Chapter One – Louise

I’ve found my mate. Louise stared ahead as she sipped her coffee, the words Ollie had told her hammering in her head over and over again. How was she supposed to feel? What was she supposed to say?

In the end, she had mumbled something about being pleased for Ollie, and fixed a smile on her face that she hoped he believed was genuine. Because it was genuine: Louise wanted him to be happy, she truly did with all of her heart. But that didn’t temper her own disappointment.

How could it? Ollie was her childhood friend, the man whom she always hoped would one day wake up and see Louise as his mate. That dream was dead. Gone.

“Are you ready to go?” Dean asked, walking into the kitchen with Storm in his arms.

“Yes,” Louise answered, hiding her face from the man who had given Louise and her baby, Storm, a home. Louise crossed the kitchen to the sink, buying herself some time to compose her expression by running the tap to wash up her cup.

“Leave it, I can do that,” Dean insisted. He shifted Storm onto his hip and walked toward her.

“You do enough for me already,” Louise answered, her voice strained with the emotions she was trying to keep hidden deep inside.

Louise tried to keep telling herself how lucky she was. Things could have turned out so much worse. When she broke the news to her parents that she was pregnant, they had kicked her out of the house, forcing her to live rough. Not the easiest of lifestyles when you are heavily pregnant. After giving birth, Louise wanted to be the mother she had never had, but quickly realized she was never going to be the kind of mother her baby needed. Years of being told she was worthless by her parents had taken away all of her self-confidence.

So she had made a decision. Her best friend, Ollie, had told her about Bear Creek, after he moved here to get a job at the local brewery. Due to a stupid falling-out, they had lost contact, but in the long, lonely days of homelessness, Louise had dreamed of what it would be like to live in a nice town with good people. So her plan had formed: take her newborn child to the nearby hospital in Bear Bluff, and give her child the chance of a good life. A life Louise felt she could not give her baby. A life she did not deserve herself.

Within hours of carrying out her plan, the loss of leaving her child had propelled Louise into action, and she had begun the journey to go back and get her baby, only for the cold to nearly kill her.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Dean said. Louise was glad he hadn’t said that’s my job. If she didn’t think about it too much, she often let herself believe that Dean had given her a home because he cared about her, not because he was paid by Social Services.

“Can I have one last cuddle before I leave?” Louise held her arms out for her daughter, who was now a beautiful, big baby of six months. “Bye, Storm. Remember, I love you.”

“She will never forget, you tell her at least twenty times a day,” Dean joked as he washed Louise’s cup and set it on the drainer.

“I can’t help it. I grew up never hearing those words. And never feeling love. I want Storm to be surrounded by love all of her life.” Louise handed her baby back to Dean, hating to leave her daughter behind, but also knowing that if she was going to give her baby a good life, then she had to work. “And if I don’t tell her, who is going to? I’m the only parent she has.”

“I think you have enough love in your heart for two parents,” Dean told Louise. “But don’t believe you will never find the right man to love you both.”

“I’m done with men,” Louise said. I’ve found my mate. Ollie’s words filled her head and the pain of knowing a miracle was never going to happen, and he was never going to love her as his mate, came crashing down on Louise once again. “I don’t need one.”

“Take it from one who knows, needing and wanting are two different things,” Dean said.

Louise smiled sadly at Dean. “You deserve a woman in your life more than anyone I know.”

“We don’t always get what we deserve,” Dean said. “Which is why I’m going to say to you again, don’t put a barrier up around your heart. If love comes your way, let it in.”

“If love, true love, comes my way, I promise you, I will let it in.” Louise grabbed her purse and headed to the door. “But for now, I just want to be a good mom.”

“You are.” Dean shook his head at Louise. “Don’t think you have to pay for your past, either. Every person on this planet makes mistakes.”

“Some bigger than others,” Louise replied, opening the front door. “I’m just glad I realized mine before it was too late.”

“Welcome to the second chance saloon,” Dean said, and lifted Storm’s small hand and waved it at Louise. “Say bye-bye to Mommy.”

Louise lifted her hand and blew a kiss to Storm. “Bye, Storm, bye, Dean. I’ll see you later.”

“Dinner is at five thirty,” Dean called.

“I’ll be here,” Louise promised, leaving the house and shutting the door behind her. She stood for a moment catching her breath. This was only the third time she had left Storm with Dean all day. He said he didn’t mind, and Louise knew he meant it, but that did not make it easier.

Guilt swept over her. She was leaving Storm again. As ridiculous as it sounded, every time she walked out of the door without Storm, she had visions of leaving her alone at the hospital, of walking away and not looking back. But she had looked back. And then gone back.

“You will be back in time for dinner,” Louise reminded herself. She took one step, then another, walking along the driveway to the car Dean had helped her fix up. It had been cheap; she wouldn’t allow Dean to buy her anything more expensive, despite his insistence. Her plan was to pay him back, and that meant the car had to be cheap. Eventually, he had agreed, and they had spent hours working on it, Dean fixing the mechanical side, while she cleaned and polished the paintwork and interior until it looked like new.

A sense of pride washed over her. She was taking the first steps toward standing on her own two feet. Yet a pang of sorrow hit her in the heart. She was going to hate leaving Dean, but leave she must. There was no way she could stay with him indefinitely.

She had turned eighteen a couple of months ago. Certain she and Storm would have to leave, the relief when Dean told her Suzie, her Social Worker, had managed to negotiate a support package for them, meaning they could stay, had been immense. But Social Services would not pick up her tab forever. There were other troubled teens who needed Dean’s help more.

“I have to stand on my own two feet,” Louise stated, as she started the engine and drove down the driveway and onto the road. Yet Dean’s words of wisdom contradicted her own. In his view, people didn’t have to stand on their own two feet; sometimes they stood on the shoulders of others, and sometimes they had to be carried in someone else’s arms, and there was no shame in that. In his view, all that was ever expected was that in any way you could, you paid the generosity of others forward. Someone helps you, you help someone else in return.

Louise felt a surge of love sweep through her and tears pricked her eyes. She loved Dean like a father, although she had never told him so. Words like love were foreign to her, except where Storm was concerned.

The spring sun was weak, but it shone brightly, reflecting off the wet road. Louise couldn’t wait to see Bear Creek come alive with the changing of the seasons. She had arrived in Bear Creek in a snowstorm at the beginning of winter, when the leaves were bare and the days short and cold. The trees were just coming back to life, their green leaves unfurling, the birds beginning to sing for their mates.

New beginnings, Louise thought happily.

I’ve found my mate.

Refusing to let her mood slip into melancholy, Louise switched on the radio, and sang along to her favorite songs. A love of eighties pop music was all she had in common with her estranged mother.

Taking the back roads along the edge of the foothills that surrounded the mountain range between Bear Creek and Bear Bluff, she shook back her hair and let go of all her worries. The animal shelter where she volunteered reminded her of how lucky she was, and left her with a sense of purpose.

Dean had got her the job, telling Louise that it might be unpaid, but would look good on her CV. And since she had no qualifications, the experience was going to be her only selling point with a potential employer. What had surprised Louise more than anything was how much she enjoyed working at the shelter. Helping those less fortunate than herself made her happy. So what if they were animals, not people; in Louise’s eyes, they deserved a second chance at finding a home.

After being homeless, she figured she had a unique understanding of what it was like not to be wanted.

Turning right, she was five miles from the shelter when a noise under the hood of her car made her sit up and pay attention. Turning off the radio, she listened as what started off as an innocent rattle grew louder.

“Damn it.” Louise pulled over to the side of the road. She didn’t want to be late for work, but she didn’t want to do irreparable damage to her car either.

Switching off the engine, Louise sat for a moment, fighting back tears. Everything was going so well until yesterday! But Ollie’s news about his mate seemed to have set off a chain reaction of bad luck.

“You are not going to overreact,” Louise told herself. Taking a deep breath, she focused on what Dean had taught her: stay calm, don’t panic. Whatever happened, it was not the end of the world; there was little that could not be fixed.

Except her battered and broken heart.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she fought the urge to cry. She needed to let Ollie go, he wasn’t hers, he belonged to another. He had found the woman who was bonded to him, and Louise had to accept it and move on.

Which meant she couldn’t call him and ask for help.

So who did she call? It would have to be Dean. There was no one else. It meant he’d have to come out to her with Storm. Which also meant Louise was going to be very late for work.

Getting out of the car, she grabbed her purse and then searched for her cell phone. Thankfully she had a signal, which meant she would be able to let Ronni at the sanctuary know she was going to be late. Hopefully, this wasn’t going to affect the references the shelter would provide when she applied for a job. Late for work would just about sink any small chance she had of finding a job that actually paid money.

She scrolled through her phone. Whom should she call first? Dean or Ronni? While she pressed dial, the sound of an engine coming along the road made it hard to hear Dean’s phone ringing. There was no way Dean would be able to hear her above the noise. Frustrated, she ended the call before it had even begun.

Turning to look behind her, she watched a motorbike coming her way, all chrome and steel. Great, another reminder of her old life and past mistakes. Boys on bikes had got her into this mess in the first place.

Storm’s dad, Ajax, was a biker, a bad boy, who lived by his own rules. He’d tempted her into his life, offered her a place where she belonged, and then kicked her out when she told him she was pregnant. Looking back on her relationship with Ajax, she knew he’d used her. Not that he had singled Louise out, Ajax used everyone, but she missed the sense of belonging he had given her before ripping it away.

Slipping back into the driver’s seat, she pulled the door closed and waited for the bike to go past. Only it didn’t. Instead, the engine slowed and then stopped. Glancing in her rearview mirror, she watched the bike’s rider switch off the engine and remove his helmet. He shook his shoulder-length hair and raked a hand through it before putting his helmet on his handlebars.

Then he slipped his leg behind him as he dismounted his motorbike, and she got a good look at his leather-clad, toned thighs. Her mouth went dry.

“Temptation in leather.” She chastised herself for being so easily drawn to a man she didn’t know. “They are no good.”

The stranger sauntered around the side of the car. His step faltered and he reached out a hand and placed it on the roof of her car.

Great, I bet he’s on drugs, Louise thought. Could her luck get any worse?

Louise watched the stranger as he straightened himself up and made his way, on legs that were not his own, to the passenger window. Tapping on the glass, he smiled, and her heart hammered in her chest. His dark looks spelled trouble, but his soft brown eyes spelled love.

She was such a stupid dreamer. Rolling down the passenger window, she swore to herself she was not going to be swept off her feet by anything that came out of his mouth.