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“All right. So we’re camping, right?”

“Ha! Yes ma’am,that is the plan. Still can’t believe it’s happening, huh?”

“No,” she chuckled merrily, “it’s not that. I guess I’ve pretty much made my peace with that part of this little trip. But this place, what is it called?”

“The tent rocks.”

“Okay, so the tent rocks. This is like a national park, right?”

“It is.”

“And there was a sign when we drove in.”

“There was indeed.”

“Well, the sign said that there isn’t any camping here. Why are we planning on camping in a place with a big sign at the entrance saying we aren’t allowed to do it?”

“Very good question, my dear. You appear to be quite the detective.”

“Ha ha, very funny. But seriously. I don’t think breaking the law is going to add any kind of element of fun to this trip that I’m going to enjoy. I’m more of a ‘try and stay out of major trouble’ kind of a gal.”

“That’s good to know. I’ll keep that in mind in the future. You know, for any other trips we might plan.”

“Good, see that you do. But in the meantime-”

“Okay, look, this is going to make me sound like such a pompous prick, but it’s the answer, and I can’t think of a better way to say it. The rules don’t apply to us.”

“I’m sorry, what? Could you maybe say that again?”

“I totally do. I sound like a di*k, don’t I?”

“Little bit.”

“Well it got the hand back on the hip and I may not know a whole lot about women, but I know that a hand on the hip is never a good sign.”

Maggie laughed, having not realized that she had adopted that pose again until Hudson pointed it out to her. She wasn’t mad, she was honestly mostly joking about him sounding like a di*k, but she was curious about what he might mean when he said the rules didn’t apply to them. The rules applied to everyone, even to shifters.

 As far as Maggie concerned, the rules were especially important for shifters. Even in towns where they were considered by most people to be the norm, towns like the one she was fortunate to live in, it was important for shifters to stay out of trouble. They may have been accepted for who and what they were in these specific little pockets of the world, but overall they would still be considered freaks (and freaks didn’t have the same rights as everyone else; freaks were fair game for whatever people wanted to do to them) and that made it important for them to keep their noses clean.

So yes, Maggie wanted Hudson to explain himself, but she didn’t want him to feel bad. She glanced over at Levi, making sure that he was still caught up in conversation with the ranger, and then ran her hand over his face again, wanting to keep it there but nevertheless removing it quickly. The whole idea of open affection with either one of these men was still so new to her and she wasn’t sure she was ready to take it public.

“I’m just curious, Hudson. I’ve never heard anyone say something like that outside of the movies.”

“I bet. I’m not delusional or anything, Maggs. I don’t think we’re above the rules everywhere we go. It’s just here. Things are different for us. We’ve got an understanding with the people who run the place. The people who look out for it.”

“But why?”

“Because. We help to keep things in line. Not everything out here is exactly what it appears to be. I guess that’s always the case, every day of our lives, but it’s a little bit more true out here than it is in a lot of other places.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. How so? How is it so much different?”

Hudson looked off into the distance, something that was easy to do when you found yourself on land like they were on now, and Maggie waited impatiently. It looked to her like maybe he had checked out of the conversation, like he might never answer her question at all. She watched his face closely, wondering how long she would be able to wait before speaking up again. But after a few more seconds (seconds that felt to her like an eternity, something that sounded completely melodramatic to her own ears but was still true) he looked back at her with kind and inexplicably slightly sad eyes.

“Okay, here’s a good example. Look right over yonder. Right over there. You see it?”

“What?” she asked with just a hint of frustration, straining her eyes to see better. “The pack of dogs? What’s the big deal about that?”

“Right, that’s what just about anyone would think if they saw that, right?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Except that it isn’t a pack of dogs. Or rather it isn’t only a pack of dogs.”

“Okay, then what is it?”

“Shifters. They’re all over this park. The people who come and visit, who do the hikes and have their picnics and what have you, they don’t have a clue about it. They just think it’s a bunch of dogs running wild. They might not understand it, might even raise some complaints with the park management, but nobody ever knows the whole truth of it. If they did, they might understand why trying to get the dogs removed always meets with so much red tape that it seems like a waste of time to pursue the matter in the end.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” he said as he ran an agitated hand through his hair and looked around once more before locking eyes with her again. “I’m not making any kind of sense. You’ve been living in New Mexico for pretty much your whole life, right?”

“That’s true.”

“So then you know it’s a special place. Some folks say magical.”

“Right, I know that.”

“Well, if this state is magical, this place, these tent rocks, they’re like the center of all of that. There’s a whole lot of shifters out there who believe that this place holds some kind of answers for them and so they make their pilgrimages here and once they get here, well, they don’t ever seem to want to leave.