Even at the age of thirty, being called into the den could make his stomach quiver. That room had always been off limits to the kids, unless it was punishment time for some major infraction.
Axel turned a glance on Gunnar, who looked as worried as he felt. In unison, they headed out of the kitchen, knowing that keeping their dads waiting would be worse.
“We’re too old to get the belt,” Gunnar muttered under his breath as Axel turned the knob on the door to the dads’ inner sanctum.
The room was large, holding two heavy oak desks, two recliners—their dads’ thrones as they’d always referred to them—and a leather sofa that faced the recliners across a scarred oak coffee table. One end table stood between the thrones.
“Sit,” Fridrik said. He was the older of the two, by about a minute and a half. His voice was hard, and Axel racked his brain for whatever he and Gunnar had done to get a lecture.
Gunnar sat down and Axel followed, sitting on opposite ends of the leather sofa.
Burke, their other father, raised a highball glass to his lips and sipped his after-dinner scotch. He slowly lowered the glass to rest on the arm of his chair, looked from Axel to Gunnar, then said, “We’re sick to death of watching the two of you mope around the way you have been for the last month. It stops now.”
Axel glanced at Gunnar, who stared at the coffee table.
Fridrik sighed. “Why the hell are you two still here when she’s in Vegas?”
Axel stared at his dads, fixing his features so his surprise didn’t show. “What are you talking about?”
“I told you he’d play stupid,” Burke said in a low, angry tone to Fridrik.
Fridrik explained, “Your mate is in Vegas and you’re here. You don’t see a problem with this?”
“She’s not our mate,” Axel denied, a declaration that lacked any conviction.
Fridrik snorted. Burke shook his head and said, “Really?” in a tone filled with sarcasm.
“We haven’t marked her,” Gunnar said. Neither father seemed convinced.
“If she were our mate, she wouldn’t have left us,” Axel added stubbornly.
Burke laughed at that then took another sip of his drink. “Boys, do you really think your mother just fell at our feet and gave herself over to a couple of catamount shifters?”
Gunnar looked up at that. “She told us she grew up here, that she’d always been in love with the two of you.”
Fridrik burst out in hearty laughter that seemed to erase years from his features.
Burke smirked. “Oh, she was in love with us, all right. Loved playing little games, teasing us to get us sniffing around, seeing which one of us would turn on the other first over her. That woman, bless her heart, did whatever she could to make us jealous. We dealt with that all through school. Until the graduation party.” His face went serious, and Fridrik took over the story.
“That’s the night she found out what we were. She decided to go to the party with Dick Haven, even though both of us had asked her. She was back to playing her little game, seeing which one of us would come after her. We knew it was time to reveal ourselves to her. We loved her, knew she was
“Dick had her in the back of his father’s pickup truck, trying to get under her skirts, when we found her. She screamed, trying to get away from him, and we went a little crazy.”
“I shifted,” Fridrik said with a small shake of his head.
“She was more terrified of us in that moment than she was of Dick.”
“So, what happened? How’d you get together?”
Gunnar asked, obviously engrossed in a story they’d never heard.
“Took us over two years of courting her to convince her we were the guys she’d always loved,” Burke said with a small smile, full of tender love for the wife who’d died just a few years earlier. “And after she agreed to be our mate, she admitted she was happy she didn’t have to choose between us. Because she couldn’t.”
Axel swiped his hand over his face. “This is different. Dakota isn’t Mom. She didn’t have a lifetime to get to know us. She made her choice. Her career was more important than us.”
Burke’s eyes narrowed, and he pressed his lips together, which meant he had a good anger brewing.
Fridrik said, “You both revealed yourselves to her, right?”
He and Gunnar nodded.
“And she didn’t run screaming from the cabin?”
Burke asked.
“We were buried in snow. She couldn’t,” Axel said dryly.
“Don’t you dare mouth off to us, boy!”
“Sorry, Dad,” he said contritely and slouched into the sofa.
“She won’t reveal our secret,” Gunnar said, “if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“Have you ever revealed yourself to another woman?” Burke asked.
“No, sir,” Gunnar answered. “It wouldn’t have happened then except I had to warn Axel about the avalanche.”
“So, you two never planned on revealing yourselves?”
Not wanting to lie, and choosing to treat the statement as a rhetorical one, Axel kept quiet, as did Gunnar. When neither son responded, Burke gave an omnipotent nod and asked another question. “How did she react?”
Axel sighed and shrugged. “Not as badly as she could have.”
“Not so badly at all if what we saw was any indication,” Fridrik said.
“What do you—” Fridrik raised an eyebrow. “She was naked on the living room floor, son. It doesn’t take a genius.”
Axel’s cheeks heated a bit, but he reminded himself that they were men first, his dads second. “So we had some fun. She still chose Vegas over us.”
Burke growled and got up from his chair. “Is that what has your tail in a twist? That she couldn’t make a commitment to you after less than a week in your bed?”
“We asked her to stay!” Axel shouted, then closed his eyes and mumbled an apology. “We asked her to stay. She said she didn’t belong here. She had to go home. She left. End. Of. Story.”
Burke went to his desk and poured another scotch, proving his exasperation, because he almost never had more than his one drink a day.
“So you go after her,” Fridrik said in a calm tone.
“You go, and you make the change if she can’t.”
Axel scowled. “And leave the shop? Leave the family? I…no.”
Burke settled back into his throne. “Your store is more important than Dakota?”
Axel opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say yes.
“Your family is always your family,” Fridrik said.
“It doesn’t matter where you roam.”
“She left us, though,” Gunnar said, sounding exasperated.
“I didn’t realize we raised such pussies,” Burke said to Fridrik.
“Dad!” Axel sighed. “You want us to just get up and leave? Go to Vegas and stay there…forever, if that’s what she wants?”
Fridrik challenged, “You didn’t have any trouble asking her to uproot her life to stay here with you. Yet, you’re unwilling to consider the opposite for her?”
“I… We…” Axel’s answer faded, and Gunnar sat very still. Their father had a point.
“Would you rather grow old alone?” Burke asked, his voice mellow now. He looked at his brother, then back at his sons. “If you asked her to stay, and you planned to reveal yourselves at some point—don’t bother denying that—then she’s
He saw the sadness in his dad’s eyes just then, and it twisted his heart. It hurt so much to have Dakota walk out of their lives after just days. What had it been like for his dads to lose their mother after more than thirty years of marriage?
“I’m sure Kelan will run the shop for you,” Fridrik said.
“And we’ll keep an eye on things, too,” Burke added.
