Knot Her Beta (Pack Alphas of Pinecrest Harbor #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Emily

“Come on, it has to be here somewhere.”

The receipt has to be in this stack on my desk. I’ve turned over three piles of contractor invoices, two material estimates, and what appears to be a hand-drawn sketch of a deck railing that I have no memory of drawing, but still nothing.

The office is cold enough that the chill seeps through my flannel shirt, the February morning pressing in through the single window above the desk.

From the kitchen comes the sound of cabinet doors opening and closing, the kettle filling at the tap, and Jared humming a tuneless melody that still fills me with a flush of happiness every single morning since he moved in.

As I drag another stack toward me, rifling through it from the bottom, my fingers catch on a manila folder, thicker than it should be for where it’s sitting, buried beneath a stack of paint chip samples and a hardware order confirmation. The label reads:

Petition for Expulsion from the Lavender Sky Pack.

My hand freezes.

The paperwork is almost a year and a half old, the edges soft from being handled too many times and then ignored just as many. I don’t know how it ended up in the office pile. It usually lives in the filing cabinet, wedged behind the tax returns, where I don’t have to think about it.

Knowing I shouldn’t, I open it.

The name catches me the same way it always does now, with a pull of embarrassment rather than grief.

Lavender Sky Pack.

I’d thought it was romantic when Auren first suggested it. He had this way of tilting his head whenever an idea excited him, his pale purple hair sliding forward over one shoulder, his amethyst eyes wide and bright.

Anything seemed plausible when he looked at you like that. I’d signed the registration form in a coffee shop on a Tuesday morning, convinced I’d made a promise that would last forever.

I was twenty-two. I should have known better.

Naming a pack after someone’s hair color isn’t romantic. It’s a sign that the person doing the naming has never once thought about anyone but themselves.

I flip to the second page, which shows the original sponsorship.

My old superintendent at Harris and Burton Construction had put his signature on that line. He was a blunt, practical man who didn’t believe in pack registration as a general rule, but he’d made the exception for Auren, who he believed was too fragile to survive alone.

What a fool I’d been.

The registration fee wiped out my savings account. The cottage followed, two years of brutal overtime and weekend call-outs, a down payment scraped together through sheer stubbornness to please my Omega while Auren spent every spare dime on trinkets. He even spent dimes we didn’t have.

I was still recovering from that whole mess.

“Em?” Jared calls from the kitchen. “Coffee and breakfast sandwiches are ready. Did you find that receipt?”

I close the folder, shove it beneath the paint samples in one motion, and spot the elusive receipt I’d come in here for in the first place.

It had been under the corner of my keyboard the whole time, half tucked beneath the mouse pad.

I hold it up as he appears in the doorway. “Found it.”

He leans on the frame, already dressed for the docks in his heavy canvas jacket, his sea-glass eyes taking me in. “The water taxi will be waiting for us.”

I fold the receipt and tuck it into the billing folder where it belongs, smoothing the edge down flat. It belongs to a small job I completed in town, repairing twenty feet of fence along the north side of a property near the harbor.

It was a weekend’s worth of labor, and once I send out the invoice to be paid, it will shore up my savings account.

Jared sets my travel mug on the corner of the desk, and I wrap both hands around it, taking the first sip.

Cinnamon. He always does the cinnamon thing for me.

Jared leans down, and I turn my face up without thinking, the motion as easy as breathing now. His lips find mine, his hand warm on my jaw, and the scent of salt air and driftwood rises from him.

I flatten my palm over his chest, feeling his heartbeat steady beneath my fingers.

This is what I spent the last half a year trying to remember was possible.

He pulls back an inch. “Ready to head out?”

“Just give me a minute, and I’ll meet you at the truck,” I say.

The corner of his mouth curves. “I’ll get the cab warmed up for you.”

When he disappears, I study the billing folder in my hands, the receipt tucked inside. Then I take in the desk, the crammed surface of invoices and estimates, and the small carved paperweight that Leif made in my workshop back in October, which I keep meaning to put away and keep not putting away.

The cottage is mine. Paid for by my own hands, built from money that nobody gave me, and nobody can it take away.

I pick up my pen and start filling out the invoice.

Jared takes the curves in the road with one hand on the wheel, the other on the gear shift, and the greasy waxed paper from his breakfast sandwich on the bench between us.

Outside the window, the February trees stand bare and gray beneath a sky the color of old pewter, the undersides of the clouds bruised with the possibility of rain or sleet.

The docks appear below us as we crest the hill, the harbor stretching out in a wash of cold silver light. Fishing boats and pleasure crafts sit at their moorings, their hulls rocking in the gentle swell. The water taxi idles at the main dock, Kyle’s silhouette visible at the helm.

Jared curses under his breath. “Kyle’s going to give me an earful.”

“We’re not late,” I point out.

Jared pulls into the lot and cuts the engine. “Get out of the truck, woman, before we are.”

I arch one eyebrow at him. “Do I need to remind you who your Alpha is?”

He leans across the bench seat. “Do I need to remind you who your Alpha is?”

Touché. He’s gaining more and more confidence every day.

He smirks. “Keep giving me that look, and we’re going to be very late.”

Warmth stains my cheeks, and I climb out of the truck, gravel crunching beneath my boots. As I gather my tool bag, I scan the parking lot, searching for a head of mauve hair before I catch myself.

Leif lives on the island now. The Omega isn’t here, waiting for the morning boat to arrive.

Instead, my crew mills near the gangway, hard hats under arms and tool bags in hand as they grumble about the earliness of the hour. Jared veers off toward the helm, and Kyle breaks into an easy grin when he spots his cousin.

“About time.” Kyle steps out of the covered area to clasp Jared’s hand. “Thought you were going to keep me waiting.”

“We’re two minutes early.” Jared pulls him in for a shoulder-knock. “Your watch is wrong.”

“My watch is never wrong.” Kyle tips his scally cap, the brim catching the thin morning light while the saltwater and coconut of his cologne drift my way. “Morning, Em.”

“Kyle,” I greet him. “How are the tides?”

“Cooperative.” He jerks his chin toward the gangway. “She’s fueled and ready.”

I step aboard and nearly walk into one of my crew, a big man with tan lines around his eyes despite the winter gloom.

“Got a minute to talk cabinet finishes?” He falls into step beside me as we find space near the starboard rail. “The supplier came back with the wrong door profiles on that final cabinet order.”

“What did they send?”

“Shaker fronts instead of the flat panel we spec’d.”

“Send me the invoice number, and I’ll call them today. Shaker’s a nicer finish if they’ll give them to us for the cost of our original order.”

He grunts in agreement. “They probably have too much stock and are trying to offload it under our noses.”

“Then they can pay for the exchange.” I take a sip of my coffee. “I’ll let you know before first break how to move forward.”

He steps back to rejoin the others.

The water taxi pushes away from the dock, and Kyle guides us through the harbor mouth with practiced ease. The chop outside the bay hits us in short, cold slaps, the spray catching the light.

My crew settles in, conversations overlapping about sub-contractors and concrete cure times while the island grows from a dark smudge on the horizon into solid rocks and evergreens.

The dock at Misty Pines extends out over the calmer water of the protected cove as we approach. The trees crowd the shoreline, massive Douglas firs that dwarf everything around them.

Four figures stand waiting at the end of the dock.

Sprinkles catches my attention first, the giant black Newfoundland sitting at the end of the gangway.

Quinn stands beside him in a yellow coat, clutching her Uncle Blake’s hand.

The tall Alpha has to stoop a little, the dark bun on top of his head tilting off-center.

And beside them, Leif stands with his hands in the pockets of his gray jacket.

My pulse skips on the next beat.

I focus on the dock railing, giving the grain of the wood and the rust-stained bolt at the nearest post all my attention.

The water taxi bumps the dock, and Kyle ties off at the bow. The gangway connects with a clang.

Jared appears at my elbow, and I turn toward him without thinking. His hands cup my face, and he plants a firm kiss on my mouth in full view of the entire crew.

From behind me come loud whistles, and someone shouts, “Get a room, boss!”

“All right, enough,” I say, pulling back. I raise my voice without turning. “Get your gear and get up the path.”

They go, the dock filling with the clatter of boots and tools, but the catcalls keep coming as they walk up the gangway, loud enough for me to easily hear.

I swat Jared’s arm. “You did that on purpose.”

“Little bit.” He gives me an unrepentant grin and falls in with Kyle to help secure the gangway.

I’m still smiling as I disembark and almost fall over at the impact of a small body slamming into me at full force.

I brace myself, catching Quinn as she wraps her arms around my legs. Sprinkles bounds up behind her with an excited bark, his tail working double time.

I pat her between the shoulder blades. “Morning, princess.”