Page 123 of Claiming Their Omega

“I’ll get her some water,” Easton says, quickly leaving the room.

“And soup!” Hendrix calls after him.

I stare at them all. “The barn! It was on fire!” My voice is scratchy, my throat a bit sore, but I push through the sting of pain as my heart races. “How long has it been? What happened with the auction?”

“Fuck the auction,” Cade growls. “You matter more.”

“The barn matters too! The ranch! Oh god—I tried to fix it, I tried to save everything—the horses are okay I think, but it was so hard to see through the smoke—”

“The horses are okay,” Jesse assures me. “You got all the animals out.”

“And the barn?” I ask.

Jesse winces. “It could be worse.”

“What do you mean, it could be worse?”

“I mean, uh, the whole ranch could have been destroyed. Animals could be dead.”

“So…”

He sighs. “The barn was destroyed, yes. We’ll have to completely rebuild it from the ground up.”

My eyes well up with tears, and Cade practically lunges forward to hold me close. “It’s not your fault,” he growls softly.

“You did everything you could,” Hendrix points out. “More than anyone could expect of you. You could’ve died, trying to save the barn. And you got all the animals out.”

“But you need everything you can get…” I wipe at my eyes. “And building a whole new barn is going to take so much… you just got new bulls at the auction…”

The three men give each other quick little looks, and I frown at them. “What? What is it?”

“We… we left the auction,” Hendrix admits slowly.

Easton comes back in with a tray. There’s soup and water on it, and some nice hot tea. “Here we go. Doctor’s orders—chicken noodle soup, lots of liquids.”

Cade helps me settle back against the pillows, propping me up, and Easton sets the tray down. It smells delicious, and I find that I’m suddenly starving.

The men watch me quietly as I eat. They all still look terrified, like they think I might disappear right in front of them. I can’t imagine what kind of scare they’ve had. I just don’t understand what happened, exactly. I know I passed out, the smoke getting to me no matter how hard I tried, but I don’t remember anything else until waking up just now.

“You really shouldn’t have tried to do that,” Jesse says quietly. “You could’ve died.”

I frown at him. “What are you talking about? What was I supposed to do, just stand there and let it burn down?”

“Yes,” Easton says firmly. “It’s not worth your life.”

“Of course this place is worth my life. I had to try to save it and do what I could. I don’t know where I’d be without it.”

The words burst out of me and I instantly bite my lip, feeling embarrassed. I didn’t mean to admit to anything like that, and I think I just did.

The ranch has become very dear to me. I love it. It feels like… like… like home.

My face flushes as I think that. I scramble for something to distract everyone. “And you all still haven’t answered my question. What happened with the auction? How are you here? How long was I out?”

“You were out for a day,” Jesse says.

“But that can’t be possible. It has to be at least forty-eight hours.” The whole day at the auction, then driving home.

“We didn’t go to the auction,” Hendrix admits. “We drove over to the ranch the night before it happened. The first day of the auction wrapped yesterday, and the second day’s happening right now.”

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