Chapter 40
Harper
The next morning starts out normally enough. I actually manage to sleep through the night for once, and I don’t wake up feeling like I’m mid-panic, with my heart gripped by anxiety in my chest. It feels… okay. I feel fine.
The house is quiet, and the sun comes in soft through the windows. I get dressed and head downstairs while the men are presumably showering and getting ready, and I start the well-worn ritual of making my cup of coffee like I do every morning.
But then there’s a flash of… something out of the corner of my eye, going past the window.
It’s quick, and when I look properly, leaning over the counter to see, there’s nothing there.
It could have been a bird flying by, or a leaf rustling in the breeze, probably nothing to worry about at all, but it sets me on edge, and I can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right.
“Fuck it,” I mumble under my breath. I don’t even stop to put shoes on, heading outside to check on things. There’s a chill in the air this early in the morning, so I wrap my arms around myself and step into the damp grass, trying to convince myself that I’m just being ridiculous.
It wasn’t anything worth getting worked up over, and I’m wasting my time out here. But a little voice in the back of my mind whispers that it’s better to check and have it be nothing than the alternative.
I walk around to the back of the house, checking the garden area, and I don’t see anyone. Everything is quiet, and there aren’t any noises other than the breeze through the trees and the sounds of horses in the distance.
“See?” I mutter to myself. “Nothing. Now calm down—”
Of course that’s when I see it. There in the garden, pressed into the soft soil where I was working yesterday, is a footprint.
It isn’t mine, and when I go a little closer, I can tell it doesn’t belong to any of the men either. It’s too small, too deep in the wrong places. It doesn’t seem like it’s from this morning, since there was dew last night, and the edges of the print are still crisp.
Someone was here.
A sick, crawling feeling starts to rise in my throat, and I have to swallow hard to keep it from going any further.
I try to shake it off, turning to stumble back toward the front door.
My mind races, trying to come up with justifications and reasons why this isn’t a big deal, but I keep coming up empty.
Someone was here, and that can’t mean anything good.
I walk past my car in the driveway, and a flash of white on the windshield catches my attention. It’s a folded piece of paper, tucked under the wiper. I snatch it up, realizing it’s a note. No envelope, just plain paper with a message scrawled in sharp, angry writing:
You took something that doesn’t belong to you.
My stomach drops. Panic hits me so hard and so fast that I nearly throw up right there in the driveway. There’s a ringing sound in my ears, and I sway on the spot, overcome. Because there’s only one thing this note could mean, and it’s not anything good.
I suck in frantic breaths of air and manage to get myself back inside and close the door behind me. The note is crumpled in my hand now, and I try hard to steady my breathing and myself so I don’t start hyperventilating.
When I step back into the kitchen the men are there now. Cash is at the stove making eggs, and my cup of coffee sits, ready and waiting for me like one of them adding the cream and sugar I prefer and left it there for when I came back in.
Cash looks over when I enter, his usual smile curling across his face. “It’s not like you to not finish your first cup of the day,” he teases. “Were you that eager to—” He cuts himself off when he sees the look on my face.
I can only imagine what I look like right now. My skin feels cool and clammy, and my heart is hammering in my chest. I’m sure I’m pale and wide-eyed, giving away just how upset I am right now.
Everett crosses the kitchen and takes my free hand, leaning down so he can meet my eyes. “What happened?” he asks immediately. His voice is soft, but hard edged. “Harper. Are you all right?”
I drag in a breath. “I have to tell you all something.”
Cash and Lincoln come over, and Everett presses me into one of the chairs at the table. I have their full attention now, varying looks of concern on their faces.
As much as I’ve been trying to keep my past separate from my life here, I know I can’t do that anymore. If the worst happens, if it’s already happening, I need them on my side.
“I—I’ve talked to you guys about my sister a bit, right?” I start, glancing at all of them in turn.
Lincoln nods. “Yeah. She’s Cora’s mother.”
“Jade,” Everett says.
I nod. “That’s right. I… she…” It’s so hard to know how to say it, but I have to get it out.
“I wasn’t the only one in a relationship with an Alpha who didn’t deserve my time.
Jade was with one too. His name is Geoffrey, and he was…
terrible. Just a real piece of shit. He ran with violent people, and I tried so fucking hard to get Jade out of there.
To get her to see who he was and realize he was never going to do right by her.
For a while, it was like she couldn’t see it.
Or—or like she didn’t care? I don’t know.
She just didn’t want to leave for whatever reason.
But eventually, I got her to agree to run away from him. To let me help her get out.”
“She didn’t leave?” Everett asks. His voice is low and grim, like he’s heard this kind of story before.
“She tried,” I tell him, staring down at the table. “She just wasn’t fast enough.”
The three of them exchange a look at that.
“He stopped her?” Cash asks.
I lick my lips. “I’m still not sure how it all went down, I guess.
He knew she wanted to leave, but he was also involved in so much bad shit.
Drug trafficking and hurting people.” My eyes flash to Everett, knowing he’ll understand what kind of person Geoffrey is.
“All I know for sure is there was a conflict, and she ended up dead.
Shot. I think the bullet was meant for Geoffrey because Jade got in the middle of something, but I also think that he would have rather killed her than let her leave.
And Cora—” My voice breaks a little, thinking of my little, silent niece. “All I knew was that I couldn’t leave Cora with him. I couldn’t get Jade out in time, but I could save Cora. So I took her and we ran.”
“And that’s when your old pack rejected you,” Lincoln murmurs. He’s not saying it to be cruel, I know, just completing the timeline, but I still flinch a little at the reminder.
“Yes.”
Cash reaches for my hand, taking it in two of his larger ones. “You’re safe here,” he says. “You both are.”
I shake my head, pulling away so I can put the note on the table. Everett takes it and unfolds it, reading it quickly. His eyes darken with anger when the words register.
“Where did you find this?”
I tell them about the feeling I’ve been having for the last few days, like I’m being watched and someone is lurking. I tell them about the footprint in the garden and the note under my windshield.
“I’ve been running ever since my old pack rejected me,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to stop running, and I thought maybe this was far enough away even still, but—” I wrap my arms around myself. “I don’t know. I guess he found us.”
And it’s a horrible thought. I remember Geoffrey and his anger, his twisted attitudes about Omegas, and how he viewed Cora as his property. If he’s coming for her, if he’s here, I don’t know what to do.
I’ll die before I let him take her, but…
The guys are reacting around me, not even bothering to hide their own anger and anxiety.
Cash gets up and starts pacing, his hands clenched into fists.
Lincoln’s jaw is so tight it looks like he might break his own teeth.
Everett is in full protective sheriff mode, folding the note back up and getting up from the table.
“He’s not taking her or anyone else,” he declares.
“I’m putting patrols on the house. We’ll upgrade the locks, install motion activated cameras, whatever we have to do.
I’ll get some deputies to do regular sweeps of the area.
If you have a picture of him or you can give me a description, I’ll have people keeping an eye out for him.
If he’s as much of an asshole as you say, we can get him detained. ”
It’s not surprising that they want to do this in a way, but it feels like too much, and I tell them so. “I can’t ask you to do all that just for us. I never meant for this to interrupt your lives or turn into a whole thing.”
“You don’t have to ask,” Everett says, cutting me off. “Because we’re doing it whether you like it or not.”