Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Emily
Standing on Grady’s porch first thing Monday morning is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.
He hadn’t responded to any of our texts over the weekend, which should be answer enough, but the stubbornness in me won’t let things fizzle out like this. I need to apologize, to beg his forgiveness, and to ask him to give me a second chance.
My hand shakes as I raise it and knock twice, wait three seconds, and knock again.
Nothing.
I step to the side to peer through the window. The front of the cabin is dark, but a light shines from the back hall. Is he ignoring me? Or could something have happened when he got back on Saturday?
I remember the way his knee had looked, locked up and in pain. Suddenly, images rise of Grady on the floor, unable to get up.
Could he have not been ignoring us and instead been unable to reach his phone?
Worried now, I grasp the handle, and it turns under my palm. Unlocked. The door swings inward on well-oiled hinges, and the scent of stale coffee hits me before I’m all the way inside.
A plate sits beside the sink with the crusted remains of food, and dirty mugs cluster on the kitchen counter, some with coffee still in them, and the coffeepot is on, burning a ring of sludge into the glass carafe. I unplug it before it causes permanent damage, or worse, catches fire.
“Grady?” I call out, heading for the back hallway. “Are you okay?”
Grady appears from inside the office, and I stop where I stand.
His usually trimmed beard is overgrown, and he still wears the same shirt from Saturday, though it’s now wrinkled past the point of having been slept in. The buttons are done up unevenly, and a stain covers the front.
“Emily?” He blinks blearily and hobbles forward.
His bad leg drags, the knee refusing to bend, and he braces one hand on the doorframe as he steps through. Bloodshot, hazel eyes meet mine, the skin beneath them hollowed and dark.
My chest caves in, and my legs fold, my knees hitting the hardwood floor hard enough, the impact jolting up through my thighs. “I’m sorry.”
Every detail drives the truth home. He’s wrecked, in so much pain he couldn’t look after himself, and tears well up.
“Grady, I’m so sorry.” Regret squeezes my throat tight. “I never should have let the Rut go so far without warning you. That’s all on me.”
His brow furrows, and his mouth opens. Closes. He takes a half-step forward before his knee buckles, and he catches himself on the wall.
Where is his cane? I want to leap forward, to support him, but I lost my right to touch him when I hurt him.
“You didn’t understand what was happening, and I couldn’t stop it to take care of you the way you deserve.
” My fingers dig into the denim of my jeans hard enough for my knuckles to ache with the pressure.
“I wanted to, though. Please believe that. The Rut doesn’t give a damn about anything except breeding and claiming, but that’s not an excuse. It is never an excuse to hurt you.”
He doesn’t react, only stares at me, and ice forms in my veins. It’s the same as the last time he saw me, caught deep in my cycle, and he was gasping on the bed while I couldn’t stop my own body from taking what it wanted.
“I promise you,” I say, daring to crawl forward. “I swear to you, it will never happen again. I don’t need to lock you. It’s not…I can hold back for you.”
His hand leaves the doorframe to reach toward me, but it stops halfway, suspended between us, and his fingers curl slowly inward. “Em, what are you doing?”
I stare up at him in confusion. “Apologizing.”
Grady shakes his head and reaches for me with both hands. “Please. Get off the floor.”
I don’t move. I can’t. Not until he forgives me.
Grady’s jaw sets, and he crouches to be on my level, his bad knee protesting with an audible pop. His breath hisses between his teeth. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
His hands find my elbows, and the contact melts the ice flowing through my heart. “Nothing, Emily. Do you understand me?”
That can’t be true. “But then why did you ignore me over the weekend? Every call. Every text. It’s been radio silence, Grady. If nothing was wrong, why weren’t you responding?”
His confusion returns. “What day is it?”
The question is so unexpected that I answer before I’ve processed it. “Monday.”
Disbelief slackens his lips, followed by dawning horror. “Oh.” His head turns toward the windows, as if only just realizing it’s morning. “Oh, god.”
He turns back to me, his hazel eyes clear now in a way they weren’t thirty seconds ago.
“I didn’t ignore you. Well, I did,” he corrects with a guilty grimace, “but I only meant to organize my thoughts for a minute. I swear I didn’t keep ignoring you on purpose. I just…”
He peers back toward the office. “I completely lost track of time. I have no idea how, but I—” He grimaces. “Can we move from the floor now? I need help standing.”
“Yes! I’m so sorry.” I scramble to stand and lift him by his arms.
He groans in pain and leans into me. “Just give me a second.”
“Take all the time you need.” My arms come around him, tugging him close.
Ink, coffee, and the stale odor of a body that hasn’t been outside in days cling to him, and it means everything that he’s letting me hold him again.
He sighs into my shoulder. “You’re so warm.”
My hand rubs up his back. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s not a complaint. I just realized how little I’ve slept.” He pulls back slowly. “I need to show you something.”
He takes my hand and uses the wall as support to draw me through the doorway into the office.
The room tells the story before he says a single word. Paper buries the walnut desk, a landslide of handwritten pages covering every inch of the surface, stacked in uneven piles and spilling onto the floor beside the chair. More dirty mugs peek out of the mess, and his laptop sits in the center.
Grady’s hand slips from mine, and he moves to the desk, sifting through the towers of paper, searching with the focus of someone who knows what he’s looking for is buried somewhere inside.
I spot the head of his cane from where it had fallen to the floor by the desk and not been picked back up, as if Grady had forgotten its very existence.
He finds what he’s searching for and lifts out a single half-sheet of paper, the bottom torn in a jagged line. He smooths it across the walnut surface with his palm. Ink stains his fingertips, blue and black smudged together from long hours of holding pens.
“This is where it started.” He traces his own handwriting. “Thursday night. I sat down to write you an apology, but it didn’t stay a letter for very long.”
He begins to read.
Emily,
I panicked. I needed air. I should have told you that before I left.
I focus on the way his lips wrap around the words as his free hand finds the edge of the desk to hold himself upright.
I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t explain it, and I couldn’t explain it because I was overwhelmed and panicking and didn’t want to mess things up.
And then I panicked some more because Leif and Jared knew what to do without hesitating, and I didn’t understand. They fit in the moment when I did not.
My breath catches, but I resist the urge to interrupt, to tell him how much he does belong, because this is what he needs.
As he reads on, he picks up other pieces of torn paper, and I hear how the letter shifts, how it becomes less about my Rut and more about the last year of our lives, about four people, each convinced they were the one who didn’t fit.
The one the others were humoring. The one whose presence required ongoing justification.
“And then they fit anyway,” Grady reads, his voice going quiet. “Imperfectly and completely and in a way that they could never fit with anyone else.”
He sets the page down, and his hand stays on it, fingers spread wide across the creased paper. Love shines in his eyes.
As I step forward, he nudges his laptop around, the screen coming back to life, and I read the first line.
They met on a path in the woods and shared a lunch meant for one.
But it was not the first time Grady had noticed Emily Wilson, whose silver hair shone like a star, even in the muted light of a rainy March morning.
He had seen her walking with her work crew, and he could not look away until she passed from view.
I read the lines that follow, scrolling down the page as I understand how these words had cost their creator sleep, food, the basic maintenance of a body that has been sitting in one position for days without complaint.
Finally, I look at him in wonder. “This is a book.”
Grady’s mouth quirks at one corner. “Seems to be.”
“You’re writing a story about us?”
“It’s only the first few chapters.” He gestures at the laptop and the stacks of paper. “I have a lot to organize.”
I step closer, my hand finding his waist. “You’re writing a book.”
“I’m writing a book,” he agrees, appearing flustered by the admission as his hand comes up to rest on my shoulder. “A certain person encouraged me to do so, and I thought this was a good place to start. I’m not sure what to call it yet.”
I lean down to nuzzle his cheek. “I’m so proud of you.”
A blush creeps into his cheeks. “You can read it when it’s done, if you want.”
“I want.” A purr starts up in my chest, and I want nothing more than to lay him out on the nearby sofa.
But we still have more to resolve between us.
With reluctance, I let him go. “We need to talk about Saturday night.”
“We do,” Grady says without the same hesitation. “I didn’t understand what was happening when your…lock? Is that right?”
I nod.
His blush returns. “When your lock engaged, the pressure was sudden and so intense that I tensed up, and my leg cramped up. When I couldn’t move, I panicked.
Not because of what you were doing, but because my body was telling me I was trapped, and my brain couldn’t separate the pain from what was happening. ”
He takes a shaky breath. “I am sorry I left without explaining. It was cowardly, and you deserved better.” His eyes find mine, steady and clear. “But I’m not forbidding you from ever locking me again. I just need to understand what to expect, and we need to account for my leg.”
“I understand,” I say, relieved he’s not rejecting me. “And I agree. Whatever you need.”
His eyebrows pinch together. “It didn’t happen the first time we were together, so is it only triggered during a Rut?”
“I pulled off before my lock engaged the first time,” I admit. “I knew you likely didn’t have experience with female Alphas, and the pressure… Your body isn’t built to accommodate it the way an Omega’s is. Male Alphas aren’t built for it, either, but Jared really enjoys…”
Now, it’s my turn to blush, and I clear my throat.
“I meant to explain it before we were in that situation again. We could have…with your fingers…to give you an idea…” I’ve never felt so flustered about sex talk in my entire life, so I skip ahead.
“But the Rut came when I wasn’t expecting it to, and I ran out of time. ”
Grady’s face crumples. “I’m so sorry for what that meant for you. It was obvious how much you wanted the baby.”
Renewed pain and disappointment flood my system, and my vision blurs, but I push it down. “I knew it was a long shot. Jared did, too.”
“Em, that doesn’t ease the hurt. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
“It hurts, but it will get better.” I swipe a hand over my eyes. “But now you’ve felt firsthand what it means to be with an Alpha, even if it wasn’t the way I planned. My body has demands that don’t always align with what my brain wants to give you.”
I force out the next words. “If you want to back out, I’ll understand. Being with another Beta would be simpler.”
He doesn’t answer right away, and the quiet stretches between us, measured in heartbeats. Emotion flickers across his face, consideration first, followed by resolve settling into the lines around his mouth.
“There’s something I should have told you before I left for Connecticut.”
I stiffen, but stay quiet, willing to listen to whatever he has to say, even if it means losing him.
“There was a female Beta in Connecticut. Caroline Bennett.” His lips thin at the memory.
“Our parents arranged a merger of their companies, which included a marriage.” His hand curls around the edge of the desk.
“She was lovely. Well trained. Competent. The arrangement would have been… manageable. Comfortable.”
I exhale through my nose. One long, controlled breath.
“But I didn’t want a safe Beta,” Grady continues. “I wanted a pack. And I still do. When I left, it ruined a lot for both of our families. For Caroline. But she wished me luck on my way out the door.”
“And nothing happened between you two,” I say, a question that isn’t a question.
“Nothing happened.” Grady reaches out to hook a finger in my belt and tugs me closer. “How could it, when I had a pack waiting back here for me, and an Alpha who wants to take care of me?”
My hands find the desk on either side of his hips. “Good.”
He peeks up at me. “I haven’t showered in days, and my knee is killing me. I don’t think I can manage on my own.”
A purr rumbles to life in my chest. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He leans in close. “And I’d like to find out what you planned to show me with my fingers.”
The purr turns to a growl, and I bend, scooping him up bridal style.
He wraps his arms around my neck. “Thank you, Alpha.”
“After we shower, I’m going to cook you some food,” I inform him as I carry him toward the master bedroom. “Afterward, you’re going to ice your knee before you sleep. Writing is no excuse to let your health decline.”
His head drops to my shoulder. “I won’t argue.”
“Good.” I step into his bedroom. “Because I wasn’t asking.”
He laughs, quiet and worn around the edges, and I know we’re going to be okay.