Page 31 of Harvest Moon

Alexis

The map was utter perfection. I wasn’t sure if maybe Alpha Grove had updated it more recently than it seemed, or if Grovetown was caught in some kind of time warp, and everything just stayed the same there.

The trails were beautiful and well-marked. The streams were clean and clear, teeming with fish. Hell, there was even a family of black bears living in the little cave that had been labeled “bear cave.”

As I walked, I recorded for the first time in a while. Mostly rambling, talking about how I’d moved to a new area with different trails. About how sometimes a guy needed change, even if he didn’t want it. About how to spot poison ivy and avoid it, and what to do if you didn’t manage to avoid it.

I mean, sure, werewolves healed fast, but we weren’t Superman or anything. An itchy rash sucked even if it only lasted a few hours.

Plus I had it on good authority some of the people who listened to the podcast—a lot of them, in fact—were human. They definitely needed to know how to treat poison ivy. I didn’t know why humans were interested in some omega wolf rambling about what a pain it was to be an omega sometimes, but if they wanted to hear it, that was fine by me.

“So I’m headed for one of the last points on the map, just to see what’s there. I mean, literally to see. I’ll be sure to put a picture up on the website, if it’s as impressive as the map implies.” I stopped and glanced at the picture of the map on my phone again, chuckling. “Gotta say, ‘The Grovetown View’ is making me expect something pretty special. Like, is it a view of the whole town? Or the best view in the area? Enquiring minds want to know.”

That was something my mother used to say when I was a kid, and I suspected it was a reference to something, but whatever. Maybe the listeners who were old enough to know what it came from would get a laugh.

I was about to click the recorder off when a deep, masculine voice said, “It’s the whole valley.”

My head whipped up, eyes scouring the area to find—oh hell, that was one of the hottest damn guys I’d seen in my whole life.

He was as tall as Ridge, and had the same broad shoulders, muscled and impressive, and sun burnished brown hair, like he spent a lot of his time outside.

Unlike Ridge, he was starting to go silver at the temples, and his arms were covered in ink. Okay, well not covered, but there were probably a dozen tattoos that melded into one another. A stylized lighthouse on one shoulder, a line of some kind of birds flying beneath it. On the other shoulder, there was an anchor with a rope and some lettering I couldn’t make out from my distance.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, pausing some ten feet away, nervous. I mean, I’m no ninety-pound weakling. I can handle myself in a fight. But this guy was big, and he looked like he knew how to use those muscles.

Also, I didn’t know how the hell I’d missed the pervading scent of alpha. Like... so very alpha. If I’d been closer to my heat, I might have started drooling.

“The whole valley,” he repeated, then motioned to a spot behind himself, framed between two trees. “It’s the only place where you can get a view of the whole valley at once.”

Nervously, I stepped around him into the area he’d motioned to, and... oh.

“Wow,” was all I managed to breathe out.

He hadn’t been kidding. I’d known that the hike was a lot of uphill, but I hadn’t realized quite how high it had gone. I could see everything. The tiny four corners of Grovetown center, and the roads that led off in each direction.

The residential area was west of there, with its curved roads and beautiful homes. Grove House stood at the top of a hill, standing out from the buildings near it even at this distance.

To the east of town center, there were acres of rolling farmland, rich and full of the crops that would feed the pack for the winter.

The whole north side of the valley had an odd look—almost organized. The trees didn’t have the wild, random look of—oh. It took me a moment, but I understood. The whole north end of the valley was the Grove Grove. I’d always thought of a grove as sort of... a small collection of trees, but the Grove family hadn’t been messing around. They’d packed the whole place full of apple trees.

“It’s a pretty great view, huh?” the man asked, and all I could do was nod.

Then I remembered my recorder was still on. “Dammit,” I mumbled, reaching down to flip it off.

He quirked a brow at me, but he didn’t move closer. Had, in fact, made a point of not doing so. He walked a few paces farther away, seating himself on a boulder and pulling a water bottle out of a big army-green canvas bag on one of his shoulders. He downed half the water, then held it up, as though asking if I wanted some.

I pulled my own water bottle out of the side pocket of my pack and held it up. “Thanks, though.”

Without a word, he nodded and downed the rest of the bottle, and shoved the empty back in the bag. “I almost forgot how gorgeous it was up here,” he said, looking back out over the valley. “Most beautiful place in the world.”

I turned back to the view as well, and found myself nodding. “I can definitely see why you’d think that.”

“It’s not... Skye Johnson, is it?” he asked, after a long silence.

“Who, me?” I shook my head. “Oh no. He works at the clinic, I think. I’m Alexis.” Finally, I turned and took the few steps to cover the ground between us, sticking out my hand to him. “Alexis Mena.”

He grinned back at me. “Aspen Grove.”

---