Filed To Story: Secret Shifters Next Door Series PDF Free
felt after that are entirely yours. You and the woman. Love is love,” she said, smiling even more broadly.
I sat back, breath shuddering out of me in relief. That relief was quickly overcome by the questions. There were so many. There was only one way to get the answers to those questions. I glanced at Miles, then Steff, and Blayne. They each looked back at me with the same determined look. They knew as well as I did what had to be done. To get our answers, we had to capture Emily. We would find out her motives, why she killed those shifters, and why she’d cast a spell on us. But how did one capture a witch?
TWENTY-TWO
HARLEY
Tate’s meeting had ended sooner than he said it would, but it seemed like it hadn’t gone well. When he’d come to get me, he was tense and introspective. He spoke in short one-word answers when I tried to talk to him. He wasn’t angry, I could see that. It seemed more like he was worried or confused about something really important.
The drive home was a little tense. He was so damned edgy. I didn’t bother even trying to talk to him as we drove home. Tate stared out the windshield, silently chewing his lower lip and scowling. His free hand was patting his knee nervously.
It finally got to be too much, “Are you okay?”
He jerked as if I’d startled him. The truck swerved to the wrong lane for a half second before he righted it. Once he had the vehicle stable, he gave me an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, you scared me there.”
“Did you forget I was sitting here?” I asked, only half joking.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”
His face softened, becoming more like his usual self. Tate took my hand and brought it to his lips, kissing my knuckles. “I’m okay. I promise. Let’s stop and get lunch before we head home. Good idea?”
The thought of food made my stomach rumble. The little person growing inside me had increased my appetite threefold. Ignoring the hunger would only cause me to binge on ice cream and chips later. Better to eat now and have some control over what I put into my body.
“That sounds great.”
We stopped at a small restaurant. The smell of food inside didn’t do anything to quell my hunger, and I patted my stomach. In my head, I said,
Easy little one. Soon. Tate was closer to normal by the time we sat and had our menus.
Glancing over his own menu, he asked, “Harley, what do you want for the future?”
I nearly dropped the menu. The question caught me off guard. All I’d been thinking about was whether I wanted a cheeseburger or a salad—the cheeseburger was in the lead. The deep, somewhat existential question threw me off. Trying to maintain my mental balance, I thought quickly, and came up with what I thought was a good answer. It was the first thing to come to mind, and it made me smile.
I shrugged. “I want my daughters to be happy. To enjoy their lives, and grow up to be good women.”
Tate looked at me, his smile spreading to a grin. “That’s a given, Harley. You’re a great mom, and you’ve raised some really great young women. That’s not really what I was asking about. What do you want for
you in the future? What do you want for yourself?”
It should have been a simple question. I almost laughed, thinking the answer was easy, but stopped when I really thought about it. All I could ever remember was being a mom. My life before that was almost totally forgotten. So distant that it was almost like another universe, in some alternate reality that barely drifted around my memory. Thinking about it, I realized what I wanted was fairly simple.
“I want to be comfortable,” I said, slumping as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. “I want to wake up every day knowing that I’m safe and loved. I thought I had forever once. That my happily ever after had already happened. Things didn’t work out the way I wanted, but I do still believe in happy endings. If it’s in the cards, I want to grow old with someone meant for me.” I shrugged a shoulder. “And at least one more kid.”
Tate laughed. “One more after that little nugget?” he said, pointing to my belly. “You looking to start a basketball team?”
I raised an eyebrow and gave him a crooked grin. “I’ve always wanted a big family. Being an only child, the idea always seemed appealing.”
The server came and took our orders and removed the menus. Tate leaned back in the booth and looked down at the table. He seemed to be thinking about something. When he didn’t speak for a minute or two, I prodded him.
“What’s going on in there?” I asked, pointing at his head.
Snapping out of his reverie, he smiled. “Sorry. It’s just that, until all this, I’d never imagined having a family. Now? It’s like it’s all I can think about.” He looked me in the eyes, his gaze so intense I nearly shivered. “I want to do my best every day to be what you need.”
His words surprised me, not only by what they implied, but by how serious he was when he said it. “Where is this all coming from? No offense but, originally, you didn’t seem to want anything to do with me.”
“I’ve lived my whole life fighting things. Fighting my family, fighting myself, fighting the world. I think I was used to fighting against anything that felt different. I’m starting to see that some things aren’t meant to be fought. Sometimes they need to be embraced. I don’t want to fight what I feel is building between us. Not even a little bit.”
The same idea had been bouncing through my mind for a while. Hearing him say it out loud was reassuring. For the past week, I’d been trying to ignore the fact that I liked having Tate around. The girls liked it, too. They’d been missing that male presence. If I was honest with myself, so had I. I liked Tate even more than I’d been letting on.
Before I could respond, he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a ring attached to a thin gold chain. The ring was beautiful. A black obsidian jewel was embedded in the ring. The ring itself looked like it was platinum or white gold. It looked old but well kept. Tate didn’t seem like the type of person to have such a beautiful piece of jewelry.
He held it out by the chain so I could see it better. “This is the last thing I have from my old life. It’s a reminder of where I came from and who I am now.” He reached under the table and pressed a hand against my stomach. “This ring is my legacy, and I want our boy to have it. Passing it down to our son would make me very happy. But for now…” he lifted the chain and put it around my neck as I fought back tears, “…I want you to have it. It represents power and strength. Two things I think you have, and I’m sure our son will have as well. This ring is important to me, and so are you. That means it’s meant for you to wear.”
Our food came out, and I had to turn my head so the server wouldn’t see me crying. The hormones roaring through my body wanted me to break down blubbering, but the little boy growing inside me demanded food. The tears dried up, and I went to work on my burger. Tate and I continued to steal glances at each other as we ate. We ate in silence, but it wasn’t awkward. It was a comfortable silence between two people who had finally opened up to each other. It was one of the best meals I’d ever had in my life.
The rest of the day went by in a blur. We’d gone home and did a few chores before the girls got home from school. Tate had