Chapter Twenty
Joe had made the trek back up the mountain with the big ass dollhouse box strapped to the back of his bike. How he’d done it without wrecking and killing himself, he didn’t honestly know. It hadn’t helped that the fine mist that had been falling all day was rapidly turning into a mix of snow and ice. Still, he’d managed.
Sitting in the middle of Sam’s living room at the lodge, he had a small toolkit and the instructions for the dollhouse laid out in front of him.
“Who the hell designed this thing? Ikea?” he muttered. There were more parts than he’d ever imagined and most looked nothing like the illustrations on the directions.
Sam walked in, eyed the mess, and laughed. “Yeah. I’m not ever getting into the kind of shit you just fell into. Holy hell.”
“Don’t get cocky. I need your help,” Joe admitted.
“You’re a fucking mechanic?”
“Yes! A mechanic. Not a damn Barbie architect!” Joe snapped, his lion irritated at all the little pieces that came to the dollhouse. Didn’t these toymakers know that male lions were notoriously lazy? “Help me get this thing together. If that kid doesn’t wake up to this thing under her tree tomorrow morning… I just can’t disappoint her that way!”
Sam shook his head in disgust. “Fine. But you owe me.”
“And when I bring your truck back tomorrow, it will have a full tank of gas in it.”
Sam paused as he picked up some of the dollhouse pieces. “My truck? Again?”
“Look, I strapped the box to the back of my bike and damn near died. You really want to put this thing together and then see it destroyed when I smack into a tree with it?” Joe shot back.
“I’m still undecided,” Sam snapped back at him. “Let’s this get this damn thing done.”
They worked mostly in silence except for the occasional calling out of whatever tool or part they needed. It was almost like a surgical team. The process all total took much longer than they’d expected.
When the thing was finally complete, they loaded it into the bed of Sam’s truck.
“Don’t get attached to my truck, man. Remember you chose that death stick on two wheels and bring my baby back to me in one piece. And a good friend would bring me back some honey as a thank you!”
Joe rolled his eyes and thanked his friend again for letting him borrow the truck. He should have known the big bear shifter would ask for honey. The only thing Sam was obsessed with more than honey was women.
As he got in the vehicle and started it up, he glanced in the back one last time to make sure the dollhouse was secure. He couldn’t wait to see Sarah’s face tomorrow morning when she saw her present from Santa.
The ride to Nikki’s house took a lot longer than he would have liked due to the slippery roads, but he took them slow. The last thing he wanted was to wreck and fuck everything up. Finally, he made it safely to her place.
As he pulled up in front of her house, Joe had barely put the truck into park when the front door whipped open and Nikki came flying out of the house. Joe was over the moon to see his girl…until he realized there were tears running down her face.
Jumping out of the truck, he ran over to find out what was wrong. “Nikki, baby—” was all he got out before she flung herself at him.
“Oh God, I thought it was you, Joe!”
His mate was sobbing in his arms and he didn’t understand why. Joe tried to pull her back to get a good look at her face but Nikki wasn’t budging from the death grip she had around his body. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”
Nikki let out another loud sob. “T-the accident on the p-parkway! I thought it was you.”
Exerting just enough strength to pull her back so he could look at her face, Joe tried to make sense of what she was saying. “What accident?”
Shuddering a breath, she answered him. “There was a motorcycle accident on the parkway. It looked just like your bike. That bike was in p-pieces, Joe, and for a minute t-there I thought I’d lost you.” On the last word, she started sobbing uncontrollably again and Joe’s heart hurt for his upset little mate.
After picking her up, he carried her back to the house and set her down on the couch. She tried to hold onto him when he went to pull away, but Joe gently forced her to let him go. “I’m right here, sweetheart. Right here.” He kissed her on her lips and tried to calm her fears as best as he could. “Take deep breaths for me, baby.” It took a few minutes, but eventually Joe had her breathing normally again instead of almost hyperventilating.
Once he had Nikki calmed down a bit, he gave her another soft kiss on the lips and then cradled her face in his hands. “I hate to leave you, sweetheart, but I need to go get Sarah’s present out of the back of the truck before it gets ruined. It could start snowing or misting again any second. I’ll be right back, all right?”
Nikki shakily agreed, allowing Joe to run outside and get Sarah’s dollhouse. It took a whole lot more effort to carry it by himself this time, but he managed to get it into the house without dropping the damn thing. After he gingerly placed it by the tree, he peeled off his jacket, threw it on the chair, then rejoined Nikki on the couch.
The moment he sat down she climbed into his lap, straddling him so that she could face him. Joe let his hands rest on her hips. He could see a lot of thought moving behind her gorgeous green eyes. Now he just had to wait and see what she was going to say.
“I was going to end it,” she said softly. “I had made my decision earlier today because I thought—because I thought I could avoid the pain of losing someone again if I just kept you from getting too close.”
Her soft admission stung him. Just the thought peeled back all the layers and left him feeling raw. “Nikki—”
She stopped him, pressing her fingers to his lips. “Let me finish. If I don’t say all this now, I’ll lose my nerve.”
He nodded and waited with baited breath.
“When my parents were killed, my whole world changed in an instant. I went from being carefree and irresponsible to having to take care of myself and a little girl who’d lost everything. And I was angry, Joe. I was goddamn mad at my father. I don’t blame him for the accident, but I blame him for choosing to stay there in that car even as it went up in flames. My mom had died on impact. And he knew that. He knew she was dead. And he stayed there with her anyway, knowing we’d be left alone.”
It made so much sense to him in that moment. Her resistance to being mated to anyone, her determination not to be tied to another person. He couldn’t imagine what that felt like to know that someone you loved had chosen to die and leave not just his adult child alone in the world but a tiny and vulnerable cub like Sarah. “I’m so sorry, baby. But that’s not who we are. Neither of us would ever make that choice.”
“I thought the only way to avoid being like my dad was to avoid having a mate at all. But I was wrong,” she uttered softly. “I was so fucking wrong. It’s going to hurt whether I lose you today, tomorrow, or fifty years from now… I want the fifty years.”
He watched, hyper aware, as Nikki brought her hands up and placed them on his stubbled cheeks. She raced her eyes over his face, as if tracing all his features in an effort to commit them to memory. Every passing second made Joe more nervous of what she might eventually say.
Finally, as tears started to well up in her eyes once again, Nikki spoke. “I’ve been a hard-headed fool about you, Joe Miller.” He opened his mouth to tell her she hadn’t been quite that bad, but Nikki shook her head and wouldn’t let him speak. “I have been so damn stubborn, thinking I knew what Sarah and I needed all along. What was best for us. I was wrong. Everything we need is right here in front of me. You’re everything I could have ever hoped or dreamed for, Joe, and if you still want me as your mate, know that I want you too.” She leaned forward and placed a quick, desperate kiss on his lips before pulling back to say, “I want you, Joe, always.”
Hearing her words felt like a soothing balm to his soul. Just the thing he never knew he needed until he had it.
Wrapping her up in his arms, Joe kissed his mate passionately, letting her feel with his lips, tongue, and enthusiasm just how happy she had made him. It didn’t take long for those kisses to become heated though. Joe had been given the magical green light. Nikki had said the words he needed to hear.
She wanted to be his mate.
His lion roared in triumph inside of him. Joe felt the cat come to the edge of making him shift, but backed down for one reason alone. Now it was time to seal that deal, and he could only do that in their human forms. As he stood, Nikki wrapped her legs around his waist and Joe cupped her ass to carry her as he walked. Through the living room, down the hall past Sarah’s room, and all the way back to Nikki’s room. The moment they were through the door, he used his foot to close it. Once it was shut, he shifted one hand from Sarah’s ass to lock the door behind him. He also said a small prayer as he carried Nikki toward the bed that Sarah would sleep through the night. He didn’t want to be hurried and quiet on the couch. He wanted to hear every moan and every scream that he could wring from her.