Jac Dubois never let her overbearing colonel father, or the issues with her cat, keep her from enjoying an adventurous life. She didn’t live in one place long enough to truly call it home and is looking forward to settling down in her new position at a Colorado mountain resort. All of her plans for the future change the second she meets Reese. He’s dominant, organized, and ex-military—everything she’s sworn to avoid in a male. Not to mention, he’s her mate.
Wolf shifter Reese Reynolds has always been the one in charge, the one who takes care of everyone else. He’s traveled the world, served a tour for his country, all without ever finding his mate. He’s convinced that being alone is his destiny and throwing himself into the leadership role for his family’s business will have to be enough to satisfy him.
At least that’s what he believes until the new photographer arrives and turns his well-ordered life into chaos. To make matters worse, she’s his mate, and totally convinced the great shifter matchmaker made a mistake.
Can Reese persuade Jac to stay, or will her beliefs and a new threat to his family’s home keep them apart forever?
What is he thinking? I stared at the computer screen sitting on the worn and scratched surface of my office desk, then reread the email I’d received from my father. Unfortunately, the message was still the same, and I had four days before Clayton Reynolds arrived and threw my nicely organized life into major chaos.
He’d avoided spending quality time with my sister Berkley and me since we were children, so I had no idea why he suddenly thought a visit was important. Over the last year and a half, I’d spoken on the phone with my father twice, and both times I’d been the one to contact him. The first was to tell him about my grandfather’s death; the second was a few days later to tell him he had another son. It irritated me every time I thought about the text I’d received, the one with the lame excuse for not attending his own father’s funeral or making time to meet Nick, my recently discovered half brother.
READ MORECommitment had never been a word my father understood. He’d been a terrible husband, a worse father, and was never going to win any awards for his parenting skills. He was, however, family, and though I wanted to reply and tell him not to bother coming, I couldn’t.
I puffed out a heavy sigh, skimmed my hand through my hair, and glanced at the forest outside my window. Normally, the tranquil greenery had a calming effect, but today it wasn’t helping. No matter how much I wished I’d never seen the message or that the damned thing would magically disappear, it didn’t alleviate the dread creeping along my spine. A dread that involved upsetting my siblings when I told them about our father’s unexpected visit.
Of the two, telling my younger sister was going to be the most difficult. Berkley had grown up resenting our father, especially after he’d abandoned our mother and us to pursue a younger female. Constantly being disappointed by our sire, coupled with a cheating ex-boyfriend, had reinforced her resolve to avoid having a meaningful relationship with any male.
It had gotten so bad that when she’d met Preston, our new head of security, I’d been concerned she’d never accept him as her mate. Fortunately, my longtime friend was a determined cougar whose patience and persistence had eventually gained him my sister’s heart.
Nick, on the other hand, was unpredictable. He’d never met our father or asked for an introduction, so I had no idea how he’d react. Berkley and I hadn’t known our half brother existed until James Reynolds, our grandfather, had died almost two years ago and left the Seneca Falls Resort to the three of us.
Surprisingly, when I told my father about my half brother, he’d actually admitted to having a brief fling with Nick’s deceased mother. He hadn’t shared much about the relationship other than to say he’d met Audra Pearson when she worked for a traveling carnival and they’d shared a couple of wild nights together. It was unclear if he’d known she was pregnant before he’d walked away from their brief encounter. Though I knew about his philandering ways, I would have preferred not hearing the descriptive details of how he’d cheated on my mother.
Since he had a habit of shunning responsibility for his children, I wasn’t sure I believed him. Though he lacked the desire to tell the truth unless it was beneficial, there was a good chance that Audra really didn’t know how to find him after he’d left.
Nick had been a drifter and rarely talked about his life before coming to live with us. If he decided to share any information about his past, it was usually with Berkley. Her persuasive abilities to get people to talk about personal things, even when they didn’t want to, was remarkable.
Up until I’d received the email, my father hadn’t shown any interest in getting to know his other son. Now he couldn’t wait to meet Nick and attend his upcoming wedding. A wedding I was certain he hadn’t been invited to. Since my mother had been invited, it wasn’t hard to assume he’d found out from one of their mutual friends.
A rap on the door startled me and drew me from my troubled thoughts. My heart rate jumped even higher when Berkley poked her head through the doorway. I’d never heard of wolf shifters having psychic abilities, but my sister had an uncanny way of showing up when I was thinking about her.
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