AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He shook his head. “You’re worth everything.”
She tapped her chest. “I’m nothing. I’m hollow in here. You’ve been coming here, to Pinefall, to my clan, for three weeks now. You keep coming, you keep talking to me like you expect me to just remember you and resume the life we planned to have. You can tell me about it all you like, but I don’t remember and I can’t do that.”
He was surprised at that. Not at the sharpness of her words, but what she said. “I don’t expect that. I don’t expect you to fall back into any role. I certainly don’t expect you to leave your family and your support system right now. Greenacre might be just down the road, our lands might border Pinefall, but you need your family. I don’t come every day to pressure you or force you. I just want to see you and talk to you. I want to be a friend. We made a commitment to each other, no matter what happened, and I’m going to honor that. We don’t take vows like humans. When you mate with someone, you mate for life. It’s a connection we’ll always share, even if we’re not living together. I know you don’t understand that right now, and I’m not asking you to. I’m not asking you to give me anything at all. I’m just trying to be here for you in the ways that you need me to.”
“What if I told you to stop coming?”
“Onyx is my daughter, so that’s not possible. Misty is your daughter, so it’s also not going to happen. We need them. They need us. We’re a family, even if the pieces of us are broken right now. We’re going to find a way.” He tapped his own chest again. “All of you is still in here.”
“I think it’s hopeless.” She bit down on her bottom lip until it stung, but not nearly as bad as her throat and eyes did.
“I don’t feel hopeless.”
“I feel useless. I’m treated like a child. Like I’m made of glass. Like I could hurt someone or myself.”
“I’m sorry. We’ve tried to be helpful, but we don’t know how to help. That’s the problem.”
Kier was a beautiful man. He was older than her by a few years, or so he’d told her last week during one of their conversations. Any woman would be more than lucky to have him. Physically, she was attracted to him. She felt the pull of desire in her belly, the stirring in other places. She felt her blood heat up at the sight of him, every single time. But he was beautiful in so many other ways. Had there ever been a more wonderful soul? Somehow, last year, she’d found him, and he’d wanted her. He’d loved her body. He’d loved something inside her. She was most afraid that all the things he’d wanted and loved weren’t there anymore.
He smiled, apologetic and lopsided. Her heart pounded inside her chest. “No. I’m sorry. You’re doing your best. All of you. You’ve been so kind and patient. I’m sorry everyone has to endure this because of me.”
“There’s no because of you.” He lit up with fiery denial. “We all love you. You’re a part of your clan and you’re a part of mine now too, because you’re my mate. We have two children. Our lives are always going to be intertwined.”
She thought about the first time Kier brought Misty. She’d been awake for a few days, still confused, but she’d had days’ worth of explanations. She expected the tiny, solemn little girl with the startling green eyes to be afraid of her, hooked up to machines and in a hospital bed in a clinic that smelled like bleach, surrounded by people she didn’t know, but Misty had rushed to her and draped herself over her, hugging her tight with her little arms. She didn’t smile or cry. She hadn’t said anything. She’d just held on tight. To a stranger. Because even though their situation was a mess, they were her parents and the whole of Greenacre and Pinefall was her new family.
Misty was rushing bravely, headlong, into her new life, discovering who she truly was. Taylee respected the hell out of her for it. She admired the young girl. If only she could be half that brave herself.
She looked towards the sky. The grey should have scared her. They’d crashed Clay’s truck because a moose stepped out of fog so thick they hadn’t been able to see a thing. Clay told her that, but she couldn’t remember, and so she wasn’t afraid of the bleak, dreary sky now.
“I want to relearn the stars again. Everything else has changed—but they haven’t. They’ve always been a constant, the constellations illuminating our night as they did our ancestors.”
Kier’s smile was better than all of the stars. She didn’t like seeing it. She didn’t like that she liked it on him. She should be strong enough to push him away. To make him understand that the parts of her that were his mate were gone. He might be the father of her child and she might always be connected to him, but that didn’t mean they had to be together. Would he get tired of waiting for her? Of waiting for her heart to relearn what it was like to love him? He deserved a better woman than she was. He deserved more than all of this.
She knew he wouldn’t accept her argument right now, so she kept quiet. He’d wait and he’d wait and in time, he’d learn that they couldn’t be together. There was no them in their future the way he wanted. Then maybe he’d accept the freedom she offered.
“They’re so much bigger than all of this,” Kier said gently. “I’d love to come watch them with you, if you’d have me.”
She wanted to say yes. This attractive, kind man who was so insistent on not leaving her to whatever her fate was. But she couldn’t. That would just give him false hope and at the moment she was still so scared that she would never remember. It wasn’t fair to him. “Thank you, but I’d rather just do it on my own.”
He nodded, but he wasn’t put off. She knew it would take more than her trying to shove him away. She’d been cold and distant, and he’d grown used to forgiving her for it. “You once told me that when we became souls, we’d find each other up there. In the Great Bear, Ursa Major.”
She’d been such a romantic. It sickened her, made her want to laugh, but it also made her want to cry. The old Taylee sounded like she was very much in love. She sounded happy and wise. Everything everyone told her about who she used to be, just made her more certain that she couldn’t ever live up to that person. It made her feel more and more like shattered glass inside, broken beyond repair.
“I feel so ridiculous.” She didn’t want to be saying this, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I hate wanting what I can’t have. I don’t even really know what that is. I just want there to be more than nothing behind me.”
“I’m here. We’re here for you. Don’t get frustrated. Or get frustrated if you want, but let it pass. I promise you, we will always be here. You’re my mate. True mates are a promise that will never be broken.”
“Maybe we aren’t true mates.” If she said it often enough, maybe he’d believe it.
He just shook his head, but didn’t press. He stood there, as steady and steadfast as that damn pine tree beside her.
But even trees could fall. Nothing lasted forever. She turned so she was facing the direction of her parents’ log cabin. She’d lived with them before. Her and Onyx. She hadn’t made the move to Kier’s home yet because Onyx was so small. She had planned to, the week after Misty arrived. Her mom had to help her unpack all her bags and boxes.
“Let’s go see Onyx. I promised I’d only be out here for twenty minutes while she napped. She’ll be happy to see you.” Nothing was certain anymore, but she knew that was true. She’d never seen a man more in love with his daughter than the one before her.
Even if one day he lost the idea of their being mates, he’d still be in her daughter’s life. That thought shouldn’t hurt at all, but it did. Maybe the most of anything yet.
Chapter 2
