Chapter Twelve – Rachel
Rachel stood in the kitchen for a moment after the front door had closed, listening to the sound of Elliott’s truck pulling away into the night.
You are my mate.
The words seemed to linger in the air long after he had gone.
Her gaze fell on the glass he had used. She reached for it before she could think better of it, touched the rim, pulled her hand back in annoyance, then picked it up properly and carried it to the sink.
Only a little while ago, the kitchen had been full of warmth. Now it all seemed to have drained away, leaving only the faint smell of orange and rosemary in the air and the covered cake on the counter.
She turned on the tap and rinsed the glass, watching the water spiral down the drain. She should wash it. Dry it. Put it away. Return the kitchen to normal, as though this had been just another evening.
But it hadn’t been.
She set the glass on the drainer and looked across at the cake again. The tea towel still sat slightly crooked over it. Crossing the room, she lifted it back.
The scent rose at once. Orange. Butter. Rosemary.
For a moment, she simply stood there, looking at it.
The candle had gone, but she could still see the little hollow where it had sat.
Lucy had made such a serious business of blowing it out.
Aria had looked at the cake as though she were storing the whole thing away.
And Elliott had stood by the table watching all three of them with that look on his face that had unsettled Rachel far more than she wanted to admit.
That’s what everyone says. Until they go.
Her own words came back to her, sharp enough to make her wince. She had not meant to say them aloud. Had not meant to let him see that much of what sat underneath everything else.
She moved to the back door and checked the lock with the same automatic motion she used every night.
The routine should have helped. It didn’t.
Because she believed him.
That was the problem.
She believed Elliott when he said she was his mate. Believed him when he spoke of staying. Believed the warmth in his eyes when he looked at her daughters.
And that terrified her more than doubt ever could.
She crossed back to the counter, transferred the cake to a proper container, snapped on the lid, and then stood there with her hands resting on either side of it.
What did you do when someone offered you exactly what you were most afraid to want?
This was her life. This house. The girls asleep upstairs. The routines she had built to keep them safe. The boundaries she had drawn to protect them from disappointment, from loss, from the kind of hurt that came when someone walked away and didn’t look back.
And now Elliott had stepped straight through those boundaries as though they weren’t there.
Worse, she had let him.
Because some part of her had wanted him there.
Rachel closed her eyes for a moment, letting that truth settle.
Not the truth of the mate bond—she had known that from the beginning.
The truth of her own wanting. How much she had enjoyed seeing him with the girls.
How right it had felt to have him in her kitchen, laughing with them as though he belonged there.
That was what made this dangerous.
Not that Elliott had spoken the words aloud.
But that part of her had been waiting for him to.
She opened her eyes and looked around the kitchen one last time. Then she reached for the light switch and turned it off, leaving the room to its quiet darkness.
Tomorrow would come soon enough, with school lunches to pack and hair to braid and all the ordinary things that kept their world turning.
But tonight, as she climbed the stairs to check on her daughters, Rachel carried with her the knowledge that something had changed.
Not because Elliott had finally said the truth aloud.
But because, despite all her caution, she had wanted to hear it.