Page 61 of Midlife Wolf Captured My Heart

Certainly, he didn’t come here just to tell me how his adventure went. Why is he here, anyway?

Dakota looked at Sadie and leaned forward. “I didn’t come here to tell you about my experience with the cloud leopards, although I hope to show you my videos and photos later. I came because I missed you.”

Sadie’s jaw dropped and her heart skipped a beat.

“I thought about you constantly when I wasn’t focused on my work. You were there for every breath I took. I knew when I went up on that mountain after you’d been kidnapped that you were my fated mate. I couldn’t figure out how to make it work between us.”

She sucked in a huge breath of air and waited for him to continue.

“Sadie, I’m in love with you. You are a part of my heart and soul – my very existence. I still can’t give up traveling to different places and capturing the lives of animals with my lens. But I’m wondering if you could be happy with a compromise. I could make Angel’s Creek my home base. I would be here at least sixty percent of the time, working on my books, editing the pictures, and doing all of the other stuff like that. My time in the fieldmight be two weeks or up to a month, but I would still be here, with you the majority of the time.”

She stared at him, silent for a moment, unable to believe her ears. Resisting the urge to pinch herself, her mind raced to process what she just heard.

“Sadie?”

“I’m sorry. I’m just in shock. Are you sure you could be happy with that?”

“Of course, I’m sure. Like I said, I’m in love with you. I know that you’re my fated mate, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

He grinned mischievously. “Besides, I’ll need a young, healthy person to take care of me when I’m old and decrepit.”

Sadie laughed and nodded. “I can definitely live with that compromise. I’d rather have you most of the time, even some of the time, than none at all.”

Dakota got down on one knee and opened up a box. Pulling out a gold ring with a marquis diamond, he took Sadie’s hand. “Sadie Andrews, would you do me the honor of going through the mating ceremony with me?”

“Yes, I would.”

He slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her.

When the kiss ended, Sadie smiled at him. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

“Is it what you wanted to talk about before I left?”

She nodded. “You’re going to be a father.”

His eyes opened wide. “What?”

“Dakota James is on his way and will be here in about four or four and a half months.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t. You had to go to Bhutan. I didn’t want you to feel trapped here. None of us would have been happy.”

“You were willing to raise this child by yourself so I could be happy?”

She nodded. “We both would have been happy. I would have been here with the kid and you would have your adventures. Cody would be a part of you, so I could still have that.”

He grinned. “I guess we’ll have three generations of people in our own little family.”

Dakota picked her up and carried her to her bed. Their clothes disappeared and they made frantic love as though there was only now. Then, they made love again, slowly, as though they had an eternity.

The mating ceremonywas two weeks away. They decided that it would be better to have it sooner rather than later since she was pregnant. Sadie and Dakota would spend a couple days together and then he would go to Montana to get his pictures of wolves in the late fall and early winter. He would be back in time for the baby’s birth.

Eric and James visited Sadie the night before the ceremony.

Her father looked at her very seriously. “You know we don’t approve of you going through the mating ceremony with Dakota.”

“I’m aware, and I understand all your reasons. But the heart wants what the heart wants. Daddy, I’m in love with Dakota. He is my fated mate. We have worked out a solution that will make both of us happy.”

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