Chapter 18
A Second Chance
JOHANNA
Somehow I keep calm, but I’m shaking inside. Chills run up and down my spine. It’s just as well I’m seated, as the muscles in my legs seem to have the consistency of jelly.
The air purification system can’t keep up.
Dan’s midnight-forest fragrance fills the room so strongly I can practically taste woodsmoke with every breath, though despite my strong sense of smell—for a beta—I shouldn’t catch more than hints.
The perfume must be seeping into the chair he sits in.
I’ll likely catch whiffs for days at the least reckoning, meaning I’ll revisit this moment over and over.
It’s been a long time, and memory plays tricks, but I don’t remember his scent ever carrying such a snowy, wintry aspect—except that last meeting, when he asked me to choose.
When, as I now know, he’d expected me not to pick him.
Despite the snowy edge to his aroma, he’s sweating. His bangs cling to his forehead, forming jagged silver streaks that point to the haunted eyes below.
I should hate him.
But I don’t.
My heart aches.
For all he did—the things that he didn’t intend, but can never take back.
For the empty spot he left in my life when he interpreted my refusal to choose as rejection of him and walked away—no matter that he expected it—an emptiness echoing across the years to resonate anew.
For the scare he gave Max, which had likely been the final nail in the coffin of Max ever allowing an alpha around other than during his heats, eliminating the possibility of forming our own pack.
Yes, Max had invited Corin into our lives and house, but that was different.
As Max’s cousin, Corin didn’t count as a potential alpha partner—quite apart from Corin being the kindest, most considerate alpha in Max’s family by far, despite being dominant as all get out at times.
Regardless, that’s one mystery solved. Turns out, I could’ve lived happily without knowing, even after wondering all these decades. A perfect example of the adage to ‘be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.’
Yet my immediate response is to tempt fate again by asking another question, seeking another answer, even if I get it.
But not yet. Sweat still beads Dan’s forehead. His chest heaves periodically with noisy, shuddering exhales. He’s barely moved in the chair with his back still ramrod straight.
I hold up a hand, and he watches, only his head turning and not his torso, as I rise.
I open the door and ask my assistant for some water.
A few moments later, when I set the simple oblong glass in front of him, he merely stares at it.
Only after I reseat myself does he manage to pry free his hands from the chair arms. He uses both hands to lift it, apparently worried that his faint tremors might cause him to spill.
By the time he’s drained it, he’s able to set it down with one hand.
Time to ignore being wary of what I wish for.
“Why did Max reach out to you while he was dying?”
Dan opens and shuts his mouth twice before shrugging. “I can’t say. I don’t know who he was at the end. We never talked, only exchanged a few letters, little more than notes. I have the last with me, if you’d like to see it. That’s why I’m here now.”
The wintry aspect of his midnight-forest scent no longer floods the room. What remains warms to at least early spring. No almost-tangible snow in the air anymore.
Yet I’m the one trembling now, on the verge of another answer I may or may not regret.
Dan strokes the breast pocket of his suit coat, then pulls out a square of paper. Unfolded, it makes, at best, a half sheet. Setting it on the desk, he pushes it toward me.
At first, the spiky lines blur on the page. Brushing my fingers over my eyes removes the tears, and the words become clear:
Your loss was my gain. Here’s a second chance if you want it. Don’t mess it up.
I can almost hear Max speaking in the rasp his voice developed at the end.
“A second chance? For what?” I make the mistake of looking up.
Red streaks Dan’s cheeks. He meets my gaze, but his throat works hard as his tone drops low. “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
“What do you guess?” My rising suspicions are at once both welcoming and unsettling.
A hint of challenge sparks in Dan’s gaze. “You’re the one who’s known him these last decades.”
Exactly. I knew Max. I didn’t guess—couldn’t have predicted—that he’d reach out to Dan at the end.
Not knowing the ‘why’ nags at me. Yet Max wouldn’t have written to Dan, especially that last note, without having fully investigated him.
Perhaps even with a report detailing all the medications Dan’s been on over the years.
Corin would know. No, Corin does know, since he gave me a quick overview of Dan’s life a few days earlier: job, two grown children, no mate, no pack.
Max might have forgiven Dan without a detailed background investigation, but he wouldn’t have invited Dan to reenter my life without assurance that he’d changed.
Of course, Max must have instigated the investigation of Dan before he fell ill, which still leaves open the question of why.
But that’s not a question I can expect Dan to be able to answer. Or even Corin.
“Max forgave you,” I say, in case Dan needs to hear it.
“Yes.” His scent flares as his eyes squeeze shut for a long moment, then open and focus on me as though he might be able to see inside. “It’s a last gift, and a burden. I don’t know if I would’ve loved him if things had gone differently, but I loved you.”
“And I loved you, too,”—though, in this one exchange, I’ve learned aspects of him unknown before—“but it’s been decades. We’re different people now.”
“Maybe. Definitely.” He sighs, then stands and shrugs. “I’m here to pay a debt, to Max and to you, but if you want me gone, I’ll go.”
“Stay for now.” I rise, too, grasping the back of my chair to steady myself on shaky feet. He’s offered me so many truths that the least I can do is offer one back. “If you hadn’t made me choose back then, I wouldn’t have. I’d have balanced seeing you and Max separately as long as I could.”
“We wouldn’t have worked out. I’d have messed it up later, if not sooner.” He reaches out, but pulls back at the last moment, face haunted. “But I’d never have hurt you intentionally. You were the best thing my alpha ever smelled. You still are.”
An electric shiver runs through my bones. That’s too much to deal with. I need privacy and space to work through the implications of what he’s shared, which have, so far, slipped through my fingers. Privacy, space, and air—free of the wonderful, midnight-forest aroma I’ve always loved.
It will have to wait, though. I’ve delayed Corin’s meeting long enough. “Let’s see what Max asked of you.”
Max offered Dan a second chance, not for Dan’s sake but for mine. I don’t love Dan anymore. I don’t know him enough—even after his revelations—to say if that will change, but I’m not ready to let go of Max’s last gift.
Except Max had another surprise in store for me.
I only see two people when I lead Dan into the conference room.
Corin, seated at the head of the oval table, quickly stands and comes around to greet Dan.
They exchange the usual tight-fisted handshakes between alphas, testing each other’s strength.
Their scents mingle in the air, forming a not-unpleasant aroma of a cedar-and-apple-tree forest before dissipating under the whirr of the purifier overhead.
Anamaria smiles and nods from a chair beside the one Corin left. Then, her eyes catch on something behind me—or rather, someone.
A soft ka-chunk of chair legs moving against the blue carpet is a hint that the fifth person summoned to help with Max’s estate has already arrived.
The scent of hot wax and a just-snuffed candle add to the midnight forest and cedar coming from Dan and Corin, plus a hint of lilac across the way.
I know who I’ll see before I turn.
Nathan looks much as he did less than a year ago, when we first met.
His shaven head gleams under the overhead lighting that brings out a subtle gold undertone to his tawny skin.
A few gray streaks grizzle the dark-brown of his close-trimmed beard.
His navy suit hangs a little loosely on his lanky frame, and a good yank would undo his silver-blue striped tie.
After the last heat, I’d never expected to see him again. The gift of roses and the blank book changed my mind on that front, but not enough for me to expect he’d show up at the office, certainly not at Max’s request.
How many secrets had Max kept in the months before he died?
“I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again.” His warm hand scoops up mine, from my side and he brushes a kiss across my knuckles, then turns his hand to cradle my chilly fingers, not letting go.
“It’s good to see you, too.” I manage, swallowing hard despite a throat suddenly gone tight.
“I wish Max were here to enjoy it.”
The words echo those I’ve heard a thousand times since his death. Everyone who uttered their condolences meant them—I know that—and yet, it’s as though I’m hearing them for the first time. Sincerity shows clearly on his face, mingled with the same kind of loss I’ve faced.
In the wee hours, while Max had slept off the exertions of his heat, Nathan and I sat and talked. Warmth and dim light had given the nest a comfy aura, encouraging our exchange of ever-deeper secrets.
He’d shared some small part of the emptiness caused by losing both his mates in a car crash. The unexpectedness. Their absence. His guilt at living on. These all resonate so much more strongly now, changed from words and vague ideas to my lived experience.
It’s not that Corin and his daughters haven’t experienced loss, or that my relatives and friends cannot sympathize. They can and have. I’ve been blessed with so much support. Grief is grief is grief, whoever or whatever the loss.
Still, despite meeting again under such different circumstances, I feel kinship with this man. Both of us were robbed far too early of mates we expected to live with to the end.
What a strange moment in time. This small room manages to encompass the whole of my life with Max: Dan shared our college days; Corin formed the third point on the triangle of carrying out Max’s dreams of innovation; and Nathan represents the delicacy and desperation of Max’s heats.
And, of course, Anamaria provides an omega presence, although her issues with her designation differ from Max’s.
An encapsulation of Max and me—but brought together because he’s gone, and we have to find ways forward.
My eyes prickle for an instant, the only warning before I burst into tears.