Chapter 21
twenty-one
STETSON
The house was too damn quiet.
I stood at the edge of the kitchen, a beer in my hand, and listened to the absolute lack of chaos.
Wyatt and Sunny were out by the paddocks with Gideon and Colt, looking at the new foal that was born before their bedtime.
Boone was out checking the cattle. River and Ransom were in town picking up supplies.
And Julia… she was in her makeshift workshop, working with her latest haul of little white flowers.
Meanwhile, I was just here… trying to figure out why everything felt so off.
For the last three days, the Double T had felt like a ticking bomb wrapped in a soft, domestic blanket.
We’d eaten dinners together. We’d sat on the porch.
I’d watched Julia laugh with my son, her dark hair catching the porch light, her scent neutralized by the ghost flower lotion she’d been obsessively testing and perfecting.
And though I should’ve been happy, content, even, my chest had been locked in a downward spiral of dread the entire time.
I knew this feeling. Knew the specific weight of something good that was about to vanish.
It was the deep breath before the water pulled back from the shoreline.
Wyatt’s mother had seemed perfectly happy the week before she packed her bags and left us in her dust, and it was all I’d been able to dwell on these past few days.
Especially because Julia wasn’t perfectly happy.
Ever since our day in town, the confrontation with Miller, and that text message she’d received, she’d been pulling away.
Maybe not physically, but in the spaces between words.
She spent hours in her workroom, her body language withdrawn, her usual witty sarcasm replaced by a distracted, miles-away, agreeable hum.
On Tuesday, she’d locked herself in the sun porch for four hours.
Wednesday, she’d taken a call in the bedroom with the door shut and came out with red-rimmed eyes she’d blamed on allergies.
Thursday night, she’d smiled at me across the dinner table, and every drop of blood in my body went cold.
Because I’d seen that smile before. The polite, pleasant, everything-is-fine smile that doesn’t reach the eyes.
Then there were the phone calls Julia didn’t explain and the fast-paced production she’d ramped up on her product line.
I should be supportive, and I would’ve been if my Alpha instincts weren’t scratching at the back of my mind, reading the shift as a glaring, neon exit sign.
She’s leaving. I set the cold beer on the granite island, the ceramic clinking loudly in the emptiness. I needed to see her, to lay eyes on her and reassure myself that the worst wasn’t happening.
I headed toward the porch where Julia had been working. The door was cracked open a few inches, and I reached for it automatically, then paused before my fingers touched the handle.
“I’m not willing to force it, Chaddrick,” Julia’s voice drifted through the gap. It was clipped, hard, and devoid of the warmth she usually saved for my packmates. “No. I won’t bond. It’s not an option. You know they deserve better. I won’t use them like that.”
The air in my lungs turned to ice. My hand dropped slowly to my side.
Her pacing cast shifting shadows through the gap in the door, but she hadn’t seen me yet.
“I don’t care if an Omega has never done this before,” she continued, her voice dropping into a harsh whisper.
“You are the Director and in case you’ve forgotten, you owe me.
Find a loophole. I need to separate myself from the Double T.
Draw up whatever paperwork you have to, Chaddrick, but do it quickly. I am not tying them to this.”
The words hit my chest like a physical blow, cracking my ribs and splintering right into my heart.
She didn’t want to bond. Hell, she wanted to separate from the Double T.
It was exactly what my terrified instincts had been screaming for days. Julia wasn’t just pulling away, she was actively planning her exit strategy. And she was willing to cash in whatever favors and connections she had to do it.
Worse, she’d done it behind our backs, ruthlessly planning to blindside our pack. She had lived under our roof, eaten our food, made everyone fall in love with her, all while quietly counting down the days until her independence was legally finalized.
I had no idea how she’d done it. How she’d found a way to claim the freedom the world denied Omegas, even while we were killing ourselves trying to make sure she never felt trapped with us.
How she’d let us believe she was settling in, let us believe she was choosing us, while some part of her had been preparing to leave all along.
A sharp beep signaled the end of the call, and silence fell over the porch, leaving me bereft and angry.
I pushed the door open, uncaring that it hit the wall on the other side in my haste.
Julia stood behind the table, her laptop open alongside a cluttered mess of glass jars and dried ghost flowers.
She startled at the noise, her eyes widening as she caught sight of me.
For a fraction of a second, shock—and what looked exactly like guilt—flashed across her features before her flawless composure smothered it.
“Stetson,” she breathed, my name unnaturally smooth on her tongue.
I didn’t yell. Didn’t posture. Didn’t bare my teeth. The fury had gone somewhere colder by the time I stepped onto the porch. I stopped a few feet away from her, calm in that detached way I got when the wound had to wait because the fallout needed handling first.
“You’re leaving,” I stated. It wasn’t a question. I had just heard the confirmation with my own ears.
She blinked, a confused furrow appearing between her brows. “What? No, Stetson, I was just—”
“Having papers drawn up,” I interrupted, my voice a low, gravelly rasp that sounded detached from my own body. “Making sure your name isn’t legally tied to ours. Using Chaddrick Hurst to fast-track your exit because you ‘don’t want to bond.’“
Her face paled, any color she’d had dropping away.
She opened her mouth, the pieces of the overheard conversation clearly clicking together in her mind, but I didn’t give her the space to spin a defense.
I had spent years building an iron-clad fortress around my family to prevent this kind of pain from touching us again, and I had foolishly handed her the keys.
“You used us,” I said, the devastation in my tone far worse than any shout. “You let us believe you were building something here while you were making damn sure you could walk away from it. And I was stupid enough to let you play house with my kids.”
Julia flinched, physically stepping back. “Stetson, you’re not listening. I didn’t want the pack—”
“Exactly. You didn’t want us. You’re no better than Wyatt’s mother,” I cut her off, the betrayal turning my blood to battery acid. “Just another flight risk killing time until your bags are packed.”
The words were vicious and ugly. I knew that before I’d spat them at her, but I hadn’t stopped the venom. I braced myself, waiting for the dramatic retreat, the defensive backpedaling, or the cold confirmation of my worst fears.
For exactly one heartbeat, I thought I’d actually delivered a kill shot. The blood drained from her cheeks, leaving her looking fragile and impossibly small against the backdrop of the sun porch.
Something sick turned over inside me. For days, my Alpha had been running hot, half-feral with the threat of losing her. But the second I saw the devastation hit her face, all that territorial panic turned on me.
Protect her.
The instinct landed too late because…
I was the threat.
I was the thing hurting her.
My chest seized, the air turning to lead in my lungs. I wanted to step forward, take the words back, drag them out of the space between us and pull her into me until the color came back to her face. But before I could move, the pale shock vanished, replaced by a flush of total, blinding fury.
Julia didn’t shrink away. She came around the table and closed the distance between us until she stood toe-to-toe with me.
She had to crane her neck to meet my gaze, but the sheer force of her presence made her feel ten feet tall.
Then her anger hit me. Every inch of her was trembling with fury that not even her specialized lotion could contain.
The searing tang of burnt sugar slammed into my senses, scalding the back of my throat.
“You,” she hissed, her voice vibrating with pure rage, “are a complete and utter idiot, Stetson Tate.”
She lifted her hand and shoved her index finger hard against the center of my chest, poking the exact spot over my sternum where the ache was deepest.
“You think you’re the only one who gets to be protective?
” she demanded, stepping into my personal space until I was forced to look straight down into her blazing eyes.
The Cristenello steel she usually shrouded herself in incinerated, giving way to the untamed burn of her fire.
“You think you’re the only one allowed to take on the heavy lifting for this family? I was trying to protect you!”
She shoved my chest again, her finger digging into my muscle, forcing me to take a half-step backward to keep my balance.
“I need an LLC to file the legal paperwork for my company. I needed it yesterday because my best friend in the world is getting ready to make a huge mistake, all because of me. And the only way an Omega like me gets a business license under the current laws is if one of their bonded Alphas signs for it!”
My jaw went slack. The defensive ice in my veins didn’t just melt, it turned into lead.
“I wasn’t trying to leave!” she yelled, throwing her hands up in absolute exasperation.
“I was fighting Chaddrick tooth and nail to get an exemption because I refused to use my bond to this pack as a cheap legal transaction!”
My brain completely stalled. The ground dropped out from under my boots.
Because I refused to use my bond to this pack as a cheap legal transaction.
Oh, fuck.
“I’m falling for you, you giant, stubborn jerk,” she snapped, her voice finally cracking as her eyes filled, bright and wet with unshed tears. “And you’re so busy worrying about non-existent exits that you can’t even see I’m trying to build the damn house with you!”
Before I could form a single word, before I could drag air into my paralyzed lungs to process the earth-shattering reality of what she had just confessed, Julia stepped back.
She didn’t give me the satisfaction of a dramatic exit or the slam of a door I could stand outside of and atone for.
Instead, she turned away from me, snatched the thick blanket off the back of her chair, and walked straight out the sunroom’s back door into the cold evening air without another word.
The door clapped shut behind her. Through the glass, I watched her silhouette cut across the yard, past the garden, past the fence line, that blanket clutched against her chest. She never once looked back.
She just walked, shoulders set, heading for the grove until the cottonwood trees stole my sight of her.
And that was worse than any slammed door. A locked door meant she was still in the house. Angry, but present.
But she’d walked out. Exactly the way I’d accused her of planning to do.
I stood frozen, staring blindly at the dark yard through the glass long after there was nothing left to see. The burnt-sugar scent of her distress lingered heavily in the air, wrapping around my throat like a vice while the echo of I’m falling for you rang deafeningly in my ears.
The realization hit with the force of a runaway freight train. She wasn’t the flight risk. She wasn’t the one tearing us apart. It was me. I had just taken a sledgehammer to the very family I’d been trying so damn hard to protect.