Page 39 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys

For a few precious minutes, we weren't Alphas teetering on the edge of instability. We weren't a pack missing its crucial piece. We were just us—friends, brothers, soulmates.

The mirth eventually subsided, leaving us all a little breathless, a little lighter. Wade finally noticed the food in front of him and dug in with enthusiasm, as if his body had suddenly remembered it was starving. Cooper, encouraged by the shift in mood, launched into what he’d officially picked out for the new house’s kitchen. I didn’t even care that every appliance he listed was top of the line, or that he was thinking too far ahead. I was just so happy to…feel happy.

I sat back in my chair, warmth spreading through my chest.

We’d figure it out, even if Eros failed us.

We always did.

Because we were a pack.

10

WYATT

Nine months ago... Pinedale, Wyoming

Two months of silence felt like an eternity when you were waiting for your life to change.

The Eros Institute talked a good game, but so far all we’d gotten for four million dollars were emails and gift baskets. If we got one more pity basket, I was going to drive to their headquarters in Washington and punch the CEO.

Knowing Eros was out there, trying to find our scent match, only made the yearning worse.

I leaned against the gate of our smaller training paddock, watching the new horse prance through patches of spring grass. Her coat gleamed white as fresh snow under the Wyoming sun, almost painful to look at directly.

"Easy there, darling," I called as the pale mare picked up steam, racing in circles. The mare had been with us nearly a month. Part of me thought we should give her a name, instead of waiting for an Omega that might never appear. The other part of me didn’t want to steal that rite of passage from the mare’s rider.

The horse tossed her head in response, mother-of-pearl mane catching the light. She didn’t slow down though. I began strolling slowly towards her. The smell of earth, hay, and horse filled my nostrils as I moved. The Arabian eyed me warily as I approached, her nostrils flaring. She took two prancing steps backward, ears flicking.

"I know, girl. But I’m not a stranger anymore." I kept my voice low, even. "You can trust me.”

She was a beauty, with intelligent brown eyes that seemed to look straight through me. She’d come from a breeder in Billings, supposedly already saddle-trained and with a gentle temperament. The gentle part was questionable. Not that she was mean, just spirited. The kind of horse that needed patience, not force.

I held out my hand, palm flat with a small piece of carrot resting on it. She stretched her neck, curious but cautious. I could relate to that wariness. We'd all been burned before by hope.

"That's it," I murmured as she delicately lifted the carrot from my palm with velvety lips that tickled my skin. "No rush here." I stroked my hand down her nose, then took a few steps back to let her eat in peace.

Shit was easier before Cooper and his wild hare idea about Eros.

I’d been able to ignore my needs… mostly.

Keep the emptiness at bay, filling my days with hard work, and some nights with temporary distractions.

But ever since that damn testing, something had cracked open inside me. A door I'd kept firmly shut now stood ajar, letting in drafts of hope that ate my organs. Our perfect Omega. Didn’t seem possible. We’d tried everything. I’d learned to soothe my damn soul with quick, meaningless fucks. Anyonewho smelled remotely good to me was enough. I’d stopped wishing for more. Or, I had stopped.

The moonlight mare began galloping again. She wanted to be free. Wanted to race around the property with wild abandon. I could tell she hated the confining training paddock. It was small, but it needed to be. I moved further away from her, giving her a sense of independence. I ended up hoping atop the steel board fencing, a recent replacement for the old wooden barrier. Eventually, we’d outfit every paddock and pasture with the stuff, but it cost a fortune. Fuck, there I went again, forgetting we weren’t destitute anymore. We could probably pay full price, zero sweating, to have it all done at once. Levi would balk, but it wouldn’t break us. That was a crazy paradigm shift from the old days. I’d lost my shit yesterday when Cooper’s espresso machine arrived. As predicted, it was a fucking monster. He’d had to store it up in the attic; the only closet space left in our small rambler was in Levi’s office, and he’d chased Cooper out with an assault of balled up, neon sticky notes.

I straddled the fence; one leg tossed over each side. From this vantage I could look across the property at the foundation of the new house. Crawl space finally poured, two feet of reinforced cinderblocks seeming to sprout from the soil, rebar poking out of once-hollow centers. New well was being dug, septic field laid out. Construction was still so fucking slow, but I kind of enjoyed the process. Felt like a time lapse video, and we were the watchers deliberately holding the remote to run the recording at half speed.

My head rotated back to the stunning horse. Beyond her agile steps stretched the vastness of Sagebrush Ranch. A fucking Wyoming paradise that we’d inherited through luck of birth. Faraway mountains rose blueish purple in the distance, their tips always snow-capped. Past rolling pastures was the big pond dominated by Wade’s growing duck family, and thesmall one, which we’d stocked with bluegill and channel catfish. The greenhouses had the rain collection systems installed now. Cooper and Boone continued to have heated arguments over what to grow first. They kept pushing me about switching gears from cattle. Even Wade wasn’t averse to the idea.

But I couldn’t let Gramp’s dream die.

Sagebrush’s land wasn’t meant for wheat or fucking sugar beets.

It was meant for wild beasts.

For running and roping cattle.