Second Chance Mates (3 page)

"Everything okay with the
family?"

Cade nodded. "Yeah, they're all fine.
Rose wants me to come home."

"I get the feeling I'm missing
something. Who's Rose?"

"I don't even know where to
begin."

"The beginning will do just
fine."

"I'm not sure where the beginning is."
Cade raised the beer to his lips again, swallowed, then pressed the
cold bottle to his forehead to ease the sudden ache that sprang up.
"Rose is Clara's mom. I've mentioned her before." Not too often
though. It hurt enough to have Clara in his head, invading his
dreams, it didn’t do to talk about her non-stop.

Luke frowned, clearly trying to place
the name. "Clara is, was, your brother's wife?"

Cade nodded. Rubbing his jaw, he said,
"Rose says she isn't doing well. She needs help."

"So... you go help?" Luke put his
socked feet on top of the coffee table and stretched. It didn’t
surprise Cade that Luke had found the exact spot where the sun
streamed through their living room windows, bathing him in warmth.
Typical tiger.

"It's not as easy as that." Cade
huffed.

"How come? You don't get on with
Clara?"

Cade smiled sadly. "No. Yes. Ah, shit,
it's complicated."

"This is where I'm missing something,
right? Hold up. Is she the girl you talked about? The one from back
home?"

Cade took a deep breath. He'd tried to
avoid talking about Clara, even though Luke had been his best
friend since he moved to town, but occasionally her name came up.
Mostly it was just too painful. He'd wanted to get away from the
constant angst not take it with him. They'd talked about everything
else, but not this, not indepth. And now he really needed someone
to talk to, someone who understood their world. "Clara wasn't just
destined to be Colton's mate. She's mine too."

Luke whistled, a long, piercing sound,
and arched his eyebrows. "For real? What happened? You didn't want
her, or something?"

"No, I wanted her." Cade wondered
briefly if the longing came through in his voice. "Even after
Colton and she exchanged the mating mark, it was still there, that
strong urge to mate with her, to make her mine."

Luke clearly struggled to make sense of
it. "And Colton wasn't keen?"

"None of us thought we'd end up having
a multiple mating, though it's not exactly uncommon where we're
from," Cade explained. Their lycan community was used to having
multiple pairings what with few full lycan females between them and
the mating bond often coming into play with more than one male.
Cade didn't need to explain it to Luke. As a shapeshifter too,
though of a different species, Luke understood that and they'd
discussed it a few times already, especially as Luke’s breed, a
rare one, often sought out mates of another breed. "Colton was okay
with it. He said he could learn to share and that he was just glad
it was with me, his brother, and not some random dude. If it was
what Clara wanted, he would be fine, but Clara wanted the human
thing. The one man, one woman pairing."

"That must've hurt."

Cade rested his head against the back
of the couch. "Like you wouldn't believe."

"Didn't she care how cruel she was?"
Luke growled his indignation even as he slumped under the
sun.

True mating bonds were rare and
special. Someone had to have a damn good reason to avoid or reject
a pairing. Even worse, a rejected male had little chance of finding
another female with whom to share a true bond. Clara's rejection
hadn't just driven him away from their community, it had denied him
the chance to love, to have a family of his own. Even so, Cade
couldn't bring himself to blame her, even though that little
bubbling ball of anger still simmered below the surface.

"She was just young and idealistic," he
said. "And damn stubborn. She truly believed Colton was enough. I
guess he was for her," he conceded. “My brother was a really great
guy. You would have liked him a lot.”

"But she still rejected you even though
she knew you two were destined to mate?"

"Even though," echoed Cade, trying not
to wince at the ‘r’ word. "There were a few times she was tempted,
I could tell. She even kissed me once. You know what her mom said
to me on the phone just now? She said I should’ve bitten her when I
had the chance."

"Maybe you should," said
Luke.

"Maybe I should," agreed Cade. "Except
I wasn't enough of a bastard to force my mating mark on her and beg
forgiveness with her in my arms later. Anyway, like I said, Rose
wants me to come home. She says Clara needs me."

"Clara say that?"

"Not so far as I know."

"You think she'll be happy to see
you?"

"I think she'll slam the door in my
face."

Luke chuckled. "I'm fairly certain I've
never seen that happen before."

"Can't say I'm eager for it to happen
again."

They fell silent, contemplating that.
Cade wasn't what anyone would call a womanizer but he was good
looking, tall and athletic, possessing a rugged look that had women
tripping over themselves to sample his goods. Sometimes he
indulged, but rarely for more than one night, preferring to
thoroughly love them for an evening, and politely leave them before
they got clingy. Or woke. He never got the feeling there was a
future with one of his conquests. Luke, on the other hand, had no
problem chasing skirts even if he hadn’t brought anyone home for a
good long while.

"I bet you a hundred bucks you go home
and she mates with you."

"Seriously? You want to put a bet on it
where you're guaranteed to lose?"

"Fine. Two hundred bucks says she mates
with you."

"I am not betting on Clara!"

"Afraid you'll lose?" Luke
jibed.

"More afraid she'll kick me in the
balls for suggesting it again and that'll be the end of my sex
life."

They both took a sip and crossed their
legs.

"What are you going to do?" asked Luke
after a long silence and another round of beers.

"I'm going to do the right thing," Cade
decided, taking a long look around the apartment they shared. With
the open plan room featuring black leather sofas, a glass coffee
table and a kitchen that was a blank palate of granite and walnut,
it screamed bachelor pad, yet it had none of the warmth he craved.
Most of all, it didn't have Clara. "I'm going to go
home."

"And the bet?"

"Two hundred says she doesn't mate with
me. And I'm only taking the bet because one, I'm giving you a
chance to win back what you lost at poker last week and two, I'll
be glad to lose."

"Very generous. I'll grab a
bag."

"What for?"

"I want to see your face either way.
And if you win, I'll get to see your balls take a beating
too."

"You still pissed about
poker?"

"Not at all," lied Luke smoothly. "I'm
just coming along for the ride. I finished my contract. I have a
month free and I feel like a change of scenery. The girl situation
might be good amusement too."

"Callous, man. She lost my
brother."

Luke winced under Cade's glare. "Sorry,
dude. My insensitive side promises to stay at home."

Cade reached for the phone, tapped in
the number. "Rose," he said, when he heard Rose's voice on the
line. "I'm leaving in the morning. I'll be with you in a few hours.
I'm bringing a friend. No, we don't need anywhere to stay but I
appreciate the offer. I seem to recall my brother offered an open
invitation to stay with them and I intend to take him up on that.
Clara can’t argue." He paused, listening, then grinned. "Yes, Rose,
I'll bring ice."

***

Despite repeated attempts at
conversation during the long drive, Luke finally admitted Cade
wasn't in much of a chatty mood. Watching his friend of several
years clutch the steering wheel, his jaw set in a 'don't mess with
me' line, Luke couldn't help wonder just how bad this Clara had
messed his friend up. And that made him pissed.

Not that he liked to think on it but
he'd had the occasional brush off from a human female in his time
which rarely hurt but usually astounded him, given that
shapeshifting females practically drooled when he showed his face,
never mind his animal side. However he'd never been fortunate
enough to meet his mate and had never really contemplated what
would happen if when, and that was a big if, he met her it wasn't
exactly an auspicious meeting. Only Cade had met the mate destiny
chose for him and she'd rejected him, a cruelty Luke couldn't
imagine. Not that he’d thought on it much, but he assumed the fated
mate meeting was like a thump to the heart, a meeting of minds,
flowers and candy, all wrapped into one.

The more he thought about it, the
angrier it made him. Who was this stubborn female to refuse the
mating destiny sent her way? It wasn't like every shifter was lucky
enough to ever meet his mate. Not that he'd been looking, but if he
had he'd have accepted fate. He was sure of that. Pretty
much.

So why couldn't this woman?

It wasn't like Cade was a stranger to
her, or, not that he really thought about dudes at all, but his
best friend wasn't exactly butt-ugly. Given the pleased noises that
came from his bedroom from time to time, he wasn't exactly lacking
in the bedroom department either. He wondered if the human ideal of
two partners only was just a ruse; maybe she thought Cade wasn’t
good enough.

Luke snuck a sideways glance at Cade
again, then had to brace himself against the door as Cade wrenched
the wheel and they turned onto a rough road. "Easy there,
buddy."

"Sorry," Cade muttered, his gruff voice
not quite hiding the emotion. Luke could tell how wound up he was.
What had started out as a buddy road trip had descended into a
tight jaw, an expression that could wilt flowers, and white
knuckles gripping the wheel. Cade was nervous. Possibly the first
time Luke had ever seen him so.

"Are you sure you want to do
this?"

Cade took his eyes off the road for a
moment to glance at his friend. "That's the third time you asked
that. And yes, I wouldn't come if I didn't want to."

"You don't look happy about
it."

"Hate to admit it, but I'm anxious. The
last time we saw each other wasn't exactly pleasant."

Luke had the full story after a couple
more beers the previous evening. "Your brother's
funeral?"

"His wake."

Luke shook his head. Young deaths in
the shifter community, much like the lycans, were rare and they
often had a hard time adjusting to sudden and tragic loss. It was
hardly surprising, now he thought about it, that the she-wolf had
been angry. Even so, it didn't take away from the fact that she'd
already rejected the man fated to be her mate. He didn't comprehend
it. Couldn't comprehend it.

But it would do Cade no good if they
rolled up on her doorstep like two angry men with chips on their
shoulders.

"Maybe we should have called ahead,"
Luke suggested.

"Her mom didn't think it would be a
good idea."

"Why? Did Rose think she'd do a
runner?"

A smile crept onto Cade's face.
"Probably. Clara is the most stubborn woman I've ever met. Thinks
she's invincible. When her and Colton took on the farm, I thought
it was a lot to handle but now she's doing the whole lot by
herself. She's not the type to ask for help or even take it. When
she finds out her family interfered..."

"I get the picture." Luke was also
starting to build up a strange mental picture of her. Was she some
kind of straw chewin', dungaree wearing woman who swung lump
hammers all day long? He was pretty certain Cade liked them petite
and feminine through and through. "Actually, I don't. You got a
photo?"

Luke's forehead furrowed in thought.
"Maybe in my wallet but it's in the back. You'll meet her soon
anyway. That's the turning for the farm ahead."

"Just how pissed is she likely to
be?"

"Well, she slapped me at the wake but
she's not the violent type. And it was her husband's funeral so
that I don't even need to forgive her for, especially seeing as I
might have overstepped the mark."

"You think?"

Cade cut a glance at him and raised his
eyebrows. "Okay. I completely overstepped the mark. I don't know
what I was thinking telling her that she would never have to be
alone, that she would always have me, whenever she was ready. She
probably thought I was trying to replace Colton or get in her pants
the same night or something.” He shook his head at the memory, at
his pathetic attempt to make her feel less heartbroken. “I just
didn't want her to be alone. I think she's going to be angry and
upset and I just hope she stays calm long enough for me to talk to
her."

"You want me to talk to her
first?"

"While I hide in the truck? No thanks,
man."