Conquer Me (Sawtooth Shifters, #4) (8 page)

I’d made up my mind. I was leaving Walter. Our marriage was an unpleasant necessity, and everyone knew it. This was bigger than me. I had to think of Emma. She watched us fight and claw at each other constantly. Before last night, keeping her here seemed like the best thing, but my eyes had been opened. I was setting her up for disaster. A life of not knowing what love was. My daughter deserved better than that.

“He doesn’t have any respect for you, Cassidy.” Connie smiled, setting Emma down. She turned to Emma, dismissing me like I’d disappeared. “I think Rudolph is on tonight.”

“What do you want for dinner?” I caught Emma before she ran off. Connie brought her home late and probably filled her up with garbage.

“Not hungry.” Of course not. She wriggled away from me, distant like she always was with Connie around.

“You have to eat something.”

“She had her playdate today. We made ice cream sundaes.” Connie wiped the counter. I cleaned it minutes before this argument broke out, but of course, that wasn’t good enough either.

I blocked Connie from following Emma to the living room. “Listen. I appreciate your help, but that’s exactly what it is. Help. I set the rules, you follow them. Emma gets confused when you’re around. She needs a consistent message.”

“Emma’s not the one who’s confused. You are.” Connie backed me against the counter. I shook with rage. “Walter has me here because he doesn’t trust you with his daughter. I’m not here to babysit Emma—I’ve got my eye on you.”

“Go home, Connie.” I pushed past her, fished my checkbook out of my purse, and wrote her a check for too much money. She didn’t take it when I held it out to her. “Don’t come back until you hear from Walter.”

Finally, she tore the check from me, looking at it before shoving it in her pocket. “You’re going to break Emma’s heart, you selfish little bitch.”

For someone who was so concerned with my daughter’s wellbeing, she stormed out without saying goodbye to her. We both knew she’d be back, even more awful than before. Connie gained power every time I lost an argument against her, but I gained a totally different power.

“Where’s Nini?” Emma jumped back, eyes wide, when I kneeled beside her. She was wrapped in her favorite blanket on the family room floor. She’d built a fortress with pillows and was ready to watch her shows. I prayed she’d been too busy building to hear our argument.

I untangled the blanket from her body, crawled next to her, and covered us both. Emma giggled watching me make myself comfortable. “She went home. Where’s the remote? Let’s watch Rudolph.”

“Okay.” Emma handed me the remote, snuggling against me. “I love it when his nose lights up.”

“Me too.” Something awful occurred to me as I looked for the show. My daughter wouldn’t come near me until she knew the coast was clear. Sneaking around on Connie to make sure she didn’t see us cuddling. She’d defied me many times, taking Connie’s instruction over mine, and acted distant, but she’d never jumped away from me like that before.

Emma was afraid of Connie.

This had to stop. I pulled Emma’s warm little body against mine, staring through the cartoon snowman on the screen and saw nothing. I heard the Rudolph song but was numb when I should’ve been as excited about Christmas as Emma. I was busy trying to survive. My worst fear, that Walter could take my daughter away from me, was coming true and it was happening in my own home. I told Connie that Emma wasn’t a baby, but that wasn’t true. She was
my
baby. Connie and Walter would argue this wasn’t my home, and they were right.

My home was in Sawtooth Forest. Abandoned. Waiting for someone to love it again.

I didn’t care anymore about contracts or vows. I cared about my daughter. Showing her what it really meant to be a wolf, surrounded by a family that loved and wanted the best for her, was much more important than living in a big house, thinking she was better than anyone else because her parents had money. Those weren’t values I wanted my daughter to have. I wanted her to be strong in her convictions, and I sure as hell didn’t want her to be afraid of anyone. Most importantly, I wanted her to know what love was.

Connie and Walter could die trying to take her away from me.

I texted Major:
I’m on my way.
All my other visits had been surprises, but I hadn’t realized what exactly was on the line until now.

“Want to go for a ride?” I asked Emma when Rudolph ended.

She nodded, excited. Emma loved getting out of this house as much as I did. They might try to break her, but she was my girl through and through. “Where are we going?”

“To see my friend. Remember, the one that came over the other day?” 

Emma’s eyes lit up, like she could have any idea how scandalous this was.

“Put on your jammies. I’m going to pack bags for us.” We held hands on the way upstairs.

Her eyes widened. “Is it like a sleepover?”

I had no idea what it was. “Maybe. Let’s call it an adventure. See where it takes us.”

**

“N
eed any help?” X jumped up and took Emma’s giant teddy bear out of my free hand. I’d grabbed that and her favorite blanket, running through the house like it was on fire, before we went. As excited as Emma had been about our trip, she conked out as soon as I put the SUV in reverse. Now she was thirty-five pounds of dead weight on my shoulder. I don’t know who was more shocked: The living room full of wolves because I brought my daughter to Major’s house, or me because the Channings were there, too.

“I have some bags in the car,” I told X, then sunk down in the only open seat on the couch. “What’s going on?”

“Didn’t you check your phone?” Major asked, standing up.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to look at it, afraid I’d see something that would change my mind. Or an answer from Walter.

“Let’s go in the kitchen so we don’t wake Emma.” The way Major looked at my daughter, soft eyes and dreamy smile, melted my heart and reinforced that I did the right thing. 

“Good idea. She’ll freak when she wakes up some place she’s not familiar with. I don’t want to be far from her.”  I positioned her against the pillow, wrapping her blanket around her. In her sleep, she clutched the edge of the blanket and sighed. 

Everyone gathered in the kitchen, not enough seats for all of us. I scanned the room, trying to get a read on why the Channings were here. The other dominant family left in Sawtooth, they never saw eye to eye with the Lowes. I used to tease Major about it, because I thought the rivalry was stupid. The Channings were good guys. I didn’t get much pack gossip anymore, tucked away in my castle, but I knew Shadow killed my father-in-law and that gave him alpha status. Major didn’t have to tell me how much that ate at him; that was the title
he’d
always wanted. Tension swam thick in the room, and none of the men said anything.

So I took the lead. “I know I’m putting us all in danger, bringing Emma here. But I can’t keep her in that house another second. That old witch Connie is intimidating her, and Walter is going to turn her against me. No. No more. She can’t grow up thinking love and fear are the same thing, only to wind up with a man like Walter.” My voice broke on the last word. Saying his name out loud made what I did tonight real. I left my husband, a man who didn’t take no for an answer. I’d put everyone in this house in danger.

I dissolved into tears, the gravity of the whole thing hitting me like a kick to the gut. There was no good solution to this; Emma was in danger no matter what I did. But at least now she had a chance. Major crouched down beside me, his scent enveloping me as he rubbed my back. “It’s over,” he murmured.

“It’s never going to be over!” I was dizzy, looking around the room. Everyone sat motionless while my world spun violently around us. “And I don’t even know where the fuck Walter is. He hasn’t been home since the full moon.”

Everyone looked at each other, mouths open. Major’s hand stopped moving on my back.

“What?” I asked. Nausea roiled in my stomach and I couldn’t breathe as I searched the room for something I might have missed. Details were my thing, they’d saved my ass on more than one occasion. Walter taught me always to be on my A-game. “Is he here? Did he come here? Oh my God, you have him in chains somewhere, don’t you?”

My husband was a sick and twisted bastard, but Major had never let anyone get the best of him. Shadow proved he didn’t leave scores unsettled, either. I gasped for air, thinking of what they could’ve done to him. What that meant for all of us. There was no halfway with Walter. Only all the way.

Major brushed the tear-soaked hair away from my face. “Sweetheart, Walter’s dead.”

Everything stopped. My brain, my heart. Time. I couldn’t make sense of the words. I fell against Major, sending us both to the floor, crying even harder.
Please don’t let Emma come in right now,
I thought,
I’m not ready for that
. I’d wanted Walter out of my life for so long, but the guilt of being happy he was gone mixed with having to tell my baby girl her father was dead had me sobbing harder. How the fuck was I supposed to do that? As much as I had wanted my freedom, my heart ached for the man I never loved.

And nothing was ever going to be the same again.

I felt so many things at once that none of them stuck. I was just numb.

I came up for air, all eyes in the room on me. I don’t think they knew what to do, either. I took a deep breath, gazing back to Major. He looked out of place in his own kitchen. All our lives, we’d lived with certainties. They were gone. 

We could be together. Forever. No more sneaking around, denying what we really felt. It didn’t seem real.

“What did you do to him?” I asked.

Major shook his head, but Shadow spoke. “Nothing. He did it to himself.”

I squinted in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“We challenged him to fight on the full moon. His guys wouldn’t back him up. They didn’t want to fight the guys from his father’s property. They’ve been working with us. Anyway, he made a run for it, and wound up at the bottom of a cliff,” Shadow said. 

“Leave it to Walter to run from a fight, when all he’s done is caused heartache for years.” I shook my head sadly. The dizzy feeling was back. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Shea stood up, grabbing X’s shoulder. “Let’s leave you two alone. Go get a drink at The Stepchild or something.”  Everyone stood, murmuring that it was good to see me or something equally awkward. What the hell was anyone supposed to say in this situation?

My whole body quaked, I rested my head on Major’s shoulder, needing the center only he could provide. We stayed on the kitchen floor, listening to vehicles roll away over gravel, then to the silence.

Now there was nothing to keep us apart.

Major cupped my chin in his hand and brought his lips to mine. Slow and sweet, I wanted this kiss to last forever. In his arms, on this awful night, I felt safe.

“I love you,” he said, brushing his thumb along my bottom lip. “I always have, and I always will.”

“I love you, too.” The tears were back, this time bittersweet. “Now you always can.”

M
ajor

I didn’t expect to wake up like this after spending my first night with Cass, but it was still pretty damn cool.

“Mommy, where are we?” Emma’s little voice carried from the bed. I slept on the floor. Cass and I both agreed Emma shouldn’t wake up to find me in bed with them.

I lay with my eyelids heavy, not quite ready to wake up from this dream.

“We’re at my friend Major’s house. You fell asleep before we got here, silly girl,” Cass said.

I heard movement, but didn’t sit up. 

“Where is he?” Emma asked.

“On the floor,” Cass replied. 

Emma popped over the edge of the bed, curls wild from sleep, and gave me a baby-toothed grin. “Why are you on the floor?”

I propped my arms behind my head. “Because a little girl named Emma is sleeping in my bed.”

Still sleepy, she looked back at her mom, and giggled. Damn, I was falling for her harder than I fell for her mother. “But you shouldn’t have slept on the floor.”

“Next time you sleep over, we’ll have to get you your own bed.” Fuck, I hoped I didn’t say too much. Nothing got resolved last night. Both Cass and I were in too much shock for much of anything. “You look pretty hungry. Want some breakfast?”

“Yes.” Emma tumbled out of bed, landing on top of me with another giggle, and headed for the door. She put her hand on it before she realized she didn’t know where she was going. “Mommy, come with me.”

Cass sat up and stretched. She pulled her hair back so it wasn’t wild like her daughter’s, but still mussed. Her eyes were rimmed with forgotten mascara. I could stare at her like that for the rest of my life. She looked down, startling like she forgot she had company even though Emma had just talked to me. A slow smile spread across her face. She crawled toward the edge of the bed. My entire body went haywire.

“Good morning,” she said, giving me the grown-up version of Emma’s grin.

“Hi.”

Cass lowered her voice. “I really want to kiss you right now, but you know....” Her gaze flicked up to Emma, who had found my hockey stick, rattling it. I kept it on a rack near the door, and my brothers and I would be out on the lake as soon as the ice thickened. Our Christmas Day tradition. I couldn’t wait to show Emma how to play. “What am I going to tell her?” she whispered.

I stood, taking Cass’ hand and pulling her off the bed. Still didn’t kiss her. Damn, it was tempting. Those puffy morning lips begged for a nip. Emma fidgeted at the door. “We’ll have breakfast, then talk to her. Then we’ll take care of things as they come. If that’s what you want,” I said.

All our lives we’d been each other’s forbidden fruit. I was no fool to assume that Cass would come running to me. She wanted freedom. I had to be careful, let things happen on her terms. But the urge to take care of everything for her was so strong.  This time it wasn’t a hostage situation.

She gave me a wobbly smile. “I couldn’t do this without you.”

“You don’t have to.” I squeezed her hand.