Page 15 of Secret Heart
Emily?
I walk down the porch steps and ease Penny into her carseat, praying she stays asleep while I get her buckled so she’ll nap the half hour drive to Mom and Dad’s place. My phone vibrates with a call as I drop into the driver’s seat. I answer it without looking.
“Firecracker?”
All I manage is an embarrassing squeak-sob that’s way more Omega sounding than should be coming out of my very Alpha throat. Beau won’t judge me for it, though. He never has the last eighteen months we’ve been navigating this together.
“Breathe for me,” he instructs, his voice low, nearly a rumble.
I slowly breathe in and then out, and Beau murmurs soothing words.
“We don’t have to tonight,” he says. “We can wait and see about a different day.”
“And risk him seeing her? That’s just cruel, Beau, and you know it. The moment they’re in a room together, people are going to put it together.”
There’s shuffling in the background and the sounds of guys laughing.
“And it’s her birthday next week,” I whisper. “He needs to know before then.”
Beau sighs.
“All right. Meet us in the private barn. I’ll have him help me sort through tack instead of going straight to your parents’ house to see everyone else.”
Chapter Nine
TRISTON
The Monroe Ranch is both the same and yet different, and it messes with my mind most of the afternoon while I work with the other ranch hands. Once they’d finish moving the last couple square bales of straw, we’d started on the daily health checks of the calves and nursing cows in both the large herd and the smaller Highlands herd. Jake and Paul had railed against Ethan a bit for staying to work. Despite their ribbing over him having a baby right in the middle of calving season, it’s clear they don’t want him to put the ranch over his pack and kids. They’ve always been like that, though, even back when it was just Camden while Caleb and Ethan were trying to navigate being widowers with an infant. There’s an odd comfort in knowing that commitment hasn’t changed.
“We starting fencing checks tomorrow?” Paul asks as we’re organizing the last of the equipment in the Highlands’ winter barn. “Or does Emily need you closer to home?”
Beau nods without glancing up from his phone, a frown pulling the corners of his lips. “Fencing’s the plan. We’ll startwith the portions harder to access and then work our way toward the service roads.”
“I call driver,” Kyle says with a grin.
Jake just sighs and shrugs. “Guess that means you’re paying at the Outpost tonight.”
“You want to come with us?” Paul leans against fencing a few feet away from me, his hands in his pockets. “Be nice to catch up when we’re not sweating like a bunch of pigs.”
“Pigs don’t sweat,” Ethan grumbles.
Paul rolls his eyes.
I give a small smile even as I shake my head. “Not this time.”
“Gotta let Devynn know there’s going to be a celebrity, man,” Kyle jokes. My stomach clenches, but I do my best to keep the anxiety off my face. “You don’t want her sticking Marcus on you.”
I manage a small smile thinking of the lumbering Newfoundland that’s too friendly for his own good. “Wouldn’t want that.”
The three of them laugh as they leave the barn, waving to me before tipping their hats to Ethan and Beau. I let my focus return to the feed storage and slowly refasten the locks that keep the wildlife out. It’s one of the items that’s changed, and it takes me a couple tries to get the locks to snap in correctly.
“You all right riding back with Beau?” Ethan asks in a low voice. He stands a few feet behind me, his arms crossed. “I need to grab Cam from Joan and Mark in town before dinner starts, and I figured you’d be more comfortable staying away from the town limits for a bit longer.”
“Yeah, that’s fine with me,” I instantly agree.
He’s not wrong that I don’t want to go into town if I can avoid it. It was Lance who’d thought of the NDA to keep Ethan from telling everyone I was coming back at all. It’s not that I think Creek Falls can’t handle the influx of attention. The town’s builtfor tourists and their niche, kitschy interests. It’s…methat can’t handle it.
Just the internal admission has my throat closing up.
