Chapter 8
Tuesday afternoon, Ford carried a cooler into the Pioneer Supply Co.
, where he found Darcy waiting for him by one of the registers.
Her face lit up when she saw him, and his chest tightened in response.
He knew he’d been missing her, but he hadn’t realized it felt like a limb was cut off until she greeted him warmly and gave him a quick hug.
She led him back to the breakroom, a plain space with a fridge, sink, microwave, and two round tables with chairs.
He set the cooler on the table and unloaded the contents: chicken salad on croissants, barbecue potato chips, and two chocolate pudding parfaits.
After setting bottled iced teas next to the sectioned lunch boxes Tris and Zara had helped him put together that morning, he put the cooler on the floor and sat across from her.
“Holy moly, this looks awesome,” she said. She beamed at him and he felt like a king.
“I can’t take all the credit. Our farm caretaker, Tris, and my friend Crew’s girlfriend, Zara, helped me put it all together. I did make the pudding parfaits, though.”
When she smiled at him again, he saw something flicker in her gaze that looked a bit like stress or sadness.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asked. He picked up the sandwich and took a bite, his stallion nickering in worry.
She finished her bite of sandwich and put it down.
“Cruz was waiting for me when I got home this morning. Loaded for bear, as my mom would have said. He’d woken up overnight and realized I wasn’t home, and when I didn’t answer my phone because it was dead, he stayed up waiting and worrying.
But he wasn’t happy to see me, he was angry. ”
“Because you made him worry?”
She hummed, picking up a chip and popping it into her mouth. “Partly, but he thinks I’m making bad decisions with you.”
Ford snarled internally.
“He thinks I’m moving too fast with you.” She didn’t look at him for a few moments, and it made his heart clench in worry.
“Do you want to slow things down?” he asked. “I don’t want you to think that I’m after anything. I’m not a one-and-done guy. I’m not after you for what you can do for me, I’m genuinely crazy about you and want to spend time with you.”
“Heck no, I don’t want to slow down,” she said, letting out a wry laugh. She lowered her voice. “Do you really think that you can rock my world like you did last night and I wouldn’t want to do that again?”
He smiled, relief flooding through him. “I would back off, though.” He reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze. “You’re so important to me. I just want you to be happy.”
“I promise I’m the happiest girl on the planet. I just need Cruz to get with the program. Because he was cheated on by someone he loved, he doesn’t trust easily. I feel bad for whoever he dates next because they’re going to have a lot of baggage to deal with.”
“I’m sorry you had to deal with him like that,” he said. “I would have stuck around to defend you if I’d known he was waiting up.”
“That would probably have escalated things. It’s been Darcy and Cruz Against the World for the last five years.
I think he’s just trying to hold onto something, anything, so he doesn’t feel alone.
I do worry about him, but he can’t be so controlling with me.
He doesn’t dictate what I do or who I’m with. ”
“I don’t want him to hate me or cause problems between you two.
” Ford didn’t have his biological family to rely on, and he knew how precious it was to be cared for by people with your DNA.
The herd was his family, but it wasn’t the same.
He didn’t want Darcy to have to give up her only family for him, but he also knew that once she learned the truth of shifters, she’d have to keep a huge secret from Cruz.
And that would put additional stress on their relationship.
But one problem at a time.
“I could talk to him,” Ford offered. “Man to man, tell him what my intentions are.”
Her eyes darkened a little as she gazed at him, a small smile curving her lush mouth. “And just what are your intentions, Ford?”
He gave her hand another squeeze, his stallion whinnying in his head. “To make you happy, to keep you safe. To make you mine.”
“I’m already yours,” she whispered, a glimmer of truth and heat in her eyes.
“I’m yours too.”
She returned the squeeze to his hand and then took her hand back so she could keep eating. “I promise I’ll deal with Cruz on my own. He’ll come to terms with it at some point, but it doesn’t matter to me if he approves or not. Because in the long run, it’s my heart and my life, not his.”
“I’m a phone call or text away, any time day or night.”
She smiled with a nod.
Lunch continued, the topic changing to the morning they’d had.
Ford had been back in the barn tinkering with a tractor they’d bought at auction that Colton had ruined during one of his first attempts to disrupt their farm and cause problems. She’d been busy with inventory, her afternoon revolving around setting up a display of outdoor lights for holiday decorating.
Then before he knew it, the half hour was over; the time had gone by way too fast.
She walked him out to his truck and kissed him goodbye.
They weren’t planning a date until Friday night, but he asked if he could come by for lunch tomorrow, and she’d happily agreed.
After one last kiss goodbye, he got into the truck and left, his stallion angry to leave but looking forward to seeing her the next day.
He hated to leave his soulmate behind, but they both had work to do and it wasn’t like he could just camp out at the hardware store all day, every day. His stallion was restless with the need to share their shifting nature and claim her fully, but he knew that would come when the time was right.
He glanced in the rearview as Grey—his escort—pulled out behind him to follow him back to the farm and sighed. He hoped they never saw Colton again and then they could stop having to escort each other everywhere. But he was thankful he had his herd watching his back so he could be with Darcy.
Someday, they wouldn’t be living apart. He’d be coming back to the farm and she’d be there waiting for him.
* * *
Crew stood and raised his hand, the herd quieting around the big kitchen table in the farmhouse.
Everyone was there—from Dexter and his human mate, Nancy, the original founders of the herd, to Khyle and Tris, and the herd members and their mates who called the farm home.
Dexter and Nancy had lived apart from the farm for ages—Ford and his three friends using the farm as cover for their shifter nature—with the couple living a mile down the road.
Nancy’s daughter, Dani, who was now mated to a gorilla shifter named Neo and lived at the safari park, had lived with Dexter and Nancy when she was younger.
After Khyle and Tris mated, they built a home a half mile down the road from the farm.
“I’m so glad we’re all here tonight,” Crew said.
“I’m thankful for everyone that’s part of the herd, and I’m especially thankful for the amazing meal that everyone helped put together for us.
We’re here tonight to celebrate Ford finally—finally!
—finding his soulmate. Cheers, man, I’m happy for you! ”
Ford grinned at his alpha and tapped his glass of iced tea against the others as they whooped a cheer for him.
“Thanks, guys.”
“You two are getting pretty close?” Nancy asked from across the table.
“Yeah,” he said, telling them about the lunch date earlier that day and what was going on with her brother. “I feel bad because she and I moving so fast because we’re soulmates has put her at odds with her brother.”
“You can’t help how he feels,” Dexter said. “You can only feel what you feel and be there for Darcy. I’m sure her brother will figure out soon enough that you’re with her forever and not just trying to love her and leave her.”
“I hope so,” Ford said. Darcy had been pretty broken up talking about Cruz confronting her, and he hated that she was dealing with it.
“It’ll work out,” Tris said. “You and Darcy are soulmates, and whether she truly understands it yet or not, she would definitely be feeling the connection between you two.”
“Absolutely,” Tatum said. “I felt seriously connected to Grey when we first met. It felt fast, but it felt right too.”
Tatum and Nancy were the only humans in the herd. Zara had a stallion shifter father, and her mother had been the daughter of a stallion shifter too, but female descendants of stallions didn’t shift.
“Do you think she loves you?” Nancy asked, a soft smile on her face.
“Not yet,” Ford said. “But we’re both falling for each other. How could I not, anyway? She’s gorgeous and sweet and makes my stallion happy. And me too.”
“Now that’s worth toasting,” Crew said. “Whenever you’re ready to tell her the truth, we’re here for you.”
“Thanks, guys.”
Conversation flowed around the table as his friends shared how they’d known they were with their forever person and he knew he was lucky—not only to have such an amazing group of people who cared and supported him, but because he’d found his soulmate and she was falling for him as hard as he was falling for her.