Page 15 of Saddle and Scent
Damn him…no damn all of them, except for this amazing heaven scent pie.
I hate that, for a second, I consider just letting them muscle my truck out while I eat Beckett’s entire pie and watch from a safe, non-Omega distance.
But there’s principle.
And then there’s pride.
I square my shoulders.
“I’m not helpless. I’ve got a winch and a plan.”
Wes eyes the winch cable, which is, in fairness, tangled around the bumper in a way that suggests I have at best a theoretical understanding of winching.
“Looks like you got a knot, too.”
He starts to reach for it, but I swat his hand away with the pie tin. Cobbler splatters onto his sleeve. He laughs, genuinely delighted.
Callum just sighs.
“Bell, let us help. You’re burning daylight, and it’s going to rain.”
He’s not wrong:the wind has picked up, biting through my flannel, carrying the smell of wet grass and distant electricity.
Overhead, the clouds are clustering with a purpose.
“I said, I’ve got it,” I repeat, but there’s no heat in it anymore. I lean against the truck, pie in hand, and try to ignore how the three of them have bracketed me in, leaving no escape route that doesn’t involve a sprint through ankle-deep mud.
Wes elbows Callum, stage-whispering, “He gets cranky when he hasn’t trimmed a hoof in twenty-four hours.”
“Shut up,” Callum says, but there’s a flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
Beckett offers me a fork he produced from a shirt pocket. “You, uh, don’t have to eat with your hands.”
I accept it, because I am nothing if not adaptable.
There’s a moment where none of us speak. The world goes quiet, save for the wind and the steady, comforting clank of Beckett untangling the winch. Wes fiddles with the chains, singing some country song under his breath. Callum inspects the undercarriage, his hands moving with the practiced assurance of someone who’s rebuilt more engines than he’s eaten hot dinners.
I polish off the pie and set the tin on the hood. My stomach is settling, and the adrenaline is finally ebbing out of my system.
It’s hard to stay angry with a full belly and three Alphas doing their best not to be assholes.
Wes is the first to break the silence.
“So, you’re coming to the Old Mill tonight? Whole town’s talking about the new Bell in town.”
“Only Bell left, technically,” I say, sharper than intended.
That’s the thing with Saddlebrush Ridge. It's like a cocoon spun tight and unyielding, insisting that you stay nestled in its familiar confines. It's a place where the roots run deep, so deep that any attempt to stretch beyond its borders is seen as an affront to its carefully maintained equilibrium. To venture out, to seek the unknown, is to risk the whispers of betrayal tagging along your shadow.
In this close-knit community, everyone knows everyone's business, and your ambitions become public property.
It's a double-edged sword—a comforting cradle of constancy on one side and a daunting barrier against aspirations on the other. The second you yearn for more than what this quaintcorner offers, you're labeled an outsider trying to outrun your own skin, perceived as someone who thinks they're too grand for this modest expanse of safety.
I've seen it in their eyes—a flicker of suspicion mingled with curiosity, a silent calculation of what my return might mean.
Does it signal defeat or an opportunity to reclaim something lost?
Perhaps they wonder if I am running back tail-between-legs from some grand adventure gone awry, or if I'm here to disrupt the peaceful rhythm they've polished over generations.
