Page 174 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys

“Come down and talk to us, Nelly. Please, just trust us.”

I stared down at Levi, the plea in his lavender eyes almost undoing me. His arms remained outstretched, waiting for me to fall into them, to trust him. To trust any of them.

"Trust you?" The words fell like acid droplets, eroding the pull I’d felt to the ranch just yesterday. Trusting the first time wasn’t so hard. Trusting the second time was far harder. "Whyshould I? You all clearly don't trust me with whatever's going on. Instead of just telling me, you acted like assholes."

"Keeping this from you isn’t about trust," Levi said, speaking slowly, calculating what he should say next as he studied every shift in my expression.

"Then what is it about?" I demanded, my voice shaking with emotion, hot tears slipping down my cheeks. "Because from where I'm sitting, it sure looks like you don't trust me enough to tell me what's wrong."

Levi's eyes never left mine as his hands traveled nearer to my body. I didn’t move as he wrapped his long fingers around my waist. God help me, I didn’t even fight him as he pulled me off Ghost’s back and lowered me to the ground. I let the man, this stupid Alpha with breathtaking eyes, pull me tightly against his body in a hug. “Come inside and we’ll tell you what you want to know. Come inside and we’ll tell you why our hearts are breaking.”

I pushed away from him, flattening my palms against his body and searching for what he meant.Why would their hearts be breaking? Wasn’t my heart the only one shattering?

I letthe men surround me when Levi and I exited the paddock. Ghost followed me until the edge of the fence, as if she too wanted to come along and hear what the Alphas had to say. I didn’t think any excuse would satisfy me. They’d been inexcusable jerks this morning.

Though I wanted them to start explaining immediately, I held my tongue until we were inside the house, circled aroundthe well-used dining table. Without a sixth chair, Cooper was leaning against the windowsill behind Wade. Part of me wanted to suggest we move to the living room. Being in the kitchen only made breakfast crash back into my brain with startling clarity.

“Well?” I pressed, after five minutes of seated silence.

Cooper, staring down on me, was the one who finally let the proverbial cat out of the bag.

“I got an email,” he revealed, words like stones falling from a great height to hit a lake that was peaceful moments prior, “from Eros.”

My breath caught.

I couldn’t speak.

My own pebbles that would be words fell into my belly.

"It's our choice whether to break the contract," Cooper continued, his voice carefully controlled despite the bombshell news. "Nothing will happen to you. No refund for us. The NDAs stay in place."

The words didn't immediately make sense, my brain scrambling to rearrange them into comprehensible meaning.Break the contract? Our choice?

"What are you saying?" I asked, needing absolute clarity.

Wyatt answered when Cooper’s voice seemed to fail him. “He’s saying you don't have to stay if you don't want to. We can tear up the contract right now, and you're free to go. Back to Seattle. Back to your life. No consequences.”

“We won’t force you to stay here,” Wade added, “But, God, Nelly, we hope you do.”

“We all hope you do,” Levi breathed out.

Boone said nothing, he didn’t have to. His face held such unveiled pain and hope and need that it caused me physical agony.

The world tilted beneath me. All day I'd been interpreting their earlier behavior as rejection, as them wanting me gone. Butthis... this was the opposite. They weren't acting strange because they wanted me to leave; they were acting strange because they thought I would want to.

Because I could.

A storm of emotions hit me at once—relief that I wasn't being rejected, fear at the sudden responsibility of choice, and an unexpected, devastating sense of loss at the thought of returning to my old life. My scent bloomed with the complexity of it all, filling the kitchen with notes of confusion, relief, fear, hope, and desire. It made all five Alphas inhale sharply.

“Oh,” I managed, the syllable entirely inadequate for the magnitude of the moment. My chair scraped back as I stood, my legs unsteady beneath me. I felt like someone had put my heart and mind into a blender, wildly contradictory emotions blurring as one. “I can leave.”

It wasn’t a question.

Just a statement, uttered to the universe in surprise.

Though I’d just been outside, though I’d been away from them all day, I needed space. I needed to process the news. I needed to think. I needed to figure out why the thought of leaving Sagebrush made me physically sick.

"Nelly—" Wade began, half-rising from his seat, but I shook my head.