Page 26 of Strawberry Moon

Ford’s lips pursed. “Or your alpha should take better care of you.”

I stared at him, barely able to breathe. Why did that feel so intimate? So important? “I don’t have an alpha to take care of me,” I whispered, like it was somehow a secret. Like I didn’t smell of pitiful loneliness and ten gallons of caffeinated sugar water.

For a moment, we just stood there, staring into each other’s eyes. It didn’t feel like standing there doing nothing, though. He didn’t sneer and I didn’t cringe, and it felt like a major tectonic shift. Like maybe the way our raw edges rubbed against each other had changed, and maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be hurled insults and dark glares anymore.

When the barn door opened behind me, throwing light over us and making me blink, I didn’t budge. I also didn’t look away from Ford.

“I’m sorry,” Linden’s soft voice came from the doorway behind me. Ford didn’t glance his way. Didn’t break eye contact with me. “Andy is concerned for you, Archer, and we have that meeting to get to.”

He said Andy was concerned, I noted, not thathewas. Had he felt the shift between Ford and me? Did he know? Hell, did I know what the hell I was talking about?

I sighed at the memory of the meeting we had to go to. I was not looking forward to it.

Ford lifted my wrist between us, all the way up to press my hand against his stubbled cheek. “You should take him to The Cider House,” he told me quietly. “It’s a good test. Anybody decent loves The Cider House.”

For the first time maybe ever, I smiled at Ford McKesson. And he smiled back, tiny as it was.

“I will,” I agreed. I turned to leave, but stopped halfway to the door, and turned, pulling my cooler off my shoulder and holding it out. “Almost forgot.”

“You don’t want to take it back with you?”

I considered, then shook my head. “I think I might be barking up the wrong tree. I don’t think any of these are going to work. I’m going to start over on the scent.”

He chuckled and held up a hand to ward off the cooler. “Then you take it back with you. If even you think it smells bad, I don’t want to know how bad it is.”

I gave him an indignant glare, but there was no heat behind it. He was right anyway. “Be that way,” I told him, lifting my chin.

He snorted. “Careful. I hear people can drown in the rain if they get their nose up there high enough.”

I snorted at him and followed Linden out.

Linden walked me back over to Andy’s car in silence, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions, but none of them in front of either Ford or Andy.

Linden, well... Linden was himself. When we got to the car, he smiled at me and patted me on the shoulder, swiping a thumb along the edge of my collar, just grazing the skin—a classic werewolf scenting movement, meant to comfort a disturbed packmate. My heart thudded in my chest. Did Linden really see me as pack? It scared me, how much I wanted that. He leaned in and smiled at me. “We can talk later, but everything’s fine. I promise.”

For the first time, I thought maybe he was right.

The feeling of rightness followed me all the way over to The Cider House, which was indeed where our meeting was taking place. I’d been to the other restaurant in town, Chadwick’s, and it had been brighter, the booths shinier, and the appliances had looked less worn. Not that those things made a place better, but somehow, I felt like they might be related to why we were meeting in The Cider House.

Because in this slightly less shiny, more imperfect place, we were meeting with Linden’s father-in-law, Senator Conroy Doherty.

19

Ford

Didn’t make any damn sense for my head to clear just at hearing Andy had a wife, that his concern for Archer wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t like I wanted a new omega to be without a mate, to doubt he had the support of a pack.

My head did clear though. My thoughts snapping back into place, my wolf keen to listen to Archer, understand him better, figure out what he needed and—and provide it. Like he wasn’t only an omega, but like my wolf recognized him as mate.

And fuck, I couldn’t begin to parse that.

It was suppressed alpha instinct, that need to be useful, and hell, there weren’t a bunch of unmated omegas hanging around the farmstead—around my home—as often as Archer had been lately. I was getting confused; that was all.

Didn’t have a thing to do with how soft he felt in my grip, how my heartbeat rushed to match the flutter of his pulse under my palm. Didn’t even have anything to do with how pretty he was, with his sunrise-copper hair, full lips, and goddamn impeccable grooming.

Archer Sterling was definitely not the kind of man to make me wish I was cleaner cut, more impressive. Maybe even rich.

Linden’s eyes lingered a few extra seconds on me before he followed Archer out of the barn. He knew. He could smell it in the air, how much I wanted Archer, how I tipped on the balls of my feet like he drew me after him on a lead.

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