With Abandon: With or Without, Book 4

I couldn’t let
    him go. The bond was just too overwhelming.”
    What? Aubrey gaped like a fish but couldn’t seem to help it. “Are you telling me that Carson is your mate?”
    Boskie nodded. “You have a guy for a mate too, don’t you? Isn’t that what you meant earlier? About
    me hitting the pretty boy who was trying to help Carson? I’m sorry, Aubrey, it will never happen again.”
    “Uh, yeah.” Whoa. Aubrey was still stunned. He had no idea what to do. This was going to hurt a lot of people. Orin had been married to Marina for over thirty years. She was considered pack. Boskie’s sons were pack members. Jesus, he couldn’t deal with this right now. Matt may no longer be in danger, but this mess made Aubrey want to see him more. He was not going to screw up his mating as bad as Boskie had.
    He needed to get a flight to New Mexico. “Go home. And stay away from Carson. We’ll figure something
    out, but I will not have you scaring him further.”
    “But—”
    Aubrey arched a brow.
    “He’s mine.”
    “I understand that, but you’ll do things on his terms. If he’s your mate, he’ll feel the connection as
    much as you do. You need to go home and decide what you’re going to do. What you’re going to tell your
    family.” Aubrey turned toward his office but stopped short. He did not envy Boskie. He didn’t envy
    himself at the moment either. Orin wasn’t the only one who’d made mistakes with their mate, but
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    With Abandon
    something told him getting Matt back was going to be a hell of a lot easier than the road Orin had ahead of him. “If he’s still out of it, you can see him, but I want you gone before he wakes.”
    Aubrey found Ronny’s number and called him. Thankfully he had such a large and diverse pack. It
    was nice having connections. As the phone rang he pulled up his address book on his laptop and located the number to the private charter service they used to fly their executives around. He was going to get his mate and bring him back.
    “Hello?” Ronny answered his phone.
    “Ronny? This is Aubrey. Can you check and see if someone bought a ticket for a flight and if they’ve
    checked in yet?”
    “Sure. Let me get back to my desk. Who do you need to locate?”
    Aubrey closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with a shaking hand. Matt’s gorgeous
    laughing face flashed into his mind. He couldn’t live without Matt. Deep down, he’d known it all along, but now Matt had forced his hand and he had no choice except to admit it. Mom, Dad, Reynolds Inc. and
    responsibility be damned. He was keeping Matt. His responsibility was to his mate…if his mate would
    have him back.
    “My mate, Ronny. I need to find out if my mate’s flight has left for New Mexico already.”

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    Chapter Seventeen
    “Matt, we stopped.” Scott, Matt’s seven-year-old brother, reached over Darren’s head and tapped
    Matt’s arm.
    Matt used his foot to get the swing going in a gentle sway. His arm had fallen asleep ten minutes ago,
    but he wouldn’t dream of moving it and chance waking Eddie up. He liked having the baby in his lap.
    Tucking a lock of dark hair behind Eddie’s ear, he pulled Darren closer to his side.
    How could anyone leave a child who’d just turned three alone to fend for himself? It was completely
    incomprehensible to him. When he’d gotten the call, he’d been terrified for his brother. Then he’d been mad because he couldn’t get anyone on the phone to go check on Eddie. He’d finally gotten a hold of his dad’s best friend Bambi—who’d raced over to the house—and hurt had set in. After he’d been sure Eddie
    was in the hands of a responsible adult, which was about the time he got on the plane, he’d wavered back and forth between disbelief and hatred. When he’d gotten home to discover she’d left for good—because
    all her things were gone—and Dad was passed-out drunk on the couch, Matt had gotten pissed all over
    again. But now, sitting with his younger brothers on the back-porch swing, he was kind of numb.
    “Wow. Are they asleep?” Logan sat on the other end of the swing and stretched his free arm across
    the backrest.
    “I’m not.” Scott climbed into Logan’s lap and laid his head against Logan’s chest.
    Matt stifled a chuckle. Scott had informed him when they got on the back-porch swing that it wasn’t
    cool to snuggle. That would change, of course—he was a wolf and