Chapter 3 #2
Of course it’s not personal. He probably helps out all the elderly neighbors. Grandma just happens to be one of them. The fact that she’s the grandmother of his ex is irrelevant. He’d be here either way.
“Still,” I manage. “I appreciate it.”
“Noted.”
He turns back to his shoveling.
Conversation over, apparently.
I stand there like an idiot. Still holding the coffee he didn’t take. Watching him work.
He’s not going to make this easy. He’s not going to give me anything. No opening, no crack in the armor, no sign that he feels even a fraction of the chaos currently ricocheting through my chest.
And it hits me. He’s not just being cold. He’s actively avoiding. Every answer short, clipped, designed to end the conversation. He hasn’t asked me a single question. Hasn’t given me any room to explain or apologize or even just... talk.
He’s shutting me out on purpose.
My pride is screaming at me to go inside, to stop embarrassing myself, to walk away with whatever dignity I have left.
But my feet don’t move.
“Nate.”
“You should go back inside.” He doesn’t turn around. “It’s cold. You’re not dressed for it.”
“I wanted to say...”
“There’s nothing to say.” Now he does turn. And for just a second, I see something flicker in those gray eyes. Something raw and quickly buried. “You made your choices. I made mine. We don’t need to rehash it.”
“I know. I just...”
“Cara.” My name in his mouth, finally, and it sounds like it costs him something. “Don’t.”
The word hangs between us.
Heavy with everything it’s holding back.
Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Don’t try to fix this.
Don’t make me feel things I’ve spent a decade trying to bury.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He nods and turns back to the driveway.
I take a step backward. Then another. The porch stairs are right behind me. I just need to turn around and climb them and go back inside and pretend this didn’t happen.
My foot hits a patch of ice.
I feel myself going. That horrible, stomach-dropping moment when gravity wins and there’s nothing you can do about it. The coffee cup flies out of my hand. My arms pinwheel uselessly. I’m going to hit the ground and it’s going to hurt and Nate is going to see the whole thing.
A hand catches my arm.
Strong fingers grip my bicep, yanking me upright, pulling me into something solid and warm. Suddenly I’m pressed against Nate’s chest, his other hand on my waist, pine and woodsmoke flooding my senses.
My whole body goes liquid.
It’s involuntary. Stupid omega biology recognizing alpha, recognizing her alpha, and responding before my brain can catch up. Heat pools low in my belly. My scent shifts, going sweeter, softer. I can feel it happening and I can’t stop it.
He’s warm.
Even through all the layers, even in the bitter February air, he’s warm, and my body remembers this. Remembers being held by him, remembers the way he always ran hot, remembers pressing my cold feet against his legs in bed and him grumbling but never pulling away.
This isn’t the first time he’s caught me.
Junior year. The rope swing at Miller’s Creek. I’m showing off, swinging too high, and the rope snaps. I’m falling.
Nate catches me before I hit the ground. I don’t even know how he moved that fast. One second he’s ten feet away, the next I’m in his arms and he’s holding me so tight I can barely breathe.
“You could have broken your neck,” he says. His voice is shaking. Nate’s voice never shakes.
“But I didn’t.” I’m laughing, adrenaline making me giddy. “You caught me.”
He doesn’t laugh. He’s looking at me like I almost died, like the world almost ended, and I realize he’s trembling. Nate Thorn, who never shows fear, who never loses control, is shaking because I almost fell.
“Hey.” I touch his face. “I’m okay. I’m right here.”
“You scared me.” He says it like a confession. Like it costs him something to admit.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He presses his forehead to mine. Closes his eyes. Just breathes for a moment, his arms still locked around me like he’s afraid to let go.
“I’ll always catch you.” His voice is rough. “You know that, right? No matter what. I’ll always catch you.”
“I know.”
“Promise me you’ll be more careful.”
“Nate—”
“Promise me, Cara.”
I kiss him instead of answering. Soft and slow, trying to put everything I feel into it. When I pull back, some of the tension has left his shoulders.
“I love you,” I whisper. “Even when you’re being overprotective and growly.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “I’m not growly.”
“You’re extremely growly. It’s very alpha of you.”
“Someone has to keep you from killing yourself on rope swings.”
“My hero.” I kiss his nose. “Take me home?”
He carries me the whole way back to the truck, even though I can walk perfectly fine. And when I complain, he just holds me tighter and says, “Let me have this.”
So I let him.
That was Nate. Intense and protective and terrible at saying what he felt, but so, so good at showing it. He loved with actions. With shoveled driveways and caught falls and arms that never wanted to let go.
Our eyes meet.
His are wide. Shocked. Like he didn’t mean to catch me, like his body moved before his brain could stop it.
I’ll always catch you.
He kept that promise. Even now. Even after everything.
This close, I can see the flecks of darker gray in his irises. Can see the slight part of his lips. Can feel his breath fog between us.
For one endless second, neither of us moves.
His hand is still on my waist. I can feel the heat of his palm through my coat, through my sweater, like a brand. My own hands have landed on his chest, when did that happen, and I can feel his heart pounding under my palms.
Fast.
Too fast for someone who’s supposed to be unaffected.
He’s close enough that I can see the individual snowflakes caught in his dark hair. Close enough to count the faint freckles across his nose that I’d forgotten about. Close enough that if I tilted my chin up, just slightly...
His breath catches. I hear it. A tiny hitch, almost imperceptible, but I’m close enough to feel the stutter in his chest.
He’s not unaffected.
The realization hits me like a second fall, just as disorienting. He’s standing here with his walls up and his face blank, but his heart is racing and his hand is trembling against my waist and he smells like he’s barely holding himself together.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
Just for a heartbeat. So fast I almost miss it.
His scent spikes. Darker. Hungrier. I feel his fingers tighten on my waist, feel a low rumble start in his chest. Alpha instinct, responding to omega. To his omega.
Then his jaw tightens and his expression shutters, and he steps back so fast I stumble again.
“Careful.” His voice is rough. Strained. “The ice is slippery.”
“I... thank you...”
“Be more careful, Ms. Donovan.”
Ms. Donovan. Again. Like a door slamming shut.
He bends down, picks up the coffee cup that somehow didn’t break, and holds it out to me. His hand is steady. His face is blank.
“Thanks for the coffee.”
“You didn’t drink any of it.”
“No.” A pause. “I didn’t.”
He turns around, grabs his shovel, and walks to his truck without looking back.
I watch him toss the shovel in the bed, climb into the cab, and pull out of the driveway with the careful precision of someone who absolutely does not speed, even when they’re fleeing an emotional confrontation.
The taillights disappear around the corner.
I’m still standing on the porch. Cold coffee dripping down my hand. My arm tingling where he grabbed me.
The front door opens behind me.
“Well.” Grandma’s voice is bone dry. “That looked productive.”
“He called me ‘Ms. Donovan.’“ I don’t turn around. “Twice.”
“Ouch.”
“He didn’t even take the coffee.”
“To be fair, most of it’s on the ground now.”
I look down. She’s right. The snow at my feet is stained brown, steam still rising from the puddle.
“He caught me.” I’m staring at the empty driveway. “When I slipped. He caught me.”
Grandma is silent for a moment.
“Of course he did. Nate Thorn has been catching things that fall since he was six years old. It’s what he does.”
“But he looked...” I stop, not sure how to describe what I saw in his eyes. That flash of something raw before he locked it down.
“Cara, honey.” Grandma’s hand lands on my shoulder. Gentle and warm. “That went better than you think it did.”
“He called me Ms. Donovan. Twice. And walked away.”
“He also caught you before you hit the ground.” She squeezes my shoulder. “That man has had ten years to build walls. They’re not coming down in one morning. But you made a crack.” She pauses. “Come inside. Your lips are turning blue.”
She heads back in, leaving me standing on the porch for a moment longer.
The driveway is empty. Perfectly cleared. Every inch of snow removed, every step salted.
The work of an alpha who’s been doing this for a decade. Storm after storm. Whether I was here or not.
I follow her into the warmth of the kitchen.
My arm is still tingling where his fingers gripped me. I can still smell pine and woodsmoke clinging to my sweater from that brief moment when I was pressed against his chest.
I’ll always catch you.
He kept that promise. Even after everything I did. His body still moved to protect me before his brain could stop it.
That has to mean something. Right?
“Oh, and Cara?” Grandma calls from the living room.
“Yeah?”
“You might want to change your sweater before you go anywhere. You smell like pine trees and desperation.”
I look down at my sweater. The one I pressed against Nate’s chest.
She’s right. I absolutely reek of him. His scent all over me, mixed with mine, broadcasting to anyone with a functioning nose that I was just in the arms of an alpha.
In a town full of people who know exactly whose scent that is.
Great. Just great.
But as I head upstairs to change, I’m not thinking about the embarrassment. I’m thinking about the way Nate’s heart raced under my palms. The way his scent spiked when he looked at my mouth. The way his body moved to catch me before his brain could stop it.
He can call me Ms. Donovan all he wants. He can walk away every time I try to talk to him.
But he still caught me.
And that means some part of him still cares. Even if he doesn’t want to.
Nate Thorn isn’t going to make this easy. Neither are the others.
But I didn’t survive ten years of guilt just to run away again. I owe them the truth. And if they’re going to avoid me, then I’m just going to have to get creative.
I can do this. I can be brave.
Probably.