Page 24 of Choosing the Rejected Mate

“Oh, shut up,” I tell her.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re about to say something sentimental.”

“No.”She sniffles.“I’m about to say you should marry him.”

I throw a dish towel at her head.She ducks, laughing.I laugh too, despite myself, and the sound fills the bakery, warm and strange and not nearly as terrifying as it should be.

Outside, somewhere in town, Daniel is walking away because I asked for slow.And for the first time in a very long time, slow does not feel like being abandoned.It feels like being given a choice.

Chapter Four

Flour Is a Weapon

Daniel

I make it three streets before I realize I’m an idiot.

Not a normal idiot.A fucking spectacular one.

A man who finds his fated mate, manages not to scare her off, joins her for lunch, hears her say she might believe him one day, and then walks away without asking when he can see her again.

Tomorrow, I said.Like a man with a plan.I don’t have a plan.

I have a tool bag, a parts order, a wolf pacing inside my skin like he wants to file a formal complaint, and the lingering taste of Holly’s laughter lodged somewhere behind my ribs.

Very masculine.Very stable.

Excellent work, Daniel.I roll my eyes at myself.

I stop outside the hardware store and stare at my reflection in the window.Dark blond hair.Stubble.t-shirt.Work boots.Slightly haunted expression of a man who is in deep trouble and has only just noticed the water rising around his knees.

My wolf growls.

Mate.