Page 79 of Secret Heart
The lavender scent? Had I knotted with someone else?
“They didn’t… I don’t remember…”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t, though I wouldn’t have held it against you if you had needed that much while I was trying to get here. They called it scent therapy. Essentially just extreme cuddling. You fell asleep in his lap after about twenty minutes. When you woke up, I was here.”
A knot of dread unwinds itself, letting me breathe better.
“Since it’s the middle of the night…” Emily turns back toward me, her eyebrows furrowed with her frown. “Does that mean we can sleep? I feel…”
Her frown melts into a soft smile. “Yeah, we can do that.”
She follows me as I ease back onto my back, draping herself over me. A memory rises, this exact arrangement, her hair tickling my nose. I wrap my arms around her and twist until I’m on my side, nestling her against me. I kiss her temple as a waterfall of emotions try to drown me, too strong and overwhelming for me to decipher any specific one. Her lips are soft constants against my sternum.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you, too.”
BEAU
Penny looks up from the whale bubble machine at the crunch of tires on the dirt service road. The sun glints off the black truck. My stomach pitches, anticipation and worry weights on my sternum that are making it hard to breathe. I gather the chalk into a small pile and then stand, brushing the worst of the dust off my hands.
“Penny bug,” I say, holding out my hand. She quickly toddles over to me, grabbing my finger in her tight grasp. The bunny blanket is tucked under her arm, dragging across the concrete drive just like always. The truck stops at the end of the drive. Caleb gets out and lifts his chin in silent greeting, then reaches across the seat, grabbing a bag. He slings it over his shoulder as the book door opens. Slowly, Emily and Triston exit the truck.
Neither of them look all that put together. They’re both dressed in sweats, and Triston’s hair is messier than I’ve seen it since he came back last month. There’s bruising that’s mostly yellowed around his throat that has anger burning through me. Emily’s neck and shoulders are covered in scratches, and her eyes are full of exhaustion. Even so, she turns, takes Triston’s hand, and leads him up the drive toward us.
Penny squeals when she sees them, dropping my hand and running down the drive, her blanket billowing out behind her. It’s Triston who picks her up a moment before she plows into their legs.
“Papa.” Her voice is just shy of a screech. “Papa. Mama.”
She presses her lips to Triston’s cheek in her version of a kiss, leaving behind a near-perfect circle of saliva. He chuckles and wipes his cheek with the back of his hand. Penny’s already leaning into Emily, doing the same with her.
“Hi, baby,” she says warmly. “How was your week? I missed yousomuch.”
She points back toward me, babbling. Emily smiles and kisses her cheeks. Penny squeals again and then drops her cheek to Emily’s shoulder, facing Triston. Caleb sets Emily’s bag next to me on the porch step.
“The flight was okay?”
He nods. “Easy. They’ll probably both need another day to fully recover. He apparently was pretty confused. It took a while to get through it.”
I pull him into a hug. He gives a surprised laugh and then hugs me back. “Thank you.”
He tightens his hold and then drops his arms.
“Of course,” he says with a small smile. “Honestly? Way less stressful than trying to cool Daphne and Phoebe down and get them reset after I had to get them down that trail leading to Lover’s Canyon. You had the harder fallout.”
I smirk and shake my head even as I remember that August day when Brielle had gone into heat suddenly in the depths of the mountains. Caleb had taken her on a trail ride up to one of his favorites spots to ask to bond her. Instead, her heat had broken through. It had taken nearly an hour to get her down the mountain. And the entire time, his own instincts were clawing at him, telling him to knot and claim. She’d been a mess when he’d gotten her to the barn, and he hadn’t been much better. All I’d had to do was hose down the horses and get their equipment off.
“Yeah, definitely not. I can unsaddle those two in my dreams.”
He shrugs. He starts to say something else, but then my family is there. I pull Emily into a tight hug, kissing the crown of her head when she rests her forehead against my shoulder, ignoring Penny’s squirming. And then I pull Triston tight to me. His hands tremble on my back, but I don’t say anything, just holding him harder.
For the first time since Emily left with Caleb, I feel like I can truly breathe.
Chapter Forty-Four
TRISTON
“So which of these is the one that hates Beau?” I ask as I climb over the fencing of the pasture immediately surrounding the Highlands barn.
