Chapter 27
twenty-seven
JULIA
I stood at the kitchen island, nursing my second cup of coffee and enjoying the rare quiet hum of the house. The frantic, hormone-driven energy that had possessed me for the last few days had finally settled into a low, manageable simmer. I felt grounded for the first time all week.
The sound of someone moving in the house had me pivoting toward the stairs and the living room beyond.
Wyatt marched into the kitchen. He was dressed far too nicely for eight in the morning on a Saturday. His jeans were clean, his boots were polished, and he wore a crisp, navy-blue pearl-snap shirt that was actually tucked in.
He stopped a few feet away, hooking his thumbs into his front pockets. “Jules?”
“Morning, Wyatt,” I said, leaning my hips against the counter. “What’s up?”
Wyatt’s brow furrowed, his dark eyes serious, his mind mulling something over. “Is asking a girl out hard to do?”
I blinked, caught off guard. I lowered my coffee mug while my brain scrambled to figure out how to navigate this.
Oh God. Dating advice? Already?
I didn’t want to overstep, but I also didn’t want to give him the wrong answer.
“Well,” I started carefully, choosing my words. “I think it can be a little scary sometimes, especially if you really like the person. But honestly? It’s usually pretty easy. The best thing to do is just be brave and ask.”
Wyatt gave a single, firm nod, his expression clearing. “That’s what I told Dad.”
“You...” My brain hiccuped. “What?”
“I told him he should just ask. But he’s been staring at the hallway wall for ten minutes,” Wyatt explained, his tone drier than the dirt in the round pen.
He gave a casual, unbothered shrug. “Anyway, he wants to take you to the county fair today. Said I’m supposed to tell you to wear somethin’ nice. ”
A loud, echoing thump came from the hallway, followed immediately by the sound of heavy boots stopping dead on the hardwood.
“Wyatt.”
The single word was a low warning that bounced off the walls. I looked past Wyatt’s shoulder. Stetson stood in the entryway. He was holding his truck keys, looking scowly and flustered. A flush had crept up the back of his neck and stained the tips of his ears.
I’d never seen him so out of sorts.
A split second later, a loud, obnoxious whoop erupted from the living room.
“Smooth, boss!” Ransom’s delighted holler echoed through the house. “Real smooth!”
“Textbook,” River chirped, incredibly amused, standing right behind his brother. “Make the seven-year-old do the heavy lifting.”
Stetson closed his eyes, dragging a heavy hand down his face as he let out a long-suffering breath. He looked like he was actively praying for the floorboards to open up and swallow him whole.
Wyatt didn’t flinch at the chaos he’d just caused. He just turned around, looking up at his mortified father with a blank expression. “I told her. Just like you asked.”
“I did not ask you to do that,” Stetson gritted out, dropping his hand and glaring in the general direction of the living room. “And if either of you two say another word, you’re mucking stalls for a month.”
Dead silence fell over the living room, though I could clearly hear the muffled sound of Ransom snorting into his hand.
I couldn’t hold it back anymore. A breathless, delighted laugh bubbled up in my chest.
Stetson’s dark eyes snapped back to mine. The flush on his neck deepened, but the sharp line of his mouth softened just a fraction at the sound of my laughter. The pack leader, the immovable wall of the Double T, was blushing.
“Well,” I said, setting my mug down and flashing Stetson a very serious, appreciative smile. “Please tell your father that I would love to go to the fair, and I will be sure to wear something nice.”
I grinned at both of them, and then happily sashayed out of the kitchen, leaning up to give Stetson a kiss on the cheek on my way to my room to pick out the perfect outfit.
The Coldwater Creek county fair smelled exactly like fried dough, sweet livestock feed, and dusty earth.
I sat on the second tier of the aluminum bleachers, my forearms resting on my knees as I stared through the heavy iron pipes of the arena fence.
The loudspeaker crackled overhead, the announcer’s drawl drowned out by the roar of the crowd, but I wasn’t paying attention to the noise.
My entire focus was locked on the two figures waiting at the far end of the dirt corral.
Stetson sat tall and loose in the saddle of his favorite roan gelding, his rope coiled casually in his right hand. Right beside him, riding a smaller but equally sturdy buckskin, was Wyatt.
They were a perfectly matched set. They wore identical dark denim, western shirts, and expressions of unshakeable focus.
“They look good out there,” River stated, leaning his forearms against the fence right at the base of the bleachers. He didn’t turn around, but the warm, steady notes of his scent drifted up to me, helping my Omega feel more comfortable in public.
“Jules! Jules, look!”
I glanced to my left just as Ransom appeared at the edge of the bleachers. Sunny was sitting squarely on his broad shoulders, her hands gripping his cowboy hat to keep herself steady. In Ransom’s arms was a neon-colored over-sized stuffed caterpillar.
He climbed the aluminum steps, grinning like a menace, and dumped the plushie right onto the bench beside me.
It joined the stuffed armadillo and the slightly cross-eyed pink bear he had already won for me in the span of forty-five minutes.
And that didn’t account for Sunny’s pile that August had already placed in his canvas tote bags.
“Ransom, I’m running out of room,” I laughed, pushing the caterpillar’s fuzzy antennae out of my lap.
“Hey, when I see a rigged ring-toss, I have to conquer it,” Ransom declared easily. He reached up, tapped Sunny’s boot, and nodded toward the arena. “Settle in, Sunshine. Your dad and brother are up.”
I snapped my attention back to the dirt.
The heavy metal chute clattered open. A calf bolted out, kicking up a massive cloud of dry earth.
Stetson and Wyatt moved flawlessly. There was no hesitation, no frantic scramble.
I watched, my heart lodging right in the back of my throat, as the man I was falling for and the little boy I already loved worked together as a seamless unit.
Stetson didn’t take over or try to dominate the run.
He controlled the pace, his horse mirroring his subtle commands, driving the calf directly into Wyatt’s path so his son could take the lead.
Wyatt swung his rope. He didn’t rush, but relied on the discipline and timing his father had spent hours teaching him in the round pen. The loop sailed through the air and caught cleanly.
The crowd erupted into cheers alongside mine.
Stetson pulled his roan to a halt, the dust settling around them in a golden haze.
He swung down from the saddle, walking over to where Wyatt was already reeling his slack in.
Stetson didn’t make a show of it for the crowd.
He just crouched down in the dirt, tipped his son’s cowboy hat back, and said something quiet that didn’t carry over the din of the onlookers.
Whatever it was made Wyatt’s serious, guarded little face crack into a beaming smile.
An ache bloomed in the center of my chest. Seeing Stetson out here—not as the stoic pack leader or the fiercely protective Alpha, but simply as a father who was incredibly proud of his son—made the truth impossible to dodge.
I was entirely in love with him.
The crowd was still buzzing when I stood up from the bleachers, grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. Ransom passed Sunny down to River, who settled her on his hip, and then Ransom reached up and offered me his hand to help me navigate the steep aluminum steps with my armful of stuffed animals.
“Your man did good out there,” Ransom said as I stepped down, his amber eyes warm with genuine pride for his pack leader.
“They both did.” I dumped the caterpillar and the cross-eyed bear onto the bench behind us when I reached the ground. “Wyatt was incredible.”
“Kid’s a natural.” River shifted Sunny to his other hip. “Gets it from his old man, though Stetson would never admit to how good he is.”
The three of us stood at the base of the bleachers, the crowd flowing around us, the smell of kettle corn and cotton candy making my mouth water while we waited.
Stetson was still in the arena, crouched down talking to Wyatt, and the moment felt suspended.
My pack was happy, the sun was warm, and the day was as close to perfect as anything I’d experienced since landing in Wyoming.
I caught Ransom watching me, and shot him a smile, loving how his eyes drifted down to my mouth for a long moment before they lifted back up. The man was about as subtle as a freight train, which was just one of the things I loved about him.
“You’ve got sugar on your lip,” he rumbled, stepping closer. “From the cotton candy earlier.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yeah, you do.” He grinned, tipping my chin up with one finger. “Right here.”
Swooping down, he captured my lips, kissing me sweetly.
It was quick and warm, tasting like the caramel apple he’d treated himself to and his usual toasted marshmallow.
The combination was delicious and I licked at the seam of his mouth, tasting him, wanting his flavor on my tongue.
His free hand found my waist, pulling me into him just enough that my boots left the ground, leaving me on the very tips of my toes.
My head was still spinning when another warm hand settled on the small of my back. River. He’d passed Sunny to someone—Gideon, maybe, who had materialized from the crowd with perfect timing—and now he was right there, close enough that I could feel the heat of him through my shirt.
“My turn,” he purred, and before I could process the words, his hand slid from my back to the nape of my neck and he kissed me.