his own and made his way to the front of the building.

Des made a mewling noise behind me, and I twisted in my seat to see Manx bring the baby up to one exposed breast, where he latched on eagerly. The mewling became a soft sucking sound as he began to nurse. Again. Did that kid ever do anything but eat? Even with his androgynous baby face, I could tell the little monster was a boy by his appetite alone.

Still, I couldn’t help but smile as I turned to scan the parking lot out the driver-side window. The little guy was a true survivor. Just like his mother.

“Looking for me?” Something tapped on the glass behind me, and I jumped, then whirled fast enough to hit my head on the sun visor. Marc stood outside the window, looking warm and welcoming in a worn brown leather jacket and an old pair of jeans. His smile widened as I fumbled for the door handle. But in my excitement I couldn’t find it, so he opened it for me, nearly ripping the door from its hinges.

My feet never hit the ground. One moment I was in the front seat, the next I was in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist, his mouth soft but insistent beneath mine. People stared—I saw them over Marc’s shoulder— but then they smiled and went about their business, except for a few kids, who giggled at our display.

Evidently reunions look much the same in any species.

“Your hair grew,” Marc whispered, and the warmth of his breath against my ear gave me chills that had nothing to do with the ice half coating the parking lot.

“You cut yours.” I ran my hand through cold, short curls.

He put me down, but still held me close. “Yeah, I figured with the new life, why not try a new look? What do you think?”

Grinning, I stepped back for a better look. “Not bad.” Marc would look good in an orange clown wig, if he decided to wear one. Still, though he’d only lost two inches, I couldn’t help missing the rest of his hair. But nowhere near as badly as I’d missed him.

I was threading my arm through his when a familiar scent caught my attention. A stray scent, and—oddly enough—one I knew.

Daniel Painter.

I froze, and my grip tightened around Marc’s arm as my pulse raced. I scanned the parking lot for the stray who’d ratted Manx out in exchange for a chance to join our Pride. If he could keep his nose clean in the free zone for a year.

Keeping his nose clean did not include picking a fight with a delegation of Pride cats as soon as we crossed the border. And there was no way in hell that his presence in that particular parking lot was a coincidence…

Two

“What’s wrong?” Marc’s gold-flecked brown eyes darkened as he frowned, glancing around in search of whatever had set me on edge.

“Dan Painter’s here.” My fingers brushed his leather-clad arm as I turned, trying to glance around the parking lot inconspicuously.

A flicker of annoyance flashed across Marc’s expression. “I know. I can’t shake him.”

I felt my eyes go wide and gave up the search for Painter to stare at Marc. “He’s tailing you?”

“Sort of.” Marc flushed, and I knew there was more to the story than he wanted to tell me.

“And you’re just…letting him?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “He’s not actually causing any trouble, so I don’t feel justified pounding on him. He just hangs around and asks questions about the Pride, and the way we—you guys—do things. Where we come from, how we control bloodlust, why there are so few tabbies, why there aren’t any strays in the Pride. Well, not anymore, anyway.”

Marc was a stray—a werecat born human, and later infected through a bite or scratch from a werecat in feline form—and he remained the only stray ever admitted into a Pride. Even if he was no longer officially a part of that Pride.

“The guy never shuts up. Seriously, he talks all day long.”

I smiled. Kaci had a very similar habit, and as much as I liked her, I’d started to value long-distance assignments simply for the peace and quiet. Surely his job provided the same relief. “At least he can’t bug you at work, right?”

Marc’s flush deepened. “He joined my crew last month. We frame houses together now. Every day.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “That’s so cute! You have a sidekick. A little mini-me.” Though if memory served, Painter wasn’t much smaller than Marc.

“Whatever. Forget about Painter.” His gaze flicked behind me to the back passenger-side door, which my brother had just opened and stepped through. “Hey, Ethan, how’s monogamy treating you?”