by Dena Christy
He poured himself into her as he was gripped by the most powerful orgasm he’d ever experience. He closed his eyes and buried his face in her neck. He clung to her as they went to paradise together, and he never wanted to move. If there was a way to live his life in this bed with her, he’d do it.
Awareness was slow to return and once it did he could feel her hands stroking down his back.
“I must be getting heavy.” He rolled to the side and pulled her to him. He didn’t want to let her go as she settled her head on his chest. She yawned against him and his arms tightened around her. “Go to sleep.”
It didn’t take long for the soft sound of her breathing to tell him that she hadn’t been able to stay awake. Sleep was a long time coming for him. He held her close as he tried to shove down the feeling that this seemed too perfect, that it was all too good to be true.
Faith blew out a slow breath as she pulled the box out of the plastic drugstore bag. She was in the upstairs bathroom in what was coming to feel like her home. She come here right from the car, she still had her shoes on her feet and her purse slung over her shoulder. She stared at the pregnancy test she was holding and her mind went back to the last time she had to do this. One would think that she would have learned her lesson after the first time, but here she was unmarried and thinking she was pregnant. At least if she was pregnant it was by the same man.
She’d gone to the next town over to get the test. It wasn't that she was afraid of Logan finding out through the grapevine, exactly. If she was pregnant she wanted him to get the news from her rather than the rumor mill. If there was a baby on the way, she had no doubt that Logan would do the right thing, the responsible thing. But a part of her wanted to be sure that he was with her because he loved her, and if she told him about the baby before that happened, she’d always wonder.
“The test isn’t going to take itself.” There would be nothing to tell Logan unless she knew for sure, and she opened the box and pulled out the instructions. She just finished reading them when her cell phone rang from inside her purse. She shoved aside the notion that she’d received a stay of execution when she looked at the phone and saw a number she didn’t recognize.
Her voice was cautious as she answered the phone and a male voice she didn’t recognize came on the other end of the line.
“Hello Faith? We haven’t met but I’m Mason. I run the boxing gym here in town and I’m a friend of Logan’s.”
Her heart pounded as she gripped the phone. “Is it Connor? Has something happened to Connor?”
As far as she knew, Connor wasn’t supposed to be at the gym today. Logan had taken him into town to spend the day with a couple of his new friends.
“He’s alright, but I think you better come here. Do you know where the gym is?”
“Yes. Logan pointed it out to me.”
She didn’t bother to say goodbye as she stuffed her phone and the test in her purse and raced out the door and down the stairs. It took no time at all to get into the car and on the road that would take her to town. What could have happened to Connor? Why had Mason called her instead of Logan?
She couldn’t think of a reason for that, unless Logan was on his way and despite telling her that her son was alright, something had happened that he couldn’t tell her about over the phone.
She pulled into the parking lot of the gym after breaking a few speed laws, and she saw Connor standing beside Mason as they waited for her. There was no sign of Logan. Her stomach dropped down to her toes when she saw that Connor was holding a bloody wad of what looked like tissues to his nose.
She was out of the car in a flash and pulled her son close to her side as she glared up at Mason. He was just as tall and broad as Logan, with the same hair and eye color. She remembered Logan telling her that he was his cousin or something like that. He looked as intimidating as hell, and under normal circumstances she might have been more cautious in her approach. But her baby was standing here bleeding and she wanted to know why.
“What the hell is going on? Logan said he wouldn’t be hurt with this boxing business.”
Mason raised his hands in front of him and made a calming motion toward her. “He didn’t get that here. Two of his friends came to get me and told me that he was in a fight with a couple older boys in the park. I went there and broke it up. I wanted to call Logan but Connor said he only wanted you to come.”
Faith closed her eyes for a second. Connor had been doing so well and she thought that his getting into fights were a thing of the past.
“Thanks for calling me, and I’m sorry for jumping to the wrong conclusion.” Mason nodded his head and looked over at Connor. Connor wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Faith could tell that her son was very close to crying and wouldn’t want to do it in front of this man. “Come on, honey. Let’s get in the car.”
She turned away with Connor at her side and she heard the door to the gym open and close. She debated on whether or not she should take him home and then talk to him. But as he got in the car and stared straight ahead she could see that there was something in her son’s eyes that scared her. There was a wound there, that had to be about more than just getting hurt in a scuffle.
“Honey, look at me.” Faith reached out and gently turned her son’s head so that she could see his face. “What happened? You were doing so well.”
The tears her son had been fighting spilled over and he started to cry. She pulled him to her and held onto him. She didn’t care that his blood and tears stained her top as she rocked him like a baby.
“Tell me it’s not true, Mom. What those boys said. Tell me it isn’t true.”
She had no idea what he was talking about so she pulled back and looked at him.
“What did they say, honey?”
“They said that you, me and … Logan are never going to be a real family. That he is going to mate with a woman named Grace so that he can save the pack. They said that he’s the alpha and that an alpha would never pick a human over the pack. It’s not true is it? We’re going to be together and be a family aren’t we?”
Faith’s blood roared in her ears. What was going on? Her mouth opened and closed as she searched for the words that would assure her son that everything would work out, that everything would be okay. But how did she know if that was the truth? Logan had never spoken of anything more than a summer fling. Had he been using her all this time, as a place holder, until he could be with another woman? Her mind wanted to reject the notion, but she remembered the woman she’d seen yesterday, the one he’d hugged on the way out of his office. Bill hadn’t known her, and she had to be this Grace woman.
“I think we need to go talk to him.” That was the only way this was going to be resolved. If this was just a stupid rumor, spread by a few malicious boys, than Logan needed to know about it. If it wasn’t, she didn't know what she was going to do.
“I don’t want to talk to him. If it’s true, then he lied. He lied by pretending that we were a family when we were never going to be.”
She stroked her hand down his hair as she thought of what she was going to say to him. No matter what happened between her and Logan, Connor would always be his son. She didn’t want to drive a wedge between them, but if what Connor was saying was true, maybe it had happened already.
“We need to know if those boys were lying. I can tell you that he hasn’t said anything to me about his pack being in trouble. I’ll go and talk to him. That’s the only way we’ll know for sure.”
He slowly nodded his head and she started the car. She went in the direction of the bar and rehearsed in her head what she was going to say. If this was just an ugly rumor she didn’t want to go in there screaming like a harridan. She was going to be calm and as she gripped the steering wheel she hoped with all her heart that it wasn’t true. That Logan hadn’t been sleeping with her while planning to make a commitment to someone else.
14
Logan looked up when his office door opened, ready to blast whoever it was
for coming in without knocking. It was Faith who stepped through the door and closed it behind her. He slowly unfolded himself out of his chair as his eyes raked her up and down.
“Baby, what is it?” Her face was pinched and pale, and as he stepped closer to her he saw that there was blood smeared on the shoulder of her shirt. His heart slammed against his ribs as cold flooded his body. He rushed toward her and grabbed her by the arms. “What the fuck happened? Are you hurt?”
Other than the smear of blood and the pale face, she didn’t look like she was wounded anywhere. She looked up at him and the blankness in her green eyes scared the fuck out of him. She put her hands up on his chest, and he expected her to sink toward him so that he could hold her. He needed to hold her in order to calm the pounding of his heart, but instead of meeting him somewhere in the middle, she pushed against him.
“It’s not my blood. It’s Connor’s.” She stepped away from him and wouldn’t look at him.
“Has something happened to Connor? Jesus Christ, Faith, would you talk to me and tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Is it true?” Her voice was so soft that he almost didn’t hear her, and probably wouldn’t have if his hearing wasn’t better than most people's.
“Is what true? What’s wrong Faith? Whatever it is we can fix it but you have to tell me what’s going on.”
“Are you going to mate with a woman named Grace in order to save your pack?” She turned and for the first time since she walked in the door her eyes were laser focused on him. For a second he felt the world tilt under his feet.
“Who told you that?” Whoever it was, they were dead. He wanted the situation to be resolved before he told her anything, and he was certain that whatever conversation they had about their future together, Grace would not be a featured item.
“Your son told me. Your son was told by a couple of boys that you were mating with a woman named Grace. That as alpha there is no way you’d pick a human over your pack. That there was no way his mother and father would ever be together. That we’d never be a family. That’s why I have his blood on me. He fought with the boys and Mason broke it up. I just came from over there.”
“Why didn’t Mason call me?” This was the first he was hearing this, and everything coming out like this couldn’t have been worse. The least Mason could have done was give him a heads up so he would be prepared to do damage control. As it was, Faith had caught him completely unawares.
“He called me because Connor doesn’t want to talk to you. He thinks you lied to him by pretending to be a family with us when that was never going to happen. It’s true, isn’t it?” Her lower lips trembled and he took a step toward her, raising his hand in comfort. Her lips tightened and she put her hands up as if to ward him off. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare touch me until you tell me the truth. I saw a blond woman coming out of your office. Was that Grace?”
Fuck.
“Yes that was Grace, but it’s not what you think.”
“Oh my God.” She clutched her middle and went over to the chair in front of his desk. “What those boys told Connor is true.”
“Look, this was all set in motion before you came here.” Logan scrambled for how to explain this to her in a way that she could understand. That while he had intended to mate with Grace before, that he wasn’t going to now. “I hadn’t seen or heard from you for thirteen years and I wasn’t exactly putting my life on hold. I was supposed to bind myself with Grace, that’s true. But I think I’ve figured out a way to avoid it.”
She grew very still and looked down at where her hands were knotted in her lap.
“How long have you been working on this plan?” Logan closed his eyes for a second. He did not want to have this conversation. He wanted her to trust him because saying all this out loud would only damn him in her eyes. Surely she could understand that what mattered was that he was with her now. “How long?”
“The day after the three of us went to the lake.” And as soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew it was over. She clutched her middle and there was such a look of pain on her face that he wanted to get on his knees in front of her, to beg her to forgive him. But he couldn’t unbend himself, because he wasn’t the only one who’d never talked about their future together.
“So for the first month that we were sleeping together you were committed to another woman. I see.” She stood up and clutched her oversized purse to her. She turned to go to the door, and he grabbed her arm. It wasn’t going to end this way.
“Look, I didn’t know where this was going at first. I am the alpha of this pack. Do you know what that means? It means that there are a whole lot of people that I’m responsible for. I can’t let them down. And how was I to know that this wasn’t more than just a fling for you huh? You never once talked about staying. So was I supposed to turn my back on everything two months ago because you decided to crawl back into my bed. You want to know why you won’t listen to me about this? Why you won’t hear my side?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.” She crossed her arms over her chest and he was tempted to tell her to forget it. She didn’t look like she was prepared to hear a word he said. Maybe this was better. Maybe he should let her go.
“You are looking for an out. You are looking for any reason, any excuse, to bail on us and that’s why you never once talked about anything beyond this summer.”
She opened her purse and pulled out a small bundle of papers that were stapled together in the corner. He looked at it and felt the heat of his anger drop out of his body. A quick scan of the contents told him it was a business plan, her plan for a business she was going to open here in Cold Bay. Oh God, he’d read her wrong. He’d completely fucked this up. He held it out to her and she wouldn’t take it.
“Burn it. It’s no good to me anymore. I forgave you for what happened between us thirteen years ago when I went to your bed. But I can’t forgive you for this, Logan. If you’d been honest with me about what was going on, if you’d told me so that I wouldn’t have to hear it from someone else. If our son didn’t have to hear that his father was never going to be with his mother because she wasn’t good enough, I think that maybe we would have a chance.”
“What was I supposed to say? That I have to mate with someone else but don’t worry, you can be my side piece because I don’t have feelings for her? It was a complicated mess and I handled it the best that I could. It was pack business.”
For the first time since she’d walked in the room her eyes filled and he wanted to stab himself in the heart for making those tears spill down her cheeks.
“That’s the whole problem right there. You have this whole other life that doesn’t include me. And I don’t know if I can trust you. What if something else happens that you don’t want to tell me about and you justify keeping it from me because it’s pack business.”
“Faith. Don’t do this. Don’t walk away.”
She ignored him and moved toward the door as if her feet were made of lead. She got to the door and looked back at him one last time.
“I wanted this to work, Logan. I really did. I didn’t tell you about the business plan because I wanted to do it on my own. I wanted to make sure that everything was ready so I could prove to you that I was ready to commit to you. It’s too bad that you weren’t ready to do the same.”
She opened the door and he couldn’t let her go.
“Don’t you walk out on me. Don’t you take my son from me.”
She looked back at him once again. “You’ll always be Connor’s father and if he is willing to forgive you for this I won’t interfere with you having a relationship with him. But you and I are done.”
She said no more as she walked out the door and shut it behind her. Logan stood in the middle of his office, not quite believing that this was happening. What did she want from him? How was he supposed to know that she wanted to build a life with him if she never told him?
With a roar that sounded like a wounded a
nimal, he grasped the edge of his desk and flung it over. The bookcase followed and the contents spilled onto the floor.
He stood there, his body vibrating and he looked at the mess around him. It was what his life had become, a mess. He leaned back against the wall and cupped his face in his hands. For a long time he stood there, unable to comprehend how things could have gone so wrong, so fast.
After what felt like forever, he took a deep breath and lowered his hands. It was better this way. With Faith out of his life, he could take Grace as his mate and guarantee that he could save his pack. At least with her it wouldn’t feel like his heart was being clawed to shreds.
There was a soft knock on the motel room door and for a moment hope soared in Faith’s heart. Had Logan figured out where she’d gone once she left him? It wouldn’t have been that hard, since her car was parked in the motel’s small lot. She tried to harden her heart against him, but the anger that had flared hot inside her when she’d confronted him had burned itself out. It had lived for a while when she’d held her crying son in her arms when they’d gotten a room in the motel. She’d hadn’t wanted to blacken his father’s name to him, so she hadn’t said what had happened between her and Logan. She’d only told him that things weren’t going to work out between her and his father, but that didn’t mean that Logan didn’t love him.
She pulled the door open, and there stood Bill. He hadn’t asked her any questions when she’d arrived at the motel asking for a room. He told her that she could have her pick since the motel was empty until next week when he would be getting a batch of hikers in again.
“I’m going to go home. I don’t usually keep the office open at night, but I can stick around if you want to talk.”
