by Dena Christy
He got out of the truck and strode toward the bar. When he walked in he saw Rafe sitting at the far end of the room, and he walked over to him.
“Why aren’t you with Grace?”
Rafe looked at him with a puzzled look on his face. “Maybe because she’s not my woman? Did she tell you that she was with me?”
Mason sighed and dragged his fingers through his hair. He was being ridiculous and he knew it. Grace was probably just out enjoying some time to herself, or visiting with someone and he was winding himself up for no reason. But he hadn’t liked that she hadn’t been where he expected her to be, and he knew he couldn’t let it rest until he found out where she was.
“No, she didn’t tell me that she was with you. I went home and she wasn’t there and I haven’t seen her anywhere around town, so I thought maybe she went out to the house with you.”
Where could she be? It wasn’t like her not to tell him where she was going. There was still a possibility that Titus was still on the loose, although there been no sign of him since he and Logan had started asking around in East Brook if anyone had seen him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still being harbored by someone, but if he was still in the area he was doing a damn good job of hiding himself.
“Well, I’m going to do you a favor. Even though she’s your woman and it's your job to keep track of her, I’ll find her for you.” Rafe flashed Mason a grin, but made no move to leave his seat. He directed his eyes to the bank of windows at the front of the bar, and inclined his head toward them. “Oh look, I found her for you.”
Mason turned his head to look toward the window and as he watched Grace’s car pulled to a stop in front of the bar. Relief went through him at the sight of her, and he realize just how worried he’d been for her. It was more clear than ever just how much he loved her, and he knew he wouldn’t rest until she was by his side.
A frown creased his forehead as she got out of the car and cast a quick glance behind her toward the road. Something was wrong, but instead of going to her by rushing outside, his eyes scanned the road to see if there was someone following her. There was no one out there, and he held still as she slammed the car door shut and raced toward the bar.
Her face was pale and there was a look of such terror in her eyes that he could feel a protective rage bubbling up inside him. Something happened to her, and the need to protect her and keep her safe swamped every other feeling inside him. She must’ve seen his truck parked in front of the bar, and was now coming to find him. He took a step forward as she burst through the door, but she must not have seen him from his place at the far end of the barroom.
She didn’t look around, and simply walked straight toward Logan’s office.
“I wonder what that’s all about. Whatever it is she is some scared. Best find out what’s wrong with your woman.”
Mason stepped away from Rafe. He didn’t need him to tell him that there was something wrong with Grace. Terror had been written clearly all over her face, and in every line of her body. But what Mason couldn’t understand was why she went running to Logan, and not to him.
When she first pulled and he thought maybe she’d seen his truck in the parking lot, but now he wondered. If she been looking for him the most logical place for her to have gone was the gym, and she had to pass it on her way to the bar. The fact that she burst in here without once looking around before racing into Logan’s office told him that he was not the one she was looking for.
Maybe she thought he was in Logan’s office? Even as he thought it it seemed like a stretch, but what other explanation could there be. Yes Logan was her alpha too, but why would she be running to him in terror instead of running to her mate?
He wasn’t going to find out anything by standing here staring at Logan's office, so he strode toward the open office door. Just as he was about to knock on the door frame he became aware of what she was saying.
“… Oh God, Logan what am I going to do? If I tell Mason the truth of what happened all those years ago he’ll never forgive me.”
Ice invaded Mason’s veins. She led him to believe that she left him for another man fifteen years ago, now she was saying that that wasn’t the truth? That something worse had happened and she was certain that if she told him he’d never forgive her? What the hell was going on? What could possibly be worse than her being with someone else?
He looked from her to his cousin and it occurred to him that whatever the secret was it was one they both shared. The only thing he could think of that was worse than her running off with another man, was her sleeping with his cousin. Was that the truth? Was that the secret? That she’d been with Logan that summer?
The betrayal he’d felt all those years ago slammed through him, fresh and new as his cousin looked up to see him standing in the doorway.
The blood drained from Logan’s face, and Mason curled his hands into fists at his side as Grace turned toward the door to see what Logan was looking at. Her face was so pale that he could see the tiny blue veins standing out underneath her skin and she clutched at the chair beside as she put a hand up to her mouth.
His upper lip curled back, exposing his teeth in a snarl as he stepped into the room and kicked the door shut.
“Mason, I didn’t see you there.” Grace’s voice was small and Mason didn’t spare her a single glance as he charged across the room and grabbed Logan by the front of his shirt. The rage inside him was incendiary, and left no room for rational thought. It wasn’t his alpha he was taking hold of, because no one in the pack would dare put hands on the alpha in an aggressive manner. It was his cousin he was prepared to go toe to toe with. It was his best friend who had stabbed him in the fucking back and that was who he was prepared to fight with.
“Did you fuck her? Fifteen years ago when we were all so close, when we all hung out together, were you stabbing me in the back? You knew how much she meant to me, you knew much I loved her. How could you do it to me? How could you fuck her?”
Logan broke the hold that he had on his shirt and he shoved him away. The muscle worked in his jaw, and a rational part of Mason’s mind told him that he wasn’t going to get anywhere by using his fists. He’d already stepped over the line by putting hands on his alpha, but in this moment didn’t care. He just wanted to get to the bottom of what the fuck was going on.
“Look, I know your pissed and you have every right to be. In light of that fact I’m going to ignore what you just did, but you need to calm the hell down.”
A growl rumbled in Mason’s chest as Logan barked out his order. Who was he to tell him to calm down? He wasn’t the one whose woman had betrayed him with his best friend.
He took a step forward again, and a small hand came to rest on his bicep. He froze, his body stiffening as he became aware of Grace standing beside him.
“Please Mason, you have to calm down. Logan and I have never slept together. The only thing between Logan and I is friendship, nothing more.”
Her face was pale in her lower lip trembled and Mason clenched his back teeth to keep the instinct to soothe her from becoming more than a passing thought. She was wrong when she said that the only thing between her and Logan was friendship. There was something else there, a secret that they’d kept from him fifteen years ago and were still keeping from him now.
He pulled his arm out of her hold and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time since she'd come back into his life. Her eyes appeared guileless as she looked up at him, but he knew now just how false that notion was. He’d shared everything with her, his home, his bed and his dream of a future for them together. She shared nothing but lies with him. And it was going to end now.
“Tell me what you’ve been hiding from me for fifteen years, tell me right now. If you want to fix this, if you want us to be together then you better tell me what the hell is going on.” His voice was low as he did his best to keep his anger from spilling out. He knew this moment was what would make or break what they had together.
A look of
fear crossed her face and her eyes swam, and he willed her to get past it. He wanted to take that look away and he kicked himself for being such a fool. She played him false and lied to him, and even now all he wanted to do was comfort and hold her and tell her that everything would be all right.
“Mason, it’s complicated.” Her voice came out in a whisper as she looked at him. Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. But all he could see was her unwillingness to trust him, to trust that he would love her no matter what.
“If you can’t trust me with the truth, then we're done.” He waited for a heartbeat of time for her to speak, but all she could do was stand before him trembling. She wasn’t going to say it, she wasn’t going to tell him and in that moment he knew it was over.
He turned away from her, ignoring his cousin's demand that he stay where he was, and he opened the office door. As he walked through it he knew he was walking away from her, away from the love he had been so sure that existed between them. While he was certain of what he had felt for her, he was now certain that what she felt had not been the same. By keeping secrets from him, by refusing to trust him with the truth, she'd killed whatever was between them.
He closed the door behind him and with it he shut off the possibility of a future between him and Grace.
Grace flinched when the door shut behind Mason. She staggered over to the chair in front of Logan’s desk, and sank down in it. Her trembling hands came up to cup her face, and she curled forward. How could she have been so stupid, to not even look in the bar to see if Mason was there. She’d been so intent on telling Logan of her confrontation with Titus, that she been sloppy and careless by leaving the door open. It was almost as if she wanted her secret to come out.
Was that what she wanted? Was fifteen years long enough to carry this burden inside her, and had the time now come for her to be released from it?
The secret had festered for over a decade, it’s poison growing stronger with each passing year. She was afraid that if she let it out it would kill what had been blossoming between her and Mason. She knew she loved him, and was starting to think that he loved her, but perhaps those feelings were already destroyed by her inability to speak when he’d commanded it. Fear had tightened her throat, and she’d been unable to let the words that she needed to speak to him out. And now he was gone and had declared that what was between them was over.
Strong, gentle hands grasped her around her wrists and slowly lowered her hands away from her face. Logan squatted down in front of her so that his face was level with hers, and she could see the kindness in his deep blue eyes that were so much like Mason’s.
“I messed up, didn’t I?” Her voice came out in a strained whisper.
“Yeah, you did. But there is nothing that can’t be fixed.” He moved his hands down to clasp hers, and gave them a gentle squeeze. “He is hurt and he is angry, I’m not going to deny that. But Mason is also a reasonable man, and if you go to him and tell him that you want to tell him the truth, he will listen.”
Grace shook her head. It couldn’t possibly be that easy. Logan hadn’t seen Mason’s face when he looked at her when he demanded to know the truth. There’s been so much hurt and anger in it, that she didn’t think it would be possible to overcome it. She broken the trust that he had in her, not only by telling lies to him fifteen years ago but also by keeping secrets from him after she bound herself to him two months ago.
“You don’t know how bad the truth is, Logan. I lied to Mason fifteen years ago about there being another man and that was why I was leaving. I lied to you at the same time when I told you that I needed to leave because my stepfather had threatened Mason. The truth is so much worse, and I’m afraid. The truth has been my burden all this time, and it's so heavy that I don’t think I can bear to carry it anymore. But how can I put it on him?” Grace let go of one of his hands and used her fingers to swipe at the tears that were trickling down her cheeks.
Logan had no idea just how bad what happened fifteen years ago was, and she couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell anyone, not even Mason, because if she did she would see in his eyes just how unworthy of his love she was. She would rather he left her now, thinking that she was full of lies and treachery, than to tell him the truth and have her worst fears confirmed. Her relationship with him was over, but she could live with it if it was because he thought she was a liar.
“Even at twenty, I wasn’t as naïve as you seem to believe. I knew there was more to it than what you were telling me, but I trusted you and I knew you wouldn’t do that to him without a very good reason. I don’t know all of what happened to you and frankly I don’t need to know. I helped you all those years ago because you’re my friend, and I knew that you were doing what you did to protect Mason. Maybe he needed protecting fifteen years ago and maybe he didn’t. The answer to that question is in the past and not relevant anymore. What is relevant is that I have been lying to my best friend for fifteen years and I don’t want to do it anymore.”
Grace swallowed hard as she looked at Logan. “What are you telling me? As my alpha you have the power to order me to do your bidding. Are you ordering me to tell him the truth?”
“No, I would never use my power as alpha in that way. But I want you to consider something, Grace. I’m sure you think that you’re protecting Mason even now, but who is going to protect you? Titus is never going to go away. He has power over you because you let him.”
“I know, but how do I break it? How do I get the nightmares to stop? How do I get to the place where I don’t see him around every corner?”
That was the crux of the problem. Titus had been haunting her for fifteen years. What he had done to her all those years ago, and what he made her do, was like a cancer eating away at her soul. But she didn’t know how to get rid of it without cutting it out and leaving a hole that would never be filled.
“Do you want to be free of the past? Do you want to have a future with Mason?” There was a wealth of compassion in Logan’s eyes, and Grace’s lower lip trembled upon seeing it. She wanted out of the grip of the past more than anything else in the world. She was in love with Mason and wanted to be loved by him in return. She wanted to have a home with him, to have children and grow old with him. But all that seemed like an impossible wish with Titus looming like a specter and threatening to ruin it all.
“I want that more than anything, but what if I tell him the truth and he still turns away from me?” That was it, the thing she feared the most. That she would reveal to him her deepest shame and he would reject her for it.
“Do you love him?” Grace swallowed and nodded. This all would not be nearly so painful if she didn’t. “Then trust it. If Mason felt nothing for you he’d still be standing here. He would not have been so angry and so hurt otherwise. If you want to get out of the grip of the past, and truly move forward you have to tell him what happened fifteen years ago. And you have to tell him all of it. Trust him. He loves you. And I can tell you as a man that if there was something in Faith’s past that was slowly destroying her, I would want to know what it was. There is nothing that she could ever tell me that would make me turn away from her.”
It couldn’t be as simple as that. He didn’t know what happened and he couldn’t know how Mason would react to the secret she harbored.
“I’m so scared, Logan.”
“I know.” He gave her hands a squeeze. “But the problem with fear is that it will spread and take over everything if you let it. Don’t let it. The absolute worst thing that is going to happen is that you lose Mason. But if you don’t tell him the truth you’ve lost him already. Trust him and don’t be afraid anymore.”
He was right. If she didn’t try to talk to Mason, if she didn’t tell him the truth, she’d already lost him. So the worst had already happened. If she let things stay the way they were, then Titus won. This was what Titus wanted. This was why he’d been haunting her for two months, and why he’d threatened her today. He didn’t want this merger to happen, and he
didn’t want a mixing of the bloodlines. But he was too late, she thought as she put her hand on her belly. In all likelihood a mixing of the bloodlines had already happened, and she was carrying Mason’s baby inside her. Did she really want that baby to grow up without its mother and father in a home together? Didn’t she owe it to this child, and any future children she wanted to have with him, to trust that he could handle the truth that she’d carried around inside her for so long.
She pulled her hands from Logan’s, nodded her head and stood up. “I’ll tell him, but I don’t know how receptive he’s going to be to hearing it. He was so angry when he walked out of here I don’t know if I’m going to get him to listen to me. I might be too late, and missed my opportunity to tell him already.”
“It’s never too late. I’ll get Rafe to follow you home, and look out for you while I go talk to him. If he doesn’t want to listen to you right now, I’ll make him listen to me. I’ll send him home when he’s ready to hear what you have to say.”
She looked up at him, and gave him a soft smile. “Thank you, Logan. For everything, not only for today but for what you did for me fifteen years ago without asking any questions. Faith is a really lucky woman to have you.”
Logan pulled her to him and gave her a quick hug. He set her away from him and looked into her eyes. “And Mason is a very lucky man to have you, he just needs to wake up and see it.”
Grace turned and walked out of his office, and she stood by the bar while she waited for Logan to talk to Rafe. If nothing else she intended to extricate herself from the past’s grip. She was tired of being stuck, she was tired of being afraid. It was time to get out from under the burden of her secret. She didn’t know if she and Mason were going to have a future, but she intended to do everything in her power to make sure he knew just how much she loved him. In order to do that there had to be no more secrets between them.
15
