Chapter Twelve #2
Cole must have seen Dominic blanch, and he huffed a laugh.
“Don’t worry, Dominic. I have no right to be protective of my daughter.
You’ll never have to look down the barrel of my shotgun.
I wasn’t there for her growing up, and I have no right to barge into her adult life now …
I do want to know why you two have mated, and she claims you’re not dating, though. ”
Dominic lifted a shaking hand and rubbed at his forehead. “It’s a big fucking mess.” He felt more inclined to be more open with Cole, knowing they had a tighter mutual connection. “I didn’t even intend for it to happen.”
Cole smirked. “The same thing happened with me and Felicia. One minute, we were kissing, and the next, the bond was there. It was unexpected, and maybe that was part of what made it so hard on us. The bond was formed before she even knew what she was getting into.”
If it were possible for Dominic to pale a whiter shade, he would have. He looked into his black coffee that had gone cold. “Erica doesn’t know about shifters at all.”
“You haven’t told her?” Cole’s voice dropped into a near growl that shamed Dominic.
“I’m planning on it.”
Cole sighed and took a long swig from his own mug, probably wishing it was laced with something stronger.
The two men sat with only the sizzle of the grill behind the counter and the soft murmur of voices from across the diner to fill the silence between them.
Cole brought his hands together and thoughtfully laced his fingers.
“She hasn’t been in my life for twenty-five years.
God only knows what her mother has said about me.
Clearly, she doesn’t recognize me, but …
I feel like a fool for hoping that things can turn around for us. Now that she’s here in Tolstone …”
Driven by an urge to console Cole, Dominic said, “Anything’s possible. Maybe if you took her someplace and talked, you could—”
“No,” he said with an ardent shake of his head. “I couldn’t. Not right now. Not when she doesn’t know about us and she’s trying to settle here.”
Dominic leaned forward. “I’ll tell her tonight.”
“Break it to her gently. I didn’t ease into it with Felicia, and it didn’t go so well.”
Did he mean their mating bond or coming out as a shifter?
Dominic didn’t ask. All he felt was this aching need to go see her now, to tell her everything and let the cards fall where they may.
It was a gamble. If Erica was the spitting image of her mother in attitude, then who was to say that this would all go up in flames the way Cole’s marriage did?
Dominic couldn’t allow that to happen. He couldn’t be like Cole in Erica’s eyes, no matter how respectable and honorable a man the sheriff was.
She wouldn’t see it that way. Erica would only see the man who abandoned her and her mother.
He couldn’t let this generational curse continue. It stopped with him.
Cole grabbed his arm as Dominic rose from the booth and pulled him down so their heads were bent together.
“I may not have a right to care, but I do … I couldn’t have picked a better man to be her mate, but if you hurt her, I can promise you that Tolstone will have to find another Prime Alpha. Do you understand?”
That timid child from Dominic’s past returned, and he nodded. “Yes, sir.” He could break up fights and put the fear of God into any shifter who passed through this town, but he knew that if he didn’t do things right by Erica, he’d be in real danger from Cole Spradley.
The sheriff seemed satisfied and let go. “I’ll cover for you if anything big comes up with the packs.”
Dominic turned up the collar on his leather jacket and walked into the torrent of rain.
Clouds blanketed the night sky, shrouding Tolstone in a pitch-black darkness with no moon or stars to guide him.
That was just fine, because even if he were blind, deaf, and senseless, he would have found his way to Erica by the bond they shared.
He hoped he would never have to sever it the way Cole had.
As much pain as he suffered when they were apart, Dominic couldn’t bear the thought of living the rest of his life without her.
Hopefully, she would feel the same too.
*
The endless showering of rain on her window couldn’t soothe the roiling emotions that still tormented Erica as she sat at the card table in her breakfast nook.
Wyatt’s story echoed in her head long after he left.
The more she stewed on it, the harder it was to push aside.
She needed to blast this idea clean out of her mind with irrefutable logic that Dominic was not a werewolf.
That meant diving down a rabbit hole of lore and legend to convince herself of the truth, whatever it ended up being.
She had scrolled through the millions of pictures and thousands of articles about werewolves, and she still didn’t feel like she had a definite answer. Why did Wyatt have to plant this insane idea in her head? He must have done it on purpose.
The internet was full of whack jobs who couldn’t separate fiction from reality.
Therefore, she stuck to articles about the myths and legends about werewolves since that seemed more credible and steeped in cultural context.
She was surprised to find just how universal the shapeshifter myth was across time and countries.
There were so many contradictory ideas about shifters.
Full moon or no full moon. Complete animal forms or some hybrid mix of man and beast. Bitten or born.
Superhuman abilities or just a regular man.
When she checked the time, it was well past ten o’clock.
Erica rubbed at her tired eyes. She’d been searching for nearly five hours.
All she had to show for her efforts were a slightly pounding head and a vague positivity that Dominic was something not normal.
While everything else seemed uncertain, the golden eyes were the one shred of evidence that kept her wondering.
She dropped her head into her hands and let the sound of the rain outside envelop her as she tried to work through it all once again.
This was nuts. She shouldn’t have even given this stupid idea a second thought.
Wyatt had to be pulling her leg. She wasn’t normally this gullible.
Werewolves weren’t real. They couldn’t be.
And yet, the more she read and the more the idea fermented in her brain, she found herself willing to believe the impossible. Why?
Ever since she’d shut the door on Wyatt, something deep inside her, that part that ached for Dominic, wouldn’t let her rest. It kept whispering to her, It’s true.
It’s all true. Accept it. She knew that couldn’t be her own voice.
Since when did she ever just accept something so fanciful and move on?
Maybe that’s why she needed to research, why she needed a solid list of how Dominic could be a werewolf.
She wouldn’t take the word of Wyatt, the pictures of Dominic’s golden eyes, or this stupid little niggling feeling in her chest. She needed to know for herself beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Yet, every time she fought the idea, every time she wanted to close her laptop and just go to bed, it was like sharp brambles rolling through her blood.
It just wouldn’t be left alone. It wouldn’t be denied.
She felt way too strongly for Dominic, and he wasn’t a normal man. Werewolf was the only lead to go on.
A sharp rap came at the door, and she nearly fell out of her folding chair.
Erica steadied herself at the table, but didn’t move. Somehow, she instinctively knew that it was Dominic on her porch. Who else would visit at this hour? He knocked again, and she held her breath.
“Erica!” he shouted. “It’s Dominic. Can we talk?”
Shit.
She slowly pushed herself to her feet and found the strength to keep walking toward the front door, though her mind and heart were torn over whether to let him inside.
He stood on her porch, soaked through by the rain, and she lost all fear.
For a moment, it didn’t matter what Dominic may or may not be.
While those entrancing blue eyes looked to her with so much need, which mirrored in her own heart, werewolves could be put on the back burner.
She must have looked like a mess. Not quite as she had when he came over to fix the sink, but her braid had come loose with flyaway hairs, her mascara a little smeared, and her eyes puffy from staring at a computer screen for hours.
She couldn’t remember the last time she allowed herself to look so vulnerable in front of another person, but because it was Dominic, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not right now.
“Can I come in?”
Too dazed, Erica stepped aside and let him enter. When she closed the door behind him, she saw that he had gone rigid and stared into the living room. His gaze went flinty, like he’d just noticed something that he despised with all his soul.
“Wyatt was here?”
Erica jerked her head at the question, wondering how he could have possibly guessed that.
The lawyer hadn’t left anything behind. Then, something she’d read came back to throw her sanity off balance again.
Werewolves had a keen sense of smell, almost better than a dog’s.
Maybe Dominic smelled Wyatt in her living room.
“Yeah … He was here for a photo shoot earlier this afternoon.” The plop of fat water droplets from his leather jacket onto her wood floors distracted her. “I’m sorry, let me get you something to dry off with.”
She slipped past him toward the stairs as he shrugged off his jacket. “I don’t think a towel is going to help much,” he replied with a laugh.
Erica paused on the third tread and watched him look around for someplace to hang the jacket. What she would have given for a hall tree or even a few hooks by the front door. “Just drop it anywhere … I can’t wait until this place looks like a home.”