15. Emma #2
“Please be less nice about it,” Roman said, from the doorway, entirely serious. “I’ve heard stories, and I’d love for at least one of them to turn out true in front of me.”
Jace’s father studied Emma for one more long moment, approval settling plainly behind his eyes. “You’re not what I expected when Jace called to say he was bringing someone home.”
“What did you expect?”
“Someone who needed protecting.” He shook his head slightly, a small, real smile breaking through the authority. “Instead, my son brought home someone who’s going to save this pack’s land with a laptop and a records request. I like this a lot better than the version I’d imagined.”
Roman, lurking near the doorway with a tactical vest under one arm, raised a hand. “For the record, I volunteer for perimeter duty anywhere except near the lodge tonight. Anywhere. I’ve got a good feeling about the tree line.”
“Nobody asked, Roman.”
“Nobody needed to. I’m establishing plausible deniability early.” He was gone before anyone could ask him to clarify, and Jace’s mother pressed her lips into a thin line in a way that suggested she understood exactly what he meant and had opinions she was choosing not to share yet.
The evening found them walking the tree line alone, the war room and the council finally set down somewhere behind them.
“This is the run I did every morning until I left for training.” Jace nodded toward a break in the pines where the ground sloped down toward a creek Emma could hear before she saw it.
“Three miles, out and back, rain or snow. My father used to say a wolf who couldn’t run his own territory blind didn’t deserve to lead it. ”
“Did you? Run it blind, I mean?”
“Eventually.” He caught her hand as they walked, no fixed destination beyond wherever the path took them, and kissed her knuckles without breaking stride. “Took about two years. I could probably still do it tonight if you asked.”
“I’m not asking. I’d like to keep my shoes clean, and I’ve heard rumors about what happens to hikers who underestimate this mountain.”
Brush cracked somewhere off to their right, loud and sudden, and Jace went rigid beside her in half a heartbeat, body angling in front of hers before she’d even registered the sound, nostrils flaring once as he scented the air.
“Jace—”
“Wait.” His voice had dropped low, the easy man from thirty seconds ago gone utterly.
A long beat passed, tense and silent, before his shoulders finally dropped.
“Deer. Two of them, moving off.” He exhaled, and the tension bled visibly out of him, though his hand didn’t leave her waist. “Sorry. Instinct doesn’t know the difference between a threat and a woodland creature having an evening. ”
“I noticed you didn’t ask permission before putting yourself between me and a deer.”
“I’m never going to ask permission for that. That’s worth knowing about me by now.” He pulled her back in against his side, arm settling around her shoulders, unapologetic. “Your turn. Tell me a fact nobody else knows.”
Emma considered the question, watching the last light go gold and soft over the ridgeline, her heart still catching up from the scare.
“My mother’s kitchen smelled like cinnamon and burnt coffee, always, no matter what she was cooking.
I used to think it came from one ingredient.
It took me until college to realize it came from the kitchen itself—old wood, an ancient coffee maker that never quite got cleaned right, my dad’s cinnamon toast obsession baked into the walls over twenty years.
” She glanced over, feeling suddenly, uncharacteristically exposed.
“I haven’t thought about that smell in years. I don’t know why I’m telling you now.”
“Because there’s no mission attached to it.” Jace stopped walking, turning to face her fully, an unguarded openness moving behind his eyes. “This is the first time either of us has been anywhere without an operation attached to it. No cover story. No threat to manage. Only this.”
“Only this,” she echoed, and found she liked the sound of it far more than she expected to. “My dad also once tried to build me a treehouse without reading a single instruction and it collapsed within the week. I have a scar on my knee from the wreckage. I’ve never told anyone that either.”
“I want to see the scar.”
“You’ve seen the scar. You only never knew the story behind it.”
“Fair.” He was quiet a moment, working something loose that clearly didn’t come easy.
“When I was seven, before any of this was mine to carry, I used to hide in the hollow of a fallen oak past the north fence and pretend I was an ordinary kid whose father sold insurance. My mother always knew exactly where to find me. She’d bring two sandwiches and never once tell me to come back and be an Alpha’s son yet.
Just sat in the dirt with me until I was ready.
” He shook his head, almost embarrassed by it.
“I haven’t thought about that tree in twenty years either. ”
“That’s the first thing you’ve told me that has nothing to do with leadership.”
“I noticed that too, about halfway through saying it.”
He laughed, low and real, and kissed her right there on the trail, easy and slow, in no hurry at all to be anywhere else tonight.
They found their way back to the lodge as full dark settled over the ridgeline, and Jace didn’t let go of her hand once, not crossing the porch, not climbing the stairs, not standing in the doorway of the guest room Gerri had so thoroughly criticized.
“There’s a fact I need to tell you before we go any further tonight.
” He turned to face her, and the composure he wore everywhere else, armor-thick and permanent, had dropped away utterly, leaving a younger, more uncertain man underneath it.
“I’ve known since the ballroom, Emma. I only let myself believe it around the warehouse.
I kept not saying it because every time seemed tangled up with danger, or fear, or adrenaline, and I wanted you to hear it when it was purely true. Not urgent. Purely true.”
Emma’s breath caught, her whole chest going tight and warm at once.
“I stopped wanting the engagement to end a long time before tonight.” Her voice came out rough, honest in a way she’d been circling for weeks without letting herself land on it.
“I think I stopped somewhere around the moment you let go of the tracker bracelet argument and held my hand instead, no argument attached. I didn’t say anything because saying it made it real, and real things can be taken away.
But I’m done being careful about that. I love you too. ”
He kissed her then, slow and thorough, backing her against the doorframe with both hands framing her face, and when they broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers, breathing her in.
“Stay with me tonight,” he said, quiet, mouth still close enough to brush hers with every word. “Not because anyone’s watching. Because I want you here.”