“Mom…”
“I’m just sayin’. Think about things before you leap. Promise me that?”
“Of course.” Damn, the woman had a point. Michael needed to take a step back and get a grip on himself before he faced his mate and started the mating dance. It was hardly a dance, but he could picture the two of them circling the room in a standoff as old as time when she realized what she was to him.
Michael prayed he’d at least get the opportunity to hold her tiny, sexy body against his and bury his face in her floral-scented hair today, just like he had the last time he’d been in the same room with her.
Only this time he wasn’t pretending. This time it would be for real.
Chapter 3
Alyssa was exhausted. Kara had called first thing that morning and asked Alyssa if she could come over and help with the kids. Kevin, a precocious two-year-old, spent all his time climbing as high as he could and moving any object not nailed down from one room to another. Kara had a hard time keeping up with him on days when her daughter Kyla, six months, decided to cry for six hours straight. The child had colic. Reinforcements were often needed in that house, and Alyssa loved to help out.
As she pulled up to the ranch house she now considered home, she turned off the engine and just sat for a moment.
In the few months since finishing her associate’s degree in early childhood education, Alyssa had yet to decide what she wanted to do. Nancy and Richard were the best. She’d never met anyone with a family this huge, but these people who’d taken her in two years ago had a dynamic that made anyone who visited envious. All five biological siblings and their multitude of spouses and kids got along with each other like a utopian society.
Perhaps with the exception of Michael. She’d only met him a few times briefly before he’d taken off for Spain to help out in Alejandro’s absence. However, those few minutes she’d spent with him the last time she’d seen him would never be forgotten.
The man had packed a punch. The scene ran through her mind like an old movie reel every time she allowed herself to indulge. Her first kiss, only kiss in fact, had come from him. Soft and gentle at first, and then urgent and firmer, Michael had even let his tongue skim the edges of her lips. Alyssa had melted into that kiss, forgetting the world around her for the frozen moment in time.
Too bad it had all been a staged act for the purpose of convincing her Oklahoma pack she had a mate and would soon be claimed in Oregon. Alyssa had never fully recovered from that kiss and had spent a portion of every day since then reliving the moment—the gentle way Michael had held her shoulders, the way his fingers trailed down her back and rested just above her butt, the way he’d kissed the spot just behind her ear and then breathed words she couldn’t hear into her neck.
She’d always wondered what he’d said, but no matter how much she thought about it, she’d come up with no ideas.
This package had been her world for the last two years—school, home, and pretending the Michael she remembered belonged to her. In her dreams. Had it all been just a teenage crush? A figment of her imagination? It had to have been. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have left her … left the country. Right?
She could never thank the Masters enough for the two years they’d given her. They’d shaped and changed her in ways she couldn’t explain, but Alyssa still had a fear of wandering too far from the house. She knew it wasn’t rational. It had been too long. The Masters had clearly convinced the numskulls who’d come to collect her that she was taken. Nobody had ever tried to contact her or bothered her in any way.
She occasionally thought about her parents and what they were doing. Did they miss her? They had to know where she was and had never attempted to contact her. Their silence spoke volumes. They were brainwashed by the only pack they’d ever known.
Nevertheless, other than school and group outings with her huge new family, Alyssa didn’t wander too far on her own.
Coincidentally Jessica had also been born into the same pack as Alyssa and was extremely sympathetic to Alyssa’s plight and need to break all ties. The Masters were an unexpected godsend. Alyssa shivered to think what would have become of her without their guidance, love, and acceptance. In the two years she’d been living with Nancy and Richard, she’d grown from a scared girl into a confident woman. Someone managed to remind her of that nearly every day.
Alyssa smiled and lifted her face into the afternoon sunshine. Spring was just around the corner. In early April the days were still chilly, but sitting in the confines of her car, it was warm enough to pretend she’d encounter the perfect temperature when she opened the door.