Page 7 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

My sister and I had both been driven off in a similar way. When Mom died, Dad changed. Not in a good way. Neither Farrah nor I wanted to be anywhere near him. Part of it was our bitterness toward him over the affair. Dad’s side piece had gotten pregnant. It didn’t matter that doctors said you couldn’tactuallydie of a broken heart—it was what Farrah and I both believed. When it all came out, and Dad admitted to the affair and the love child, I’d watched Mom shrivel like a dying plant over the next few years.

When she finally died, Dad had dived right into the bottle. Farrah and I left Harbor Mills as soon as we were old enough, leaving behind that chaos and heartache.

“Have you seen Dallas since you’ve been back?” I asked.

Farrah’s face fell, and she shook her head. “No. Our little brother has been mostly MIA.”

Dallas, our half-brother, had never been our biggest fan. As for me, whenever I saw the kid, I was filled with a weird sense of pain and disappointment. He was a walking, talking reminder that my father had broken my mother’s heart and ultimately killed her. I always had a hard time not seeing Dallas as somehow being complicit in Dad’s cheating. Though, even as a kid, I’d known that was a shit way to think. Farrah had insisted we should try to make him part of the family, and I’d done all I could to follow suit. Dallas had never done anything wrong, and it would have been disgraceful for me to let my feelings take over. In the short time I’d been home, I got wind that he wasn’t around much, and that he was running with what sounded like a rough crowd.

“Neither have I,” I said. “Was he at the funeral? I don’t remember seeing him.”

“If he was there, he must have been hidden in the shadows or something. I never saw him.” Farrah eyed me, worry written all over her face. “Can we fix this, Cole? The finances?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve owned a lot of businesses over the years. I’ve got experience with getting things out of the red and into the black. This—” I picked up a stack of papers and let them fall from my hand back to the desk “—is bullshit, but I think we can get the ship righted. It would help if I could figure out where the fuck the money went, though. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and Dad decided to hide it all in his damn mattress or something.”

Farrah let out a sigh and nodded. “Good. That would be amazing.”

I gave her the same introspective look she’d given me. “Is there something else you wanted to tell me? You’re tense. I can see it all over your face. Is this really about the money, or something more?”

She smoothed her pants with her hands and shifted her eyes away from me. “No. That was it. Look, I need to head out. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Wait, hang on?—”

Before the words were even out of my mouth, Farrah jumped up out of the chair and rushed from the room. I stared at the door, trying to figure out what all that had been about. Hadeverymember of my family lost their minds?

My phone rang, snapping me out of my thoughts. The caller ID said it was the office. Now that we’d returned to Harbor Mills,Farrah and I were now in charge of the family business. The local water company. Unlike most utilities, the water for Harbor Mills was not county-owned, and I now managed that along with doing most of the technical work.

“This is Cole,” I said, answering the phone.

“Hey, Cole. It’s Tammy at the office. Have you checked the disconnect and reconnect sheet? I’ve got a lady raising hell because her water hasn’t been turned on yet. I sent it almost two days ago, and she’s saying it’s still not on. The app says you acknowledged it, but no one has been sent. Did you tell one of the guys, and they forgot?”

Shit. When was the last time I’d looked at that? I’d been so busy digging through Dad’s paperwork that I’d neglected for days to check the app we used for assignments.

“I’ll get right on it, Tammy. Promise.”

“Good. If she calls back, I’ll transfer her right to you. Then you can explain.”

“Thanks,” I said, and ended the call.

Scrolling through the app, I found the assignment sheet she was talking about. Over a dozen old assignments with attached addresses slid by on my screen, each outlined in green to show it had been acknowledged. Beside each job, a green check mark sat next to the address. One group was labeled as complete jobs. One at the bottom was outlined in green but had a red “X” beside it. There also wasn’t a technician assigned to the address.

Damn, Ihadmissed one. With all the stress, I must have seen the notification, acknowledged it, but never got around to assigning anyone to the job. Not a great way to run a business.Forgetting to provide a service a customer was paying for was on the list of the dumbest things you could do.

The irritation at my screw-up vanished as I read the address. A staccato rhythm began to beat in my chest as my heart sped up, hammering away beneath my ribs. My hands went clammy. The number and street name were very familiar. In fact, the day after I got back in town, I’d driven around to reacquaint myself with the old place, and I’d driven past thatexactaddress. The state of the house had told me no one lived there. It was well taken care of, but obviously unlived in. A few subtle questions sprinkled around town had revealed that Avery had departed Harbor Mills only a few months after I had.

Tammy said it was a woman who’d called. Could it be her? After all these years? Had Avery come home? Even thinking her name sent chills up and down my arms. For the second time in less than fifteen minutes, crushing guilt slammed into me. Guilt for what I did and didn’t do. For years, I’d thought about making contact with Avery, apologizing for running from what we had. About five years ago, I’d come close, going so far as to work up the courage to look her up on social media, but I’d talked myself out of it at the last second.

The thought of seeing her happy, maybe with a husband and kids, was too much to stomach. It would have shattered me. I had no leg to stand on, though. I was the one who’d run out on her, who’d broken her heart. Even if I’d tried to reach out, she would have had no reason to respond. She probably hated me, and with good reason. I cursed the idiot I used to be as a kid. It was shocking, the kind of life-altering and life-ruiningdecisions you made when you were young and angry.

One final fight with my father had sent me over the edge. Avery hadn’t even known I was leaving. I’d cursed Dad out andgrabbed my shit, stomping out of his life and leaving Harbor Mills behind. My rage at my father had blinded me to everything else. I’d broken the heart of the woman I loved most in the world for the silliest and pettiest of reasons. I’ve regretted my decision ever since.

Dad had wanted me to break up with Avery, get rid of her, and find a shifter mate. He’d never thought an alpha should mate with a human. Those old-school thoughts had boiled over one day when he’d been drunk, and it had devolved into a screaming match. In the chaos of me storming out, I had thought about going to get Avery. About taking her with me to God knew where, to a future neither of us could comprehend or know.

Back then, Avery was in college and happy, plus her grandmother needed a lot of help. Even as I slammed the door of my truck that last day, I knew I couldn’t ask her to leave all that behind. So I’d vanished into the sunset, leaving my entire life behind.

Leaving Avery.

Before I could stop myself, I called Tammy back.

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