Page 53 of Hunter Moon

32

Brook

Aspen never rushed me to stand and clear out of the apple orchard, even when my knees were wet from the grass and his ass had to be. He simply sat there and held me until everything started to look a little better. I was still scared to hope for much, but with him, I felt safe.

He wasn’t going to leave me, he said. Not ever.

And while I knew it wasn’t that simple—the navy could still call him back while he was waiting to hear whether they’d let him resign early—I believed he meant it when he said he wanted to stay with me. Finally, I was getting to the point where I could admit I wanted that too. Aspen may have hurt me when he left, but he was still mine. I could be angry and hurt and forgiving and maybe every bit as in love with him as I’d always been, all at once.

For Aspen, that seemed okay.

When we got up and made our slow way through the trees and toward the path that ran to the top of the hill, I carried the basket. It wasn’t so much because I wanted to make up for my breakdown as because it left Aspen’s hands free. On the long trek, his hand brushed my lower back. Then, when we were on even ground again, his fingers threaded through mine. No one even stared at us like we’d lost our minds.

Well, not until we got into the main building. Up there, there were people who knew us well enough to throw some side-eye our way.

There were dozens of Grove pack werewolves and humans working for Grove Apple Grove, and most of them were familiar with Aspen’s disappearance and my... everything.

None of them wore quite as impressive a withering glare as Juniper Grove sent her oldest brother as we moved up to the checkout counter.

On the way, Aspen subtly slipped the basket out of my grip and set it on the scale between him and Juniper.

“Are you seriously trying to pay me for apples right now?” Juniper demanded, crossing her arms.

I didn’t think anyone in the Grove family had had to buy apples since the pack’s founding. There were probably all kinds of politics mixed up in Aspen’s decision here, and I had no idea if he’d weighed them all.

Okay, no, I knew he hadn’t. Because Aspen Grove wasn’t a political animal in the slightest. He was a battering ram with the very best intentions, and there was no way he realized he was setting himself outside his family by acting like any old customer and visitor.

Aspen shrugged, a smile fixed on his face that was placid and calm. Maybe he did have some idea—maybe he was giving Juniper a chance to reject him.

“And a case of cider, some cherry-apple butter, and one of Ro’s delicious pies.”

I had a feeling most of that was for me. The cherry-apple butter was my favorite. If he was trying to win over me or my family, I was going to damn well let him. The alternative—losing him for good—just wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted to keep him, and Harmony was just going to have to find a way to live with that.

Juniper huffed. “Fine.”

From the shelf behind the counter, she grabbed a jar of apple butter and then disappeared in the back for a second to grab a pie from the freezer and a case of hard cider—the same kind Aspen and I had snuck in here to steal when we were teenagers. We’d brought cold bottles down into the trees and sat and stared at the sky until the sun started to rise.

Now, I was way too old to give up a whole night’s sleep like that.

While Juniper punched in numbers on the old register, she narrowed her eyes at the pair of us. It’d been a long time since I’d felt the need to defend my choices, but I pushed against Aspen’s arm.

“Smells like you two are all mixed up in each other again,” she said.

Heat flooded my face. My mouth went dry, but then, there was Aspen’s hand on the small of my back again. Turned out, I didn’t have to stand on my own with this kind of thing anymore.

“I’m finally where I’m supposed to be, yeah,” Aspen said.

Juniper scoffed. “You’re damn lucky is what you are.” Her hazel eyes, so like Aspen’s, fell to me. “Not sure I’d take him back if I didn’t have to, but family’s family. I guess.”

That was Juniper—harsh and demanding, just like their father had been. But when she rang us up, the number was so low she must’ve given us some incredible Grove-family discount.

No matter what she said, Aspen was her brother. This was her subtle way of trying to buy him back, just like he was trying to win over my family. There were still hoops to jump through, a debt Aspen had earned when he’d left us, but already, she was making concessions for him.

A smirk lifted one corner of my lips. “So you don’t have a choice?”

She sighed, looking between the number on the register and Aspen’s guileless eyes. There it was, that thread of fear that we were all carrying around—afraid to trust that things would get better, hopeful all the same.

“Don’t guess so,” she said. “Anything else?”

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