Chapter Seventeen #2
“Then I remembered that you never really supported that lie,” Kimberly said, her voice stronger now.
“Even when everyone else did, you never did. You made me feel normal, like I wasn’t weak or broken, and that meant so much to me.
” He heard her suck in a breath. “All of that, plus your messages, and stepping away to get some perspective on the situation, made me realize that you likely didn’t mean it.
That doesn’t mean it hurts any less, but it takes the sting out a little …
What hurts the most is that, even if we can go back to where we were, we’re on borrowed time. ”
Shane glanced at Paul’s apartment door and heard the laughter and voices on the other side. “About that … I’ve come to some of my own revelations while you’ve been away.”
It was his turn to talk and hers to listen.
He told her about Cody leaving with his family, and how both Paul and Dominic echoed her own philosophy on what it meant to be an alpha.
He figured she would like being told she had been right all along.
He caught her up to just moments before her call, letting her know that he would go to the next alpha meeting with his proposal for the pack to move to Oakfield.
“I think, if all goes well, we may be out of Tolstone in a couple of weeks … and ultimately, I want you with me. I always want you with me. I don’t care what it takes. I want you to come with us, to be in my pack … You still there?”
“Yeah … yeah, I’m here. I just…” Kimberly’s voice cracked and he hated the sound. “This is big, Shane.”
Shane stopped his pacing and squared his shoulders as if he were facing down the ugly gremlin of doubt right there in the hall. “I know it is, Kim. But please … come with me?”
When she still hadn’t given him an answer, Shane decided to dig his grave even further.
“I know I don’t deserve you, but I … Every day you’ve been away has been a fucking nightmare.
I don’t think I could go through this again.
I can’t go through losing you again like I did ten years ago.
I was a dumb kid and didn’t chase you, but I want to make up for it now.
I want more time with you. I need more time to prove that I’m the son who won’t become like his father. Can you give that to me?”
He let the words flow from his beaten, bruised, and humbled heart that craved her acceptance.
Right about now, he would have heard his father’s voice over his shoulder, scolding him for stooping so low to beg for a woman’s attention.
But he heard nothing except the ringing silence over the line and the thrumming of his heartbeat.
“Shane … I don’t know what to say.”
“Say anything.” Shane waited for the other shoe to drop, staving off the full force of disappointment until rejection was absolute.
A thoughtful, pregnant silence settled, followed by a groan of indecision, then some indistinguishable muttering. Hope sputtered, looking for kindling to catch fire.
“I want to go with you, Shane. If I were honest with myself, I have for a while, but … I didn’t want to think it was possible, in light of everything … I’ll talk to Gage.”
“Is that a yes?”
“That’s as close to a yes as I can give before I talk to Gage.”
Shane pumped a victorious fist. Hope fanned into a flame and burst into a bonfire.
“And don’t you dare go talk to Gage before I come back.”
“Oh, so I can’t go threaten his life if he doesn’t agree to release you from the pack?”
“No. And even if you did, I think you’d be surprised to find that Gage won’t be pushed over so easily by threats.”
The future, once shrouded in a dark thundercloud, opened up before him with blue skies. His pack forgave him, and he was on his way to mending things with Kimberly. Life couldn’t be better.
But, if the last few weeks told him anything, it was to not rest on his laurels just yet.
It seemed that when everything appeared to fall into place, another whirlwind came crashing through to throw them off course again.
Gage could deny Kimberly her freedom. Dominic, though unlikely, might refuse his financial proposal for the pack to move.
Shane could accidentally slip back into acting like his father again.
Luckily, he had a number of people in his corner, like Kimberly and Paul, to keep him accountable.
There were a number of things that could still go wrong, but things could still go gloriously right. He had to hold onto that hope and not let it die again, otherwise he might just lose his mind.
*
Kimberly made her way tentatively toward the open garage bay on the side of Tolstone Auto Repair.
The front was closed, but Gage assured her in their text exchange that he would be working a little late that evening on an old Ford before heading to the alpha meeting that night.
She hadn’t told him what she wanted to talk about, only that she needed to talk immediately upon her arrival back into Tolstone.
Shane’s invitation to follow him to Oakfield hadn’t caught her by surprise, but the timing was less than ideal. Her emotions were still all over the place, her spirit tired by all the introspective work of building herself back up. She wasn’t where she wanted to be, but she was better than she was.
When he asked her, her first reaction was to give all of the old excuses she used to shout down what she really wanted. But she caught herself slipping into that old pattern and stopped herself.
Over the last few days, Kimberly took the time to reexamine her life and her decisions.
Was this what she wanted? Did she want more?
And if not, why? What held her back? Was it truly her lack of dominance?
Or was it fear? Fear of what might happen if she went after what she wanted, regardless of her disabilities, tied her down.
It suffocated the girl she used to be, the girl who used to believe she could be with Shane, despite anything else beyond their own feelings for each other.
Kimberly resolved to find that girl again, to live in the truth that she was perfect the way she was because Shane made her feel that way. That girl would seize what she wanted and flip fate the bird. If Shane wanted her, then she’d follow him to the ends of the earth.
However, she couldn’t just drop everything and follow him. Getting Gage’s permission felt something like a formality, like when a man asked his girlfriend’s father for his blessing to marry her.
She wasn’t sure exactly what Gage would say, but she remembered what Declan told her before. They just wanted her safe and happy. If Gage could be guaranteed that, the odds would be in her favor.
She jumped a bit at the sudden whirl of a drill, and spotted Gage’s legs and booted feet sticking out from under the old Ford pickup. Kimberly went in that direction and dodged around buckets of bolts and open toolboxes, making plenty of noise so she wouldn’t sneak up on him.
“Hey, Kim,” Gage called out from under the truck. “Give me just a minute while I zip her up.”
Kimberly stood to the side, hands folded against her long, flowing skirt, and tried not to gag on the odors of oil and fuel.
After several moments of clanging tools, muttered curses, and the short buzz of the drill again, Gage wheeled out and sat up.
Patches of grease and motor dust smeared his face, but his smile was just as charming as always.
“You survived your visit with your parents.” Gage pulled out a dirty rag from his back pocket to wipe his cheeks. “Are you feeling better?”
“Much. That’s part of why I wanted to talk to you.” Kimberly squatted in front of him, knees together. “I have to ask something, and I know you’re not going to like it, but I have to ask.”
Gage’s smile dropped. “Does this have to do with Shane?”
Kimberly nodded. “He’s … He’s asked me to go with him and his pack.”