Chapter 20 #2
I stepped up beside her, tossing the small boutique bag over the tailgate and into the bed of the dually.
“Alright, boss,” I drawled, throwing a casual smirk his way to break the heavy tension before we combusted on the sidewalk.
“I think we should take this party back to the ranch. You got the feed loaded?”
Stetson pulled his attention away from Julia with visible effort. He cleared his throat, rolling his shoulders. “Yeah. Just finishing up.”
I moved to the back of the truck, prepared to help out, but the crunch of heavy boots on the gravel behind us made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
“Well, well. Look who finally dragged a woman into town.”
I didn’t need to turn around to recognize the voice. My jaw locked while Stetson went still beside me.
I turned slowly, dropping my hand from the tailgate to face the three men who stood on the sidewalk.
I recognized the man in the center—Miller, an Alpha from a neighboring pack whose arrogance always wrote checks his fists couldn’t cash.
He was currently flaring his nostrils, a confused furrow in his brow as he desperately tried to catch a scent off Julia.
He couldn’t. And now I was tickled pink she only smelled of plain shea butter.
“Heard the rumors,” Miller drawled, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops.
He looked Julia up and down, his gaze lingering on her curves with a sleazy, entitled smirk I wanted to punch right off his face.
“Word around the feed store is the Tate pack finally imported an Omega from the city. Gotta say, I’m disappointed.
She doesn’t smell like a damn thing.” He took a half-step forward, his own sour-pine scent rolling off him in a wave of cheap intimidation.
“You sure she works right, Stetson? Maybe my boys and I should take her off your hands for the night. See if we can wring a little sweetness out of her.”
A deafening roar blasted through my skull.
My vision narrowed to a single, angry pinpoint.
Every ounce of fun-loving energy I possessed evaporated, replaced by the lethal, blood-deep instinct to rip Miller apart.
Beside me, Stetson was already moving. He didn’t posture.
Didn’t even give a warning growl. He stepped forward in pure violence, his hands balling into fists the size of cinder blocks.
We were going to beat them right into the asphalt.
But a cool, manicured hand pressed flat against the center of my chest, stopping my forward momentum dead.
“I assure you,” Julia said, her voice dropping the temperature on the sidewalk by twenty degrees. It wasn’t loud or frightened or even intimidated. It was ice cold Cristenello menace. “I work perfectly fine.”
She stepped neatly between Stetson and me, casually shifting her weight to shield Sunny behind her leg. She tilted her chin, fixing Miller with a stare so predatory it actually made the rival Alpha flinch.
“I also assure you,” she continued, her tone smooth and razor-sharp, “that if you ever look at me like that again, you won’t have to worry about what I smell like.
You’ll be breathing through a tube for the rest of your miserable, pathetic life.
Now, step aside before I let my Alphas ruin this perfectly good sidewalk with your teeth. ”
Miller’s smug expression slid away. He opened his mouth, then shut it, taking an involuntary step back under the crushing weight of her absolute authority, clearly not expecting that kind of dominance from an Omega. He jerked his chin at his boys, and they quickly scrambled out of our way.
I watched them retreat down the pavement while I fought back the urge to hunt them down and make them pay. While I was reeling, Julia didn’t miss a beat. The anger in her expression vanished, replaced by a bright, manufactured smile as she crouched down to Sunny’s level.
She distracted my daughter with a quick, breezy joke about silly men forgetting their manners, expertly spinning the heavy tension into a game before Sunny could even register the threat. But despite the smooth deflection, the easy, glowing magic of the afternoon was gone.
We walked around to the side of the truck and Stetson reached past her to pull the heavy rear door open, but before she could climb inside, he paused.
He didn’t say a word, just ducked his head and pressed a kiss directly to her temple.
He stayed like that for a long moment, as if reassuring himself she was safe before crossing to the driver’s side and climbing behind the wheel.
I caught the passenger door handle, my own pulse still running way too hot. “You alright, Sparkles?”
“I’m fine,” she lied smoothly and turned to buckle Sunny in. “I just want to go home.”
I gave her forehead a kiss of my own and then we were tucked into the safety of the cab, the heavy rumble of the diesel engine chewing up the miles back to the ranch.
Riding shotgun, I shifted my weight against the leather seat and rested my arm on the center console so I could keep my girls in my peripheral vision.
The cab was dead quiet. Sunny was already passed out, her small head resting heavily against her car seat, while Julia stared blankly at the passing fence line, looking pensive.
Twenty minutes ago, my girl had been twirling in a sundress, making Sunny laugh so hard she’d gotten the hiccups.
Now the cab felt like a funeral procession.
Miller’s words were like a stain none of us could scrub out, and the easy, golden afternoon we’d been having felt like it belonged to a different day entirely.
A sharp buzz vibrated from deep in her purse.
Julia flinched, snapping out of her trance. She dug out her phone, and I watched the pale light of the screen brighten her face. From my angle, I caught the bold white letters at the top of the message banner—Addy. The friend Colt had told us all about.
Her eyes darted quickly across the glass.
And just like that, the day continued to take a left turn.
It happened in a fraction of a second. Julia’s flawless, untouchable composure shattered.
Her throat worked a harsh swallow, and she bit down on her lower lip so hard I thought she might draw blood.
Her chin trembled violently as she hurriedly turned her face toward the window to hide it.
Then, her scent hit me.
The emotional spike didn’t just bleed through her prototype lotion, it blew the barrier right off its hinges.
A suffocating crush of tart cherry and sour amber rolled through the truck, her sadness so tangible it made my chest ache.
The scent was so devastated and sharp that it physically scraped the back of my throat, making my Alpha lose his shit.
I didn’t ask what the message said or try to offer empty words about a situation I couldn’t fix. I just reached my hand back into the open space between the seats and found her knee.
Wrapping my fingers around her leg, I squeezed, pushing all my comfort and support her way, hoping it would help somehow.
Sparkles didn’t look away from the window, but her fingers slid over mine, gripping my hand and holding on tight for the entire ride home.
Beside me, Stetson’s knuckles had gone white on the steering wheel. His jaw was set so tense the muscle pulsed in a steady rhythm beneath his skin. He hadn’t said a word since Julia’s scent broke through. Hadn’t asked what was wrong or reached for her.
He just drove, eyes locked on the road, the bitter edge of scorched cedar filling the cab alongside her sadness.
I knew that look. I’d seen it the night he’d told us Wyatt’s mom was gone. The night he’d stood in the kitchen doorway holding a sleeping baby and said, in a voice stripped of everything, “She’s not coming back.”
I needed to talk to him. Soon. What happened with Wyatt’s mom had left scars on all of us, but Stetson carried the deepest ones, and if he started projecting that damage onto Julia, it would destroy the best thing that had ever walked through our door.
We couldn’t put our past on her shoulders.
Not if we wanted a shot at actually keeping her.
And he needed to realize that not all women walked away. Julia wasn’t unhappy because of us, she was upset about a situation with her friend.
But looking at the way Stetson’s shoulders had turned to granite and the thousand-yard stare he had fixed on the empty highway, he wasn’t thinking clearly, and tonight wasn’t the night to try and set him straight.
It needed to happen sooner rather than later, though, because deep down, I knew with every fiber of my being he was already anticipating the ending before our story was even over.