Page 55 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

“You want that much for this?”

“It’s a beacon.” She’s perfectly serene about it. “Leads you straight to your one true love.”

I put it down. “Then you hang on to it. I’m not in the market for a true love.” True love is for people who never learned the hard lessons. I learned mine early, and a pretty rock with a story attached doesn’t unteach a thing.

I walk off. Glancing over my shoulder, I catch Marc bent low over the table, talking quietly to the seller. “Would you come on?” I call, crankier than the moment deserves.

“Coming.” He doesn’t move for a breath, and when I look again, he’s sliding something into his pocket.

“What did you buy?”

He holds up two braided friendship bracelets, one pink, one blue. “These. Figured the girls would like them.”

“Oh.” I can’t help but smile. “That’s kind of sweet.”

He keeps it up the whole way: more food, ring tosses, a wall of balloons begging to be popped. At the ring toss, he loses spectacularly, then pays the attendant for the stuffed fox outright and hands it to Mia, straight-faced. Bella demands one too, so he loses three more times on principle before the man takes pity on him. Watching him drop forty dollars rather than admit he can’t land a plastic ring, a knot I’ve held in my chest for ten years comes loose.

When the rides lose their shine, the girls switch to games, and I take a turn at the cork rifles. Five tin ducks go down without a miss, and the boy working the booth gapes at me.

Marcus’s eyebrows climb. “Where did that come from?”

“One of the neighbors who used to watch me after school was a marksman.” I set the rifle on the counter. “He would teach me how to shoot in his yard. I go to the range every few months.”

“Should I be worried?” Marcus waggles his brows at me.

I widen my eyes at him. “Have you given me a reason to shoot you?”

He laughs, his head tipping back as he does. “If I ever hand you one, just promise to aim somewhere I can live with.”

On the swings, Mia kicks herself sky-high, fearless, shrieking for me to watch. I watch. Marcus watches too, and when she sticks a jump off the moving seat, he whoops loud enough to mortify her. She beams instead of dying of embarrassment. I have to look away, a grown man that proud of someone else’s child.

We buy a cone of sugared almonds and pass it between us without a word. Somewhere in there, I quit tracking which hand is whose. He steals all the cinnamon ones. I let him. Between the duck booth and the lemonade cart, I notice I’ve become very comfortable with Marcus’s presence.

He bends down to tie Mia’s shoelace, and I put my hand on his back. It’s an unconscious gesture, and it shakes me. I quickly remove my hand when the sound of violins reaches me.

A small dance floor sits tucked off to one side, a man pulling slow notes out of a fiddle while couples turn through something close to a waltz. The girls take one look, then turn to each other, and I know that look. They’ve cooked something up between them.

“You two should dance,” Bella declares. “Me and Mia will go on the one right next to it.” The ride beside the floor is a little carousel, pastel unicorns bobbing on their poles, parked in the same quiet pocket as the music.

“I don’t think so,” I start.

“We’re big girls, Mom.” Mia plants her fists on her hips, and there’s a smirk on her face I fully intend to interrogate later. “We can ride by ourselves.”

“If you’re not comfortable with it,” Marcus offers, “we don’t have to.”

The escape hatch is right there. I don’t take it. “Fine. Mia’s responsible enough for one ride.”

“Good.” He puts his hand out. “Then let’s dance.”

“What? I didn’t say one word about us dancing.”

He tows me onto the floor before the objection can leave my mouth. His palm settles at my waist, I bring mine to his shoulder, and we’re moving before I’ve consented to a step of it. He leads me through the turns without a single stumble. His hand is sure at my waist, his eyes steady on mine. He turns me until the lights smear to ribbons and the crowd falls away. I haven’t danced with anyone since before Mia was born. I’d forgotten how it feels, being held this carefully while the whole world spins.

He’s careful with me, the same care he spends on the girls, and I don’t know what to do with that. Nobody’s handled me gently in a long while. The gentleness is harder to guard against than anything rough could be.

“You waltz,” I accuse him.

“My sister-in-law Hannah taught me.” He steers us neatly around a slower couple. “She taught dance, and she refused to let my brother reach the altar without knowing how to lead. Daniel got drilled for weeks, then made to practice on me.”