Chapter 2
SAM
Holy shit. The little boy who’d been dissecting some kind of small appliance when I arrived was now sitting on top of one of the warehouse rafters. I tipped my head back to see him; he was that high. Damn, the kid was quite the acrobat. And fast.
I positioned myself beside Clio, ready to catch him if he fell.
The delectable dark-haired mechanic—the female Fate sent straight to Cooper Valley just for me–was freaking out.
I didn’t blame her. The boy was obviously her son, based on their shared hair color and vivid blue eyes. There was nothing but concrete for him to fall on, and he was human. Breakable. A fall like that could kill a kid.
If he were a shifter pup, I wouldn’t give it another thought. But a human? Fuck.
“JT, don’t move. Just hold on, okay?” While I could tell she was trying to stay calm, I couldn’t miss the way Clio’s voice shook with anxiety.
I quickly scanned the surroundings to figure out how he got up there. The stack of tires to the shelving unit and then maybe a big Tarzan-like jump?
“You stay here,” I told her. “I’m gonna climb up and get him.”
“What?” Her startled eyes met mine for a second before returning to watch her son.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” I reassured her. “JT, little man, do what your momma says and sit tight, okay?”
“Okay,” JT replied but didn’t seem the least bit afraid. In fact, he was swinging his little sneaker-clad feet back and forth.
Unlike Clio. The scent of her fear pushed my wolf into overdrive. Why?
Because this human was my mate. One look, and I knew I wanted her. One whiff of her cinnamon scent beneath the engine grease, and my wolf knew.
Clio the mechanic was mine.
I’d met my fucking mate. The woman of my dreams. I wanted to bite her and fuck her and mark her and make her mine. But first, I had to take care of her son.
My new son.
Because if Clio was mine, this monkey of a boy was mine, too.
It was my job to keep them both safe, and that started with getting JT down from the support beam.
I leaped to hook my forearms over the top tire of the stack of used ones and threw a leg over to climb up.
It wasn’t easy with my dick half-hard, that was for fucking sure.
I carefully stood on the wobbly tower of rubber, then bent my knees and power jumped to grab the rafter above me.
It was a little harder to swing my leg around to sit on it than I expected, but I managed.
I was strong and fast, but I wasn’t all that agile.
A little stretching wouldn’t hurt me. I stood on the beam and walked over to the kid, who stared up at me with wide eyes.
“Careful!” Clio cried out.
Carefully, I sat down beside him, letting my legs dangle down, just like his. “Hey, JT. I’m Sam.”
“Hi, Sam.” He smiled, and I didn’t miss the one missing bottom tooth. Dark tousled hair, blue eyes, round cheeks. He was a cutie. And a little devil if he scared his mom like this.
“You like high places?” I asked casually, like conversations in the rafters was a common thing for me. Or him.
He gave me the side eye but answered. “Uh huh.”
“I think you scared your mom, though.” I lightly rested my hand on his back, so I could easily grab the back of his shirt if he slid off.
I glanced down at Clio and winked although she still looked freaked.
“How are you going to get him down?” Clio wailed, glancing around as if a trapeze net might magically appear. “Should I call the fire department?”
I glanced at my new little man. “We don’t need the fire department, do we, JT?”
He shook his head.
“All good. We’ll be down in a minute,” I called to her.
“What is it with you and high places, JT?” she moaned.
“Has this happened before?” I asked him.
“I fell out of a tree,” JT explained to me before he looked down at his mom. “I can jump down, Mommy.”
“No!” She waved her arms in the air. “No, you can’t.”
Something my wolf had been trying to tell me finally registered.
The boy wasn’t human.
I picked up a bit of a wolf scent. It was there, but it was soft.
Holy shit.
JT was part shifter.
I looked down at Clio, trying to wrap my head around what I was smelling.
She was human. She was definitely human.
I got a nose full of her delicious scent when I shook her hand.
It still coated my palm and made my wolf happy.
I also got it when I got close to her in the office. When she touched my chest.
She was human, and she was my mate.
But it seemed like another wolf had found her before me because her son was definitely part shifter. No wonder he got up here so easily, and that’s why he wasn’t afraid and offered to jump down.
JT moved to stand up on the beam, and I held onto his t-shirt.
“Actually, he can jump,” I decided, telling Clio. My initial concern evaporated.
If the kid was part wolf, he’d probably be okay no matter how he got down. I’d drop first and catch him to make sure he didn’t get hurt, but this wasn’t a life or death emergency like it might have been if he was a full human.
“No, he can’t!” Clio sounded pissed.
I ignored her momentarily and looked at JT, who, standing, was eye level with me. “Wait until I get back down there, bud, and I’ll catch you, okay?”
“No. It’s not okay!” Clio seemed frantic now. I had to get the kid down quick, so my mate didn’t continue to be upset and worried.
I swung my legs around to hang from my fingertips then dropped to the concrete below. I probably shouldn’t have shown my shifter abilities, but considering she had a kid with the same perks, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Plus, I was pretty tall, and the drop wasn’t all that far.
“Okay, bud.” I looked up at the boy. “Just drop down, and I’ll catch you.”
Clio didn’t take her eyes off her kid. “Are you nuts?”
“I won’t let him fall,” I vowed.
“You’re telling him to fall!”
I shook my head. “I told him to jump. Not fall. I’m gonna catch him, Clio.” I made a beckoning motion with my fingers. “Come on, bud. Let’s go.”
Instead of jumping, JT imitated the way I had done it, swinging down off the beam to hang by his fingertips.
Cute kid. I already loved him.
“JT!” Clio cried, and I could only grin.
“I got you,” I encouraged.
The boy let go of the beam and dropped through the air.
His mom screamed.
I caught him, swooping him around in a circle to break the fall and make it fun. “Good job, buddy.”
He whooped and laughed.
I handed him to Clio, who glared at me as she hugged him tightly. Her eyes were wild still, but she exhaled, and her shoulders dropped about three inches. Seeing her like this, as a fierce mother protecting her own, made my dick so fucking hard.
Mine, my wolf growled.
The women I was used to flaunted what they had. Tight jeans, snug tops, eager pussies. That was what turned me on.
Before.
Now, seeing a woman in dirty, belted coveralls hugging her child made me want to come in my pants. There was no question she was mine. My wolf agreed as he preened and howled deep inside me.
“You both are nuts!” she exclaimed.
Happy in a way I never imagined, I grinned, then got serious. “I would never let anything happen to your little boy.”
I wouldn’t.
There was no choice. No option. Clio belonged to me. And that meant the boy was mine, too.