Page 22 of Harvest Moon

That brought a round of laughter, except from Claudia, who glared. “Stuff it, Zeke. Don’t think I won’t start a bar fight while pregnant.”

“Alexis,” Linden said, infusing the alpha tone into his voice again, to get the attention back on him. “Is twenty-two, and he has a podcast. It’s about—camping, was it?”

My cheeks flamed, and I couldn’t quite breathe to say anything. Oh hell, what did I say? I didn’t want to talk about gender and dynamic politics to a pack alpha.

“Yep,” Claudia agreed. “It’s about which people to eat first in case you’re trapped in the wilderness.”

I buried my face in my hands, but everyone around us laughed, so I straightened myself, breathed, and nodded. “It’s about outdoor skills. And, um, being an omega.”

The alpha looked genuinely interested and nodded. “Well, if there’s anything we can do to help, let us know. I know we’ve got a whole mess of camping equipment in the garage if you find yourself in need of anything.”

“Not to mention that ridiculous canoe of your daddy’s,” an older woman added, and it was the alpha’s turn to sigh in exasperation.

“Please, Lorraine. Not the canoe story.”

She shook her head and tutted. “Didn’t even want the thing. Just bought it to make sure Michael Hayes couldn’t.” Clearly she wasn’t interested in her alpha’s opinion on telling the story. She turned to look at me. “A thousand dollars for a silly boat, and do you know what he said when his wife asked why he bought it when he didn’t canoe?”

I shook my head, silently, a little terrified about what the answer might be.

“I looked at Michael, and I thought, ‘He’s a sonofabitch, and I’m not gonna let him have it,’” the man Claudia had identified as Zeke said, a wide grin on his face, and half the people in the bar joined in to quote the last dozen words. Clearly, this was a story that they all knew by heart.

The alpha gave a deep sigh. “Yes. My father held a grudge. Very, very tightly. Forever.” He turned back to me. “If you want a canoe, it’s all yours. Anything to get it out of my garage. Bonus points if you can get people to tell a different story about the damn thing in the future.”

Half the bar cracked up, and the alpha sighed and closed his eyes again. “Anyway. We also have, um, Ridge Paterson.” I almost jumped right out of my chair at the name, and for a second, I thought I’d imagined it. I just wanted Ridge to come, so I made it up. But then there he was in the back of the bar, pint glass in hand, next to a tired-looking older man. He ducked his head and gave a shy smile. How had I not smelled him?

When he looked up through those gorgeous thick lashes, he caught my eye and gave me a tentative smile. I wanted to scream and cry, and also to throw myself at him. He’d known where I was going. He couldn’t have come here without knowing he’d see me again.

Had he missed me?

“Ridge is going to be staying out at the farm, helping Ford out.” There was another murmur of approval, people nodding to each other and whispering. They seemed... really happy to have gotten a person to help on a farm.

But I didn’t get it. I mean, it was great, and I was sure Ridge would be able to help them a lot. But what about his parents’ farm? What about his plan? What about home?

That thought caught me off guard, because suddenly, I realized that home wasn’t halfway across the state anymore. I’d been thinking all along that maybe I would stay with the Grove pack, but I’d kept right on thinking of home as the little house half a mile from that big old farm. Acres and acres of fields, with Ridge in the middle of them. It had never stopped being home in my head, and now, suddenly, it had.

I smiled back at him, but I couldn’t say if it came out looking like a smile at all. I was trapped between wanting to throw myself on the ground and have an outright toddler-level tantrum, and wanting to throw myself... across the room into his arms.

Because damn him, Ridge Paterson was still my home.

12

Ridge

My nerves were ratcheting up something fierce as I sat at the back of The Cider House. Truth was, I had no idea what to expect next. The wolves I’d grown up with hadn’t really done this kind of thing. The alpha definitely didn’t keep such constant, familiar conversation going with every member of the pack.

But when I’d gotten to Grovetown on Saturday, the first thing I’d done was present myself to the local alpha.

Alpha Grove had been in his office, a small clinic near a residential neighborhood, and though he’d been too busy to talk to me right away, he’d invited me over for dinner that night with the whole family.

They had a big house—bigger than any I’d seen, with a little house out back for his sister, who said she didn’t like living under another alpha’s roof. Then there was Alpha Grove, his mate, Colt, and his little brother, Rowan, a mighty sweet beta who’d blushed fiercely red when I’d complimented his apple pie.

Linden seemed all too happy to welcome me to his pack, though he warned that some of the wolves might be wary of an alpha outsider. When I mentioned I’d heard they’d had trouble with a nearby pack, he’d nodded, his jaw tightly clenched, and said they were working on it.

I’d done the only thing a decent alpha could do in that situation, and offered my help if he ran into any more trouble. And though he thanked me for it, I didn’t think he trusted me quite yet.

That was fair enough, but he’d still been willing to help me, even offering a place to stay for the night. He’d reached out to the Hill family while I was talking wooly aphids with Juniper. Once he got off the phone, he offered to take me over to the Hill farm Sunday morning to see if they needed another set of hands out there.

They seemed enthusiastic, and we were going to try things out. Which meant, Linden’d said, that it was the perfect time to introduce me to the pack. They were having a meeting just that night.

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