Page 20 of Claimed By My Exiled Alphas
“I’m glad,” I said honestly. “I think you’d be good for each other.”
We stayed in the garden until the light started to fade and the temperature dropped enough that I shivered despite my cardigan. Hollis noticed immediately, and we walked back to the car in comfortable silence.
On the drive back to my cottage, he said, “Thank you for coming today. For seeing the garden and not judging me for letting it get away from me.”
“You’re selling yourself short, Hollis. I think your grandmother would be really proud of what you’ve accomplished in the garden and in other things.”
He pulled up in front of my cottage and turned to look at me in the dimming light. “I meant what I said earlier. About you mattering to me.”
“I know.” I wanted to lean across the console and kiss him, wanted to see what would happen if we stopped being quite so careful with each other, but something stopped me. Some fear that it would ruin this fragile thing we were building together. “You matter to me too, Hollis. More than I expected.”
Something heated flared in his eyes before he banked it carefully. “Good night, Talia.”
“Good night.”
I watched him drive away, then stood in my driveway and tried to sort through what had just happened. The garden and the grief and the vulnerability he’d shown me. The admission that I mattered to him in ways he hadn’t expected. The careful restraint that had kept us from crossing lines we both clearly wanted to cross.
Inside, I made myself dinner and tried not to think about warm hazel eyes and careful hands and what it would feel like to be held by someone who paid such close attention to what you needed.
Tried not to think about how confused I was getting about multiple men who each made me feel different things.
Tried not to think about how much I’d wanted to kiss Hollis Green in his grandmother’s garden while afternoon light turned everything golden and possible.
But thinking about all of it was inevitable. Because something had shifted today. Something that made the careful friendship we’d been building feel insufficient, like we were both holding back from something we might actually want.
And I had no idea what to do about that when I was already confused about Jace’s cooking lessons and Cassian’s late-night contractor discussions.
I fell asleep thinking about gardens and grief and gentle men who created sanctuary for everyone but themselves.
Thinking that Hollis Green was far more complicated than the role he played, and that maybe he needed someone to tend to him the way he tended to everyone else.
Thinking that I was in so much trouble, and it was only getting worse.
Chapter 8
Jace
Itexted Talia at seven AM on Saturday, knowing she’d be awake because chefs kept baker’s hours even when they weren’t actively running a kitchen.
Be ready at 9. Wear hiking boots. Bring a water bottle.
Her response came three minutes later:Where are we going?
Somewhere you’ll remember.
That’s cryptic.
That’s the point. See you at 9.
I spent the intervening two hours on patrol paperwork I’d been avoiding, but my mind kept drifting to the plan I’d made. Taking Talia back to the meadow felt significant in ways I wasn’t ready to examine too closely. That place had been ours when we were kids, before my family stopped coming to Hollow Haven, before I’d spent fifteen years becoming someone who was more comfortable with wildlife than people.
Going back with her felt like testing whether the connection we’d had as children could translate into something real asadults. Whether the ease I felt when she was teaching me to cook was just nostalgia or something that could actually build into more.
At eight forty-five, I loaded my day pack with water, trail snacks, a first aid kit, and the emergency gear I carried out of habit even for short hikes. Then I drove to her cottage, arriving exactly at nine because punctuality mattered in wilderness work. Being late could mean missing a weather window or losing daylight you needed to get back safely.
She was waiting on the porch, and something in my chest loosened at the sight of her. Auburn curls pulled back in a practical ponytail, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt that looked soft from washing. Actual hiking boots instead of the tennis shoes tourists always wore despite posted warnings.
“Morning,” she said, climbing into my truck with easy grace. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”
