by Godiva Glenn
Gabe groaned. “Almost wish I had a time machine. At least it gives us time with you. Once we’re back at the job, things won’t be so relaxed.”
“Long hours,” Troy agreed. “But free weekends rotate, and when we’re off, we’re really off.”
“We won’t let you get bored, and definitely not neglected.”
Chell smiled down at the plate Troy pushed in front of her. The food smelled delicious. Would they still cook for her on Nova Solara? She certainly hoped. And in time she would find them tasks to keep them busy. Perhaps not as busy as their sirens and trucks and fires, but something.
Chapter Thirteen
Gabe
Gabe fixed his plate last and joined Chell and Troy at the island counter.
“Will Mara be back soon?” he asked.
Chell tapped on her phone and stared at it intently. “She will be another hour, but she is on her way.”
“You’ve been vague about what she’s doing,” Troy said. “I assume shifter business, but you talk about her task as if there’s a secret mission going on.”
The look on Chell’s face cemented Gabe’s suspicion, which matched Troy’s. “Do you also have a task, Chell?”
“I’ve fulfilled my duty on this planet, actually. And then some, as the saying goes. Once Mara and I come to a conclusion on her task—which indeed is shifter business and not your concern—we can return to our usual lives and obligation.”
“Return?” Troy’s fork paused mid-air and he lowered it to his plate. “I thought you’d moved here.”
Her eyes widened some. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re here. You talked to Gerri and found us… here.”
“I assumed that Mrs. Wilder had discussed with you that. I am only a visitor on Earth, and I can’t stay. I don’t wish to, nor is it an option.”
“But we both live here. Why is you staying with us not a consideration, but us following you is an assumption?” Gabe asked. He couldn’t believe that everything was about to fall apart just as it had come together.
Chell folded her hands before her and looked between them. “I had asked the matchmaker to withhold a single piece of information, and now it seems you were left in the dark about more. I should have suspected, as you didn’t know I was a shifter, much less from another planet.”
“You can’t blame Gerri for this. You’ve never said anything about leaving,” Troy pointed out.
“And we can’t just pick up and move to another planet. We have lives here. We have jobs.” Gabe shook his head. “It makes more sense for you to stay here.”
“It’s not an option,” Chell said again. She frowned at Gabe. “I went to Mrs. Wilder in search of a mate. I thought it was understood that my mate would return with to Nova Solara. Apparently, there has been—”
“Why, Chell? Why can’t you stay? Don’t tell me there’s some restriction on foreign shifters,” Troy interrupted.
“I am the leader of my clan.” She pursed her lips. “And perhaps I could have discussed this with you earlier, but I wasn’t sure of our futures. I didn’t see the point in discussing possibilities when it was more reasonable to wait for a definite situation.”
“But now it’s a definite?” Gabe asked.
“Yes. From my standpoint, it is. Everything I could wish in a mate, I have found in the both of you. Together I see us as a powerful unit.”
“I’m still processing this leader thing.”
“My clan, the Blue Mountain clan, is one of several bear clans on Nova Solara. I suppose that may not mean much to you, but it’s not something one simply walks away from. Nor would I want to.”
Gabe stood and grabbed a beer. His action seemed to have warranted all attention, as Troy and Chell’s eyes followed him as he stood by the fridge and drank. Everything he knew about Solara—which, granted, could fit in a tiny pamphlet—pointed to his job not existing. They had a fucking castle. They probably had fish shifters to put out fires, or what have you.
“I have a job,” he said. “The best job. It’s what gives my life purpose. Now, I do like you, but we’ve been together less than a day and you’re telling me you expect me and Troy to drop everything and follow you across the galaxy?”
“Well…”
“And for what? What would we do? Who would we be?”
“You’d be who you already are,” she said with frustration. “My clan isn’t lacking in tasks for able-bodied men. You were just saying that your job is exhausting and time-consuming, but that you’d keep me from being bored. I can actually offer you that same deal.”
“Our job is taxing but that doesn’t mean we want to give it up,” Troy pointed out.
“I can place you in a meaningful position. You want to help others, correct? That is the basis of your job. Come to Solara. Help in whatever way gives you the most satisfaction.”
“That’s not the point.”
Chell ran her hands through her wild hair. “I thought you would both be happy to hear my decision. I thought that choosing my mates would be a joyous announcement.”
Troy sighed and placed an arm over her shoulder. “It’s not that part of this situation that’s causing the problem.”
“You mean to say you won’t accept my mark? You don’t wish to be with me?” She raised her chin, but her voice quivered.
“Maybe we should give it time,” Troy said.
Gabe scoffed. He didn’t need time. The entire situation was bullshit. How was it fair that the perfect woman landed in their arms, and now the only way to stay with her was to give up his identity?
“Does the matchmaker’s services always come with this sort of catch?” Gabe asked. He was of a mind to call her and ask what her deal was.
Troy moved behind Chell and hugged her shoulders. His eyes met Gabe’s, and Gabe could tell that Troy was already cracking under the pressure. What happened if Troy said yes? Would Chell take him and go? Gabe didn’t want to ask. In his current state, he wasn’t sure how he’d react to the answer.
“How long are you staying?” Troy asked Chell.
“There was no set time. Before I had contacted Mrs. Wilder, I was only going to be around for a few days. Now, with you, and other matters, it’s hard to say. I can give you time, though. I would feel better if you thought it over.” Her dark eyes found Gabe. “I’m not ready to say goodbye.”
Something fragile in the way she looked at him made him turn away. Dinner was ruined. His appetite destroyed. Maybe the issue wasn’t resolved, but for tonight it was done.
“I’ll be in my room,” he said walking away.
He climbed the stairs and found the guest bedroom Troy had dumped Gabe’s things into.
Chell wasn’t just a pretty face and amazing body. He liked her confidence and her focused attitude. She was the kind of badass who got things done, which made him all levels of turned on. But he wasn’t an item on a checklist. Come to Earth, check. Find a mate, check. Bring him home, check.
Nope. Troy could go, and Gabe couldn’t stop him, but that was Troy. It was foolish of Gabe to think that anything this good would fall into his hands without a price. He thought he wanted everything that Troy wanted, wife, kids, that loving family dynamic. If that was the case, wouldn’t it be easier to say, ‘fuck it’ and quit the job?
He was back to square one. Troy finds a woman, Troy leaves. Gabe remains alone.
Sitting in the dark on his bed he accepted his fate. Even without Troy, even without sex, he knew who he was. Gabe Collins. Firefighter.
Gabe woke to a warm body joining him in bed, and as nice as it would have been to roll over and find Chell, he knew by the way the mattress dipped and the blanket tugged away from him that it was Troy. Not that they slept together often, but Troy had a habit of waking Gabe to talk. It was just a thing they did and had done since they were thirteen.
“I’m surprised you aren’t sleeping with Chell,” Gabe said to the darkness.
“Nah.” Troy shifted, punching his pillow bef
ore lying back down. “We talked some, but Mara came back, and they had things to discuss.”
“I wonder what her task is.”
“Mara’s? Dunno. I overheard something about a crate but that’s it. I wasn’t all that curious.”
Gabe tucked a hand beneath his head and stared up at the ceiling, which was nothing but blackness. “Did you get anything useful out of Chell?”
“Like what? Did I talk her into giving up being the supreme badass of her clan? Of course not.” Troy groaned. “She can’t put herself in our shoes and see how difficult a decision this is. To her, we’re her mates. It’s just meant to be.”
“And what does that even mean? What does being a mate entail? I’ve spent one day with her. You’ve known her longer, but not by much. But mating? And she mentioned marking? That sounds important.” He nodded to himself. “That sounds permanent.”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I thought of asking Mara about it, but then I realized she’s not just Chell’s cousin. She’s a servant or something. Has to be.”
“Then not unbiased.”
“I asked Chell if the mating thing meant she was in love with us,” Troy admitted. “She shut down. I expected her to, really. Emotions are the thing she doesn’t talk about.”
“Wonderful. But even if she is… are you?”
Troy exhaled into the darkness. “Close? I don’t know.”
“I’m not,” Gabe said with certainty. “I wanted to get there, or I did before.”
A bright light appeared in the dark and Gabe glanced over to see Troy looking at his phone.
“What are you up to?”
“I know exactly one shifter. I’m going to ask him about this mate thing.”
Gabe scratched his head. “Pierce? Are you insane?”
“What? He likes me.”
“I wouldn’t say that he likes anyone.”
Pierce was a panther shifter they’d worked with when they were both still rookies. Not the most outgoing or pleasant guys Gabe had ever met.
“Have you got a better idea?”
“He probably doesn’t even remember who you are.”
A chime rang through the air. Troy showed Gabe the screen. “He remembers.”
“You’re going to ask him what, exactly?” Troy asked.
“I asked how shifters find their mates.”
“Seems like that would leave him sore. Obviously, it can’t be easy. He hasn’t found his.”
They waited a few minutes in silence until the phone lit up and chimed again. Troy squinted at the screen. “He says… they just know.”
“It took him three minutes to—”
Another chime interrupted Gabe.
“Apparently, a shifter can often identify their mate by scent or touch,” Troy said.
“But how? Who chooses? Fate? And if a scent is all it took, why did Chell take so long to decide on you?”
Troy stopped tapping a question to Pierce long enough to give Gabe a look. “You have a lot of questions for someone who didn’t want to ask him anything.”
“Fine,” Gabe grumbled.
Troy sighed and held his phone up, waiting. Nothing happened for long enough for Gabe to assume Pierce was ignoring them.
“What did you ask?”
“I asked if finding a mate was the same as falling in love.”
A good question. Even if Gabe’s mind was made up, he wouldn’t mind knowing. Or maybe the answer would hurt him. “Wait, maybe we shouldn’t—”
The phone chimed. Troy read aloud, “I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into with these questions, but yes, finding a mate is instant love. Some shifters try and fight it, deny it, but it’s unmistakable and ingrained. So ingrained that males often mark their females without intending to or even thinking to. Finding a mate is the best moment of a shifter’s life. Losing a mate is like the end.”
Another chime.
“Now fuck off,” Troy read.
Gabe squeezed his eyes shut. Chell loved them. Wanted them as her mates. Wanted to mark them—whatever that was. And here he was, ready to break her heart. But he couldn’t help if he didn’t feel the same way.
“It’s too much to ask of someone,” he whispered.
Troy didn’t immediately respond, and the silence seemed to have weight. “She’s from a different world,” he said softly. “And I don’t mean her planet. Her life, her goals… and this concept of mates. What do you bet it’s what people say they want when they wish for a soul mate?”
“But why is the first step in this mate business to cause so much pain?”
“Maybe it’s painful because we’re making it.” Troy tossed his phone onto the nightstand. “We’ve got a few weeks left on the bench. What if we lived them as if everything was already said and done?”
“I’m not following.”
“How would our days change if we didn’t think about returning to 42?”
“I’d lose my mind,” Gabe insisted. “I count down every day.”
“Then stop. Put it away and treat it as the past. I know it sounds crazy, but if it’s the only thing keeping you here, shouldn’t you at least figure out if you’ll die without it? And isn’t getting close to Chell and learning more about her and the life she wants to live with you the easiest way to make that decision?”
That wasn’t how Gabe saw it, however. “Or I’ll realize that I need the job, but I’ll be in love with Chell, and have to choose. And I will choose, and it’ll destroy me.”
“If you were in love with Chell, I don’t think you’d stay at 42 with those miserable fucks,” Troy murmured.
“Another maybe.” Gabe clicked his tongue. “Endless fucking maybes.”
“If I was in love and had to choose between the job and starting a family, I’d choose a family,” Troy said. “And you know, you’d have to be a part of that family. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“Right. You, your wife, the picket fence, the dog, the kids… and what? Me railing your wife behind the scenes?”
Troy laughed. “You know what? You just made a good case for leaving. A shifter planet won’t look twice at us both being with Chell. If you managed to convince her to stay here, it wouldn’t be the same. We can’t legally marry the same woman and people would always judge.”
“So?”
“So how many fights are you going to get into while defending her honor from nosy neighbors, hmm? And teachers, if we have kids. And our kid’s friend’s parents. The list goes on.”
“Shifters do it here too.”
“Yeah, and they have the support of a clan. Chell’s clan isn’t here, Gabe. It would just be us.”
As much as Gabe wanted to pretend none of it mattered, he’d had too easy of a time imagining the scenario Troy painted. Not so much the fighting and hate, but them. Three of them having a family. Kids.
He always told himself that was Troy’s dream, but it so easily settled into his mind. And no, the job didn’t go well with families, even if just about every guy tried. For every happy couple, there was a divorcee or a cheating scandal. Even if the love lasted, firefighting was dangerous. Gabe knew for a fact that eighty percent of the guys he worked with had “in case of” letters in their lockers.
He had his. If something ever happened to him on the job, two letters would be delivered. One to Sandra, Troy’s mom. She was an amazing woman and raised two boys even though she worked two jobs just to have money to feed the one.
Of course, the other letter was for Troy. It was short because when Gabe wrote it, he didn’t really know what to say. To this day he couldn’t put how he felt into words. Having Troy in his life was simply right.
But where Chell fit in, Gabe wasn’t sure.
Chapter Fourteen
Chell
The repetitive blue of trees outside Chell’s window changed to homes and Mara turned down into the neighborhood where Dagger lived. The new scene shook Chell from the tumble of her thoughts which left her functioning in a bit of a daze.
She’d gone from feeling whole and found to being filled with doubt. And since doubt had compounded with her pre-existing suspicion, everything translated as anger. She was angry that she’d had to visit Earth because of Solomon. She hated him for everything he’d put her through. Furthermore, she hated the humans for being ignorant and simple and clinging to things that didn’t matter.
She hated revealing her hand, admitting her feelings, and having them balled up and thrown back at her.
Above all, she detested that everything inside her had to remain there, because she had duties and obligations, and that meant never showing her weakness. Mara may have detected that something was off, but she knew better than to ask. Chell couldn’t break down now.
She took a deep breath as the vehicle came to a stop. The keys jingled as Mara slipped them into her pocket.
“I doubt we’ll get close to the shed,” she said.
“We don’t need to. Unless Solomon has transformed into a reasonable male, he will let something slip.” Chell pulled down the visor and checked the mirror. The last thing she needed was to appear upset. Her eyes were clear. No puffiness. She glared at her reflection, satisfied that her usual gruff charm was intact.
“The plan is to chat, then?” Mara confirmed.
Chell flipped the visor back up and glanced at Mara. “Exactly. We’ll do the tour. Listen to how Dagger is working with Solomon to change his perspective.”
“Which is bullshit.”
“Most likely, yes. And Solomon, being the fool that he is, will drop a hint. He prides himself on being clever, so much so that he requires others to know what he is being clever about. He can’t keep a secret without telling the world he’s the best at keeping secrets.”
Mara nodded and hopped out of the truck. Chell joined her and they were greeted before they made it to the front door. Dagger came from around the side of the house, smile wide on his face.
“I was wondering when I’d see you again.” He shook Chell’s hand and gave Mara a nod.