Chapter Twelve
Harper sat at her kitchen counter. The coffee she had made for herself had already gone cold. She ran fingers through her hair and then dropped her head into her hands. No tears were coming. Nothing.
At the sound of the doorbell, she felt relief at finally not being left alone with her wayward thoughts. She knew it was going to be Franny, and her friend didn’t disappoint.
“Do you remember what a phone is? A cell phone?”
Harper frowned.
“They’re used to contact friends, when they’re not opening the shop, and speaking of not opening the shop, you’re alone, and you smell fine, why is your shop closed?” Franny asked, not allowing her to get a word in edgewise, as she opened the door to let her friend inside.
“It’s nice to see you too. I’ve missed you,” Harper said, brushing past her to go to the sitting room now, and collapsing onto the sofa.
Franny stepped into her room and glared. “I don’t like this picture. Did Mateo fuck up again?”
“What? No. I’m just not in the mood to open the shop today.” She pressed her thumb against her teeth, and began to nibble at the flesh of the corner.
Her friend sighed and stepped into the room.
“If Mateo didn’t fuck up again, then why are you not opening the shop? Was last night … not good?”
Harper opened her mouth and then closed it.
“You know, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Franny said.
“I know, it’s just … I honestly don’t know what is going on with me. I feel so strange.”
“How?” Franny asked. “You’re not opening the shop, and everyone has got that just-fucked look. You do as well, only on everyone else, they look happier about it. Did Mateo not do the job properly?”
Harper laughed. “No, he … it was amazing.” She turned to look at her friend, who offered her up the mug of coffee and the cinnamon bun. “Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it. Now, tell me,” Franny said, taking a sip of her own coffee.
“You were right.”
“Of course, that does not come as a shock to me anymore. I think I should get a plaque or something put on the walls reminding everyone that I’m right about everything. What exactly am I right about?”
“The full moon and the power it has over mates. Last night was intense.” Even after Mateo apologized, they had made love and fucked for hours beneath the power of the full moon, and Harper wasn’t going to deny that it was one of the best nights of her life.
“Intense?” Franny asked.
“It was the best night of my life,” Harper said. “Does that about sum it up?”
Franny giggled. “Okay, now I am confused. If it was one of the best nights of your life—and that tends to be a good thing, trust me, it does—why do you look sad about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“He apologized,” Harper said.
“Here is that confusion all over again for me.”
“Mateo told me he made a big mistake last night.”
“What? In being with you?”
Harper laughed. “No, in rejecting me and sending me away. He told me last night that he loved me.”
Franny turned toward her. “And you’re sitting at home, biting your thumb, because?”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“There’s that confusion again.”
She took a sip of her coffee and tore open the package of her cinnamon bun. “What if he was just saying all those things because it was the full moon? What if he regrets what he did today?”
“Why don’t you go and ask him this yourself?” Franny asked.
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“If my powers of observation have taught me anything, it is that most of the time, people assume the worst, and that is not the case. Why isn’t he here?”
“He was helping your dad with something.”
“Huh?”
“Your dad, Silver called him. He had no choice but to go. I told him I wasn’t opening the shop.”
Franny glanced down at her cell phone. “I’ve got no notice of it.”
“Does your dad call you for all emergencies?” Harper asked.
“Fine, no, he doesn’t, but I am his daughter, I should have gotten a text. Why would he need Mateo for anything?”
“I figured it was pack alpha stuff. Mateo being the alpha, Silver being the alpha. You know, it made sense to me.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but I still don’t have to like it,” Franny tutted. “So, is this what has caused you to have doubts?”
“No, I accept that the pack needs their alpha. I think my head is just messing with me, you know. Seven years of this rejection.”
Franny groaned.
“What?” Harper asked.
“If you think about it, technically, Mateo only actually rejected you once, and he did so for seven years. But it is just one long … you know, rejection.”
Harper laughed.
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”
“I have no idea. It sounded a little better in my head, whereas now it sounds a whole lot worse.”
Harper chuckled and dropped her head onto Franny’s shoulder. “What do I do?”
“You’re wanting me to tell you what to do?”
“Yep.”
Franny snorted. “Nice try. I’m not going to be the one to tell you what to do. However, what I am going to do is advise you a little better.”
Harper didn’t want advice.
“What do you want to do?”
“That’s not advising me.”
“Yeah, it is. Forget about all the crap connected to knowing who Mateo is. Ignore it all. None of it matters anyway. All that matters is you, and what you feel for him. Once you forget all that bad negative shit, and you think about Mateo, what do you feel?” Franny asked.
She looked toward her friend and took a deep breath. “I … want to be with him. Doesn’t that make me weak? He did reject me.”
Franny took hold of her hand. “Yes, he rejected you, and I can’t imagine what kind of hurt that was like, but—and this is what you need to consider—is there any way you can forgive him? He was a fool and he knows it. He could have left here, but he hasn’t. Even when you didn’t show any signs of forgiving him, he stayed.”
“But what if it makes me weak?”
“You’re not weak, and besides, isn’t there something about being able to forgive that makes you strong?” Franny asked.
****
“Thank you,” Silver said.
Mateo turned toward the other alpha and nodded his head. “Think nothing of it. I’m glad I could help.”
He got the call that drew him away from his mate early this morning. A newly transitioned wolf was struggling to put his wolf back into the cage. The boy’s family were terrified. They had attempted to give him time to try and fix the problem himself, but that hadn’t worked. The stress and pain had resulted in a dangerous combination where the boy had been close to wanting to end his own life.
Silver had called him to help because the boy had been left, hoping the wolf would rescind.
It was a bad case, but not one of the worst Mateo had seen, which had been a surprise. There had been one case, a young girl, who had come to her transition early. She’d been fourteen years old, but her body had matured, and Mateo, along with his father, on every full moon, had to help guide her through the transition. Seeing a young girl beg for them to end her life during that first time would stay with Mateo forever.
“It was a pleasure to have you here,” Silver said, and offered his hand.
Mateo shook it.
“I don’t suppose you have any idea what you and Harper will be doing through the next month?” Silver asked.
“I don’t know.” He didn’t want to say that he might have to consider leaving Harper here. His pack was going to need him. Even though his father could handle anything the pack threw at him, he knew he was needed.
Staying in Silver’s pack wasn’t going to be good. They were both alphas, but the biggest problem was the fact they were alphas in different packs. If he’d been born within Silver’s pack, it would be different.
He wasn’t. His pack needed him.
But, he needed Harper.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, giving Silver a slap to the arm, and then he took off, heading toward Harper’s home.
On the way there, he saw Franny coming toward him, and he stopped.
“Hello,” he said.
Franny offered him a smile. “Hello, rather polite this morning,” she said.
He forced a smile to his lips.
“Did you and my father deal with whatever problem called you away from your mate?” she asked.
“Yes. How is Harper?”
“I’m not divulging any of her secrets, but I will let you go and see her.”
That didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. Now, he felt that knot of fear working up his spine, threatening to strike him down.
He ran toward Harper’s house, and with each step he took, he felt his wolf start to pace within the corner of his mind. He wanted to know what went wrong. How he fucked up.
Mateo didn’t know, and as he held his hand up to knock on the door, Harper opened it. She already had a smile on her beautiful face, which nearly kicked him in the gut.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
He didn’t have a clue what else to say. What did he tell the woman who could make his world right or send it driving deep into the pits of hell?
“Come in,” she said. “Did you help Silver?”
“Yeah, everything is okay. It was a young, newly transitioned male. He … his wolf didn’t want to go away, and the boy was …”
“Terrified?” Harper asked.
“Yeah, terrified.”
She closed the door and turned to face him. She rubbed her hands together, and then he saw her lock her fingers tightly. “Do you want a drink?”
“Love one.”
Anything to prolong what was about to happen.
She brushed past him and he got her cinnamon and vanilla scent. He followed her into the kitchen and watched as she worked for several minutes.
“Just tell me,” Mateo said.
He watched as she tensed up.
“We don’t have to do this dance with each other, Harper. We don’t have to make false declarations, and we don’t have to pretend. I know I hurt you.”
She turned around and folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Yes, you did.”
“And I want to make it up to you. I get that you don’t want to come back to the pack, but I promise you, I will come here, and I’ll make it work.”
“That’s insane,” Harper said.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is, and it will make you a bad alpha.”
He wanted to deny that, but if he spread himself too thin, if he started to spend more time at Silver’s than at his own pack, he knew there would be far-reaching consequences. Until he got to that problem, he wasn’t going to worry about it.
“I’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
“No, you shouldn’t have to do that.” Harper pressed her lips together.
“Harper, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to show you that you and I … this matters to me. You matter to me. Nothing else does, nor will.” He closed the distance between them and cupped her face. “I see everything so clearly now, and I know where I went wrong. I was terrified, because all too soon, I had this young eighteen-year-old woman who was my mate.”
“Will you shut up?” Harper asked.
Mateo frowned. “But, I’m about to tell you how much I love you, and that the last seven years have been the worst years of my life, and I just want to be with you.”
“I know, but let me speak.” Harper took hold of his hands, and he didn’t like this. He didn’t know if he was going to be able to handle her rejection. She held him even tighter and lifted her head. Her brown eyes stared up at him, and he wanted to try and read them, to see what was coming next, but he didn’t know what she was going to say.
“I forgive you.”
Out of everything she could say, that wasn’t what he expected.
“I … yes, seven years ago, you crushed my heart and broke my spirit, and it was one of the single worst experiences of my life. It all happened on the one night that was also one of the most painful, but I’m not going to get into that. We both know our history. You’re my mate, and I don’t regret our first time, or last night, and … I know what I want. You can’t leave the pack. You can’t put them second.”
“I’m not going to put you second.”
“That’s why I’m going to come with you.”
Mateo didn’t know if he had heard correctly at first.
“I was just talking with Franny, and she’s going to talk with her dad. She’s getting tired of bouncing around from job to job. She has also said that she has come to love beauty and makeup, and she wants to be the one to take over. I don’t want to lose this shop—”
“You can have another in our pack,” he said.
“Our pack?”
“Yes, our pack, and you can have as many shops as you’d like, and decide where you want them to be. Anything. It’s yours.”
She stared back at him. “I only need one shop, and I’d love to come and visit here. I love the pack here, and Franny.”
“Of course, and they can come and visit too. Franny’s great.”
Harper laughed. “She said you’d say that.”
He wasn’t going to tell her that Franny had been the one to help him.
“And I want to be your mate. I want to have a family, and I want to forget the last seven years. I’d like us to make new memories to wipe out the old ones.”
“Consider it done.”
He would do anything for her.
“Also, I think I’m in love with you as well.”
He cupped her face, tilted her head back, and then kissed her, hard.
This was the chance he wanted, and he wasn’t going to ruin it. Harper belonged to him, she was his mate, and he now had the rest of their lives to finally make it right.