Chapter Twenty-One

When Heidi didn’t come back to their suite after her shopping trip, Mason and Wade made their way down to the girls’ room to see if they wanted to go for an early dinner. They’d arranged a romantic harbor cruise to take Heidi on tonight and were planning on asking if she was ready for them to claim her yet. Mason still didn’t want to rush her, but he hoped that she cared for them as much as they did for her.

When they arrived at her room, the maid was just finishing up and the door was wide open.

“Hello, are the two ladies who are staying in this room here?” Wade asked the woman.

“No, they checked out right before the boat docked.” She answered, gathering new toiletries to stock the bathroom. “This room is empty now.”

Mason frowned, double checking the room number, “No, there must be some kind of mistake. They’re here until the end of the week.”

A look of sympathy crossed her expression.

“Maybe you can go confirm it at the customer service desk,” she said gently.

“Thank you, we will.” Wade dragged him away and they all but ran straight to the main service desk in the foyer.

“Can you please tell us if Miss Heidi Jennings in room 210 has checked out?” Mason tried not to scare the woman at the desk, but his tiger was beginning to panic at the thought of their mate fleeing.

“Certainly, sir. Yes, it seems that Miss Jennings had an emergency come up and needed to leave the ship as soon as we docked.”

“Emergency? Was she all right?” Wade cut her off, then an entirely unwelcome voice rang out from behind them.

“She was fine, just licking her wounded pride, I’d say.” Serena was standing there, looking smug and Mason didn’t have any patience to pretend left.

“What are you talking about? Did you see her before she left?” he demanded.

“I simply pointed out to her that two worldly, fine males such as yourselves wouldn’t settle for chuck steak when they were offered filet mignon. Your game of hard to get has worked, and now I’d like to collect my prize.” She tried to step closer and touch him, but Mason reached out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her cold.

“Heidi is our mate.” He tried to control his rage, but what had this vile female done? “I’m sorry if you imagined there was more between us than there was, but we only want our mate. We have zero interest in you.”

Mason could hear the rumble of Wade’s beast beside him as his friend battled with containing his anger as well. He let go of the cheetah’s arm and turned back to the desk attendant.

“We are checking out. Please have our rooms packed up and everything delivered to the address on our account. We are leaving immediately.”

The look on Serena’s face as they walked straight past her on their way to disembark the ship was almost laughable. But she wasn’t worth even one more moment of their time. They’d made their reports to the police and the corporation’s lawyer, and the rest would be taken care of. There was only one thing on Mason’s mind now—they were going to Blue Valley to get their mate back.

****

“Are you sure this was what you wanted to do?” Julie asked her for the hundredth time as they finally exited the airport in Chapple, “We could call them on the boat if you wanted to…”

“Julie, no,” Heidi cut her off. “I just want to go home and pretend like this never happened.”

Of course, there would be no denying to her heart that she’d met Mason and Wade, but the humiliation was setting in, and if she contacted them only to have that bitch Serena’s words confirmed—well, then Heidi was afraid she’d never be able to keep up the pretense that she would recover from this. Her family could never know that she’d tried and failed so miserably—it would only justify their coddling of her.

The two-hour drive back home passed in silence, but Heidi could see Julie out of the corner of her eye look over every now and then. She just stared out the window, trying to get her emotions under control enough so that she could put on a fake smile for her dad. Inside, though, her lioness was snarling at her to turn around and hunt down the two males that she still insisted were hers and hers alone.

Figures. I get the only broken inner cat there is—so broken she doesn’t even know how to identify her real mates. Her instincts used to be the one thing she could trust above all others, now what was she supposed to do? Even after the way things had gone down, she still longed for their touch.

“You want me to come in and hang out for awhile?” Julie asked as she parked the car in front of Heidi’s house. “We could eat popcorn and watch movies for a couple of days?”

“Thanks, but I think I just need a hot bath and my own bed tonight.” She smiled as best she could. “I’ll text you tomorrow and we’ll do something?”

“Okay…” Julie seemed hesitant, but then got out to help get the luggage out of her car. But before she drove off, she laid on the horn.

“Good Goddess, Julie, I was hoping to avoid them and sneak in for a bit.” Heidi hissed out as the front door came slamming open and two men ran down the steps.

“This way you don’t have to haul in all those bags,” Julie just winked and drove off with a wave. “Tomorrow, coffee!”

Heidi took a deep breath and placed a sweet smile on her face, thanking the Goddess that only Carson and Derek were home and now frowning at her.

“Why are you home early?” Carson grabbed her up in a hug. “I thought you were supposed to be gone all week?”

“Well, turns out Julie gets seasick and truth be told, you really can spend too much time getting facials and mud baths,” she teased, and was happy when she saw a smug smile come over Derek’s face.

“See? I told ya.” Derek hugged her tight before picking up the rest of the bags that Carson couldn’t hold. “Besides, the house is too quiet when you’re gone. Glad you’re home, Sprout.”

Was she glad to be home? Well, if you had to be anywhere while trying to stop the gaping hole where your heart had once been from sucking the life out of you—then she supposed home was as good a place as any.