Knot Over You (Honeyridge Falls #5)

Chapter 1

Cara

Iwrite spicy romance for a living. Happy endings, groveling heroes, the whole fantasy.

So it’s extra pathetic that I’m white-knuckling through a Montana snowstorm to help my grandmother while pretending I’m not terrified of running into the three alphas I ghosted a decade ago.

The irony isn’t lost on me. My last book had a hero who crossed an ocean to win back his omega. Very romantic. Very swoony. Very much not the same as slowly stopping answering your boyfriends’ calls until they got the message and stopped trying.

Boyfriends. Plural. Three of them.

My pack.

Well. They were my pack.

My Honda groans at another icy patch. Same, girl.

We’re both California creatures, made for palm trees and traffic and temperatures that don’t make your bones ache.

The heater’s wheezing lukewarm air, and the windshield wipers have fully surrendered to the fat, lazy snowflakes assaulting my windshield.

I cranked my suppressants to maximum dose this morning. Double-checked the bottle before I left. My scent should be locked down tight. Nothing but neutral omega with a hint of my usual honey-citrus.

My body hasn’t gotten that memo.

There’s a low hum under my skin that’s been building since I crossed the Montana border. Some deep awareness that knows where I’m headed and what’s waiting there. I keep catching whiffs of my own scent turning sharp with anxiety, cutting through the suppressants like they’re tissue paper.

Great. I smell like honey-lemon panic.

The welcome sign looms through the white haze. Welcome to Honeyridge Falls - Where Every Season Feels Like Home.

I laugh. Slightly unhinged. Home. Right. Home is supposed to be warm and welcoming, not the place where you have to dodge three extremely hot alphas you definitely cannot face while pretending you’re a functional adult who makes good decisions.

I am not a functional adult who makes good decisions.

Exhibit A: this entire trip.

Exhibit B: every book I’ve ever written.

Exhibit C: the fact that I can still remember exactly how each of them smelled, tasted, felt. And my body is already responding to the mere proximity of this town like a homing beacon activating after years of dormancy.

My phone buzzes. Mom.

Are you there yet? Grandma’s been asking every five minutes.

I don’t respond. My available options are “this was a catastrophic mistake,” “is it too late to drive to Canada,” and “why did I think I could do this.”

None seem helpful.

Main Street materializes through the snow, and against every survival instinct screaming at me to keep driving, I pull into a parking spot outside The Honey Crumb.

Coffee first. Emotional breakdown later.

The bell chimes when I walk in, and the smell hits me like a warm hug I didn’t ask for. Cinnamon and sugar and fresh bread. Exactly the same as when I used to camp in the corner booth pretending to do homework while Maeve snuck me extra cookies.

My shoulders drop. Tension easing despite my best efforts to stay wound up.

Baked goods. Warmth. Safety.

For one stupid second, I let myself feel like I belong here.

Then Maeve Bennett looks up from behind the counter.

She’s in her sixties now, silver hair pulled back in a soft bun, flour dusted across her apron. Same warm eyes. Same knowing expression. Same woman who always seemed to understand more than she let on.

Her nose twitches, scenting the air, and her eyes go wide.

“Cara Donovan.” Not a question. An identification. “Well. Look what the snowstorm dragged in.”

Every head in the bakery turns toward me.

Fantastic.

This is Honeyridge Falls, where The Honey Crumb is basically the town’s living room, and I’ve just walked in trailing ten years of gossip potential and a scent that’s probably screaming anxiety despite my industrial-strength suppressants.

I count six faces I vaguely recognize. All staring. Expressions ranging from surprised to delighted to oh, this is going to be good.

“Hi, Maeve.” My voice comes out steady. Minor miracle. “I was hoping for a coffee?”

“You can get a coffee.” She’s still studying me with those knowing eyes. I’d bet my royalty check she can smell the stress underneath my suppressant mask. “You can also give an explanation for why I’m seeing you for the first time in a decade, but I suspect the coffee’s easier.”

A woman at the counter leans forward with obvious relish. Mrs. Peterson. God. Mrs. Peterson who brought casseroles to every neighborhood event and collected gossip like some people collect stamps.

“Cara! I didn’t know you were coming back to town. Are you visiting? Is everything alright? How long are you staying?”

Three questions in one breath. I’d forgotten how efficient small-town interrogation could be.

“I’m here to help my grandmother for a while.” I attempt a smile that hopefully doesn’t look as manic as it feels. “She needed some company.”

“Eileen?” Mrs. Peterson’s eyebrows climb toward her hairline. “I just saw her at book club Tuesday. Seemed perfectly fine to me. Beat us all at cards and told Frank Morrison his political opinions were, and I quote, ‘older than his prostate problems.’“

That sounds like Grandma.

Which means my mother’s “she needs help” story is looking more like a convenient fiction designed to guilt me into coming back.

I’m going to kill her. Right after I survive this ambush.

Maeve sets a cup under the espresso machine without asking what I want. A minute later, she slides a vanilla latte with cinnamon across the counter.

Just how I used to order it.

“On the house.” Her voice softens. “You look like you need it.”

“Maeve, you don’t have to—”

“I know.” She shrugs. “Consider it a welcome back. Even if you’re not staying.”

I wrap my hands around the cup, letting the warmth seep into my frozen fingers. “Thank you.”

“Mm-hmm.” She leans against the counter, arms folded.

I recognize that posture. She’s about to drop something on me and wants a front-row seat to my reaction.

“You know, people in this town notice things. They talk.”

My shoulders tense. Here it comes.

“They notice when a certain romance author writes books that seem awfully familiar.” She pauses, letting that land. “Pack dynamics that feel very... authentic.”

My stomach drops through the floor.

“I don’t know what you—”

“Scarlett Monroe.” Maeve’s smile goes full Cheshire cat. “I’ve read them all. Recommended them to the whole book club. Eileen’s personal favorites, actually.”

I’m going to melt into a puddle of mortification and seep through the cracks in the hardwood.

My grandmother reads my books.

My grandmother reads my books about the three alphas I ghosted.

My grandmother has read detailed descriptions of the fictional versions of real men I actually slept with. Men who are currently living in this town. Men whose bodies I know intimately and have been writing about for a decade.

“How did you—”

“Your mother told Eileen, Eileen told me, I told the book club.” Maeve pats my hand, utterly unrepentant. “Don’t worry, honey. We all think it’s wonderful. Very creative. Very detailed.”

Behind me, Mrs. Peterson gasps.

“Wait, Cara writes those books? Oh my.” She actually fans herself. “The alpha in book two, the quiet, intense one? I always thought he seemed familiar. Those gray eyes...”

She trails off meaningfully.

I want to sink into the earth and never resurface.

Because she’s talking about Nate. She’s talking about the character I based on Nate, the one who pins the omega against the wall in chapter eight and doesn’t let her come until she begs. And Mrs. Peterson knows.

Now every person in this bakery is going to mentally cast my ex-boyfriends in my sex scenes.

This is worse than the nightmare where I show up to a book signing naked. This is the nightmare where everyone I’ve ever known has already read exactly what I want done to me and by whom.

And they’re not even fictional wants. They’re memories. Embellished, sure. Extended, definitely. But rooted in two years of actually being with them, actually knowing their bodies, actually—

Nope. Not going there in the middle of a bakery.

“I should go.” I’m backing toward the door before I consciously decide to move. “Grandma’s expecting me. Thank you for the coffee. Lovely seeing everyone.”

Maeve’s laughter follows me out into the snow.

Grandma’s yellow house sits at the end of Maple Drive, cheerful and stubborn against the gray sky. Smoke curls from the chimney. The porch still has that ridiculous welcome mat from my childhood: The Queen Is In.

I pull into the driveway, kill the engine, and sit there.

Deep breaths. You can do this. It’s just Grandma. Grandma who apparently reads your smut. Grandma who knows which real-life alphas inspired your fictional ones. Grandma who—

The front door swings open.

“Are you planning to freeze to death in your car, or are you coming inside?”

Eileen Donovan, seventy-five years old and sharp as a tack, stands on the porch in a hand-knitted cardigan and fuzzy slippers. Her white hair is pinned up in its usual messy bun. Her eyes, the same dark brown I see in the mirror every day, are sparkling with amusement.

“Coming inside,” I manage, grabbing my bag.

The cold hits me the second I open the door. Montana cold. The kind that makes your nostrils stick together and your lungs burn. I hustle up the walkway, freshly shoveled I notice, and let Grandma pull me into a hug that smells like lavender and sugar cookies.

“Look at you.” She holds me at arm’s length, studying my face. “California made you soft. You’re shivering like a chihuahua.”

Grandma practically raised me while my parents chased jobs across three continents. They finally settled in New York a few years back, but this yellow house is the only home I’ve ever really known.

“Hello to you too, Grandma.”

“Don’t you ‘hello to you too’ me.” She tugs me inside. “I’ve been waiting three hours. Your mother said you’d be here by four.”

“I stopped at The Honey Crumb.”

“Ah.” Her eyes sharpen. “So you’ve talked to Maeve.”