Free Second Chance Mates by Sabrina Vance

would probably have
followed the scent of the steaks out back and come looking for her
anyway.
    "Well, hello there." Mr. Stanton ran
his eyes over her and flashed his teeth in what she thought he
probably thought was a friendly smile. Really he just looked like
he was snarling which given that he was a shifter of the bovine
persuasion, and quite literally bull-headed, probably wasn't that
dissimilar.
    "What do you want?" she asked none too
politely.
    "Is that any way to greet a guest?"
Stanton pulled off his hat and made to step forwards but she stood
solidly in the doorway with no intention of yielding to the odious
older man.
    "You're not a guest," Clara pointed
out, "and this is hardly business hours."
    Stanton sniffed the air and ran his
eyes over her again. "I see I'm in time for dinner."
    "In time to interrupt dinner," Clara
clarified as she looked past him to his truck. Of course he'd
brought two of his men with him, big dudes with crossed arms that
made their muscles bulge as they idled against the truck featuring
Stanton's decal of a bull. They seemed to be shifters of some
variety, though she couldn't say what with the distance between
them. All she knew was that they weren’t lycan.
    "Perhaps a glass of iced tea on the
porch." He nodded to the swing Colton had spent a whole day
assembling and hanging. Oh, she'd loved sitting there with him,
kicking their legs and making it rock. It gave her the shivers to
think of letting Stanton sully it.
    She didn’t move. "Could you cut to the
chase?"
    "I came to see if you'd reconsidered my
offer. It was very generous."
    Behind her, footsteps made the
floorboards creak and she felt Luke as he came to stand behind her.
Mr. Stanton stiffened for a moment as he took in Luke's large
build, his nostrils flared in recognition of the big
cat.
    "I see you have company already,"
Stanton said, snidely.
    "Yes, I do."
    "What's going on, Clara?" Luke
asked.
    She looked up at him, saw the concern
etched on his face as he took in the hired muscle and Stanton,
clearly wondering at the need for three big men against one woman,
before returning his gaze to her. "This is the property developer I
mentioned. The one who wants to buy the land and put a ton of
condos on it. Make it some kind of gated development," she told
him.
    "Which will be sensitively done, of
course," cut in Stanton. "And you will be well compensated for it.
Actually, seeing as you love the area so much, I thought I'd throw
in a condo for you too. All mod cons. Air conditioning for hot
nights like these. A view of the lake." Stanton smiled again,
probably expecting her to fall all over his latest offer. After
all, she'd been saying no for more than a year now, he probably
didn’t expect her to hold out much longer. He'd been before, before
Colton died and Colton had told him in no uncertain terms that they
would never sell. Then Colton had died and Stanton kept on coming.
She wondered just how far he would go to get her land when he
realized whatever offer he pushed at her would be
rejected.
    Not for the first time, she wondered if
he would have stopped coming if Colton had been here to see him
off, and how awfully convenient it was for Stanton that her husband
died. No, she wouldn't think like that. She refused to. Stanton was
a snake but he couldn't possibly be responsible for Colton's
accident.
    "The land isn't for sale," Clara said
for the umpteenth time.
    "I don't think you properly understand
my offer," said Stanton, his voice taking on that 'now you listen
to me, little woman' voice he'd used to patronize her with time and
again.
    "I understand it just fine."
    "It's a better offer than anyone else
will give you," Stanton said. "You'll have a mortgage free home and
money in the bank."
    "And I'll lose my land, my home and I'll be surrounded by people, and cars, and noise." Men like
Stanton never got the concept of home, didn't understand what it
could mean. He understood money and profit and that was it. He
could never