Mated to the Grumpy Alpha

Chapter 5

CIARA | CORBETT’S LANDING

SILAS GAVE ME FIVE DAYS TO SELL THE MAN WHO DUMPED ME. I SPENT THE FIRST NIGHT GUARDING A BREAD BOX.

The cheque sat under half a loaf of rye. I got up three times in the night to make sure it was still there.

Declan didn’t come for his hour that night. Jonah called at nine instead.

“He can’t make it as far as the truck,” he said. “Sorry about your forty.”

“Is he all right?”

“No.” He hung up before I could ask anything else.

At six in the morning I called the bank in Minden. A woman named Gail put me on hold for eleven minutes with the same song on repeat.

“It’s good,” Gail said when she came back. “The account has the funds. Is this a lottery thing?”

“Something like that. Thanks, Gail.”

Nancy got the whole story at eight in the supply room. The cheque was tucked inside my bra for safekeeping.

“Take it and buy the clinic,” she said at once. “Then fire Theo and hire him back, so he can marry you on a decent salary.”

“That isn’t how any of this works.”

“It’s four words, Ciara. You say them to Mr. Grumpy and you walk away rich.”

“Then why would anyone pay that much for four words?” I lowered my voice. “Nobody hands over money that big to be nice.”

Nancy chewed her lip. She didn’t have an answer, and Nancy has an answer for everything.

“Fine,” she said. “Take it and find out what he wants after.”

“That’s your whole plan?”

“It’s a good plan. I’ve done it with three boyfriends and a timeshare.”

Theo caught me at the back door at closing. He had his car keys in one hand and a grocery list in the other.

“Ma wants to know if you like tiramisu,” he said. “She’s planning Friday already, just in case.”

“Tell her yes to the tiramisu. I’m still deciding about you.”

He laughed, which he almost never does.

I stood there and thought how easy it would be. There’d be a kind man and his mother’s kitchen and CORTEZ on the clinic sign. There wouldn’t be a single wolf.

“Cee?” Theo touched my elbow. “You went somewhere just now.”

“Sorry. I was thinking about lasagna,” I lied. “Tell your mother I’ll bring wine.” Just say the words, I told myself on the drive home. Say them and buy your door.

***

Declan came late on Wednesday. It was nearly ten, and he walked up my drive slowly with one hand on the fence.

“You’re late,” I said from the porch. “And you’re grey.”

“Rent’s paid.” He climbed the steps like each one cost him money.

He set two twenties on the step and Gran’s cat mug beside them. The handle was glued back on crooked. Someone had painted over the chip in the tabby’s ear.

“Dustin did the ear,” he said. “He wanted glitter. I talked him down to one color.”

It was the wrong orange, and it made my throat hurt. “Tell him it’s perfect.”

“It won’t hold anything hot. But it holds.”

“Did you break it on purpose?” I asked. “Dustin seems to think so.”

“Dustin thinks I’m jealous of a vet.”

“Are you?”

He looked at the mug instead of me, and that was all the answer I got.

I put the envelope on the step beside his money. “Silas Brandt came to see me yesterday.”

He went still. He opened the envelope with two fingers and read the cheque, then the memo line. Something crossed his face and was gone before I could name it.

“Take it,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Take his money and say the words. Buy your clinic and put your own name on the door.”

“You decided for me in the feed store. Now you want to decide for me on my porch with somebody else’s money?”

“I want you to have the door.” He folded the cheque along its crease and held it out to me. “Do it now, while I’m here to hear it.”

I didn’t take it. He stood up to leave and got as far as the top step. Then his knees went, and he hit the porch boards hard enough to rattle the screen.

“Declan!” I was on my knees beside him before I knew I had moved.

He was burning up. His pulse was fast and thin under my fingers, and one pupil was bigger than the other.

“Jonah!” I screamed toward the truck. Then I tore his shirt open at the collar and put both hands flat on his chest.

The heat under my palms was awful. I moved my hands up to his neck and his jaw and back down over his heart. Slowly his breathing began to ease.

His eyes opened. They were gold again.

“Don’t stop,” he said.

His hand came up and closed around my wrist, pressing my palm harder against his chest. His heart was slamming under it. He pulled me down until my hair fell around his face and his mouth was an inch from mine.

I wanted it. That’s the part I’m not proud of. For one second I wanted it more than the clinic.

“You don’t get to,” I whispered. “Not after aisle four.”

He let go of my wrist at once. He didn’t let go of me with his eyes.

Jonah came pounding up the steps and dropped down on Declan’s other side. “Can we get him inside? Your couch, anywhere warm.”

Bring him in, I almost said. Then I heard Amrit’s voice on my phone telling me never to ask.

“Out here,” I said. “I’ll bring everything out to him.”

I brought Gran’s blanket and a bag of frozen peas for his head. I kept one hand on his chest the whole time. Twenty minutes later he was asleep with his fist in the hem of my sweater.

“Tell me the truth,” I said to Jonah. “All of it this time. Is he dying?”

Jonah sat back against the porch rail. “His wolf is, a little more every week. By the Hunt Moon it’ll be gone for good. He’ll be a man who used to be something else.”

“When is the Hunt Moon?”

“Five weeks from this Friday.” He held up one finger. “There are two ways this ends. You tell him you accept, and you mean it. The bond is cut and he’s well by morning.”

“And then?”

“Then he walks away. He’ll have no reason to come near you again.” He held up a second finger. “Or you take him back. As his mate, all the way and for good.”

“That’s it? There’s no third choice?”

“I’ve looked, Ciara. Believe me.”

“What happens to me if I take him back?”

“You’d have to ask him that.” Jonah looked at the hand fisted in my sweater. “I only know what happens to him if you don’t.”

It was past midnight when Declan woke. His skin was still too hot, and his voice was barely there.

“Ciara.” He tightened his grip on my sweater. “Say it.”

“You’re sick. Go back to sleep.”

“Say it while I can hear you. Please.” His eyes were wet. “You’ll be free of me. You’ll have your door. I can’t give you anything but this.”

“Don’t you dare make this my fault.”

“It was never your fault. It’s my mess, and I’m asking you to end it.”

I was crying by then, and I was so angry I could barely see him. He had dumped me in front of half the town and broken my grandmother’s mug.

Now he wanted me to throw him away, and he was begging me to do it.

“You want it so badly?” I said. “All right.”

Jonah went white. “Ciara, wait and think about this for one second.”

I put my hand flat on Declan’s chest one last time and looked him in the eye.

“Declan Levesque,” I said. “I accept your…”