Chapter 9 Knox #2
We shake hands again. He leaves me with a good impression—solid, reliable, not too eager.
Next is Jamie Cooper. Two years on the job, part-time.
She’s younger, maybe late twenties, with sun-streaked hair pulled back in a messy bun and an energy that doesn’t sit still.
She talks fast, about her patrol near the pier, about how she splits her time between the department and helping her dad at the bait shop.
“It’s a weird town sometimes,” she says, grinning. “You’ll see. People love their gossip more than their morning coffee.”
I make a note of that.
She leans forward, elbows on her knees. “I like the job, though. The people. They trust us, mostly. It’s a small department, but it works.”
“Any issues with coverage?” I ask.
She hesitates. “Sometimes on weekends. Ortiz handles most of the late-night calls. He knows everyone. Half the time, he talks them down before they even reach the station.”
I thank her and send her out with a promise to review patrol rotations.
Then comes Lucas Ortiz. Fourteen years in Driftwood’s department, the longest tenure here by far. He’s a big man, broad shoulders, silver streaking his dark hair. His uniform’s worn but neat, his badge polished to a mirror shine. He doesn’t need to prove anything.
“You’re the first new sheriff we’ve had in almost a decade,” he says as he takes the seat opposite me.
“Change makes people nervous,” I reply. “Including me.”
He laughs quietly. “You’ll be fine. Just don’t step on too many toes. People here like things familiar.”
“I’ve gathered that.”
He fills me in on the rhythm of the place—how the town slows in winter, how the pier floods every few months, how the old-timers still call the station to report raccoons in their trash cans. He’s sharp. Observant. The kind of man who reads people as easily as he reads a map.
When he leaves, I’m left with a desk full of notes and a rare feeling of calm. These are good people. Not perfect, but they care. They want this town to be safe. It’s a start.
I should feel better. I should feel grounded.
But instead, I feel the tension creeping back under my skin, crawling up the back of my neck.
By noon, the interviews are done. The station’s quiet again, the only sound the steady hum of the air conditioner and the faint scratch of my pen as I write up my report. My coffee’s gone cold. My chest feels tight.
I tell myself it’s just fatigue, leftover stress from the move. But it’s not that. I know what it is.
It’s her.
The scent of her still clings to me, faint but unmistakable, embedded into the fabric of my uniform like it’s been branded there. Vanilla and warmth, something floral and sweet underneath. It’s been hours and it’s still in my head, curling through my thoughts like smoke.
I’ve been an Alpha my whole life. I know what that means. The instincts. The triggers. The way scent can shift something chemical, biological, primal. It’s biology, not weakness. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
But I haven’t felt this out of control in years.
Amy never did this to me. With her, it was simple. Balanced. We could go months without a flare of instinct, without me even thinking about my designation. She calmed me. Softened the edges.
Maybe I got used to that.
Maybe I forgot what it means to feel like this—to have every sense sharpen, every nerve alive, just because of one person’s scent.
And that terrifies me.
I open my laptop and type pheromone blockers for Alphas into the search bar. The results load fast—medical suppliers, discreet services, local pharmacies. Most of them require prescriptions or on-site evaluations.
I click through pages, scanning. Temporary suppressants. Topical inhibitors. Emergency injection protocols.
None of it sounds like me. None of it sounds like control, either.
I lean back in the chair, rub the back of my neck. Boone Walker’s name flashes through my head—the on-call paramedic Gabe mentioned. Boone’s young, competent, trustworthy from what I’ve seen. He’d keep it confidential. Probably.
But Driftwood’s small. Too small. Word travels fast here. One house call, one curious neighbor, and suddenly the sheriff’s having “medical episodes.” That’s all it would take. A rumor. A whisper. And the job I’ve built my life around would unravel before it even started.
Still…
I can’t keep going like this.
Every time I think about her, my body reacts before my brain can catch up. Every time I catch the faintest hint of vanilla, my pulse jumps, my chest tightens, and I feel like a man half-feral. It’s been years since I’ve had to regulate myself like this.
I open another tab. Alpha hormonal regulation therapy at home options.
The search bar fills with quiet desperation. Suppressants, sprays, slow-release implants. All the ways to dull what I am.
It’s almost laughable.
The sheriff of Driftwood, sitting behind his desk in full uniform, looking up ways to keep from losing his mind over a twenty-year-old volunteer he should’ve never touched.
The thought makes me groan out loud. I close the laptop with more force than I mean to.
Jasmine pokes her head in from dispatch. “Everything good, Sheriff?”
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “Just paperwork.”
She nods and disappears again, the faint sound of the scanner following her.
I lean forward, elbows on the desk, head in my hands.
I can still see Millie’s face when she looked up at me in the car this morning—eyes red, voice trembling, the faint scent of salt and vanilla heavy in the air. I told myself I was helping her, that I was being kind.
But it wasn’t just kindness. I wanted to touch her. To comfort her. To breathe her in.
I’m supposed to be better than this.
If I don’t get this under control, I’ll spiral.
I know what that looks like. The late nights.
The sleeplessness. The agitation that turns into something worse.
I’ve seen it happen to other Alphas in the field—men who let their instincts run wild until the line between protection and possession blurred.
That won’t be me.
I glance down at my hands. They’re steady, but my pulse isn’t.
I stand, pace to the window. The street outside is calm. Ordinary. A couple of kids ride past on bikes. An older man waters his plants across the road.
It’s a good town. It deserves better than a sheriff who can’t get his instincts in check.
My reflection stares back at me from the glass. The pressed uniform. The badge. The man who should have everything under control.
I straighten my collar, forcing a slow breath.
If I can survive New York, I can survive this. I’ll find a way to dull it down, to regulate. Maybe it’ll fade with time. Maybe if I avoid her long enough, the scent will lose its pull.
That’s what I tell myself.
But when I close my eyes, I can still feel the ghost of her in my arms—the scent of her, the sound of her breath, the way my body answered hers like it had been waiting for that moment all along.
I press my palms flat against the desk, grounding myself in the solid feel of the wood.
It’s not weakness, I remind myself. It’s biology. Instinct. Nothing I can’t control.
But as the afternoon light slants across the office and her name lingers on the volunteer list at the corner of my desk, I know I’m lying to myself.
If I don’t find a solution soon—something to block this pull, to stop this chemical madness from taking over—I’ll end up crossing another line.
And I’m not in the position to put a girl over the interests of the whole town.