Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
CALEB
I ’ve already spread the blanket out and weighed down the corners by the time Brielle slides off Phoebe without comment, keeping tight hold of the lead rope that’s been tucked into the leather strapping of the bridle during the ride. Her hands are steady as she ties it to Daphne’s lead, though her legs wobble a bit.
I’m up and across the clearing, needing to make sure she’s all right.
The ride into the canyon wasn’t quite as smooth as I’d hoped. Phoebe isn’t the biggest fan of the grade, and she spooked once when a fox went running through some of the trees.
Brielle smiles as I approach, and happiness warms me. Her eyes drop back to the lead rope she’s working with, her eyebrows furrowing. I run my hand down Daphne’s neck to keep from taking over Brielle’s work.
“You sure this is enough?” she asks without looking up from the knot she’s made. It’s a bit messy, but it doesn’t budge when I pull on it. “Melissa and Emily are always harping on the stable hands at Misty Mountain about making sure the horses are tied to something solid.”
“Daphne’s pretty solid,” I say with humor. When she glances up at me under her lashes, her lips curving into a faint line, I take her hand and lead her to the picnic. “They’ll keep each other company while we enjoy the meadow.”
Her cheeks flush a bright red, and I laugh.
“Not what I meant,” I say.
Not yet, anyway.
The thought surges through me, and my half-hard dick roars to life. Fuck, I cannot be thinking about why I invited her up to this meadow right now or I’m going to be a goddamn mess through this lunch. I arrange myself on the blanket, trying to take pressure off my constrained dick. Cinnamon blooms around me, conveying my arousal despite me trying to be more discrete.
Her blush grows, bleeding down her neck and onto her chest, disappearing under the neckline of her simple shirt. After a long moment, she closes the distance between us and settles onto the blanket beside me.
“Did your mom make this picnic, too?” she asks with a smirk.
I offer her the nondescript leather bag full of our lunch. She pulls out the french dip.
“Nope. I bribed Hudson, instead.” I grin and grab the sandwich, unwrapping it for her before she can manage. “No way I’m letting you see how bad I am at cooking yet.”
She smiles. “It is the one thing I haven’t really seen you do this summer. Well, technically, I haven’t seen you fly. But I know you wouldn’t have the seniority with the wildfire crews if you were bad at it.”
She’d looked up how my job worked?
God, she really is perfect.
“Didn’t expect you to become an expert on fire pilots,” I admit.
She shrugs and drops her eyes. I put a finger under her chin and urge her to look at me.
“I like it,” I whisper.
Lavender weaves around us.
“So you’re a really good pilot, you know your way around the horses. You probably can handle the cattle at the Monroe Ranch, too, though Beau seems to like it more than you. And that doesn’t even bring up the fact you’re a phenomenal dad.”
Her praise shoots through me. Damn, I want to kiss her right now. I run my thumb over her chin.
She purses her lips and cocks a single eyebrow. “And yet you can’t cook.”
“Nope.” I pop the “p”. I grip her chin and kiss her, forcing myself to pull away before it can become more involved.
She giggles and follows me, keeping her mouth barely brushing mine. “Well, at least it proves you’re actually human.”
I hum with my amusement. My chest is light, a happiness sitting under my sternum I haven’t truly felt in a long time, bolstered by her smile and relaxed body and the subtle lavender of her scent weaving around us even now.
“What kind of sandwiches did you convince Hudson to make?” she asks, pulling away and focusing on the food.
“He didn’t let me pick. He said they were french dip when he dropped them off last night.”
Her smirk sends a jolt down my spine, as does watching her lips part around the end of the sandwich as she takes a bite.
“This is so good,” she moans.
Cinnamon floods the air, stronger than the wildflowers blooming throughout the meadow and her own scent that’s still circling us. Her cheeks heat, the blush racing down her neck and onto her chest. Her throat ripples with her swallow.
Am I a masochist? Pretty sure I’m a masochist. Because there’s nothing quite like the torture of watching her lips spread around the sandwich and her throat move with her eating. Holy hell, I want it to be me that’s making her throat move like that.
And now I’m hard. Again.
“What’s that look for?” she asks.
I don’t even think to censor the thought.
“Just imagining that being my dick instead of a sandwich.”
She laughs and sets the sandwich in her lap. Lavender surrounds us more thoroughly than before, its own beautifully enticing wave.
“I thought you said you didn’t mean for us to enjoy the meadow that way,” she says, a coy lilt to her lips.
Her eyes twinkle with her humor, and I laugh. She doesn’t resist as I pull her to me, my palm flat against the back of her head and my fingers lacing through her hair. Her knees bracket mine just like that first hike and picnic. Her lips are soft as ever, and I bask in the feel of them, in the soft intimacy of having her at all.
“I liked going to brunch with you,” she whispers as I pull away.
“Yeah?” I ask, dropping my hand to her neck, letting my thumb trace her collarbone. “You happy being family official?”
She nods.
“I want to ask you something,” I say. It comes out breathless, even a bit nervous.
“If it’s about making use of the meadow, I’m all for it,” she says with a smirk.
Fuck me. I’m not going to be able to focus long enough to make this special if she keeps looking at me like that.
“It’s about bonding, actually,” I admit. I don’t drop my eyes, holding her gaze so she knows just how serious I am.
“Bonding?” she asks, total surprise in her voice, her body. She sags against me, her shoulders dropping away from her ears. “That’s something you’d want to risk again?”
Instead of giving her words, I cup her face and kiss her, long and slow and deep.
She doesn’t bite back a whine as she presses into me, practically climbing into my lap. The moment it slips between her lips and into our kiss, it’s like a dam breaks.
Her hands scrabble at my shirt, pulling at the hem until she has it lifted around my ribs. My body rises to her need, cinnamon exploding and intertwining with her scent until they drown us even in the open air of the meadow. Her breath stops for a heartbeat, her hands pausing in their frenzy to get my clothing off. I trace her bottom lip with my tongue, shallowing out the kiss as she pauses.
“Alpha,” she whispers, low and sultry.
Every single hair on my body stands up.
All at once, her scent slams into me. The intrinsic siren call of it has me harder than I can remember, my dick aching. My mind is hazy with arousal. It takes all my self-control to not lay her out on the blanket and rip her jeans. Instead, I run my hand down her neck.
And then I pull away, cursing at the fevered feel of her skin.
“Brielle?” I ask, my voice so low it sends a shiver through her. “How close is your heat?”
She worries at her bottom lip, her gaze vacillating between focused and glazed.
“Omega.” It’s nothing short of a bark, all the Alpha command I can wield threaded through it. “Is your heat close?”
“I… I don’t know,” she admits in a whisper. Her palms press into my stomach, her nails pricking my skin. “I went off the suppressors in December and haven’t had one since.”
Fuck. Me.
More than six months. And she’s spent at least a few weeks of them being truly touch-starved, enough that I could smell it in her scent that first time I took her out. How many of her symptoms that I’d thought were lingering effects of that touch-starvation were actually signs of her impending heat?
Her scent grows stronger, another whine building in her throat. That call weaves through me, burrowing into my bones, and my dick jumps even as my brain goes a bit foggy.
Oh fuck .
It doesn’t matter now. The reality is that I have an Omega in heat in the middle of the Wyoming wilderness—and the only way out of this glen is by horse or chopper.
I’m on my feet before she can try to kiss me again, pulling her into me as I walk to where Daphne and Phoebe are casually grazing a few hundred feet away. Phoebe flinches as we come near, her ears pinned, but Daphne is stalwart as always. I guide Brielle’s hand onto her lead rope, making sure her grip is firm before pulling away.
“Stay here,” I order, that same command pushing through my voice.
She shudders in a breath before nodding.
“Yes, Alpha,” she whispers.
Hell, if that doesn’t send a thrill down my spine.
I pack up the picnic without any thought for the food. The moment the saddle bags are full, I’m sprinting to the horses, draping them over Phoebe’s hips and buckling them onto her saddle since it’ll be her only weight.
I then ease Brielle up into Daphne’s saddle, forcing her up against the horn even though I know it’ll be uncomfortable as fuck for her. I can’t trust her to hold on to me and have the more comfortable position behind me. And I sure as hell can’t trust she’ll be able to ride Phoebe right now. Already, her eyes have stopped switching in and out of focus, her glassy stare landing somewhere in the middle distance.
I pull my phone from my pocket and dial Ethan.
“If you’re calling now, something fucked happened or she said no,” he mutters instead of a greeting.
“She didn’t say no,” I say.
She didn’t really say anything, actually. But navigating that will be a problem to figure out after the next five days. Shit, or longer. If she hasn’t had a heat since before December, this could be a hell of a cycle for her.
“Please tell me Phoebe didn’t spook and throw her.” Ethan’s voice is both lighter and more worried than before. “She hates that path up to the meadow.”
“You need to pack up,” I tell him. “And then I need you at the barn.”
There’s the sudden clinking of metal before Ethan’s saying something to whichever employee is helping him at Misty Mountain. Melissa’s voice cuts through some of the noise, but I can’t make out what she’s saying.
“What happened?” he asks, worry overtaking his calm disinterest. “You on your way to Jackson?”
Brielle whines as I swing into the saddle behind her, my arm enclosing her and forcing her farther forward. The horn of the saddle digs into her belly, and the whine grows louder. Ethan’s breathing freezes for a heartbeat, two. And then he curses.
“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” he says.
Her scent surrounds me, and I have to hold my breath to keep from dropping into the haze of the rut. After a moment, the wind changes, and it blows her scent away from me.
Thank God.
“I promised you eight years ago I wouldn’t lie,” I say. My voice is hoarse.
Ethan curses again, and then he’s calling to someone in the distance.
“You need help getting her out?” he asks.
I urge Daphne onto the nature trail at an almost trot, not risking anything faster given Brielle’s fragile state. When Phoebe follows without protest, I blow out my held breath. Brielle leans her head against me, tilting until her nose is in the sensitive spot where my neck meets my shoulder.
“I can get her out,” I say as we navigate the first stretch without problems. It’s the worst of the grade. In theory, the rest will be manageable.
“I’ll be there,” Ethan says.
And then the call cuts off.