Chapter 3
three
STETSON
The John Deere wasn’t broken.
I knew it wasn’t broken, because I’d spent three hours under the damn thing on Tuesday replacing the hydraulic pump myself. So, when Gideon had grabbed his keys after lunch, muttered something about needing a part from Laramie, and driven off without looking me in the eye, I knew he was lying.
My Beta didn’t lie. Not to me. Whatever the hell he was actually doing had been gnawing at the back of my skull all afternoon, putting my Alpha on a short, agitated leash.
I pulled back on the leather reins, bringing my buckskin gelding to a halt near the edge of the front paddock.
Though it was a cool spring day, after three hours of riding the southern fence line looking for a breach, I was covered in a fine layer of sweat and dust. I swung my leg over the saddle and dropped to the dirt, fully intending to stable the horse and wait on the front porch until Gideon got back so I could demand to know exactly what he was hiding.
The familiar crunch of tires on gravel caught my attention.
I looked up just as Gideon’s beat-up Ford rounded the long driveway, groaning as he hit the brakes and threw it into park near the front steps.
“Bout damn time,” I muttered to myself. I looped the horse’s reins loosely over the top rail of the wooden fence and reached down, grabbing the hem of my sweat-dampened t-shirt. I pulled it up, using the cotton to wipe the perspiration and dirt from my face, ready to lay into my Beta.
Then, the wind shifted.
The scent hit my lungs like a Mack truck.
It was the exact same intoxicating, maddening smell that had been haunting the kitchen for the last two days.
Something fruity—fig, I thought—and a little citrusy.
Ever since I’d caught the notes, there’d been an itch under my skin that had left me more surly than usual.
It was like a craving I couldn’t satisfy.
An itch I couldn’t scratch. The ghost of it had been driving me insane.
But this wasn’t a ghost. This wasn’t a faint trace.
This was a goddamn tidal wave.
It flooded my senses, rewiring my gravity. The air tasted like bright neroli and warm fig, underscored by an undeniable hit of sweet, tart black cherry that went straight to my cock.
I turned to stone. My boots felt welded to the dirt.
Whatever logic I possessed had checked out, swallowed whole by a dark, animalistic need that sank its claws deep into my chest. Omega.
My scent answered before I could even blink, pouring out in a ruthless wave of cedarwood and coffee meant to blanket what belonged to me.
Mine.
The instinct was so loud it was practically a roar in my ears.
My hands went numb. I completely forgot what I was doing, the bunched cotton of my t-shirt hanging suspended mid-air as my dark green eyes locked onto the passenger side of Gideon’s truck.
The door was open, and designer boots swung out until a woman emerged, standing on my little patch of Wyoming dirt.
My breath abandoned me. She was a literal goddess.
Tight denim hugged curves that were built for absolute sin, leading up to long dark brown hair and a—was that a cowboy hat covered in silver sparkles?
I couldn’t even focus on the glitz. I skimmed right over it, marveling at her flawless olive skin.
But it was her dark, wide eyes that pinned me to the spot.
She was staring right at me. Or rather, at my chest and abdomen, where a swath of skin was still bared to the spring air because I was too dumbstruck to finish lowering my shirt.
Her hot gaze dragged over the hard lines of my body before finally lifting and colliding with mine.
And because I couldn’t look away, I saw the exact moment her breath hitched.
She was gripping the door of Gideon’s truck like it was the only thing tethering her to the earth.
She was the most devastatingly beautiful thing I had ever seen, and her scent was screaming at my Alpha that she belonged to us.
I took a heavy step forward, the overwhelming urge to close the distance and bury my face in her neck eclipsing every other rational thought.
But then my eyes dropped to her shoulders, and my brain abruptly short-circuited.
She was wearing an oversized, fleece-lined denim jacket. A jacket saturated with the earthy vetiver and warm cinnamon of my Beta.
I stopped. A low, rumbling growl vibrated in my chest. It wasn’t anger—we were a pack, sharing was in our blood—but seeing our perfect scent match already wrapped up in another man’s scent made my teeth ache with the blinding need to cover her in my own.
The puzzle pieces of the afternoon slammed together in my head. The missing tractor part. The nervous energy.
My sneaky bastard of a Beta hadn’t gone to Laramie. He’d gone to get our Omega.
Though from where, I had no fucking clue.
I watched her swallow hard. She physically tore her gaze away from my exposed chest, her jaw clenching as she turned back toward the dark cab of the truck.
“If they didn’t consent to this, Gideon,” her voice carried across the yard, slicing straight through the weighted silence. The musical sound of her voice was laced with absolute steel. “I am not forcing myself into their home. Turn the truck around. Take me back to the airstrip right now.”
The words hit me like a bucket of ice water.
The sweet fig had bruised, but her posture was pure command. She was actually trying to leave. Before I had even spoken a single word to her, she was ordering my Beta to take her away.
The paralysis holding me hostage shattered.
“Like hell,” I growled, the words tearing out of me before I could stop them.
I dropped the hem of my shirt and finally moved, my boots eating up the dirt as I crossed the distance between the fence and the driveway. Her head whipped back around, those wide, dark eyes locking onto me as I stalked right up to the open door of the truck, unapologetically invading her space.
Close up, her black cherry scent was staggering.
I braced my hand on the metal door frame above her head, trapping her between my body and the cab, and looked down into the most beautiful face I had ever seen.
Up close, the contrast between us was almost laughable.
I was covered in dirt, sweat, and engine grease, my chest still heaving from the force of my instincts.
She was wrapped in pristine designer jeans and a cowboy hat that were obviously having their first day in the sun, and she smelled like an intoxicating dream.
But I didn’t give a damn about our differences.
“Nobody is turning a damn thing around,” I told her. My voice dropped into a rough, gravelly register I barely recognized. “And you aren’t going anywhere.”
She tipped her chin up, refusing to shrink back into the cab even though I had her caged.
The fire in her eyes almost blocked out the hunger.
Almost. But I saw it, just like I clocked the way her pupils blew wide, and the dark cherry note in her scent spiked the second I stepped into her space.
It gave her away, and I reveled in the fact that I wasn’t the only one burning up right now.
“I’m here under false pretenses, and I won’t stay where I’m not wanted,” she shot back, though her chest heaved and the slight waver in her words betrayed her bravado. “I’m not a charity case. Or a hostage.”
“You’re right. You’re our mate,” I countered, leaning in close enough to feel her small gasp. The word slipped out like it had always belonged in my mouth.
I dropped my head, unable to stop myself from brushing my nose along the warm, delicate skin of her neck. A shudder ripped through my chest as I breathed her in. The intoxicating hit of her scent mixed with the relentless urge to cover Gideon’s signature with my own nearly brought me to my knees.
A firm, steady hand clamped down on my shoulder.
“Stetson. Back up.”
I let out a harsh puff of air, my head snapping to the side. Gideon was standing right there, his blue eyes hard and unflinching. He wasn’t challenging me for dominance, but he was using his Beta calm to cut straight through my feral haze.
“Give the lady a foot of space before you smother her,” Gideon warned quietly. “She’s been on a plane all day. She’s probably over feeling claustrophobic.”
My jaw locked, but the rational part of my brain clawed its way through the instinct just enough to realize he was right. I dropped my arm from the roof of the cab and took a heavy step back, giving her the physical space Gideon demanded.
As I moved, a heavy thud echoed across the yard.
I blinked, the red haze of my vision breaking just enough to see Boone standing by the barn. The two-hundred-pound hay bales he’d been carrying had hit the dirt. Further down the fence line, Colt had abandoned the roan gelding.
The wind had shifted again, easily reaching them by now.
Just like smoke carried on the wind, so did the scent of three fiercely territorial Alphas reacting to the appearance of an Omega in our driveway.
My feral obsession snapped, replaced by the deeply ingrained weight of being the Pack Leader.
I let my authority swell, trying to cement my men in their spots. If all three of us converged on her while we were out of our minds on her scent, we were going to either terrify her or piss her off enough that she’d dive straight back into the truck and haul it out of here.
But Boone was already moving.
He didn’t stalk, but his long, ground-eating strides chewed up the yard in seconds.
He was the biggest man in the pack, an absolute mountain of muscle and flannel, and his dark eyes were locked entirely on the woman.
I tensed, my boots shifting in the gravel, ready to step between them if his Alpha pushed too hard like mine had.
Boone stopped a few feet away, towering over her.
The Omega pressed her spine against the truck door, her chest heaving as she stared up at him. Her eyes were shifting, assessing, and it almost seemed as though she were bracing for an Alpha command or waiting for a sign of aggression.