Page 18 of Ronen (Sweet Alps Legacy #1)

Chapter Thirteen

Ronen

Twenty minutes after leaving Matty’s office, I turned on my blinker, slowing to turn where the overly cheerful voice of my GPS told me to. If it wasn’t for the metal mailbox beside the dirt road, I would have thought my GPS had gone off the rails and was sending me down a random dirt road.

Slowing down to navigate numerous potholes, I peered out my windshield, nearly blinded by the late afternoon sun. There was nothing but the dirt road, overgrown grass on each side, and thick trees. Not a house or building in sight.

“This is how horror movies start,” I muttered to myself, then caught my breath when a house appeared in the distance.

Not just a house, I discovered as I drove closer, but a two story white farmhouse.

There was also a large barn, a wooden corral, and what looked like acres and acres of green pasture and woods.

“Wow. This was not what I was expecting. ”

Pulling between Mason’s bronco and a little Honda Accord that had seen better days, I got out, slamming my door.

The barn door opened and Micah Henshaw, a local high school kid I knew from the library, poked his blond head out. He murmured something, then stepped out, closing the barn door firmly behind him.

Throwing a hand up in a friendly wave, he trotted over to me. “Hey Mr. Sinclair, you here to see Mason?”

“Hi Micah,” I greeted him, “yes, I am. I didn’t expect to find you here.”

He gave a bashful shrug. “I help out with the animals when Mason is working sometimes. His nanny goat just had her kids, twin boys, so I’m helping out this week while he’s laid up.”

“Nanny goat?” My mind could see puzzles and numbers in patterns that many could not, and I could do a word search in less than five minutes.

My eyes and brain sort of just lifted the words off the page for me.

But I had never had any reason to gather facts about farm animals, so my knowledge was limited.

He grinned, “A female goat that just gave birth.”

“Ah, I see.” Mason had been telling the truth this morning when he said his goat ate the book, then. “Is he here?”

“Mason’s inside,” he pointed to a screened in back door. “Just go on in. He was camped out on the couch a few minutes ago.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Have a good night, Mr. Sinclair!” Micah called over his shoulder, already headed back to the barn.

Mason had goats. I didn’t know why I found that notion so odd, but I did. He had land out here, several acres from the look of it, and a pasture, a barn and other outbuildings I couldn’t readily identify what they were for. I wondered what other animals he had.

Micah had said just go on in, but that seemed rude and intrusive. Instead, I briskly knocked on the back door, only opening it after I heard Mason’s deep voice yell something.

“Micah, I told you to just come in!” There was rustling, followed by a few choice curse words, and some heavy breathing. “Just come in so I don’t have to get up!”

I had no idea where I thought Mason lived, but this farmhouse wasn’t at all what I had imagined.

To the right of me was a nook that appeared to be a mud room. Coats of various lengths and styles hung on a row of hooks, as well as Mason’s cowboy hat. There was also a new looking washer and dryer tucked in a corner.

Stepping past the laundry/mud/catch all nook, I found myself standing in a large white kitchen, looking around curiously.

A large, round, slightly scarred table took up the middle of the room, a few pieces of mail scattered across it.

Two library books sat on the center of the table, neatly stacked.

A few dirty glasses were in the sink, but other than that it was clean and tidy.

It wasn’t a new kitchen–or house–by any stretch of the imagination.

The cabinets looked like they might be original, but somehow, I couldn’t imagine ripping them out for something more modern.

Some sanding, a coat of new stain or paint, updated hardware, and they would be like new.

Moving to the arched entry that separated the kitchen from the living room, I found myself staring at the back of Mason’s coppery head.

He was sitting on a deep brown couch, one leg propped up on the wood coffee table in front of him, a black medical boot covering his foot and ankle. The television was playing in front of him, but the sound had been muted.

“The kids doing okay, Micah?” Mason asked, turning his head to look at me over his shoulder. The moment he recognized me standing in his house, his amber eyes grew wide, and he sat up a bit straighter.

Warmth rushed through my body at the sight of him, leaving me feeling overheated in my leather jacket.

“It’s not Micah,” I told him quietly, though he could see that for himself.

Mason licked his lips, and my eyes locked onto the movement of his tongue. “Ronen, I didn’t…this is a surprise.”

“Is it okay that I'm here?”

Why I was suddenly feeling unsure of myself, I had no idea. Maybe because this man was my fated mate? Maybe because as much as he infuriated me, he turned me on and I didn’t like that fact one little bit.

Mason stared at me for what felt like a long time, before he slowly nodded. “Yes, yeah, of course it is.”

“I came to find out if you were okay, or what the damage was. I want you to know the library will cover all your medical expenses.” Well, not the library per se, but he didn’t need to know that. “No cast? That’s good.”

I moved closer to the couch, and Mason, so that he was looking up at me, but didn’t need to turn as much to see me.

He ran a hand through his messy hair. “Ah, my ankle is broken, but it will be healed by the end of the week, so a cast would just be a hindrance. Bruises and scrapes, but nothing major.”

My eyes narrowed at his explanation, and for the four hundred and fifteenth time, I wondered just what kind of shifter he was.

No shifter species I had ever heard of healed that quickly.

Shifters healed faster than a fully human would, but we still took more time than what Mason said he needed.

When I got to the library tomorrow, I was going to do some research.

Maybe pick my brother’s extra-large brain.

“What kind of shifter are you?” The words popped out of my mouth on their own accord. I really hadn’t meant to just bluntly ask him like that, but eh, I didn’t regret it.

Mason pursed his lips, shifting slightly on the soft couch cushions.

The man was wearing a pair of plaid sleep shorts, his long legs bare, except for the boot on one foot.

His thighs were thick, covered in a thin sheen of red hair, a shade lighter than the hair on his head.

His calves were muscular and well-shaped, and his bare foot–the one I could see fully–was long. Really long.

Big feet, big dick , my badger chortled in my ear.

I was not going to stare at the man’s legs, especially his thighs. I was not.

Thighs were my weakness, I didn’t know why. But an alpha’s thighs were like a hot trigger for me.

It all started when my Papa had been watching a rerun of a really old show.

A detective had been running down a beach in Hawaii, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts that were really short, a smile and a thick mustache.

The man’s thighs had been powerful, the muscles rippling as he ran, and that had been it for me.

Thigh kink had taken root and never left.

“I can’t tell you,” he told me, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

“Why not?” I demanded, not liking his evasive answer .

“Because I’m only allowed to share that with my mate,” he raised one red brow at me, “and we haven’t discussed what happened earlier. Or how we plan to proceed.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about? The only thing that happened earlier was you tripping on your own two feet and falling down the library stairs.”

Mason snorted loudly, pursing his lips even more than they already were. His eyes were dim, lines of pain bracketing his mouth, and I resisted the strange urge to reach out and soothe them away. “Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep tonight.”

Heat flashed through my body again, and I wondered if I was getting sick.

Moving fully into the room, I came around the back of the couch, not sure if I should sit, or stand, or…

.my eyes fell onto a wide bookcase that took up the entire wall in front of me.

It was filled completely with books. There was a matching one that took up half the wall space on the other side, leaving room for the wide window to let in light.

Instantly seeing something that ignited a fire in me that had nothing to do with the warmth of the house–it was really hot in here–I moved past Mason’s outstretched leg to get a closer look.

The case was filled from top to bottom with books. There had to be over a hundred or more. I knew Mason was a voracious reader. The man came into the library practically every day, bringing back books and checking out more.

Staring at a row of books, each with a white band on the spine, with typed numbers on them, I spun around to glare at him .

Seeing what I was looking at, Mason held up his hands, his eyes pleading. “Ronen, I know what this looks like, but I promise you I have a reasonable explanation.”

“These are library books,” I said slowly, my voice tight with restrained emotion.

“Yes,” he admitted slowly.

Well, at least he wasn’t trying to deny it.

“Sweet Alps public library books.”

“Yes.”

I bent to read some of the titles, before turning angry eyes back to him. “These are the books you said you lost.”

“Yes,” Mason agreed, “but I did pay for them all to be replaced.”

My mouth opened but nothing came out. Not one single word.

Finally, I managed, “Why? I don’t understand. What’s going on, Mason? Why did you lie about losing these books? Who does that?” With each word, I could hear my voice rising an octave.

Mason pushed himself off the couch–or tried to–yelping when the movement jarred his ankle and he banged it against the table. “Fucking hell!”