Chapter 3
PARKER
Leaves crunch under my feet as I walk through the woods, trying to keep up with Duke and silently cursing my pack mates for insisting I do a long walk with him twice a week.
Bunch of smothering alphas and beta is what they are.
Apparently, I need to get out more and this is their way of ensuring that.
I roll my eyes just thinking of it. Just because I work from home doesn’t mean I don’t go out.
I go out plenty. Well, not so much the last year or two but there’s other reasons for that.
Reasons I’m sure my pack mates have picked up on but won’t call me out, so instead they insist on these bi-weekly walks with Duke.
I don’t mind, not really. I love Duke, he’s a great dog but long walks in the woods is not my idea of fun.
Speaking of Duke, he’s now completely out of my sight.
We got off the trail, no doubt due to him following some rogue scent.
Whistling and calling him back doesn’t seem to be working.
Picking a direction, I decide to follow, hoping he’s down that way.
I’m not worried, he knows the area well and usually listens when we call.
If anything, I can always call Micah and put him on speaker to call Duke back.
He always listens to him, out of the seven of us, we all know who’s Duke’s favorite.
At least there’s a breeze coming through, I catch a scent on it that is making me look around for the source.
It’s faint, a sweet scent maybe vanilla?
Suddenly I hear a bark and then a scream just ahead of me.
Oh Gods what has he done? Running towards the noise, I find a woman on the ground and Duke licking her face.
She’s not screaming so that’s good but a nervous sounding laugh is escaping her.
“Duke!” I yell as I walk up to him and pull him away by his collar.
The woman looks a little stunned. I’m not surprised, assuming Duke knocked her down she probably had no idea what hit her.
He’s pretty large, being a Bernese Mountain dog, getting blindsided by him will probably leave anyone a little dazed.
I look down at him. He’s as happy as can be, not even fighting to leave my side.
I reach down to help the woman up, to which she accepts.
As she stands, I notice what she’s wearing—a maroon dress that falls just past her knees, with a kind of retro style to it, and a black jacket that gives the overall look more edge.
Then I notice she’s wearing flat sneakers that look nice with her outfit but definitely aren’t for hiking.
She must be a guest at the lodge. Sometimes they wander onto our property thanks to a trail that Ben has formed between the pack house and lodge, since he prefers to walk to work as often as possible.
I go to apologize but stop when I get a look at her face.
She’s beautiful. She has pale skin, eyes that at first glance are brown but then I notice the green mixed in, and light brown hair falling in waves around her, even with the leaves stuck in it she’s breathtaking, a Goddess.
“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”
She finally looks up at me and takes a small step back. It shouldn’t bother me but it does. I never thought of myself as intimidating, usually the opposite. I guess being tackled by a dog and a strange man appearing is kind of weird. She doesn’t answer my question so I ask again, “Are you okay?”
She seems to snap out of whatever she was thinking. “Yeah, I’m fine. He just came out of nowhere and ran into the back of my legs. Shouldn’t you have a leash on your dog? This is public property. You can’t just let him run around jumping on anyone who walks by.”
I can’t help but smile at her indignation, she’s right but also wrong.
Right in that people shouldn’t let their dogs off leash on public property but this isn’t public property.
Her frown deepens at my expression. “You’re right.
I shouldn’t have him off leash.” I pause at the surprised look that crosses her face, she clearly didn’t expect me to agree with her.
“But this isn’t public property. The lodge’s property ends about fifty yards behind you. This is my pack’s land.”
Her face falls as she looks behind her then back at me. She looks confused but not angry anymore. “I’m sorry I didn’t know. I followed a trail that was by one of the cabins and thought…”
“It’s okay, we do have signs posted all over but it happens that people ignore or miss them. As long as you’re okay?”
She blushes, assuming from embarrassment; I’m not trying to embarrass her though.
She brushes herself off again even though she had gotten all the leaves off her clothes before, she did miss some in her hair.
“Yes I’m okay. I apologize again I clearly wasn’t paying attention as I should but I will in the future and make sure not to intrude on your property. ”
Now it’s my turn to frown. She’s being so formal, it’s really fine. I’m not used to people not being at ease around me. Also, what did she mean in the future, does she stay here a lot? “It’s really fine.” I begin to say before she cuts me off.
“No it’s unprofessional and I shouldn’t have made such a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“Unprofessional? Aren’t you a guest at the lodge?”
She sighs. “No I was just hired as their housekeeper. Rebecca finished the tour and I decided to walk the grounds for a while to help familiarize myself with the area. I saw the trail and thought it’d be nice to explore first. She had mentioned Ben’s pack owns the land next to the lodge, I should’ve paid more attention. ”
I’m not sure why she thinks this is such a big mistake but I’m not going to make her feel bad for it. “Please believe me when I say it’s not a big deal. Why don’t I walk back with you and tell you all about our lodge and town?”
She seems to consider this before agreeing and we start heading in the direction towards the lodge.
I let go of Duke, praying he behaves. No idea why I said I’d talk about the lodge.
Ben and even Keelan are the people who know the most about it, but I want her to feel better and talking is what I know how to do.
“I’m Parker by the way, and that monster is Duke.
” I pause, waiting for her to respond. She doesn’t, at least for a while.
“Oh sorry, I’m Thea. I guess I’m still in my own world,” she laughs awkwardly.
I’m not catching a scent from her, which makes me really curious about it.
Wondering if it was her scent I caught on the breeze earlier, I stop walking and say, “Thea, it’s really bugging me but I have to say it.
” She looks at me like she’s expecting me to lash out at her; that won’t do.
“You still have some leaves stuck in your hair.” I shoot her an easy smile, hoping it breaks the tension she’s holding onto.
She looks up at me, surprised, then a small smile spreads across her face as she lets out the first genuine laugh I’ve heard from her.
She runs her hands through her hair and gets the rest except one.
I lean over and pluck it from her hair. That’s when I catch her scent.
It’s faint but there, vanilla with a hint of wood smoke, like campfire.
It hits me like a bolt, the rightness of it, the overwhelming feeling that rushes through me—safety.
Why does her scent make me feel safe? Scents can do that?
I look down at her, wishing we were actually closer in height.
My 6’2” frame has never felt more inconvenient than it does now with her nearly a foot shorter than me.
She’s standing so still—did I scare her? Fuck.
I back away quickly and try to cover up whatever just happened.
“Got it,” I say with a forced smile. Thea gives me a more subdued one in return.
What do I say? I’m the one who always knows what to say and she’s striking me dumb.
Keelan would be rolling with laughter if he saw me right now.
Just pretend you didn’t just smell the most earth-shattering scent. Easy.
“So where are you from?” Nice, Parker, real nice. I could face-palm myself right now.
“I moved here from Chicago.”
Gods help me, why can’t I talk to this woman? “That’s a big change from the city to a small mountain town like Moonlight Valley. What drew you here?”
“It is a change but I’m excited for it, living in the city wasn’t for me. I found the job posting online when I was looking to move somewhere in the northeast and it went from there.” She hesitates before saying, “I thought you were going to fill me in on everything to know about the lodge?”
Is she smiling? She definitely is. Okay I’ll take that even if it is a small dig at my conversational skills.
“I should come clean, I really don’t know a ton about the lodge.
If you want to know about their software systems then I’m your guy but Ben would be the best person to ask about the lodge itself. ”
Okay she’s smiling, at my expense but I’ll take it. “Why the software systems?”
“Oh, I work remote for an IT firm. Basically, I’m a professional hacker, or ethical hacker, I test companies’ systems to see if I can break in, if there’s any weaknesses, then we advise them of it with an action plan to fix it.
When Ben wanted to build the lodge, as the IT guy of our pack I was the go-to for getting the systems up and running for it. ”
“That seems like an interesting job. Makes sense they’d want you to be in charge of it for the lodge since it’s your area.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I wouldn’t say hospitality systems and getting it set up is my area of expertise, but I was glad to get it going. It’s what you do for pack and the lodge was Ben’s passion project.”
“Still, being pack doesn’t always guarantee things. Don’t downplay your contribution,” Thea says, surprising me.