Midlife Dragon Daddy (Midlife Shifters Book 10) Page 20

After all, it’s been a pretty crazy couple of days, what with sleeping with Rose and then being asked to take over as pack leader.

  He yawned and stretched, then made his way to the kitchen, still wearing his pajama pants. Maybe he wouldn’t bother getting dressed at all today. It would be nice to just relax in front of the TV. He never did that anymore.

  He pulled out a frying pan and the ingredients for French toast, then set some butter to melt in the pan. Opening the fridge, he took out a bottle of orange juice, spun off the lid, and took a drink.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Cole choked on his orange juice.

  He never got company here. His ranch was too far out on the outskirts of the pack’s territory, and besides, everyone knew he liked his solitude.

  Who would be out here today?

  Maybe one of the pack elders—or Daniel—had come to talk to him about the direction they hoped he would take the pack in while he was in charge.

  Or maybe it was Rose, wanting to talk about what had happened between them.

  God, don’t let it be her. As much as he would have enjoyed seeing Rose again, he didn’t know that he trusted himself around her. And he definitely wasn’t ready for a conversation about what they’d done.

  The knock came again. It sounded more insistent this time.

  Cole switched off the heat under his frying pan and went to the door. He pulled it open—

  And stopped short.

  This was the last thing in the world he would have expected. He’d never have imagined that he would see her again.

  “Danielle,” he said quietly.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Now you want to talk to me?”

  “You’re my ex-husband, Cole.”

  “Yeah, and you left me, remember?” he asked. “You went for someone with a bit more power.”

  “Don’t start feeling sorry for yourself,” she said. “You could have been the alpha of this pack a long time ago, you know.”

  “The only way I could ever have been alpha was by challenging Jesse for leadership.” The alpha role was decided by lineage. Even if Jesse had abdicated—chosen not to take the role when it was offered to him—it would have gone to Daniel, not to Cole. Cole was nowhere at all in the line of succession.

  Of course, none of that applied when an alpha was challenged. Any male member of the pack could demand a fight with the alpha, and, if he won, would take the alpha’s power and authority.

  It was something Danielle had always urged Cole to do. But it was never something he had actually considered.

  “You could have beaten him easily,” she said now. “You’d win a fight against Jesse eleven times out of ten.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t want to challenge him,” Cole said. “And I told you that. I told you I had no interest in being alpha.”

  “From what I hear, you’re doing it now,” she said. “You’re leading the pack while he’s away.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Cole demanded. News really travels fast, I guess.

  “Jeremy’s got people watching your pack,” she said smugly.

  Right. Jeremy. Of course Danielle’s new alpha mate would have people watching the Texas Shifters. Jeremy was the leader of the Southwest Renegades, a more wild, less settled pack that ranged around the same area. Danielle had been so desperate for the power that came from being mated to an alpha that she’d left Cole for Jeremy, even though it had meant leaving behind such things as electricity and running water.

  Maybe that was why she was back. Maybe she’d realized that she didn’t have what it took to live that kind of wild life.

  “What do you want?” he asked her.

  “I want you,” she said.

  “Bullshit. You left me. Said I wasn’t ambitious enough.”

  “Clearly, you’ve changed.”

  “I haven’t. This is a temporary situation,” he said. “I’m not going to hang onto this power.”

  “I don’t know. You might change your mind.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Just let me come in the house, will you?”

  He sighed. “Fine,” he said. “You can come in and have breakfast. But then you’ve got to go. I don’t want any trouble with the Southwest Renegades.”

  Danielle rolled her eyes. “Jeremy doesn’t care what I do,” she said.

  She reached down and picked something up as Cole stood back to let her in.

  Cole heard a small noise, almost like that of an animal. But not quite.

  He looked down.

  She was holding a baby carrier. It had been sitting on the porch, just out of his line of sight.

  He looked up at her, his mind racing as he tried to figure out the math. How long had it been since she had left him? A little over a year. And that baby...how old was it?

  Could it possibly be—?

  “Yeah,” Danielle said, looking him in the eye. “He’s yours, Cole. His name is King. I brought him here to meet his father.”

  Cole opened and closed his mouth. He was suddenly incapable of speech.

  Mine?

  He couldn’t be.

  Could he?

  “If you’re the alpha of this pack,” Danielle said, “that means King will inherit the alpha position one day. It’s his birthright now. And I’m not going to let that be kept from my son. So you and I are going to talk about how you’re going to hold onto the alpha position long enough to pass it along to King when the time comes.”

  She pushed past him and into the house, leaving Cole to stare after her in shock.

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