Chapter 9 Nacho #2
Rosie appears before we've even settled. She's sixty-three, built like a fire hydrant, with silver hair pulled back in a bun and eyes that miss nothing.
"Sheriff." She sets down two glasses of water without being asked. "And Jessica Delacroix. Heard you were back in town."
Jessica's shoulders tense. Her scent spikes with anxiety. "News travels fast."
"Honey, news travels faster than light in Largo Waters. By now everyone knows you're here, what you're wearing, and how many times you've sneezed since you arrived." Rosie pulls a notepad from her apron pocket. "What can I get you?"
"Two cheeseburgers," I say before Jessica can claim she's not hungry. "Extra pickles on both. Two orders of fries. Two chocolate milkshakes. And whatever pie you've got today."
Rosie scribbles it down. "Apple crumble. Best batch I've made in months."
"Perfect."
She tucks the notepad away and looks at Jessica with something like sympathy. "You need anything else, you just holler. I've got a shotgun under the counter for troublemakers."
Jessica's eyes go wide. "Is that legal?"
"This is Largo Waters, sweetheart. Everything's legal if you don't get caught." Rosie winks and shuffles off toward the kitchen.
Jessica turns to stare at me. "Did she just threaten to shoot someone on my behalf?"
"Rosie takes care of her own."
"I'm not her own. I haven't been here in six years."
“It doesn't matter. You grew up here. That makes you hers." I lean back against the booth. "That's how it works in small towns. You belong to people whether you want to or not."
She's quiet for a moment. Processing. Her fingers trace patterns on the water glass, leaving trails in the condensation. Her scent is settling. Calming. The sharp edge of panic fading into something softer.
"Callum's mother called me today," she says finally.
My jaw tightens. I can feel the muscle jump. "What did she want?"
"She wants me to apologize. Publicly. For having a mental breakdown and ruining her son's wedding."
"Did you have a mental breakdown?"
"No. I made a choice." Her voice is steady now. Stronger. And her scent reflects it. "She wants me to lie. To tell everyone I'm unstable so that Callum looks like the victim instead of the villain."
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her to go to hell. In slightly more polite terms." She smiles. "Then I hung up on her."
Something warm blooms in my chest. Pride. She's in there, buried under all that fear and self-doubt. The fierce woman who used to argue politics at our dinner table and beat Carlos at poker and make Pedro laugh even when he was determined to be grumpy.
The woman who used to fall asleep on my shoulder like I was home.
"Good," I say. "You stood up for yourself. That takes courage."
She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I don't feel courageous. I feel like I'm barely holding on."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
The food arrives. Rosie sets down plates piled high with burgers and fries, followed by two milkshakes in tall glasses topped with whipped cream. Jessica stares at the spread like she's never seen food before.
"Eat," I say.
"I don't think I can eat all this."
"Then eat what you can. But you need something in your stomach besides whatever you've been surviving on for the past two days."
"Peanut butter," she admits. "Straight from the jar."
"That's not food."
"It has protein."
"Eat."
She picks up a fry. Takes a tentative bite. Her eyes flutter closed, and her scent blooms. Sweetens. The satisfied hum of an omega being fed.
"Oh my God," she breathes. "These are incredible."
"Rosie uses duck fat."
"I don't care if she uses jet fuel." Jessica grabs another fry, then another, shoveling them into her mouth with the kind of enthusiasm I've never seen from her before. She always ate so carefully around Callum. Small bites. Controlled portions. Like she was afraid of taking up too much space.
Now she's devouring fries like they're the last food on earth, and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Her scent is pure contentment now. Happy omega. Safe. Fed. Protected.
My alpha purrs.
"This burger," she mumbles around a mouthful, "is life-changing."
"Rosie would be pleased to hear that."
She eats. I watch. The tension slowly drains from her shoulders. The color returns to her cheeks. By the time she's worked through half the burger and most of the fries, she looks almost human again.
And her scent has transformed. No more stress hormones. No more fear.
My radio crackles.
"Sheriff Negrorio?" Deputy Martinez's voice, tinny through the speaker. "We've got a report of a suspicious vehicle. Out-of-state plates. Black sedan, rental sticker on the bumper. Been circling the Delacroix residence for the past twenty minutes."
Jessica freezes, fry halfway to her mouth. Her scent spikes sharp with fear.
"Description of the driver?" I ask, keeping my voice neutral even though my alpha is already preparing for violence.
"Male. Dark hair. Couldn't get a clear look at his face."
I don't need a clear look. I already know.
"I need to handle something," I tell Jessica. "Stay here. Finish your food."
"Nacho..." Her voice is thin. Scared. Her scent bitter again.
"Stay here."
I leave before she can argue. The cold air hits me like a slap when I step outside, but I barely feel it. My blood is running too hot.
Callum. He's here. In my town. Circling Jessica's home like a predator stalking prey.
I get in my patrol car and run the plates dispatch sent me. The results confirm what I already knew.
Callum Whitmore. Rental vehicle. Registered to an address in the city.
My best friend since kindergarten.
The man I'm about to destroy.
I hit the lights and pull out of my parking spot. The Delacroix house is five minutes away. I make it in three, pushing the speed limit in ways I'd ticket anyone else for.
The black sedan is parked across the street from Dorothy's house, engine idling, exhaust puffing white in the cold air. I pull up behind it, blocking any escape route, and step out of my car.
My boots crunch on the gravel. My hand rests on my holster. Not because I think I'll need it, but because I want him to see it.
The driver's window rolls down.
Callum's face appears. Same perfectly styled hair, artfully tousled like he spent an hour making it look effortless. Same chiseled jaw and straight nose. Same smile that makes women swoon and makes me want to put my fist through it.
He's wearing a designer jacket with a watch that catches the fading light. Everything about him screams money and entitlement and the absolute certainty that the world will bend to his will.
"Nacho!" He sounds delighted. Like we're old friends running into each other at a bar. "What are the odds?"
"It's Sheriff Negrorio." I plant my feet and cross my arms. Let my scent roll out—leather and rain, dark sugar and ironwood, alpha dominance that makes it clear who's in charge here. "And the odds are exactly one hundred percent because I got a report about a suspicious vehicle and here you are."
"Suspicious?" Callum laughs. "I'm just checking on my fiancée."
"Ex-fiancée."
He waves a hand, dismissive. "Semantics. We had a little disagreement. She got emotional. You know how omegas can be."
How does he know that she’s an omega?
The casual cruelty of it makes my jaw clench so hard I hear my teeth creak. My alpha snarls, wanting blood.
"What I know," I say slowly, letting the threat show, "is that you're parked outside a private residence, watching the house. That's stalking. It's a crime."
"Stalking?" He puts a hand to his chest in mock offense. "I'm concerned about her. She ran away from our wedding. She's clearly not thinking straight. I'm here to make sure she's safe."
"She doesn't want to see you."
"Did she tell you that?" His smile turns patronizing. "Because I think she's just confused. She does this sometimes. Gets overwhelmed. Makes impulsive decisions. But she always comes back to me in the end."
He leans out the window slightly, and I catch the full force of his cologne. Expensive. Cloying. Trying too hard to cover up what he really is underneath.
"She knows she's nothing without me," he adds.
What the fuck?
Jessica said almost the same thing in my office. He's been telling her that. Drilling it into her head until she believed it.
I step closer to the car that he has to tilt his head back to meet my eyes.
His smile falters.
"Here's what's going to happen," I say. My voice is quiet.
Controlled. The voice I use when I want someone to understand exactly how serious I am.
"You're going to leave Largo Waters. Tonight.
You're not going to contact Jessica. You're not going to contact her mother.
You're not going to drive past their house or send messages through friends or show up at places where she might be. "
Callum's smile doesn't waver, but shifts in his eyes. A flicker of uncertainty. His cologne can't hide the spike of unease in his scent.
Good.
"If I see you here again," I continue, "if I hear that you've been calling her or texting her or breathing in her general direction, I will arrest you.
Stalking and harassment charges. You'll spend the night in a cell, and I'll make sure every news outlet in a hundred-mile radius knows exactly why. "
"You wouldn't." But his voice is less certain now. His scent sours with worry.
"You've known me for twenty years, Callum. When have I ever made a threat I didn't follow through on?"
He stares at me. I stare back.
The silence stretches between us, heavy with history. All the years of friendship. All the football games and parties and late nights. All the times I watched him treat Jessica like property instead of a person and said nothing because I thought it wasn't my place.
It's my place now.
"You'd arrest your best friend?" Callum asks finally. "Over a woman?"
I lean down until we're eye to eye.
"Try me."
His mask cracks. Just for a second. Just long enough for me to see the ugly thing underneath. The rage. The entitlement. The absolute certainty that he owns everything and everyone around him.
His scent turns acrid with it.
"This isn't over," he hisses. "She's mine. She's always been mine. Some backwater sheriff isn't going to change that."
"Drive safe, Callum. It's a long way back to wherever you came from."
He peels out so fast his tires spray gravel. I watch until his taillights disappear around the corner.
My hands are shaking. Not from fear. From the effort of not dragging him out of that car and beating him until he understood exactly what happens to men who terrorize women in my town.
The scent of his expensive cologne lingers in the air. Fake. Covering up rot.
I pull out my phone and text the pack group chat.
Nacho: Callum was here. Circling Jessica's house. I ran him off but he'll be back.
Sergio responds immediately: How did Jessica take it?
Nacho: She doesn't know yet. She's at Rosie's.
Carlos: You took her to dinner?
Nacho: She needed to eat.
Pedro: Is she okay?
I think about her crying in my office. The wet spot on my shirt that's slowly turning cold in the evening air. The way she looked at me when I told her she was safe.
The way her scent mixed with mine like we were meant to blend together.
Nacho: She will be.
I drive back to the diner.
Jessica is still in the booth, milkshake clutched in both hands, staring at the door like she's been counting the seconds since I left. Her face floods with relief when she sees me, and her scent blooms sweet again.
"What happened?" she demands before I even sit down. "Who was it? What did they want?"
I slide into the seat across from her. Look at her swollen eyes and her tangled blonde hair and her borrowed coat that's too big for her shoulders.
"Callum was outside your mother's house."
The color drains from her face. Her scent spikes bitter with fear. "He's here? In Largo Waters?"
"He was. He's gone now." I reach across the table and take her hand. Her fingers are cold against my palm. Small and trembling. "I told him to leave town. He won't be coming back."
"You can't know that."
"I can." I tighten my grip on her hand, and some of my leather and rain scent transfers to her skin. Marking. "Because if he does come back, I'll arrest him. And he knows I mean it."
She stares at our joined hands. At my fingers wrapped around hers. At the point where her pale skin meets my darker complexion.
"Why are you doing this?" she whispers. "Protecting me. Feeding me. Any of it."
I could give her the safe answer, because it's my job.
But I'm tired of safe answers. Tired of pretending. Tired of watching her from a distance and telling myself it's enough.
"You're pack," I say quietly. "You've been pack since the first time you fell asleep on my shoulder during a movie.
" I hold her gaze. Let her see everything I've been hiding for years.
"That's not something that changed just because you left.
My brothers feel it too. We've been waiting for you for a very long time. "
Her breath catches. "Nacho..."
"When you're ready," I continue, "we're here. All four of us. Not because we want to pressure you. But because you're ours. And we'd like the chance to prove that to you."
Jessica doesn't pull her hand away.
Her omega scent blooms giving me hope.