Page 37 of Secret Heart
“Melissa, would you be willing to take a few photos for us before Penny’s not in her birthday outfit anymore?” Joan asks when she realizes she’s close enough. “Your photos are always so lovely.”
Melissa smiles, adjusts her glasses, and lifts the camera she has looped around her neck.
“Of course, Joan!” Then, to me, she asks, “Do you want them where you’ve done all the other monthly ones?”
She points over her shoulder to the large cluster of aspen trees that sits between the main house and the guest cabin. The leaves have started coming in, filling the white branches with splashes of green.
“Sure,” I manage to say almost normally.
Melissa’s quick to start across the meadow. Brielle’s frown grows, the small lines around her lips deepening. She grabs my elbow in a surprisingly strong grip as I navigate the stairs and start toward the trees.
“You all right?”
That lump closes off my throat again, the ball of emotion rushing through me, leaving me a volatile Alpha ready to fall into a jealous, possessive rage over an Omega who isn’t even mine. My scent betrays that internal line I straddle, and the color bleeds from Brielle’s cheeks. She drops her hold like she’s been burned. All the other Alphas standing within ten feet of me look, too, coiling with the need to protect their own packs from my emotional unpredictability. Caleb eases closer, within arm’s reach of Brielle, though he doesn’t touch her, still trusting that I’ll not actually fall over that edge.
Triston swallows a whine, and my scent flares again.
Beau palms the nape of my neck, and I settle just enough to not completely lose it. I shove my hands into the back pockets of my jeans to hide just how much they’re shaking.
“Fine,” I mutter, though no one actually believes me.
Beau’s lips are soft but unyielding on my temple, forcing me back from the edge. He laces his hand with mine and then guides me to the trees. I can feel Triston following us, but I don’t risk looking at him. When we reach the trees, he sets Penny down and takes a few steps back.
Melissa doesn’t say a word as she takes candid photos. Each of us hold Penny for a bit, and I try to keep a smile curving my lips. After a few minutes, Penny reaches for Triston again, curling forward in my hold. I can’t help but focus on him as he takes her. His pulse beats fast in his throat, and the barest hint of his clove scent clings to his clothes, a remnant from when he’d dressed, probably, since he’s not had a single bit of it break through whatever blockers he’s wearing. I breathe it in, and there’s that sour smell, too. The need to run my hands through his hair, plaster myself against him, rips through me.
Brielle’s probably right. He probablyistouch-starved.
All of me wants to close the foot of distance, to make the first move. And yet I can’t. I’m rooted to the ground, that nagging,belittling voice that’s been silent for over a year screeching at me that I’ll end up alone, that it’s better to just never reach out and try in the first place.
His eyes catch mine, and my entire world narrows to the longing in them.
A thousand years could have passed, and I wouldn’t know.
“Firecracker, they’re waiting for us,” Beau whispers.
His voice holds that same longing, too.
It’s only then I realize Melissa’s gone back to the main house. I drop my gaze to my boot-clad feet and breathe deeply.
“Right.” Then I clear my throat and focus on my daughter. “Love bug, you want to go see the cake Uncle Hudson made for you?”
She kicks against Triston in answer. When he puts her down, she takes off across the clearing, the blanket trailing behind her, picking up pieces of sticks and dirt.
Triston doesn’t move to go back to the party. Beau eases into the small bit of space separating us, his gaze flicking between us. Triston looks at him and then back at me. With Penny gone, he feels more fragile, like how he did in the barn. Like he’s going to bolt at the first quick movement, a rabbit terrified of being caught. He opens his mouth, but then he shakes his head.
He turns back to the party, leaving us to follow a few steps behind.
Chapter Twenty
TRISTON
The door closes softly behind Lynn and Scott, and then the house is quiet. The sudden drop from constant conversations buzzing along my skin during the party and the much smaller, family-only after party to the stillness is enough to make my head spin. I don’t dare actually move, though. I focus on my daughter in my arms. She’d fallen asleep on me nearly an hour ago, shortly after the last of the presents were opened. Now her lips are slightly parted and her cheek is pressed into my forearm. The bunny blanket is held tightly in both of her arms, crushed to her chest and falling across my legs.
Beau crouches in front of me and traces her nose. I fight down the urge to hold her closer to me, instead offering her to him so he can put her in her bed for the night. A desperate sob-scream tries to break past my lips, but I swallow it down. I’ve made it nearly six hours without giving in to the emotions twisting my stomach and taking me out at the knees every few minutes. I can survive this last bit where I hand off Penny and go back to the guest bedroom of the Monroe farmhouse and fall asleep alone.
Beau frowns as he cradles her against his chest and eases back to his feet. His focus jumps to Emily. For the first time, I can see true conflict in his eyes. It’s clear he wants something Emily doesn’t, that they’re on opposite sides of some line. It’s probably a bit self-centered to assume that line is me. And yet…
The Omega nature at my core writhes under the reality that it probably is. The truth that’s wrecking me is that I want to be held, to have a scent—herscent—laid so strongly over top of me I’ll never need to make out with an Alpha whose name I don’t even know so that I stop wanting to claw my own heart out. Instead of saying anything, though, I force my eyes closed so the tears burning them aren’t visible.
