Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
EMILY
B rielle curses under her breath beside me, her hair hitting my arm as she twists toward the sudden noise.
Her lavender scent bleeds from her, an acrid edge to the muted feel of it.
In her lap, Naomi flinches, her eyebrows pulling together a heartbeat before her small cry adds to the low chatter in the room.
“Jonas, sweetheart, put the balloon down!” Olivia jumps up and crosses the room, quickly pulling the toddler away from the balloon arch Melissa and I spent most of the morning putting together.
His bright green eyes narrow and his lips purse as Olivia repeats herself, signing the words, too.
“Those aren’t for playing yet, okay? In another couple days, you can help Uncle Beau and Daddy pull them apart and play with them.
Right now, we need to leave them so all the people coming can see them. ”
Jonas frowns. Olivia quietly guides him back to the middle of the room where we’re all working. She glances at her phone perched between the piles of paper and then sighs.
“Daddy should be just about finished with the project at the Taylor house,” she says. She kisses Jonas’s temple even as he squirms against her. “Hopefully it’s not so late that you miss your nap.” She looks at Brielle. “Is Faedra coming up this year?”
Brielle nods, tracing Naomi’s brow and nose as she sleeps. “They should be here as soon as the twins get out of school in a couple weeks. It’s earlier than typical, but their big hike this year is actually in Big Sur, so they wanted to make sure they didn’t feel rushed.”
Olivia lets Jonas squirm off her lap. Without pausing, he runs to the basket of toys, grabbing one of the quilt books Mom made while I was still pregnant with Penny.
“I don’t know how they manage those backpacking trips with all those girls,” Olivia admits, picking up one of the flowers and slowly assembling it.
“Just Jonas puts me pretty much at my limit most days. Having to think about diapers and wipes and trash while deep in a wilderness area? She’s built different, I swear. ”
Brielle smiles as I hum in agreement with Olivia.
“I imagine having three Alphas helps a ton,” Brielle murmurs. A breeze comes in from the open main doors, and I quickly set the tape dispenser on one of the piles of paper to keep them from fluttering too much. “Many hands make the work light, as they say.”
“Well, you have four more hands now,” Hudson says.
Jonas looks up and then squeals loud enough it hurts my own ears.
Penny doesn’t even flinch in my lap, her breathing as steady as ever.
The girl could sleep through a hurricane, I swear.
Hudson chuckles, holding his arms open for his son as he goes rushing back across the room.
Both of them are laughing hard by the time Hudson scoops Jonas into his arms and gives him a raspberry on his stomach.
Hudson and Caleb look almost identical despite Hudson being four years younger than his oldest brother.
They both have the dirty blond hair kept long enough to wave onto their foreheads and brush their ears along with the sharper, square jawline like their father.
There’s no height difference, either, both of them broad and built like a linebacker, several inches over six feet.
Caleb’s tattoos and Hudson’s red-blond beard are the only distinguishing factors most notice. From the back? Good luck.
Today, they’re dressed in similar medium wash bootcut jeans and plain t-shirts, their hair hidden under worn ball caps.
Hudson’s is a black sun-stained to light brown with the Monroe Ranch logo on it, something he probably borrowed from Beau and didn’t give back.
Caleb’s has a vintage airplane decoration, and the edges of the bill are frayed.
A sound catches in Brielle’s throat. Caleb frowns, his gaze going straight to her, and then he’s crossing the room, looping behind the couch to avoid our sprawling creations.
He kneels beside her, palming her thigh as he runs his nose along her throat, kissing her skin every few seconds.
Brielle relaxes in increments, her hand slowing wrapping around his arm rather than fisting the swaddle blanket.
“You good?” he murmurs after a full minute.
I do my best to tune them out, letting them have the intimate moment.
It’s common for Omegas to need extra attention and comfort from their Alphas when in large, overstimulating environments.
Is the lodge all that loud? No, not really.
But between the paper and the wind and the kids?
It’s enough to have her on edge. Add to it that Naomi’s only four weeks old, and I’m honestly impressed she’s managed to make it the couple hours we’ve been here without a bigger panic.
Hudson crouches beside Olivia, Jonas perched on his shoulders, his attention all for her.
“I’m fine,” she says with a small smile as he traces her jaw and cheek.
“Good,” he whispers. Then, to the rest of us, he says, “Beau says they’re ending a bit early today. Lynn and Scott are having a big cookout tonight and everyone’s invited.”
I frown, glancing at my phone on the reception desk near the doors. That must have been why my phone was going off like crazy an hour ago. No way am I risking waking up Penny to go grab it now, though.
“You want to go?” Caleb asks, clearly surprised by Brielle’s request. I turn my attention back to them. Brielle’s cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are tired, but there’s a small, intimate smile curving her lips.
“I’d love to see Triston,” she says in that same quiet voice.
The name clangs through me like a bull trying to get to an unprotected cow, knocking down emotions inside my chest I didn’t realize were still there. Unease and disbelief war with each other even as a deeper anxiety spreads like molasses between my ribs and up my throat.
Triston’s back?
Caleb nods and kisses Brielle. After a moment, Naomi squirms, her soft cries cutting through the room. Brielle sighs, the sound perilously close to a cry. Caleb carefully pulls Naomi from her lap
“Wait, Triston’s back?” Melissa asks. “Is that who the ranch hand Ethan hired for branding season is?”
“Yep,” Hudson says, completely nonchalant.
“Apparently it’s been in the works for a couple weeks.
He’d had to sign an NDA over it all, though, so we didn’t get any kind of warning.
Triston’s staying with Scott and Lynn. According to our brother, he doesn’t want to attract too much attention from the town as a whole. ”
Damn, Beau’s managed to talk to his brothers first about it all?
I try to keep my breathing even so my scent doesn’t spike.
Every single person in this room will be able to feel and smell the edge to my vanilla if it surges with the roiling emotions pitching my stomach at the moment.
Now I regret not grabbing my phone for the messages that Beau must have left for me.
No way would he leave me to find out from our family that Triston was back, however temporarily.
I tighten my hold on Penny. It’s a fool’s dream that it won’t be obvious to literally everyone that she’s Triston’s and not Beau’s once they’re in the same room.
There’s no freaking way we can let that happen with everyone watching.
Even if he was a Beta, I wouldn’t want his reaction broadcast to our entire family and friends, especially with him just coming back.
But since he’s an Omega? Any small reaction will feel astronomical to any Alpha near him.
The thought of someone else wanting to comfort him through the shock has a growl rising in my throat.
I swallow down that reaction, too, willing my body to keep unresponsive.
“We can go now,” Melissa offers. “I can have Ben and Sage finish these up once they’ve signed off on the dining and activities lodges.”
Olivia stands up with more enthusiasm than she’s had in at least an hour. Jonas claps as she kisses his cheek.
“That sounds great,” I manage to say, my voice only a bit hoarse. Caleb frowns, but no one else seems to notice something’s off.
I reorganize the piles, arranging them so the various pieces of flowers don’t get mixed up with each other.
Hudson carries them to the desk, setting them on the clean surface before grabbing my phone and handing it to me.
Sure enough, there’s three missed calls from Beau and a single text from an hour ago.
I slide it open even as I adjust my hold on Penny so I can grab our backpack and head out to the car.
Call me, firecracker.
I send a single text back as everyone walks onto the lodge’s wraparound porch.
Is it true?
Beau’s response is within moments, like he’s been waiting for me to reach out.
Yes.
Oh God.
Breathe, firecracker. Just breathe and call me.
Caleb settles Brielle into the passenger seat of her car then slides behind the wheel, his attention entirely on her. Hudson does the same with Olivia, getting Jonas buckled before making sure she’s comfortable. Both cars start down the dirt road before Melissa and I move off the porch.
“You okay?” Melissa asks quietly.
It’s only then I realize my arms are shaking and there’s a low, nearly inaudible growl climbing up my throat. I swallow down the sound and breathe carefully through my nose. The last thing I need is losing my cool with Melissa. It’s like hitting a puppy but even worse since she’s my friend.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I manage to say in an almost-normal voice. “You want to ride over together?”
Melissa shakes her head. “I’m going to check on Ben and Sage and then make sure the night chores are done. It’s the new person’s first time doing them, and I just worry after last year.”
I grimace remembering the summer help we’d had to fire last August when they’d left the chicken coop open two nights in a row. We’d walked in that next morning to an absolute blood bath of a mess.
Another text from Beau pops on my screen.
“Fair enough.” I grab her hand. “I’ll see you over there, then.”
I squeeze her hand before she starts down the stairs, smiling enough to soothe her worry over my own panic. As she gets into her Subaru and heads deeper into the ranch toward the activities building on the other side of the sprawling meadow, I look at the last text.
Emily?
I walk down the porch steps and ease Penny into her carseat, praying she stays asleep while I get her buckled so she’ll nap the half hour drive to Mom and Dad’s place. My phone vibrates with a call as I drop into the driver’s seat. I answer it without looking.
“Firecracker?”
All I manage is an embarrassing squeak-sob that’s way more Omega sounding than should be coming out of my very Alpha throat. Beau won’t judge me for it, though. He never has the last eighteen months we’ve been navigating this together.
“Breathe for me,” he instructs, his voice low, nearly a rumble.
I slowly breathe in and then out, and Beau murmurs soothing words.
“We don’t have to tonight,” he says. “We can wait and see about a different day.”
“And risk him seeing her? That’s just cruel, Beau, and you know it. The moment they’re in a room together, people are going to put it together.”
There’s shuffling in the background and the sounds of guys laughing.
“And it’s her birthday next week,” I whisper. “He needs to know before then.”
Beau sighs.
“All right. Meet us in the private barn. I’ll have him help me sort through tack instead of going straight to your parents’ house to see everyone else.”