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“Tell me about yourself, Riley,” she requested, taking another bite of apple. And then she held it up for me to take a bite, too. So, I did.
And then I did tell her about myself as we shared the rest of that perfect apple. I didn’t get into the depth of my true self, but I told her about my family, about the work I did for my father’s construction company, how I was taking over soon and had plans to expand from renovations into building new structures, how my buddy Mase was joining me to help me build it up into a bigger company. How we had a couple close friends who could help out with bigger jobs once we got them. About how I’ve lived in a little village near Drowsy Hollow my whole life and went to school for one year in a bigger city my first year of college, quit and then came back, knowing I never wanted to live anywhere else in my life. This was home. It’s where I want to be. Where I want to raise a family.
I talked for a long while, her patiently listening. When I stopped, she started talking. She told me she liked the idea of planting roots. She had friends that loved to travel and jet-set but that wasn’t her. She wanted a small-town life with a community that helped one another, that knew one another’s names. She wanted stability and dependability. She wanted shared history. She wanted to nurture and grow rosebushes that would be in her family for generations to come.
This was right. She was definitely mine.
Still, I warned about the pitfalls of small-town life and having everyone know your business. She said she wasn’t bothered by that and understood it as she always wanted to know everyone else’s business. This got me laughing. She’d fit right in.
We kept walking, hand-in-hand, mostly me doing the talking. And before I knew it, it was nearly noon.
She glanced at my wristwatch with me and startled.
“I have to go somewhere,” she whispered in a panic.
“Can you get someone else to handle it?” I asked.
She bit her lip. “Let me make a call and find out what’s what.” She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a phone. “Shoot. Eight per cent. That won’t last very long.”
“You can use mine,” I offered.
She shook her head. “It’s okay. Give me one sec?”
She wandered away with her phone and I told myself I shouldn’t listen, but couldn’t help but try. But as I strained to hear, I couldn’t hear her talking. And I found that strange because I can hear better than most shifters. But then my own phone rang and it was my father, wondering where I’d got to, asking if I’d gone to price out that job.
I whispered to him that I found her, my fated mate. And that I might not be back for a while. He asked if I wanted him to get Lincoln and Jase to vacate the house I shared with them. An alpha needed alone time with his mate, but I hadn’t expected to mate so hadn’t gotten my own place yet. Of all six of us, only Joel had his own pad. Mase lived in an apartment above his parents’ boathouse.
I decided I’d rent a cabin at Sleepy Cove, a small resort across the lake from our village with a handful of cabins for rent that we’d done some renovations at. I’d been there the day before to pick up a check and they had plenty of vacancies.
When I got off that call, I went looking for her. Sniffed her out and found her in a clearing near the ridge overlooking the river that fed into Chariot Lake. And I wanted to show her the Arcana Falls. I wanted to show her where I live. Introduce her to my family. But first… I wanted to make her mine. I wanted it with an ache I’ve never felt.
She ended her call and something about her posture bothered me.
But I was feeling a lot of things right then.
I’d heard that the claiming urge can come on suddenly, fiercely. And while I still had command of myself, my control was beginning to fray. I needed to get some facts out, so she knew what was about to happen.
I had to fully disclose who I was and what it’d mean after I took her and made her mine. I was more than anxious to make her mine.
“I have to tell you some things,” I admitted.
She had her back to me; she was staring ahead.
“You’re gonna think it’s crazy,” I added.
I felt anxiety at the fact that she still had her back to me. Something about her posture didn’t feel right. But then she turned to look at me and the emotion in her eyes hit me in the chest.
