Page 58 of Renaissance Bear

Jon, very primly, said, "I hope you don't shareeverything," and Alis laughed.

"No. No, absolutely not. Okay, almost everything. But this is important," she said more softly. "It would mess up our relationship if I didn't tell her, so I can't not."

"I wouldn't ask you to. She's your twin. I trust her, just like I trust you."

Alis relaxed. "Okay. Okay, thank you. Do you want to meet her?"

"Of course I do." He glanced around. "Is she lurking?"

"I actually think she's down at the Red Court,holdingcourt. I kind of shoved her right into the spotlight today."

"Alis, you shoved everybody into the spotlight today, yourself most of all. That was one of the hottest things I'd ever seen. I genuinely thought the entire stadium was losing its mind. You couldn't have planned it better."

"That was when I was absolutely sure, though, you know? He said 'no man' and I thought, you tricksy shifter bastard. But then he also opened the door with that line, and I would have been an idiot to not walk right through. I'm many things," Alis said with satisfaction. "A knight. A girlfriend. A lady fair. But an idiot, I'm not."

Jon started smiling again, slow and hopeful. "A girlfriend?"

"Oh, that's the one you pick up on?"

"Yes. Yes, it is. C'mere." He tugged her to her feet and around the table, into his lap. "Hello, girlfriend."

"Hey, boyfriend. Just for the record, I'm not clear yet on how we're going to make it all work."

Jon stole a kiss. "Don't worry. We will. Fate has it in for us, you know."

"'Has it in for us,'" Alis echoed, amused. "You know that phrase usually means something bad, right?"

"Yeah, but not in this case. In this case, I promise it means amazing things are ahead of us."

"Well, then, let's get started." Alis paused. "As soon as you meet Jasmine. And the rest of my family."

"And my parents. Since you already met half my family anyway. And—" Jon broke off, grinning. "No, wait, we can getstartedbefore all that. That's what comes next, not the barrier to getting started. Right?"

"Right. In fact, we already have started. Oh my God." Alis hid her face in Jon's shoulder a moment. "We're overthinking this, right?"

"Yeah." Jon nuzzled her head up until he could kiss her again, and whispered, "Yes, we are. All that matters, Alis, is we've got our happily ever after. Let's just live it, however it works out."

"That sounds perfect," Alis breathed, and it was.

Epilogue

EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER, GIVE OR TAKE

Virtue, New York, wascute. Picture-book cute. Exactly like Renaissance, Colorado, except completely different. They were both towns that had worked hard to retain their Old Americana charm, but in Virtue that was New England picturesque where Renaissance had the Old West thing going on.

Alis, standing at the corner of the world's most ridiculously large town square, said, "I see why Steve likes it here."

Jon scooted up behind her, wrapping his arms around her like she would freeze otherwise, and nodded over her head. "I'd miss the mountains, but it's a great little town. And the town square is nuts."

Itwas. It had to be several acres in size, although truthfully Alis was always a little surprised at how small an acre actually was. Still, it was currently filled with Christmas market kiosks and the most enormous Christmas tree she'd ever seen. It sprouted from a gazebo large enough to comfortably house a family of four, if that family didn't mind a little weather getting in on them. Or a lot of weather, really: it was currently snowing like mad, adding to the winter wonderland snow globe vibe the little town already had. People were out shopping, though, all bundled up against the cold. Watching them stomp around, shouting hellos at each other through fuzzy hats and big coats, Alis wondered just how many of them would be more comfortable in their own personal fur coats and big-pawed feet.

Lots, she guessed. Virtue was apparently full of shifters. But in this case, she knew for a fact that at least two dozen of them would be happy to do just that, because more or less the entire Torben clan had descended upon Virtue this year for Christmas.

Well, technically speaking, they'd descended on Jon's second-oldest brother, Steve, his wife Charlee, and, most importantly of all, the adorable, tiny baby girl Charlee had given birth to just six weeks earlier. Amelia Rose was the star of this year's Christmas, and everyone had come to meet her.

'Everyone,' in this case, also included Alis's family: her parents had driven up from Maryland, and Jasmine had, with a great deal of theatrical protestation, flown back home from wintering in Mexico. She had a tan and sun-bleached strands in her dark hair, which made telling her and Alis apart relatively easy for the first time in their lives. She kept muttering about the cold, and although she'd gotten a cider and a hot chocolate while they were walking around the Christmas market, she had also just abandoned Alis and Jon for a doughnut shop that somebody said had great coffee.

Alis's parents had barely left Steve's brewpub, theHold My Bear, where they were alternating between cooing over Amelia Rose and worshipping Charlee herself for her cooking. Alis was fairly certain they'd forgotten about their own biological children entirely, but that was okay: she wasn't quite ready for kids, and if Steve and Charlee's baby filled that void for Alis's parents, more power to them.

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