Page 5 of Choosing the Rejected Mate

The word is barely more than breath.Still, I hear it.Every wolf part of me hears it.My body answers with heat.My heart answers with terror.

“Nope,” I say.

His brows jerk together.“Nope?”

“Nope.”

Mrs.Bell looks between us with bright, fascinated eyes.“Oh, this is better than television.”

“Mrs.Bell,” I say without looking away from the stranger, “please take your cupcakes and flee.”

“I’m eighty.I don’t flee.I observe.”

The man takes one cautious step forward, and my wolf rises.I take one step back, and he stops immediately.Damn him.

His hands lift, palms open, the tool belt dangling from one hand.“I’m not going to hurt you.”

A laugh bursts out of me.It is sharp enough to cut bread.“That is exactly what men say before they ruin your life.”

Something shifts in his expression.The shock remains, the bond still burning between us, but his gaze softens with understanding he has no right to have.

“I’m Daniel,” he says carefully.“Daniel Reed.I’m the handyman.”

Of course he is.Of fucking course.Because my day was not complete until fate sent me an attractive wolf shifter with broad shoulders and a profession specifically designed to invade my personal space and fix things I refuse to admit are broken.

I point toward the back kitchen.“The mixer is dead.”

He blinks.“What?”

“You heard me.The mixer.Dead.Possibly murdered by overuse, stress, or the fact that it hates women in business.”

His mouth twitches.Don’t smile, I silently warn him.Don’t dare be charming right now.I’m having a crisis.And then he smiles—the bastard.

It’s small, crooked, and devastating enough that my wolf sighs like a cheap romance heroine seeing rain on a windowpane.

I hate everyone.

“You want me to look at the mixer?”he asks.

“I want you to fix the mixer.”

His amber eyes stay on mine.“And the other thing?”

“There’s no other thing.”

“The bond,” he whispers as he leans in.

I lean over the counter slightly, lowering my voice.“Listen carefully, Daniel Reed, handyman, walking bad decision, whatever else you may be.I have had a mate before.”

His smile vanishes.Good.Let him see that I’m not some soft little pastry waiting to be picked from a display case.

I keep my voice steady, even though my chest aches and my wolf presses closer, listening too.

“He denied me.Publicly.Completely.Painfully.I survived it, crawled out of that nightmare, built this place with my own hands, and I’m not letting fate barge in here wearing work boots and cheekbones to tell me what belongs to me.”

Daniel goes very still.Around us, the bakery pretends not to listen and fails miserably.Maisie has stopped moving altogether.Mr.Phelps has returned to stand near the door with his raisin buns.Mrs.Bell is holding her cupcakes to her chest like popcorn.

Daniel does not look at them.He only looks at me.