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  4

  Brent

  I sat bolt upright in my desk chair at the mention of Rippling Woods Elementary School. My chest suddenly felt tight, the haze, the cloud that had been circling my head earlier on this morning suddenly returning with full force.

  I took a deep breath, trying to get my voice back to that chirpiness, that brightness it’d had before. But I was in a panic now. I wanted to ask if something had happened to Emery, I wanted to ask if I needed to come down to the school straight away or if I needed to meet him at the hospital. I was hot and achey and I could feel myself spiralling.

  Pull yourself together, Brent, for goodness sake! I told myself.

  “Oh my god, is something wrong?” I said, unable to keep the quiver out of my voice.

  The line went quiet for a moment and I could feel the heat rising in my body, the tension, the horror that something had happened to Emery and he was trying to find a way to tell me. Why wouldn’t he work out what the fuck he was going to say before he got on the phone with me? This was torture!

  “Mr. Ewen?” I looked at the phone to check the call was still connected. It was. Fuck fuck fuck. “Mr.. Ewen?!”My brain was going completely haywire. “Mr Ewen, is Emery okay?”

  “She’s fine,” he said, quickly, his voice squeaking a little.. Must be part of the teacher training when something has happened to someone’s child. “There was an incident at school today concerning Emery. There have been a few incidences but I thought I would be able to hold off until parents’ evening before we talking about it but it looks like we can’t.”

  “Oh?” I managed. The way his voice buzzed through the phone, the way it snaked its way down the line and into my ear, into my brain, it was familiar, it was rumbly and deep. I could have sworn I had heard it somewhere before but I just couldn’t place it. Whatever it was, there was something about it that my body didn’t like because I suddenly felt like I needed to lie down again. “What’s the…uh…what’s the problem?”

  “There are some behavioral problems that seem to be coming to the fore as she grows up,” he said. Gosh that voice, where was it from? “As I already mentioned, there was an incident at school today and I wanted to speak with you about it at your earliest convenience.”

  “Of course, I totally understand,” I said. “Is today okay? I could come in today. Now actually. Now is good.”

  “Now is perfect,” he said, and I could hear him smiling down the phone, a slight rumble in his voice that made my head feel funny. “It’s quite sensitive and I think it would be good for us to talk about it in person. Like I said, I wanted to wait for parents’ night but I don’t think it can really wait.”

  “That’s absolutely fine, Mr. Ewen,” I said. “I’ll set off now, I can be with you in about half an hour, does that suit?”

  “Absolutely,” Mr. Ewen replied. “My class is in an art lesson in half an hour so I will have plenty of time to speak to you about it. I’ll meet you in the school office, okay?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ewen,” I breathed a heaving sigh. “Sorry for getting a little panicked there. I’m sure you get this all the time, parents worried about their kids being in danger when you phone them and say that you want to talk about their kid. Gosh. I’m sorry.”

  He laughed and my heart skipped. “That’s perfectly alright Mr. Bridges,” he said. “Please, call me Jarrett. The Mr. Ewen thing just makes me sound plain old.”

  “Okay, Jarrett,” I said, his name feeling strange in my mouth. “You can call me Brent,” I said. “I’d prefer that too.”

  “Lovely, I’ll see you in half hour, okay Brent?”

  “No problem, Jarrett, I’ll see you then,” I said and hung up the phone.

  I didn’t waste any time. I returned to the writing I had been doing since I woke up from my nap, a solid amount of words that would certainly keep my editor happy, and saved it before shutting down. Quickly I pulled on a button down shirt to make myself look a little more presentable and barrelled out into the car. My body was on fire and aching like crazy, adrenaline firing through every muscle, but I had to get to school and make sure Emery was okay. God I hoped she was okay.

  5

  Jarrett

  I hung up the phone and sat back down at my desk, taking a few deep breaths to calm myself down. What had just happened? I’d heard that voice and been suddenly thrown off balance. I knew that voice, didn’t I? I’d heard it somewhere before. I couldn’t place where though. It woke up something inside me that had been lying dormant for a really long time.

  The wolf that had been prowling my veins just a few moments ago faded away and I was left feeling a little out of breath and a lot confused. Who was Brent Bridges and why did I know that voice? Was I losing my mind? It certainly felt that way. I needed to shake it off.

  But there was something about that voice, something about the way he spoke to me that was so familiar, like he was reaching into the deep recesses of my head and trying to pull me back to something. I couldn’t place it though. I was probably being stupid. I was probably exhausted from not sleeping last night and having that awful dream that seemed to haunt me.

  I shook it from my head and put the phone back in my desk draw. Recess had finished and the kids had gone to have their art class, which gave me a good amount of time for planning and marking before Brent got here.

  I got through the kids’ books from yesterday and was about to start on my planning when I caught a scent. Or at least I thought I did. It was sweet, a little bit sickly and heady, so much so that it made me feel a little dizzy even though I was sitting at my desk.

  I leant back in my chair, gripping hold of the arms to steady myself. This didn’t seem right, this didn’t seem right at all. I hadn’t scented my mate this close by before. If I was right, and my fated mate was the guy from all of those years ago, then was it possibly he was here now? Was I imagining things? Damn, this whole day seemed to be throwing me off balance. Fuck.

  I was torn between following the scent and finding the guy or staying here and waiting for my meeting. The sensible part of my head told me to stay here, to wait for someone to tell me that Mr. Bridges had arrived, to do my job, to keep my kids safe, all of that stuff. But I didn’t want to listen to that part of my head. I’d not scented my fated mate for eight years and it was taking every little bit of strength I had not run out of here to track him down. .

  Every day that ticked by was another day that our pack was in danger of becoming extinct. I was one of the lucky ones who seemed to have their fated mate close by. What if this was my last chance to find him? I couldn’t just throw that away. I would never be able to forgive myself if I did.

  I was about to stand and follow the scent when there was a knock at my door.

  “Come in!” My voice squeaked a little.

  Fucking hell, Jarrett, get your shit together.

  Sharon Mabbott opened the door, her straight, dark brown hair and bangs framing her pale face. Her eyes were dark, endless and a little bit frightening. She was wearing a pinstripe pantsuit and had the stance of a mobster rather than a principal.

  “Mr. Ewen,” she said, looking around the classroom like she was about to find some infraction to pick on before she gave me whatever news she had for me. “Glad to see you working so hard. You have a Mr. Bridges here to see you,” she added. “He’s waiting on you in the office.”

  “Thank you, Principal. Mabbot, I’ll be down in just a moment.” I turned back to the exercise book in front of me as if she’d caught me in the middle of marking a student’s work, and let her leave.

  I took a few calming breaths, giving her a bit of time to put some distance between us both, and then started down the corridor and towards the office. As soon as I opened that door, there was that scent again. The pheromones were so strong it was like I was walking through a fog, a haze of them.

  I hated this. I hated that I was missing out on this opportunity for the sake of a meeting. I didn’t want to. I wanted to follow it, but now the P
rincipal had come to get me there was just no way.

  The closer I got to the office, the stronger they became and I was getting nervous, truly nervous, for what I was going to find behind that door. My brain was whirling, positively spinning out of control. Was I being played for a fool? Was my mind playing tricks on me? After all of these years without him had I finally cracked? That was how it was starting to feel.

  I opened the door and it was like I had been slapped in the face with them so strong was the scent.

  There was a man sat on one side of a table, wearing a fitted t-shirt that hugged his body in all the right places and a pair of jeans. There was something about him that was so familiar, that made me want to walk over to him and just be near him.

  As the door opened, he turned around and I nearly staggered back as I saw him. He seemed to glow, like he had some kind of aura around him as I stared open mouthed at him. I could hardly catch my breath. He had dark hair brushed over to one side, sticking up a little bit on the sides, probably not intentionally, and a well-groomed beard that ran the length of his jaw, and around his mouth. He was incredibly handsome yet somehow cute at the same time, a strange sort of mixture that made my knees feel a little week and that my tongue was made of tar.

  “Mr. Ewen?” he ventured standing up and walking towards me. He was a little shorter than I was but broader and with a thickness around his middle that I liked. My first thought was that I wanted to be hugged by him but I shook it from my head as I saw his hand coming towards me. I took it and shook it, praying he wouldn’t recoil from the sweatiness of my palm.

  “Yes, but Jarrett is fine,” I said. “Mr. Bridges-“

  “Brent.”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course.”

  And it was in that moment of closeness, where I got to see his eyes, where I got to feel his touch, where I got to really look at him that my body was overtaken. The scent of him was so strong it filled my lungs, filled my entire self. Because even though I hadn’t recognized it straight away, I knew that face so well.

  I didn’t know it from either years ago, not exactly, but I knew it from my dreams, of that much I was certain. If I took eight years from him, got rid of some of the beard, let the hair be a little shaggier, a whole lot less put together, I would see him. The man who I had fucked all of those years ago, the man who I had knotted with, the man I was so beyond certain was my fated mate.

  Did he feel it too? Did he feel this thread between us that had connected us for such a long time? This thing that neither one of us could control that suddenly dictated our lives. It didn’t make sense, of course it didn’t make sense, but how was it possible that he was here now, filling my senses, throwing me entirely off balance? It couldn’t be right. And yet…

  It had to be true. An alpha can only pick up pheromones of his fated mate and an omega can only go into heat from his destined alpha. Which would explain why he had broken out into a sweat, which would explain why his scent was so strong. I couldn’t let this take me off course, we had things to talk about, I’d brought him in here for a reason.

  Fuck. Was I losing my mind? Had Brent even noticed? Did he even remember?

  “Did you want to sit down so we could discuss…?” I started, suddenly trailing off, stopping myself, unable to get her name out of my mouth.

  Wait.

  No.

  Hang on.

  This was it, wasn’t it? If he was my fated mate, as I suspected he was, then surely that meant that Emery was…

  Emery was my daughter.

  If Brent was her father then it meant that I was too. That knot from all those years ago, the only knot I had ever experienced, meant that I had a child I’d never known about.

  “Are you alright, Jarrett?” he said, his voice soft, singsong, soothing me in a way it hadn’t before. I wanted to quiz him, I wanted to ask him if he knew but in the very same breath I didn’t want to scare him off, that was the last thing I wanted to do right now.

  “Absolutely fine, yes,” I said, not even convincing myself let alone him. “Please, have a seat, we need to talk about Emery.” I stumbled over her name. I couldn’t help myself. Fucking hell this was so complicated.

  He shuffled back to the chair he had been sat in when I’d entered and sat down. I sat at the chair behind the desk, suddenly glad to have the desk between us, to have this barrier, this distance. I was struggling to keep my head on straight.

  “So,” Brent said. “Is there…is there a problem with my daughter?”

  I coughed. I coughed again.

  “There is, actually,” I managed. “Well, not so much a problem, more of an issue, well, just something that we needed to discuss which is why I invited you in. Thank you so much for coming by the way, have I already said that?”

  “You hadn’t, but you’re very welcome,” he said with a smile. And that smile nearly sent me over the edge. My head was so full, so unbelievably full of thoughts, of images of that night, of his scent, of how much I wanted to leap across this desk and take him now.

  “We need to…um…” I couldn’t get my bearings. I couldn’t focus on what we needed to talk about. “We need to talk about Emery’s behavior. She is showing-“ I hesitated. “She is showing a lot of alpha traits.” I tried the phrase, testing him to see if he knew what I was talking about.

  “Okay.” He looked uncomfortable, shifting about on his chair.

  “And it’s…it’s becoming difficult to…to control or…” I took a deep breath, I couldn’t steady myself. The scent was too much. I stood up. “I’m sorry, I think I have to-“

  Brent stood up too, reaching across the table and putting a hand on my arm. I thought I might explode. “Wait, don’t go.”

  6

  Brent

  When the door opened and Mr. Ewen entered, I could hardly believe my eyes. It wasn’t just the fact that Emery’s third grade teacher was so young and attractive looking, and by attractive looking I do mean jaw hitting the floor and drooling level of attractive. He was wearing a pair of chinos and a t-shirt (which seemed awfully casual for a teacher, if you asked me) but it showed off how his biceps bulged and his chest was so tight and strong. Then there was his face, all angles and dark eyes and a jawline so sharp it could cut somebody. I’d expected him to be old. Or at the very least older. He looked younger than me.

  But it wasn’t just that. It was the fact that I recognized him and that my entire body reacted to his presence in the room like it knew. I mean, of course it knew, it knew before I did, but there was this magnetic pull between us that had existed for our whole lives, that would lead me back to that first meeting eight years ago. My fated mate.

  I could hardly catch my breath, the air room suddenly think and soupy, my brain running at a million miles a minute. Sweat broke out on my forehead, my entire body becoming hot just by being in his presence. My heart pounded in my chest, reaching for him, every muscle in my body aching to be near him.

  How was this possible? After all of these years, after all of this time, how could he have been right under my nose this entire time? It felt so impossible, so unlikely that I was trying to talk myself out of it in my head. But every time I did I remember the face that I had seen all those years ago, the scent that had filled my head, the way we’d danced, the way we’d kissed, the way we’d touched. I could hardly control myself.

  My body went into overdrive and I wanted nothing more than to please him, or to be near him, and I found myself standing up to greet him, shaking his hand, praying he wouldn’t see the fact that my cock was rock hard and wet, so very wet. Jesus fucking Christ, how had I not known this before?

  All the warning signs had been there. The fact that I got all flustered and anxious whenever I got close to the school, his voice down the phone, how could I have ignored it? Did I just think that my fated mate was so far away that none of this could happen? Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

  And it hit me like a wave, the realization flooding over me. He wasn’t just my f
ated mate. That was enough for me to deal with anyway, enough for me to try and wrap my head around that he had been within touching distance this whole time, but he was Emery’s father. I’d sent out that “Missed Connections” ad after we’d been together and I’d found out I was pregnant, but I didn’t think for one second he would be so close, that our paths would cross again. I thought I would spend the rest of my life missing him yet here he was stood right in front of me.

  I could hardly believe my luck that I’d found him, I could hardly believe that the universe had been so kind and yet cruel to have him teach her this year, to be so close to her.

  We took our seats at the desk, which felt a lot more comfortable, and started to talk about Emery. Our daughter. Our daughter. It all felt so impossible. I wanted to cry, every emotion in me had been ramped up to eleven and I could hardly keep any of it in. But I needed to. What if he hadn’t realized? I didn’t want to freak him out. I needed to be careful. I couldn’t lose him again.

  “So,” I started, forcing the words from my mouth. “Is there…is there a problem with my daughter?”

  He coughed. He coughed again. Could he sense it too? Could he smell me, was that what was throwing him off?

  “There is, actually,” he managed. “Well, not so much a problem, more of an issue, well, just something that we needed to discuss which is why I invited you in. Thank you so much for coming by the way, have I already said that?”

  He was flustered and so was I. We both needed to find a way to calm down, to talk this through, but at Emery’s school was not that place, not by a long stretch. It all suddenly felt inappropriate, like I shouldn’t be here, like I was breaking some kind of rule by being in his presence.

  Suddenly, he stood up. “I’m sorry, I think I have to-“