Chapter 17 #3
I spent the rest of the day walking around Crescent Bay, trying to understand the place Annalise had made her home.
It was a working town, built around the harbor and the fishing industry that sustained it.
The streets were narrow and winding, lined with weathered houses that had probably stood for generations.
Gardens overflowed with late summer flowers, and American flags hung from front porches that looked like they were used for actual sitting, not just decoration.
Everyone I passed nodded or said hello, their faces open and friendly until they got a good look at me. Then the warmth would fade, replaced by polite distance. Word traveled fast in a small town.
At seven o'clock, I found myself at the community center, a simple building that had probably served a dozen different purposes over the years.
My palms were sweating as I pushed through the front door, and I had to resist the urge to turn around and flee when every conversation in the room stopped.
The meeting was already in progress, a dozen local business owners sitting around a collection of folding tables that had seen better days. And there was Annalise, sitting between Rita and Tom, a notebook open in front of her and a pen in her hand.
She looked up as I entered, her eyes unreadable. After a moment, she nodded toward an empty chair at the back of the room. I made my way over, acutely aware of the weight of hostile stares following my movement.
"As I was saying," continued an elderly woman at the head table, "we need more volunteers for the setup crew. The festival's only three weeks away, and we're behind schedule."
"I can help," Annalise said, her voice carrying clearly across the room. "I'm good with organization, and I don't mind the physical work."
"Hon, you're six months pregnant," Rita said, her tone brooking no argument. "You'll supervise, not lift."
"I can lift—"
"You'll supervise," Tom repeated, his voice carrying the gentle authority of someone who'd been looking after people for years. "We're not having our best waitress lifting things when she’s pregnant. Family, remember?"
The casual affection in their voices made my chest tight with longing and regret. These people valued her, protected her, included her in their community, not because she was supposed to be something to them, but because she was.
"I can help with the setup," I said, speaking for the first time since entering.
The room went completely silent. Coffee cups stopped halfway to lips, pens paused mid-word, and every eye in the place turned to stare at me. I felt heat rise in my cheeks but forced myself to sit straight, to meet their collective gaze.
"That's kind of you," said the elderly woman at the head table, her voice carefully polite. "But we usually like to know our volunteers."
"I'm Marshall." The words came out rougher than I'd intended. "I'm Annalise's... I'm the baby's father."
"Ah." The woman's expression cooled considerably, her lips pressing into a thin line. "Well. I suppose everyone deserves a chance to help their community."
It was a dismissal wrapped in politeness, and I felt the sting of it. But I also felt something else—a grudging respect. These people were protecting Annalise, the same way a pack should protect its Luna. The same way I should have protected her.
"I'd be honored to help," I said quietly. "If you'll have me."
The meeting continued around me, discussions of permit applications and vendor spaces, and volunteer schedules. I found myself assigned to the setup crew alongside Tom and a few other men who accepted my presence with polite resignation.
They were kind people, I realized as I listened to them plan their festival.
They genuinely cared about their community, about making sure everyone had a good time, about showcasing the best of what their town had to offer.
And they'd welcomed Annalise into that kindness without asking for anything in return.
The following Saturday, I was at the town square at 7:45 AM.
The festival setup was a flurry of organized chaos.
Locals bustled about with tool belts and coils of wire, their easy camaraderie a stark contrast to my isolated presence.
I was assigned to the heaviest and least glamorous job: assembling the wooden frames for the vendor stalls with Tom.
For the first two hours, we worked in near silence.
Tom was a man of few words and immense physical strength, for a human.
He showed me how to brace the timbers and sink the bolts, his movements economical and sure.
I followed his lead, my muscles burning with the unfamiliar strain of manual labor, the sweat dripping from my brow.
I didn't complain. I just worked, determined to prove I could be more than the arrogant alpha who’d stormed into their town.
During a water break, I leaned against a half-finished stall, catching my breath.
Across the square, I saw her. Annalise was sitting on a bench under a large oak tree with Rita and Mrs. Walker.
She wasn't lifting anything—Tom had won that argument—but she was directing a group of teenagers who were unfurling strings of lights, her expression animated and focused.
Then one of the girls told a joke, and Annalise threw her head back and laughed.
It was a sound I hadn't heard in years—a pure, unburdened peal of genuine joy.
It was so beautiful, it was like a knife in my gut.
“First time I heard that laugh was about a month ago,” a low voice said beside me.
I turned to find Tom standing there, holding out a bottle of water. I took it, my hand shaking slightly.
“Thank you,” I managed.
He didn't move away. He just stood there, his gaze fixed on Annalise. “When she first got here, she was a ghost. Thin as a rail, with these big, haunted eyes. She’d flinch if you spoke too loudly. Rita said some nights she’d just find her sitting in the kitchen staring at the wall, not even crying, just… gone.”
Every word was a nail in the coffin of the man I used to be. I thought I understood the pain I’d caused, but hearing it laid out so plainly, so clinically, was a new kind of torture.
That was us, Ranger whimpered in my mind. We did that to her. We broke our mate.
“We didn't know the whole story,” Tom continued, his voice a low rumble.
“Just that some bastard had hurt her bad enough to make her run thousands of miles.
She wouldn't talk about it. But you could see it.
She walked around like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, like she didn't believe anyone could be kind to her without wanting something in return.”
My throat was thick with shame. All I could do was nod, accepting the truth of his words.
“Rita fattened her up. Mrs. Walker got her reading again. She loves romance books. I just tried to make her feel safe,” Tom said, finally turning his piercing blue eyes on me.
“You see, Marshall, we are all neighbors here. Friends. Family. And when one of our own is hurting, we rally. We build a wall. We protect them.”
He took a step closer, and despite his calm demeanor, I felt the full, crushing weight of his disapproval. He was a human man who had stepped up to be the protector I had failed to be.
“The girl we see today, the one laughing over there… we all helped build her back up. Piece by piece.” His gaze was hard.
“You come in here now, all apologies and big promises. You have to understand what you’re asking.
You’re not just asking for her forgiveness.
You’re asking a whole town to trust you not to shatter something we all worked damn hard to put back together. ”
“I won’t,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I won’t hurt her ever again.”
Tom’s expression didn’t change. “That little boy she’s carrying… he’s going to have the best of her. He deserves a father who is worthy of that.” He paused, letting the statement hang in the air. “Are you worthy of that, son?”
The unexpected, fatherly term, so different from how my father would have said it, broke something in me.
“No,” I breathed. “But I want to be. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be.”
Tom watched me for a long, silent moment. I didn’t look away. I let him see the self-loathing, the regret, the desperate sincerity. Finally, he gave a slow, deliberate nod.
“Words are cheap,” he said, picking up his hammer.
“You don’t fix something this broken by saying sorry.
You fix it with time. And a hell of a lot of showing up.
” He clapped me once on the shoulder, a heavy, solid impact that was neither friendly nor hostile.
It was a statement - I’ve said my piece. The rest is on you.
“Back to work,” he said, turning back to the stall. “These things won’t build themselves.”
I watched him go, then took a long drink of water, the cool liquid doing nothing to quench the fire of shame in my gut.
I looked back over at Annalise. She was still smiling.
She was safe here. She was loved. These humans, with their simple, fierce loyalty, had given my mate the protection and family I, her fated mate and Alpha, had denied her.
I marveled at them, at their capacity to care for a stranger, to make her one of their own.
They were a better pack to her than her own pack had ever been. It was the most humbling realization of my life.