Chapter 9
Nolan
One month later
“Hey, boss. You okay?”
Blinking, I look down at my barista, Macy. “Huh?”
She gives me a half smile. “I asked if you were okay.”
“Oh.” I glance back out the window, my gaze fixated up the mountain in the direction of a certain cabin. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Sure, don’t look like it.” She pulls out a chair, taking a seat across the table from me. My attention shifts back to Macy, and I grin at the Omega. She is only twenty-three, but she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. “You seem to forget I know you, Nolan. Better than anyone else, apart from your pack.”
She isn't wrong there. Macy is my cousin and has been working for me for the past five years.
When she was eighteen, my aunt and uncle passed away, leaving her to raise her two siblings, a little brother and sister. Her teenage years were gone, forcing her to grow up overnight and be the parent to a three-year-old little girl and an eight-year-old little boy.
But as Snow Valley does, we rallied together to make sure they had everything they needed. Macy knew she wasn’t alone. My pack wanted to take her in, help raise the kids, but Macy was insistent she could do it on her own. She didn’t want to take the kids away from the house they grew up in. It was the only thing they had left of their parents, and we understood.
I did insist on giving her a job, however. Raising kids isn’t cheap, and she needed the money. Thankfully, she took the job with no questions asked. Do I often add more to her tips and mysterious bonuses every now and again? Yes, but she hasn’t called me out on it, and I don’t plan on stopping.
It’s been five years, and now she has a teenager on her hands and a little girl who looks up to her sister like she is her hero.
“You're thinking about her , aren't you?” Macy gives me a sympathetic look.
“When am I not thinking about her?” I sigh, lowering myself in my seat.
For the past month, life has been hell.
Finding Violet was literally our dream come true. But we went from having our Omega, the guys’ scent match and the one meant for our pack, to losing her in the blink of an eye.
All because of a woman who couldn’t understand that we weren’t the ones for her.
After Sylvia lied, causing Violet to take off without a word, we spent days trying to find her. That was proven to be a lot harder than we thought because we had little information on her.
All we knew was her first name and age. So a simple search wouldn’t do.
We contacted the people that are hired to take care of her cabin, but because of confidentiality, they couldn’t tell us anything about the owner of the property.
We tried asking around town, seeing if they might know of who lived there at some point, but no luck. Even the people who have lived in this town the longest didn’t seem to know anything.
I’ve woken up in cold sweats, wondering if it was all just a dream, if she was ever really at our cabin or in our beds.
Then I smell the blankets she used during her heat, and I’m reminded that she was very much real.
The guys refuse to wash them, and it fucking breaks my heart when I find them cuddled up to them, seeking her scent.
Her leaving has hit them a lot harder than it has me. I miss her, I crave her, I need her, but they have a connection I don’t. Their hearts and souls are tethered to her.
The pain of being away from her is not just physical; it’s mental and emotional, too.
I’ve never seen them cry before in my life, but the day we realized we were out of options and we might very well never find her, they tore apart the cabin in rage before crumbling to the ground in a fit of deep, heavy sobs.
Someone from the outside might think it was a drastic overreaction, but they don’t know them like I do.
They haven’t seen the years of disappointment, the years of thinking we would never find our Omega. Years of watching everyone else around them find their packs and have kids.
They didn’t have to see the guys’ realization that they may never be dads.
We could have hired a surrogate, or we could have adopted, but it’s not the same. Alphas have a strong biological need for an Omega, to have that kind of pack dynamic.
The bottom line is that I’m a male Beta and am unable to give them what they desire.
That doesn’t make me feel any less loved or wanted; I know I’m their family, their pack mate and lover. It will always be the three of us, no matter what.
But she was it. She was everything they needed for so long. Just when they gave up hope, she brought it back only for it to be taken away and everything to come crashing down around us.
Sylvia hasn’t been around, thankfully.
I don’t think either of the guys could hold back their anger if she were to show her face around them right now. They would never hurt a woman, especially one who's pregnant, but they would make sure her life was hell.
There’s something not right with her. She had this messed up little fantasy in her head that she could be our Omega and live happily ever after with us.
Only thing was, she wasn’t an Omega, and we hardly knew her before she was making all these plans about our future. A few dates and one night of sex were all we shared. That was all it took for her to latch on to this delusion of hers and run with it.
Not to mention, she was very demanding and controlling. And made it clear that another Beta wasn’t wanted but would be tolerated. Meaning me.
As if she wasn’t a Beta herself.
After we told her things weren’t going to work out, she lost it. Had a breakdown. We felt bad, but it was just further proof that she wasn’t a good fit.
It didn’t take long before she started showing up at our places of work, acting like we were together. She made us uncomfortable, but we did the best we could to be professional. Then she took it too far and started coming to the house. We refused to answer the door, and then one day, we came home from work and found her inside.
That was where we drew the line and called the cops. When she was being dragged out of our place, literally kicking and screaming, she told us she loved us. That she would be the perfect Omega for us if we just gave her the chance.
She was unwell and taken in for a psych evaluation. We didn’t know what came of that, but she was released only a few weeks later after we filed for a restraining order against her.
Things were going fine up until last month. We never saw her around town, nor did she come to our house. There was no texting, no calling. Everything was good.
We heard she had gotten pregnant and that one of the Betas who works for Aiden was the father.
We thought she moved on. Boy, were we wrong.
“How are the guys doing?” Macy asks.
“Not good,” I mutter, spinning the spoon in my cup around and swirling the tea. “They’re not themselves. They’re depressed, closed off.” Tears sting the backs of my eyes. “If it was anyone else, I’d say time would heal everything, and we would be okay. But...” I close my eyes, an ache in my chest growing.
“Hey.” Macy reaches across the table and puts her hand over mine. “Don’t give up just yet. You need to have hope. She’s their scent match, right? She can’t go long without seeing them. Even if she went on heat suppressants, the pull to be with you all will bring her back; to them and to you.”
I give her a sad smile. “Thanks for the optimism, but I’m not going to hold my breath.”
She sighs, nodding. “I’m here if you wanna talk,” she offers but senses my need to not want to talk.
“Thanks.”
Macy heads back to work, and I sit with my cold tea, long forgotten. After another hour of getting lost in my own head, I make lunch for the guys and bring it to them.
I stop at the hunting goods store first, finding Thomas in a heated argument with a customer.
“Get the fuck out of my store,” Thomas barks.
“You're crazy,” the man mutters back. He storms towards me and out the front door.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask Thomas as I approach the front display case.
“That fucking fool was trying to bullshit me. He said he bought this faulty axe at my shop. I don’t even carry the damn brand,” he growls, running his hands through his fiery locks. It’s longer now and starting to get a bit of a wave to it. And his beard is longer, thicker. It’s unkempt and sexy but also makes me sad because Thomas has always been the one to keep his beard neat. He had a routine of monthly haircuts and weekly beard trims.
He hasn’t gone to the barber in over a month now.
He’s in pain, and all I want to do is take it away.
“I brought you something.” I place the sub on the table.
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat, Thomas,” I urge him.
“What I need is for that damn shipment of lumber to come in. How is Aiden supposed to do his job if the fucking wood isn’t here?”
“It’s only a day late. It snowed pretty bad the past few days. They need to plow the roads.”
“Damn it!” Thomas switches his attention from me to something else, forgetting about me entirely. He goes over to the wall and stares at the display. “This is all wrong. Damn it, Ryan messed it all up. None of this is in the right place,” he growls. “Thanks for lunch, Nolan, but I need to get this fixed.” He turns back to me. “See you at home?”
I give him a forced smile. “Yeah. See you later.” I step up, pressing a kiss to his lips, and a flutter stirs in my belly when he groans.
Even though the guys are lost, they haven’t forgotten about me. And fuck if that doesn’t make me happy.
“I love you,” he murmurs.
My heart swells. “I love you too.” More than you will ever know.
Leaving the store, I head down to the site where Aiden and his crew are working. Seeing he’s busy, I leave his lunch with one of his crew members and head home.
Opening the cabin door, I stand there, staring at the big, empty place.
We would have been good to her, the best pack. We would have treated her like a Queen.
I wish she didn’t take off; I wish she would have stayed long enough for us to explain.
But I don’t blame her. She thought she was in the wrong. Sylvia let her believe she was the other woman, that she was messing with someone else’s men, someone’s family.
I honestly respect her for leaving—that even though she’s their scent match, she didn’t want to be the one to break up a family.
I just wish she could know that she was our family. We might not have known her for long, but I was looking forward to getting to know everything about her. To grow with her, to explore things, get to know one another. To prove to her we could be the right pack for her.
Tossing my keys on the table, I head deeper into the cabin. Pulling back the plastic sheet hanging from the ceiling, a wave of longing hits me.
In his spare time, Aiden has been expanding the house. Not the best thing to do in the middle of winter, but he needed something to keep him busy.
I found the blueprints the other week. He’s adding on three new bedrooms. I know they’re meant to be a nest, along with some spare rooms for future children.
And that just breaks my heart all over again.
“Whoever is listening out there...” I say out loud, looking up at the ceiling. “Please bring her back to us. We need her more than she will ever know.”