Page 8 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

“Yes, Cole?” she asked.

“The reconnection? Did the woman sound, uh… well, how old did she sound?”

“I don’t even know what that means. She didn’t sound elderly, if that’s what you mean.”

“Okay, I’m heading there now. I’m gonna take care of it.”

“Cole, you can call one of the techs to do it. That’s all you should have to do. You’re in charge—no need to go running all over the county when you have employees who can do it. I didn’t meanyouhad to go there personally. I meant that you needed to assign one of the guys.”

“I know,” I said quickly, a strange, boyish excitement welling up in my chest. “I want to. I should have given one of the techs the assignment days ago. No need for them to rush to fix my mistake. I’ll handle it.”

“Fair enough. Let me know when it’s done, then I’ll file the paperwork.”

“Will do,” I said. Half the time, it seemed more like I worked for Tammy than the other way around.

Grabbing my truck keys, I got up and headed out of the office. There was no way to know if the woman who’d moved into the house was Avery. For all I knew, she rented the house, or she’d sold it. But a small part of me, along with my inner wolf, hoped it was her. The thought of seeing her again, of maybe having the chance to fix what I’d broken, gave me more hope than I’d had in years.

As I got into the truck and took off down the driveway, my inner wolf gave a faint but distinct growl of eagerness at the prospect of seeing Avery again.

3

AVERY

“Mom, are you gonna tell me who that woman was?” Ashton asked as we pulled out of the grocery store parking lot.

“Not right now, Ash.” It was all I could do to keep my emotions in check, much less try to explain to him that he’d met his aunt for the first time in his life.

Thankfully, he dropped it and slipped into that typical, sullen teenage silence. It left me to stew in my own anger the entire ride home. Once I parked the car in the garage, he grabbed a few bags and stomped inside, leaving me to grab the last few things.

“Great,” I muttered to myself as I closed the back hatch of the SUV. “Reallyfuckinggreat.” Now my son was pissed off. All because I was hiding things from him. We’d been back in town for less than two hours, and I was regretting it already.

In the kitchen, the bags of groceries sat on the counter. Ashton had already retreated to his room. Part of me wanted to go in there and tell him to get his butt out here to help me put away the food. The more rational part of me knew he was goingthrough a lot—more than I could even imagine. With his first shift rapidly approaching, his hormones were going haywire. It wasn’t his fault he was moodier than usual. I’d uprooted his whole life.

I sighed and went about unpacking the bags. As I grabbed a jar of pasta sauce to put in the pantry, the glass slipped in my hand. The jar spun out of my grasp and tumbled through the air, then shattered on the tile, sending red tomato sauce all over the place.

“Fuck,” I hissed, throwing my head back in exasperated defeat. This day was not getting any better.

Thankfully, we’d bought paper towels. I tore the package open and started cleaning the mess. At least the jar had broken into large enough pieces that I could easily pick up. After tossing those out, I wiped up all the sauce I could and dumped the sodden towels in the trash can. My hands were covered in sauce, and I used my elbow to turn the faucet on.

No water. Still nogoddamnwater?

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I growled.

I used more towels to clean off my fingers before getting my phone and dialing the water company again.

“Good afternoon, this is?—”

“Why is my water not turned on yet?” I said, trying hard to keep my voice even but failing. “You told me someone would be here, and they haven’t come yet. I still haveno water.”

“Oh, goodness, is this the house on Briarcliff Road? You called earlier?” the woman asked.

Unclenching my teeth, I said, “Yes. Can youpleasetell me when they are coming? And I expect some sort of discount for the trouble. I can’t wash my hands, I can’t flush the toilet, do laundry. I need a time frame, please.”

“I am so sorry. I’m not sure what’s happened. The owner of the company was made aware of this. I’m looking at the assignment schedule right now. I have no clue why this happened. I’m so sorry about this. I will put a note on your account. We’ll go ahead and do a twenty-five percent discount for the first thirty days. How does that sound?”

That relieved some of my rage. This wasn’t her fault. It sounded like whoever thisownerwas needed their ass chewed out.

“Fine, that works. Can you call them and tell them to hurry?”

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