Brady’s whole body tensed. Like a bowstring pulled tight ready to snap free when the arrow was released, every muscle strained to its breaking point.
Fuck.
He hadn’t been prepared for this. His mother had told him what to expect when he met his mate, but fuck, this was way more than his imagination had conjured up.
Whoever his mate was, she moved closer. And closer.
His skin itched and his coyote howled, and it took everything he had not to shift in the middle of the cafe. With his hands clenched around the edge of his seat, he could only hope his claws didn’t rip the material to shreds. He had to grind his back teeth to smother the growl rumbling up his throat and hold the shift at bay.
“You all right?” Quinn asked, a slight smirk tipping up one side of his mouth.
Nodding, Brady stretched his lips into what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
“Oh, hey, Kat, come over here and meet our newest Wild Encounters employee.” Brogan waved at someone behind Brady.
Someone Brady was one hundred percent certain was his mate.
The sovereign’s smile held genuine affection and Brady’s coyote growled. He didn’t like another man smiling at his mate. Knowing it was inevitable, Brady braced himself and turned to look at the woman Brogan waved over.
He grunted at the slam to his gut. He’d heard people talk about a metaphorical gut-punch but he’d never experienced it before and this was a one-two deal because fuck, he knew her. His mate.
Ren.
Jesus fucking Christ, it was Ren.
Brady hadn’t seen her in thirteen years. Thirteen years of wondering what she was doing, what she looked like now, whether she would remember him…
“You!” Her arm shot out, finger pointed.
Okay, she remembered him.
“Get out!” That arm swung toward the door.
“Ah—” He glanced at Brogan before bringing his eyes back to Ren.
“Your kind isn’t welcome here!” she yelled.
His kind? Coyote or Connelly? “Ren.”
“Kat!”
The snap of authority had Brady jolting and Ren halting in her tracks. Brady pulled his gaze from Ren to find Brogan had risen to his feet, a scowl on his face that would cower the strongest of men. Only Ren didn’t back down. If anything she straightened her spine and tipped her chin up.
“He’s not welcome in my cafe.” She crossed her arms, her defiant stand broadcasting loud and clear how she felt about him. The fact she was willing to go up against the pack sovereign said a lot about her dislike.
“It’s okay.” Brady got to his feet. “I should—”
“No.” Brogan raised his arm, blocking Brady’s way. “Kat, I understand this is difficult for you, but Brady has as much right to be here as any member of our pack.”
She flinched, her gaze dropping slightly, but her anger didn’t subside; she vibrated with it. “This is my business. I say who can and can’t come in here. He can’t.”
Brogan sighed. “Kat.”
“My business,” Ren repeated.
“Fine. We’ll take our meeting elsewhere.” Brogan turned to Quinn. “Call Dale; we’ll use the conference room at the station.”
“Kathren Joy Monroe, you apologize to that young man right now.”
Brady watched Ren’s eyes close as she sucked in a breath, and the spectacular set of boobs she hadn’t had last time he’d seen her thrust forward making his cock pulse, his coyote growl.
“Dad.”
“Don’t you dad me.”
Brady looked beyond Ren to see Doc Monroe a few feet away, hands on hips. “It’s okay, Doc,” he reassured the older man. “I can—”
“No, it is not. There’s no call for this kind of behavior. Kathren?”
“He’s not welcome here,” she said, a stubborn tilt to her chin as she spun to face her father.
“Here? On the mountain, in the town where he was born?” Doc took a step closer but didn’t bother to lower his voice. Everyone in the room would hear him even if he whispered. “You weren’t raised this way. Don’t let your anger taint another with someone else’s sins.”
“Goddammit.” Kat spun on her heel once more only this time she headed across the room to the door leading to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “Fine. But I don’t have to be in the same room as him.” She spat out the word ‘him’ as though it tasted foul on her tongue.
Brady’s lips twitched with the urge to smile. He remembered Ren being full of blunt honesty. It was one of the things he’d liked most about her when they were kids. There were plenty of other reasons to like Ren Monroe—then and now if the curve of her ass and sway of her hips was any indication. Of course that could be because his mate was definitely in the cafe.
She fucking owned the place.
“I’m sorry, son.” Doc Monroe’s voice dragged his gaze off Ren’s retreating ass. “It’s been a rough few weeks. Still, that’s no excuse for Kat’s behavior.”
“Why do you call her Kat?” Brady asked. “She was always Ren.”
“She was…” Doc Monroe frowned, deep furrows forming on his brow and either side of his mouth. “That changed after you left.”
Brady didn’t know what to make of that. He had been the one to nickname her Ren when they were toddlers, unable to get his tongue around Kathren he’d shortened it. They’d spent so much time together over the years. His mother had been Doc Monroe’s office manager and she’d taken care of Brady, his brother, Ren, and her sister, whenever they weren’t in school while doing her job.
Shaking himself from the past, he held out his hand. “It’s been a while. It’s good to see a familiar face.”
“I bet it is.” Doc shook his hand, his other cupping their joined hands in a warm clasp that had Brady’s hope for a smooth transition back into the pack growing. “When you’re ready, come by the clinic and we’ll deal with a few things so you can get settled at home without all that hanging over your head.”
“Thank you. I’ll head your way as soon as I finish with Brogan and Quinn.”
“We’re done, Brady. You’re hired, all your paperwork is filed, you have the office address, the spring schedule, and a start date. We weren’t planning on an official meeting, more a welcome to Wild Encounters lunch,” Brogan explained.
“Oh.”
Quinn laughed. “I’m not sure I’d eat here if I were you though.” With a glance toward the kitchen, the regal murmured, “Who knows what Kat is up to back there.”
“She’d better be putting the finishing touches on my lunch. Don’t worry, Brady, she always packs too much, you won’t go hungry.” The older man patted his back. “Why don’t you head on outside and wait for me? We’ll walk across to the clinic together.”
“Okay, sir. Thank you.” Brady looked at Brogan. “Are you sure we’ve got everything sorted out?”
Nodding, Brogan said, “Yes. And don’t worry about Kat. She’ll come round.”
Brady didn’t think she’d be coming around any time soon. From what he knew, his brother had tried to kill her sister. He’d be lucky if Ren got over that by the time he was a hundred.
He shook hands with Brogan and Quinn, telling them to call if they needed anything between now and his first day of work. Making his way outside, he ignored the quiet that had fallen over the cafe during the confrontation with Ren.
Out on the sidewalk, he took a deep breath and once again studied the changes to downtown. Across the street the clinic and the clothing store appeared to have had facelifts. The bookshop on the other side of the clothes shop was new. He might duck in there before heading out to the house.
The house that was now his, according to the lawyer who’d called after Marcus’s death. Brady could only assume their father had left the house they’d grown up in to Marcus because it was the same address.
He thought about the packet of information the lawyer had overnighted the first week of January. All Brady had been able to bring himself to do was read the letter from the lawyer. He’d have to deal with all the other papers eventually. According to his brother’s lawyer, there was nothing pressing.
His gaze returned to the clinic across the street. Nothing pressing except dealing with his brother’s body.
Before he could go down that dark road of thought, the door behind him opened and Doc Monroe came out carrying a bag of delicious smelling food.
“Come on, son, let’s go tuck into this hearty lunch before we have to deal with the unpleasant stuff. No point spoiling our appetites.”
If whatever was in the bag tasted as good as it smelled, Brady would work twice as hard to get Ren to forgive him. “Lead the way.”
“I’ll warn you in advance. Gordana is at the clinic today.”
Brady’s step hitched and he stumbled off the curb. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Not for me. Not for Gordana either.” Doc Monroe shook his head. “You aren’t to blame for what your brother or father did, Brady.”
He took the squeeze Doc Monroe gave his shoulder as a supportive gesture and soaked in the comfort of knowing this man and the woman his brother had tried to kill didn’t hold a grudge. It was a shame Ren didn’t follow their lead.
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with Marcus,” he mumbled as they crossed the street.
“You don’t have to make a rush decision on that. We can continue to hold his body for as long as you need.”
“That doesn’t seem fair. Or right. Not after…” Slowing on the sidewalk in front of the clinic, Brady attempted to communicate his feelings. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this at all.”
“Not much choice. We deal with the dead as well as the living as the only two doctors in town. Life is full of unpleasantness that we must work our way through.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Doc Monroe opened the door to the clinic. “It is what it is, and we do what we have to when we have to.”
Brady grabbed the door, held it open, and waved Doc Monroe in ahead of him. “Thank you. I’m still going to make this as painless for everyone as possible.”
“Dad? That you?” The woman’s voice could only belong to Gordana Monroe, and Brady took a deep breath and stopped just inside the reception area.
“Yep. I’ve got lunch and a visitor.” Doc Monroe continued across the room toward the hallway that Brady assumed led to the back of the clinic.
The place had been renovated while he’d been gone. The reception desk now sat to the left instead of the right and the way to the exam rooms sat directly opposite the front door. To his right was an area filled with kids’ toys and a small bookshelf loaded with books. Above that, on a wall mount, hung a flat-screen TV currently playing a cartoon.
Back when his mother ran the office, there had been a smaller children’s area she’d made in one corner of the room where the reception desk now took up space. Gone was the timber wall paneling; in its place a coat of bright, crisp white paint and a couple of colorful posters with letters and numbers in the kids’ area but otherwise the walls remained bare.
Strangely it didn’t feel sterile and cold like other doctors’ offices. He couldn’t remember if it had in the past but he liked the welcoming feeling this room gave him.
“Brady?”
“Huh?” He stopped his study of the room and met Doc Monroe’s gaze. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“You can thank Gordana for that. When she took over, she spruced up the place and rearranged a few things, giving us a dedicated exam room for children. I have to admit, she’s improved the place even when it was already functional and worked well enough. C’mon, let’s take this food into the break room and chow down before it goes cold.”
Following Doc Monroe, he entered the hallway as a woman stepped out of a room at the other end. Brady stopped. He hadn’t seen Ren’s sister in longer than he’d been gone but he’d recognize her anywhere. In spite of them only sharing a mother, the Monroe girls looked a lot alike.
Sucking in a breath, he let it out slowly before saying, “Hello, Gordie.”
Her head snapped up from the sheet of paper she was studying, her gaze connecting with his. “Brady?” Her eyes widened before a smile stretched across her face. “Oh my god! Brady Connelly!”
He wasn’t prepared for the warmth in her greeting and he definitely wasn’t prepared for her to race down the corridor and launch herself into his arms.
Squeezing him tight, she said, “It’s so good to see you.”
Returning her hug and closing his eyes, he muttered, “It’s really good to see you too.”
And he meant it. The thought of his brother succeeding in hurting this woman had him shuddering. The fact she’d hurt—killed—Marcus didn’t cause him a flicker of animosity or anger. All he felt while he held Gordana Monroe close was relief.
Relief that his brother hadn’t damaged this woman. It remained to be seen how much his brother and father had damaged the Whispering Mountain pack and Brady’s chance of being accepted back into the fold.