Gunnar was loath to let go of her, but he passed her over to Axel, who wrapped his arms around her and gently kissed her lips.
“Dakota,” Axel whispered. “Don’t go.”
She jerked back and stared at him, a look of disbelief on her face. “What?”
“We don’t want you to go,” Gunnar answered.
She turned her head and looked at him, her eyebrows pulling together. “I have to.”
Gunnar shook his head. “Stay here. With us. Don’t leave. We’ll take care of you.”
“You’ll—” She shoved away from Axel, crammed the wrinkled receipt into her purse, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t need anyone to ‘take care of me.’ I’m a big girl. And I’m not going to stand here and…God!”
“Maybe he said that wrong,” Axel said, reaching out to her.
She stepped back, out of reach. “I have my career, my condo, my… Everything is in Vegas. I can’t stay here. And I’m sure not going to rely on some man-men—to take care of me. I don’t belong here. This isn’t my home.”
“It could be,” Gunnar said.
She shook her head. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. My parents are on their way to Vegas right now. They’re meeting me at the airport.”
If? Gunnar tried another way. “Then promise to come back.”
Her expression softened for an instant then turned to…sadness? Regret? Slowly she shook her head.
“We want you,” Axel said, and Gunnar knew the kind of courage it took for his brother to admit that.
“Only you.”
“You don’t even know me!” She threw up her hands in a sign of frustration.
Gunnar’s gut tightened, and his heart seemed to shrivel up in his chest.
“Look, guys,” she said, her voice softer as she stepped closer to them, reached out and took Gunnar’s hand in hers, then reached for one of Axel’s. “You two showed me a wonderful time. I’ll never forget it or you. Everything about this week was…magical. But it’s time for me to go back to the real world.”
“We’re real,” Axel said, and Gunnar heard the strain in his voice.
She gave them a sad little smile, squeezed their hands and kissed each of them on the cheek. Her lips by his ear, she promised, “I’ll keep your secret.” When she pulled away, she looked at Axel. “I have to go.”
Was there a slight quaver in her voice?
She let go of their hands and walked around them, walked away from them, and vanished around the corner to the lobby.
Axel’s back thumped against the wall as he shoved his hands in his pockets and dropped his head forward.
Gunnar had never felt so much pain. Not his broken leg when he was twelve and fell off the roof. Not his concussion when he was sixteen and took a nosedive off his motorcycle.
“She isn’t the one,” Axel said, his voice tight. “If she could walk away, she’s not the one. Right?”
Gunnar’s heart shattered. If Dakota wasn’t the one, then he didn’t think the one existed. He couldn’t imagine ever wanting— needing—another woman the way he needed her.
“Right? ” Axel demanded, looking up with desolate eyes.
“Right,” Gunnar said, the word strangled, not wanting to leave his lips.
“Right,” Axel said. He shoved away from the wall.
“I need a drink.”
Gunnar followed him into the hotel lounge, which he was surprised was open at that time of the morning.
Axel sidled up to the bar and plopped down on a stool.
“Ax, maybe drinking—”
“Coffee,” Axel told the bartender. “Very hot and very black.”
Gunnar almost smiled, but it was short lived.
“Same,” he said, sitting down next to his brother.
Long silence stretched as they sipped their drinks.
Then Axel nudged Gunnar with his shoulder. “It’s not the end of the world. It was good while it lasted, but she’s not the only fish in the sea.”
Gunnar scowled at his brother’s profile. You keep telling yourself that, and maybe you’ll even believe it one day.
Axel turned his head. What else can we do?
* * *
Axel picked the last plate Gunnar had just rinsed off the counter, dried it and stuck it in the cupboard overhead. A Sunday night ritual at the Falke house, Heidi had cooked, as usual, and the guys took turns with kitchen cleanup.
Though he, Gunnar and a couple of his other brothers lived in the apartments above the outfitters store, the family always met for dinner at their fathers’ home on weekends. Gunnar rung out the dish cloth and wiped down first the island in the middle of the massive kitchen, then the countertop around the sink, while Axel made sure the pots and pans were stored properly, stacked just so in the cabinet, or Heidi would pitch a fit.
The rest of the family was already in the living room, shouting at the television as they watched whatever sports happened to be on.
“Boys.”
Axel turned from the stove to see their dads standing in the doorway.
“The den.” Their dads turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Even at the age of thirty, being called into the den could make his stomach quiver. That room had always been off limits to the kids, unless it was punishment time for some major infraction.
Axel turned a glance on Gunnar, who looked as worried as he felt. In unison, they headed out of the kitchen, knowing that keeping their dads waiting would be worse.
“We’re too old to get the belt,” Gunnar muttered under his breath as Axel turned the knob on the door to the dads’ inner sanctum.
The room was large, holding two heavy oak desks, two recliners—their dads’ thrones as they’d always referred to them—and a leather sofa that faced the recliners across a scarred oak coffee table. One end table stood between the thrones.
“Sit,” Fridrik said. He was the older of the two, by about a minute and a half. His voice was hard, and Axel racked his brain for whatever he and Gunnar had done to get a lecture.
Gunnar sat down and Axel followed, sitting on opposite ends of the leather sofa.
Burke, their other father, raised a highball glass to his lips and sipped his after-dinner scotch. He slowly lowered the glass to rest on the arm of his chair, looked from Axel to Gunnar, then said, “We’re sick to death of watching the two of you mope around the way you have been for the last month. It stops now.”
Axel glanced at Gunnar, who stared at the coffee table.
Fridrik sighed. “Why the hell are you two still here when she’s in Vegas?”
Axel stared at his dads, fixing his features so his surprise didn’t show. “What are you talking about?”
“I told you he’d play stupid,” Burke said in a low, angry tone to Fridrik.
Fridrik explained, “Your mate is in Vegas and you’re here. You don’t see a problem with this?”
“She’s not our mate,” Axel denied, a declaration that lacked any conviction.
Fridrik snorted. Burke shook his head and said, “Really?” in a tone filled with sarcasm.
“We haven’t marked her,” Gunnar said. Neither father seemed convinced.
“If she were our mate, she wouldn’t have left us,” Axel added stubbornly.
Burke laughed at that then took another sip of his drink. “Boys, do you really think your mother just fell at our feet and gave herself over to a couple of catamount shifters?”
Gunnar looked up at that. “She told us she grew up here, that she’d always been in love with the two of you.”
Fridrik burst out in hearty laughter that seemed to erase years from his features.
Burke smirked. “Oh, she was in love with us, all right. Loved playing little games, teasing us to get us sniffing around, seeing which one of us would turn on the other first over her. That woman, bless her heart, did whatever she could to make us jealous. We dealt with that all through school. Until the graduation party.” His face went serious, and Fridrik took over
the story.
“That’s the night she found out what we were. She decided to go to the party with Dick Haven, even though both of us had asked her. She was back to playing her little game, seeing which one of us would come after her. We knew it was time to reveal ourselves to her. We loved her, knew she was the one, and we were getting too old to play her games.
“Dick had her in the back of his father’s pickup truck, trying to get under her skirts, when we found her. She screamed, trying to get away from him, and we went a little crazy.”
“I shifted,” Fridrik said with a small shake of his head.
“She was more terrified of us in that moment than she was of Dick.”
“So, what happened? How’d you get together?”
Gunnar asked, obviously engrossed in a story they’d never heard.
“Took us over two years of courting her to convince her we were the guys she’d always loved,” Burke said with a small smile, full of tender love for the wife who’d died just a few years earlier. “And after she agreed to be our mate, she admitted she was happy she didn’t have to choose between us. Because she couldn’t.”
Axel swiped his hand over his face. “This is different. Dakota isn’t Mom. She didn’t have a lifetime to get to know us. She made her choice. Her career was more important than us.”
Burke’s eyes narrowed, and he pressed his lips together, which meant he had a good anger brewing.
Fridrik said, “You both revealed yourselves to her, right?”
He and Gunnar nodded.
“And she didn’t run screaming from the cabin?”
Burke asked.
“We were buried in snow. She couldn’t,” Axel said dryly.
“Don’t you dare mouth off to us, boy!”
“Sorry, Dad,” he said contritely and slouched into the sofa.
“She won’t reveal our secret,” Gunnar said, “if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“Have you ever revealed yourself to another woman?” Burke asked.
“No, sir,” Gunnar answered. “It wouldn’t have happened then except I had to warn Axel about the avalanche.”
“So, you two never planned on revealing yourselves?”
Not wanting to lie, and choosing to treat the statement as a rhetorical one, Axel kept quiet, as did Gunnar. When neither son responded, Burke gave an omnipotent nod and asked another question. “How did she react?”
Axel sighed and shrugged. “Not as badly as she could have.”
“Not so badly at all if what we saw was any indication,” Fridrik said.
“What do you—” Fridrik raised an eyebrow. “She was naked on the living room floor, son. It doesn’t take a genius.”
Axel’s cheeks heated a bit, but he reminded himself that they were men first, his dads second. “So we had some fun. She still chose Vegas over us.”
Burke growled and got up from his chair. “Is that what has your tail in a twist? That she couldn’t make a commitment to you after less than a week in your bed?”
“We asked her to stay!” Axel shouted, then closed his eyes and mumbled an apology. “We asked her to stay. She said she didn’t belong here. She had to go home. She left. End. Of. Story.”
Burke went to his desk and poured another scotch, proving his exasperation, because he almost never had more than his one drink a day.
“So you go after her,” Fridrik said in a calm tone.
“You go, and you make the change if she can’t.”
Axel scowled. “And leave the shop? Leave the family? I…no.”
Burke settled back into his throne. “Your store is more important than Dakota?”
Axel opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say yes.
“Your family is always your family,” Fridrik said.
“It doesn’t matter where you roam.”
“She left us, though,” Gunnar said, sounding exasperated.
“I didn’t realize we raised such pussies,” Burke said to Fridrik.
“Dad!” Axel sighed. “You want us to just get up and leave? Go to Vegas and stay there…forever, if that’s what she wants?”
Fridrik challenged, “You didn’t have any trouble asking her to uproot her life to stay here with you. Yet, you’re unwilling to consider the opposite for her?”
“I… We…” Axel’s answer faded, and Gunnar sat very still. Their father had a point.
“Would you rather grow old alone?” Burke asked, his voice mellow now. He looked at his brother, then back at his sons. “If you asked her to stay, and you planned to reveal yourselves at some point—don’t bother denying that—then she’s the one. We don’t make mistakes when it comes to finding our mates, because there is only one for us. If you don’t go after her…”
He saw the sadness in his dad’s eyes just then, and it twisted his heart. It hurt so much to have Dakota walk out of their lives after just days. What had it been like for his dads to lose their mother after more than thirty years of marriage?
“I’m sure Kelan will run the shop for you,” Fridrik said.
“And we’ll keep an eye on things, too,” Burke added.
“Who knows?” Fridrik smiled now. “Maybe someday, you might persuade her to return.”
Axel turned to Gunnar, who smiled for the first time in a month. “Drive or fly?”
“Drive,” Gunnar said. “We need to pack enough for an extended stay, and it’ll give us time to figure out what to say.”
Axel stood up. “Thanks, Dads.”
Burke held up his scotch. “Go get her, boys.”
Gunnar stood up, a grin now splitting his face. “We will.”
Chapter Nine
“Earth to Dakota! Come on, girl, are you deaf?”
Dakota blinked, glanced up, and said, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t catch that. What did you say?”
Sonya rolled her eyes and reached out to pull her from her chair. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you but snap out of it, or you’re gonna miss the sexiest eye candy this side of the Mississippi!” Her coworker dragged her into a conference room where proofs from a recent photo shoot lay spread out.
Dakota glanced at the photos and frowned. What was so amazing about pictures of gamblers with smiles on their faces seated around a roulette wheel? This was Vegas. The agency did hundreds of these kinds of ad campaigns to promote tourism, the casinos and hotels, all the time.
Skeptical, she muttered, “I don’t see what you mean.”
“Not those. This!” Sonya headed to the window and, hiding behind the curtain, gestured her to look outside for herself. “He’s here!”
Dakota approached the window and stood in plain view.
“Remember him?”
She did. The story was that the model had been a waiter in Paris before he became famous on the fashion runways of Europe, and now he’d been chosen to be the face, abs and more for a new line of boxer briefs. In person, or as close to in person as she’d get, he looked human. Just another nice looking man in a dress shirt and trousers, his hair too dark, his frame too lean…and she couldn’t see his eyes, but she’d bet her last paycheck that they weren’t as blue as they would appear in the final prints. Airbrushing was a miracle of modern marketing technology.
“Yeah, he looks different…in clothes.”
“Is that all you can say?” Sonya peeked out the window again. “That man is every woman’s wet dream.”
Not every woman. “I’ve seen better,” she quipped with an uninterested shrug. Actually, she’d been with better fantasies, stretched out on the floor of a mountain homestead in the orange glow of soft firelight.
That thought damn near brought tears to her eyes, so she fisted her hands and turned to walk out.
“Dakota!”
She kept going, but Sonya followed her back to her cubicle.
“Okay, out with it. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said as she took her seat and began going through her email for the second time that day and trying desperately not to envis
ion matching pairs of hazel eyes. Why couldn’t she get them out of her mind?
Sonya crossed her arms. “Not buying it.”
Dakota stopped, looked up, and tried to smile.
“Look, I know the guy is handsome, and I’m sure he’s probably very nice in person. He’ll make a great model for the new line, but he doesn’t make me all tingly.”
“Okay, who are you? And what did you do with Dakota?”
“I’ve never been the type to drool over eye candy.”
Her coworker straightened up. “No, but you used to at least appreciate a sexy body when the opportunity presented itself. Nowadays you’re always, I don’t know, off in your own little world or something.”
Dakota sighed. “I’m sorry. I just have a lot on my mind.” Not that she was all that enthused about spending another night alone to think and dream of what could’ve been. She frowned, staring at the unfinished design specs for the Carlson’s interactive ad campaign on her computer screen. The layout was still off, and she needed to edit the copy and wrap up the proposal before the client presentation next week.
“And a lot of work to get done.”
“Uh-huh.” Sonya straightened up and dropped her arms. “Okay, fine. I get it. Won’t bug you again. But Dakota, I’ve gotta say, you need another vacation, girlfriend, because you haven’t been the same since you came back from the last one.”
When Sonya walked away, Dakota ran her fingers through her hair and dropped her head onto her desk with a groan. Sonya was right. She hadn’t been the same, because nothing seemed right anymore.
Don’t go.
It had been a month since she’d heard Axel say that to her, five weeks to be exact since she’d kissed his cheek and walked away. Her lips quivered. A lifetime since she’d scratched Gunnar behind the ear and left a quaint little nothing of a town in rural Washington.
She glanced at the clock on her computer monitor and decided an early departure wouldn’t hurt. She wasn’t getting a damn thing done today anyway, so she shut her computer system down and grabbed her things.
Had she done the right thing? She’d thought so at the time, but now in hindsight, she wasn’t so sure. The career she’d strove for had lost its luster, become a job—one that for brief moments occupied her mind enough to dispel the loneliness but never cured the problem. Work gave her a reason to get up each morning. After all, she had bills to pay. Her rent.
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