Page 18 of Strawberry Moon

Ridge frowned out the open barn doors over the fields and back toward the farmhouse. “You invited Archer out here?”

“That not okay?” My gut clenched. It was like I’d taken up with a nuclear warhead and was parading him around the people I loved.

But Ridge just looked at me for a second, then smiled. “’Course it’s okay, Ford. Wolves have been taking the Sterling threat way more seriously since Archer admitted there was danger on Lex’s podcast. He’s doing the thing right—right as he can, anyway.”

And that was it—Ridge wasn’t worried about any threat from Sterling because his mate wasn’t. Alexis had talked to the guy, felt him out, and decided his intentions were good, and while his omega was satisfied, Ridge saw no reason to worry.

That was how it was supposed to work.

Only, I didn’t have an omega to convince me everything was fine through the mere fact of their satisfaction.

“I’m sure he’s trying,” I mumbled.

And like he was the arbiter of my own apocalypse, the dirt kicked up behind Sterling’s fancy car as he turned down our road.

I sighed. “I guess I’d better go make sure he doesn’t get lost.”

Ridge nodded, clapped my shoulder, and headed back to his house out by the orchard to have lunch with his mate. Me? All I had on the menu was stinky fucking chemicals.

By the time I crossed the yard, Archer Sterling had pulled up in front of the farmhouse and was getting his case full of vials out of the back seat.

He didn’t even look back at me before he started talking.

“It’d be best if we could go somewhere kind of closed off. The farm smells...” Archer took in the place, and from his profile, I saw a slight downturn of his full lips. “Farmy?”

My eyebrows shot up high. “Does it now? What doesfarmy entail, Mr. Sterling?” One exchange in, and I could already feel my teeth sharpening in my mouth.

Finally, he turned my way, big blue eyes guileless as he blinked those long copper lashes my way.

“I just mean, you know, like dirt and plants and animals. And like a bunch of werewolves work here. Because they do. And there’s the scent of apples off the orchard when the wind’s right. All I’m saying is—” He cut off, those thick red brows of his furrowing deep. “I’m just saying I don’t want anything to interfere with your sense of smell. That’s it.”

I rubbed my palms on the backs of my Levi’s, suddenly all too aware that I’d been messing around with chickens and goats all day and likely smelled none too fresh myself. A guy went nose blind to that kind of thing after a while, but Archer, with his linen slacks and his all-leather sports-car interior probably thought I was ripe as hell.

“Then you’d better give me that.” I held my hand out for his bag. “If you get any more of your sweet omega scent all over it, my nose won’t know which way is up.”

His cheeks hollowed a little, but he passed the bag off to me, keeping two full arm’s lengths between us.

“Should we go to the farmhouse?”

“And bother Mrs. Barbara? Nah. You saw our ‘lab’ before when you were out here with your granddaddy, right? We’ll go there.”

We hadn’t done anything with the place Dante used to work. That barn stood empty, like a testament to all the nightmares that boy’d revealed through his work. None of us had the balls to go out there and mess things up, like if we moved his tables around, everybody would go on forgetting the Sterling Corp. was a danger—that they’d killed Lily and countless other innocent omegas.

Didn’t matter that it didn’t make sense, we’d left it and I’d sooner build a new barn than fill this one with the hay and tools and animals we relied on for living.

“That place isn’t exactly closed to the elements,” Archer mumbled. Ever since I’d mentioned Granddaddy Sterling, I could feel the anger and frustration coming off him. And dammit, good. This poor fellow had the bad luck of being raised by a billionaire asshole murderer who’d profited off killing my people. It’d be a long fucking time before I felt too sorry for poor little rich-boy Archer.

“Yeah, yeah. I remember you having plenty to say about our facilities first time you were here.” He and the Sterling lawyers had kicked up a big fuss that, just because his work was done in a barn, Dante’s results couldn’t be believed. But well, now we knew better, and I’d be damned if I was gonna bring a Sterling into the Hills’ house. “I can handle the scents of the farm. Hell, I don’t smell ’em anyway.”

Sick of my attitude already, Archer marched ahead and when he got to the barn, planted himself on top of one of Dante’s old work tables.

I came in, picked another one for myself, and opened up his case.

“I want to try a different tactic this time—not worry about making the scent and synthetic pheromones work together right now. I just want to find a pheromone profile that actually works, that you can stand.”

I grimaced as I lifted the first vial up. The worst one last time had been the pheromone with no cover.

“And if it’s none of them?”

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