by Zoe Chant
“All’s well,” he said, swinging his leg over the horse’s rump and setting his feet back on the ground. “Joe and Mason are off on patrol. But I don’t expect they’ll find anything.”
Sasha nodded. She didn’t look perturbed at all – which Lincoln was grateful for. After all, she’d only come to their lands in the first place because she’d been on the run from a pack of shifters who’d been hell-bent on dragging her back to their lands. It’d been pure luck she’d found her way to them – and to Joe, her mate. The experience had soured her on shifters for a while, but the bond between her and Joe couldn’t be denied.
It had been one of Lincoln’s proudest moments as a father: Joe had dealt with the rogue shifters the right way, and won his mate’s love. He and Sasha were inseparable now, and with a cub on the way...
… Lincoln pulled in a deep breath. It was what every man wanted for his sons: to do better than he had. To have a happier life than he had. To know he’d taught them right from wrong and that the future was in safe hands.
Sasha scattered the last of the feed over the ground, before exiting the coop and setting the bucket down on the ground. Lincoln noticed the way she rubbed her side a little as she stood up, and his lion was immediately on alert for any signs of discomfort.
“Are you sure you should be out here by yourself?” he asked, and Sasha rolled her eyes.
“Now don’t you start as well,” she said, shaking her head. “Joe’s bad enough, thinking I’m suddenly made of glass or something. I’m not going to break – and this one’s fine.” She rubbed her hand gently over her belly. “It’ll do her, him, whatever it turns out to be, a world of good to start getting used to farm work now.”
She laughed, and Lincoln couldn’t stop a small smile from creeping across his face.
“All right,” he said, though he still wasn’t quite convinced. “Just… be careful.”
Sasha shook her head again. “You know I am. My aunt is a midwife, remember? I used to go with her on home visits. And besides – the baby’s growing in my belly, not yours. The day you get pregnant is the day you can start telling me what to do.”
Lincoln was forced to admit she had a point there, whether he wanted to or not. In another lifetime, maybe he would have gotten angry at Sasha’s words – a human, a member of his pride, talking back to him and telling him to mind himself. But Lincoln felt like those days were long behind him now.
It had been a steep learning curve.
But neither Charity nor Sasha was the kind of woman who’d let others dictate to them. They were tough women, strong and capable. Charity had been running her diner and taking care of herself since she was young, and Sasha had grown up hunting and shooting with her uncle in the backwoods, and could handle herself better than anyone Lincoln knew.
They didn’t need to be petted or coddled. And Lincoln wouldn’t have it any other way.
And Faye is the same way, he thought to himself as he led his horse into the stables. I should know that better than anyone.
He frowned as he started to unbuckle the saddle from his horse’s back.
And yet, I still can’t shake the feeling that I need to protect her. That she can’t be left alone.
Balancing the lion’s instincts to protect with his human knowledge of Faye’s character wasn’t going to be easy.
But it had to be done. Otherwise he’d risk losing her.
And Lincoln wasn’t sure he could stand losing her again. If he hadn’t done so already.
The thought chewed at his mind as he brushed down his horse, murmuring to her softly as he did so, though his mind was elsewhere.
Faye had told him she knew of shifters, and hadn’t seemed especially upset by his revelation that he was one.
But how much did she really understand about it? Had he explained himself well? Had he conveyed what the mated bond really meant – and the shifter urge to protect his mate at all costs?
No – Lincoln could see now that he hadn’t at all.
He’d virtually insisted she come back to the ranch with him right away, without even asking her first. And then, when she’d refused, he’d told her he wasn’t leaving.
And Lincoln knew full well that if it hadn’t been for Mason and Charity happening to turn up just at that moment, he would have sat outside her house all night long, unmoving as a stone, waiting for a danger that he’d known, even at the time, would never come.
Was that really how a grown man ought to act?
But there was a danger, his lion insisted. Remember Sasha? Remember Charity? Remember Daphne? They needed their mates. They needed to be protected.
Well, that was true.
But Lincoln could see those had been totally different situations. No one was chasing Faye. She’d come to Cedar Hill completely of her own free will. She wasn’t mixed up in anything. She was living her dream of renovating the mansion and turning it into something special.
She didn’t need protecting.
She didn’t need Lincoln at all.
The thought, swift and sudden, was like a kick in the groin.
But if she doesn’t need me…
… If Faye didn’t need him, then what was the point at all?
Faye was her own woman, strong and independent. She hadn’t come back to Cedar Hill in order to find him again – she’d come back for her own reasons. She’d even said she hadn’t planned on starting anything with him, and their night together had been something she hadn’t banked on.
She didn’t need him.
She had everything she needed already.
Swallowing hard, Lincoln set down some oats and water for his horse, before heading out of the stables. To his surprise, he found Sasha still by the chicken coop, as if she’d been waiting for him.
“Oh, Lincoln – that reminds me,” she said – though what on earth could have reminded her of anything, considering the last time they’d spoken had been a good twenty minutes ago, was a mystery to Lincoln.
Then he saw the slight twinkle in her eye, and was immediately on high alert.
“What’s that now?” he asked, suspicious.
“We had some packages arrive today,” Sasha continued on casually. “The usual – a few things Charity needs for Faith, and some books for me. But I’m pretty sure one of the packages isn’t ours.”
Lincoln narrowed his eyes. “So?”
Sasha shrugged. “So I just thought it might be neighborly for us to drop it over to its rightful owner. Save them some time. You never know, they might need it.”
“Well, sure,” Lincoln said. “I have time to drive over to Isaiah’s –”
“Oh, it’s not for Isaiah,” Sasha said breezily. “Though I sure did appreciate him dropping in that watermelon yesterday. No, this place is in town.”
Lincoln’s already high suspicion ratcheted up several more notches as he followed Sasha back to the house. Sure enough, when she opened the door, a stack of boxes sat just inside – most of them with either her or Charity’s names on them, but one in particular sat apart from them.
“Oh – here it is,” Sasha said. “Let’s see – it’s for a… Faye Furlong. At the old place on Campion. You know where that is, right?”
“Of course he does.”
Charity’s voice sounded behind them, and Lincoln swung around to see her coming to the room from the office, where she’d been working on the books.
He stared at her, but her wide smile almost dared him to say anything.
Lincoln could feel his dander rising as Charity came to stand by Sasha, both of them smiling at him in complete serenity.
As if they hadn’t planned this. As if they weren’t interfering with his life.
Lincoln scowled, anger gathering in his chest.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Sasha cocked her head, feigning innocence. “I don’t know what you mean. It’s just a wrongly delivered package, Lincoln.”
He shook his head, clenching his fists. “Don’t play game
s. This wasn’t an accident. And I don’t appreciate the two of you sticking your noses in –”
“Lincoln, stop.” Charity was using her no-nonsense tone – the one she usually reserved for troublesome customers at the diner. “You think we’re blind? That we can’t see what’s right in front of our eyes?” She shook her head. “I was there, remember? And I’m quite capable of putting two and two together, thank you very much.”
Lincoln pressed his lips together into a thin line. “That doesn’t matter. This is my business. Not yours. I’ll deal with it my way.”
Sasha took a deep breath. “Look, I hope you don’t mind, but Charity told me what happened. Only me, though.” She sat down on one of the stools by the breakfast bar. “And look… we thought it might be worthwhile for you to get our perspective.”
“On what?” Lincoln asked.
“On human-shifter relations,” Charity said. “After all, I think we might know a thing or two about that.”
Lincoln was flummoxed. Never in his life had anything like this happened to him before. He was an alpha – no one had ever presumed to sit him down and try to give him advice before. Especially not on something like this.
“I don’t need –”
“Lincoln, you were sitting outside her house in your truck,” Charity broke in. “I can’t speak for Sasha, but honestly, I can’t say that’d sweep me off my feet.”
Sasha shook her head.
Lincoln could tell he was fighting a losing battle here. He might be an alpha, and he might be almost twice Sasha and Charity’s ages, but he could tell when he was licked. He might have spent his life fighting off threats to the pride, taking on – and beating – any physical challenge that had come his way, and expecting his word to be taken as law. But if there was one thing he couldn’t stand up to, it was two incensed mates who clearly weren’t going to back off until they’d had their say.
He threw his hands up. “All right, fine. Say what you want. Can’t promise I’ll listen, though.”
Charity rolled her eyes. “See, that’s what I mean. If I’ve learned one thing about you, Lincoln, it’s that you’re stubborn as hell. And I also know that any woman you’d fall for is hardly likely to be the shy and retiring type herself.”
Lincoln couldn’t help but smile grimly at that. No, shy and retiring were the very last words he’d use to describe Faye.
Tough, beautiful, and stubborn, on the other hand…
… Well, now you were talking.
“One thing I can tell you, Lincoln, is that sometimes we humans need a bit of time to think things through,” Sasha said. “It’s not like it is for you, where it’s sudden and immediate. We might feel the attraction, but… we don’t always know what it means. Or how to handle it.”
“But that doesn’t mean we’re rejecting you,” Charity said. “It just means we need time.”
Lincoln looked away from them, out over the fields. They were lit up gold with the late afternoon sun. Between them, he could see the road leading out of the ranch and toward Cedar Hill.
Leading back to Faye, he thought, before he could stop himself.
“She doesn’t need me.”
The words were out of his mouth before he’d even realized what he was saying. He certainly hadn’t intended on saying them.
Lincoln clenched his jaw.
What kind of alpha was he? To show a weakness in front of members of his pride…
“That’s not true.”
Sasha and Charity had both spoken at once. But it was Sasha who continued.
“Lincoln, she’s your mate. Of course she needs you.”
Lincoln felt his gut twist. “There’s no danger to protect her from,” he argued. “When you and Charity came to us, you needed your mates. You needed protection. What can I offer her?”
Sasha and Charity were looking at him now as if he’d grown a second head.
“Lincoln,” Sasha said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there isn’t exactly a horde of werewolves bashing down my door right now. I don’t need protection from anything just at this second. But I’m still here. I’m still with Joe.”
“Sasha’s right,” Charity broke in. “Maybe at the beginning, we did need protection. But that was only the beginning. I don’t stay around because I’m expecting at any moment to be carried off by danger. I stay because I love Mason. Because he’s my mate, and I need him. Just as much as he needs me.”
“I’m not gonna lie – the protection is nice,” Sasha piped up. “To know that Joe could protect me from anything, if he needed to. But that’s just an extra added bonus. I love him. He’s my mate. And I’m sure if she were here, Daphne would say the same thing. A mate completes you. Just because you don’t have to beat back a gang of attackers doesn’t mean Faye doesn’t need you.”
Lincoln swallowed.
Everything they said made perfect sense. And he couldn’t believe he’d been such a stupid fool.
But at the same time, that was how he’d been raised – to be constantly thinking of the pride as being under threat from outside forces. To be always on alert for danger.
That was an alpha’s purpose, after all: to protect.
“Just trust in the mated bond,” Charity said gently. “It’ll do what it needs to do.”
Lincoln glanced back at them, before pointing accusingly at the box sitting on the floor.
“Then why go to all the trouble of abducting her mail?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Charity laughed. “Well, sometimes the path to true love has a little bump along the way. I just thought a helping hand might not go astray.” She leaned across, taking his hand. “Look – I can tell you from a human’s point of view: we feel the mated bond too. In our hearts and souls. I know she misses you. But you might need to just take things a little slowly with her.”
Lincoln swallowed. “How?”
“Just… ask her out on a date, maybe,” Sasha said. “Things moved fast with me and Joe, but that was under some really strange circumstances. If I’d just met him at a bar, I know I would’ve wanted to get to know him, beyond being a shifter. Like a normal couple.”
“Mason took me on a date when we first met,” offered Charity. “Even though I already knew what we had was something special.”
Charity paused, as if waiting for Lincoln to say something. But at this moment, he honestly couldn’t think of what to say.
“Lincoln, if you really want me to, I’ll just give this back to the mailman tomorrow and tell him it was a mistake.” She paused, watching him. “Do you want me to do that?”
Lincoln took a deep breath. For a moment, he was on the verge of telling her to just put the parcel back in the mail – that after what had gone down between them, it wouldn’t be right for him to take it to Faye himself.
But instead, he heard himself say, “No. It’s fine. I’ll take it around to her in the morning.”
Chapter Eight
Faye
Faye woke, stretching her arms and legs until the tips of her fingers and toes touched the very edges of her bedroll.
She was sore all over, but it was a happy, satisfied sore – the kind of sore that came from a good, long day of hard work.
And yesterday had definitely qualified as one of those.
Faye had spent all day with Charlie and her crew, helping them to erect scaffolding and spread tarps to get the place watertight.
It was something she could help with – unlike the more skilled work of assessing which walls would need to come out and be rebuilt, and which ones could be left in place.
She’d watched as two members of Charlie’s crew – two muscular young men named Larry and Chase – had gone about their work, more quickly than she’d ever thought could be possible. Crumbling wallpaper was stripped away to reveal the old lath and plaster skeleton beneath; cracked window panes were carefully removed to the dumpster outside and the gaps sealed up with plastic sheets.
Looking around now, Faye had to admit that things l
ooked messier than they did before – but she knew that, as per usual, things had to get worse before they could get better.
Getting up, Faye grabbed her towel and headed out to the temporary shower Charlie had brought with her. It wasn’t fancy – just a plastic box, like a portapotty – but after several days of washing herself out of a bucket it felt like luxury.
As she headed outside, Faye looked at the sky, and thought that the work of getting the plastic up hadn’t happened a moment too soon: though the clouds in the sky looked wispy and unthreatening, the scent of the air told her there’d be a spring storm coming on, probably sooner rather than later.
It surprised her how easily she still recognized the signs of these things – though the warnings had been drilled into her from childhood to head home quickly if it looked like a storm was brewing. While they tended to be a flash in the pan, they could be deadly while they lasted.
It had been a storm like that that had been raging when she and Lincoln had jumped in the river to save Laurie Sloane’s little dog. Sudden, terrifying, and powerful. The river had swelled up before they knew it.
Won’t be getting much work done today if that’s what we’re in for, Faye thought as she scrubbed her fingers through her hair, trying to let the hot water of the shower soothe and calm her.
It was frustrating, but she knew there was nothing she could do – she’d always known that renovations meant uncontrollable delays and an elastic schedule.
This was just the start of a process that she knew would be long, messy and expensive – but she had to trust that in the end, it would all be worth it.
Nothing worth having ever came easy, after all.
Shutting off the water, Faye smiled wryly as she grabbed her towel.
Nothing worth having.
Without meaning to, she found herself thinking back over her argument with Lincoln, and bit her lip.
Now that the heat of her anger had gone, she found herself wondering if she should call him – she had no idea what she intended to say, but she knew by now that she’d have to do something.
For all the work she’d done yesterday, he’d never been far from her thoughts.