Secret Heart (Creek Falls Omegaverse #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

EMILY

T he private barn is quiet as I park my Jeep beside Brielle’s green Land Rover just outside it.

It’s the nearest building to my parents’ sprawling farmhouse situated in the middle of the mountain meadow, though that distance doesn’t really mean much when it’s still over a quarter mile away.

The rest of the meadow is still. The long prairie grasses are yellow where they sway in the breeze, all the wildflowers gone for the season.

The air is chilly, but the flannel I slipped over a long sleeve shirt keeps it from being unbearable.

There’s five trucks parked in front of the other barn, the one where the ranch hands board their own horses.

It’s rare that all of the ranch hands for my family’s legacy cattle ranch— Monroe Ranch—work the cattle together, but the imminent season change has everyone working long, hard hours to make sure everything is prepped properly.

My gaze catches on the black truck at the end of the line of vehicles, and my stomach clenches. I breathe through the sudden, gripping nausea until it fades to the lingering burn I’ve had the last several days.

Did I intentionally time arriving here after when I knew they’d all be gone deep into the valley the opposite direction of where Brielle and I discussed riding today? Yes.

I’m not ready to see Beau Pierce yet, okay? So sue me.

“Emily?” Brielle’s voice comes from inside the barn.

I shake off all of my ricocheting thoughts, turning to the private barn.

I’d asked Brielle yesterday about going for a ride today, not sure if she’d be willing now that Caleb’s fire season is done.

They’ve been practically inseparable the last few weeks, especially now that she’s finally made the jump to move in with him and my brother permanently—including her nest.

“I’m here!” I call out, soothing the worry in her voice.

When my eyes adjust to the low light inside the barn, Brielle’s easing a saddle onto Minthe.

Her hair is pulled back, revealing the dark phoenix tattoo behind her left ear and the bond scar that straddles one of the tail feathers.

The buzzing, yellow incandescent light throws the newly-turned-silver mark into stark relief every time she tilts her head.

She glances up as I pass her, heading deeper into the barn and toward my own favorite horse, Redwood.

In this barn, there’s two sets of horses that my father purchased about three years apart as well as a few singleton purchases over the last decade or so.

The first group my mother named, and they’re all Greek goddesses and nymphs.

The second, smaller group, my father named after various trees.

Cottonwood’s stall is empty as I pass it, and that’s no surprise.

She’s my brother’s favorite of his own personal horses, and he always takes her when he’s moving the cattle.

Redwood perks up when I open his stall, quickly crossing the small distance between us with a flick of his tail.

“You’re not riding Phoebe?” I ask.

Minthe has a love-hate relationship with most people, the living embodiment of the red mare stereotype.

Brielle’s become a lot more confident over the last several months, but she doesn’t desire such a strong-willed horse most days.

Phoebe bonded with her practically the very first day they met back in May, nearly as fast as she’d bonded with Brandon over a decade ago.

Brielle flushes and then shakes her head.

“She threw a shoe yesterday. Since the snow is coming soon, Ethan opted to just pull her shoes in prep for winter.” She pauses her movements, scratching Minthe’s neck instead.

“Camden wants to do a picnic lunch with Caleb. He insisted on being able to ride Nyx on his own, so Caleb’s going to take Daphne. Which means it’s Minthe for me.”

With a shrug, she tightens the cinch and then adjusts the stirrups, her movements a calm confident that was absent only a couple months ago during our first ride together when she’d initially moved back to Creek Falls.

I give a half-hearted smile. Brielle’s frown grows more pronounced, a worry line forming between her eyes.

Over the summer, her sad disposition had slowly melted away, leaving behind an omega that is reserved but content with a soft happiness that eases most alphas around her even if she doesn’t realize it.

Now, that worried layer falls back into place, her instincts picking up on the small tells of my own mood despite my scent not betraying me. Yet.

I expect her to call me on it and demand to know what’s wrong, the same as Melissa or Olivia would. Instead, she purses her lips and drops her attention back to Minthe’s saddle.

“I thought we could go up to Lover’s Meadow,” she says as she grabs the bitless bridle Ethan prefers to use with Minthe.

“I know it’s not what we’d originally talked about, but Ethan mentioned the trail up to Bluebird View had a rockslide over the weekend because of some idiots ignoring the ‘no motorized vehicles’ sign.

He hasn’t gotten a chance to send someone up to clear it since they’re trying to get the herds moved around before the snow.

” She bites her lip. “Unless you want something more involved instead?”

I shake my head and rub Redwood’s nose, smiling a bit as he bumps it into my shoulder. Already, some of my worry dissipates. No matter what happens, I’ll be all right in the end.

“Lover’s Meadow is fine,” I say.

It’s still the opposite direction from where the cattle are, so it’s good enough.

Brielle doesn’t say anything else as I work through the steps of getting Redwood ready for a long ride.

She attaches two saddlebags to the back of her saddle and loops a long lead rope around the horn before swinging up into the seat without a hitch in her step.

I undo Redwood’s tie-out and loop the rope around my own saddlehorn, then do the same as Brielle, pressing hard on the right stirrup to adjust the saddle a hairsbreadth.

Redwood fidgets a bit under me, shaking his head as I urge him out of the barn beside Minthe.

As we cross the meadow, ducking around Mom’s garden and avoiding the swathe of lawn Dad keeps manicured to within an inch of its life, Camden rushes around my parents’ house, a grin lighting his face as he waves at us.

My nephew’s bright blond hair falls across his forehead, nearly long enough now to drop into his eyes.

His eyes are the same bright blue as Melissa’s, the exact shade that Brandon’s had been.

Even after four years, it’s still shocking just how much he looks like a carbon copy of his biological dad, the third alpha that had made up their pack.

Caleb follows a moment later, but his eyes are only on Brielle.

It’s only been a month since they bonded, and his possessiveness is still off-the-charts high. I smirk even as I wave to my nephew.

“Bye, Momma Bri!” Camden calls. “Bye Aunt Emily!”

Brielle blushes a fierce red, waving to them both, and then pivots Minthe toward the trailhead that will lead us up to Lover’s Meadow in another hour or so.

The ride is quiet, only the wind through the trees and the birds busy preparing for winter filling the prolonged silence.

Since I first met her at the end of May, Brielle’s never been quick to fill the quiet with unnecessary conversation.

Maybe it’s partly because she’s held her own secrets, but she doesn’t push for answers.

It’s part of why I asked her about going out with me today even though I know she’s still working to settle in fully with my brother and Caleb after living in my guest house all summer. The other reason I asked her? Well…

I swallow down my nerves before it can impact my scent.

I drop out of the saddle and tie the long lead rope to Redwood’s bridle and then one of the tree’s lower branches, making sure he has several feet of roaming room.

Brielle does the same with Minthe and then pulls the saddlebags draped across the back of her saddle.

She spreads a heavy blanket out in the center of the large meadow, away from the trees’ shade canopy, and sets two small lunchboxes along one edge.

I wordlessly follow her, pulling my hair over one shoulder and twisting the ends around my fingers in the nervous habit I’ve had since middle school.

This time, I can’t keep my scent from spiking, the vanilla growing sour with the nerves.

God, I’m such a mess, I’m responding like an Omega in need of comfort rather than an Alpha ready to protect and reassure those I care about.

Brielle frowns, her nostrils flaring, and then swallows.

Instead of commenting, she grabs a piece of cheese.

It’s enough to let me close the distance and drop onto the blanket opposite her.

She lays back on her elbows, tilting her face toward the light blue sky without a cloud in it, her own dark brown hair catching in the breeze that’s growing more intense.

I pop a chocolate-covered strawberry in my mouth and then immediately regret it.

It takes all my self-control to chew and swallow without grimacing. My stomach roils in irritation.

While I’m trying to convince my body throwing up is not the proper response right now, Brielle hums and closes her eyes..

“You’re still all right with me getting my things moved out this weekend?” she asks without looking at me. “Caleb said the extra bedroom should be finished by Thursday.”

I take the lifeline with both hands.

“Of course.” I carefully nibble on a cracker while she’s not paying attention to me, grimacing as my stomach pitches again. I’m so screwed .

I force my thoughts to Brielle’s nest she’s been creating in the pack house Ethan and Caleb have shared since they filed the paperwork with the Council alongside Brandon five years ago.

She’d been hesitant to build a true nest there, in the same house Kayla had built one, but since the paperwork came back for her officially joining Pack Taylor, it’s lessened.

Last week, she finally asked about moving the last of her things from my small guest house once Caleb and Ethan were finished with the heavy-lifting parts of the renovation.

“What color did you end up choosing?” I ask.

Brielle’s mouth quirks up in a half-smile. “The darker green, just like you suggested. Caleb had already done two full walls before I admitted to wanting to change it.”

I chuckle for a moment, and then quiet falls between us again. This time it’s not quite as comfortable. Or maybe that’s just my own reaction to it. She casually reaches for the tray of food.

“You want to talk about it?”

No . Saying the words out loud will make them real in a way they haven’t been yet. Of course, continuing to pretend they aren’t real won’t help anyone in the long run. Before I lose my nerve, I just blurt them out.

“I’m pregnant.”

Her gaze whips to me so fast, it gives me motion sickness, her hand freezing halfway to her mouth with a second slice of cheese.

Or maybe the nausea is the fact I’m two weeks late and have no less than four tests with two pink lines sitting in the bathroom at my house.

I look away from her, focusing on the horses across the meadow.

“All right,” she says after a full minute. “What kind of appointment?”

I can’t help but smile, a quick flash of mirth, before covering my eyes with my hand and sighing.

“I don’t know.”

There’s the crush of the blanket, and then her hand is on my forearm, carefully pulling my hand away from my face. Her eyes are bright with worry, but her mouth and shoulders are relaxed, softened in understanding.

“About two weeks before he died, I was a week late,” she says quietly.

I frown. She’d been pregnant when her asshole of a husband died?

“I wasn’t.” She answers the unasked question. “Stress most likely. But I had a full meltdown with Faedra during that limbo about what to do. Turns out, she’d had a similar panic when she’d gotten accidentally pregnant with the twins shortly after matching with the Bennetts.”

My thoughts catch on the bubbly, confident redhead Omega I’d met in late June when Brielle had invited us all to camp with them along the bank of Phelps Lake.

The possibility of her panicking over having the girls feels completely foreign.

Not all Omegas are built for making families, but Faedra isn’t one of them.

Being a mother sits on her as comfortably as her photography—and that’s literally award-winning.

“Her best friend lives in LA and has always known she wanted to be childfree,” Brielle continues.

“It was her that talked Faedra through all the possibilities so that she was confident in her choice. I don’t know how she managed when they were only 22.

I could hardly think straight enough to come up with a plan, and I was nearly 30.

” Brielle chuckles. “Anyway, the advice her friend gave her was to think through both paths as far as you possibly can. Often, one path will feel more… unsettled than the other. That’s probably not the path for you. ”

Envision both futures?

“That sounds… less overwhelming.”

Brielle squeezes my hand, lacing our fingers together. Omegas are the ones who need tactile comfort, but the touch settles me a bit anyway.

I cautiously imagine both paths, trying to feel which one might be better.

“Take the time you need so you’re confident,” Brielle says, laying back on the blanket.

“The last thing you want is to look back and realize you acted out of fear and regret whichever choice you make.” Then she smiles, just a bit.

“And, if you want to book that kind of appointment, I’ll go with you.

We can go all the way to Denver for it if you want, even stay with Faedra before and after if you’d like. ”