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At a bar in Cannon Shoals, Morgan Finch considers what it means to fit in.

I've been sitting on this story for a while, but today is a pretty good day, and it seems like a good day for a feel-good return to Cannon Shoals. I have been meaning to give this character some more space for a while. Patreon subscribers, this should also be live for you with notes and maps and stuff.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute--as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

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"Count Every Beautiful Thing," by Rob Baird

Morgan looked up from the computer and perked her ears, listening to the conversation playing out in the gallery. Her sort-of-employer, Dawn Danis, was arguing with a gruff-voiced wolf: "--won't let us do anything, anyway."

The leopardess clicked her tongue sympathetically. "Well. Hopefully you get some more hours soon."

"Tell that to the tree-huggers."

"They're probably out hugging them," Dawn suggested, rather than arguing. "While the weather's good. But when it cools down, I'll be sure to tell them."

He chuckled. "Thanks. I'll tell Pete to make sure he pays ya, too. Christ knows it ain't my job I got roped into..."

After he left, Dawn explained the context: she'd been asked to design and print some vinyl to go on the trucks belonging to one of Cannon Shoals' small firms. The design work was finished and had, of course, not been paid for. Morgan doubted this was deliberate: either 'Pete,' whoever he was, had forgotten or some hoped-for business failed to materialize.

Dawn's artwork sold fairly well in galleries further inland--Salem, and Portland, and as far east as Denver--and the leopardess was given to letting things slide. She understood how things worked. She kept Morgan employed enough for rent and health insurance even though, most days, there wasn't much for the vixen to do.

Morgan tried anyway. An associate's degree and her mechanical design certification overqualified her to sort Dawn's mail and handle the studio's extremely simple budget. But she couldn't complain about that: there weren't many opportunities that she was qualified for.

And until things improved, it was a necessary sacrifice. Her friends up north in Washington asked if she regretted moving back--asked in June about Pride, as if Morgan had perhaps been sentenced to exile, in a place too backwards to understand anything but the strictly heteronormative.

Dawn and her partner were, of course, only one such obvious exception. And Morgan--who was, so far as she knew, the only trans person in the Shoals--nonetheless didn't dignify the questions with sincere answers. Of course, you also don't go to Annie's, do you? Or Linc's. The older bars, with the older regulars, provided certain complexities: that, certainly, she had to admit.

Even Dawn avoided Annie's. The two of them haunted the Chain and Capstan, which was right off the highway, served food, and occasionally featured live music. The food wasn't particularly commendable, and the music was for heckling as much as anything else--but she liked it, same as she liked the town. Getting her prescription filled might have been slightly challenging--the first time. And finding a sympathetic professional to navigate her towards surgery had been much easier in Illinois than it would've been in the Shoals, yes.

But she liked the town, and she liked the people.

Tonight the leopardess had other things to do and Morgan was on her own, sizing up the clientele. The bartender had her drink ready without needing to be asked. An otter, occupying the next stool, noticed that--and, perhaps, the tradeshow-branded t-shirt she was wearing. "Out-of-towner?"

"Nope. Born and raised." He didn't need to know about her time in Chicago and Olympia any more than he needed to know the other details of her youth she elided. "You're here on business?"

"Always business, yeah. I'm with Martin-Barlow." He didn't look like much of a lumberjack--slim, with unscarred fingers and bookish glasses. Drinking a gin and tonic, she thought; she wasn't terribly surprised when he went on to say that he was an engineer. "You?"

"Same, kinda. A lot of Solidworks."

"Around here?" he looked surprised.

"Well... not so much here, no."

He probably didn't mean the way he said "I figured" to come off so judgmentally. She told herself that, at least, and let him talk about his work, surveying Martin-Barlow's property through the Neatasknea Valley.

To hear him tell it, most of the land was ready to be harvested: prime real-estate, if the timber market recovered. Their failure to do so, the otter allowed, could be amended with sufficiently aggressive tariffs. See if people get smarter by the election, he muttered.

Morgan chose to focus on the prospect of new business, instead. When she'd left the town was on the downswing; she'd heard about its nadir while living in Chicago--protests at the mill's closure that had required police intervention. Cannon Shoals seemed exceptionally far away, then, a chapter of her life she was more than willing to close.

Bit by bit, though, the hole it left in her gnawed, and widened. When Martin-Barlow started operations back up in Oak Valley, the vicarious happiness she felt had surprised the vixen. And now, now that she was living on the coast again, things continued to improve.

Not everything: the canneries weren't coming back, for sure. But the fishing fleet was as healthy as it had ever been, and there were new stores open along the highway. The Chain and Capstan, for that matter, had opened two years before she returned. And where the Lincoln Street Roadhouse catered to the lumberjacks, and Annie's to the fishermen, and Three Sheets to the tourist crowd, Caps drew an eclectic mix.

It felt like the town could make something of itself. And on a pleasant night in early autumn, watching activity at the bar, Morgan could reassure herself that she'd made the right choice. Not that it was all perfect--she wasn't especially bothered when the otter left for the night--but it was still home. And perhaps in time the other missing pieces would fall into place.

"I see you met Jack, huh? Guy you were chatting to."

She turned to see the wolf from Dawn's shop. Face-to-face he looked younger than she'd expected from his coarse voice--maybe not much older than her, even. "You know him?"

"Oh, yeah. He's corporate. Beancounters from Corvallis come out here every... I dunno, every three-six months or so. Rag on the working man for a while--tell us how they're here to protect us and all. Of course, if the feds show up--EPA or Forestry or whatever?--then they're nowhere to be found."

"And surveying? Up along Shaw Creek, according to him."

"Nice if it happens, but they're just gonna sell it." The wolf shrugged. "Morgan, right?"

"Yeah."

"Niko. What're you having?" He nodded towards the half-inch of beer left in her glass.

Morgan ran through the ways their conversation could unfold, most of them awkward at best. "Probably heading out, honestly..."

"It's not even eight. C'mon, I'm buying." The skeptical look he'd given her turned to a half-smile with that reassurance.

His smile was softer than his voice. And she wasn't far from her apartment; the bartender knew her, and most of the other patrons didn't. Worst-case scenario... "Ah. Stella, I guess. That's what I was having."

"High-class," he teased her, and gestured for another round from the bartender. "Too good for Coors, huh?"

"Well... this isn't Annie's."

"Thank God. I guess that's your regular haunt--work for the cops, right?"

In truth, Coors was probably too good for the regular crowd at the dive bar a few blocks over, too. The town's cops and fishermen were not known for high standards. "I used to, yes. Odd jobs. Now I just work for Dawn."

The beers arrived, and she finished her previous glass quickly to take the toast Niko offered. "Cheers. What's she got ya doing?"

"More odd jobs." Cannon Shoals didn't offer much full-time employment for the vixen's skillset. She wanted to change the subject: "And you're with the mill?"

"With Martin-Barlow, anyway, yep--drive trucks."

"Log trucks?"

"Sometimes. Lately I've been taking boards over to the warehouse, out by Roseburg. Logs are better."

"Oh?"

"I like that Roseburg is a full shift, when I get it. But they're always slow, so I've gotta watch my hours--last month I wound up sleeping in the truck when I timed out on the way back. What was I gonna do? Call a cab to goddamn Eugene? So." He shrugged, and took a healthy swig of beer. "But hey--it's work."

"Yeah. You take what you can get..."

He let the length of his next drink speak to his opinion of that. "Fuckin' A. What do you actually do? If you're not with the cops."

"I help Dawn out with whatever she needs. I was trained in computer-aided design--parts for industrial machinery--but there's not much call for that here, as you might guess." It was what the otter had said, and even if he'd been a bit dismissive there was a certain truth to it.

"Not even for McDaniel?"

The biggest machine shop in town was Gerhardsen's, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Martin-Barlow, run by a friendly old elkhound named James. Brad McDaniel owned a smaller, independent company. He'd bought it with the money he'd earned selling the Idanha Maru, when he retired from fishing; McDaniel catered to the remaining boats in Cannon Shoals.

It occurred to Morgan that Niko worked for Martin-Barlow, and the 'Pete' he'd mentioned at Dawn's studio was probably Pete Springer. He and his brother Greg worked not for McDaniel but Gerhardsen, which she knew because her mother Judith was James Gerhardsen's secretary.

That was an unpleasant topic. Perhaps, if Pete Springer was sending Niko around to explain to Dawn why she wasn't being paid rather than doing it himself, it was a sore spot for the wolf, too. Either way, she was happy not to have to think about it. "Not really. I asked, but it didn't really go anywhere."

"Different equipment?"

"Different scales, too. When I left Olympia, I'd spent a couple years working on conveyors for food processing plants. I couldn't convince Brad I'd really be able to earn my keep helping him patch up marine diesels."

"He might come around. Those are still going down the coast, if it's a major repair, and it happens often enough that there could be money in it."

"Maybe one day," she admitted. "It'd be nice."

"Here's hoping. What brought you back from Olympia?"

It was a common question, common enough that she had an answer: I didn't belong. The truth was at once more and less simple. "I got homesick."

"Can't blame you." She must've looked surprised. "It's where I belong. I tried living in Ontario for a bit--couldn't do it. Thought maybe it was too big, but Hermiston wasn't any better. I just wasn't..."

"Meant to be there?"

He thought over it, and shook his head. "Ain't what I was gonna say. I just wasn't able to get the map of it in my head, right? Like you get to where you can find your way around your house in the dark--whatever that is for towns."

"Oh! I'm never forgetting the way to school, no."

"Right. Every corner. All the places we went trick-or-treating--the good houses. My friends made sure to come up to our block, so I guess that was most of 'em, up in Salmon Run."

"Salmon Run?" She reached out, toying with her beer. "You call me high-class?"

"It was better twenty years ago," Niko said. "You were downhill?"

She scowled, or tried to through the smile curling her muzzle. "You even call it 'downhill.' Yes, we were. Never had money for Halloween, but I remember it, sure."

"Forget that, then. What about the cape--don't you ever just walk down to the lighthouse? Ain't nothing like the way it looks in the morning, with the fog coming in and all. I thought I could be a fisherman, but not with my stomach. My dad gave me hell when I left for Ontario--even more hell when I came back, like I couldn't hack it. But the lighthouse, fuck, there's too many memories there..."

"It was the park," she admitted. "For me, it was the park. I spent whole weekends around those ponds when I was a kid. It still makes me happy--something about how quiet it is, with the old trees. Walking back with my friends, thinking maybe we'd stop by Stach's or something for coffee."

"Or Rainbow's, right?"

"Or the diner," she agreed. "You can't get a boysenberry shake like that anywhere else."

"Chocolate chip, neither." Niko arched his back, stretching. "Fuck, I could go for one right now. What do you say?"

"Now?"

"Look, I can't flirt for shit." He laughed, gestured self-deprecatingly at himself. "Want to get out of the bar, though."

Her stomach tightened. Cannon Shoals could be fraught that way, whether people knew her from before or not. Even if he'd played it off as a joke, that meant the conversation was something less than purely friendly. It would eventually wander past reminiscing about Rainbow's Diner, about Olympia, about computers, and...

And all the same, she found herself in the passenger's seat of the wolf's Tacoma, keeping as much of her hesitation bottled up as she could. Talked herself down from telling him she needed to go home when they pulled into the drive-through. Dissected his smile, and the tone of his 'thanks' when she passed him money for the milkshakes.

He pulled the pickup onto the first turnoff north of town, high over the Pacific. Seated on the tailgate, they could see the sweep of the Neatasknea Light, glinting off the patches of fog that offered a tentative suggestion of changing weather. For now, it was only a suggestion: the night sky was clear.

And the milkshake was delicious. She sighed at the taste, and averted her eyes when Niko snickered. "I don't go there often. For my figure," she said, although it was partly that she didn't think Penny Shobe liked her very much and their encounters were sometimes uncomfortable.

"It's Friday night. We can live a little."

He talked about living in Ontario, a city of over ten thousand people out on the Idaho border, and Morgan found it all made sense: how he'd thought leaving Cannon Shoals would be a way to start a new life for himself, and gone through one new start after another before realizing zip codes had never been the point.

The night cooled off while they finished the drinks--perhaps not the best choice, in retrospect, given the season, Niko said. She laughed, and countered that it wasn't that often they got to enjoy something like that. But she was getting a bit cold, and that did make the wolf's body heat all the more noticeable when it seemed to slide fractionally nearer.

She said nothing, and in the silence their ears both twitched at the same time to the low thump of a helicopter rotor. Morgan saw it first, pointing to the lights on the horizon. "Coast Guard, I guess, on their way back."

"Hope whatever they went out for, it turned out okay."

"Same."

"Maybe it was just training. Sightseeing."

"Maybe." The big Jayhawk crossed far enough overhead that she had to crane her head to follow its path. She lowered her muzzle to find that Niko hadn't been watching the helicopter. The wolf was looking at her instead, the subtleties of his expression muted in the darkness.

Even if she couldn't perceive subtleties, though, they were close enough that he should've drawn back. And he hadn't. And when, after a few seconds, she hadn't either the wolf's breath tickled her whiskers. "Could, right?"

"Could what?"

And he kissed her. Morgan was not too startled to protest, exactly--it was more that she was sufficiently startled for the warmth of his lips to be pleasant before any adrenaline could kick in to dampen the enjoyment. That was why she gasped, and drew closer to the wolf when his arm rose to circle her.

"I... don't know what you want to, uh, do..."

"Well, you pick up some cute vixen at the bar, and there's only so many ways it can go, right?"

Her ears pinned. "Yes. But... I think..."

"If you don't want to, that's fine, too."

"It's just..."

She felt his tongue on her nose. His voice quieted. "I do know who you are, if that's where your head's at. I work for Martin-Barlow, you know? Word gets around. And, ah. My dad owns the Lincoln Street Roadhouse."

"Leo?"

"That's him. I heard about what happened when you came back. I'm sorry my dad's... well. The way he is."

"You can't choose family," she murmured, acutely aware that Niko's arm was still around her. "So if..."

It had been the downside of moving to Cannon Shoals--fewer than two thousand people, almost none of them her own age. And that was worth it--mostly, she loved the town--but fuck if she hadn't missed the way it felt when her heart started to race, and every movement reminded her how close she was to someone else...

The wolf was leaning into her more heavily, the kiss deepening--their tongues met, a few seconds before his other paw stroked along her thigh and dragged up until he was palming her chest. Squeezing her, just to see what happened, and growling at her squeaking, helpless moan.

"Should we--it's getting colder--maybe head back?" Niko's voice was rougher than usual, and her ears almost pinned again at the thought of what drove that. She managed to nod instead, though her legs were shaky, carrying the vixen back to the truck's cab.

"I live on Washington. And 5th."

"Taylor and 2nd," Niko countered. "Closer."

That worked for her. Less time to wonder how the rest of the night would unfold. "I can't believe I didn't recognize your name..."

"Didn't say my last name. But yeah--why do you think I was at Cap's? Don't need my dad lecturing me."

"You're okay to drive, though?"

"After one beer?" He laughed. "Yeah. I'm fine."

He was, she thought--reexamining him, looking at the way his fur caught the streetlights--fairly well-built, and taller than he first appeared sitting down. And, anyway, she still had her own wits about her. Her legs were steadier on the walk up to his front door.

It only lasted until the door was shut, and without even turning the lights on he kissed her again. Strong arms drew the vixen's slighter body close, and their muzzles stayed locked until she was out of breath and sagging in his hold. He took her paw, leading her through the darkened house.

He fumbled for the bedroom lamp, and she had a moment to catch sight of the unmade bed, and a moment to realize she didn't care, before the soft mattress was at her back and Niko was above her.

Morgan played with his t-shirt; a moment later it was obligingly dispensed with, and her fingers were sliding through his fur. Pressure at the small of her back announced he was asking the favor to be repaid, trying to pull her own top off. She removed it hastily, and the sports bra beneath it.

Sometimes she still thought of that as a formality, but his paw found enough for an appraising grope, and the possessive firmness of his grasp got a moan from the vixen that Morgan now suspected, even as a flush of embarrassment warmed her ears, Niko found more fetching than anything else.

He sank onto his side and their bodies slid together as their lips met again. His tongue worked into her muzzle, purposeful as the touch of his paw had been. Morgan hooked one of her legs around him impulsively; the wolf growled, grinding his hips to hers.

His arousal was evident already, even with two layers of denim between them. And his paw didn't even rest on her slender waist before he started working her jeans off. She kicked, doing the rest of the job, buying a few seconds before he touched her again, palm warm through her cotton panties.

"Keep going?" he all but grunted the question.

"Please!" This time she heard the sound of fabric on fur without feeling it, knew that the last few barriers were falling away. She slid her underwear off before it was possible to think twice about it--to wonder how understanding he'd be, to hope it would be comfortable enough that she wouldn't have to ask him to stop...

He rolled the vixen onto her back. Morgan looked up at him, taking reassurance from the feral glint in his expression. "You sure, babe?"

"Yes. Just... be gentle?" She swallowed, steeling her nerves. "And is it, um. Is it okay if you don't tie me?"

Niko gave her nose a lick, and followed it up with a light kiss. "Of course it's okay," he murmured. She could feel him working between her legs, pushing closer. The wolf's fingers searched until they found bare flesh; nudged teasingly.

He was warm over her, his thick pelt reassuringly soft. Fuck, this is really happening. He's--slicker, less subtle heat replaced his fingers. Morgan gasped, trying to force herself to relax. Her body rendered that unnecessary: she was ready for him, all but begging for the wolf to enter her.

Thankfully, he took his time anyway. A tentative grind slipped his tip inside her; he growled softly and paused. His cock twitched, and as he rocked steadily the wolf slid another inch deeper. Morgan felt herself becoming wetter with each throb that pulsed more of his precum against her walls.

And each came before his hips pushed again and she took him further and further in. He felt huge--stretching her, spreading her open. She lifted her head, chanced a look between her legs. Half that glistening, pink canine cock was still visible. The rest--the rest is inside me. "Niko," she breathed.

Their muzzles locked and as he kissed her the wolf's thrusts started coming closer together. Firm, purposeful, sliding more of his cock home until... until he stopped, all the way inside, the next faint splash of pre painting her deepest recesses. He broke the kiss, grunting. "You alright?"

She wrapped her arms around him, nodding shakily. All the same he pressed his lips back to hers, and for a good, long minute nothing followed but slow grinds that tugged and stirred his shaft in her.

Morgan knew that she'd adjusted to his size instinctively when he started to pull free and she immediately wanted him back inside. Wanted to have her big, strong wolf buried in her pussy once again, and when he thrust she moaned in open, wanton gratification.

Fluid and slow as they were, Niko's pumping strokes were effortless, his length sliding smoothly along her walls even as his precum kept spilling into her. The overwhelming tension of being filled yielded to the spreading pleasure of it, the sense that he was claiming her, making her his.

The easier it got, the faster and further he worked himself in her. Whimpering, she wrapped her legs around him. The wolf growled and began to thrust harder. Deeper, more urgently--until he was properly fucking her, and what started as simple pleasure rose into the hint of something larger.

By the time his swelling knot was big enough to feel when he hilted, Morgan was almost certain he could bring her over the edge. It felt so right, so exquisitely feminine to ride the feral energy of his mating--to take every surging plunge of the wolf's bucking hips. To hear the lust, the need in his panted snarls, to know what it felt like to be bred...

She didn't have to tell him not to tie. He held back, driving himself to the bulge of his knot and no further until it was thick enough that he couldn't have forced it in anyway. Then he resumed in earnest, his knot ramming into her over and over as he gratified himself, working for his peak in the vixen.

With his cock buffeting her, though, Morgan hit it first. A breathy oh, God and an undignified whimper and she sank into the grip of a deep, throbbing orgasm. Her back arched and flexed, and she grabbed for the wolf, clutching him desperately.

Pulled downward, his muzzle was right up against her ear when he snarled roughly and went stiff. At the height of her own climax she caught the first warm gush of the wolf's cum. She tried to speak, tried to tug him closer, but all she could do was yelp her wordless delight.

Knot throbbing against her lips, shaft jerking, grunting as he humped instinctively, Niko steadily filled her up. Morgan felt his seed spreading, then spilling from her as his shaft squelched into the vixen. Without the tie to trap it his essence matted her fur, staining her with his scent, mixed into the blended spice of their arousal.

Gradually, as if in slow-motion, he sank atop her. He was quiet until their breathing had returned to normal, and then he laughed, settling onto his side. "Sorry about the mess. Normally I have a bit more time to think about that..."

"Well, they're your sheets," she pointed out. "I can help with laundry, though, if you want."

"Later?" When Morgan nodded, Niko kissed her--then froze. "Is that okay?"

"Is what okay? Me sticking around even without being tied, or you kissing me?"

"Both? Don't know what you're looking for."

"I wasn't looking for this at the bar. Just..." This time, she kissed him, to see how he'd react, and shrugged. "Felt like it'd be okay. Fun. I mean--I did. I had fun. You--I think." She bit back her nerves before they could keep her stammering.

He caressed her side, reaching about her rear to cup between her thighs until his fingers found wet fur. "I had fun. You seem cool, that's all. You busy tomorrow?"

"I don't really have plans..."

"Check out the park, then? If you're up for it, we could do that... weather's supposed to be alright, and we don't got so many guaranteed good days left this year."

"It's not a guarantee, even then." She scooted closer, judging how it felt to rest in the wolf's arms; to drape her own over his shoulder. "But yeah, if you want."

"Worst-case scenario..."

"Laundry could take a while?"