Epilogue 1
Mia
The hydrangea looks small in the middle of the pack’s massive front lawn.
It’s a baby bush I bought from Sweetwater’s Garden Store back in the city. Rhys shook his head at me, but he was the one who dug the new hole for it, making sure the soil was aerated and mixed with compost.
Now, on an overcast Tuesday morning, I’m kneeling in the dirt, packing the earth down around the roots.
I wipe a smudge of dirt from my cheek with the back of my glove and sit back on my heels to admire my work.
That’s when I see her.
Carol Beechman is walking down the sidewalk, Pip on her heels.
For the first time since I moved to Sweetwater Pines, she isn’t dressed the way she usually is. No crisp blouse. No pearls. No clipboard clutched to her chest.
She’s wearing a faded gray cardigan over a plain t-shirt, her hair pulled back in a messy, low bun that lets loose strands escape around her face. Pip is plodding along without his usual pink bow, sniffing at a dead leaf with zero enthusiasm.
She stops at the edge of my—our—property line. But she doesn’t pull out a phone to take pictures of code violations. She doesn’t scowl at the hydrangea I just planted.
She just stares at the house.
I almost turn back to my plant. I almost pretend I didn’t see her. After everything, I owe her absolutely nothing.
But something about the slump of her shoulders stops me. She doesn’t look like the tyrant of the HOA. She looks like a woman who’s forgotten how to get home.
I sigh, stripping off my gardening gloves.
“Carol?” I call out, pushing myself to my feet.
She startles, hand flying to her throat. When she looks at me, her eyes are red-rimmed and glassy.
“Mia,” she says. Her voice is flat. Tired. It lacks the sharp, performative cheer she usually wields like a weapon. “I didn’t see you there.”
“I’m gardening,” I say, gesturing to the trowel. I walk toward her, stopping a few feet away. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she says and I almost believe it. But then her face crumbles. She lets out a sound that is half-laugh, half-sob. “Actually, no. I’m not fine. But I’m sure you’re thrilled to hear that.”
I blink. “Why would I be thrilled?”
“Because I’ve been horrible to you,” she says bluntly. She looks down at Pip, her grip on the leash tightening. “Don’t pretend I haven’t. I know what I’ve been doing. I know what I look like to you people.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just stand there, the smell of damp earth hanging in the air between us.
Carol sighs, a long, shuddering exhale that seems to deflate her entire frame.
“It’s the anniversary,” she says quietly. “Five years today.”
“Anniversary of what?”
“My alphas’ deaths.” She says it matter-of-factly. “My pack. We were together for two decades, and then the car accident happened and they were gone, and I was…this.”
She gestures vaguely at herself. At the faded cardigan. At the empty street.
I see it then. The exhaustion. The loneliness carved into the lines around her mouth. The way she’s holding herself together with sheer force of will.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I realize I actually mean it.
She shrugs, looking at the hydrangea. “It’s been five years. I should be over it by now. That’s what everyone says. Move on, Carol. Get a hobby, Carol.”
“I don’t think grief works like that. It doesn’t have an expiration date.”
She looks at me then, really looks at me, and the hardness in her eyes cracks.
“No,” she whispers. “It doesn’t.”
Pip whines, pressing against her leg, and she reaches down to scratch his ears absently.
“The pack who lived at 126 before your pack,” she says, nodding toward the house behind me. “They were my friends. We had coffee every Sunday morning. They were quiet. Predictable. Safe.”
She swallows hard.
“And then they moved to Florida to be closer to their omega daughter and their grandkids, and suddenly there were four loud, chaotic men in their place. Exercising in the garage. Installing cameras. Changing everything.”
“You were angry,” I finish for her.
“I was terrified,” she corrects, her voice trembling. “Because everything was changing again, and I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t stop my alphas from dying. I couldn’t stop my friends from leaving. So I tried to control the HOA. Anything to make it feel like I had some power over my own world.”
I swallow hard, the anger I’ve been holding on to beginning to dissolve into something softer. “And I was an easy target.”
“You were new,” she says. “And you were so obviously falling for them. And I was…jealous.”
The admission hangs in the gray morning air.
“Jealous?” I echo.
“You have what I lost,” she says simply. “A pack. A bond. A future full of noise and life. And instead of being happy for you, I tried to ruin it. Because if I couldn’t have it, why should you?”
Her honesty is so raw, so unexpected, that it stings.
“I’m not asking for forgiveness,” she continues, straightening her shoulders, trying to pull the armor of Carol Beechman back around herself. “I just…I wanted you to know that it was never really about you. It was about me. And I’m…I’m sorry.”
I stare at her, this woman who tried to evict me, who called my life “morally indecent,” and I see her clearly for the first time.
“I’m sorry you lost your pack,” I say quietly. “I can’t imagine how hard that must be.”
She blinks, surprised, moisture gathering in her eyes. “You’re not going to yell at me? Tell me to go to hell?”
“Would it help?”
A startled, watery laugh escapes her. “Probably not.”
We stand there in awkward silence for a moment. The front door of 126 opens, and I hear the heavy tread of boots on the porch. Knox. He doesn’t come down, but his gaze weighs on us. Watching. Waiting to see if I need him.
Carol glances up at the house, then back to me.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, “they’re good to you. Your pack. Protective. The way a pack should be.”
My chest warms. “They are.”
“Don’t let the neighborhood chatter scare you off,” she adds, shifting her weight. “I’m…I’m going to resign from the Compliance Committee. I think I need a break.”
I blink. “You are?”
She nods. “And you were right. Sweetwater Pines is supposed to be a community. Not a dictatorship.”
“Thank you,” I say.
She nods, clipping Pip’s leash more securely. “I should go. I have to visit the cemetery.”
“Carol,” I call as she turns to leave.
She pauses, looking back, looking smaller than I’ve ever seen her.
“If you ever want to have coffee,” I say carefully, “I’m usually around. And Eli makes a really good lasagna. No judgment.”
Her eyes soften, just a fraction.
“I’ll think about it,” she says.
She walks away, Pip trotting at her heels, her cardigan fluttering in the breeze.
I watch her go until she turns the corner.
Knox comes down the steps, crossing the lawn to wrap an arm around my waist from behind. He presses a kiss to the side of my neck, his stubble scratching gently.
“Everything okay?” he rumbles, looking in the direction Carol vanished. “Do I need to buy her house too?”
I lean back into him, covering his hand with mine.
“No. I think we have a truce.”
Knox grunts. “Truce is good. But if she measures the grass again, I’m buying the block.”
I laugh, leaning back into the solid wall of his chest.
“Deal.”