Page 21 of Nesting With My Three Alphas (Hollow Haven #1)

Kit

Y ou can't hide forever, Kit. I've taken steps to ensure you come home where you belong. Check your email.

Marcus's text had arrived with my morning coffee, followed by an email claiming he'd filed "binding legal agreements" that would force my return to Chicago.

Fake papers, obviously. I'd never signed anything that would legally bind me to him.

But the audacity of it, the desperation behind the lie, made my hands shake as I sat in my car outside the Hollow Haven Community Center.

Living my life despite him was the freedom I'd always wanted. I’d saved enough over the last two years that I could take this time to recover.

Marcus not wanting my contribution to anything was the biggest favour he’d ever unknowingly done for me.

It wouldn’t be long before I needed to seriously start thinking about contacting some old clients for freelance opportunities though.

I was okay for now though. Now all I needed to concentrate on was me, and what this life I was building from scratch was going to look like. What I wanted it to look like.

Coming here this morning felt like an act of rebellion. Now, staring at the cheerful building, it felt like the first real choice I'd made in years.

The Hollow Haven Community Center smelled like creativity and belonging.

Watercolor paints mixed with clay dust, the faint scent of coffee from the break room, and underneath it all, the warm omega energies of women who'd found their safe space to create.

I stood in the doorway, clutching my new sketchpad against my chest like armor, and tried to convince myself I belonged here.

Three weeks. I'd been in Hollow Haven for three weeks now, and this was the first time I'd voluntarily walked into a room full of strangers without one of my alphas as a buffer.

"You must be Kit!" A warm voice called from across the room. An elderly omega with silver hair pulled back in a paint-splattered bandana was waving me over to a circle of easels. "I'm Eleanor Parker, but everyone calls me Mrs. P. Micah said you might join us, so we saved you a spot."

Of course Micah had paved the way. My gentle alpha had probably described me as "the new artist who needed friends" and enlisted the entire class in making me feel welcome. The thought should have embarrassed me, but instead it made my chest warm with affection.

"I hope you don't mind me crashing your session," I said, making my way over to the circle. "I'm still pretty rusty."

"Nonsense!" Mrs. P gestured to an empty easel that had clearly been prepared for me. Fresh water cups, a selection of brushes, and even a small palette of watercolors that looked suspiciously high-quality. "Art is like riding a bicycle. Your hands might forget, but your heart remembers."

"Plus, omega-led spaces have always been the heart of this town," added a young mother with paint under her fingernails. "I'm Lily, by the way. I do pottery mostly, but I'm trying to expand my horizons with watercolors. Although, I'm pretty terrible at it."

"I'm Anna," said a teenager with purple streaks in her hair who was sketching what looked like a very anatomically correct dragon. "And I'm great at it, so feel free to ask for help if Mrs. P starts getting too encouraging."

Mrs. P laughed, a sound like silver bells. "Anna keeps us all humble. Now Kit, what kind of art speaks to your soul? We're a judgment-free zone here."

I settled onto the stool in front of my easel, feeling the familiar weight of creative possibility in my hands as I picked up a brush. As I did, something shifted in the room. A subtle synchronization of scents and breathing that I'd never experienced before.

"You'll notice the calm settling in," Mrs. P said gently, as if reading my thoughts. "It's the way our instincts sync when we create together. Omega spaces naturally harmonize emotional regulation through shared creative energy."

The explanation should have sounded mystical, but I could actually feel it happening.

The sharp edges of my anxiety smoothing out, my breathing naturally matching the rhythm of the women around me.

Creating art with others tapped into something deeper.

An omega instinct not just to soothe, but to guide.

Not control. Not demand. Just... invite someone to become more themselves.

"Portraits, mostly," I said, answering her earlier question. "I like trying to capture the emotions people think they're hiding."

"Oh, that's dangerous," Lily said with a grin. "You'll see right through all our small-town secrets."

"Which aren't really secrets anyway," Anna added. "Like how Mrs. Carrington has been making eyes at the new librarian, or how Sheriff Rowe pretends he doesn't know his deputies are running a betting pool on when you'll officially move in with the Maddox pack."

My brush paused halfway to the water cup. "There's a betting pool?"

"Anna," Mrs. P said gently, but she was fighting back a smile. "Not everyone needs to know about the betting pool."

"Why not? It's harmless fun." Anna finally looked up from her dragon, her eyes bright with mischief. "Deputy Martinez has next week, but I think he's wrong. You've got that look."

"What look?" I asked, despite myself.

"The look of someone who's already decided but hasn't admitted it to herself yet." Anna's gaze was uncomfortably perceptive for someone who couldn't be older than seventeen. "Like you're just waiting for the right moment to stop pretending you're still deciding."

The observation hit closer to home than I wanted to admit.

Because Anna was right. I had decided, somewhere in the quiet moments between Jonah making me pancakes and Reed fixing my squeaky door and Micah appearing with exactly the right comfort food whenever I looked stressed.

I'd decided two weeks ago when Charlie had fallen asleep in my lap out at the pumpkin patch, and Jonah had looked at us like we were the most precious thing he'd ever seen.

I'd decided, but I was still too scared to say it out loud.

"Well," Mrs. P said diplomatically, "decisions have a way of making themselves known when the time is right. In the meantime, why don't you try painting whatever comes to mind? Sometimes our hands know things our heads haven't figured out yet."

I dipped my brush in water, then in a warm golden color that reminded me of autumn afternoons and Charlie's laughter.

Without really planning it, I found myself painting the view from Jonah's kitchen window.

I sank into the familiar process of sweeping the paint across the canvas that I missed more than I realized.

Slowly the details started to come together of the garden where we'd planted spring bulbs together, the trees that would soon burst into fall colors, the sense of home I felt every time I looked out at that particular patch of earth.

"That's beautiful," Lily said softly, leaning over to get a better look. "Is that the Maddox place?"

"Yeah." I added a touch of deeper gold to capture the way the light fell across the vegetable garden. "Charlie and I planted those bulbs. She said it was like planting hope."

"That child has an old soul," Mrs. P observed. "Sarah always said Charlie saw the world differently than most kids. More deeply."

The mention of Jonah's late wife created a complex twist in my stomach. Part guilt for loving the life she'd left behind, part sadness for the loss they'd all endured, part gratitude that she'd raised such an incredible daughter.

"You knew Sarah?" I asked.

"Oh yes, dear. Sarah was in this very art class for years. She had a gift for seeing beauty in ordinary moments." Mrs. P's expression was warm with memory. "She would have loved knowing you're here, continuing that tradition."

The words should have made me feel like an intruder, but instead they felt like a blessing. Like Sarah's memory wasn't something I needed to compete with, but something I could honor by loving the family she'd started.

"She sounds wonderful," I said quietly.

"She was. But you know what? So are you." Lily reached over and squeezed my hand briefly. "And anyone with eyes can see how happy you make that family. Charlie practically glows when she talks about you."

Charlie talked about me? The thought made my chest warm in ways I wasn't ready to examine.

We painted in comfortable silence for a while, the room filled with the soft sounds of brushes against paper and the occasional murmur of conversation. I found myself relaxing in ways I hadn't expected, my shoulders dropping as the familiar meditation of creating took over.

"You've got a good eye," Mrs. P said after watching me work for a few minutes. "Not just for art. For people, too. The kind of eye that makes a very good teacher, if you ever decide to share that gift."

Teacher. The word sent a little thrill through me that I wasn't expecting. I'd loved helping other students back in college, before life got complicated.

This was what I'd missed during those two years with Marcus. Not just the art itself, but the community of creativity. The sense of belonging that came from being surrounded by people who understood that making something beautiful was essential, not frivolous.

"Kit," Anna said suddenly, "can I ask you something personal?"

"Shoot."

"What made you choose here? Hollow Haven's not exactly a destination town."

It was the question I'd been dreading and expecting in equal measure. How did you explain that you'd picked Hollow Haven because it was small enough to disappear in, but had stayed because it was the first place that had ever felt like home?

"I needed a fresh start," I said carefully. "Somewhere quiet, where I could figure out what I wanted my life to look like."

"Must be nice to have options," Anna said, not unkindly. "There's not much here for people our age. Town council cut funding for the youth center last year. Now all us teenagers do is hang out at the gas station and get dirty looks."