Page 44 of Wrong Number, Right Cougar

But Dad had taken control and was issuing instructions. He dragged the seating from the booth and laid it on the floor. Towels appeared, and my mate removed my pants. I grunted and said no when Wilder tried to get me to lie down.

“No, I want to walk and then… I don’t know.” I tugged my hair, the pain a welcome distraction from the agony in my belly. “Maybe I want to squat.” I’d never given birth before, but my body was telling me what to do.

But the messages were confusing. I had to push, so walking made no sense. Lying down was a big nope. Squatting was a possibility, but how would I balance? I’d topple forward.

“I don’t know what to do.” I was wailing, needing a sign from the universe. A plan. That was what I was waiting for. “Where’s the plan?” I yelled.

“My darling.” Wilder put his arms around me. “The plan is for our baby to arrive safely. You can do this.”

“No.” I shook my head as my body insisted I bear down. I was experiencing such agony, I should have been hospitalized and given pain relief.

Wilder put his hands on my shoulder. “Look at me, my love. Picture the baby easing their way toward us. Each contraction brings our little one closer to being in our arms. You and our child are a team.”

He was right. It was the baby and me. We’d been doing this for almost nine months.

“Hold me.” The message my body was sending was clear: I wanted to squat. Wilder supported me, and we both got into a squat position.

Thank gods he was here, because my breathing was rapid and uneven, but with my mate’s arms around me, we breathed in unison, and when my body told me to push, I did.

I’d expected to push once and the baby would be out, pink and beaming, ready to suckle. But it took many pushes. My world consisted of Wilder holding me, and me trying to get the baby out. Noises from outside vanished as my brain concentrated on our baby.

The pain meshed with the warmth of Wilder’s embrace. It wasn’t just me and the baby, it was the three of us. I was being split in two, but after one gigantic push, relief flooded over me.

“He's here.” With one hand my mate scraped up the baby, while still supporting me. Dad took our little one while Wilder helped me lie down. A boy. We had a son.

I kissed his head, plastered with damp hair stuck to his skull. I was exhausted, but there was a lightness to my body and not just because I’d pushed the baby out. I did it, something omegas had done for centuries, and I’d joined the club.

“Hello, my darling.”

Dad covered me with towels as Wilder lay beside me, and whispered to the baby that he was so glad to meet him.

“You’re probably hungry after that. Coffee and a BLT?” Saul appeared.

I giggled, and Wilder joined in as our little one closed his eyes.

“Yes, I’m starving, and add a piece of pie to the order.”

“Dylan Brett.” I whispered the baby’s name in his ear. We were honoring both my father and his uncle.

“One BLT.” Saul swooped across the floor.

“Did you remember the ketchup?”

EPILOGUE

WILDER

It was officially the first day of high season, and that meant the first of our summer people would be here soon. I loved the sound of that: Summer People. They were our guests that made this place so much more than a business. They made it our home.

One of my favorite things that had happened since we reopened the resort a decade ago was the number of families who decided to come for a month or two—some of them all summer—with their families. They still had their city lives but used this time and Cougar Lake to also embrace their shifter selves. Some were grandparents with their grandkids, with the working parents coming on the weekend, some were whole families who had the time off, and there were a growing number of people who used the shared office space we’d built about five years ago, to work remotely and still have the experience.

We still didn’t have as many cougars as once thrived here, but we had wolves, bears, koalas, raccoons, foxes—you name a shifter, we had them. On a business level, it had us thriving. On a personal level, it was like having a big summer camp for our four kids, and that was the biggest success of all.

At first we worried about what to do if a human booked for the season, but so far, that hadn’t been an issue. Probably because the place booked the day we opened reservations, and we no longer advertised at all, allowing shifter word of mouth to do it for us.

It started with Frank the year our son was born. Who would’ve thought my cousin’s friend being suckered into a weekend of painting would turn into our resort growing into all it was today.

That first season he’d stayed for a month, determined to find his mate and convinced this would be the place that would happen. But Frank being Frank, he always went back on the weekends. He liked his clubs and social life there. But by the third week, he brought that social life with him, and they had a great time.

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