Page 46 of Strawberry Moon

“You know they’re just glad you’re okay,” he said, shooting me a big, dumb smile and jerking his head up toward the house.

Thing was, Barbara and Henrik couldn’t count on me being okay. After all, it was just a matter of time before I disappeared into the woods and never came back.

I’d left without telling them this time, and now, I got to tuck my tail between my legs and go back home. I smelled like sex and grass and Archer Sterling, and I was bringing all that into their house, up into my bedroom in their house.

The only real relief was that it hadn’t been Lily’s for long. When we’d gotten married, they’d built this house out here, closer to the farm than the old one on the hill. But Lily got sick, and they moved down here to help take care of her. After that, they never went back, like the ghost of Lily was still here and none of us could stand abandoning her.

That house on the hill, near where the Hills’ property bordered the Groves’ apple orchard, now belonged to Ridge and Alexis. This house belonged to Barbara and Henrik, as far as I was concerned, because they were what anchored me here. There was nowhere in the world I wanted to call my own after Lily.

Except now.

Now, there was a shallow cave and open arms and Archer.

Archer, who wasn’t for me. Couldn’t be for me.

I gave a full-body shake, and Ridge blinked at me, the whites showing all around his irises.

“I’m fine,” I snapped before he could ask again.

Enough pussyfooting around. I stomped up onto the porch, and if the kitchen door banged on the wall when I opened it, well, at least they knew I was home.

Henrik looked up at me over his newspaper. He sniffed. A line puckered between his brows, but when I glared his way, he went back to staring at the article in front of him.

Barbara, an alpha, wasn’t so quick to flinch down. A hand on her hip, she turned from the stove. “Made oatmeal. You hungry, Ford?”

All I could do was shake my head. I didn’t know what to say, how to do this. I was bringing the scent of another omega into their home. My face went hot, my thoughts started buzzing, and I shrank into my shoulders.

“No.” I turned and marched away, ready to go upstairs, lock myself away until I could shower and pretend Archer’s scent wasn’t wrapped around my heart, too deep to get rid of.

Only at the bottom stair did I remember—I owed Barbara and Henrik everything, and there was no damn reason to be a dick to either one of them.

“Thank you, though.”

That was it, all I could manage. I took the stairs two at a time, and didn’t breathe again until I was in the bathroom, gasping in air thick with steam and shame.

32

Archer

Ididn’t sit around and obsess over Ford for the next week.

Much.

Yes, fine, he was there every time I tried to close my eyes, reminding me that he’d see me.

Around.

Whenever.

It didn’t really matter to him, after all.

The most meaningful connection I’d ever made in my life, and he’d see me around.

But that was the story of my life, wasn’t it? People were always more important to me than I was to them. My parents had left me behind. Yes, they’d died, but wouldn’t most parents have taken their kid with them on the plane? No, I didn’t want to be dead, but it was a symptom of something bigger.

A symptom of how everyone left me behind.

My parents had wanted each other, not me.

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