Page 177 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys

“And she was born to be here,” Wade added, “How do we make both happen, Wyatt?”

“We need to give her everything. Everything she won’t ask for, and everything she will ask for.” Wyatt’s determined, rough voice echoed in the barn. “We should have given her everything from the beginning. As soon as we knew she was coming, we should have set things up for her.”

“Instead of her squatting in one of our rooms like a second-class citizen,” Wade muttered glumly, “and dancing in a fucking derelict barn that could fall down any minute.”

Without further discussion, Wyatt grabbed the mop and bucket. Wade snagged the glass spray and cleaning towel. Though Wyatt played the leadership role these days, while Wade was content to support in the background, they could still operate the way they had as kids—like they were of one mind. They reorganized, swept, mopped, and fell into a focused, methodical cleaning as if what they did in those moments would determine the outcome of their future.

Hell, maybe it would...

Wyatt.

I attacked the stubborn dirt in the corner of the barn like it had personally offended me, my muscles burning with each vigorous scrub of the brush. Wade had run back to the toolshed to grab more supplies, momentarily leaving me alone with the thunderstorm of thoughts threatening to strike me down. The memory of Nelly's face after we’d told her about the Eros email gnawed at me like coyotes at a carcass. I scrubbed harder, as if the physical pain could somehow eclipse the ache spreading through my chest.

The thought of her leaving Sagebrush Ranch.

Leaving us.

Leaving me.

I’d prefer getting eaten by coyotes rather than face the possibility she’d leave.

She’d only been here a week. A week, dammit! This shouldn't hit me so hard.

I'd spent years perfecting the art of casual encounters. I had a system that never failed. Hit Shorty's, get a few whiskeys deep, and find a willing body. Names didn’t matter. Faces blurred. The relief faded fast, but nothing could help that. I'd convinced myself it was enough. That the hollow feeling afterward was justthe natural comedown, not some fundamental emptiness that no amount of physical release could fill.

But then Nelly arrived, and everything changed.

Every Alpha knew that finding a scent-match Omega was imperative, especially approaching a certain age. I’d always thought it was just another anatomical necessity, nothing special. You eat; you take a shit. You drink; you take a piss. You hit stage one ferality age; you find an Omega.

My knees protested as I shifted position, moving to another dirty patch of floor. The grime had accumulated over years of neglect, much like the loneliness I'd refused to acknowledge until Nelly walked into our lives with her dancer's posture and haunted, hazel eyes. Man, she had no idea how she hooked me from our first interaction.

Her fierce words.

Her obvious fighting spirit.

Her impossibly attractive body and scent.

That was the moment I knew that the Alpha and Omega thing wasn’t just bodily mechanics. It transcended that. It involved the mind, the body, the goddamn soul.

I dunked the brush into the bucket, the water now a murky gray. My forearms flexed as I worked the bristles in circular motions against the weathered wood. Repetitive actions usually calmed me, but tonight they only heightened my awareness of my body… the same body that had come alive in new ways around Nelly.

Before Nelly, I'd never believed in fated mates or soul connections.

Now, I believed I couldn’t live without her.

The memory of every touch we’d shared over the past week collided inside me.

Our hands brushing as I showed her how to tack a horse.

How close her face came to me when we were checking over the buckles.

The way she’d dozed off on the sofa next to me and her body slipped sideways against me. I’d been too scared to move a muscle, not wanting to rouse her.

Even this morning when she’d tried to give me her coffee and I’d hurt her by pulling away.

From day one, my need for her settled into a heavy pulse low in my belly. From our first brief touch, I discovered that fleeting contact with my Omega was profounder than entire nights spent with other women.

I’d dreamed about her more than once. And I wasn’t a dreamer.