Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
ETHAN
I don’t move as the bar resettles around me, waiting until everyone slowly loses interest in the mess I just created. Fuck, I shouldn’t have punched him. Not Jake Brown. The asshole has a reputation for a reason—namely the brutal assault charge that got him put behind bars a couple years ago.
What the hell is he even doing here? Dad hadn’t mentioned he’d gotten out. Maybe the news hadn’t traveled through the Millers yet. Though John not knowing about someone getting out doesn’t sound quite right. He’s Chief of Police, and he’s damn good at his job. He keeps tabs on most of the people that might be coming up for parole.
I shake away the thoughts and breathe deeply, trying to find whatever calm center I might possess.
“Thank you,” Brielle whispers.
“You all right?” I ask. I don’t manage to get the gruff, possessive rage entirely out of my voice, but I don’t bother to apologize for it. It was clear enough how I feel about her.
She shrugs, her hand still clamped around a small glass tumbler half-full of a pink cocktail. Her other is hiding where the bastard grabbed her. If he fucking bruised her?
I swallow down the growl that wants to rip through me. The last thing I need is to hunt down Jake Brown and give him another piece of my mind.
Instead, I grab the seat the jerk had ignored and swing it to rest beside her. Our knees just barely brush as I settle into it. Her breath catches, and she finally flicks those gorgeous brown eyes up to look at me.
Fuck, I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.
“About last week…” Brielle starts.
I accidentally talk at the same time, right over the top of her. “I’ve been in Jackson.”
She pauses, letting her half-started sentence fall away. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear without showing the spot Jake grabbed her. After a minute, she clears her throat.
“Jackson?” she asks. “Beau said you guys were finishing moving cattle that needed to be bred again.”
A flash of jealousy tightens my mouth. She must have swung by the barn after I’d already left for Jackson.
“We have been. But I left just before lunch.”
“Oh.” Her reply is nearly swallowed by the music pulsing through the bar.
“I went to Jackson for this,” I say.
I pull the small envelope from where I’ve had it stashed in my back pocket and set it on the table between us. Her eyes drop to it and then her face pales, even the few freckles dusting her cheeks lightening. Even without looking at the information, it’s clear she knows what it is. I suppose that makes sense since Caleb had the same blood work done last month—nearly to the day.
When she doesn’t say anything, I force a swallow and try to come up with my own words.
“I’m shit at this. You’d think being ten years older would help, but it hasn’t,” I admit. “And it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to. I just…” I sigh and mess with my hat, readjusting it, then run a hand over my beard.
Her gaze slowly rises from the paperwork she’s yet to touch.
“Why do you have tattoos of the Arch and Lovers’ Meadow?” she asks.
The question comes out of left field, and it takes me a second to figure out what she’s even talking about. She’d noticed my sleeves? When had she gotten close enough, looked at me long enough?
Clearing my throat, I roll the sleeves of my shirt to my elbows, high enough to expose the full tattoo of Bluebird View that runs up the outside edge of my left forearm. Her eyes drink them in, every color and line that is an unspoken homage to what I threw away a decade ago but could never truly get over.
There’s a couple for Kayla, too, intermixed, like the dove Caleb and I both have. And there’s one of a small blue finch on my upper bicep for Camden. But most of them? Most of them are hers and hers alone.
She’s unabashedly staring at the artwork.
“Ask it, Brielle,” I say gruffly, needing to get to whatever that look means for this whole chasm between us. Ten years is a long time, and I’m not a naive bastard to think that the scent match confirmation sitting untouched between us will be enough to build something across it. We’ve both lived, both continued on, and that makes this just that much messier.
“Why the West barn?” she asks, her eyes locked on my right forearm.
I glance down at it, too. The red has faded over the years, but it just makes the piece feel more like the real building. It’s one of the few reminders of it now, too, since Melissa had it torn down when she sold all the cattle and converted Misty Mountain to a recreational ranch. Now the spot where it stood is open pasture between administrative buildings for the ranch’s guests.
I wonder if it bothers Brielle that the place she lost her virginity is gone. It bothered me for a long time, and I’m not wired to be the same level of sentimental that Omegas are.
I bring my eyes back to hers, and my breath catches in my throat. Her eyes pierce me, an understanding in them that wasn’t there before.
“You know why,” I murmur.
Her throat ripples as she swallows. The silence lengthens between us. I’m a breath away from saying something—anything—to make this whole part move faster. She grabs the envelope and pulls the information out without breaking my gaze. It’s not until she has the information spread out in front of her that she glances down at it.
A mix of emotions crosses her face too fast for me to read all of them—but the worry is easy enough to see. She breathes deeply, and her eyes flutter closed. She swallows again. I spread my legs, my body deciding now is the perfect time to respond to her.
“I’m Matchless,” she whispers without opening her eyes. “I haven’t looked into if the scent matches are enough to overturn it.”
Jealousy burns anew in my stomach, and this time I don’t quell it.
That Beta asshole got this from her, too? The closest a Beta can come to making an Omega theirs without an Alpha intervening. A permanent classification—at least until that Omega figured out that scent matches were a thing. Now there’s a process for overturning it, at least in theory.
“All right.” My voice is surprisingly level. With a sigh, I ease to my feet and adjust my hat again. “Like I said, it doesn’t need to mean anything. But I wanted to give you the information before the Council sends you some kind of notification.”
I turn toward the door.
“Ethan.”
Her voice stops me just as completely as the hand she wraps around my wrist.
“Do you want it to mean nothing?” she asks.
My gaze skims over her, drinking her in, every small detail that’s the same and yet different. The silky brown hair, the soulful brown eyes, the tanned skin that’s grown even more golden since she moved here.
The perusal stops on the just-forming bruises from that asshole. I force down the protective rage, the need to feel that fucker’s bones break under my fist.
Do I want her? God, yes. I want her.
To myself—and to her—I’m done denying it. Do I want the scent match to mean nothing? No.
I shake my head, not sure my voice will work.
She stands and closes the distance between us. It’s automatic to palm her waist. Her breath hitches for a heartbeat, and my body grows unbearably hot and tight. Mint bleeds out from me, filling the space around us, between us. Her nostrils flare.
“I don’t want it to mean nothing, either,” she whispers.
I cradle her cheek and pull her body into me until every single line of hers molds to mine. Fuck, even the way we line up is perfect. Her lips part, and her pulse ticks in her throat.
“Whatever you want, princess,” I mutter.
And then I cover her mouth with mine.