Chapter 18 Nate
Nate
Iwake up to honey and citrus.
It takes me a moment to place where I am. Unfamiliar ceiling. Thin motel curtains letting in gray morning light. And warmth—so much warmth—pressed against my side.
Cara.
Sometime in the night, we drifted together. My arm is around her, her head on my chest, her hand curled against my ribs like she’s holding on. Like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
I should move. Should extract myself carefully, put distance between us, rebuild the walls I’ve spent ten years constructing.
I don’t.
Her scent is everywhere. Honey and citrus, but sweeter than I remember. Richer. It fills my lungs with every breath, and I want to purr, want to pull her closer and never let her leave this bed.
She’s beautiful like this. Face soft with sleep, lips slightly parted, dark hair spilling across my chest. The tension she carries when she’s awake is gone. She looks young. Peaceful.
She looks like she did ten years ago, the last time I held her.
My chest aches.
I’ve spent a decade trying to forget this. Trying to convince myself I was better off without her. That what we had was just kids playing at love, that it wouldn’t have lasted anyway, that the ache would eventually fade.
It never did.
And now she’s here, in my arms, and I’m terrified.
Because wanting her is easy. Wanting her is the most natural thing in the world. But trusting her? Believing she won’t leave again?
That’s the part I don’t know how to do.
She stirs against me. A small sound, almost a sigh, and then she’s blinking awake, her eyes finding mine.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
“Morning,” she whispers.
“Morning.”
She doesn’t pull away. Neither do I.
“We ended up...” She glances down at our tangled position, her cheeks flushing pink.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“I know.”
Silence. Her hand is still on my chest, right over my heart. She has to feel how fast it’s beating.
“Nate.”
“We should get moving.” I force myself to sit up, to break the contact. My body protests the loss of her warmth. “Long drive ahead.”
She watches me for a moment, her expression careful. Then she nods and slides out of bed, heading for the bathroom without another word.
I sit there in the empty bed that still smells like her and try to remember how to breathe.
The drive to LA is easier than yesterday.
Something shifted between us last night. I don’t know how to name it, but the silence isn’t heavy anymore. It’s comfortable. Natural. She keeps the window cracked and the wind plays with her hair, and I have to force myself to watch the road instead of her.
She tells me about her books. Not the spicy parts—thank god, I’ve heard enough of that from Theo’s dramatic readings—but the process. How she builds worlds and characters. How she writes for six hours straight some days and can’t squeeze out a single word on others.
“The hardest part is the middle,” she says, gesturing with a gas station coffee cup. “You know where you’re starting and where you’re going, but the middle is just... endless.”
“Sounds like police work.”
She laughs. “Really?”
“Start with a crime, end with an arrest. Everything in between is paperwork and dead ends.”
“That’s depressing.”
“That’s accurate.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then turns to look at me. “Do you like it? Being a deputy?”
No one’s asked me that in years. I think about it—really think about it—before answering.
“I like helping people. I like knowing the town is safe because I’m out there.” I tap my fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t love the paperwork. Or the politics. Or the drunks on Saturday nights who think they can take a swing at me.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Often enough.” I shrug. “Liam usually handles the worst of it. He’s better at talking people down.”
“And you’re better at...?”
“Scaring them into compliance.”
She grins. “The stoic deputy routine.”
“It’s not a routine.”
“Sure it isn’t.” She’s still grinning. “You’ve been practicing that glare since high school.”
“It’s a natural gift.”
She laughs again, and the sound settles somewhere in my chest. Warm. Dangerous.
I tell her about Seth and his anxiety, about how he’s one of the best deputies I’ve ever worked with but can’t seem to believe it himself.
She asks questions, real questions, and actually listens to the answers.
I tell her about my brother Liam and how he’s been on my case lately about “opening up more.”
She laughs at that. “Liam’s not wrong, you know.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I said don’t start.”
But I’m almost smiling, and she knows it.
We stop for gas and bad coffee. She buys me a breakfast burrito without asking if I want one, and I eat it because she’s watching with that hopeful look on her face. When she gets mustard on her chin and doesn’t notice, I almost reach over to wipe it away.
Almost.
By the time we hit the LA sprawl, we’re almost talking like we used to. Almost. The traffic is brutal—nothing like Honeyridge Falls, where rush hour means three cars at the only stop sign—and she navigates us through it with the ease of someone who’s done it a thousand times.
This is her life. This city, this apartment we’re driving to, the career she built here. She made a whole existence without me. Without us.
The thought shouldn’t sting as much as it does.
The ache in my chest hasn’t gone away. If anything, it’s worse. Because every smile, every laugh, every brush of her fingers when she hands me something—it all reminds me what I lost. What I’m terrified to want again.
“Turn left here,” she says, pointing. “It’s the building on the corner. Third floor.”
I find parking and cut the engine. The apartment building is nice—nicer than I expected. Clean lines, modern architecture, palm trees lining the sidewalk. Very LA.
Very not Honeyridge Falls.
“You ready?” she asks.
No. I’m not ready for any of this.
“Let’s go.”
Her apartment is small but bright. Big windows, white walls, books everywhere—stacked on shelves, piled on the coffee table, shoved in corners.
Coffee cups on the counter. A laptop buried under notebooks.
It smells like her—warm and sweet with something underneath that makes me pace restlessly, makes my skin feel too tight.
“Sorry about the mess,” she says, though it’s not really messy. Just lived-in. “I didn’t exactly plan this move.”
“It’s fine.”
A sound from the bedroom makes me turn. A large orange tabby appears in the doorway, assessing me with suspicious green eyes.
“That’s Mr. Darcy,” Cara says. “Don’t take it personally if he ignores you. He hates everyone.”
The cat stares at me for a long moment. Then he walks directly to my feet and starts rubbing against my legs, purring loud enough to hear across the room.
Cara’s mouth falls open. “What the hell?”
I crouch down and scratch behind his ears. He leans into it, purring louder.
“He doesn’t do that,” Cara says. “He’s never done that. He hid under the bed for three weeks when I first got him.”
“Maybe he has good taste.”
She laughs, surprised, and I realize I’m almost smiling.
Mr. Darcy follows me around for the rest of the afternoon. Every time I move to a new room, he’s right there, winding between my ankles, jumping onto whatever surface brings him closest to me. When I sit down to tape a box, he climbs into my lap and refuses to move.
“This is unprecedented,” Cara says, watching us with a look I can’t quite read. “You’ve broken my cat.”
“He’s not broken. He just knows quality when he sees it.”
“Oh my god.” She throws a roll of tape at me. “You’re impossible.”
But she’s smiling. And I’m smiling. And for a moment, I forget to be afraid.
The apartment comes apart faster than I expected.
Cara is efficient—she’s clearly been thinking about this for a while. She knows exactly what she wants to keep and what can go. The furniture stays. Most of the books come with us. Clothes, photos, a few boxes of things that matter.
I find myself studying the space as we work. Looking for clues, I guess. Evidence of the life she built without me.
There are photos on the wall—her at book signings, her with people I don’t recognize, her alone on a beach somewhere that isn’t Montana. She looks happy in most of them. Successful. Put together.
But there are no photos with anyone close. No pack. No alphas. Just her, always her, surrounded by strangers and smiling like it doesn’t hurt.
“That was my first signing,” she says, catching me looking. “Fifty people showed up. I cried in the bathroom for twenty minutes beforehand.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“I’m a good actress.” She pulls a book off the shelf, considers it, adds it to the ‘keep’ pile. “You have to be, in that world. Everyone wants the confident author who has her life together. Not the mess who still dreams about home.”
I don’t know what to say to that. So I don’t say anything. Just tape another box and pretend my chest doesn’t ache.
Mr. Darcy has abandoned all pretense of cat dignity. He’s currently draped across my shoulders like a furry scarf, purring so loud it’s almost a vibration.
“I still can’t believe this,” Cara says, staring at us. “He bit the last person who tried to pet him.”
“Maybe he knows I’m good with animals.” I adjust Mr. Darcy’s weight on my shoulders. “Comes with the territory. Lot of lost dogs and livestock calls in Honeyridge.”
“You rescue lost dogs?”
“Someone has to.”
“This one is a menace who knocked a full glass of red wine onto my laptop last month.” She narrows her eyes at the cat. “Don’t let him fool you.”
Mr. Darcy blinks at me slowly, the picture of innocence.
“Can you grab the stuff in the hall closet?” she asks, taping shut another box of books. “Top shelf. Should be a few shoe boxes with old papers and things.”
“Sure.”