Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
CALEB
M y body aches as I pull into the empty parking spot behind Mom’s coffee shop, right next to her newer Lexus SUV. I turn off the engine and drop my head against the steering wheel, trying to find the motivation to go inside. Twelve days on a fire isn’t all that bad. It’s certainly better than what I averaged before we had Cam. Some summers I would be gone for multiple months at a time.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the hours are long and the work demanding. My phone vibrates with a message, and I pull it from the middle console.
Camden’s with your mom for today. Trimming Melissa’s herd. Should be back for dinner.
Right. I forgot it was Thursday.
I send Ethan a quick reply.
Sounds good.
Knowing my son is inside helps get me moving.
The shop is bustling, practically all the tables full. Most of the people I don’t recognize, tourists on their way to the national parks just north of us. One of the women working behind the counter glances up as the bells above the door ring with my entrance. She smiles, her cheeks flushing, and then waves.
I offer a single nod back. It’s hard to toe the line between polite and flirting. I have no interest in her—Poppy, I think, or maybe Penelope—and God knows Ethan wouldn’t approve even if I did. But things like being just a bit too polite are taken as the gospel truth in small towns, and I don’t have the damn energy for it today.
Mom walks out from the back room, a small plate in her hand. She sets the plate on a table a few away from my son and disappears into the back again, not seeming to notice me. Camden is a half-step in front of her, a to-go cup in his hand, though it doesn’t have a lid. Instead, there’s a mound of whipped cream with a few pieces of shredded chocolate on it. His eyebrows are furrowed as he crosses the room to the far corner where a single table is open. He pushes the small red sign that states “RESERVED” in bold white letters out of his way as he settles into the seat and starts licking the whipped cream.
I drop into the seat next to him and kiss his cheek before he can turn around.
“Papa!” His happy squeal echoes around the busy cafe, and several people look up from their tables. I smile, letting him crawl into my lap and circle his arms around my neck. “You’re back!”
I breathe him in, wrapping my arms around him, and close my eyes.
I love flying. I love knowing I’m helping with something larger than just myself. But, fuck, every time I leave it gets harder to justify the distance, the time away. Way too soon, Camden pushes away from me and shuffles back into his own seat, his focus on the whipped cream topping his hot cocoa again.
“Oh!” My mom’s surprised gasp is just behind me. I turn in the chair and watch as she closes the distance between us. “I didn’t realize you were getting back today.”
She hugs me, pulling me into her belly and kissing the top of my head, like I’m as old as Camden and not thirty-five. I let her do it and then bask in her smile as she pulls away.
“Nana, can I have the muffin now?” Camden asks.
She mutters a curse. “I knew I forgot something,” she says. “Give me just a moment. I’ll bring you a coffee, too.”
I run my hand through my son’s hair, relaxing into the seat. I don’t trust myself to stay awake if I let my eyes drift shut, so I focus on the cars outside, counting the number of out of state license plates as they pass through town.
I’m up to fourteen when Mom returns with a blueberry muffin and a large, steaming mug. I take it with a murmured thanks but don’t immediately take a drink. As Mom sets the muffin in front of Camden and settles in the seat across from me, the smell of lavender wafts toward me. My muscles lock. It takes all my control to keep from growling in reaction.
“How was Idaho?” Mom asks.
I shrug. Words are probably not the best idea right now. I breathe slowly, trying to get the unexpected violence to drain away from me. Another trace of that lavender hits me, though, and it does the opposite.
“Something happen on the way in here?” she asks after half a minute.
“You get a new floral arrangement?” I ask instead of admitting I’m on the edge of flipping over this table, my son’s pastry be damned. And for literally no reason. There’s not an Omega in heat anywhere in here. And that’s the only reason I can come up with that justifies this level of overreaction and bone deep need to protect that’s riding me hard despite my exhaustion.
Mom shakes her head. Her gaze catches on someone behind me, and she smiles, waving them over.
“How are you, dear?” she asks. “You weren’t here yesterday. I got worried.”
“Decided to go for a small ride,” a distinctly feminine voice says. One that I don’t immediately recognize, and I recognize pretty much anyone Mom knows well enough to chat with in the coffee shop.
Curiosity gets the best of me. I look over my coffee mug. A brunette woman stands a few steps away, her hands tucked into her back pockets, her brown eyes warm and yet somehow still wary. The oversized sweater she wears is a little heavy given it’s nearly the middle of June, and it drowns out whatever curves she may have, but the dark green of it makes her skin glow.
Mom smiles and hugs the woman. “I’m sure that must have felt nice after living in the city for so long.”
“It was… helpful,” the woman says. “I don’t trust myself on long rides alone yet, though. Still trying to get the feeling of being on a horse back into me.”
Mom nods. “Do you want another cup of tea?”
She’s already turning for the counter when the woman shakes her head. “Thank you, though, Joan. I’m going to go help Melissa with everything at the ranch.”
“Well, don’t let the girls work you too hard. They both love the feel of it and forget others need to work up to the same level of stamina.”
The woman smiles, but it doesn’t quite touch her eyes. She runs a hand through her hair before waving at Mom.
As she turns, another small wave of that lavender scent hits me. And suddenly it doesn’t feel like I’ve been on a fire for twelve days. My eyes don’t hurt, my head doesn’t ache. Even the exhaustion is gone, overloaded with the adrenaline coursing through me. Everything within my body is focused on this woman, this Omega, that isn’t five feet from me.
She must be wearing a lotion to block her scent rather than the more traditional scent blocking underwear. It’s the only explanation for why I managed to get even that small taste of her scent.
It takes every single ounce of my control to stay in my seat, my head ducked, my hands tight on the coffee mug as the woman leaves the coffee shop. I need to stop her, need to touch her, smell her, mark her, claim her. Understanding floods me, followed nearly immediately with shock so strong it takes my breath away.
Mom says something, and I nod, not even knowing what I’m agreeing to. She holds out her hand, and I offer her the mug. I turn toward Cam, not trusting myself to look out the windows and see which car is the woman’s.
Holy fucking hell.
There’s absolutely no way that this is happening right now.
Scent matches have only been confirmed to exist for a couple years. A brilliant Omega in California has spent the last half a decade studying them.
You can’t open any news from the Council without seeing Violet Montegue’s face somewhere in the first few pages. When her first round of research was published, it sent waves through the entire world. Literal proof of soulmates, the perfect pairings between Alphas and Omegas. Within weeks, the Council had put out a statement regarding their matching process and the ways in which they’d be integrating the newly-discovered markers for recognizing your match.
For Alphas, it’s intense protection and possessiveness, even worse than when they drop into rut due to an Omega’s heat. Nothing matters but that perfume, that Omega.
Fuck me sideways that mine just happens to be in my mother’s coffee shop. Ethan is going to fucking lose it when I tell him. He was ready to fight me over fucking a random woman in Jackson that I haven’t talked to since—and it’s not like she’s been banging on my metaphorical door begging for a second round.
When I tell him I’ve found my scent match?
The growl builds in my throat before I realize it’s there, and Mom hesitates beside me. I swallow the sound, breathing carefully through my nose, trying to forget the lavender smell.
“What has you so up in a mess all of a sudden?” Mom says, slipping into the seat across from me again, sliding the refilled mug in front of me.
My knuckles whiten around the mug, and Mom purses her lips.
“You were fine just a minute ago,” she says.
I stretch my neck again and take a long drink from the mug, focusing on the main road just outside the window, not trusting myself just yet.
The coffee’s still too hot, but I don’t flinch. Mom’s coffees are the best in the state. Certainly leagues better than the instant crap we get while on a fire. Pilots may get better than the fighters on the ground, but that doesn’t make it much more than midnight gas station shit.
I catch sight of the woman, her brown hair grabbing my attention as she settles into a Land Rover with Colorado license plates. As she adjusts, the blue ink of a tattoo flashes in the mid-morning sunlight. A butterfly maybe? Or it could be a flower of some kind.
The desire to trace it with my tongue, to see how low it goes along her neck, rides me hard, and it’s impossible to stop my scent from flooding the room. I take another drink and close my eyes, counting to ten.
Mom sighs. “I promised myself when you and your brother designated within three months of each other that I wasn’t going to put myself in a situation where it’s my sanity or your anger.”
“I’m not angry,” I say, my voice breathless. At least it’s not a growl.
Mom’s a Beta, just like Dad. The more subtle changes to a person’s scent, the ones that give away their arousal and anger and even an Omega’s heat, are lost on Betas. It’s part of what makes them Betas, part of what lets them stay stable when an Alpha is ready to drop into a possessive rage.
When I focus on Mom again, her lips are pursed, and she has her chin resting on her palm. “All right. Then I probably especially don’t want to know what has you scenting so strongly right now.”
“Who was that woman? I haven’t seen her before,” I say.
“Brielle? Oh, she’s Melissa’s friend from college.” Mom raises an eyebrow. “She moved out here end of last month. So… a week and a half? Almost two weeks, actually. She’s staying in Emily’s guest house until the tourist season dies down and the housing options open up a bit more.”
I raise an eyebrow. “The widow?”
“Yes,” Mom says slowly, mirroring my own look. “Her husband died in a car wreck over New Year’s Day.”
Fuck. Me.
The desire to comfort her, wrap her in my arms and block her from the harsh realities of the world, is strong enough it robs me of any response to Mom.
Wait. Did she say husband?
“Husband?” I ask.
Mom nods. “She’d been married for six years, almost seven.”
Omegas don’t marry Alphas. Omegas only marry Betas. Even unbonded Omegas with Alphas are viewed differently under the laws, though some have weddings, too. But a bona fide marriage license? That doesn’t happen between Alphas and Omegas.
What had made her end up with only a Beta?
Not that Omegas can’t love Betas. Tons of packs—the legal term for a romantic group that includes at least one Alpha and Omega—have Betas included. But Omegas aren’t built for monogamy, not really. They’re wired for multiple lovers, especially when they go into heat.
Mom frowns. “What’s that look for?”
I shake my head and take another drink of coffee. I love my mom, but I’m not admitting to what’s happened in the middle of her coffee shop, especially with Betty sitting in the corner reading her book. She’s not quite the worst gossip in town, but she’s certainly not trustworthy, either. Not unless you want everyone to know in a matter of a few days.
And, yes, that’s better than what some of them manage. You say something within earshot of Molly Bailey, and you better be prepared for everyone knowing in under twelve hours.
“You don’t want to know, Mom,” I mutter. “Trust me.”
She sighs and takes a couple of the pretzels she brought for Camden.
“She’s not interested in any of that,” she says. “Alex and Calder have already asked to go out as far as I’m aware. She’s turned them both down.”
“How do you know that?”
Mom doesn’t talk to the Deans. Not since they ended up on the other side of a dispute involving Brandon when we were teens.
“Miranda and Leanne were talking about it this morning. Apparently it’s the big gossip right now.” She pins me with one of those looks, the one that says she’s tired of my shit and that I need to listen before the really bad consequences start. I may be thirty-five, but that look still gets my heart in my throat. “You know what it’s like to grieve, Caleb. Give her space.”
I wish I could .
I take another drink of coffee and run my hand through Camden’s hair, focusing on the road again. I don’t want to lie to Mom.
“Need any help?” She lets me change the subject.
“Nope. You might text Melissa, though. One of her employees quit last week, and she’s been having to cover all the work.”
I nod. Camden loves going to Melissa’s ranch. It’ll keep us both busy.
“Thank you for the coffee,” I say. Mom waves her hand, kissing Camden’s temple as she heads back around the counter.