Chapter 20 Knox
Knox
Icheck the picnic basket for the third time, even though I already know everything’s there.
All the finger foods are packed tight. I’ve got the cut fruit resting on top of the sliced cheese wedges. The crackers are slid safely to the side, buffered by the granola bars and a couple pastries I picked up from Tansy’s bakery last night after work.
I’ve got a hot Thermos of water to make us some tea to sip on, I’ve got napkins and paper plates, and I’ve got the blankets and pillows piled in my truck. I even packed an extra hoodie of mine, just in case she needs it.
I’m ready to woo my Omega.
After hauling everything out to my truck and closing the tailgate, I lean my hands on it for a second. There’s a buzz beneath my skin, an anticipation I’ve never felt before in my life. The Alpha inside of me paces like a caged animal, ready and waiting for her scent to fill me up again.
I’d give anything to fill her up on that blanket.
“No,” I murmur to myself as I push off the truck and dig my keys out of the pocket of my jeans. “We get to know her first. We claim later.”
A rumble of disapproval rattles my chest.
I need to think about something else. Anything else. Anything other than the fact that I’m needlessly jealous that my pack knows what my Omega feels like, but I don’t.
“It’ll come with time,” I tell myself as I climb behind the wheel of my truck. “She just needs time.”
And I need her.
So, if time is what she needs, then that’s what she’ll get.
After cranking my truck and getting it all nice and warm, I check the time. Almost a quarter to six in the morning. I don’t have long before I need to be picking her up. I pull my phone out of my pocket and open up our messages, sending her a quick one.
Knox: On my way, Sunshine.
My chest tightens as her response comes right on the heels of mine.
Lia: I’ll be outside waiting for you.
Waiting.
For me.
Another low growl slips out of my throat before I can stop it. I scrub a hand over my face and laugh under my breath like I didn’t just react like a caveman. Too late, though. My Alpha side is preening, clutching onto that one simple sentence like it’s a promise.
She’s waiting for me.
“Let’s get on the road, then,” I mutter to myself.
By the time I pull up in front of her place, the stars are just beginning to fade away. I see a shadow move out onto the sidewalk in front of her temporary apartment building, and just like that, there she is.
Her hair is pulled back in a low ponytail. That beautiful body of hers is wrapped in a light jacket that does nothing to discourage me from staring, her legs hidden beneath a full-length skirt.
She looks like she stepped right out of a daydream, basking beneath the early-morning sky like that.
But what gets me is the smile on her face when she nears my truck.
Time to show her I can be a gentleman.
“Morning, Sunshine,” I say as I hop out from behind the wheel.
“Morning,” she replies, voice still sleepy-soft. “You’re right on time.”
“Couldn’t risk being late,” I say, opening the passenger door for her. I toss her a wink. “The sunrise waits for no one.”
She laughs as she climbs in. “Such a gentleman.”
My chest rumbles at her words.
Good.
This is going very well so far for the twenty seconds we’ve interacted.
Though I still have time to muck it up.
Can’t do that.
I shut the door and circle back to the driver’s seat, feeling like I’m walking a foot above the pavement. It isn’t long before we’re back on the road, headed toward the mountain that overlooks Honeysuckle Grove from the west.
“This spot I’m taking you to? I found it not too long after I hitchhiked into Honeysuckle Grove.”
“Oh?” she asks as her gaze turns to the profile of my face. “How old were you when you got here?”
“It wasn’t too long after I turned eighteen.” I rest my hand on my thigh, keeping my other hand on the wheel. “I knew from a very young age that living in the big city wasn’t for me. Too many sights and smells. Too many memories.”
When she goes silent on me, I peer over at her, only to catch her staring at my hand. She quickly looks back toward the window at the world outside, and I act like I didn’t see her staring at it. I take a chance, though.
I slip my hand from my thigh to her knee, wondering if she’s wanting my touch.
Shockingly enough, I feel her relax.
That’s my Sunshine.
“It’s okay to ask questions, if you’re curious,” I say, urging her to talk about whatever’s on her mind.
I want her to want to get to know me.
I want her to know it’s okay to ask the hard questions.
“I still can’t believe you lived on the streets,” she says softly. “I can’t believe the system didn’t take better care of you than that.”
I chuckle as I keep my eyes on the road.
“To be fair, I didn’t let them do a lot of helping.
I was an angry kid. And being an angry boy in the foster care system really limits your options.
It completely eliminates being adopted. I’m lucky enough that I found myself in a foster home that didn’t really care about what I did with my time. ”
She shakes her head. “That’s so wrong. I’m so sorry, Knox.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining,” I say, taking a left off the two-lane road heading into town. “A couple of days after I hitchhiked into Honeysuckle Grove, I bartered my way into my first job with Bea, at the bowling alley.”
Her head whips back toward me. “You did? What did she need?”
I peek over at her before paying attention to the road again.
“She lives not too far away from the bowling alley. Got this fence around her backyard that was dilapidated and rotting away from the bottom up. Terrible idea, using unsealed wood for a fence. And she made me a deal: fix her fence, and as long as I was working on it, I could bunk on a cot in the bowling alley at night and use the kitchen to make myself food whenever I got hungry.”
Her smile is easy. “That’s really awesome of her to do.”
I nod. “She was just getting the bowling alley up and going back then. She didn’t have a lot of money to throw into a project like that, but we worked it out.
That fence gave me a hell of a time, though.
I was prying up the old fence posts, and one of them whacked me underneath the chin. That’s how I first met Dr. Quinn.”
She giggles. “Was it bad?”
I lift my chin and point to the scar. “Needed ten stitches and a bit of glue to fix everything up.”
She leans over and peeks at it. “You know, Amber was telling me last night about how she needed stitches when she was around five years old. She was playing outside and slammed her knee onto a rock when she fell. Eli says she needed seven stitches to close it up.”
I chuckle. “That sounds like Amber. She’s always had a lot of energy. Eli says she gets that from her mother. But I don’t know, he seemed pretty energetic at the bowling alley during our little competition.”
She groans. “I still can’t believe Walker won.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell you he’s been bowling ever since he was a kid. That was his family’s thing, growing up. Every weekend, they’d drive a couple towns over to go bowling before Bea settled here and opened up her place..”
She peers over at me. “How do you know that?”
I shrug. “As a handyman, you’re privy to all sorts of stories.
Word of how I helped Miss Bea got around, and soon I was being hired for all sorts of little projects here and there.
Tansy’s grandmother, back when she still ran the bakery, hired me one time because a light switch wasn’t working properly in her kitchen.
Got a crash-course in electrical work on that job. ”
“Glad you didn’t electrocute yourself or anything.”
“Who says I didn’t?”
She swats me playfully, and the sound of her laughter rings throughout the cabin of my truck. The nose of it tips upward as we climb the mountain, and things go silent between the two of us once more. Her eyes turn out the window, and I can see her watching the sky lighten to a deep indigo.
I can’t wait to see the look on her face when the sun crests over the horizon.
“Almost there,” I say, easing off the beaten path.
When I back up to the overlook, the sky is just starting to catch fire. The horizon warms, and I leap out of my truck just for the privilege of opening Lia’s door. She smiles as she places her hand in the one I offer, and the electricity that zings up my arm prickles goosebumps along my skin.
Then she turns toward the sunrise.
“It’s starting,” she says, her beautiful green eyes illuminated with the reflection on the horizon. “Wow, the town looks so small from up here.”
“It’s an amazing view, isn’t it?” I head to the bed of my truck. “Come on. Let’s get comfy.”
I flip down the tailgate and motion for her to come over.
It pulls her attention away from the sunrise, and when she graces me with that lovely smile of hers, I’m undone.
She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, and all I want is the privilege to care for her for the rest of our lives.
“Come on,” I motion for her again, “I’ll help you up.”
She comes over to me, and I grasp her waist. Her hands fly to my shoulders as I hoist her up, and the little squeak she gives me stirs something in my gut.
I have to resist the urge to step between her legs just so I can lean in and take a whiff from her scent gland.
I watch as her eyes fall over my shoulder, the reflection of the gold bleeding into pink behind me lighting up her features.
“Hungry?” I ask as I force myself to remove my touch from her body.
“Starving,” she says, never peeling her gaze away from the sunrise once.
I hop up onto the tailgate beside her, our legs dangling over the edge.
I reach behind me for the picnic basket, and I hate that I have to slide it between the two of us.
The warmth of the sun pours over us, ushering in a new spring morning, and I can’t help but watch the profile of her face while she watches the sunrise.