Connor couldn’t shake his bad feeling. Since the last time he’d seen Mary, it felt like his whole life had gone into the toilet.
He was sure they weren’t right for each other, but his lion wasn’t taking no for an answer. The last time he saw her, it had wanted him to chase after her and tell her how he felt.
Not that it would do any good. They couldn’t trust each other. She wasn’t willing to meet him halfway.
His phone rang, and it was like the universe was listening to his thoughts. It was Melody.
He considered not answering, but he hadn’t broken up with the twins. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Can you come pick me up?”
“What’s wrong?” His lion was on high alert. “Where are you?”
“You know the old Donnelly barn? I was here with a few friends, and I’m really drunk. My friends and I don’t want to ride with a drunk driver. Can you please come get me? And don’t tell Mary. She’ll kill me.”
“I’ll be there in a flash.”
He didn’t even have to think about his response. Mary would find out, but he knew how invaluable it was for a teenager to have a safe way home. He was glad Melody trusted him enough to consider him her safe person, even though they barely even knew each other.
Even if Mary didn’t trust him, her family did. That counted for something.
He took his time, obeying all the speed limits as he drove. He wanted to set a good example, and he needed time to think about what he was going to say. He didn’t know if he should yell at Melody or offer her a place to stay for the night.
He quickly nixed that idea. It would be strange to ask her to stay. Maybe he could take her out for some food to let her sober up and open up to him.
It wasn’t lost on him that this was also a way to stay connected to Mary. There was no way he could get through this whole thing without talking to her at least once, even if it was just a text.
It might be torturous, but he couldn’t let her go, at least not all the way. His lion wasn’t ready for that yet, and if he could help with the twins, he was glad to keep talking to her. He’d stop hurting eventually, and his lion would get over her one day.
When he got to the Donnelly barn, Melody wasn’t outside. He searched the familiar property where the rundown barn cut a spooky figure in the dark night. The barn had been used as a petting zoo forty years ago. The place had closed down after three or four years, but the barn hadn’t been torn down. Now, it was a sickly brown and was missing most of its doors. It was still popular with the local teens.
He found Melody around back. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets and hung her head. “Can you help me find Hilary? She went out into the woods, and she hasn’t come back.”
“Did she go with anyone?” His lion was starting to get antsy. Had someone taken her out to the woods and done something to her?
“Nothing like that. There’s a tool shed that we use as a bathroom.” Connor involuntary gagged at the thought, and Melody laughed. “Gross, I know, but we have to go somewhere. Most of us don’t go inside the thing. We just go outside to keep the bathroom in one area.”
Melody led the way while Connor reflected on how things had changed since he was young. Things seemed to be different for these kids. He had always gotten drunk at someone’s lake house and had never spent long enough at the barn to need to use the bathroom. It had only been a fascination during the summer when he and his friends were sixteen and seventeen, and not much longer. By the time he was Melody’s age, he wasn’t coming here anymore.
It occurred to him that she was handling her liquor much better than he had at her age. She didn’t even seem drunk to him.
“Don’t be mad,” Melody told him, stopping abruptly.
He stopped short to avoid bumping into her. “Why would I be mad? I came to get you, but I’m not going to be angry at anything. Even if you throw up in my car on the way home, I won’t be mad. I just want you to be safe.”
“You’re so freaking nice. Anyway, I’m not drunk. I don’t even like drinking, but if I did, I wouldn’t come here. This place is so freaking lame.”
Melody pointed toward the shed. Now that they were closer, Connor could make out a very angry Mary who was standing with Hilary.
“We didn’t know any other way to get you guys to talk.”
Connor shook his head and started to back away. “This isn’t cool. This doesn’t concern you two, and I don’t appreciate being tricked. I know you guys want to help, but real life isn’t a sitcom. We can’t fix everything this easily.”
“Don’t leave,” Melody implored him. “Could you just talk to each other for a minute?”
“There’s nothing to say,” Connor said. “We’ve said all we needed to, and we’re both done.”
His lion didn’t agree. He was having a hard time making his feet move, because his lion didn’t want to take a step away from its mate. It still had a lot of things it wanted to say to Mary. It was still sure she was Connor’s mate. It still hadn’t accepted that she didn’t want to be with him.
She looked as beautiful as ever, maybe even more so. Anger had brought color to her face. Even in her leggings and pajama shirt, she was still one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.
Connor longed to brush her blonde hair away from her face and take her in his arms, protect her from feeling disappointed in the twins. He wanted to take care of all of this for her. She should be at home in bed right now, waiting for him to get home with the girls. She shouldn’t be standing outside a shed that teenagers used as a bathroom.
“We’re going home now,” Mary told the girls sternly. “I can’t believe you dragged Connor all the way out here in the middle of the night. You think he doesn’t have better things to do? You both need to apologize.”
Hilary put her hands on her hips. “No, you apologize. Maybe Connor should apologize too. I don’t know who needs to apologize, but one of you two obviously needs to.”
“I think they both should,” Melody piped up. “Obviously, someone did something stupid, and the other person took it too personally. Hil and I have these problems all the time. We just apologize and make up.”
“We’ll even take Mary’s car home and leave you two here to make up,” Hilary said. “But we’re not going to leave until this is fixed or you guys agree to talk.”
“There’s nothing to fix,” Mary said quietly. “It didn’t work out, and that’s that. There’s no need for anybody to apologize.”
“Maybe I should apologize,” Melody said. “Get the whole apology thing started.”
Hilary nodded in agreement.
“I apologize to you, Connor, for tricking you out here,” Melody said. She came over and gave him a hug. “Do you accept my apology?”
“Thanks for your apology,” he said. “But this doesn’t change things between me and Mary. I know you girls are only trying to help, but there’s nothing you can do.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Hilary said. “Just let your animal guide you. I know it sounds cheesy, but we’re shifters too. We know how it works.”
“Once you find your mate, that’s it.” Melody gripped his arm tightly. “You shouldn’t let her slip away just because you’re being stubborn. Or she’s being stubborn. Or you’re both being stubborn. Whatever.”
“Just fix it,” Hilary said.
Mary looked at him and then at the girls. “What am I going to do with you two?”
“Don’t hesitate to call me if you ever have a problem, but please don’t try to do this again,” Connor told them.
“You guys aren’t even trying,” Hilary said, and stamped her foot. “Can you at least tell us what went wrong?”
Mary gazed at him through the darkness. There was fear in her eyes.
It wasn’t the girls’ fault, but they’d think that if he told them what had happened. They couldn’t know that their friends were thieves and that was what had broken Mary and Connor up. It would crush them.
He didn’t blame them, and he didn’t want them to blame themselves.
“Adult things,” he finally replied.
Melody rolled her eyes. “Is that code for sex stuff? I mean, we’re basically adults. You can just say sex stuff. We aren’t babies.”
Mary laughed, and Connor’s lion melted. It was the kind of laughter where she threw her head back and her entire body shook. It made him smile.
“It wasn’t sex stuff,” Mary said. “We just had a disagreement that we can’t get over.”
“All disagreements can be gotten over,” Hilary said sagely. “Especially when a shifter and its mate are involved.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” Mary asked. “You can’t possibly know who his mate is.”
“We can tell,” Hilary said. “We can tell by how he looks at you. Mom thinks so too. And I bet if you asked his family, they’d say the same.”
They probably would, not that it mattered. His lion thought so too. Connor wished he could take everything back, but he didn’t want to have to compromise his values for a relationship. It wasn’t fair. Either she loved him for who he was, both the good and the bad parts, or she didn’t love him at all. She couldn’t pick and choose.
Except that was what he was doing, too.
Connor suddenly couldn’t breathe. Mary was being unreasonable. He was trying to get a thief off the street and stop anyone else from getting hurt, but she was trying to protect her family. He wouldn’t do anything differently. Melody had called him for a ride, and he’d come. Why hadn’t he called the cops? Underage drinking was a crime too, but he wasn’t going to turn them in.
Maybe there was a way to get the thieves off the street without implicating the twins.
He could figure it out. No, they could figure it out. Mary was his mate. His lion wasn’t ever going to forget her. He was going to have to find a way to compromise, to make this right.
“I apologize,” he said.
It left a surprisingly bitter taste in his mouth. Even knowing that it might get him his mate back, it was still difficult to say. He knew he was in the right here. He had the moral high ground, but that didn’t matter. Not if he wanted to get Mary back.
“What?” Mary was as stunned as he was.
“I apologize. This is stupid, right?” He let his lion guide his thoughts. He wasn’t sure where he was going with this yet, but as he spoke, he knew it would all work out. “This is stupid. I don’t want to lose you. If everyone can see that you’re my mate, why aren’t we together? I’m making this harder than it needs to be. So, I apologize.”
“Told you so,” Melody said smugly.
“I understand if you don’t want to accept my apology right away,” he told Mary. He didn’t move to come closer to her. That would have been pushing things. “But at some point, when you’re ready, I’d love to talk.”
“I don’t know yet. I’m going to need some time to process this.” Mary bit her lip. “But maybe in a week or two.”
That was enough for him. It was a start.
He was going to win her back. He knew he would.