The Forbidden Mate: Claimed by My Ex's Alpha Uncle novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Cabin

He walked out of the hospital on his own feet ten days later.

He went straight to the eldest's house and took the seat back from Jarrett on her front porch.

The trial was the next night.

His cabin sat at the top of Cold Ridge Road, where the gravel ran out and the pines started.

It was one room and a loft, built of logs gone silver with age, with a woodstove and a porch that looked down on the whole valley.

I drove up in Lucille's truck at seven.

She'd stood in the yard with her arms folded while I backed out.

"You sure?" she said through the window.

"No."

"Good. Nobody's ever sure. Bring my truck back with gas in it."

He opened the door before I knocked.

He was in a gray henley and an old flannel, and his hair was wet from a shower.

He looked like a man who hadn't been shot twice.

He looked nervous.

I'd never seen him nervous.

"You found it," he said.

"There's one road. It ends at your door."

"I meant you came."

"I know what you meant."

The cabin smelled like woodsmoke and onions.

There was a cast-iron pan on the stove and two trout in it, and a pot of potatoes boiling over.

He grabbed for the lid with his bare hand and swore.

"You're cooking," I said.

"I'm trying."

"Since when?"

"Since about four o'clock." He sucked his burned thumb. "I called Lucille for help. She hung up on me."

"She doesn't help Alphas."

"She told me salt the water and don't be an idiot. Then she hung up."

I took the lid out of his hand with a dish towel and turned the burner down.

I turned the trout before they went black on one side.

He leaned against the counter and watched me do it.

"You're very bossy in a kitchen," he said.

"I'm very bossy everywhere."

"I've noticed."

"You said that in the elevator."

"I'm still noticing."

We ate at a table made of a single slab of pine, with his knee against mine under it.

The trout was good.

The potatoes were a crime.

He laughed when I told him so, a real laugh, and didn't grab his chest this time.

After supper we stood on the porch.

The valley was dark below us, with the lights of town strung along the creek.

The moon was almost round.

Tomorrow it would be full.

"The ranch hand's coming," I said. "He'll say what he saw."

"They won't believe a stray."

"They'll hear one, anyway."

"And you'll show them the slug."

"And the sliver. And the book."

"And Boyd will smile at all of it."

"Let him smile."

He was quiet.

Down in the valley, a dog barked at nothing.

"Tomorrow they'll ask me again," he said. "If I claim you."

"I know."

"I'm going to say yes."

"I know that too."

"You'll be put over the line."

"I've been over lines before. I grew up over one."

I turned and looked at him.

"Are you asking me to say no tonight? So you can still lie tomorrow?"

"No."

His voice was rough.

"I'm asking if you're sure. Because after tonight, I won't be able to lie about it. Not to them. Not to anybody."

"Good," I said. "I'm tired of you lying about me."

He made a sound low in his chest.

He put one hand on my face.

His thumb moved along my cheekbone, slowly.

"Say it plain," he said. "I want to hear it."

"Yes," I said. "Tonight. All of it. Stellan. Yes."

He kissed me.

It wasn't the dumpsters and it wasn't the on-call room.

It was slow and certain, his whole mouth, his beard soft now, his hand sliding back into my hair until the knot came down.

I backed him through the door with my hands on his belt.

He kicked it shut behind us.

I reached into my shirt for the gauze bundle with the slug and the sliver in it.

I set it on the shelf over the woodstove.

He watched me do it, with his eyes going gold.

"Don't let me forget those," I said.

"I won't let you forget anything."

The fire snapped behind us.

I didn't look at it.

I looked at him.

"Say it again," he said.

His voice had gone low, the way it did in the trauma bay when he was fighting the pain and winning.

"I want your shirt off," I said. "Both of them."

His eyes flared gold.

He reached for the flannel.

"No." I stepped in and caught the collar. "I'm doing it."

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