Page 32 of Renaissance Bear

Alis glanced down the road indecisively. "I don't know. How long do you think talking to the mayor is going to take?"

"You'll have plenty of time to get back to the fairgrounds and change before the gates open," Jon promised. "At the very least let me take you to the taxi rank in town."

"Where all two taxis are?" Alis asked wryly, but finally came around the truck to climb in. "I know this isn't a big town, but two taxis can't possibly be enough."

"There are two taxicompanies," Jon said. "There are more actual taxis. And it's probably not enough, but most people here drive. Unless you're right downtown everything's too spread out to walk to most places."

"Basically the story of the entire United States," Alis said. "All right, let's try the mayor's office before you drop me at the taxi rank. Is he even going to be in?" She checked her phone as Jon glanced at the dashboard clock. It was just about eight-thirty, although the sun was far enough up to make it seem later: the heat was coming on, and shadows had firmed up, no longer soft and stretched with sunrise.

"He should be, yeah. Most places around here get started by eight. Earlier if it's the bakery or a coffee shop."

"That bakery must start baking at two a.m.," Alis said, suddenly bright-eyed. "They must be beating people off with a stick by six. I wouldlivethere."

"They stay incredibly busy," Jon agreed. "In the winter, people staying up at the lodges come down off the mountain just to get breakfast there, and in the summer the faire keeps them hopping." Worry sluiced through him again. The bakery was yet another business that couldn't afford to lose the faire. Aloud, not meaning to, he murmured, "What the hell was Whitfield thinking?"

Alis reached over to put a sympathetic hand on his thigh. It was warm, reassuring, and slightly distracting. "Maybe there will turn out to be a good reason. Maybe it's just somebody who wants to develop more permanent structures in the fairgrounds. Extra bathrooms or something."

Jon gave her a quick glance and sighed. "Wecoulduse more bathrooms."

"See?" Alis said with a hopeful smile. "It could all be innocuous. A nice surprise."

"Do you believe that?"

"No." Alis shrugged. "But you have to take a positive attitude to survive teaching third graders, so I try to apply that to other aspects of my life."

Jon hadn't expected to laugh much this morning, but that made him laugh. "I could use a lesson or two in that, maybe. Look, Alis, there's something I want to talk to you about."

She glanced at him, looking slightly defensive. "Is this the 'this can only be temporary, a faire affair' talk? Iamaware that I'm leaving in a week, Jon."

"What? No! No—oh, God, you don't think I have affairs every faire, do you? You're not just the girl of the week, or the summer, Alis. I really like you."

Go on,his bear said.Tell her the rest.

Alis, dryly, said, "I think if I was a six foot two blond with shoulders like yours I would be having affairs as often as I felt like it, yes. Which is fine! But—" She faltered. "I actually really like you, too, but Iamleaving in a week. I've got two more faires this summer and then I've got to get back to work. I don't see how that would work out, and besides," she said, obviously forcing herself to rally, "we've known each other what, almost three days? It could turn out that in another week we can't stand each other."

"No. No, sometimes you just know." For a heartbeat Jon wanted to tell her everything, about the power of fate and shifters and all of it. In the next heartbeat he had a vision of the Black Knight, his armor swallowing the light as he fought at the fairgrounds, and the words died in his throat.

Tell her!his bear insisted.

Jon shook his head just a little, denying the bear and trying to shake off thoughts of the Black Knight. Neither worked verywell.I am not ready for a discussion about polyamory with a woman I've just met,he told the bear, and aloud, he repeated, "Sometimes you just know," a little more quietly.

Alis's hand stole back to touch his leg again. "Maybe you're right. But look, let's see what we think at the end of a week, okay? We don't have to make any decisions today."

That was probably the only sensible thing anybody had said in days. Jon cast her a quick smile and nodded, although part of him wanted to tell her that everything was already decided for him. He was going to adore her until the end of time, no matter what.

He just hadn't been prepared toalsoadore Lord Edward.

Jon muffled a groan, and, fortunately, pulled into the city hall parking lot at the same time. Alis put a hand on the door handle, but paused, grinning at the town square. "It's just picture-perfect, isn't it? It looks like an Old West town from the movies."

Jon, halfway out the driver's door, stopped to actually look around, and chuckled. "I guess it kind of does, doesn't it? I don't really see it like that, I guess. It's too familiar."

Alis was right, though. Renaissance's wide Main Street and its town square were lined with stonework buildings, the tallest of which were four stories with their façades, although there were church steeples and government statuary breaking up some of those façades. Jon knew that most of the first-floor businesses had storage rooms or apartments above them, with rent getting cheaper the more flights up somebody had to walk. Three floors wasn't that bad, though. That was the kind of thing he thought about, looking around town. But itwaspretty, and he liked being reminded of that.

"I don't think I could ever get to where this was familiar," Alis said as she got out of the truck. "It's too spectacular. The mountains backing right up to the town like this?" She put herhand above her eyes, tilting her head back to look beyond the buildings at the Rockies soaring upward in the background. Jon thought that was cute: the sun was behind them and there was absolutely no need to block her eyes.

Alis apparently realized the same thing at the same time and dropped her hand, laughing. "I don't know why I did that. Like a kid pretending to use binoculars, or something, like I could see better that way. But it really is all so intense and gorgeous and vivid. I think it would always take my breath away."

Jon looked up at the stark line of rough mountaintops against the blue morning sky, and smiled. "You're right. I should appreciate it more." His gaze came back to Alis, though, as he murmured, "We should never get used to beauty."

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