Page 45 of Harvest Moon

Birch shook his head. “It was more than that. He’d have been a terrible alpha. He knew it. I knew it. Everyone who knew all the Groves knew darn well that Linden was the best choice for the next alpha. Except Aspen Senior and Linden himself, I guess. But no one would listen to Aspen. Not with his father saying over and over that he’d grow into it.”

“He left the pack to make sure you didn’t end up with the wrong—”

“We,” Birch interrupted, stressing the word. “But yes. Aspen left because it was the only way he could be sure we wouldn’t end up with him as alpha. He tried to explain, and so have I now and then, but no one listened. It’s like the pack has a collective blind spot where this situation is concerned. And this wasn’t the best decision he’s ever made, but it wasn’t the worst, either.”

“Was that breaking up with Brook?” I hadn’t known them at the time, and barely did now, but that seemed like a mistake to me.

Birch sighed and shook his head. “That’s the problem. He didn’t break up with Brook. He just didn’t take him along when he left.”

Oh hell.

I barely knew Aspen, having had all of one conversation with him, but even I wanted to yell at him for that. Maybe before whatever he’d gone through, Brook had been a little less fragile, but did it matter? Why would you ever do that to someone you loved?

He was still gorgeous, though. And that winning smile had been something special. I sighed, my shoulders slumping as I cut my own apple into quarters, then carefully cut out the core bits. It figured.

Ridge didn’t want me, and the first alpha other than him I’d been remotely drawn to was a freaking lightning rod with a history of leaving town without warning.

Was I cursed?

We peeled and chopped apples in silence for a while before Birch sighed. “Have you seen him, then?”

“Seen who?”

The look he gave me was proof positive he was going to be a great dad—he was not having my bullshit. “Did I mention Aspen is my best friend? We don’t talk a lot, but I sent a letter to the address he gave me. He’ll come.”

“I saw him out in the woods,” I admitted. “On one of the hiking trails overlooking the valley.”

He nodded, paused as though he wanted to say something, then shook his head and went back to work on the apple in his hands. It had to be hard, to be best friends with a guy who had apparently abandoned the pack. He had to want to defend him, but how could he?

“Hey!” I realized, out loud. “Did your parents give you a tree name because of the Groves?”

He chuckled and tossed a piece of apple peel at me. “It took you this long to figure it out? Yeah. I was born the year between Asp and Linden, and it just... the three of us were close.”

The three of them and Brook Morgan.

What a mess.

“Do I smell pie?” Claudia asked, breezing into the kitchen, sniffing the air.

“I haven’t even put it in the oven yet,” I whined, frowning at her. “And you have to eat your dinner first.”

She peered into the Dutch oven, at the growing pile of apples. “Which is more apples? You’re going native, sweet pea.”

“No, this is for applesauce. Dinner is chicken and broccoli.” She made a face at the mention of dreaded vegetables, and I shook my peeler in her direction. “You’ll eat the broccoli and you’ll like it. And if you don’t, no pie.”

As she’d taken to doing since she started showing in the last few weeks, she cradled a hand under her belly and gave it a soft look. Then she looked up at me. “You wouldn’t starve your little cousin, would you?”

“Godson,” Birch corrected, and both of us turned to stare at him. “What? I mean, isn’t it obvious?”

I hadn’t even managed to form an answer in my head other than incomprehensible squealing, when Claudia gasped. This time when she clutched her stomach, it wasn’t about bonding with the baby or garnering sympathy and pie.

She was in pain.

She went bone-white in the span of a few seconds, and before I’d even managed to set my peeler down, Birch had her in his arms. “Claud, sweetheart? What is it?”

“I—I think I’m going to be sick,” she choked out, a high whine in her voice.

She didn’t throw up, though. Instead, she went lax in Birch’s arms, and he had to catch her before she hit the floor.

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