31. First Thankful Taste Of Home #3
The migration from dining room to kitchen happens without anyone discussing it, like we're all responding to some inaudible signal that says 'time to clean up.'
River starts clearing plates while Austin wrestles Luna out of her high chair, both of them covered in enough food to constitute a second meal. Mavi's already at the sink, filling it with hot soapy water that sends steam curling toward the ceiling.
Cole brings in the turkey platter, what's left of the bird looking well-loved and picked over.
"You wash, I'll dry?" River suggests to Mavi, who nods and hands him a dish towel.
"I'll handle leftovers," Cole announces, already pulling storage containers from the cabinet. "This stuffing is not going to waste."
"Bath time for the princess," Austin declares, holding Luna at arm's length. She's managed to get gravy in her hair, a feat of physics I can't quite comprehend. "This requires professional intervention."
"Use the good shampoo," I call after him as he heads for the stairs. "The tear-free stuff that smells like lavender."
"On it," he calls back, Luna's happy shrieks echoing through the house.
I find myself at the second sink, the one usually reserved for vegetable washing, filling it with fresh hot water. My hands move automatically— rinse, wash, rinse again —muscle memory from years of being the one who cleaned up after pack meals. But this is different.
This is voluntary, shared, without the weight of expectation or the threat of punishment if something isn't done to specification.
"That was incredible," River says, accepting a clean plate from Mavi. "Seriously, Willa. I haven't had a meal like that since my grandmother was alive."
"You have a grandmother?" The question slips out before I can stop it. We've all been so focused on the present, on surviving each day and building something together, that the past rarely comes up.
"Had," River corrects gently. "She passed when I was fifteen. But she could cook like nobody's business. Used to say the way to hold a pack together was through their stomachs."
"Smart woman," Cole adds, carefully portioning turkey into containers. "Food is love in action."
The simple statement hits harder than it should. Food as love. Not as obligation or another checkbox on the endless list of omega duties, but as an expression of care.
My hands still in the soapy water as the thought settles.
"You okay over there?" Mavi glances at me while passing another dish to River.
"Yeah, just thinking." I resume washing, focusing on a particularly stubborn bit of dried sweet potato. "It's nice, you know? All of us working together like this."
"Better than nice," Cole rumbles. "It's right."
Right.
Such a simple word for something that feels revolutionary.
In Iron Ridge, cleanup was segregated—omegas in the kitchen while alphas conducted "important business" elsewhere.
Usually that business involved Blake holding court in his office, dissecting everyone's performance at dinner, deciding who'd pleased him and who'd failed.
I'd stand at a sink much like this one, hands pruning in cooling water, wondering what arbitrary rule I'd broken this time.
The memory slides into my consciousness like oil on water, dark and spreading. Blake never helped with dishes. Never carried a plate to the kitchen or wiped down a table or even threw away his own napkin.
That was omega work, beneath him, beneath any alpha worth their designation.
My hands tighten on the casserole dish I'm scrubbing. The rough texture of baked-on cheese grates against my palms as I work harder, pushing the memory down. But it won't stay buried . Not tonight, not when I've just experienced what pack life should be.
"He'd hate this," I mutter, not meaning to speak aloud.
"Who'd hate what?" River asks, hanging his towel on the oven handle.
I realize they're all looking at me—River curious, Mavi watchful, Cole's expression darkening like he already knows where my thoughts have gone.
"Nothing," I say quickly, focusing on the dish. "Just thinking out loud."
But I can't stop the spiral now that it's started.
Blake would hate everything about this evening.
The casual mingling of alphas and omega in the kitchen. The lack of hierarchy in who serves whom. The way Luna was included as an equal participant rather than hidden away with a nanny. The mismatched plates he'd call "poor" and the centerpiece he'd deem "amateur."
Most of all, he'd hate how happy I am.
The dish slips in my soapy hands, and I catch it before it can shatter. My knuckles are white where they grip the edge, tension radiating up my arms into my shoulders. Because that's what this is really about, isn't it?
Blake can't stand the thought of me happy without him.
Can't accept that I've found something better, something real, something he could never give me because he never saw me as more than property with a pulse.
"Son of a bitch," I breathe, scrubbing harder.
The casserole dish is long clean, but I can't seem to stop the mechanical motion.
Scrub, rinse, scrub again, like I can wash away the taint of his memory if I just try hard enough.
He wants to ruin this.
The thought crystallizes with perfect clarity. He wants to destroy this kitchen where I cooked my first Thanksgiving. This table where we joined hands like a real family. This house where Luna's laughter rings from the walls and no one flinches at the sound of footsteps.
This pack that sees me as a person rather than a designation.
The dish creaks ominously in my grip.
Water sloshes over the edge of the sink, soaking the front of my apron, but I barely notice. My vision has narrowed to the suds swirling down the drain, but what I'm seeing is Blake's face that day in town.
The cruel twist of his mouth as he stripped me bare with words. The casual arrogance of a man who thinks he owns something just because he once put his hands on it.
"Willa." Cole's voice comes from directly behind me, low and careful. "Put the dish down."
I blink, returning to the present to find my knuckles bloodless where they grip the casserole dish. Everyone's stopped what they're doing. River hovers nearby like he wants to help but isn't sure how. Mavi watches with those sharp eyes that miss nothing.
"I'm fine," I insist, but my voice comes out high and tight.
"No," Cole says simply, "you're not."
His hands come around me from behind, gently prying my fingers from the dish.
I resist for a moment, some primitive part of me afraid to let go, afraid that if I stop moving I'll shatter like poorly fired ceramic.
But his touch is patient, persistent, and eventually my hands release their death grip.
"There we go," he murmurs, setting the dish safely in the drainer. His arms come around my waist, pulling me back against his chest. "That's better."
I'm suddenly aware that I'm shaking. Fine tremors run through me like aftershocks, and Cole just holds me tighter, becoming an anchor in the storm of my thoughts. He smells like leather and turkey and home, and I want to sink into him until the rest of the world disappears.
"He's not going to ruin this," Cole whispers against my ear, and I realize I must have been talking out loud again. Bad habit I've developed lately, letting my thoughts spill out when my guard drops. "I won't let him."
"You don't know Blake," I whisper back, my wet hands clutching at his forearms where they cross my stomach. "He doesn't let go of things. Ever. He'll keep coming, keep pushing, keep trying to destroy everything good because he can't stand losing."
"Then he'll learn." Cole's voice carries that edge of barely controlled violence that reminds me these men aren't just gentle caretakers. They're predators when they need to be, protectors with teeth. "The hard way, if necessary."
River and Mavi exchange looks over my head, some silent communication that makes Mavi nod and quietly leave the kitchen. River follows, and suddenly it's just Cole and me and the cooling dishwater and the weight of everything unsaid.
"Breathe," Cole instructs, his chest expanding against my back in demonstration. "In through your nose, hold for four, out through your mouth."
I follow his lead because it's easier than fighting. In for four, hold for four, out for four.
His breathing guides mine, steady as a metronome, until the shaking starts to subside.
"He won't let go until he gets what he wants," I confess on an exhale. "Him and Iron Ridge Pack themselves. They're all like that—taking and taking until there's nothing left."
Cole turns me in his arms, and I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. His hands come up to cradle my face, thumbs brushing away tears I didn't realize had fallen.
The calluses on his palms are rough against my cheeks, working man's hands that have built and protected and saved.
"We're prepared for that," he says, steel in his voice. "River's been tracking their finances—did you know they're bleeding money? Bad investments, worse management. They need your ranch to stay afloat."
"That's why Blake married me," I admit, the words tasting bitter. "For the inheritance he knew was coming."
"And now they're desperate." Cole's thumbs make another pass across my cheekbones. "Desperate men make mistakes. We're ready to counter whatever they try."
He searches my face like he's trying to read my thoughts, those steel-gray eyes intense with concern.
"Can you trust us to handle it? Can you genuinely trust this pack to protect you?"
The question hangs between us like a challenge. Trust. Such a small word for such a monumental ask. Trust means letting go of the hypervigilance that kept me alive. Trust means believing these men are different, that this pack is different, that I can have something without it being ripped away.
I open my mouth to answer— to say yes, of course I trust them, how could I not after everything —but my phone buzzes against my hip, loud in the quiet kitchen. We both freeze, some instinct warning that this interruption isn't coincidence.
"Check it," Cole says quietly, but his hands don't leave my face.
I pull the phone from my pocket with trembling fingers. Unknown number, but there's a photo attached.
My stomach drops as I open it, the image loading with painful clarity.
Legal documents. Official seals. Blake's signature bold across the bottom.
The text below is brief:
Hope you enjoyed your last Thanksgiving on MY ranch. Divorce contested. Filing for full custody of all marital assets, including property. See you in court.*
The phone slips from my numb fingers, but Cole catches it before it hits the floor. He read the message, and I watch his face transform from concern to fury so pure it makes the air feel electric.
"Willa," he says, and my name sounds like a vow. "Look at me."
I force my eyes up to his, expecting to see pity or worry or that careful distance people maintain when they realize just how complicated your baggage really is.
Instead, I find determination so fierce it takes my breath away.
"He just made his last mistake," Cole says quietly. "Trust us. Trust me. We've got this."
But staring at those legal documents, at Blake's confident signature claiming ownership of the only home I've ever known, I can't silence the voice in my head that sounds too much like Blake himself:
*You always were too trusting, Willa. That's what made you so easy to break.*
The dishes sit forgotten in cooling water, Thanksgiving's warmth already feeling like a distant dream.
Outside, November wind rattles the windows, and I shiver despite Cole's warmth surrounding me.
The war for Cactus Rose Ranch has officially begun.