Chapter 22 Tessa
Tessa
The text comes Tuesday evening while I’m doing something I almost never do: absolutely nothing.
My to-do list is... done. Not “done for now” or “done enough to justify a bathroom break.” Actually done. Every vendor confirmed, every timeline locked, every backup plan in place. For the first time in possibly ever, I’m ahead of schedule.
I have Ben Wilson to thank for that. He’s been showing up at my office every day since Friday, crossing things off my list before I even have a chance to panic about them.
This morning he appeared with coffee and a blueberry muffin from Maeve’s, set them on my desk with a wink and a “Fuel for the boss lady,” and disappeared to go help a florist who was behind on their delivery.
He hasn’t kissed me. Not since the cabin. He flirts, he helps, he finds excuses to touch my shoulder or tuck a blanket around me when I fall asleep at my desk—but he hasn’t made a move. I’m starting to wonder if he’s waiting for something.
So now I’m sitting at my desk with my feet up, eating the muffin he left me and actually tasting it instead of inhaling it between crisis calls. The coffee is still warm. The afternoon light is golden through my window. I feel almost... peaceful.
It’s deeply unsettling.
My phone buzzes, and I grab it like a lifeline. Finally, something to do.
Elijah: Can you come to the workshop tonight? 7pm.
I stare at my phone. Elijah Smith has sent me approximately three text messages in the three years I’ve known him.
Two of them were about centerpiece dimensions.
One was a thumbs-up emoji when I confirmed delivery times for the heart vases he’d already finished and brought to my office two weeks ago.
Tessa: Everything okay?
The three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. Classic Elijah—choosing his words carefully even in text form.
Elijah: Yes. I’d like to make you dinner. If you’re free.
My stomach flips.
Ben showed up at my office Friday with muffins and car keys and that grin that makes me want to strangle him and kiss him in equal measure.
He’d crossed half my to-do list off before noon, made me laugh despite myself, and then told me to say yes when Milo asked me out.
Which I did. Saturday night at Bella Notte, candlelight and fire cheese and a kiss on an overlook that still makes my toes curl when I think about it.
And Elijah... Elijah has been waiting. Quietly. Patiently. The way he does everything.
I’ll wait.
I think about him standing in the cabin doorway, those steady golden-brown eyes holding mine while I ran away with Nate. Two words. That’s all he said. And somehow those two words have been rattling around in my head ever since.
Tessa: I’ll be there.
Elijah: Good.
That’s it. No emoji, no elaboration. Just good.
I spend way too long deciding what to wear, which is ridiculous because I’m going to a woodworking shop.
But this isn’t really about the shop, is it?
The blue dress from my date with Milo feels too formal.
Jeans and my ratty comfort sweater—the gray one with the hole in the sleeve that Milo somehow noticed—feel too casual for what this obviously is.
I settle on dark jeans that actually fit well and a soft cream sweater that’s nicer than my usual workwear. I leave my hair down because apparently that’s what I do now. Because when Milo tucked that strand behind my ear on Saturday night, something in me loosened and stayed that way.
God, I’m becoming one of those women. The ones who primp for dates and think about hair placement. Three weeks ago I would have judged me.
Three weeks ago I hadn’t spent four days in a cabin with three alphas who ruined me for normal life.
The drive to Elijah’s takes twelve minutes. I know because I time it, the same way I time everything, the same way I’ve organized my entire life into neat little boxes with schedules and contingency plans.
Except there’s no contingency plan for this. For three alphas who’ve somehow slipped past every wall I’ve built. For the way my body responds to their scents even without the suppressants. I still haven’t taken since the cabin. For the ache that isn’t heat—it’s just wanting.
Elijah’s workshop is glowing when I pull into the gravel driveway.
Not the usual overhead lights—something softer. Warmer. Golden and flickering through the windows, and my pulse picks up before I even cut the engine.
I park next to his truck and sit there for a moment, hands gripping the steering wheel.
The heater is blasting but I can already feel the cold creeping in through the windows, frost feathering at the edges of the glass.
The air inside my car still carries traces of Ben’s scent from when he drove it back to me—leather and musk, faint but present.
And underneath that, my own scent, which has been doing strange things lately.
More lavender than citrus. Softer. Like my body knows something my brain hasn’t caught up to yet.
This is Elijah. Quiet, steady, notices-everything Elijah who makes beautiful things with his hands and barely says ten words in a conversation.
The same Elijah who delivered thirty-six hand-carved heart vases to my office and caught me when I slipped on the ice.
Who took me to lunch at Maeve’s and lit up from the inside when he talked about wood grain and oil finishes.
The same Elijah who touched me during my heat like I was something precious. Who read my body without needing words. Who looked at me after, when I was coming back to myself, with an expression that made me feel seen in a way I’ve never felt before.
I get out of the car before I can overthink it any more.
The February air hits me like a slap—that cold that seeps straight through your coat and settles in your bones.
My boots crunch through the layer of snow covering the gravel driveway, and my breath fogs in front of my face.
The workshop doors are cracked open despite the temperature, warm air and golden light spilling out into the frozen night.
I can smell him already—cedarwood and honey cutting through the sharp scent of winter, rich and grounding, wrapping around me like coming home.
I push through the door and stop dead.
The warmth hits me first—a wall of heat after the biting cold outside. Then the smell: cedar and honey and woodsmoke and something savory. And then I actually look, and my breath catches.
He’s transformed the space.
The overhead fluorescents are off. Instead, candles are everywhere—pillar candles on the workbenches, tea lights lining the windowsills, a cluster of tapers on what I realize is a table set up in the center of the room.
Not a workbench pressed into service—an actual table, one of his pieces, the wooden legs gleaming warm in the candlelight.
It’s draped with a dark cloth and set with two places.
Real plates. Wine glasses. Cloth napkins folded into neat triangles.
The sawdust has been swept away, the floor clean enough that I don’t feel guilty about my snow-dusted boots.
A wood stove in the corner is putting out enough heat to make the space almost cozy, and the air smells like cedar and honey and something savory—food, actual food, warming on a camp stove he’s set up nearby.
And Elijah is standing by the table, watching me take it all in.
He’s wearing dark jeans and a forest green henley that makes his eyes look like warm whiskey in the candlelight.
His hair is damp, like he showered recently, and there’s no sawdust anywhere on him for once.
He looks—god, he looks good. He always looks good in that quiet, unassuming way of his, but tonight he looks like he’s trying. Like he wants to impress me.
Heat curls low in my stomach.
“You came,” he says.
“You asked.”
Something flickers across his face. Almost a smile. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Why not?”
He’s quiet for a moment, that careful consideration I’m learning to recognize. When he speaks, his voice is lower than usual. More vulnerable.
“Ben’s easier. Funny. Makes you laugh even when you want to strangle him. Milo’s smooth. Knows exactly what to say to make you blush.” He shrugs, a small movement. “I’m just... me. Quiet. Bad at words.”
Oh.
Oh, this man.
“Elijah.” I step closer, drawn to him despite myself. “You built a nesting bench that made me forget how to breathe. You carved thirty-six heart vases by hand—”
“Curly maple,” he interrupts, and there it is—that spark in his eyes when he talks about his craft. “The figuring in the grain. It catches the light like—”
“Like water,” I finish, remembering. “Like sunlight on water. You told me.”
He goes still. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything you’ve told me. It’s not a lot, but...” I stop a foot away from him, close enough to see the flecks of gold in his eyes, close enough that his scent is filling my lungs with every breath. “I’ve been paying attention, even when you thought I wasn’t.”
His throat works as he swallows. “Tessa—”
“You walked through a blizzard to rescue me. You said you’d wait, and you meant it.” I reach up—slowly, giving him time to pull away—and rest my palm against his chest. His heart is pounding. Fast and hard, just like mine. “You’re not justanything.”
He stares down at me for a long moment, candlelight flickering across his face. Then he reaches up and covers my hand with his, pressing it harder against his chest.
“Sit,” he says, his voice rough. “I made you dinner. Let me feed you before I do something stupid like kiss you before we’ve even had bread.”
A surprised laugh escapes me. “That would be tragic.”
“I made the bread this morning. It’s a good bread. It deserves to be eaten first.”
“Then by all means.” I let him lead me to the table. “Feed me your bread.”
His ears go pink at that, and I file it away as useful information. Quiet, stoic Elijah Smith blushes when I flirt with him. Good to know.
The meal is incredible.