Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
EMILY
E than doesn’t say a word as he sits on the ground beside me, his eyes on the lake.
After a minute, he takes off his flannel and drapes it over his thighs, leaving most of the tattoos that cover his arms on display, the colors worn but the details still visible, like an old painting in a museum.
I look over them instead of breaking the silence.
The view of the Arch and the meadow on the ranch where they built their house.
Even the panorama of the valley from the top of Bluebird View.
There’s my guest cabin, too, on his left wrist and extending onto the back of his hand.
On his right forearm is the old West Barn from before Brandon died and Melissa converted their family ranch into the tourist hub it is now.
I’ve never asked what they mean. Ethan’s not the type of person to do anything frivolously, including permanently mark himself with ink, but he got most of them over the first six months after they lost Kayla, and I had never felt comfortable asking him why.
“Did Beau send you?” I ask at last, unable to handle the quiet while the families slowly wake up at the campsite some three hundred feet from us.
“Nope.” He pops the “p” and leans back on his hand. “He’s not an idiot. If I came out here on behalf of someone else, you’d never actually admit to what’s bothering you. Especially to me.”
I snort and grab one of the small rocks that make up most of the lake’s shoreline. It’s smooth under my fingers, the edges worn away from years of the water moving across it.
“He wants to adopt her.”
Ethan nods. “Not surprised. From that night he learned about her, he’s been all in. And adopting her means she has access to all of his money if something happens to him while riding, even if the paperwork behind the scenes isn’t up-to-date.”
Of course Ethan would think about death and the mess it can cause when it’s unexpected. They’d had to sort through all kinds of paperwork when that bull killed Brandon in the pasture when Camden was about the same age as Naomi is now.
“It requires we register as a pack.”
He only raises an eyebrow, twisting a rock in his palm, too. After a minute, I toss the small rock toward the lake, flicking my wrist so it’ll skip rather than make a single large splash. Ethan whistles.
“Five,” he mutters. “And that’s you just dicking around while stuck in your own thoughts.”
I roll my eyes. “You know you could have learned, too.”
“Yep.” He shrugs. “Spent the time making out with an Omega instead. Much better use of my time.”
I grimace.
“ That’s why you never figured it out?” A memory from the first time the Bennetts took us all camping pops up. “Oh my God . That was that summer with Brielle? Ugh, too much information, Ethan! Gross!”
He laughs, completely unrepentant. He twists his wrist, and another of his tattoos becomes visible, this one of the small shore of one of the mountain ponds near the ranch. Realization hits me like a damn hoof to the chest.
“Ethan Taylor, are all of those tattoos places you’ve knotted ?”
His gaze is devious this time, though the mirth is still there, too.
“Jesus, Ethan. That’s wild even for you.”
“Probably,” he admits. Then he focuses on me, and he’s back to being the stalwart older brother. “So what’s bothering you about registering as a pack? It’s not something you swore you’d never do, like going to one of the Matching Galas.”
The words just tumble out.
“What if registering… I don’t know, is a jinx? What if something awful happens because we filled out the paperwork?” I tip my head back. “I know it’s illogical, but it’s there. Even though I want him, want us to be a trio in truth. What if I say yes and then I lose all of them anyway?”
Ethan hums, the sound more thoughtful than anything else.
“When I fucked it up with Brielle…”
He trails off, raising an eyebrow in silent question if I remember. I don’t even blush at the memory of punching him hard enough to split his lip. He deserved it, and we both know it. I give a single nod in answer.
“What you don’t know is the reason she left,” he says.
Slowly, I shake my head. I’d never actually heard the details about the fight they’d had that had pushed Brielle to leaving for Jackson and me having to race across the town to double-check he hadn’t killed himself.
He nods once, his lips thinning. “Yeah, the thing I did? I couldn’t tell her in the moment that she was enough for me now.
That I loved her as fiercely as I ever loved Kayla and that she wasn’t competing with a ghost. I.
..” He sighs and looks back out over the calm lake.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers.
“I thought that by telling her the truth, I’d lose Kayla.
And I was terrified of messing it up with Brielle and then I’d end up losing them both. ”
My stomach clenches, and empathy wells in me. “Oh.”
The word is a cracked whisper, but it tells Ethan more than any long-winded soliloquy could between us. His lips flick up for a heartbeat before the stoicism returns.
“Yeah,” he says. He laces his fingers together and sighs.
“Lucky for me, I had a pack mate who was able to talk some sense into me after putting me to bed like I was the damn toddler. But that’s not the point.
” His eyes go a bit unfocused. “The thing is, Em, that all we can do is make a decision today about what we want our life to look like. Focusing on what’s already happened leaves us missing out on what’s happening right now. ”
“I know that,” I grumble.
He chuckles, his eyes warming a bit. “Yeah, well, we also don’t know what tomorrow holds.
All you can do is decide what you want the future to look like and work toward building it.
Whether that’s Triston somewhere in his own place with Penny splitting her time or if it’s the three of you as a trio under one roof here.
That reality doesn’t depend on registering.
You could live the next fifty years as a trio happily registered.
You could also choose to tell the Council fuck all and we could lose one of you in some freak accident the way we lost Brandon. There’s no way to know.”
I can’t help but flinch. Every day Beau goes out and works with the cattle, I have that fear in the back of my mind. Molly’s not as aggressive as the bull that killed Brandon, but she’s terrifying enough. And that’s not even mentioning the fact Triston gets on the back of them to make money.
“I can’t believe I’m admitting this,” I whisper. And then, fast enough I can’t think about the words, I say, “I’m scared.”
It’s freeing to finally admit it, even if it’s a bit mortifying that it’s with my brother.
“I know.”
“What if I get it wrong? It’s Penny who will have to live with the fallout.”
Ethan only nods. “I was scared, too. Absolutely fucking terrified.”
He leans over and bumps his shoulder with mine.
Neither of us say anything for a long while.
The sun slowly rises, cresting over the horizon and splashing across the lake, turning it a mixture of orange and yellow.
Birds slowly awaken in the trees around us, chirping and flitting about.
A deer cautiously approaches the lakeshore across from us, her ears flitting as she assesses the danger.
At her hip is a fawn, just now old enough to start losing the spotting along its back.
“It’s not even the fame,” I whisper.
Ethan grunts. “It’s not? I saw how you handled those gossip articles after going with him to Jackson. You haven’t braved going into town since the Baileys wrote about it.”
I grimace even as I shrug. “Well, not just the fame, then. I’ve seen others adapt to attention. That Fallon Omega matched with a completely normal pack, remember?”
Ethan chuckles.
“What?” I’m undeniably crabby now.
“I didn’t realize you paid attention to pop culture that much.”
“Everyone knows about the Fallon heirs matching,” I grumble. “Especially after Violet Montegue’s research breakthroughs with the scent match blood markers.”
This time he laughs in earnest. “No, they don’t. Not by name, at least. And hasn’t it been like eight years since they matched in the first place?”
I roll my eyes and focus on the lake again. The humor dies between one breath and the next.
“He’ll be gone for days, maybe even weeks, at a time during the circuit,” I say into the wilderness.
“The way Caleb was. I… I don’t know if I can do that.
Not without a bond like what you had with Kayla.
That’s a lot more permanent than any Council paperwork.
And it could put him in danger, if he feels something from me while he’s trying to stay on a bull. ”
He nods. “I can’t tell you what the right choice is for you three. And honestly, I don’t want to think about what bonding looks like between the three of you considering Beau’s a Beta, okay?”
He shudders, and I laugh in earnest, unable to resist making him squirm a bit.
“I’m sure the Council has diagrams for when it’s a male omega that needs the double bite,” I say, knowing it’ll just make him freak out.
It’s not actually all that hard to facilitate a locking where Beau could lay his bite over top of mine.
The way we both fucked Triston that first night after Penny’s party would be just about perfect. Vanilla swirls around me at the memory.
Right on cue, he shudders and pretends to gag.
“Nope. Stop. Just knowing you’re fucking them both is enough for me.”
“Says the man who has his body permanently marked with memories of fucking Brielle,” I mutter.
“Fair enough.”
He bumps my shoulder again and then slowly stands.
“Look, I don’t know what the right choice is for you.
But what I do know,” he says, serious again, “is you’ll regret it every single day of your life if you let fear dictate the decision you make right now.
Even if good things come from it. Maybe especially if good things happen.
You’ll spend your life wondering what might have been even as you can’t imagine your life without the little blond boy that came from acting in fear in the first place. ”
This time his smile is sad and haunted. I swallow down the response I had perched on my tongue.
He’s never opened up about what is was like after losing Kayla.
Not with me, at least. I’d watched him and Caleb dig their way out of a hole of grief that felt insurmountable as a spectator.
Even when Brielle came back and I learned she was the Omega he’d fallen in love with that summer I was in Europe, I wasn’t sure he could move on.
He offers his hand, and I let him help me to my feet. He pulls me into a tight hug without any kind of warning.
“All you have is today,” he whispers. “Don’t spend that time thinking of all the ways it could have been different. Penny won’t ever know, not outside of photos.”
I tighten my arms around his back in an unspoken gratitude.
A toddler’s shout breaks apart our hug, followed by Hudson’s muttered cursing.
“Damn it, Jonas,” he says as he flies past us in pursuit of his son.
Behind Ethan, the rest of the family walks down the path from the campsite.
Camden chases Iris and Rose, grinning as they shed their shirts, revealing plain bathing suits in neon colors.
Neither of the girls look back as they rush to the rock outcropping that’s become their favorite place to jump into the lake, though all four of their parents watch with careful, hawkish gazes.
Camden pauses for a split second, looking out toward us. He grins as he sees Ethan.
“Look, Dad!”
Then he runs off the cliff, pulling his legs up a moment before he hits the water. When he surfaces, he doesn’t look for Ethan, though. His gaze scours the beach until he finds Brielle. “Mom! Did you see? Mine were higher than Rose’s!”
Mom . Not even Mommy Bri anymore. Just Mom . I nudge Ethan’s side with my elbow.
“Thanks,” I whisper. “I appreciate it.”
His smile this time is wide and happy and brightens his entire face. “Yeah? Then you won’t mind trying to teach Dahlia how to skip rocks like her older sisters.”
“Rocks!” Dahlia’s screech cuts across the din. “Rocks, Em-lee!”
Beau and Triston stand just behind her, carefully watching as she and Penny pick up rocks and toss them a few inches in front of them. When Beau glances up and catches my gaze, his own smile is soft, the laugh lines deeper around his eyes and lips.
“All right.” I close the distance between me and the two men I love. “Let’s see if we can find some good options then.”