Chapter Nine – Louise

“Is it that terrible?” Zak asked.

Louise put her hand to her mouth, and backed away from him. “Is this funny to you? Some kind of a joke?”

“No joke, and definitely not funny. This is about as serious as it gets to me.” Zak tried not to reach out to her, but she was not going to fall into Zak’s clutches.

“Did Ollie put you up to this?” Louise asked, feeling betrayed.

“Oh, you think Storm’s dad is setting you up?” Why was he playing her like this?

“Ollie is not Storm’s father. Did he tell you he was?” She could not believe Ollie would do such a thing, but there was no other explanation. If Zak really was her mate, why hadn’t he spent the day falling over himself to tell her?

OK, so he had fixed her car. But then he’d walked away. No strings attached.

“OK.” He took a deep breath and held his hands out to her, trying to calm her down. “I should have come clean earlier.”

“But you didn’t because you are disappointed in me, because I have a baby?” Louise tried to keep her voice calm.

“No.” He shook his head. “Damn, it’s hard to think straight when you are so close.”

“Then let me fix that for you.” She went to storm past him but he caught her in his arms and held her close, even when she fought against him.

“Please. Let me explain.” He sounded as if he was in agony.

“Let me go,” she hissed, and pushed at his arms.

“If I let you go, will you allow me to explain? Please. And if you still feel the same way, I promise I will walk away. I’ll get on my bike and leave here forever.” His voice showed the strain of his words, but she was not going to feel sorry for him.

“You have five minutes.” She bolted to the other side of the kitchen as soon as he released her. “I will scream the house down if you touch me again.”

“I’m sorry.” He raked his hand through his hair, his breath shuddering through his body as he fought for control.

Unless he was some kind of maniac, she was beginning to believe he might be telling her the truth. But she needed to be convinced because she was not going to be fooled by any man again.

“When I saw you this morning, I knew,” Zak began. “But I didn’t know you. I didn’t know if you knew about shifters, and the quickest way to frighten a person off is to tell them you have the natural ability to turn into a bear.”

“True.” She couldn’t argue with him. It had taken Ollie months to work up the courage to share his ability to shift with her.

Zak visibly relaxed. “Added to that, you seemed flighty.”

“Flighty?” Louise snorted.

“Yes. The way you shied away from shaking my hand.” He arched his eyebrow and nodded. “Anyway, I thought that maybe you were….”

“What?” Louise asked.

“An innocent daddy’s girl.”

This time Louise snorted with laughter. “Wow, you could not have gotten that more wrong.”

He smiled. “I don’t know. You are not like a lot of the girls I have met on my travels. And Dean is like a dad to you.”

Her eyes dropped to the floor, as she went over their first encounter. She could understand how he had read the situation. “Are you disappointed?”

“Disappointed…” He took two steps toward her and then stopped. She liked his self-control. “No. Not at all.”

“Then why not tell me when you saw me again?” Zak had had ample opportunity since she had come home.

“Because I wanted to know Dean was all right with it,” Zak said.

“You mean he might not approve of his golden child’s choice of mate?” Louise asked.

Zak nodded. “Something like that.”

“You bastard!” Louise spat.

“What?”

“That is not how fated mates are supposed to be. Aren’t you supposed to be so in love with me, that you wouldn’t care if Dean approved of me or not?” Her voice shook with anger.

“Wait, no. I was worried Dean would think I was a bad choice for you.”

She huffed as she tried to comprehend what Zak was saying. “But you and Dean…”

“And you and Dean…” Zak pushed back at her. “He loves you and Storm. I can see how proud he is of you.”

“He’s just doing his job,” Louise said.

“And that is why he spent a fortune on your car?” Zak asked.

“It was a fixer-upper,” Louise insisted.

Zak nodded, and she knew she had missed something again, but she wasn’t going to try to figure it out now. One problem at a time. “He wants the best for you. And I can see why. You’ve had it rough. So I had to be sure me telling you was the right thing. If Dean had told me to get the hell out of town, then I would know I was the wrong guy for you.”

“So you would have left?” She could not understand how a shifter, who was supposed to give his undying love to his mate, could simply walk away on the say-so of another man.

“If it was the best thing for you and Storm.”

“So it isn’t this mad, unbreakable love?” Louise felt cheated. Ollie had always told her they could not be together because when he found his mate, he would love her above anyone and anything else.

“It is.” Zak placed his hand over his heart. “But part of that love, is always putting my mate first. And I wanted to know that is what I would be doing.”

He stood before her, humbled by her presence. There was no way to deny that he was suffering; it was as if someone had ripped his heart out and thrown it away.

“I can’t fall in love with a dream,” Louise said softly. “If this is true, tell me, if it isn’t, have the decency to turn around and walk away.”

Zak took a step toward her, faltering in case she was going to tell him to stay back. “I promise you, this is real. Unexpected. But real. It’s like having a child, the bond doesn’t have a handbook. It hit me out of the blue, and I didn’t know how to handle it.”

Louise wiped her hand over her face, feeling the salty wetness of tears she didn’t know she had shed. “I can’t be let down again. I just can’t.”

“I know that.” He held out his hand and cupped her cheek in his palm, his thumb brushing her tears away. “It breaks me inside to see you crying because of me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, they aren’t all for you.” She smiled weakly. “I have a lot of baggage.”

Zak shrugged. “We could compare.”

“Sometime. But not now.” She frowned and nodded.

“Whenever you are ready,” he said gently. “You set the pace, I am not going anywhere. I’m here to stay. Forever. If you want me.”

Louise squeezed her eyes together tightly. She had longed to hear those words. First from Ollie, and then from Ajax. Two men she knew, two men she had once loved. It was weird to hear a stranger say them. A man she neither knew nor loved.

“I’m going to need time to get my head around it,” Louise told Zak.

“As long you tell me you’ll think about it, that is good enough for me.” Zak let out a long breath. “That was more nerve-wracking than the first time I went on stage.”

“I’m sorry if I gave you a hard time,” Louise said, feeling guilty.

“No, really, I should have handled it better.” He shrugged. “But we’re good?”

“We’re good.” They stood there like a couple of kids on a first date, not knowing what they were supposed to do. Should they kiss, they were, after all, bonded mates? But she didn’t want to kiss Zak. Not because she didn’t like him, or wasn’t attracted to him, but because she didn’t want to rush their relationship and risk spoiling it. He’d said they had forever, and she wanted to take some of that forever and enjoy it.

“OK. Good night then.” He stepped out of her way, although he kept his eyes fixed on her, as if he was drinking her in.

“Good night,” Louise replied. “We can talk in the morning.”

“I like the sound of that,” Zak said. “That’s if I can sleep. It’s not every day a man meets his mate.”

Louise walked past him, grateful when he didn’t reach out and grab her again. She understood how hard it was for him. Before she left the kitchen, she paused, and said, “I want this to work, Zak. For both of us. But there is one other person we have to think about.”

“Storm. I know.” He swung around to face her. “She is more important than you, or me, in all of this. I understand that completely. But I want to be her father, as much as I want to be your husband.”

“Husband,” Louise repeated. “I wasn’t sure I was ever going to have one of those. I’m not even sure I want one.”

“It might be the one thing I insist on,” Zak said with a goofy grin on his handsome face. Gone was Mr. Cool. “I want to put a ring on your finger, Louise, I want the world to know you are mine.”

“Good night, Zak.” She wasn’t ready for a marriage proposal.

“Good night, Louise.”

Louise left Zak in the kitchen, looking as if a bomb had just detonated under him. Climbing the stairs, she had to keep reminding herself this was real and she hadn’t dreamt it. But knowing it was real did not make any of it easier to comprehend. She was the mate of a bear shifter.

Not so long ago, that news would have made her so happy. But Zak was not the bear shifter she had dreamed of spending the rest of her life with. That man was Ollie. But he was not hers.

Wearily, she undressed and put on her pajamas before checking on Storm. Her sweet baby lay sleeping peacefully in her crib, unaware that their futures had just changed forever. If Louise allowed it.

There still was the option of telling Zak to walk away. Hadn’t she sworn to give up men forever after Ollie told her his news?

But Zak was her chance at happiness. Happiness that would last. She might not feel the same way he did. Not yet, but his promise to never leave: that was something she could get used to.

That was something worth taking a chance on.