“Okay. Listen. I need to tell you something.”
“Yeah?”
“Sharon met her mate.”
Silence filled the car, not because there were no noises, but because Cooper’s ears started ringing, blocking out everything. His grip stiffened on the steering wheel as he tried to focus. Left or right?
He knew the way to Cambridge easily. But a freight train had derailed and slammed into his chest, knocking the wind out of him. “Mated?”
“No. Not yet. But she met him. He’s human. He’s a logging inspector in the area. And an accountant, I think. Something like that,” she rambled.
Cooper couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I know you’re shocked.”
To say the least.
Years of putting her off. Months of dodging the draw to head back to Montana and give in to Fate. He’d even moved to Spokane to get farther away from his destiny.
And all for nothing. She wasn’t even meant to be his after all.
“We’re all shocked,” Laurie continued. “We were certain it would be you.”
“You’re sure?” Why did he feel deflated instead of elated? He should be glad. Ecstatic. Doing a happy dance.
Sharon Masters. The last of the Masters siblings and only daughter. Mated. Not his after all.
He shook his head to clear his mind and pulled onto the highway. “Wow.” It was the only word he could think of. “How…”
“I was there when they met. Friday night. There’s no doubt.”
Still stunned, his shoulders slumped. He felt as though someone had just married his high school sweetheart, a woman he’d pined after for years without having the guts to face.
In reality, he’d never met Sharon. They’d never been sweethearts, or anything else for that matter. He’d never even spoken to her.
He’d simply known.
They’d all known.
Every one of his siblings was mated to one of the Masters brothers. They each also had another mate, rounding the groups out to sets of two men and one woman. But that wasn’t Sharon’s destiny. As a female, she would only mate with one person. And apparently it wasn’t Cooper.
“You okay?” Laurie asked, her voice gentle.
Cooper nodded before it occurred to him she couldn’t see him. “Yep.” The single word sounded terse, and he grimaced.
Adam Masters, the father of the brood, had a brother in Oregon who also had five kids. All four of the men mated in threes. The only daughter in that family mated one man.
When Cooper’s oldest half-siblings met and mated into the Masters clan, they’d started an interesting development, making it increasingly obvious that Fate intended to unite the families. There had been no doubt.
Until now.
Until this.
Until Cooper felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest and run over by a truck.
Shit.
“Gotta go, Laurie. Concentrating on driving. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Okay. Be careful.” She ended the call.
He slapped the steering wheel, hating the sensation battering him. It was going to be a long drive. And he had a lot of work to do. As a seismologist, he would need to set up a station and track the activity in the area. His office had been monitoring the situation in Montana for almost three years, since the quake that shook the area when his oldest brother Miles had met his mates.
The shit was about to hit the fan. The research Cooper had been doing indicated a tremendous unrest in the mountains of Montana. He didn’t for a moment believe that little five point two was the end of it.
Nope. He needed to shake out of his self-inflicted pity party and drive. It was his own fault for not facing Sharon before now.
Was it possible Fate had intended for him to mate with her, and he’d simply been too pigheaded to face his destiny? They said it could happen, altering the paths of everyone irrevocably.
There was nothing he could do now except let it go and move forward.
And bury himself in his work.
Chapter Five
Jackson was staring at his computer screen, seeing nothing, when a knock sounded at his open office door. He lifted his gaze and nearly jumped out of his skin.
After days of distraction during which he found himself even more consumed with thoughts of Sharon than ever before, there she stood in his doorway, a sweet smile on her face. She leaned on crutches, the bottom half of her leg wrapped in a tight bandage.
Jackson jumped to his feet and rounded the desk. “Sharon.”
“Hope I’m not bothering you. I just wanted to come by and thank you again.”
“No. No. Of course not. Come in.” He set his hand on her bicep but realized he was in her way and stepped back to let her pass, pulling out the chair his clients used when they visited. “Sit.”