Page 24 of Harvest Moon

“Well, I...” My mouth went dry. I licked my lips, hooked my thumbs in my jeans, and shrugged, the weight of everything dragging my shoulders to a shallow hunch around my chest. “I was back home, looking around, and I realized—I realized they didn’t need me there. There was no reason for me to stay.”

He huffed, looking away from me and glaring at the corner of the table. “What about your family? Your farm? Ridge, everything you’ve ever wanted is back there.”

That struck. Had I really let him think I didn’t want him?

“Don’t know I’d say it like that,” I muttered, scratching the back of my neck and ducking my head. It was too embarrassing to admit my family hadn’t had enough faith in me to even let me try and save the farm, especially when I was standing right there in the middle of a strange pack, pissing off the only guy who might’ve given me a shot. I peeked up at him with my head still down. “Do you not want me to stay here, Lex?”

I truly hadn’t given that much thought. Sure, the way I’d come had been a bit haphazard, but I imagined when I showed up in Grovetown, I’d find what I was missing back home—a friend, and somebody who was glad to have me around. Even if things were bad, he’d still be happy to see me. I’d imagined Alexis would be grateful to have somebody familiar nearby, but he had his cousin and her mate. He didn’t need me.

Instead, he was groaning, dropping his head back so the smooth, soft skin of his neck was exposed.

The scent of him, like lemongrass and burnt sugar, practically bowled me over. It’d only been a couple weeks since he was close enough to scent, but I wanted to bury my face under the sharp edge of his jaw and breathe it in forever.

“No, Ridge,” he said, dropping his chin so he could meet my eye again. “I’m not saying I want you gone. I just don’t get it. Don’t you need to be at the farm?”

Hah. What farm?

But if he knew I didn’t have another place to stay, that after all that time and all that schooling, Alexis would see what a mess I’d gotten myself into. Most pathetic damn alpha on the planet. Couldn’t even do the one damn thing I’d ever been good at. We’d be right back to how we’d been in high school, with Alexis doing his best to convince people I was worth something. For once, I wanted to be able to prove it myself. An alpha should be able to take care of his mate, not sit back and let everything fall to shit.

“Can we maybe talk about all that later? I’m itching for a run, and I’m just glad to see you.”

Alexis rubbed his hands over his face, and I had the sense that all I’d done coming here was make his life harder. He was perfectly safe, had the support he needed, had family and was making friends.

And there I was, keeping him all from it.

“Okay.” He dropped his hands. “You want to ride with us?”

I glanced over at a young blond alpha who’d already stripped down to his boxers in the middle of the damn bar.

“I thought I’d run there. I take it, it’s not far?”

“Well, no, but—” Alexis glanced back at his cousin. “Probably best for Claudia to take it easy. And I should go with them.”

“Oh.” For some reason, I thought maybe he’d want to run with me. “Definitely. You’re so good to be here for her. Maybe we’ll see each other out there.”

“Yeah, Ridge. Sounds good.”

The look he gave me then was so damn sad, and I knew then there wasn’t a thing in the world I could do right for the only person I wanted to do right by. The only thing left was to let him turn away and go back to the people who cared for him like he deserved.

13

Alexis

He didn’t want to talk about it.

Ridge traveled halfway across the state right to where I was, and looked at me like he was happy to see me, and called me “Lexis” in that slow sexy drawl of his, and then he didn’t want to talk about why he was there.

Didn’t want to talk about his family farm—the farm he’d spent years thinking of above and before anything else.

What the hell did that even mean?

I turned to walk away from him, back to Claudia, and got an eyeful of Skip Chadwick’s ass. Fabulous. Claudia had not been kidding about him being deeply undesirable in a pack.

If they were willing to keep him around, they would clearly have to accept me.

And Ridge.

How could I be so thrilled and so angry about the same thing, at the same time?

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