Page 31 of Next Door Midlife Alpha
She took another sip of wine. “Let’s see if I can get it right. I haven’t thought about this in a long time. Basically, shifters believe that there’s one special person in the world for them. This is who they’re destined to be with, and sometimes, it can take a long time to find their other half. And I mean that literally. Their fated mate is the other half of their soul, and the attraction is something much deeper than you or I can ever imagine. It’s more of a need than a want, a spiritual demand instead of just lust.”
Stacey’s head was starting to hurt. “So he just met some other woman and left you?”
“Not some other woman, butthe rightwoman. He would’ve been absolutely miserable if he’d stayed with me. I was crazy about him, and Thomas and I were both hurt at having to break up, but I understood just how significant this was for him. How could he not go with his mate?” She shrugged. “Last I knew, they were living happily together with a litter of kids and grandkids, so I sure can’t be mad.”
“Holy shit.” Stacey drained the last of her wine and reached for the bottle to refill. “I don’t know what to make of any of this.”
“You’ll get used to it. It’s strange to know that the way you’ve been thinking about the world your entire life isn’t exactly correct, but it’ll be okay.” Carol patted her hand. “They’re different, but that doesn’t make them bad. In fact, I think it says an awful lot about you that Dylan chose to tell you.”
“That’s only because I saw him,” she grumbled, unable to get the image of the big furry creatures on the fishing trawler out of her head.
“I don’t think so. He would’ve come up with something. I don’t know what, but Dylan is no dummy.” Carol swirled her wine thoughtfully.
“I just don’t know why it had to be me,” Stacey whispered. Her mind raced back to meeting him on the beach when he drove up on his ATV. Anembarrassing day, but it’d led to him coming over and helping her move furniture, which had, in turn, led to lunch at his house and subsequent dates. She could see some significance in that if she tried, but none of it would’ve happened at all if she hadn’t fallen off that ladder and cracked her head open.
“Hold on a second.” Stacey pressed her hands on the counter, feeling the coolness under her palms. “I told you what I saw when I hit my head.”
The unflappable Carol leaned back a bit. “Yes. Of course.”
“Dad was there.” Stacey knew she’d repeated the story several times, but she was looking at it from a different perspective now. “He told me I had to come back because people still needed me. At the time, I figured he meant you and the kids.”
“Sure. Your kids will always need you,” Carol said with a smile.
“What’s extra weird is that he had this little statue of a bear in his hand. It wasn’t anything I recognized, so I figured it had to be symbolic of something. But Mom, Dylan has that exact same bear on his mantel. And it’s not just something he picked up in a gift shop. His daughter made it.” Considering where it led, this train of thought was hard to follow, but for the first time, she felt like allthe pieces were fitting together. “Is there a chance that I could be Dylan’s, um, mate? Is he the one Dad was referring to?”
“Hm.” Carol tipped her head back and squinted at the upper kitchen cabinets. “I can’t say for sure, but it’s one hell of a coincidence.”
17
“I appreciate you all coming here.”Dylan took his place at the head of the room. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d brought everyone in for an emergency meeting. Rarely anything was significant enough that it couldn’t wait until the next regularly scheduled one, but every member needed to hear what he had to say right now. And so he’d spent the afternoon pushing aside the furniture in the large open area that composed the dining and living rooms. Lila had helped him arrange rows of chairs to accommodate everyone, and now she sat in the first row.
So did Will.
Dylan cleared his throat. “I think most, if not all of you, know that my twin brother Will has returnedto us recently. Some of us were quick to judge him, myself included. We haven’t seen him in a long time. He has a few words he’d like to say, and I ask that you listen with open minds and hearts. Will.” Dylan stepped aside.
Will, always so casual and charismatic, didn’t look like the same man who’d shown up a few weeks earlier. He stepped humbly up to the front of the room. His eyes glanced out over the assembled audience, which included all of his family members, before sweeping back down to the floor. “Good evening, everyone. I tried to write out what I wanted to say, but nothing was quite working for me the way I wanted it to. Some things are just hard to put into words, but I’m not exactly the kind to give a speech. I thought maybe it would be better if I just got up here and did my best.”
Barbara, sitting next to Lila, nodded her encouragement.
The hint of a smile Will flashed her disappeared just as quickly as it came. “I haven’t been a very good member of this clan, not recently and maybe not ever. I haven’t trusted the rest of you, nor have I given you any reason to trust me. Lately, I made that even worse. I came back to Truro, but I wasn’t honest about why. I’ve been deceiving myself for so longthat I didn’t think twice about deceiving the rest of you. I came here in the hopes of gaining access to the clan’s treasure to help me out of a bind that I’d gotten myself in.”
A few murmurs of shock rippled through the gathering. Will had already told his closest family members, of course, but not everyone knew.
“I made a lot of poor decisions. I constantly chose what I thought would be the easy way out, but that easy way always made life harder for me. I wanted to blame everyone else but myself, but I won’t do that anymore.” Will paused as his voice thickened.
Dylan waited, giving him time. The two of them had spent long hours talking it over, discussing not only what Will could do to help but also what Will needed to do in order to help himself. The more time they’d spent together, the more Dylan had become convinced that his twin brother had truly turned around.
“I can see now that I should’ve relied on the clan to be the family it’s always been. I never really saw that, but I do now,” Will continued. “While I won’t dive into the depths of every little thing, the basic story is that I made some very poor financial decisions and was going to fix them by taking advantageof the clan. Dylan has made me realize what an idiot I’ve been, yet he’s still agreed to help me.”
“That’s what we do for each other,” someone called out from the back.
Will nodded. “You’re right, and I’m hoping we can also forgive each other. That’s what I’m asking for today. I know I could just let this go and have Dylan tell you all to be nice to me, but I don’t want that. I want to do things right. While I originally came here to demand money I didn’t deserve, I’m now here to humbly ask for your forgiveness. Thank you.” He stepped back, still looking thoroughly ashamed of himself.
Someone started clapping, and the sound quickly took off until the whole room was thundering. Dylan stepped forward and pulled his brother into a hug. “That was the first step, Will. I’m proud of you, but mostly because it was your idea. You did great.”
Will nodded, pressing his lips together against words and tears as he took his seat. His brothers Ross, Dex, and Jace each leaned over to give him reassuring pats on the back and let him know that they stood with him, too.
Dylan stepped back into place. His heart was full, knowing that such an old rift had beenhealed. Even when Will had been away, he’d often thought about his relationship with his estranged twin and had wished for things to be better. They were, and it was certainly worthy of calling an extra meeting, but he had more to cover. This, however, wasn’t going to be quite as simple. “I won’t keep you much longer, but there’s a bit more business to take care of today. I’m sure you all know that the Suttons’ home was sold recently. For those of you who haven’t met her, the owner is a woman by the name of Stacey Williams. Her mother, Carol, and her two children live with her, and they’re all human. I know this has caused a bit of an uproar. After all, we were very fortunate to have people like the Suttons right at the edge of our border. We knew they could be trusted, and we could truly be ourselves around them. They are missed.”
