Second Chance Lion (Cedar Hill Lions Book 4)
Table of Contents
Rancher Lion
Prologue: Faye
Chapter One: Lincoln
Chapter Two: Faye
Chapter Three: Lincoln
Chapter Five: Lincoln
Chapter Six: Faye
Chapter Seven: Lincoln
Chapter Eight: Faye
Chapter Nine: Lincoln
Chapter Ten: Faye
Chapter Eleven: Lincoln
Chapter Twelve: Faye
Chapter Thirteen: Lincoln
Epilogue: Faye
A note from Zoe Chant…
Special Sneak Preview: Rancher Lion
Second Chance Lion
By Zoe Chant
Copyright Zoe Chant 2017
All Rights Reserved
Author’s Note
This book stands alone. However, it’s the fourth in a series about the lion shifters of the Cedar Hill Ranch pride. If you’d like to read the series in order, the first three books are Lawman Lion, Guardian Lion, and Rancher Lion. Alternatively, you can buy the first two books at a discount in the Cedar Hill Lions Boxset #1.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Faye
Chapter One: Lincoln
Chapter Two: Faye
Chapter Three: Lincoln
Chapter Four: Faye
Chapter Five: Lincoln
Chapter Six: Faye
Chapter Seven: Lincoln
Chapter Eight: Faye
Chapter Nine: Lincoln
Chapter Ten: Faye
Chapter Eleven: Lincoln
Chapter Twelve: Faye
Chapter Thirteen: Lincoln
Epilogue: Faye
A note from Zoe Chant…
Special Sneak Preview: Rancher Lion
Prologue
Faye
The sun was already low in the sky by the time Faye Furlong, driving faster than she knew she should be, passed the sign welcoming her to Cedar Hill.
She pressed her lips together, doing her best not to think about it. After all, she’d once sworn that she’d never, ever come back to this place. It was the town she’d grown up in, gone to school in, and spent idyllic childhood summers that, at that age, had seemed endless.
But it was also the place where her childhood had come to an end, and she’d been given a brutal lesson in adulthood, and all its attendant complications. Her father’s ranch had failed – and failed spectacularly. Selling the land had barely covered their debts, and with no jobs around, they’d been forced to move away.
After the wide, open spaces she’d grown up in, the tiny apartment they’d moved into in the city had been… well, it had been an adjustment.
But both her parents had found jobs, and so had she. She’d slowly put Cedar Hill, and the way she’d thought her life would go, behind her.
She’d never thought she’d come back here again.
Sighing, Faye slowed the car as the first few buildings of Cedar Hill came into view. The last thing she needed on her first day back was a speeding ticket, on top of everything else!
I must be crazy, she thought to herself as she drove by the places she recalled from her childhood – the post office, the bank, the old pizza restaurant where she and her friends had gone for shakes after school. Nothing had changed, it seemed. It was still the same old Cedar Hill.
I could be anywhere right now, Faye thought. Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia… and yet, here I am.
Try as she might, however, she couldn’t feel anything even close to real regret at having come back. Nervousness at being back after such a long time away, yes. A little anxiety that perhaps she’d sunk her money into something foolish, of course. But not regret. And she definitely knew the difference.
Regrets, I’ve had a few.
Faye smiled a little ironically as she hummed a few bars of the old song. But she couldn’t dwell on it for long. In a way, it was a relief to see how little Cedar Hill had changed, in all the years she’d been away. The place had always been a part of her, like it’d somehow gotten under her skin.
It’d driven her crazy when she’d been younger – that no matter how far or how fast she’d run, Cedar Hill had always been with her. But she’d eventually made her peace with it. And somehow, she’d always known that no matter what, and no matter how many times she told herself she wouldn’t, she’d come back here in the end.
And of course, she knew that, no matter how many times she tried to tell herself otherwise, it wasn’t just the where that drew her back.
It was also the who.
Faye shook her head at herself in frustration.
How long had it been now? She wasn’t even sure she could count the years anymore. It was far, far more than she cared to remember, anyhow. It had been a whole lifetime ago. She’d grown up, left town, got married, got divorced, traveled the world and lived enough for ten people during that time.
And yet, throughout it all, she’d never quite been able to get him out of her head. He’d always been the one who got away.
Stopping at the lights, Faye was tempted to roll her eyes at herself. How dramatic!
Faye supposed that in some ways, it was normal to romanticize your first big crush, especially when it was tied to the sweet simplicity of childhood.
But that was all it had ever been: just a crush. She’d never even dated the boy she’d been so hung up on!
Time to get your head out of the clouds, Faye. Stop dreaming.
And Lincoln Whittaker had always been just that: a dream. Once upon a time, she’d dreamed they’d get married, run the ranch together, raise kids…
But things hadn’t worked out that way.
He’d never asked her out, and then her family had lost everything, and she’d been forced to move away.
She’d done a thousand things since then, but she’d always had that one, nagging regret at the back of her mind, no matter how many times she’d told herself to grow up and move on.
And now, here she was, back in the place where it’d all happened.
Maybe I really am crazy, Faye thought again as she pulled up outside the run-down old mansion near the center of town. Despite the fact that it was a relic – crumbling, faded, and badly in need of some TLC – in the setting sun, it still held onto an illusion of its former beauty.
Holding her hand up to block out the worst of the glare, Faye looked up at its façade, and hoped she’d done the right thing.
It had always been a bit of a childhood dream of hers. The old Campion Street mansion had been uninhabited for as long as she could remember – boarded up and abandoned. She and her friends had told each other ghost stories about it, and made up a whole host of legends about the people who had lived and died in the creepy old place.
They’d often dared each other to sneak out at night and spend the night there… though of course, none of them ever had. The thought of it had been beyond terrifying. And then, when they’d gotten older, it had been a known hangout for kids who were known to be ‘trouble’ – in other words, the ones who wanted a place to sneak into and smoke and get drunk or high.
Faye had never been one of those kids, though she’d hardly been a goody two-shoes either. Her interest in the place had always been the only semi-joking plan to buy it, fix it up, and either turn it into her own private mansion, or run the most fabulous bed and breakfast the world had ever known in it.
But that had been when she was sixteen. She’d never actually thought she’d really do it.
Well, it’s a bit too late for second thoughts now, she thought to herself as she slammed the car door behind her.
Because that was exactly what she’d done.
She’d bought it.
And next, she’d fix it up.
And soon, she hoped, she’d be running the best bed and breakfast the world had ever known out of it.
Or perhaps, she’d just go crazy.
Opening the trunk, Faye gathered up the roll-up mattress, comforter, and pillow she’d driven down here with. Until the rest of her stuff was delivered, this was all she had of her personal belongings. Buying the mansion and budgeting for the repairs had used up all of her savings – and she knew that these things often ran over-budget.
She didn’t have the money to stay at an inn or a motel, so she’d be bunking in the run-down old place and taking her meals at whatever diner she could afford. It was going to be hard. But at the same time, Faye couldn’t help but tingle with excitement. For the first time in her life, she felt that she was doing something entirely on her own – something that had always been her dream, and no one else’s.
She hoped it might exorcize some of the old ghosts that’d followed her around her whole life. As she walked up the old wooden steps, she couldn’t help but smile a little at the irony: a haunted mansion to help fix her haunted life.
Unlocking the door, Faye took a deep breath. The house smelled of old wood, dust, and the musty reek of abandonment. But the same excitement as earlier still pulsed through her, and Faye couldn’t keep the smile from her lips as she laid out her bedroll.
It’s mine, she thought to herself. It’s all mine.
Already, she could feel this next chapter of her life opening up, filling with possibilities.
If only, she thought to herself as she fluffed her pillow and spread out her comforter, I can stay away from that Lincoln Whittaker.
Chapter One
Lincoln
“Hey Dad, did you see someone’s finally bought that old run-down Campion place near the center of town?”
Lincoln Whittaker glanced up from where he had his head buried in the guts of a tractor to look at his son, Joe. The weather was warming up after a long, cold winter, and sweat was prickling over his brow, his hands covered in grease from spending all morning trying to fix the old tractor’s engine. Reaching for a towel, he did his best to clean them off, standing and feeling his back crack.
He wasn’t as young as he used to be, that was for sure.
“Developers?” he asked, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He couldn’t help feeling a little pang of sadness at the idea of the old place being torn down. It had been abandoned since he could remember, but it’d been a staple of his childhood. Somehow, Cedar Hill just wouldn’t feel the same without it, but he supposed things had to change sometime. It was the way of things. And it wasn’t as if the place was doing anybody any good as it was, sitting there and being completely uninhabitable. If developers had bought it, maybe they’d put the land to some useful purpose.
Even if it might be strange to drive through town and see new apartments or a shopping mall there, Lincoln was practical enough to see the benefits.
Joe shook his head. “Joanie at the post office says not. She says she’s heard they’re not going to knock it down. Seems like they have an idea of doing some repairs and trying to live there.”
Lincoln cocked his head, mildly surprised. “Whoever they are, I wish them luck. That place is a fixer-upper if ever I saw one.”
“True enough.”
Lincoln and Joe lapsed into a comfortable silence, as Lincoln turned back to his work at the tractor, and Joe began stacking bales of hay by the wall of the barn.
Others might have found the silence strange, but father and son preferred it this way. Lincoln, the alpha lion of the Cedar Hill Ranch Pride, had always been a man of few words. He’d always hoped his feelings were clear through his actions, and that by being a good alpha for the pride, he’d set a good example for his sons, Casey and Joe, and Mason, his nephew he’d raised as his own.
Things hadn’t always been smooth sailing, either in the pride or on the ranch. Lincoln had had to realize he’d been too set in his ways, and too attached to the old way of doing things, when shifters had had to keep themselves hidden from humans.
It had been tough to realize that times were changing – and that he had to change with them.
He had to credit his sons and nephew with helping him to see the error of his ways. When Mason had been elected the sheriff of Coldstream County, Lincoln had been dead set against it. He didn’t see that there was any need for them to involve themselves in the lives – or laws – of humans, no matter how corrupt the previous sheriff had been. But Mason had seen things differently. It wasn’t in his nature to stand by while injustices were going on.
When Mason’s mate, Charity, had turned out to be a human, Lincoln had realized there was no point in burying his head in the sand – though it had taken the open-hearted actions of his son Joe to truly pave the way. Joe had been the first to welcome Charity into their home.
It was hard for a man like Lincoln, set in his ways and an alpha to boot, to admit that he’d been wrong. But he liked to think he wasn’t stubborn to the point of pig-headedness, and he’d made Charity feel welcome.
She hadn’t been the only new addition to the pride: his other nephew, Heath, had found his own human mate, Daphne. They didn’t live on the ranch, but they visited whenever they could.
And after Daphne had come Sasha, Joe’s own fated mate. Lincoln felt his heart swell with pride when he looked at them together: a lion and his mate, together forever, just as it should be, the bond between them utterly unbreakable.
It was the only thing he’d ever wanted for his sons: for them to find their mates and live out their lives with them.
It was the kind of happiness that he himself had been denied.
Lincoln swallowed, feeling a tightness in his chest.
He realized that putting things that way made it sound as if there was anyone else to blame but himself for what had happened. But that simply wasn’t the truth.
I was young, he told himself, shaking his head slightly. I didn’t know for sure whether she was my mate. I loved her, but…
Lincoln swallowed.
Her.
The thought brought back the memory of her face, clear as day, even after all these years.
Faye.
The girl he’d loved so many years ago.
A shifter could have strong feelings for someone, and even love them, without being their mate.
Lincoln had never known for sure if Faye had been his mate – they’d been too young at the time for him to be certain, and he’d never had a chance to find out if she really was the one he was fated to be with, before her family had moved out of state, and had never returned.
Maybe he could’ve chased her.
Maybe he still dreamed sometimes about what might’ve happened if he hadn’t let her slip through his fingers.
I was stupid.
After all these years, he could admit it.
Perhaps it had been a different time. Back then, the pride had been reclusive and secretive. Even the part-time hands and seasonal workers on the ranch had all been shifters – no human had been permitted to set foot on the pride’s lands.
And Lincoln had known, ever since he was a child, that he was destined to be its alpha.
The duty had always weighed heavily on him. To be an alpha was to take responsibility for the pack’s wellbeing, and its future. It was a sacred bond of trust that could only be rivaled by one thing: the fated bond between a shifter and their mate.
If they’d met later in life, maybe they could have had a chance. But they’d been too young – Lincoln too young to defy his pride and take a human mate, and Faye too young to stay in Cedar Hill when her family had had to move away.
They had known each other since they were children, and Lincoln had never met anyone else like her. She had refused to be pinned down by anyone’s expectations of what she should or shouldn’t do. Of their circle of friends, she had always been the most daring – leaping from th
e highest tree branches and into the river, exploring the mountain trails until dark, and lying on the roof of the barn just gazing at the stars.
She’d been the one to jump into the river the day after a raging storm, when a friend’s new puppy had fallen into surging waters and been swept away. Lincoln could still remember it now – she hadn’t even hesitated. Faye had torn her sweater off over her head and leapt into the water, without any regard at all for her own safety.
In that second, Lincoln had felt as if someone had torn his heart straight out of his chest.
A moment later he’d been in the water with her, kicking his way to where her dark head was still visible in the gray river.
Faye!
He’d called her name, but he’d had no idea if she could hear him or not. If she could, she’d completely ignored him, continuing to struggle toward the puppy, which was clinging for its life to a fallen tree. She’d swum out to it, her strokes strong and even against the raging current.
When Faye had reached it, she had managed to convince it to trust her and stop its struggles as she clutched the poor, drenched creature to her chest with one arm, hooking the other around a branch of the tree.
Lincoln had reached her only a second later, curling his arm around her waist before pulling her to shore, boosting her up onto the sodden bank before pulling himself up behind her.
They’d sat together, wet and shivering, and that was when he’d first realized just how much she’d captured his heart.
It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, free-spirited and compassionate, or that she had put her own life on the line to save a helpless animal. It wasn’t just that she was funny, and made him laugh more than anyone else he’d ever known. It was just something about her – something he didn’t think he could express in words. Even in the midst of the storm of his raging adolescent hormones, he knew she was special.
Looking back, Lincoln wondered, if they’d been older he might have realized right then that they were mates.