Why did he have to say the right things?
Erica rubbed her eyes and sniffled. “I never went to prom, so you didn’t miss anything.”
Cole gave a soft, almost relieved laugh as if he had been holding his breath since they’d sat down. “Well, I guess that’s something.”
She stood, surprised that her legs had any strength in them. She cleared her throat. “Dominic told me that Gage was in some fight last night or something. So, I’m guessing my car isn’t done.”
Cole stood with her. “I’ll take you home, and as soon as your jeep’s done, I can—”
“Call me to let me know?” Erica finished with a strained, weak smile.
The sheriff understood and nodded. Whatever help she’d accept from him would be minimal. At least until she could sort out these thoughts and find some logic to it all. She was thankfulthat she didn’t have any photo appointments that afternoon. Erica wasn’t sure she could handle facing any more people in Tolstone who might be shifters.
Chapter Sixteen
Dominic wasn’t sureif it was the storm of feeling that pulsed through their mating bond, or if it was the difficult customer on the other side of the counter that made him want to drive his fist through the wall. Whichever it was, he knew he had to keep a cool head.
“How do I know you didn’t forge this authentication?” The wiry old man jabbed his finger at the document lying flat against the glass. Dominic had spent almost fifteen minutes looking for the letter in his files and he could handle someone wasting his time, but not his word being questioned.
He pointed out the seal at the top. “That’s from a notary.” Then he indicated the signature at the bottom of the page. “That’s the signature of a man whom my father personally knew and trusted from Boston, who is an authority on grandfather clocks from the forties. I assure you, this isn’t fake.”
The customer’s squinty eyes looked over the sheet of paper while Dominic tightened his jaw and willed himself to ignore the ebbing tide of anxiety, anger, and fear fed from Erica’s side of the mating bond.
He wished he had a moment to call her or Cole and ask how the meeting went. By the way they walked out together and the rush of calm that preceded this tempest, he would have liked to think that it went well. That all changed half an hour ago. If he didn’t have the customer in the store, he would have gone straight to Erica’s house to find out what was going on.
This explosion of feeling put him on edge. One moment, the thread lay still, intact, and under no stress whatsoever. Thenext, Dominic could sense it being pulled thin until he thought it would snap. Then it relaxed again, and he could breathe. If this was just a taste of what Erica was feeling, he couldn’t stay much longer. It was a wonder his father could get anything done around this town with his own mating bond screaming at him that his wife was depressed and suicidal. That only confirmed his father’s twisted priorities, if he could ignore his mate for the sake of Tolstone. Dominic couldn’t be his father.
The man, his wrinkled lips puckered with doubt, finally nodded. “All right.”
Dominic accepted his money and helped him load the clock into his SUV. As soon as he could get back inside, the lights were off, and he dashed out the back door to make his way to Crescent Lane.
His steps quickened when he felt that fragile chord of quiet finally stretch to its thinnest. Erica was a strong woman, but even she had her limits. Dominic nearly stumbled when he realized that tears pushed at his eyelids, tears that were not his. There must have been plenty more to learn about the mating bond, but this was something entirely new.
He didn’t bother knocking when he came onto her porch. The shattering of glass and her choking sobs were invitation enough. His wolf shivered at the overpowering fog into which they entered. He rushed to the living room where Erica was in the process of yanking a picture from the wall, ready to dash it to the ground with all the other framed photographs of her and her mother.
He rushed up behind her, grabbed her about the waist, and pulled her away before she could do any more damage. Erica fought him and beat her heels against the shards on the floor as she tried to wriggle out of his hold.
What had caused this hysteria? What did Cole say to her? He had to get her to settle down or she was liable to tear the whole house down.
Like a desperate, wild thing, she screamed and wailed as if she were being dragged to her death. Dominic, not sure how to calm her, let a whirlwind of dominance spin around them, encasing them both, containing this recklessness for both their sakes. He was apt to fly into a panic just like her if he allowed any more of her madness to spill through the mating bond.
It took a solid minute for her to stop struggling long enough for him to spin her around and hold her tight against him. Only then did her screams melt into quiet, suppressed whimpers. He didn’t even care that her hot tears seeped through his shirt. He refused to let go and rubbed up and down her heaving, quivering back until she could start to form sentences.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she began, the words almost garbled. “All this time, I thought my dad was the one who left. But my mom wanted him to leave. She wanted us to be broken.”
She proceeded to tell him everything that Cole had tried to explain to her, how the hunters pushed them out of Decatur, and how her mother told him to leave them behind. He knew all of that already, but he understood the cathartic release of speaking it into the open.
This is what he had been waiting for. It was the moment when she’d finally let him in without reserve, let him witness her brokenness, and relieve her of some of that baggage she had been carrying around all this time. He just wished it didn’t have to come at her expense.
Erica sniffled. “I feel like my whole life’s been a lie. I could have gone to the father-daughter dances at school. We could have been a family. We could have been so happy, and my momdidn’t want any of that, all because of what he was… All because he was a shifter.”
Dominic petted her long braid, loosened by her earlier fit. “Your mother did want you to be happy. That’s why she made the choices that she did.”
She shook her head, her nose rubbing against his shoulder. “But why would she want us to struggle? I don’t understand why she would want me to grow up without a father. Why couldn’t they just make it work?”
“I don’t know,” he replied softly. “Sometimes… people just fall out of love. I don’t know how it happens or why, but it happens every day.” He thought of his own parents, the silent dinner table, the separate bedrooms, and how his father seemed to move on from her so easily.
Erica weakly pushed against him, and he didn’t stop her from easing away from his shoulder. “What if we can’t make this work?”
