Page 17 of Saddle and Scent (Saddlebrush Ridge #1)

The basement is exactly what I expected: dark, damp, and full of shit that should've been thrown out decades ago.

The furnace squats in the corner like a medieval torture device, all rust and suspicious sounds.

It takes me twenty minutes of swearing and skinned knuckles, but I get it running. The ancient beast coughs to life, sending the sweet promise of heat through the vents.

When I emerge, covered in cobwebs and probably tetanus, the living room has transformed.

Beckett's got a fire going in the fireplace I didn't even notice was there, Wes has somehow produced hot coffee from the disaster of a kitchen, and Juniper is curled in an armchair, hands wrapped around a mug, looking smaller than I've ever seen her.

"Furnace will hold for now," I report, brushing dust from my hair. "But it needs replacing. Soon."

She nods, not meeting my eyes.

"Add it to the list."

The silence stretches, filled with the pop of burning wood and the distant rumble of thunder.

Finally, Wes can't stand it anymore.

"This is stupid," he announces. "We're all sitting here pretending we don't know each other when we spent half our lives attached at the hip. I don't like it."

Juniper's jaw tightens.

"Things change."

She’s right…and yet it feels wrong all the same.

"Not that much," Wes insists. "You're still you, we're still us, and this whole stranger routine is bullshit."

"Wes," Beckett warns, but Wes is on a roll now.

"No, I'm serious. We have to pretend because why? Because the town gossips might talk? They're already talking. They've been talking since the day she left. Acting like we barely know her isn't fooling anyone."

"It's for her own good," I say, the words tasting like ash. "And ours."

Juniper's head snaps up, eyes blazing with something that looks like the old fire.

"My own good? That's rich, coming from you."

The temperature in the room feels like it drops ten degrees despite the furnace's best efforts.

"You want to have this conversation now?" I ask, meeting her glare head-on.

"I don't want to have this conversation at all," she fires back. "I want to fix up this disaster of a ranch and be left alone. Is that so much to ask?"

"Yes," Wes says simply. "Because you're an Omega in a town full of Alphas, and pretending that doesn't matter is like pretending water isn't wet."

She flinches at the word—Omega—like it's a slap.

"I'm handling it."

"By pushing everyone away?" Beckett asks quietly. "That worked so well last time."

The silence that follows is deafening.

Juniper sets her mug down with excessive care, stands, and walks to the window.

Her reflection wavers in the rain-streaked glass, a ghost of the girl who used to burn bright enough to blind.

"You should go," she says finally. "Storm's letting up."

It's not, but we all recognize a dismissal when we hear one.

We file out like scolded children, pausing on the porch.

The porch is still slick from the storm, rain sluicing from the sagging eaves in intermittent splats, but none of us rush for the cover of the barn to our horses.

We just stand there on the warped boards, shoulders hunched, glancing back at the battered screen door that rattles against its frame behind us.

Beckett tries to meet my eye and fails, his jaw tight and mouth set in the kind of line that says he’d rather be anywhere else, baking a pie or mucking a stall or even just getting a root canal.

Wes, usually so kinetic he can’t stop moving, stands with his hands stuffed into his pockets, head down, scowling at the puddle growing around his boots. The rain’s let up a little, but the world still feels all gray edges and unfinished business.

For a second, I have this urge to turn back, to push open that door and force the conversation we never finished, but I know—by the way Juniper’s shadow moves behind the rain-blurred window, by the way her shoulders are squared against the world—it would only make things worse.

Instead, we linger, each of us marinating in the discomfort, pretending we’re scrolling through our phones or checking the sky for a break in the clouds, not just waiting to see if she’ll come after us.

The house behind us is dark except for the glow in the front room.

Through the glass, Juniper’s silhouette is outlined by the amber flame of the fireplace, a study in self-contained fury. She’s already turned away, the curtain twitching in her grip, and I can almost hear the words she’s not saying. There’s nothing left to do but leave.

She's still at the window, silhouette rigid with tension.

"This can't keep going like this," Wes mutters as we splash toward the horses.

"No," I agree. "It can't."

But what's the alternative?

Let ourselves fall back into old patterns, circling her like moths to a flame until someone gets burned?

We tried that once. It nearly destroyed all of us.

The ride home is miserable, rain driving sideways now, but I barely feel it. All I can think about is the way she looked in that chair, small and alone, walls so high even we can't scale them anymore.

My Rebel Bell, caged by her own defenses.

The house is dark when I get back, empty in a way that echoes. I strip off wet clothes, shower until the hot water runs out, but nothing washes away the scent memory of her. It's in my skin now, under it, a permanent tattoo of want and regret.

I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, and let myself imagine what would happen if we didn't hold back.

If we let ourselves be what nature intended— Alpha and Omega, matched and claimed. The thought sends heat racing through my veins, cock hardening despite my best efforts to think of literally anything else.

But it always ends the same way in these fantasies: with her leaving again.

Because that's what we do, the three of us.

We pull her close, drowning in the gravitational force of what we could be, and then we push her away before it consumes us all.

"Can't let our genetic makeup fuck shit up a second time," I mutter to the empty room.

Because that's what it comes down to, isn't it?

We're Alphas, she's an Omega, and in a town like Saddlebrush, that equation only ends one way.

With her claimed, bred, reduced to nothing more than what her biology dictates.

We swore we'd never let that happen to her.

Swore we'd keep her safe, even if it meant keeping our distance.

But fuck if it doesn't feel like we're all drowning anyway, just slower.

The rain finally stops near dawn, leaving the world washed clean and gleaming. I don't sleep, can't, too wound up with memories and might-have-beens. By the time the sun breaks the horizon, I've made a decision.

We can't keep playing this game, pretending we're strangers when every cell in my body recognizes her as mine.

But we also can't fall back into old patterns, the push and pull that nearly broke us all.

There has to be another way.

A path between letting her freeze us out and letting our instincts take over.

I just hope we can find it before she runs again.

Because I don't think any of us would survive losing her twice.