Second Chance Mates (2 page)

"What you need is to get laid," her
mother decided. Her husband slapped a hand against his forehead and
closed his eyes.

"Mom!"

"It's true. You need some love back in
your life or at least some good lovin'."

"I'm not listening to this." Clara
stepped away, making to move into another room, anywhere but near
her mother's pointed words.

Her mother followed her. "While you're
in my house, you'll listen to reason."

"Then I'll go," said Clara. Grabbing
her jacket from where it lay folded over the back of the sofa, she
slammed out the house before her parents could protest.

Pulling her jacket around her
shoulders, she fumbled in her pocket for her keys, trying to ignore
the sudden eruption of noise emanating from her parents' house as
her father berated her mother for being too tough, and her mother
berated her dad for being too soft. She'd walked out a few times in
the past two years and they'd been incredibly indulgent to her
grief, but she got it. That understanding was over. They wanted her
to move on, forgot about Colton, as if that was even conceivable.
Every day she lived and breathed his memory, working on the farm
they created together, their shared vision of a sanctuary for those
of their kind ever present in her mind.

Like hell could she move on.

Pulling open the door of Colton's
truck, Clara climbed onto the driver's seat, slamming the door shut
as hard as she could, fully aware that made her look like an angry
teen and not a grown woman.

Firing up the engine, she sat for a
moment, her hands gripping the steering wheel while she
concentrated on breathing in and out, making sure she calmed down
enough for the drive home. Just as she slid the car into drive, and
pressed her foot to the gas pedal, her mother came storming out,
calling her name.

With a sigh, Clara unwound the window
and waited for whatever her mother was about to yell at her
next.

"I love you, Clara," said her mom,
simply when she came to a stop by the door. "But I can't stand by
and watch you so unhappy. It's killing me to see my baby girl go
through this so I can't imagine how it is for you. And I'll say it
again, even though I know you don't want to hear it, Colton would
not want this for you. He wouldn't want you this miserable.
Everyone knew how much you two loved each other, at the expense of
everyone else and don't you pretend you don't know what I mean. If
you'd accepted fate, you wouldn't be feeling so alone
now."

Clara winced as Cade flashed into her
mind, a handsome backdrop to Colton’s plea that she should consider
his brother again. "Harsh, Mom."

"But it had to be said and no one else
is saying it. Now take this pie with you and drive
safe."

Clara took the boxed pie from her
mother and settled it on the floor of the truck. When she righted
herself, her father, brother and sister had moved to the porch and
they waved to her. She gave them a sullen wave back. Then, because
they didn't deserve that, she attempted a smile.

"See? Happy," she said as she bared her
teeth.

"Fabulous,” Mom replied flatly. “I'm
going to find a way of making your eyes smile too. You're not
fooling anyone."

"Good bye, Mom." With a flutter of
sprayed gravel, Clara trundled along the lane, turned onto the road
and pointed the truck towards home, her sanctuary.

The farm was the product of both her
and Colton scrimping and saving to buy the land and then build the
house that should have been their forever home. The place they
would raise their family eventually. Isolated in raw wilderness a
few miles outside of town it was perfect for the evenings when they
shifted to their wolf selves and took off, racing through the woods
right down to the lake. Far away from human eyes, they could fully
embrace their natures, something they hoped to open up to their
community, creating a safe haven for every lycan or shifter in the
area.

There was still a lot of work to be
done. The house wasn't quite finished, the barn not fully converted
for use, and the fencing patchy. No matter how hard she worked, the
end goal seemed far in the distance, but hard work wouldn't stop
her. Wearing herself out thoroughly by hard physical labor was the
only way she could sleep. Plus with the financing of the farm
becoming an issue, she didn't have a lot of choice but to do most
of the work herself, even if it took her twice as long as a big,
strapping farm hand.

But she would never fail Colton's
memory by giving up and selling it. It was the thing that tied his
memory to her forever and she would never stop trying to honor
that.

***

"Do you think,
maybe
, you were
too hard on her?" Tom asked his wife as she stepped back on the
porch and under his arm. Together they watched Clara's truck
retreating into the distance long after their other two children
went inside to clear the remains of their dinner.

"No. I wish I'd said it sooner. It's
time we all stopped treating her like she’s made of glass and got
her back into the world." Rose might be a foot smaller than her
husband, but she'd grown up in a family of six siblings and raised
three children of her own. She knew her own mind and her caring
nature ensured she had a lot of empathy for her family. Her baby
was hurting, and it killed them all to watch, but she knew now that
she could stop it, and she knew exactly how. Unfortunately she also
knew Clara wouldn't like it, which was why she'd hesitated these
past few months from picking up the phone even though she’d really
wanted to on the darkest days when she couldn’t do anything but
fret for her daughter.

"She's got a lot to deal with," said
Tom, reasonably. With Colton’s passing, their own mortality had
been the source of several long discussions. Neither could imagine
losing the other.

"I know. Problem is she isn't dealing
with it," Rose replied with a sad shake of her head. "She's hoping
that one day she's going to wake up and this will all be a bad
dream. Except it isn't. It's horrible and unfair and cruel that she
lost her husband but she has to deal with it."

"We can't force her."

"We can't, but I know someone who can."
Rose turned on her heel and marched inside, striding past the
detritus on the dining table—her older son still clearing away
while their second daughter took charge of rinsing—to the cordless
phone in the small study off the kitchen. Grabbing it, she stabbed
in the number she knew by heart with her forefinger, almost holding
her breath as she waited while it rang.

"Hello?" The male voice flooded the
phone and Rose broke into a smile.

"Hi there, Cade. This is Rose, Clara's
mother," she said, like he wouldn't guess.

"I'd know your voice anywhere, Rose.
How are you?" Warmth suffused his voice. "How's the
family?"

Rose shook her head. Never 'How's
Clara?' Always, 'the family'. Silly man. Why couldn't he just say
what he meant? "They're all well, thank you for asking. And
you?"

"All's good here."

"Glad to hear it. Now, let's get down
to business,” Rose continued, all business with the pleasantries
out the way. “I need to ask you a favor and I'll make myself clear,
I don't want to hear a no. I need your help."

"What's wrong?" Cade’s voice turned
worried at her take-no-attitude approach. "What can I
do?"

"It's Clara, actually."

There was a long pause before he
answered slowly, "Is she okay?"

"No, she isn't and you and I both know
that."

"My mother called and said she wasn't
looking well," he said, picking his words carefully but Rose heard
the anxiety in his voice. It read loud and clear like he was next
to her with his puppy dog eyes.

Rose wasn't nearly so concerned with
propriety. "Your mother was being polite, bless her. Clara is not
well, at all. She needs you. She needs you to come
home."

"If she needed me, she'd call," Cade
pointed out. "And she hasn't."

"You keep in touch, don't
you?"

"By email and if she answers, it's just
a line or two."

"Then you know she's too proud to ask
for help and she's too damn stubborn, as well. She wouldn't ask for
help if she was treading water in a well."

"That's Clara," he agreed.

"Well,
I'm
asking you. She needs
someone to love her, Cade. She needs you. I need you to come home
for her."

There was a long pause, then, "She
already rejected me. And not just once, Rose. Time and time again.
She doesn't want me." The pain echoed through his voice and filled
her ear.

Rose tutted. "That was then, and this
is now. And since I'm in a straight talking mood today, I'm going
to tell you that she always wanted you and why she didn't accept
fate, I just don't know. I could see it in the way she used to look
at you. She truly struggled."

"She didn't want me. She only wanted my
brother."

"They had a strong bond, I'll admit
that."

"Strong enough to exclude me." Cade
sighed. "She told me to go and I left. Getting rejected again isn't
going to work for me. I don't want to put myself through that
again."

"Good," said Rose. "Because this time
it's not going to happen. She needs you. I'm sure of that. She
needs to be loved and cherished and for someone to show her there
is hope and a future for her. Now are you going to swallow your
pride, let me put myself in your eternal debt and come home, or
what?"

There was a long moment of silence,
then, "She’s really in a bad way?"

Rose exhaled and closed her eyes. Clara
was going to be so cross, probably because every word was true.
"Yes," she said, at last. "Yes, she is and I can't watch her pine
away anymore. It's time to come home and take your place at her
side. She's too damn young to be a widow and you love
her."

"She won't have me."

"I've never said this to a wolf because
it goes against our ways, but you should have damn well marked her
as your mate years ago, never mind what she thought about it, and
we wouldn't be having this discussion now."

"I would never do that!"

"I know. You're too decent. Now, man up
and come home. Clara needs you, more than she needs any of
us."

"Let me think about it."

"Don't take too long," said Rose and
hung up. For a moment, she just stared at the phone then,
carefully, she replaced it in the charger and turned, jumping when
she saw her husband lounging against the door jamb.

"What have you done?" he asked
slowly.

Rose straightened her back and pushed
back her shoulders. She wondered how much her husband heard.
"Exactly what needed to be done," she said.

"Clara is going to be
angry."

Rose stared back at her husband
defiantly, her expression softening as she realized he wasn’t
disagreeing with her. "It's about time she got angry at someone. If
making her angry at me helps her move on, so be it." She just hoped
Cade still found his long-held love for Clara somewhere in him;
even more so, she fervently hoped that love could sustain him until
her stubborn, defiant, sad daughter accepted him into her heart the
way she should have done years ago.

Chapter Two

Several hundred miles away from the
town he still called home, Cade looked at the phone in his hand and
sighed. For two years he'd longed for a phone call like this, one
that told him to come home to Clara, but he'd never envisaged it
would be from her mother.

Instead, in his daydreams, it had
always been Clara on the other end of the line, her voice filling
his ear as she told him what a huge mistake she'd made in rejecting
him that final time and how she couldn't live without him any
longer, how she needed him, how she always had. Instead, for two
solid years he'd not only grieved for his brother—his pack mate,
his best friend—but also for the woman they both loved.

After Colton's wake, leaving town—or
running away as his mind frequently reminded him—seemed the only
option. He couldn't bear sticking around any longer. He was a man,
as well as a wolf, and he could only take so much rejection. It had
been easier to bear when Colton was here, assuring him that Clara
would come around, but without support he couldn't take the hurt
anymore. Back then he had hoped that putting several hundred miles
between them would have helped the mating bond dissipate, but that
was just naive. Though his career had been on the up since he
pushed himself at it and he'd made a good life here, that didn't
stop him hoping Clara would change her mind. It was destiny after
all and everyone knew destiny shouldn’t be messed with.

"That sounded serious," said his
roommate Luke, who had discreetly slipped out of the room once the
conversation turned serious and now returned with two open beers.
He passed one to Cade and dropped onto the couch beside him. “What
gives?”

"That was Rose, from my home town,"
said Cade after he took a long, soothing swallow.