Chapter 4
Ford
The bell above the door at The Honeycomb Café jingles when I push it open. Too damn cheerful for this early. Place already smells of burnt espresso grounds and cinnamon buns.
I inhale slowly, counting heartbeats, letting the steam and sugar settle in my lungs.
Vee Sinclair’s behind the counter, floral crown crooked on her curls, apron smeared with what looks like frosting. I wonder if that happened by accident, or did her baker husband smear it over her playfully?
She grins when she sees me. “Morning, Ford. Flat white, extra shot?”
“Yeah,” I say, low and scratchy. Haven’t used my voice yet today.
I shift to the side while she punches it in. Lean my elbow against the counter. Run my fingertips over the wood grain, just to feel it.
Good maple. Old. Finished too fast, the corners rough under the sealant.
I’ll mention it to Knox Rylan later. He’ll take it as an insult since this is his handiwork.
Don’t really care though.
This town has always deserved the best. Don’t know why it settles for less.
Two women stand behind me, talking in the syrupy way people do when someone else’s life is burning.
“Did you hear? Lo Marsh is back.”
The words hit hard, like a nail gun misfire. Straight through the ribs. My Alpha instincts flare like crazy.
Lo Marsh is what?
“No shit,” the other says. “She crashed into Sylvia Hammond’s float. Parade went to hell. Beck Calloway carried her off like some knight in shining turnout gear.”
Beck. Of course.
Always the one with the rescue story. Always the hero people love to tell each other about over coffee and pie.
My packmate… but once my romantic rival.
Not that anyone knows it but me.
My jaw ticks. I keep my eyes on the counter. Vee slides my cup over and I take it, wrapping my hands around the warmth, letting the lid bite into my thumb until the plastic creaks.
“She was out cold,” the first woman whispers. “Probably on drugs. You know how her family is.”
I turn then, just a little. Enough to catch their eyes over my shoulder.
I don’t say a word. Don’t have to. People talk big until you look at them with eyes that let them know you’re thinking about what their bones sound like when they break.
They go quiet real fast.
I take a sip. Too hot, bitter enough to tighten the back of my throat. Good. I need it. I need something to burn clean through the taste in my mouth.
Lo Marsh.
She’s back.
The girl I’ve been scent-matched to since junior year woodshop. The girl who smelled of peach candy and riot girl perfume, who walked past me with her chin up and her eyes sharp, never even noticing the way my lungs locked up every time she was near.
Never noticing me at all.
So, of course, I kept our scent-matching a secret.
But how can that stay a secret now?
She was too busy running headfirst into every fire she saw. Too busy looking at Beck Calloway like he’d invented sunlight. And I just… waited. Watched. Built my life out of old timber and quiet mornings and the promise that if she ever came back, I’d still be here.
Didn’t think it’d be like this. Her crashing back into town dramatically, into one of the parade floats that probably took months to build.
Not that it matters when she’s hurt and alone, with this feral town gnashing its teeth at her presence.
“Ford?” Vee says hesitantly. “You okay?”
I blink. Force the tension out of my shoulders. “Yeah.”
“Big day,” she says, gesturing out the window where crews are retying bunting to the festival gates. “They said the floral arch by the north entrance is buckling. Can you check it after breakfast?”
“Yeah,” I say again, draining half my coffee in one swallow. “I’ll handle it.”
I leave a tip in the jar and step out onto Main, the door swinging shut behind me with a hollow thunk. Morning sun’s too bright, makes my eyes ache. I take another drink of coffee, scalding my tongue on purpose. Just to feel something that isn’t this low, sour twist in my gut.
Because if she’s back, and Beck has already connected with her again, what does that mean for us?
Will my secret become a problem?
Will she even care?
Across the street, I see him.
Beck Calloway.
Walking toward the fire station, head down, boots scuffing the pavement like they’re made of lead. His hair’s a mess, curls flattened on one side as if he slept in a chair. His shirt’s untucked, uniform jacket slung over his shoulder, and his eyes are shadowed with lack of sleep.
I know that look. Beck’s a protector, a stabilizer for this pack. The kind of guy who never lets you see him crumble, even when the weight’s too much to carry alone.
We’ve not been a pack for as long as some other guys. In some ways, we’re still figuring each other out. I can’t help but wonder if this is going to set us back.
What if she just wants Beck again, and we lose him?
Because it’s always been him.
Even back then, when we were just dumb teenagers. Lo looked at him as if he was her whole world. The man who hung the stars in the sky. And I…
Well. I never said a damn word, did I? Just kept my head down. Watched. Waited. Never wanting to pressure her. Never wanting to throw a wrench into whatever life plans she dreamed up for herself while staring into Beck’s gaze.
That’s what I do.
Stay silent.
Stay in the background.
Stay in the dark.
I fix what I can. Leave the rest to rot. Things are safer that way.
Lonely, but safer.
But watching Beck Calloway now, looking like he might be about to collapse under the weight of something only he can carry… it digs under my skin. Makes my belly pulse, hot.
Because I’m scared of what will happen next. Where this will take us.
What the hell do I do?
What if this costs me my pack?
The truth is, I don’t know how to speak to men like Beck about feelings. Men who live their lives out loud. Who rescue people from burning buildings and still sleep at night. Who look at Lo Marsh and think I deserve her instead of she’d never want me.
I’ve never been good at talking. Even to my pack.
My mouth stays shut. My boots stay planted. I just stand there, watching him walk away, feeling the quiet life I’ve built splinter at the edges.
Because she’s back. And he looks wrecked.
And I can feel it, deep in my bones, that everything is about to change.
Like how you can smell rain, or feel an oncoming storm.
I take another gulp of my coffee and turn toward the festival gates, my chest tight and heavy. Work first. Always work first.
Feelings can wait. They usually do.
But as I walk, I catch myself whispering under my breath.
“Goddamn it, Lo.”
Because even after all this time, even after all my silence, even after years of pretending I was content with scraps, her name still tastes of hope and ruin on my tongue.
I walk the length of Main, boots thudding against cracked pavement, the chill of the coming of winter already seeping through the soles. Festival crews are everywhere, stringing bunting and re-anchoring poles knocked loose in yesterday’s chaos.
Someone waves. I nod back, but I don’t slow down.
Work first.
Always work first.
The north floral arch is sagging hard to the left, the base sunk half an inch into soft ground. Whoever anchored it didn’t bother to check for last week’s irrigation overflow. Idiots.
It’s ridiculous that Winterfest uses floral arches, anyway. More than likely, it’s just an excuse for the flower shop to get rid of their inventory before the cold smashes into us.
The floral shop where Lo used to work.
The floral shop I passed just so I could stand in the tinted window and watch her like a creep.
I set my coffee on a folding chair and crouch to run my hands along the support struts. Press my thumb into the wood, feeling it bend and complain under the metal ties. Whisper to it under my breath.
“Easy, girl. I got you.”
“She always was a stubborn one.”
I glance up.
My grandfather, Ezra, is standing on the other side of the arch, leaning on his walking stick, hat pulled low against the sun.
His eyes are clear today. Good. Some mornings, the fog takes him. But not today.
“Morning, Pops,” I say.
“Morning.” He taps the wood with his stick, gentle. “Maple. From the old Holloway orchard, if I’m not mistaken.”
I nod, running my thumb along a knot near the base. “Yeah. You can tell by the grain. Tight curl, pale core.”
Pops hums low in his throat, a sound I’ve heard my whole life. Approval without words. He taught me to read wood the way other kids learned to read bedtime stories. Taught me to plane it smooth, taught me to listen for the difference between green sap snap and old dry split.
When I was six, he put a whittling knife in my hand and said, “Don’t cut toward your thumb. Don’t cut toward your knee. The rest is learning.”
When I was twelve and my parents’ car went off the south ridge, he didn’t say much. Just handed me sandpaper and a block of oak and kept my hands busy until the funeral was over.
And when I was seventeen and came home smelling of peaches and heartache, he didn’t ask questions. Just poured me coffee, nodded once, and said, “Some things take time, boy. But don’t leave ’em so long they rot.”
I breathe deep, letting the maple’s faint sweetness ground me.
“You working today?” I ask.
He snorts. “Workin’? Hell no. Supervisin’? Always.”
He gestures with his cane toward the festival prep madness as the stallholders try to get everything together for day three of this Winterfest madness.
I finish tightening the last bolt on the floral arch and stand up slow, wiping sweat off my forehead with the hem of my shirt. The scent of pine sap and iron filings clings to my skin. Morning’s grown thick already.
Pops is still nearby, leaning against the shaded side of the festival admin tent, talking to the festival organizer, Faye Mallory.
She’s an Alpha, half his height and twice as terrifying, in her pressed lavender dress and wide straw hat pinned with fake violets.
She looks like a benevolent granny until you get within biting range.
“Ford Maddox,” she calls, sharp as a crow. “You get that arch fixed?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She peers up at me over her glasses. “It better hold. I’ve got the Omega Winter Queen Pageant today, and it needs to go well.”
Pops chuckles under his breath. I catch his eye, and he just shakes his head, lips twitching.
“Morning, Ford,” comes another voice. Greer Danvers, the Alpha librarian, is passing by with her tablet clutched to her chest. She gives me a crisp nod, dark eyes flicking over the arch structure. “Registry flagged your scent again this morning. You walked past the entry sensors on Main.”
“Yeah?” I say, noncommittal. Greer’s got everyone’s scent memorized down to the undertones. Makes my skin itch.
“But your scent isn’t the most interesting. Not now, Miss Marsh is back in town…”
I grunt. “Heard.”
Greer hums, a tiny, amused sound before continuing toward the library booth. Pops watches her go, then turns back to me, cane tapping the dirt once.
“You gonna see her?”
I shrug, flexing my fingers around my wrench. “Don’t know yet.”
“Mm.” He nods toward Miss Faye, who’s now berating two teenagers for hanging bunting crooked. “Faye’s got her eyes on you, you know. Been saying for years you’re wasting yourself out here, hiding from your own scent match.”
“Don’t start,” I mutter.
“I ain’t starting. I’m just… observing.”
Before I can answer, Tansy Bellweather bustles up from The Gilded Lily’s catering tent, balancing three boxes of lemon bars on her hip. She catches sight of me and snorts.
“Well, if it ain’t Mister Pine Sap himself. How’s it going?”
I nod. “Yeah, busy as always. You know how it is.”
She squints up at me, eyes sharp as tacks over the rim of her cat-eye glasses. “Mmhmm. Busy fixin’ what ain’t yours to fix, probably.”
I grunt, rolling my shoulders. “Wood don’t gossip.”
“Neither do lemon bars, but they get people talking.” She jerks her chin toward the boxes. “You want one before I set these out?”
“No, ma’am. Thanks, though.”
Her brows lift. “That’s a first.”
“Not in the mood.”
She narrows her gaze suspiciously at me. Thank God I’m in demand today, so I don’t have to answer any awkward questions.
“Ford.” Pops cuts through the rising hum of festival chaos. “Help me over to the grandstand. Faye wants me to bless the stage or some nonsense.”
“Coming.” I nod to Tansy, stepping past her with a grunt. “Try not to poison anyone today.”
She cackles. “No promises, sweetheart.”
Yeah, that’s kinda how today feels, truth be told.
Anything could happen.