Page 31 of Cold Foot Revenge (Wreck’s Mountains #7)

“You’re awfully quiet over there, Wolf Mask,” Dylan called from where he was wading in the shallows of the river with his niece holding on tight to his two index fingers.

Garret was standing beside him, arms crossed and smiling down at baby Breah all dressed in her strawberry swimsuit.

She would be walking on her own any day now.

“I’m enjoying the view,” she teased. Dylan did look extra hot today in his swim trunks, with his six pack out, and his skin all tanned from the summer sunshine.

For the past month since the end of the Grit-Bron Crew, she and Dylan had sought sanctuary in Wreck’s Mountains, living temporarily in Sasha’s rental next door to Tawk and his mate, Tammy.

“Dylan is right,” Raynah said from the folding chair beside her. She lowered her bright red sunglasses and gave Roxy a knowing look. “You’ve been quiet for a couple of weeks now. I keep waiting for you to talk about it, but I get it. You have a hard time trusting.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” she assured her friend. “I saw your crocodile death-rolling one of my enemies before you even met me. I trust you. I’m just…thinking a lot.”

“And worried that those thoughts will hurt Dylan?” Raynah guessed.

Roxy pursed her lips.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Whatever it is, Dylan is an understanding guy,” Timber said from the other side of Raynah, where she was laying on a towel. “Anyone who sees you two together can feel your bond. Keeping secrets will hurt you more than any truth could. Trust me.”

And you know? Roxy trusted Timber too. And Sasha, and Harley, and Katrina, and all of the members of the Cold Foot Crew. They had been so welcoming and warm, and accepting.

“I think I don’t know how to be normal anymore,” she admitted.

“Well, you’ve been through a lot,” Sasha said. “I think it’ll take a bit to settle into a steady life.”

“It’s not really that…”

“Girl, just spit it out,” Katrina said from where she was sitting in the shallow waves in a plastic chair, her feet up on a blue cooler.

“I feel like there is unfinished business. I feel far away from my Turn.”

“Have you talked to Crystal lately?”

“Every day, but it’s different being so far away. I don’t have a how-to book on how to be a Maker, but I feel like I’m doing this wrong.”

“I would probably feel the same,” Raynah said softly. “I get it. I imagine it would almost be like a maternal instinct. Those instincts are impossible to ignore if you’re a good woman, and you, Roxy, are a good woman.”

A sudden wave of warmth filled her, and she closed her eyes at how good that sounded. “How do you know?”

“Because you are here in paradise thinking about the people you left behind.”

Dylan glanced back at her, and his smile had faded, and his eyes held a softness that tugged at her heart.

He picked up Breah and pointed at Roxy, then he said something to the little girl, and they waved.

Heart full, Roxy waved back at them, but her eyes were burning as she smiled. Talking about this stuff was a floodgate to her.

“You don’t want to be here, do you?” Wreck asked from where he sat on the bank.

“No, no, it’s not that. Look how at peace he is. How could I not want to be where he smiles like this,” she said softly. “Dylan has his brother here, his family, his Crew.”

“We aren’t his Crew,” Wreck murmured, watching Dylan hand Breah to Garret. “I asked him. He said he needed time before he gives me an answer.”

“Whoa, you gave him the official invite?” Raynah asked.

Wreck nodded, eyes on where Dylan was diving into the water to go deeper into Raynah’s Lake. “I asked him as soon as you two came back here.”

Huh.

“Well, what’s his hold up?” Katrina asked. “Maybe that’s why you feel unsettled here. Your mate hasn’t allowed you to bond with this place.”

“Oh, he’s been amazing,” Roxy said. “Maybe he’s just waiting for me to catch up.”

“Can you?” Wreck asked, looking over his shoulder at her.

She considered it. He wasn’t asking it in a cruel way. She’d learned that the Alpha of the Cold Foot Crew was direct, but he always had a reason for his questions.

She swallowed hard. “I don’t come from a lot, and it’s been really hard for a long time.

And I always dreamed of this, you know? Some version of this kind of life.

I dreamed of my fate changing, and my life doing a one-eighty, and I wanted my life to look nothing like it did before.

That’s what made sense to me when I was dreaming of a home like this.

A mate who loved me, friends, family, and babies around to watch grow up.

A home. A better job. Hope. And then I got it, right?

I thought I would die in my old life, and all of a sudden I’m here, in the paradise you have built.

But now it feels like coming from this tiny home I had no control over, and being given access to a turn-key ready home that’s all paid off, and all the decorations are already in there, and now what do I do?

How do I bond to a place that wasn’t built by myself, or my mate? ”

A slow smile stretched Wreck’s lips.

“What?” she asked.

“You want to go back, don’t you.”

“I…” She was going to lie for a second. She was going to say something that didn’t hold truth, but really, she had to second-guess her answer and make sure of the truth because she hadn’t said it aloud before.

“I sometimes want to go back. I want to build a life like this with Dylan. I just don’t know if I can settle into a ready-made life like this one. ”

“Why haven’t you said this before?” Timber asked. “That’s completely understandable.”

“Because how can I take Dylan away from this.”

“Dylan walked away from this looking for something more,” Garret said, holding Breah on his hip as he dragged his feet through the shallows toward the shore.

So, the Hoffman brothers could hear her from where they had been standing.

“He found you. Wreck and I know why he hasn’t accepted a place in the Cold Foot Crew. You should go talk to him.”

“What?” she asked in a small voice.

Garret cocked his head, and his eyes were so full of emotion. “I’m not losing him, Roxy. We just gained you. Whether he’s here putting down roots in the life I built or not, we will always be brothers.”

She didn’t understand.

Wreck was just watching her face. “Go talk to him. It’s time, I think.”

Raynah reached over and squeezed her hand comfortingly, and Roxy squeezed back. She truly appreciated the shifters in Wreck’s Mountains. She loved them. This was the example of a Crew that others should aspire to be.

Down the beach, the guys had been throwing a football in the shallows, but they were watching her now, dragging her feet through the water toward Dylan.

He was standing in water up to his chest, facing the sunset.

She smiled at Reed, and King, Tawk, and Cash, offered a little wave and made her way to where Dylan stood.

He turned when she was close and pulled her in, took them deeper and spun them in a slow circle. “I heard,” he said softly.

She hugged his neck. “I’m so sorry. I seem so ungrateful. Maybe I just need more time to adjust.”

“I want to build a life with you too.”

Roxy froze, then eased back to look him in the eyes. They were glowing slightly orange. “What?”

“I got a call a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been keeping quiet about, because I wanted to see what you needed first.”

“What I needed?” she repeated, not understanding.

“Damon Daye called me.”

“Damon called you? He called your phone?” she asked, heart beating a little faster.

“Well, I thought it was a prank call, so I told him to fuck off and then hung up on him, but then Wreck texted me, and I quote, “You fuckin’ hamburger, pick up Damon’s call before I set you on fire.’”

She laughed and lifted her feet off the lake floor, allowing him to turn her slowly as she floated. “What did he say?”

“He said he fixed the aftermath of the Rabbit Hole. And then he asked if I wanted it.”

“If you…” She frowned and shook her head.

“If I wanted the territory.”

She tensed and stood on the lake floor, gripping his shoulders. “What? Like you would run the Rabbit hole?”

“Like I would manage the shifters there. He tried to get Grit to take over the territory, but Grit is established where he is. He said Grit recommended me.”

“Grit, your Maker, he wants you close,” she whispered.

He nodded. “Damon is buying the Rabbit Hole. He wants it gutted. He wants me to round up the left-over Grit-Bron Crew and rehabilitate them if they are salvageable. He wants me to grow a new Crew, with a new name that I choose, and he wants the territory to be claimed under Damon’s Mountains.

He will back me if I ever need help.” He inhaled deeply. “There’s one condition though.”

“What condition?” she whispered in disbelief.

“He wants us to fix that town together.”

Her face crumpled and tears fell into the water, and she hugged him up so tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because if you thrived here, away from your old life, I would tell him no. He is waiting for my answer. If you took to this life, I would make this life the best I could for you.”

She gasped, her breath hitching, and she jerked back and cupped his cheeks, searched his glowing orange eyes. “Well, ask me then.”

The smile that stretched his lips in the soft light of sunset was so handsome. “Roxy, do you want to—”

“Yes!”

“Really?”

“Yes! Oh my God, oh my God, Dylan, yes.” She laughed with him as he hugged her close under the warm water. “I can’t believe this. Damon Daye called you to be one of his Alphas.”

“I know,” Dylan said, arching his brows. “I’m still waiting for him to send me a text that says just kidding.”

She giggled and pressed her lips to his. In this moment, it felt like all the pieces of her life that weren’t aligned had lined up perfectly.

Her mate was going to be Alpha, and he was worthy. His bear was big enough, and strong enough to hold the rank, and dominant enough to bring an unruly Crew in line, sure, but it was the good inside of him that was going to change everything for the better.

He was going to heal that town, and take back that poisonous shifter culture there that had fallen so far, and she was going to be right there with him, learning to be good right along with him.

“This is my brother’s life here. He’s good. He’s safe. Now I want to make my own life.” He pushed a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “With you.”

This wasn’t them riding off into the sunset for a happily ever after. It was going to be work, and stress, and emotions while they navigated all the steps to get that town back to its former glory, but that was the beauty in it.

They were going to make a sanctuary there someday. Together.

They were going to earn the good life that the Cold Foot Crew had painstakingly built in these mountains.

Dylan had the best people to look up to, and to guide him. Damon, Wreck, Tawk, Raynah, and all of the others in this Crew. And always…always…he would have his brother to lean on, no matter the distance.

Today was the first day of a damn good life. They were going to go get it.

For the first time in as long as Roxy could remember, she couldn’t wait for the adventures tomorrow would bring.