“Kelsey?”
She laced her fingers in her lap. When at last she raised her head, a furrow had dug in between her eyes. “Whiplash. You don’t feel it?”
“Uh, no?”
“I spent years in love with you and furious with you at the same time. I spent years knowing you didn’t love me. And now…” She gestured to him, to the picnic basket, then threw up her arms with a squeak of frustrated confusion.
His face warmed, and he ducked his head. But no, he’d face this head-on. He met her gaze and held it. “It’s different for me because I caused all this.”
“Or in other words, you’re not mad at me because I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Right.”
She dug her fingers into her hair. “I don’t know how to do this, Trevor. It’s nottrying againwhen fate already decided the outcome. We might as well go to a justice of the peace or something.”
Not a human marriage, not first anyway. First would be the bonding ceremony. Malachi would perform the handfasting, and they would speak the vows of a wolf and his mate.Until and beyond the falling of the moon. Trevor ached to hear her say those words, to hear her bind her life to his before the wolf pack and the alpha. Then, if they chose to, they could get married legally as well. Ember and Aaron had, partly to ease the custodial arrangement for her nephew Quinn.
“Kelsey, is that what you want? To be bonded mates?”
“Of course, but—but not because fate told us to. And not today while I still have whiplash. First I need to get to know you again the way I used to know you.”
“But we have plenty of time. It’s not a problem.” Why was she so worked up?
“Itisa problem, because what if you throw me awayagain?”
The moment the words burst out of her, Kelsey froze. Her mouth fell open. She stopped blinking, stopped breathing. Her precious scent of orchids was lost entirely as a pungent cloud of pain engulfed them both.
A giant wolf trap sprang in Trevor’s chest, its teeth tearing him open. He clutched and twisted his shirt in one hand. For a long minute they sat looking at one another.
Trevor was the first to be able to move. He slid the picnic basket to one side, set the empty cartons on top, so that no object separated them. He took her hands in his and held them. They were limp.
“Go ahead,” he said.
Her gasp was sudden, ragged, as though his words woke her from a stupor. She shook her head hard, shut her eyes.
“No, Kels, you need to say it, and you need me to hear it. Please.”
Her hands grasped his and squeezed hard. She kept her eyes closed as she whispered, “What if you throw me away again?”
He sat motionless. He listened.
“I can’t trust this, Trevor. I want to more than anything, anything in my whole life. But I trusted us before. When I was six years old I trusted us, and I never stopped. I didn’twantto be yours in high school; IknewI was. I never doubted us, not for one day. I would have bet my life that nothing could get between us, that we’d be married and join the pack as adults, that all the wolves would be my family until the day I died.”
One tear slid down her cheek. She gripped his hands as if he were her life raft in a vast boil of whitewater.
“So it doesn’t help that we’re fated mates, if we are. In fact it’s worse this way, because—because you defied fate once before. If we were just two people trying again, maybe we could make it, but—but if we’re life mates who already survived being apart, then how can I believe we won’t be apart again, how can I believe fate cares one way or another, and I just…if we take time, if we know each other again, and then you decide again I’m better off alone…”
She bowed her head, clung to his hands, and a second tear fell onto his wrist. He waited a moment, but she was finished. She knelt there, quiet and spent, shuddering. He fought the instinct to gather her up in his arms. He must not do that right now. Not unless she came to him first. He stroked his thumb over her knuckles and sat with her, let both of them carry the weight of her words, tried his best to ease the weight onto himself. She had borne it for nine years.
At last he said, “You’re right.”
She lifted her head, and her eyes were glossy, brimming with hurt.
“I broke your trust, and words can’t repair it. Promises don’t mean anything from me, not right now.”
She squared her shoulders, but she didn’t release his hands. “No, they don’t.”
“Do you…?” His voice broke. He sat up too, ready to take her answer, whatever it was. “Do you know what you need from me? What maybe would repair us?”
