After walking the property with Riley and seeing all they had in mind for the store and diner, Maverik finally came clean, “So, I guess you’re wondering why we’re here,” he said, stopping in the middle of the store and turning to face Riley.
“I’m thinking you got tired of waiting for me to fix it so decided to take it in your own hands.”
Maverik huffed a short laugh, “Something like that.”
Riley looked through the picture window at the front of the store and watched Maia rocking on the front porch with his daughter in her lap. “You know now that she’s here, I’ll never let her go. I can’t,” he turned to look into Maverik’s eyes, “But tell me, what’s happened for you to bring her here when I can see she so obviously would rather not be.”
“She’s ready, Riley. She just don’t see it. She’s drifting, not really doing anything but mourning the loss of you.”
“I can’t see her mourning me. What I see is her still so angry with me.”
“She heard what she heard, Riley,” Mav said, his hands on his hips looking down at his own boots, before back up at Riley.
“And still, you brought her to me.”
Maverik sucked his teeth as he allowed his eyes to drift to Maia sitting on the front porch. “Yeah. Yeah, I did. Because I don’t believe what she thinks was going on, is what was going on. And she loves you, and you love her.” Maverik thought about it for a moment then decided to go for broke. “And you’re both suffering. You can’t fix it if she’s six miles from you. And her pain was driving her to make some bad decisions. When a couple of those decisions showed up on my front door step, I decided it was time to bring her to where she was supposed to be, before she ended up in a situation that caused me to kill somebody. Not that the fucker didn’t need killing anyway.”
Riley became alert immediately, stepping toward Maverik, “What do you mean? Who needs killing? What happened, Maverik?”
“She just made some poor choices in friends, Riley. Very poor choices,” Maverik answered.
“Tell me.”
Maverik looked away again before blinking several times and looking Riley in the eyes, “You remember Les?”
“Aw, fuck. How the hell did she get mixed up with that piece of shit?” he asked, before realizing there was something more pertinent, his voice became growly, his face angry, “Did he hurt her?”
“No, no, she punched him. Split his lip good,” Maverik chuckled. “But she was spending time with a friend of his, boy named Jude. I decided that she needed to be here. Where you are, so she sees just what’s in front of her instead of allowing her imagination to run away with what she thinks may or may not be going on. So, here we are.” Maverik smiled, animatedly. Then his expression became more serious, “Seriously, though, I can’t have her waste her life, Riley. She’s a walking shell of who she was once. Reminds me too much of me when I walked away from my Pack after my entire fucking Pack, family included, betrayed me.” He looked beseechingly at Riley, “She deserves happy, Riley. You’re her happy. Please, Riley, fix this.”
Riley took a deep breath, sighing. “I will, Maverik. Whatever it takes, I’ll do. And until she forgives me, I’ll take care of her just as though she already has. You know that.”
“Yep, I do.”
“I still don’t know what she overheard, but I give you my word, swear on my life, I’ve never looked at another woman since laying eyes on her. I’ve waited for her, just like I promised. Even since being here. Haven’t been associated with one single woman. Don’t want any but her. Most nights I lie awake wondering if she’s thinking of me.”
A throat cleared on the other side of the room, “Uh, Riley. What about Libs?” Lucas asked.
“Who’s Libs?” Maverik asked Riley, with a bit of a tone.
“Libby. She’s one of our Pride, a human. I took her in, she needed to belong, just like all of us. But it ain’t nothing more than that. Her Mate is a Siberian Tiger shifter. They having some issues — he hasn’t joined us, but she has. She’s been watching Cristie for me while we work out here.”
“A family for all who need one,” Maverik said, smiling.
“Absolutely,” Riley answered.
Maverik looked Riley in the eye again, “Don’t give up on my Maia, Riley. She loves you. Hell, she sleeps with your damn stinky ass work glove under her pillow.”
Riley broke into a grin, “She does?”
“Yes, she does. Just hang on, she’s stubborn, but once you break through the wall she’s built up, she’s just waiting for you behind it.”
“Wonder where she’d get the stubborn from?” Riley snarked.
“Hey! Watch it, boy, I’m your Pa now!” Maverik teased.
They started their walk back to the house, “You may want to tell her about your Libby before she finds out and thinks the worst,” Maverik suggested.
Riley bristled at the statement, “She’s not my Libby! She’s a friend, she’s family, she’s one of us, but she ain’t mine. Maia’s mine. Only Maia.”
Maverik smiled at him, encouraged by his response. “Let’s get over there, have our sit-down, then I’ll be on my way.”
“You just got here,” Riley objected.
“Yeah, but like I said, Valerie’s ready to have my babies. I needed to see to Maia’s happiness and her safety, and now that that’s done, I need to be there for my Mate and my new little ones as well.”
“She’s not going to be happy,” Riley said, watching her watch them approach.
“Sure she will — it’ll just take a while,” Maverik answered.
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
The non-stop buzzing of the phone in his pocket distracted him from the reconciliation of his bank accounts. He kept several, one for deposits from his Pride, another for deposits from his various businesses, both legitimate and illegitimate, and yet another he routinely transferred his ill-gotten gains into that was far from the reach of the taxing authorities of any jurisdiction of the United States. Irritated he slammed his mouse on the desktop and yanked his phone out of his pocket, “What?!”
“We’ve found him.”
“What about her?”
“No, nothing. But, we know where he is. He’s joined a Pride in Missouri. Looks like a new startup. What do you want us to do?”
“Watch him. Learn what you can about this new Pride. Find out who they are. I’m headed that way. I’m going to bring my prodigal son home. Teach him about respect and duty. He’ll regret humiliating me in front of my people.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep looking for his mother as well. Surely she’s there with him. I want her to watch him pay for his disrespect right along with me. Then she’ll pay for hers.”
“Absolutely, sir. We’ll be waiting for you to arrive.”
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
“You cannot be serious?” Maia asked for the fourth time since sitting down in the living room to speak with Maverik and Riley. “You are not leaving me here!”
“Dead serious,” Maverik replied, frozen smile in place. “What did you think? We were just visiting?”
“Well, yeah — hoping.”
“Naw. This is it. This is where you belong. At Riley’s side, and him at yours. This is home baby-girl.”
“What in my behavior of the last two months had led you to believe that I’d want to stay here? I told you why I renounced him! I told you why I was so devastated! And you turn around and bring me to him?”
“I know exactly what you said,” Maverik snapped, all sense of humor gone. “But do you not remember all I said to you the entire ride up here?”
Maia rolled her eyes, “I tried, but after the second or third hour of the constant droning on of Mates, and trust, and circumstantial misunderstandings, and the benefit of the doubt, and your heart will show you the way, I kinda just tuned you out.”
Maverik looked horrified. “I was making a point! You needed to hear that stuff.”
“Maverik…” Riley said.
But Maverik was
on a roll, “I cannot believe that you didn’t pay attention to anything I said…”
“Maverik!” Riley raised his voice.
“What?!” Maverik snapped.
“She did hear you. She just repeated what your conversations were about,” Riley said, smiling.
“Oh. Yeah, she did. Okay. Good,” Maverik agreed, trying to remember exactly what Maia had said before she’d said she’d tuned him out.
“I can’t stay here, Daddy,” Maia said, tears in her eyes.
Maverik leaned forward taking her hands in his, “Maia, there is no other way than through it. You have to stay. You two have to work this out. And you can’t work it out if one of you is here, and the other is in Louisiana.” Maverik looked over at Riley, then back to Maia, “Baby, I was wrong. I took a stand against your Mate and refused to let him near you. I should never have done that. I should have met with him, found out what was happening. But I’d just got you back, and I was so gung-ho about being a Daddy and rife with guilt about not being there for you and Matty.” He shrugged, “I was determined that I would never again let you down. Only I did. I did so badly, Maia.”
“Daddy — that’s not true. You protected me. When Riley was pulling away and planning on leaving me, you protected me.”
“Yeah, at the expense of making a misunderstanding worse. I was so angry that you were hurting all because of the damn Mate business that I only made things worse.” Maverik didn’t take his eyes from Maia, but he said, “Tell her, Riley. Tell her why you were talking to Kaid about leaving.”
“I don’t need to hear…”
“Yes, you do. You owe it to yourself and to Riley to hear this. Riley, tell her. Tell her what you told me on the phone the other day.”
“On, the… you’ve been talking to Riley on the phone?” Maia asked.
Maverik slammed her with a glare, “Yeah, I have been.”
Riley started speaking softly, praying she’d hear him out, “I was leaving because I had to make a new start, Maia. But I wasn’t leaving you. I bought all this property up here,” he looked around the living room, “Amos’ house. I bought it all, so I could build a life worthy of you. Something you could be proud of. A life we could raise our kids in one day. Without so many damn Alphas around. Our own Pride.”
Maia was watching Riley as he spoke to her. Her heart was pounding, the tiny flame she’d harbored was beginning to grow. She felt… hope. But she still had questions. “Why did you stay away from me? You were pulling away.”
“I had to. You weren’t ready to be my Mate. And I was so ready to make you my Mate. I was having trouble around Kaid, and your Dad, and Daniel and even Delilah. So many Alphas in one place. I was forcing my Panther to stay low key, to not assert himself. And it made him harder to manage. He wanted to grab you, force our mating, establish ourselves as Alpha by dominating all we came across.” Riley’s gaze was focused on his hands where they hung clasped between his knees. He raised his eyes to Maia’s, “I’d promised your dad, and myself, that I wouldn’t rush you. I’d wait until you were ready. Then the subject of Amos’ property came up. I was able to see a future for us, so I jumped on it. I kept trying to tell you about my plans, that I’d be back for you as soon as you called. But no one would let me near you. Then when you, you…”
“I sent you away?” Maia said softly.
“Yeah. I had nothing left, but Cristie, and the hope that one day, you’d come to me. So I came up here as planned and started building our Pride.”
Maia’s eyes rounded, and he could hear her heart pounding.
“Yeah, I said ours, this Pride is ours, not mine. This is our life I’m building Maia. Stay here, please, help me build our future.”
Maia wanted to agree, but there was more to it than that. “What about the woman I heard on the phone, Riley?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Who was she? Why were you giving her your shirt? Why did you want her to wear it because it smelled like you. Obviously you must have had a reason to turn to someone else. Was it that hard to wait for me?”
“No! What I mean is I don’t know what you’re talking about. There has been no other woman in my life in any way, shape, or form since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
Maia shook her head, her eyes rising to the ceiling. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “I know what I heard Riley. I am not crazy. I did not suffer all this time because I was imagining things.”
“I’m not saying you imagined anything. What I’m saying is there has been no woman. Not with me. I don’t know what you heard, but I can bet my life without hesitation that it was not a woman with me. Not romantically anyway. And not one to date or spend time with. There has been no one, No One, since I laid on eyes on you. Even up here, no one.”
Maia had locked eyes with Riley, trying to detect any sign of a lie. There was none.
Maverik leaned over and nudged Riley’s shoulder with his own and whispered a hushed, “Except Libby,” then he let his eyes roam around the room rather than at Maia or Riley.
Riley groaned.
Maia said, “I’m sorry, who?”
Riley smiled, cocking his head to the side. “Libby. She’s a member of our Pride.”
“Really? And how long has she been here. Did you perhaps meet her back home and bring her here with you?”
“No! No, nothing like that. We met her here. She’s human actually and wanted to join our Pride. So I accepted her. She’s been helping me with Cristie, so we would get some work done.”
“I see,” Maia said, sounding a great deal more relaxed than when Maverik had mentioned Libby’s name.
“She’s a very sweet girl that’s having trouble with her Mate and has no one else. She needs a place to belong,” Riley explained.
“Her Mate?” Maia asked.
“Yeah, he’s a Tiger shifter that lives in the area.”
“You’re going to have a family like Kaid’s, baby-girl. A family for all who need one,” Maverik said.
“What about school, Daddy? I only have ‘til the end of January before I graduate. I don’t want to quit now.”
“We’ll work it out. I’ll go talk to the school myself. Or better yet, I’ll send Delilah.”
Maia smiled at the thought of Delilah demanding she be allowed to graduate in spite of the fact that she wasn’t there, but then she sat quietly for so long that it became an uncomfortable silence. Until Cristie came running through the front door and went straight for Maia’s lap.
“Where have you been?” Maia asked, knowing full well she’d been outside with Lucas and Richie.
“I playing,” Cristie said. Then she snuggled down into Maia’s lap and smiled at her doddy when Maia snuggled her back.
Maia looked up at her own Dad and Riley. “This is not settled. There are still unanswered questions.”
“I know, Maia. Please, all I’m asking for is a chance and a little time,” Riley said softly.
“I want to know who you were offering your shirt to and why.”
“So do I,” Riley answered sincerely.
Maia looked down at the little girl beginning to doze off in her arms. Then she said quietly, “Okay. I’ll stay for now. But I make no promises.”
She was still looking down at Cristie, so she didn’t see it, but Riley closed his eyes, and raised his face heavenward, taking a deep breath, and sending a quick prayer of thanks up to the powers that be.
“And on that note, I’m out,” Maverik said. “Where are Richie and Lucas? Maia’s stuff needs unloading; send those boys to make themselves useful.”
Twenty minutes later Maverik was on the road home. He pressed the bluetooth button on the steering wheel of Valerie’s car and instructed his cell phone to call Valerie.
“Hello, my love,” Valerie answered.
“I miss you, baby,” Maverik cooed to her.
“I miss you, too. When are you coming home?”
“On my way now.”
�
�How did it go? Was she angry?”
“Yes, whoooo, she was hot! But she got over it. I did the right thing. I think they’re going to be okay, in time anyway. I’ll tell you all about it, but I need you to do something for me,” Maverik said.
“Of course, what is it?” Valerie asked.
“I need you to contact Maia’s school. See if they’ll allow her to finish her last few weeks online or something. She’s agreed to stay, but she wants to graduate.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but the school is closed for Christmas break. If nothing else, we can go up there as soon as it opens again.”
“Thank you, baby. I figure we’ll get Delilah involved if we have to, and they’ll have to give in.”
Valerie laughed, “Yes, they will. When will you be home?”
“Tomorrow. I’m driving straight through. See you soon.”
Chapter 21
The early morning sun shone through the large picture window, warming Maia’s skin as she stood watching the utility trucks across the highway from Riley’s house. They were installing electricity poles, placing them strategically here and there, leaving room for several different mobile homes to have their own electrical poles and security light like across the highway on Riley’s property. The water well drillers and septic tank installers both had appointments over the next several days as well to do their part and get the area set up for mobile homes to be brought in for the future members of Riley’s Pride. Maia let her eyes drift over to the store, where she could glimpse the males moving around inside. She still wasn’t sure about being here, was having a hard time feeling like she belonged. All of Riley’s men had been nothing short of kind. They even referred to her as Reigna no matter how many times she asked them to call her Maia. But after all that had happened between her and Riley, she just felt like she was intruding.
She looked over her shoulder at the blankets stacked on the arm of the couch. She’d slept on the couch last night, refusing to displace any of Riley’s males from their rooms. Even Riley had wanted to give her his room and sleep on the couch himself, but she refused, threatening to shift and sleep outside if he did. Maia walked over to the couch, taking the top blanket in hand and refolding it. She picked the rest of them up and went to the hall closet, placing them on the top shelf, then, she went to the kitchen to start breakfast for Cristie. She’d not awoken yet, but she knew the moment her little feet hit the floor she’d be looking for something to eat. There were still biscuits and sausage from when Richie had made breakfast for the guys, but she wanted to make something fresh for Cristie.
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