Page 26 of Meadowsweet and Marigold
"Will you come back?" Meadow asked, his quiet voice breaking into her reverie. "To ride again, I mean."
Marigold looked up, meeting his earnest gaze.
It was taking everything for her to not blush or even attempt to think of him wanting her to come back simply because of this brewing connection she wished wasn’t obviously one-sided.
"I'd like that," she replied, surprised by how much she meant it. "Very much."
As she walked away from the ranch, the setting sun warm on her back, Marigold felt lighter than she had in months.
The encounter with Meadow, the gentle rhythm of the horse beneath her, the vast open sky –it all pointed to possibilities she hadn't dared to consider before.
Here, far from the glittering stages and crushing expectations of her past, Marigold sensed the first tentative shoots of healing beginning to take root.
And for the first time in a long while, she found herself looking forward to tomorrow.
5
A GENTLE OFFER
~MEADOW~
Moonlight streamed through the gap in the curtains, casting a silver glow across Meadow's bedroom.
He sat perched on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees, as the evening replayed itself in his mind. The moment Marigold had stumbled, the split second when his body had moved without thought, catching her small frame against his chest, feeling the delicate weight of her in his arms.
So light. Stunning looks, and her scent…fuck.
Meadow ran a hand through his dark hair, exhaling slowly.
"Damn," he whispered to the empty room.
Her scent clung to him still even now — sweet wild honeydew and vanilla lavender, with an undercurrent of something uniquely Omega, uniquelyher. He'd caught only a fleeting trace when she'd visited the ranch earlier, but holding her close had enveloped him in it completely. The sweetness had seeped into his skin, awakening parts of him he'd deemed dormant years ago.
He stood abruptly, pacing the worn wooden floor of his bedroom, moonlight tracking his movements. His fingers unconsciously rubbed against his thumb, as if trying to recapture the feeling of her silk blouse beneath them, the warmth of her through the delicate fabric.
"This isn't happening," he muttered, but his body betrayed him — every nerve ending alive, his Alpha senses heightened to a painful degree. He could track her through a blizzard now that her scent was imprinted in his memory.
So sweet and pure. A scent you can get lost in its aroma and never get tired.
The window creaked as a breeze pushed against it, and suddenly he was transported back, years ago, to another window, another night.
Eliza.
Her name emerged from the recesses of his mind, where he'd carefully stored it away. Meadow stopped pacing, letting the memories wash over him instead of fighting them off as he normally would.
Eliza with her autumn-red hair and laughter like wind chimes. The Omega who'd seen past his gruff exterior, who'd taught him that hands calloused from ranch work could still touch with gentleness.
"You're looking at me like I'm a wild mare that might bolt," she'd teased during their first meeting at the county fair. Her eyes had glimmered with mischief, unafraid of the Alpha everyone else gave a wide berth.
"Just trying to figure out your approach pattern," he'd replied, surprised to find himself bantering with this bold slip of an Omega who smelled of cinnamon and promise.
Meadow sat back down on the bed, the springs creaking under his weight.
He traced the quilted pattern of his bedspread, the one Eliza had helped him pick out.
"Said my place looked like a bachelor's hunting lodge," he murmured to himself, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
Their courtship had been something out of an old novel — slow, deliberate, building like the changing seasons. Meadow had never been one for grand gestures, but he'd shown his love in a thousand quiet ways:fixing the leak in her apartment ceiling at midnight, bringing her wildflowers collected during his morning rides, standing silently supportive at her father's funeral.
