by Willa Okati
Book five in the Soulmarked series
Nathaniel’s been keeping a secret—even the most improbable soulmates can be drawn together.
Nathaniel, youngest of the brothers, has been keeping a secret. He knows the identity of his soulmate, but he hasn’t told anyone—because it’s not just impossible, it’s improbable. No one has more than one soulmate in a lifetime, but his new mark has drawn him to Abram—a widower who had, and lost, his mate long ago. It cannot happen, and yet it has…and Nathaniel’s falling in love, fast.
Abram is charmed by the adorable amber-eyed man, but not fooled. Falling for Nathaniel would be a one-way ticket to Heartbreak Hotel. Abram’s twenty-five years older, and he’s had his time with his soulmate. He knows there are no second chances, but every time Nathaniel enters his life, he wins another piece of Abram’s heart. Even if Abram knows better, he’s beginning to wonder if dreams can come true.
Or if miracles might just have been real all along.
Dedication
For Rebecca, editor extraordinaire!
Trademark Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
True Grit: Charles Portis/Paramount Pictures
Oliver Twist: Charles Dickens
Foghorn Leghorn: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Mini-Me: New Line Cinema Productions Inc.
Kryptonite: DC Comics
Valium: Hoffmann-La Roche
Liquid Silk: Bodywise Ltd.
Realtor: The National Association of Realtors
Spike TV: Viacom Entertainment Group
Chapter One
The day the coliseum opened
“Nathaniel.” A rough, gentle hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder jostled him out of a deeper sleep than he usually enjoyed. “Nathaniel? Time to get up.”
Nathaniel stirred, pressing his cheek against the soft, rumpled cotton of his sheets. He blinked once, then twice, as he knuckled under his eyes. “What time is it?” The room seemed as dark as midnight, but that couldn’t be true if Robbie was shaking him out of bed.
“Nearly seven. You’ll be late for work.”
“What?” Nathaniel shook his head. “That can’t be right. My alarm’s set for six.”
“Must not have gone off.” Robbie clumsily yet affectionately, tousled Nathaniel’s hair. He’d all but raised Nathaniel from childhood, but he never had gotten much polish to his manners. Nathaniel didn’t mind. He liked Robbie best the way he was, and he knew Robbie understood that without having to ask—or be told.
He knocked his shoulder against Robbie’s leg to say thank you without speaking aloud. “Give me a minute.”
“Sixty seconds and not much more, or you really are going to miss your bus,” Robbie warned. Then added, “I’ll start some breakfast going for you. Just this one time.”
Nathaniel rubbed sleep from his eyes, blinking at Robbie as his oldest brother made his exit. He was a good man—Robbie—though he probably wouldn’t have described himself that way—a good man with a kind heart underneath the layer of gruff.
Oof, but Nathaniel’s head didn’t like the idea of him moving around. A light ache thrummed at his temples like an over-tight guitar string given a hard pluck.
Maybe I’m coming down with something, he mused sleepily, still disinclined to crawl out of his nest of cozy blankets and soft flannel sheets. Such was the common fate of a public librarian, out there where germs crawled over sticky hands and soared merrily through the smoggy city air. His brothers called him a kitten, teasing, for his love of snuggling down into warmth wherever he could find it, but today the bed almost demanded he curl up with his head under the pillow and rest.
No could do, though. He had his share of the rent to pay, even if Robbie muttered and grumbled about taking his money every month. Nathaniel pushed back the light, fluffy weight of his duvet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Oof. He’d give himself an A for effort, but would have to take away five points for stopping there to massage his temples.
Honestly, now. He didn’t even drink, except on holidays. Something must be up. He stretched then kneaded his joints to work out the kinks. He—
Wait. What’s this? Nathaniel tried to blink away the morning fog in his eyes to peer down at the cap of his shoulder. He’d felt a strangely rough patch beneath his fingertips.
“Look who slept in for once!” Cade crowed, his only warning before he landed on Nathaniel’s bed with a teeth-jarring thump. Far less gentle than Robbie by nature, he grabbed Nathaniel in a headlock and scrubbed his knuckles over Nathaniel’s scalp.
Nathaniel had been made slender as a willow tree by the hand of Mother Nature, but he had more strength in his limbs than people gave him credit for—especially Cade. He pushed at Cade with an indignant yelp, getting him a good one in the ribs. “Stop it, you bastard.”
“That’s a nice thing to say about our parents,” Cade retorted, sounding slightly winded. “Damn. Who taught you to use your elbows like that?”
“As I remember, you did.”
“Details, details,” Cade said, dismissing that. “Let me get a look at those guns, though—whoa.”
Nathaniel crossed his arms in a flurry of instinct and indignation. “I said stop, Cade!”
Cade didn’t make a move toward him. He sat as still as a scarecrow, his eyes wide and surprised.
“Don’t say a word,” Nathaniel warned him.
He should have saved his breath. “Was that a soulmark?” Cade demanded, breaking his startled stillness to make a grab for Nathaniel’s shoulder. “Since when do you have a soulmark? Who is it for?”
At least he kept his voice low, a hot-rushing whisper. Nathaniel started to reply—then stopped himself. The new soulmark—for a soulmark it was—almost hummed beneath his fingertips. As best as he could tell, it was shaped like an iris nearly ready to open—both the flower, and the eye, somehow both at the same time. He could have said so, but oh no. Give Cade an inch, and he would take not one, but two, miles.
“None of your business,” he said instead of the I don’t know that he’d meant to answer with.
Then he groaned on the inside. He did know better than that. No chance on earth Cade would leave it alone now.
“I mean it,” Nathaniel said anyway, standing up and making a grab for a blanket to drape around his shoulders. He did that often enough that Robbie shouldn’t guess anything was out of the ordinary. “And don’t you dare tell anyone. Understand?”
Well, it was worth a try, at least.
* * * *
“Morning, Abram. Got a minute? I— Whoa.”
Abram sighed and waved at his fellow officer with the point of a minuscule screwdriver. “Good morning to you too, Ivan. What brings you?”
Ivan apparently chose to ignore Abram’s question, and—for the moment—the stack of files he carried in one arm. “What in the Sam Hell are you doing?”
“It isn’t obvious?” Abram dropped the screwdriver to roll wherever it pleased in the mess on his desk. While Abram had heard of clean-desk policies, he didn’t reckon he’d ever manage to make one happen unless he shoveled the lot off with one hand while striking a match with the other. And today he did have more clutter than usual. “Fixing my DVD player. What else would I do at work?”
Ivan rubbed at his mouth. Trying to stop the grin from becoming a chortle, Abram suspected. “I can see that it’s a DVD player. It’s why you have it at work that’s beating me right now. Aren’t you supposed to be working on catching the bad guys?”
“I am. The damn thing’s got a gremlin infestation.” Abram sat back and crossed his arms loosely. He worked hard to keep his flexibility as he started the downhill slide from his mid-forties, thank you very much. “Come in and shut the door if you’re going to be taking up space. You could even be helpful if you wanted to.”
“Not sure how much I know about gremlins,” Ivan said, but he gave a sort of
why not shrug and did as Abram had suggested. Up to a point—which was picking up a section of the DVD player’s casing and peering at it. “What’s it doing? Or not doing.”
“What it’s doing is driving me insane, and I’m not going to be much help playing cops and robbers if I can’t get a decent night’s sleep. It keeps turning itself on at the drop of a hat and triggering something in the TV when it does. It woke me up yesterday playing True Grit at top volume. I like the Duke, but my God, not at rock-concert levels at the ass-crack of midnight.”
Ivan gave up the fight not to snicker. “Fair enough. I’ll give you a pass on bringing home to work, just this once.”
“Kind of you.” Abram rolled his eyes. Indulgently. He liked Ivan as well or better than any partner he’d worked with since leaving the Merchant Marines for a badge and a beat. Well, enough to take the teasing with good grace. Reminded him somewhat of Callum when they’d both been that age, though Abram wouldn’t say it was conceit that made him think he’d taken being widowed better than Ivan generally handled being as good as divorced, and Abram hadn’t handled losing Callum well.
Not that he’d say as much to the man. Out loud.
He cleared his throat and picked up the screwdriver again. “What’s on your mind? Any new robbers for the cops to play with?”
Ivan toyed with the scrap of casing he’d picked up then tossed it aside. “Thought I’d check and see if you were still planning to go to the game tonight.”
Abram fixed Ivan with a stern look down the bridge of his nose. “They’ve been working on that coliseum for the last twenty years. The teams have been signed since last January. This will be the game of the year. No question. Not to mention there’s a fancier room than I’ve personally ever stayed in reserved under our names, ready and waiting to be sullied, and I intend to celebrate my way through every last tiny bottle in the mini-bar I’ve been promised, no matter who wins the game. Yes, I’m still planning to go, along with Nick, even if Barrett can’t make it, and in case you were working around to wheedling your way out of it, the answer is no. You’ll be there if I have to toss you over my shoulder, and you know I can do it.”
“Good God, okay. I surrender,” Ivan said, laughing.
Excellent. Half the time, Abram designed those little rants purely to coax a smile out of the man. He twirled the screwdriver at Ivan. “And is there anything else on your mind today?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna say ‘no’ for right now.” Ivan dropped the stack of folders on Abram’s desk, obscuring a small pile of tiny nuts and screws he’d worried loose of the DVD player’s innards. The topmost file slipped, knocking a picture frame off its stand and onto its back. “Except for these. Need you to read them over and slap your Hancock on there, wherever it’s needed.”
“Such polish and class,” Abram muttered, giving in to the inevitable. “All right, fine. If I must. Careful of the picture, though, would you?”
Ivan was already grimacing, reaching to straighten the photo. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid you must,” he said, managing to make it sound like more than an apology. “I’ll catch up with you before the game. Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”
And he would, too—if only out of guilt over knocking Callum’s picture over. Abram sighed and sat back as Ivan beat a hasty retreat. He wasn’t angry. Abram didn’t generally ‘do’ angry. He preferred Shakespeare to Spike TV and he’d take a good cabernet over beer any day. He’d met quite a few men who’d thought rarified tastes were somehow emasculating, but personally Abram begged to differ. Besides, he stood nearly six feet four in his stocking feet and had the muscles to match. Add a shaved head, a stark goatee and a well-practiced, dour glower on the job, and he figured he could act any way he pleased off the job. No one tangled with him. But as strong as he liked to pretend to be, Callum had been the real deal—five inches shorter and oceans tougher. As foul-mouthed as a sailor, tight as sinew, hot-tempered and as loyal-hearted as a man could ever hope for in a soulmate.
God, Abram missed him.
And Abram would never know that sort of love again. That was the hardest part of being a widower. No one got more than one soulmate in a lifetime. He chafed gently at the patch of rough skin where his soulmark had once been but had faded away to a colorless scar after Callum’s death. Such was the fate allotted to the marks of all widows and widowers following the loss of their soulmates.
Abram pointed after Ivan with the tip of the screwdriver, asking, “Am I a bad man for using guilt as a motivator?”
Forever caught in a moment of time in the picture, Callum lifted his chin proudly and gave Abram a cool stare.
“Nah, you’re right,” Abram said. “All’s fair in love and war.”
Damn right, the picture seemed to say. Now stop fucking around and get to work.
As if for emphasis, the old soulmark on his shoulder pinged, an itchy needle that burrowed beneath his skin. It’d happened before. Like phantom limbs they were, sometimes. Abram gave it a good scratch, saluted the photo, and did as he’d been told. He knew better than to say no to Callum when he was in a mood to give orders.
* * * *
Nathaniel had always heard that curiosity killed the cat. He’d taken that to mean there was a certain point past which it would be unsafe to continue to pry. After that—there be dragons. A clever man would know when he’d crossed the line.
Whoever came up with that saying had never come across Cade when he really wanted to know something.
“Please stop asking,” Nathaniel begged. He blocked Cade’s path to Robbie, who—so far—hadn’t noticed their middle brother gnawing on his new favorite chew toy of conversation. He didn’t want Robbie to know about his soulmark just yet. He definitely didn’t want Cade to find and torment the man before Nathaniel and his soulmate had even met. God. Brothers! Nathaniel loved both Cade and Robbie, but sometimes he was sorely tempted to sell them both for a nickel.
Cade grinned in reply, cocky and sure of himself. He waved at the crowd waiting to enter the coliseum, great big looping, circular gestures. “What? He can’t hear us. And I’d stop asking if you’d answer the question. Until you do, we’re both out of luck. Do I know him? Is it a him? Oh. Is it a her?”
Nathaniel pressed a knuckle to his forehead and exhaled slowly. How could he answer, when he still didn’t know?
And that wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. Soulmarks came in when one met their mate in person. Perhaps not right away—it could take years for some people—but to have the mark before he had the name of the man? Unheard of, and it worried Nathaniel more than he could say.
If Cade didn’t drop it soon…
Cade chortled. He wrapped his arm around Nathaniel’s shoulders and jostled him. “I’ll wear you down eventually. You know it and I know it.”
“But not tonight, Cade. Please.” Nathaniel wasn’t above using his big brown eyes as weapons when the wars called for it. He stared mournfully at his brother, pleased to see the instant response of a guilty wince. “You know Robbie’s been looking forward to this game for ages. Don’t ruin it for him. All right?”
“Damn whoever taught you to do that, Oliver Twist,” Cade muttered. “Okay, fine. For now. I’m not making any promises about tomorrow.”
No, he wouldn’t—and truly, Nathaniel knew better than to believe him about tonight unless something else blew up big enough to distract his attention, but he’d take what he could get. “Thank you,” he said with a sigh of relief.
Just in time, too. Robbie glanced back at them, one eyebrow starting to go up in mild curiosity.
He flung himself forward, tackling Robbie with the kind of exuberant hug he’d refused to grow out of as he grew older, mostly because it made Robbie happy. “Finally! This is amazing. Did you ever think this day would come?”
As he’d hoped, Robbie forgot about Cade’s teasing. Nathaniel kept his relief on the inside and a smile on the outside, laughing and nodding at the right places. He couldn’t stop being aware of the soulmark darke
ning on the cap of his shoulder, sharpening his nerves to a finely honed pitch. Everything smelled and tasted and sounded somehow more than usual.
Maybe his soulmate was the sort of man who was generally inclined to be late? Stranger things had happened.
Nathaniel dropped a pace behind Cade and Robbie, all the better to pretend he’d taken a chill from the night air and give himself an excuse to chafe his arms from elbow to shoulder. There was the oddest prickling on the back of his neck now, almost as if he was being watched, but when he looked up—nothing.
Well, at least they weren’t the only rowdy bunch waiting in line tonight. Nathaniel unconsciously slowed his movements, appreciating the zip and zing of the crowd around him. They’d started building this coliseum the year after he’d been born, and to finally have it finished was cause for celebration. While Nathaniel might be quiet, he liked a good party as much as the next man and regardless of whether he’d been stuck with a peculiar soulmate problem, he couldn’t help noticing with a small, private smile that he didn’t have any trouble attracting attention of his own.
Even if Robbie did shut them down quick as a blink.
Nathaniel chuckled quietly, still content to cast his gaze about. He lighted, by chance—he thought—at a group of men at the far side of the milling crowd. Too far away and it was too congested to get a proper look at them, but they caught his eye and held it. One short, stocky man with heavy blond hair caught in a rough ponytail. One tall and lean who kept his back turned. Something about the set of his shoulders made Nathaniel frown, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what.
The third man stood even taller and was built as sturdy and solid as if he shared DNA with an oak grove. Dark-skinned, with shoulders as wide as the deck of a barge, he’d shaved his head as smooth as polished onyx. He wore a trimmed goatee and had the kind of generous, ebullient smile that it tickled Nathaniel’s sense of humor from the inside out.
