Chapter 1 #2
“She mentioned something about a book club.”
“Did she.” Grandma’s poker face is flawless. “Can’t imagine what she meant by that.”
“Grandma.”
“What? I’m an old woman. I like to read. Is that a crime?”
“You read my books.”
“Bestselling books.” She pats my cheek. “Very proud of you, sweetheart. Very detailed prose. You must have done a lot of... research.”
I cover my face with my hands. “Please stop.”
“I’m just saying, the scene in book three where the landscaper alpha uses his hands to—”
“GRANDMA.”
“What?” She’s grinning now. Full-on grinning. “It’s good writing. Very evocative.”
“I’m leaving. I’m turning around and driving back to California.”
“No you’re not.” She steers me toward the kitchen. “You’re going to sit down, drink some tea, and tell me why you’re really here. Your mother’s ‘Grandma needs help’ excuse was cute, but we both know I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“You’re seventy-five.”
“And I still beat Frank Morrison at poker every Tuesday and shovel my own driveway.” She pauses. “Well. Nate shovels my driveway. But I could if I wanted to.”
I freeze.
“Nate?”
“Nate Thorn. Deputy now, did you know? He comes by after every storm. Very helpful.” She’s watching me too carefully. “Theo still tends my garden. And Lucas, Dr. Price now, makes house calls to check on us old folks.”
She says it casually. Like it’s nothing.
Like she hasn’t just told me that all three of my ex-boyfriends have been taking care of her for the past ten years.
“They’re good boys,” she continues, pouring hot water into a teapot. “Grown into good men. They live together now, you know. Bought that old farmhouse on Miller Road. Fixed it up themselves.”
“They live together?”
“Mmhm. The three of them.” She sets two cups on the table. “Never did find another omega. I always wondered about that.”
There’s a very specific note in her voice. A note that says I know exactly why they never found another omega and so do you.
“Grandma—”
“I’m not meddling.” She holds up her hands. “Just... informing. In case you were curious.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Of course not.” She pats my hand. “Now. Your room’s all made up. Same as always. Go put your things away, and I’ll start dinner.”
My room. My childhood room. The one with the window seat where I used to curl up with books. The one where three teenage alphas used to climb in through the window because Grandma had a strict “no boys past ten pm” rule and they couldn’t stand to leave.
The one where I started writing my first romance novel at sixteen, basing the heroes on the three boys who made me feel like the center of the universe.
“Thanks, Grandma.”
She waves me off. “Go on. You look like you need a minute.”
I do need a minute. I need several minutes.
I need approximately ten years’ worth of minutes to process the fact that I’m back in Honeyridge Falls, the book club knows about my books, Mrs. Peterson is about to tell everyone else, and my ex-boyfriends have apparently been taking care of my grandmother this whole time like some kind of long-term devotion I absolutely do not deserve.
My room is exactly the same.
Same lavender walls. Same white furniture. Same quilt my grandmother made when I was twelve. Same window seat with the cushion that’s slightly flattened from years of sitting.
I drop my bag on the bed and look around.
There are photos on the dresser. Old ones. Me at sixteen, braces freshly off, grinning at the camera. Me at prom, junior prom, sandwiched between Theo and Nate in their rented tuxes while Lucas took the picture. Me at graduation, cap askew, laughing at something off-camera.
I pick up the prom photo.
God, we were so young. Theo with his floppy hair and easy grin. Nate already brooding and intense, even at seventeen. Both of them looking at me like I hung the moon.
Lucas took this picture. Then he handed the camera to someone else and joined us for the next one. The four of us, pack complete, ready to take on the world.
I set the photo down carefully.
That was a lifetime ago. Before college. Before I left. Before I slowly, systematically destroyed everything we had because I was too scared to admit I was drowning.
There’s a box in my closet. I know without looking what’s inside. More photos, old notes, a pressed flower from the first bouquet Theo ever gave me. I should probably throw it out. I should probably have thrown it out years ago.
Instead, I pull it out and sit on the floor like a masochist.
The first photo is from sophomore year. Me and Theo in his mom’s garden, dirt on our knees, both of us laughing at something I can’t remember. I’m holding a trowel like a weapon. He’s got a smudge of soil on his nose.
That was the day I realized I was in love with him. Not a crush. Not a passing thing. Real, terrifying, all-consuming love.
Then came Lucas. Junior year, study partners turned something more. He’d explain calculus while I pretended to listen, mostly just watching the way his hands moved when he talked, the way he’d push his glasses up when he was concentrating.
And Nate. Nate, who barely spoke to anyone but somehow always ended up next to me. Who wrote me notes in class instead of saying things out loud. Who kissed me for the first time behind the bleachers and then couldn’t look me in the eye for a week.
Three alphas. Three very different people. And somehow, impossibly, we worked.
I dig deeper into the box.
There’s a note in Lucas’s neat handwriting: You’re distracting me from organic chemistry. Very inconsiderate. Also, you look beautiful. Also, stop distracting me.
The date on it is from that last spring. Two weeks later, I got the scholarship letter—full ride, across the country, too good to turn down. Back when we still thought distance was the only obstacle we’d face.
The plan was long distance. Calls every night, visits when we could, Lucas starting college on a pre-med track while I started mine across the country, Theo and Nate holding down the fort in Honeyridge. We’d make it work. We were pack. Distance couldn’t change that.
The first month, I called every day. Texted constantly. Cried into my pillow every night because I missed them so much it felt like a physical wound.
But college was overwhelming. New people, new pressures, new everything. I was homesick and struggling and terrified of failing, and every time I talked to them, I felt the pull to just give up and go home. Be their omega. Let them take care of me.
And that scared me more than anything.
So I called a little less. Answered texts a little slower. Told myself I was just busy, just adjusting, just needed some space to figure out who I was outside of them.
The calls became weekly. Then monthly. Then...
Then I stopped answering altogether.
I told myself I’d call tomorrow. Next week. After midterms. But the longer I waited, the harder it got. What was I supposed to say? Sorry I’ve been ignoring you for months, I was too scared to admit I’m drowning?
Every day I didn’t reach out made the next day harder. The shame piled up until it felt insurmountable. I’d ruined it. I’d broken us.
And I was too much of a coward to face what I’d done.
So I just... didn’t.
At the bottom of the box, there’s the note from Lucas. The date on it mocks me.
I shove the lid back on, stuff the box in the closet, close the door like that’ll contain anything.
My phone buzzes. My agent.
Book 7. Six weeks. NO EXTENSIONS. Your readers are feral.
Right. The book. The one about a woman who returns to her hometown and faces the three alphas she—
I bark out a laugh. Borders on hysterical.
I plotted this book three months ago. Before I knew I was coming back. My subconscious has been processing my life through fiction for a decade, and I’m only now catching up.
I’m still laughing, the kind that means you’ve completely lost the plot of your own story, when headlights sweep across my window.
I freeze.
It’s past eight. Snow falling thick and silent. Grandma didn’t mention expecting anyone.
A truck pulls into the driveway. Big, practical, the kind that belongs to someone who works with their hands.
My heart slams against my ribs before my brain catches up.
I know that truck. It’s newer than the one from high school, but I know it the way you know things written into your bones.
The driver’s door opens.
He’s bigger than I remember. Broader through the shoulders. The lean teenage boy grown into a solid man. He moves the same way though. Easy and unhurried. Comfortable in his own skin in a way I’ve never managed.
And then the wind shifts.
His scent hits me through the crack in the old window frame, and my whole body goes tight.
Sun-warmed earth and honeysuckle. Rich and golden even in the dead of winter.
It cuts through me. Warmth flooding my chest, breath catching, hands suddenly unsteady on the windowsill. Ten years of carefully constructed distance, and one whiff of Theo Holt’s scent has my pulse racing like I’m eighteen again.
I grip the sill. Try to steady myself.
It’s just a scent. It doesn’t mean anything.
My body doesn’t believe that. My body remembers what that scent means. Remembers falling asleep wrapped in it, remembers tasting it on his skin, remembers the way it would deepen and go rich when he was turned on and pressed against me in the dark.
He’s carrying a casserole dish. One of Grandma’s, being returned in person.
Because that’s who Theo is. The kind of man who returns dishes himself. Tends gardens for ten years without being asked. Does thoughtful things because it never occurs to him not to.
The kind of man I didn’t deserve then and definitely don’t deserve now.
He walks toward the porch, and then he stops.
His head tilts slightly. Nostrils flaring.
He can smell me.
Even through the glass, even through the snow, he’s caught my scent. I watch his shoulders go rigid, watch his easy stride falter, watch him look up—right at my window—like he knew where to find me.
The porch light catches his face.
Sandy brown hair a little darker than I remember, still falling across his forehead.
Jaw sharper now, cheekbones more defined, the softness of youth carved away into something devastating.
And those warm hazel eyes, the ones I used to get lost in, going wide as they find me standing at the window like a ghost.
We stare at each other.
Snow falls between us. Thick and silent.
I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Can’t do anything except stand here while a decade of carefully buried feelings claws its way back to the surface.
Emotions flicker across his features. Surprise, something that looks almost like hunger, then something tired and cautious before he locks it down. Not walls, exactly. More like... resignation. Like he’s been waiting for this and is exhausted by the fact that it’s finally happening.
He gives me a single nod.
Just a nod.
No smile. No wave. None of the sunny warmth that used to pour off him. Polite acknowledgment, like I’m anyone. Like I’m nobody.
Like I didn’t break his heart.
He sets the casserole dish on the porch railing, turns around, and walks back to his truck without looking back.
I watch his taillights disappear into the storm, my hand pressed flat against the cold glass like I could somehow reach through it.
Ten years.
Ten years, and Theo Holt can still take me apart with a single look.
Below me, the front door opens and closes.
“Cara, honey?” Grandma’s voice is carefully neutral. “That was Theo. Returning my baking dish.”
I don’t answer. I’m not sure I can.
“He knows you’re here now.” A pause. Heavy with meaning. “I imagine the other two will know by morning.”
Her footsteps retreat toward the kitchen.
I sink onto the edge of my childhood bed and press my palms against my eyes.
So. Here’s where I am.
Theo Holt is somehow even more gorgeous than he was at eighteen. His scent still makes me feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. He looked at me like I was a stranger, which I’ve earned, and my stupid heart is still pounding five minutes later.
Tomorrow, Lucas and Nate will know I’m back.
Tomorrow, the whole town will be buzzing about the Donovan girl who finally came home.
Tomorrow, I’ll have to figure out how to exist in the same zip code as three men who I used to love. Who I probably still love, if I’m being honest with myself. Which I try to avoid whenever possible.
But tonight?
Tonight, I lie back on my childhood bed and stare at the ceiling and accept the truth I’ve been outrunning for ten years.
I never stopped wanting them.
And I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do about it.